 She's going to be here 10 after this. All right. Hearing no adjustments. We don't need the time for. Approved minutes of Monday, June 28. The full board meeting. I have a motion. You guys hear me. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Any discussion on the June 28 minutes. Okay. That's it. All right. I'll move. Prove the minutes of August night. Do I have a motion. I'll move to approve the minutes of August night. I'll second. Thanks. Thank you. Any discussion on those. Alright. Here you go. So moved. They're approved. On board correspondence communications. I did not receive anything. public comments. Marty, do you have any public comments tonight? No, no comment. I'm just grateful that I can join you. All right, reports. Jamie. See, I might report in hand. I think I highlighted all the major details. We do have a COVID-19 update under discussion item, so I can give you some updates there. I was at New Teachers Orientation today, and the energy there was really positive, and I said it in my report, but I just am really happy to have Onda and Annette joining the team. And this is just a really solid crew, right, Tara, Onda and Annette? And it's been a ton of fun working together these two months, so I'll take any other questions folks have. And I'm a horse because I was at a Red Sox game Saturday, and they lost 10 to 1, if you were wondering. I feel quite well, other than my pride was heard at that game Saturday. All right, anything for Jamie? I guess you're good, Jamie. She's academic officer. Hi, thank you. You also have my report as well, so I'm happy to take any questions on that. I think we've got time on the agenda later for the state assessment results, so we can talk about that there. And the main goal here is to make sure that we're communicating with you around the data that we have, so there's also a proposed data calendar for reports back to the board that is included in there as well. We launched our data inquiry professional learning last Thursday with members from all of our schools and the central office, and so that was a great way to start the school year with that whole group. And as Jamie mentioned, we had new teachers around this morning, and I was just wanting to draw their feedback, and they are super excited to start getting into their classrooms. They really like the colleagues that they got to meet today, and they feel or are feeling very supportive by their mentors, so we will continue to work on bolstering that program to ensure that they feel supported on going throughout the year. Any questions, anyone? We have a really quiet group tonight. All right, Director of Special Services. Hi there. So yes, we've had a busy couple of months, but it's flown by really quickly, I feel, and we've done a lot of great work. You also have my reports. If you have any questions, I'll take those. But just now, yeah, we've been working really hard trying to hire people and interviewing people, and so we're just doing what we can with the applicants that we're receiving, so. Nice. Yeah. Any questions, guys? Yeah, Andrew. So I was just looking at the alternate classroom description. In the past, we've had, like right now, we're kind of starting that at grades 3 to 5, and then 6 to 8, 9 to 12. We had had a K to 2 class as well, right? Prior to this. So just wondering what the thinking was with closing that alternative classroom down and what the plan is with those kids. I think I'm probably best to answer that, Andrew. That was part of what Don had presented as part of the budget discussion. When we looked at budget for 9 through 12, we didn't add those funds for 9 through 12. We reinvested. So we took the staffing that we had at grades K through 2, and we were able to use those funds to staff 9 through 12. So as far as K through 2 goes, the focus is on providing as intensive supports as needed to support students in the school setting. And one of the things that we were really concerned about is that the academic achievement that we were realizing from students in the K through 2 program was not setting them up for success to reintegrate back in to universal instruction. So also what I would say is that classroom only had four students last year, and two of them were going to be leaving. And they're being served in the 3 through 5. So it just made sense to reinvest. I think that our system in general is strengthening to best support kids at the primary grades as we strengthen our PBIS program, our behavioral support, school-based clinicians, things of that nature. So we felt like the investment in the 9 through 12 made a great deal of sense. And that's working hard with her team to look to get our students back who have been tuition primarily to EVA and also to some schools down in the Hartford district. OK, thanks. Yeah, just OK. Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks. All right. Any other questions? Hi, Stacey. Sorry I'm running late. I have a dose to Bilk. We're on to the business manager's report, Stacey. So I was not realizing I was on vacation, so you didn't have a written report for me. So mine's pretty brief tonight anyways. Our focus right now is getting everything uploaded for the FY21 fiscal year end audit. That's all due up to the auditor's portal on Thursday. Then we have a meeting with our auditor on Friday to go over stuff and solidify our plans for the actual FY21 audit. This week is the first payroll for all of our new hires, so we're scrambling to make sure everybody's paperwork is in and that they're set up appropriately in the paycheck system. And then we're also working through, I have Chris Lacrarno coming in tomorrow afternoon to review all of my final year end reports for all the audits, because that was new for me this year. That was previously handled, as you may recall, by Jane and Cynthia, so I want to make sure I have everything documented appropriately. So that's also part of what is the final steps of the FY21. And then lastly, board stipends will be paid September 10th. So if you have not done payroll work, paperwork with us, you need to reach out to Lisa Blair to get your paperwork done so that you can get paid on the September 10th payroll run. And I'll make that in all of my board reports and I'll send out an email to each of the boards, letting them know that as well, because I know you've got many new members on your board this year, so. That's my report. Any questions? I see Don has his hand raised. Yes. Yeah, what's the timeframe where we can expect the results of these audits this year? The original goal was to have them by December, so if everything stays on track with the auditors, they're supposed to be here in September, so that's still my understanding. I'll know more after Friday. Okay. Any other questions with Tara? All right, Tara. Policy committee. Can I go? Oh, I'm sorry, I skipped you. No, it's okay, I'd rather not. I'm sorry, right? Apparently I'm checking things off, I'm not asking tonight. You also have my report. Pleasure to be working with our new folks. New teacher orientation went well today. The data worked last Thursday. Admin retreat tomorrow, so all sorts of things going on. My department helping us learn the three right down the line this weekend. Any questions? Yes, Ray, it mentions in your report a difference between a student's computer and a teacher's computer. What is that difference? Difference between a student and a teacher computer. Sorry, now let me get to it. It's been a couple of minutes. So basically size, devices we buy for students tend to be 11-inch devices. Employees, they're 14 inches. This is the component. Okay, so what size do the boards get? Well, we don't, that never actually happened last year. We should talk about it again. Okay. Yeah, I think we talked about it and the board didn't want to take up on it, but I'm happy to discuss it again. I think what we had said was that if... Well, I know that Sharon board has computers issued by the school, some of us. So I didn't know if we had a teacher or a student computer. You would have what I call a student device, Don. Okay. All right. Any other questions of Ray? Policy committee. We had our meeting last Thursday. We did two and a half hours of public comment. We have another meeting coming up to discuss that public comment on... Thursday at 6 in the chair. Yeah, Thursday at 6 in the chair. I'll see you end up on that for now. No. And that's what I have for a update on policy committee and so there's something else anybody wants to add. Yeah, I just had a question regarding employees of the White River Supervisor Union testifying in these things. Is that okay? Can board members testify as well? Are you inquiring about a principal who spoke? I am. Well, I believe that that was a representation of being a community member of Sharon. Then he shouldn't have backtively said that his position was with the White River Valley, if that's the case. I mean, I think it's important to get as much feedback as we can on the policy. It seemed like it was along the same lines as many other people commenting. And I think the board has, they're coming into this because we created the policy. And certainly we've allowed teachers of the organization to speak at public comment in the past time. I was just asking if that's gonna be allowed of board members as well in the public forum like that. So that's fine. So I'm assuming it's gonna be okay if that's the case. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Stacy? Oh, I lowered my hand. That's like Aaron was up. Yeah, I was just wondering if you could give an update about the timeline for moving forward, specifically with the anti-racism policy. Well, I think that's what we're gonna discuss on Thursday of the timeline. And, you know, there was lots of public comment. We listened to that and we didn't even discuss further after that, Aaron. So I think when we reconvene we're gonna talk about where we go from that point in that policy. And that's really the only policies you're working on. Yep. Does that make sense? Yep. Thank you. You're welcome. Marcy? Yeah, thank you. I'm sorry. Marcy, I'm sorry. Can I get you a public comment? Of course. This is from the board. I'm sorry. Of course. Thanks, Don. Thank you. I just, I'm still confused about how we got to this position where we are with the anti-racist policy. We started out with an equity policy and that's what we asked for. And now we're accepting something different. So I'm just trying to figure out. Policy committee going back in December took a vote or a straw poll and directed me to stay with that title. I asked your group that twice and twice the answer was that you wanted it to be titled anti-racism. And Stacey, you've been taking notes. I think you could speak to that. Yeah, I think we brought this up a couple of times, especially after the first draft of the policy. And at that vote in December, it had come up that we wanted to keep the anti-racism policy. And once we were done with that at a more broad DEI and inclusion policy that would speak to other inclusivity efforts. I can send you the notes from that meeting, Dawn, if you want to have a look. Please. Sure. I would just add. I just think it's a much different product than what we originally had asked for. And that's all. And there was a strong opinion at that last policy meeting that this is what a problem that we had identified. And I'm not sure that we had identified it. It came to us through the natural matriculation of the development of the existing policy. So I'm not sure that we identified the need of it, frankly. Did we? I mean, I think we identified a need for it, which is why it had come up, but... We had, who had identified? I thought it was identified by the folks that we asked to come in and help develop the policy. The other ones that brought this flavor forward. I think. I'll look back in my minutes, but my understanding was this was always an anti-racism policy and that that was, in fact, their work. You know, I... No, it did start as equity. It did start as equity. Yeah. There was two community forums. We got a first draft. I think the first draft maybe even was titled equity. I'd have to look down. Yeah. And then there was discussion, I believe, around December from the policy committee. And one of the feedback was to change the title. And so that's where the title got changed. I do know that I certainly asked that question a few times because originally, the title was a greater umbrella. And I'll continue to ask the question, I guess, because I don't think we're getting what we asked for. Yeah. I mean, we called this an anti-racism equity policy in October. So we called it anti-racist equity policy. Who called it that? The policy committee? It was called the policy committee on October 26th. Or that subcommittee that sent the policy back to them. No, I mean, that's on the policy committee. That's on the policy committee agenda from October 26th of last year. I mean, I would say that, you know, this is the work of the policy committee Thursday. I think I'd encourage board members to attend that meeting because this is your policy, it's the boards. It's not a subcommittee, it's not consultants. I think that, I mean, the last two drafts have been feedback directly from board members. One of the things that I need to stress is policy is a legal obligation. This is almost like a procedure that we're trying to develop rather than policy. Policy is more broad, more global. And then procedure drills down for the specific locations. I'm just, I just wanna make sure that we're covered. Don, this is Ray. I asked that question myself because I came to the policy committee in fall of 19 with a procedure. Yeah. Was told not to have brought it. But I believe that the entire point in this policy was to have everything outlined in advance so that there was no time waiting for the development of a procedure. Marcy, Ray's talking about a different policy related to technology. So the policy itself is not, I mean, you're right, Don. There's a lot of procedure there, but it is defined as procedure. So the thought process was it shouldn't be in policy. Yeah. It's not, it says procedure. Right, I got a policy document. And then with the policy document, it's procedures. If the board doesn't wanna look at the review the procedures, that's fine. But it would be my practice to wanna have you guys vet those when we adopt policy. Right. Does Dina have an opinion on this? I assume that she's- Yeah, I reviewed this on draft three and gave you the okay. All right, I'll try to be there Wednesday. That's the same Thursday. Thursday. Just as a quick recap, I took a bunch of notes and Glenn took a bunch of notes and we compared after and came to the same conclusion which was that of the people who spoke about 75% of them spoke out in favor of it, about 9% of them spoke out against it and the others didn't express a strong preference either way. So that was kind of our informal tally based on comments. I think that, so Casi, I would say that I'm aware of who was there spoke out in favor of it but I do think that there were some good suggestions that are worthy of being looked at that might make even more people comfortable with the policy. It would certainly make me in a much better place. So I think we need to discuss that and look at that on Thursday. But yeah, I think overwhelmingly people are in support of having a policy. It's just how, you know, how do we get it to a point where we all feel good about it? And that's part of working together and being on a committee. Yeah, I mean, I feel like this is such a divisive issue for reasons that I don't quite understand that we're never gonna get it to a place where everyone's gonna love it. And I think that's just the truth of it. Who are the members of the, or the standing members of the policy committee currently? It's Ethan Bowen from Rochester Stockbridge. Casi for Granville Hancock, for Rudd. It's been Lisa Floyd and for F, but it's Kathy. Don, it was you. Now it's Chantel and for Stratford, it's Glenn. Okay, so those folks, everybody seemed to have been there last meeting. So, good. Lisa's not gonna be able to be there. Chris or I will be there. Right, yeah. Right. But Chris or I will be there this on Monday and we'll be there on Thursday. So we'll have representation from our district. Nice, thank you. All right, anything else on the policy committee? All right, negotiations committee. We are working on ratifying at this point. Yeah, we reached a tentative agreement. I put that in my report. We're waiting for the support staff to ratify, believe that they're hoping to do that during in service once they do that, I will get the document out to the full board. And then we should look to pull together a wagon wheel meeting. I would be great for the full board to get a good attendance of quorums. We'll go over it, go over the document, answer questions. And then we would look to ratify as a full board and then do our breakout sessions. I think that keeps it clean. And we're certainly much farther along with technology than we were the last time we tried to do that, drop out breakout sessions are easier. But I would look to warn that in Beffle as the location. And I do think it would be helpful if people were willing to come so that we can answer questions. Okay, any questions on the support staff? Don? Have we received any indication from the teacher's side when they'd like to start? I have not. Do we have a date when they should be getting in touch with us? Yeah, by the end of October, I believe. Oh, a couple of months, okay. Thank you. Superintendent Evaluation Committee, we need to set up a meeting for that. I'm not sure, I think Shantel's on that committee for you, Dawn. Erin, you're on that committee, correct? So would it be helpful if I email out, Stacey, you are too, correct? The particular night we want to try to shoot for is there a particular night that's, well, it's a committee meeting. Well, it's a committee meeting. Thursdays are safer right now because we're not in negotiations, although policy has been used in them. Ray can put up the calendar. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays are tough, depending on the week. So maybe we want to shoot for Thursdays once we get through the policy committee. I don't want to schedule it now and then we need to have another policy committee meeting next Thursday. Is that work for everyone? Looks like Mondays are actually open now. We used to have more stuff on Mondays. Or Mondays. So Mondays look other than the first, the fourth. Do you guys want me to put out a poll? Yes, please. Yes. That would be great. All right, I'll put out a poll with a couple of nights and we'll try to get one going and then we'll carry on from there. Okay. Discussion items, right? Roy River-Balliesty response and approach to COVID-19 for September 2nd. So I put out guidance around us beginning the year masking. I know that, again, this is not a popular topic either way. I received feedback that folks were happy that we put that guidance out. I had a few folks that had questions about how would we determine the threshold and things of that nature, around 80%. And we will be working with the state of Vermont who's hopefully gonna assist us with identifying those in our buildings that have been vaccinated. That's still to come, that information about how they're gonna do that. What I will tell you is that I received about 13 questions last week that I spent the time answering today and have now shared off to our COVID coordinator to make certain that the information I'm providing is accurate and in alignment to meetings he's been having with our SU nurses and the guidance we've received. That document will go out tomorrow to answer folks' questions. And then I've drafted another document that will go out later this week that just gives more specifics to folks around like even though we're not requiring house screening what does it mean you should be doing at home? What happens if your child does show symptoms of COVID-19? What's gonna be the school's response? Things, and the response is gonna be just so you know for an example with that it's based on information we used last year. If you show symptoms past 24 hours we ask that you check in with your pediatrician and that you get clearance from them. And they would recommend whether you needed testing or not. I just use that as an example to give more specific guidance for folks. It gives guidance around encouraging social distancing in our cafeterias. We are gonna permit visitors still in the buildings masked but it's gonna require principal approval prior to it occurring. And so a bunch of those types of details are forthcoming and I think it's gonna help folks be more at ease around us reopening September 2nd. I do know folks anxiety levels are increasing again and it makes certain that we can keep our schools open safely. The one thing that's still a struggle for us is that when we had positivity within our schools we hit the pause button and went remote for three days. While we did contact tracing and quarantined if we do that now I cannot count that as a student day. So I am gonna need to meet with our SU nurses and our response team to talk about if we have a positivity what exactly our procedure is gonna look like. And so I want those folks to weigh in on that and also our person from the Department of Health who's gonna help give us guidance. It's probably gonna look more like we quarantine those that are identified as being at risk of being close contacts. They would go remote and we would teach them virtually. As long as we have attendance in the building of 51% or greater we can count it as a student day. So that process is gonna look a bit different. John. Thank you. From that statement Jamie does that mean that any time that we go remote we can't use it as a student attendance day? That's correct, yeah. Wow. Be ready to be in school through July next year. Yeah, yeah. So Don with the state of emergency was lifted the Secretary's ability to provide that type of forthcoming guidance went away. Okay. And so now we fall back on the old statute guidance around 51%. So even storm days we're not gonna be able to. That's correct. Okay. And they made that clear once again in bold. Yeah. Wow. Ethan. Can't hear you Ethan. Ethan I can't hear you. Still can't hear you. Volume up. We still see a mute on Ethan. Drop out and come right back. Thank you, Stacy had a question. Stacy you wanna go away and breathe in? Sure. Jamie you've probably read the letter from Bridget Nice last Thursday of Friday for those of you who haven't. She said the superintendents have been receiving death threats and that there are plans to storm the schools in Harwood as a response to her policy to mandate vaccinations for staff and masking for everybody. Jamie I just wanted to know if you've gotten any word in our district about that. Anything like that? I gotta say our folks are really great to work with. And what I wanted to add was I think the example was the two and a half hours of public comment that we had on the policy was so respectful last week. And I find that that's just how we conduct ourselves is in that manner. So no folks have asked me questions and they've tried to understand but I gotta say the decisions we made so far at least in my level strongly supported based on the information I'm getting. I think for those folks who are frustrated I think they're trying to understand they've asked good questions. And I do think in general you have been working hard I think we continue to work hard on just creating a climate and culture where we don't have to agree but we're gonna treat each other with respect. And I gotta say that that's what I have found. So no, I have not had any of those types of incidences. That's good news. Can you hear me again? Ethan? Hey, can you hear me? You are? Hi Ethan. Hello, I have no idea what I was gonna ask. So thank you very much. Ethan it's good to hear your voice though, sir. Yeah, very, very good vacation with none of this. So it's all a big education return with none of this. Nothing, not even cell phone hardly. Anyway. Thank you. Don? So Jamie just to follow up, does that also mean that the offsite schools, the school setting if someone chooses not to attend in school settings is that gonna be allowed? No, unless they register for DTBLC we are all back in person. Okay, all right. Good to know. Ethan? This is just catching up. I heard someone say something that at the last, was there a board meeting where we somehow the board gave Jamie, you approval to make policy and that we didn't have to vote on policy to continue to make operational decisions? Operational decisions, choose my words carefully. Operational decisions. Regarding COVID, was it specific to that? Yeah. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah, okay, good. I fully support that. I just wanted to know if that actually was true and something I just heard. Thank you. Anything else about the COVID? Okay. Margaret balanced assessment consortium spring 2021 results. That was a mouth that isn't a mouth. My ESPEC has become a very popular acronym. I'd like to learn that one now. We did as part of our new teacher orientation this morning did a round of alphabet soup, which was going through 25, 26 of our most common acronyms to see how many of them folks knew. And ESPEC was one of them. And I was training as well. Yeah, I know. Feedback that from one person, it was the most helpful thing they'd done. Yeah. Everyone has received the report of the SU level results from the state summit of assessments from spring of 2021. I think as most of you are all you know, we did not have state assessments in the spring of 2020. So that means a couple of things. And we've gone through a lot in the last year and a half. So one thing that means is that we sort of have a new baseline because it disrupts any sort of longitudinal data that we had for assessments. So this is a good opportunity to think of this as a baseline from which we will start to mark growth and progress over years. It also means in particular that both our third and fourth graders, this was their first time taking these types of assessments. And usually that's third graders but our fourth graders this year didn't have that experience last year. So it was all brand new for a greater number of students than on a typical year. In the report you can see just the presentation of the data in sort of three ways. The first two are fairly similar but looking at the how many students have met expectations and how many students are either not yet there or further below. And so the state uses four levels. So that's what's in the first graphic for each of the three assessment content areas. Also just for ease of kind of just looking at it also collapse those into sort of the two broader groups of those who are meeting or exceeding expectations and those who are not yet meeting. And that's in the second graph for each of the content areas. And then the third one is looking at scaled scores. And this is one I believe that you all have looked at a little bit but it's probably a little bit newer and not quite as intuitive perhaps initially but this is a great way to look at growth across all of the years as well as all the grades and will also help with some of our longitudinal looking as we move forward. Cause it puts every assessment on the same scale. So you can see that on average there's about a 30 point growth in score from grade level to grade level. And so a student that's making kind of regular growth would be making, perhaps 30 points. And so when you kind of fall below that, that you haven't made a growth for students that maybe are below that we want to look at accelerating that growth or maybe making more than 30 points in a year but it gives us an idea. And it's not quite because we have smaller schools and smaller grade levels those can get really affected by percentages. So when you only have six kids in a grade each of those are more than 10%. So we see a lot more movement when a kid shifts from one group to another and so scale scores, average scale scores will hold a little bit more stable. And so it gives us a better idea of actually how our kids are doing rather than these sort of rapid shifts that are really representative of in just one student moving perhaps from not yet meeting proficiency to meeting proficiency. So you have the results from reading math and science. What I said in the report is I think you'll see that in science. I mean, in reading, you can tell that that's the most consistent across all of our grade levels. I know there's been a lot of investment of time and resources in literacy over the last couple of years. And I think that kind of stability across our grade levels is in the higher level there can be somewhat connected to that. We still want to see all those levels go higher but I think that is a result of all of that increased focus. So as we roll math and increase focus in math this year we hope to see those scores respond as well to that as well as science, following math. Happy to take any questions. And if I might. I'm curious and I could probably find this information myself but I'm lazy, how our trajectory compares to other super resilience around, around, I mean, I'm generally curious about where we stand in the state but I'm just wondering if that growth pattern is similar elsewhere or if we're seeing a marked bump. If you happen to know. Data's not released yet. Yeah. Oh, it's not. I was wondering, because as part of my day job I usually put those graphics together if a digger. And so I'm, I thought I was behind the mark but apparently, I might be behind the mark. Yeah. Okay. And I, I'm not even certain that they're going to release it. Yeah. You're not saying the S back is, yeah. Okay. I mean, it might be because with class sizes smaller they might not be able to aggregate the data in the same way they usually do. Okay. It's certainly data that we should be watching in regards to trends, right? And I specifically can growth trends not in comparison of but just growth trends. Yeah. I mean, my understanding is that they adjust those scale scores every year based on where everybody is at. And I could be wrong about that. It's kind of difficult for me to understand. But so I would like to see. Well, they adjust the, they adjust if you look in regards to what they consider to be an accuracy within the scale sort of plus or minus. Those would get larger or smaller. They try to have the thresholds somewhat stay in place because they're looking at cohort growth of at least 30 scale points. But as far as what's proficient that can change within that margin of error. Right. I see. That makes no sense. That you just made a lot more sense than they ever have it explaining that. Nice job. Thanks for that. Sure, Jamie. Anytime. Okay. So I'll ask that again if I don't see the data next month. Erin, I'm sorry. Do you do any sort of adjustments based on like presumably the K to five would be basically all the students in all the schools but starting in sixth grade or I guess seventh grade we have kind of a subset of students that go to a different SU or different schools and same thing with high school. So is there any adjustment to take that into account when we look at these scaled scores? Differences? For students tested in our buildings. You can tell them that. Yeah. Yeah. So these scores are just folks that just kids that are enrolled in our schools and in our buildings not folks that are enrolled in other schools. Right. So I'm curious if that would have an effect like if the top kids wind up going to a different school then that would affect our scale score comparatively to our average scale score as we get a different cohort of kids in the different grades. Well, I think that we should watch it as an SU as a cohort up through sixth grade. And then again, I think the district cohorts will make more sense at that level, Andrew, as compared to the SU. I see what you're saying. Our demographics after sixth grade do change. So if we are watching a cohort from kindergarten up through sixth, absolutely when we look at seven, that's gonna change. And then change again after eighth because we're gonna have more students leave. So in your local districts, that information will be valuable right up through to the grade that you stop operating. But as an SU, that is gonna create some discrepancy. I wonder if it would be possible to look at the data as just the subset of, well, I guess it's not really possible. We need kind of basically like the history data for everybody to see how an individual students- we should have that in years to come. We can, I can also include the number of students that we are talking about at each grade level, which would just give you an idea where these numbers do sort of jump down. But I mean, they're exactly where you say, and particularly when we look at our ninth grade, that is a, it's a really small group. So going forward, I could include that and the student population for each grade level, just so we know what we're sort of talking about in terms of numbers and it might help just tell a little bit more of the story. I think that's a good idea. Yeah, having, because otherwise you'd think of it as a solid group all the way through as we've just been talking about, and that's not the case. We've talked about this at our district level. The idea of following up on our students who are going to other schools. Do we have any access or can we at least request? I mean, I know it's a lot, it's a lot of people, but is there to know how students are doing once they leave our school or our supervisory union? Yeah, I would love to get a way to get some qualitative and quantitative data, Ethan, to ask schools to complete for us on an annual basis. I think the key for me is gonna be to work with those principals and or superintendents to make certain folks participate in that. And so I think the key is to first identify what data do we want and then reach out to those schools to see if they'll complete it. So I was, it's on a list to talk to Onda about is to work with you as a board to say what are those qualitative and quantitative measures that we wanna track for our students who then leave us, because other than one district, we're all choice towns. So it's important data for us to get. Dawn? It is very important data to have. However, historically, we've had major problems trying to mine that data from the receiving schools. They don't wanna put the effort into the getting that for us. So I would applaud your efforts if you're able to do that. We've tried to do that for many, many years. I think the, like I said, you're right, Dawn. I think the only way we're gonna get it is if we could convince the headmasters or superintendents in combination with the principals and curriculum coordinators, why it's important. And so without that partnership, right, we're gonna spend time and resources not being able to get a full picture. Could you use access to some of the fares and things that, you know, the open house days or whatever that if they want to be able to advertise to your kids, like, we'd like a little favor. Bad idea, Andrew. All right. Anything else on that topic? All right, our next topic. Are we gonna put on this calendar? It's not a full board vote. What? Ripton. No, I think we need to do this tonight. Okay. Response to requests from Ripton to join our supervisory. The state board wants something from us by September one. Okay. So, uh, Kathy and I. Yep. We're going to project it. Yeah. Raise, get a projection. Kathy and I worked on, uh, based on the June meeting. A statement based on kind of what we felt like the consensus was. Um, and what we took as a consensus. Was that. We're flattered of ripped in approach to us, but that, um, right now we weren't in a place to say, yes, please come. Um, at least that was our takeaway from that last meeting. So we worked on this. For you to review and see if you want to wordsmith it or move on it. Uh, secretary French did reach out to me in July, just so you know, for a one on one meeting. I let him know that you discussed this again in June. Um, and that you were thinking about action in August. He urged us to put some type of statement together. Um, he does plan on making a recommendation to the state board for Ripton. The state board doesn't have to act on his recommendation. Although he felt like that was going to be strongly considered. Uh, he did have questions. Uh, about why as an SU. We might want to take ripped in on. He felt like we're pretty large already. Um, and he had questions as well as about what would they provide. In regards to resources to, uh, increase the capacity out of this office. And so he had good questions, same questions we were asking ourselves. Um, which to me was, uh, a little bit of a, uh, a more assuring, uh, that, you know, our thoughts around not right now made sense. So. I'll leave it at that for you guys to discuss. I don't know if you heard you, Kathy. Yeah, I just thank you. I'm trying to turn my microphone off. I like the, the, I like the paragraph. I would suggest. Perhaps a little rewording. Of the. Um, I don't know. I don't know. I guess after this decision is based on several factors. Is that a period or a comma? After factors. There should be a comma. Okay. Well, we could leave it as a period and then just take out of which. Yeah. And insert, insert these include. Don, you're taking over as. Board proof reader. That was going to be my suggestion. I would pass that along as it, as it stands. Frankly. Me too. I feel like that's, that's my memory of that discussion though. I last discussion about it. Yeah. Cause we're pretty unanimous in our. Though, not completely. I know there were some people who definitely didn't feel that way. Um, uh, so I'm sorry we don't have a. I'm sorry. I guess we have represented from everybody, every individual board. Anyway. We do. And when we discussed this last, it was at a full board meeting. So we did get lots of input. So I feel pretty comfortable passing this. Yep. All right. So any other discussion on this? All right. There's no other discussion. Our next. Um, possible. Yeah. So, um, I have a motion to accept the response to request from Ripton. Do I have a motion to accept the response? We accept the response. That's what you wanted to do to accept the responses. I move that the executive board. Accept the response as written. So moved. And could I also ask Ethan. Can we direct Jamie to submit this to the secretary? Yes. And submit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And probably to Ripton as well, I would imagine. Yeah. Does that suffice Jamie? Yeah, that's great. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Second. And a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any names? No, none. So moved. Get that on letterhead and get it out tomorrow. New hire. So these are all new hires. We did just before. Just last week, we did receive a resignation. From Tiffany Adams. Tiffany had been serving as a special education teacher. She's been serving as a special education teacher. She's been serving as a special education teacher. For personal reasons. She's decided. That coming back right now is not going to be in her best interest. Which definitely. Was late. And did result now in us needed to continue to search for special education teachers. And so I do want to let you know of that resignation. The. The teams worked incredibly hard. And I just want to thank you for your support and your support. And I would like to thank our three major candidates. And I will tell you that the three special educators that we have moving forward to you. Are really strong. And I think they're going to serve our students across the SU really well. And that in her. Interview committee did a terrific job. The other resignation we had. Was that Jan Crow, who was our part-time pre-K coordinator. Is moving out of state. and so she announced her retirement. She was retired, she worked for us by the time, and so she's not going to be returning. What we did is, as you know, we had the passing of Sue Barnaby, which was tragic last spring. Sue was, her position had been advertised and we were struggling to fill it. We advertise for a pre-K coordinator slash interventionist. And so Renee Hinton, we're really lucky to get Renee's coming to us. She was a lead teacher at Orange County Child Center and then was a teacher in Head Start, comes with a great deal of experience, is gonna join our team as pre-K coordinator and interventionist. She is gonna do the pre-K intervention on the Eastern side, but pre-K coordinator across the ESU. And then Sue Clark, who retired as a triple E teacher, was willing to come back in a part-time role to be a pre-K interventionist, which is great news for us. Sue's been with the organization at the Windsor Northwest for a long time. So Sue said, I would like to be reassigned and would draw my full retirement. And so Sue is gonna do pre-K intervention at the Bethel, Rochester, Stockbridge, and maybe some in South Royalton based on need. And so I think that this is gonna work out well. One of the things that I'm learning quickly is having one person to try to cover this whole geographical area can be difficult. So I think looking at doing some of these positions this way when it works out, so folks aren't spending most of their day traveling, that they're able to be more focused in a geographical region without us having to add FTE made a great deal of sense. So I'm pretty excited about how that all played out and having Sue's institutional knowledge and experience with the triple E team and pre-K team is gonna be great. So I'm excited about that. And then the math interventionists, of course, are being funded through ESER. So we brought them on as SU employees. It just makes it easier for us in regards to not having to sub-grant out. So you see them listed as SU employees, but they are then assigned school locations. Like Fay is gonna be working at ARSUD across those two districts, sorry, two buildings within that district. And Donna is gonna be working in the Newton School. I think, was there some other questions? There was, I had my hand raised, but I think you answered part of it. That list of people are just to fill current vacancies or are there new positions? But then you mentioned- Yeah, it's to fill current vacancies other than the two math interventionists. Right, okay. They were funded for with an ESER. And for many of us, we had been talking about it even at a budget time. So yeah, no new positions outside of that. And we'd still like to find another special educator. Yes. And so we continue to be on the hunt for that. How are we doing with the peras? I know there was a shortage of peras. We're still short. And we put out a couple of hiring articles in the Herald and the Valley News. So I've actually received a couple of emails. So I'm hoping that'll start upticking pretty soon. There wasn't just the issue of compliance. I know when I talked to Lindy last, there was the issue that if we didn't have these at the beginning of the year, there could be some compliance issues. Did we talk to the AOE in French about covering ourselves for that? At the moment between our special educators and who we have assigned to certain buildings, we will be compliant if anything more happens. Like right now we're starting to get an uptick in new student registrations. I received several emails today. That's where we're gonna need some new hires. Okay, good, thank you. One of the things I've talked to the team about including a net is, is to ensure that we are compliant. Ethan is looking at, we do have a great deal of interventionist. And there's nothing to say that our interventionist can't service students who get supports via IEPs. So that would be our next avenue to look at is that our highly-trained reading interventionists and math interventionists move into doing more intensive supports for the time being, which means we will decrease some of our targeted capacity, but we would triage that way. Now, the hope is we can still, I've said to administrators, we're in a great location for folks still to move in. An example of that is that Newton, Erin just got a great candidate for your second grade position that will be coming to you tomorrow. And her partner, I don't think she might be saying this was a law student. And so I think that we still may have an influx of some folks moving into this area based on those types of scenarios. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I will say we are in better shape than some of my colleagues. And I do think our geographical location helps us with that. This special ed, it's a crisis. I know the secretary is not saying it, but he should because we get to do something to look at incentivizing special educators into the state because there is a severe capacity issue, which is worrisome. Any other questions on that? We are at other, Marcy? Yes. Which, what did you have to say? Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't chime in during public comments. It actually fell before the policy committee. I just wanted to ask what kind of public comment opportunity there would be on the Thursday meeting. That was my first question. Before and after. Just after. We said that we were gonna have a discussion and then allow for comment. So before this is gonna have a discussion and then we'll have room for public comment after our discussion. And my second question is, who is synthesizing the comments from the last public comment session back on Wednesday? Is that happening? I know there was mention of sort of some anecdotal data earlier in this meeting, but it would be good to sort of have some bullet points and I'd be happy to do that in terms of suggestions that were made. I believe at least it took a bunch of notes and I'm doing some of that work. Go ahead, Stacy. I think Marcy, after the policy committee votes to approve the minutes from the previous meeting at every meeting, so that's when those become public. No, I wasn't really asking when they become public, but I was just wondering who was sort of listening to the recording because I re-listened to the full two hours, taking into account what people were really looking at with respect to the policy. And I just wondered, whose responsibility on the policy committee is that? I mean, my answer would be Marcy, I think that we had at least two or three board members who took really concise notes. I know Lisa Floyd said she had over six pages and I fully expect them to share those and to help facilitate that conversation with the policy committee on Thursday. I asked the policy committee if they wanted me to work on providing any additional thoughts based on what we heard and they wanted to have a discussion first. So I think they're gonna take their notes and discuss it on Thursday and then give some direction. Excellent. And would there be the opportunity for me to sort of provide some synthesized, you know, sort of comments from what people had said. This is the direction of what folks were talking about and some possible suggestions for the policy. Would the board be open to that? I think we're open to, you can provide it with us. I don't know how far we'll get with it that night but we're always open. And if you wanna provide it and send it to us before the meeting, that's also fine. And we can take a look over it. Super, I'd be happy to do that and I'll provide hard copies for anyone who will be there. All right, great. Thank you. Don? Yeah, Jamie, did you have an opportunity to talk to Keenan to see if there's gonna be space and things at the school and Sharon? I did, thanks for asking that, Don. I did talk to him. We're thinking that Jim's actually gonna be probably the best location if we're gonna have a large turnout. So that's what we're thinking. Thank you. Next meeting date is Monday, September 27th at 6 p.m. The full board, where will that be located, Bethel? Bethel is what we said, yep. Okay, so September 27th will be in Bethel for full board meeting. And if there is no other business, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. All right, thank you. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Kathy. Good night, thank you, Kathy.