 We have a quorum and it's 6-0-1, so I'd like to call the meeting to order. Yay. Before we do anything besides ensuring a quorum, there are a couple of things to add to the agenda. The first, there are three additional contracts for approval. You have those there. The first name listed was in our packet from before. There are two new additional teacher contracts and one administrator to approve. So I would like to add that to the consent agenda. Also for the consent agenda, an approval of a request for reserve funds for the gym floor. Additional work for the gym floor. We have to vote to add those to the agenda. I'll move to add those to the consent agenda. We've got the teacher's contracts. There's three and then the administrator, is that what you said? Well, it's two additional. Two additional and the administrator and then the additional funding for the board floor. And I'm sorry to interrupt your motion, but I'd also like to add the topic of personnel into the executive session section. And add the topic of personnel to the agenda for executive session. I'll second. All those in favor? Opposed? Excellent. Consider them added. Cannot write and talk. All right. Well, meeting purpose. We have a continuing conversation about about policy governance policy 4.1. Just to continue our pretty fruitful conversation from last meeting. But what I'm really excited about for this meeting is the presentation on part of graduate. So thank you for being here. And I look forward to that part of the agenda. I'd like to now open up for public comment. I'll read the preamble here. The board welcomes comments, but is not able to take any action on them other than to direct the public to the appropriate staff member or to the complaint procedure. Comments are limited to three minutes per speaker. Time may not be seated to another speaker. Comments are to be addressed to me, the board chair or the board as a whole, not to any individual on the board, on the staff or in the public. Please raise your hand, both in person and online and wait to speak until you're asked to by myself. Please identify yourself with your first and last name and your town of residence. Please refrain from restating comments that have already been shared. You can express agreement with those comments. Order and decorum shall be observed by everyone shouting and profanity are prohibited. As the board chair, I will maintain the order and decorum of the meeting. And with that, I invite public comment. If anybody online is interested in public comment, please just raise your hand. All right. Seeing none. Going once, going twice. All right. Then moving on. Excellent. We're moving on to what I'm so excited about. The portrait of the graduate committee, which I'm actually on that committee, but I'm going to turn it over to Heather when she has a moment. Are we up? Yes. We're up. So I'd like to introduce Ava and Elena, student representatives for the portrait of a graduate. Lane, can you share some videos? I can try. All right. Probably the best way to do is to do the presenter mode if you can. But we want people at home to be able to see it as well. Yeah. So if you want to log into the meeting. Oh. If you want to log into the Zoom. Okay. Will it actually echo? You should not. I would just make sure that your speaker is off on your computer. Because it's going to use the owl for the speaker. You'll see. I'm going to try it. I'm going to be confident. Go for it. Turn off my speaker. Actually, sorry about that. Turn off your speaker. Turn on your speaker. Turn off yours. Sound. The sound. Yeah. That's what it is. It is. It's actually that one. Okay. Do I have the right to present? Yeah. They keep changing the symbols. This one right here. This one. That one. Yeah. So I do. I usually do a window. A tap. Yeah. I want this equity up here. Share. I'll let you know. It looks like it's working. All right. There you go. Is it switching to the correct tab or no? It's not. How do I stop it? So I'll present it. I would go to probably either show entire screen or show window. That way you can pick the window that opens up. That's the presentation. Okay. You hit share tab. You want me to do this one? Yeah. And that way when it opens up you just select the window that you want to be presenting from. There you go. Amazing. Is there volume? Today is our second day. There's no volume, right? Launch change. I'm working to the right. I'll pick it up. We're teaching the students the facilitators. Inspires kids to like graduate going on in life. This work is going to help us check in with the community. To make sure that our ends are in line with what a community wants our schools to be producing in terms of the end result of our entire district. We think our strengths of this district and what we think could be worked on within our districts. We're going to do community dinners, attend faculty meetings, send out surveys. They're going to reach out to their classmates and peers and collect information to inform our portrait of a graduate. We have five stations right now that students are circulating through to start to practice collecting our data. It may be that you'll be invited very soon to start giving us this information. And those invitations will be coming from students. I think it's so important for students to have a sense of control and buy into their education. There's the second one. This is the same one I did before. Yes. Heather Todd's coming to help. Net in the media section. About 30 of us. Mostly students. A few adults and facilitators. And they unclog every submission. We had sent out a survey for the community. So we had all of those submissions. Students had gone to faculty meetings and had those submissions. They had gone into classrooms and had students submit their ideas. We had hundreds of pieces of paper and items to read and sort of been synthesized. Wow. A lot of people really talked about inclusion. So that goes up on the board. And a lot of people talk about communication skills. That goes on the board. We tried to get down to 15 comments. That's what we're doing now. We're trying to listen to everyone's voice. Okay. I think it's fine. All right. I'm going to stop presenting. Stop sharing. Okay. Yeah. I appreciate you moving it to the master machine. Thank you. What's up? I sent you an email to LinkedIn. What do you want me to? I think we can just move forward. We'll let the students talk. Please. We're not getting any sound online. We're trying to fix it. I don't think my email should be there for you to see. You just want the YouTube video link? You're going to type it in? Where is the link? It's in my YouTube channel. I'll tell you the link. Just hang with us. It's KCV1. Can I just give you the code? The YouTube code? KCV? We don't get that. It's on the RCC YouTube channel. So Kinn has set up for the new office today. The movers are here. Is he out? No. Because Sam said he wasn't getting it. So much better. You got it? You're the best, Tom. Are you sure they can hear it? Sam, can you hear it at home now? Awesome. Sam gave us the thumbs up. In the media center, about 30 of us, mostly students, a few adults as facilitators, and they unpacked every submission. We had sent out a survey to the community, so we had all of those submissions. Students had gone to faculty meetings, and we had those submissions. They had gone into classrooms and had students submit their ideas. We had hundreds of pieces of paper and items to read and sort of been synthesized and say, wow, a lot of people really talked about inclusion. So that goes up on the board. And a lot of people talked about communication skills. That goes on the board. We tried to get down to 15 common themes, so that's what we were doing. We were trying to listen to everyone's voice and pull it together so that we can have this one document that's a representative of all of those submissions. We also had a graphic artist come in and talk to us about symbols we might use in the poster that would also speak to the community and people put out ideas for that. So we're hoping to have a really beautiful graphic to put in front of the community in just a couple weeks. Okay, thank you everyone for your patience with our technology. And Ava, Ava and Elena are here. Where do you want us to be? Come join us at the table for this car and just tell us about your experience. And you don't have to talk a lot or long, but we're just so excited you're here. Ava, you're such a great speaker and Elena as well if you could just share with us your connections with the community in this project. Okay, well thank you. Well, we worked on the portrait of a graduate and I think you all have a copy of one of our drafts of the final portrait. And all of the work we did was to really collect all this information from the community and prioritize what their needs were in terms of our school district. And we put them into seven pillars. Yes. And that's what these are on this piece of paper. And the pillars are sort of like the, almost the categories that people were prioritizing and they go into more detail. But so the pillars are creative problem solver, resilient, healthy and self-directed, life skills and technical skills, caring, connected community member, engaged lifelong learner, effective communicator and critical thinker. Yeah, so we found that a lot of elementary school students and high school and a lot of students and teachers, these are the things that appeared most in the data that we collected. Yeah. And people have really had a lot to say. And I think that this document will really help us move forward with creating an environment where everyone feels seen, heard and valued and is ready for the future. That's the main focus of this document, is ready for the future. It's something that we came up with at our last retreat. Yeah. And it's really helped us integrate with the community, I guess. The little kids' stuff was very, very fun to read. Yeah. Some funny things in there. Very funny. Yeah. Yeah, so they had a lot to say. And... Oh, sorry. Yeah. So we'd like now to do some fine refinements, you know, if any typos are found or if some things could be condensed more. So it's not quite done, but it's really close. And so we're really open to any feedback or changes that are recommended. Easy work in progress. It is. And then what we'd like to do is have a little bit cleaner of a version up that we can put up at the graduations and other celebrations of learning at the end of the year. And sort of ask the community, can you live with this? Do you like this? What's your feedback? And make any final tweaks that are needed and then roll it out at the beginning of the next school year. Both with professional development for teachers and also for... Collectibles for the kids. Yes. That sounds perfect. So that is our update on the portrait of a graduate report and plan. Yeah. This was a lot of work in a short amount of time and I am extremely impressed. Not to say I doubted you, but it was a short amount of time. Yeah. So... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. So once you roll this out, what does that look like just telling people what it is? So the soft rollout will be to have it visible to the community at the end of the year, celebrations of learning and maybe have an opportunity for a little bit more feedback. But the finally adopted, this is what we're going to do. We'd like to start with professional development for teachers so teachers take time to unpack it and think about using it to guide instruction. We'd like to include it in the advisories and morning meetings with students and the next step in the process will be to create a strategic plan which will be a year-long process that will again involve the community and ownership linkage with the board to talk about, okay, here's our aspiration. How do we get there? How do we build in meaningful project-based learning across all grades so that students become effective communicators and have an opportunity to speak to various audiences and hone that skill over time? And so this is not the end of the work at all. It's really sort of a beginning. And I think Lane also has some thoughts about the ends, possibly using it as part of the ends. Yeah, I think that's one of the discussions that the board might possibly have is that typically a portrait of a graduate, the purpose of it, that whole process is actually to create a mission statement which is the equivalent of your end statement. And so it's once things are in kind of a complete and final form, once it's gone out into the community and you've got broad acceptance of it, I think it might be worth a discussion at the board level of, do we adopt this in place of the ends? Do we try to merge the two? What do we do? How do we enact this work that the community has told us they want us to engage in? Which kind of segues into that next strategic planning session for board discussion? I just have a question. Yeah, it does. The strategic plan that you just spoke of, there was a strategic planning whole thing done a few years ago and I don't know where that's at, but is that integrated into this or is it a completely separate strategic plan? Completely separate. They actually did, they started a lot of good work. I wish you could remember the gentleman's name that came in. Winston. The superintendent. What ended up happening was at the end of the process, people kind of stopped and said, wait a minute, what that strategic planning is, this is prescribing the ends, what we do as opposed to what we're trying to achieve. And so the board at the time kind of had this discussion, well those are means, that's up to the administration and what not to decide. And so we have looked at those especially in terms of some of the planning and some of the work that I have done, there actually were about 30 or 40% of what was on that document had already been completed in terms of those means. Still there, I do refer to it as we do some planning from time to time, but I think this is where you're, my recommendation is this is kind of where you're at right now is the potential of this, maybe replacing your end statement or updating it. Right, I mean I actually think this is part of the natural progression of that because this included the community includes the people who were working with Winston and I think there were a few people that said to me we did all that and we don't really understand where it went. I think this is you know I haven't seen it but it could be a great place to start you know we don't need to start from nothing if we have something to start with. Well I think it's worth reviewing it with all of us reviewing it and on that note our July board meeting is typically you know it's if needed I think on the calendar and I know we've used it for training before I want to have a discussion about what we'd like to use that for and suggest that this be um it be centered around this we have this portrait of a graduate it won't be officially I understand rolled out until next year and it's a working document and a working process but I think it has to inform our ends is my opinion I'm not demanding that but it does feel like we could really use that meeting to figure out to reassess our ends right because the ends are where the community wants us to be and now we have a map not a map a goal a finish line and I can give kind of two examples off the cuff of the work that Winston did you know one of them was to implement a life skills program and so that is up and running and ready to go in the fall we'll actually talk a little bit about that in terms of the the ends report that comes a little bit later tonight part of that piece that came out of the work was you know to continue the work um on the foundational knowledge piece which made sense um and so that's one of the reasons why you know we're looking at a potential homework policy um that we've been working on um we've had some rich discussions about changing the master schedule at the high school to increase time on learning we've had discussions this year about um the use of time like you know two weeks at the end of the year historically where the kids go home and do make up work which is you know not effective use of time I mean they combine it with the um portfolio defenses but the students only come in for a limited amount of time over those two weeks to do their portfolio defense and so recouping that time as part of um you know improving academics for the students um in terms of the foundational and so there has been a lot that's been integrated you know I haven't stood up and you know put the signs up and this is what it is I could do that and I'd be happy to if that's a preference but yeah so this isn't asking for a vote or anything but what do people think about um what that might look like in July if that's of interest to use our time that way um if people feel we need guidance in that process and reassessing ends what that might look like I think it's a great idea to do what you're just describing and I think um taking on maybe someone else's opinion that's outside of the group as far as guidance goes would be a great idea do you have anyone else's on board with that do you have thought are you thinking of someone that you want to bring in or do you have like an idea um no but um I think it's worth you know talking to the SBA about it and really sussing out what we want if we want it to be more of a training in ends you know um producing ends as if there were none or rework the ends right that's one way we could go with it another way is to have a working sessions where we're starting with what we already have seeing if it matches up you know big white board which I would think we'd want someone more as a not mediator but a moderator facilitator facilitator um so so using that time not really as training but a work session um I think it would be awesome if we could get someone to help us organize our ends not just speak of ends in like a broad let's like this is what ends are you know you have to go through and figure out if they are I want to actually go through and figure out if they are what we are for a working session a guided working session so we come away at the end with these are what we want this to look like yep I'm not sure we can do that in two hours it doesn't have to be two hours it can be a retreat it can be it can look like however we want it to look how do people feel about that are we willing to spend it I mean it's hard to be like oh yeah I want to spend my Saturday doing that but I don't know if it doesn't have to be a day retreat it can be a half day retreat we do have funds for training and work sessions lunch can do 4 hours 4 hours if you think you need that much time the facilitator I think if you outline for the facilitator what it is that you want to accomplish they'll be able to give you a timeline about what they think that's a good idea so why don't we find out that and then can we just organize it through email or do we have to organization you guys can communicate as much as you want about did that sound good I don't know what everybody else feels sounds good to me if someone is interested in poking around and looking at people who might be a good fit or I'm offering you up but Chelsea and I can do that as well I'm not talking subcommittee I'm just talking assigning someone the research I think that's it I'm happy to help look into it I can call at the SVA and ask them do I want to do that and maybe at the June meeting we can vote on I'll look into the portable whiteboard yes you're on that and markers yeah and we'll bring it back in June at our June meeting to talk about because I assume there will be funds involved in looking at hiring someone to facilitate not just how much is available I think we put in 10 grand you'll be in the new fiscal year after June 30 so there's at least 10 grand there I'd have to go back and look at what we put in great okay yay thank you okay we're going to move into monitoring look at that 631 you guys did you agree so governance policy 4.1 sometimes it can feel a little awkward to try to kind of recreate the brain space we were in in the other meeting but I heard from several people that they felt it was productive conversation so thank you Linda for sending out the chart again if more things have come up for people ways that we could get to always rather than never was actually looking back at and sent us an email on April 13th that was an email exchange she had with Susan from the VSBA I think and of course I printed it out and I'm like here we go, Mortensen, yeah talking about return on investment but it's a social return on investment but I think something that came up this speaks to it the last sentence that she wrote here otherwise well with it feel that having boards and management really think about and work on what demonstrates achievement progress accomplishment while not easy is one of the biggest strengths policy governance has otherwise boards tend to just go through the motions weighing in on budgets and activities but without really ever truly knowing whether or not it has been worthwhile and I feel like that sentiment was coming up in terms of how we govern that we sometimes feel that we're rubber stamping am I babbling what I am babbling but thoughts things that came up for people from the conversation I will also say this not only did I hear from board members that they enjoyed the conversation I heard from several community members that were at that meeting were listening to that meeting but they appreciated the conversation that we had started which while it's lovely to hear that we enjoyed our conversation I think it's that was really great to hear they like us talking out what more we can do what differently we can do how we might want to change that policy or not I think it helps the community understand more of what we do as well by having these open discussions I agree I don't really know how to pick up on where we left off last time I don't know if we should just start going through each one again and see what comes up so why don't I go ahead and read just the introduction I won't read each one two six and see if that kind of sparks people with new thoughts something they meant to say last week anything policy number 4.1 governing style the board will govern lawfully observing the principles of the policy governance model with an emphasis on outward vision rather than an internal preoccupation encouragement of diversity in viewpoints strategic leadership more than administrative detail clear distinction of board and superintendent roles collective rather than individual decisions future rather than past or present and proactivity rather than reactivity that last one I certainly wrote down like three or four times because I think people kept coming back to it that being proactive and almost feeling like we've had to be reactive when big things come up but how can we be proactive either before they do or to avoid them big things I think it was I was discussed last time but if we adhere to all of the policies then that would be proactive by saying this is our policy we have set in place when something does come up and then if it's something new I feel like we've always been pretty good about oh we don't have a policy or some like rules on this and so we then make one do you yeah do you feel like this particular policy in hindsight had we pulled it out and had it right in front of us when one of these things came these big things have come up in front of us and we had to react to not this in front of us could it have helped did we follow it could it have helped guide us in some pretty tumultuous incidents I think so yes I think so too because the flag policy was brought to us by Lane not necessarily reacting to something that happened here correct it was like outside thoughts and we were like okay we need to in anticipation of a court ruling said oh this might impact the previous decision on this that's proactive that's what I'm thinking so I guess just thinking about certain situations where it's like okay we don't have a policy this is something that we can anticipate in the future so let's be proactive so in that sense like that's a good example of us being proactive right okay I just want to make sure that that's what that I commend you for taking that on that was a difficult and it did stir up a lot of thoughts and emotions which is to be expected but it is it's good to note that we were being proactive in that situation hmm yeah I mean I'm looking at number two the what I underlined here informed by expert sources both internal and external to the organization I think that one of the things we're good at is asking for help is reaching out for guidance I wonder if that's a tricky one because we needed legal legal advice but I wonder about reaching out for input from different stakeholders is something we can do to be proactive you know our connection to the district is through Lane but that doesn't mean we can't have the principals come in I mean they used to but I think we did away with that because it was and Katie I think I saw you on there so you may be able to speak to this but I seem to recall when we did away with that process she used to we felt it was because we were kind of asking them to present what we were already getting in our packets and I think there's an opportunity to have a connection with them not in a supervisory role obviously that's Lane but to take just to be informed directly that seems proactive I think it's a good idea one of the things I think that we had touched on I don't know if it was the last meeting in the previous was the idea that you know we talk on awful a lot at times about the ends of what that means in terms of student achievement but the piece that gets lost in the process is this idea of the means is okay what are all the things that are actually happening in the district are folks aware that we've revamped the curriculum across all seven disciplines are folks aware that we brought a top tier research math program for both the elementary and for the high school are they aware that we've done the same thing for ELA the piece is the discussion that the community could latch on to to understand that there is a significant amount of work going on and I think those communications with the principals where they talk about their schools what they're working on and what the impact has been in terms of student outcomes would be really valuable I think so too and I think we're reminded often or we you know remind ourselves that we can't prescribe the means but that certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't know about them or understand them or ask questions you know this that isn't meant to direct them in any way but or get involved in the operations but understanding the operations and no offense to Lane but through other voices and sources as well I think is really important I think it's valuable I think one of the reasons that it was kind of toned back on kind of remember going through the agenda planning sessions was and there was good logic to it at the time was this idea that if we're just monitoring EL and ends and what the principals are coming in and presenting isn't really related to the ends as they've been interpreted then you know why are we spending our time on this I think that was the conversation at the time probably two years ago or three years ago now and I think there's value in kind of a formal report yes this is what we're doing but then the informality of how do you think it's going how what's the feedback you're getting from the faculty again that's not us trying to needle but it is a check-in and Katie I don't mean to put you on the spot but what do you think do you have any thoughts about what I've been rambling about I think it all makes a lot of good sense and I know that Lisa and I have enjoyed before having the opportunity to share what's happening specifically in our building related to the efforts that you know you know being a program that we are implementing or what we're even doing is for some summatives that are of note for you to be able to understand in certain grade levels or in certain content areas I think is only going to better you know your work so I think it makes good sense and I think we would all appreciate that opportunity I think it's also an opportunity as folks are hearing you know the work that's engaged not just by administration but by the work that the teachers are doing at their level you know within the classrooms and carrying out a lot of the focus that we have it's an opportunity to value through the discussions you know the work that they're engaged in so I think it's a good idea and since we will be doing some work on our ends and looking at our ends I think it's just more really useful information for us to have from the people doing the work the means to get to where we're reassessive yeah in a way that we are not right now I wonder if there's other stakeholders that we should also be visiting with teachers students and community members and I don't know and let's not forget that we have in the past been invited to go into classes and just observe which I shamefully have not taken advantage of but want to and I think that's a really great way to stay connected so but I agree the other possibility which I don't think has been used as I'm scanning through my memory as I'm sitting here is that if there's bigger discussions to have with stakeholders is you can always also put it on the board agenda because we're going to set aside 20 minutes to have the community come in and just talk about this there is nothing wrong with that that's usually a good thing to do especially if you might be considering a weighty matter or considering a policy change or to get that feedback because sometimes why I like the forums and things is sometimes they'll pick up on nuances that oh that would be an unintended consequence I want to thank you for letting me know so I think there's a lot of possibilities there you can always add an item on the agenda ahead of time to say hey we want to have a community discussion about this we'll run it open forums however you want to run it and I think this is a great opportunity this is a great moment because the community is presently engaged thanks to our portrait graduate work so this would be a good way to show that it's not just when we are doing a project it's constantly that we want yeah Sam sorry I'm wondering what does the process look like for adding a community discussion to the agenda and just throwing up the idea of maybe being able to use public comment to turn to add it to the next board meetings agenda sometimes I feel like the fact that we can't act on public comment if we're deflecting people or hiding behind the policy I think perception is reality for a lot of community members and I think that can be perceived as us not being accountable to stakeholders in the community so back to the initial question how do you add public discussion to the board agenda well I see it as separate from public comment I think public comment certainly is informative about what is on people's mind but that particular process I think we don't mess with that I think because it's so short and then we ask people for you know three minutes but to really set aside a section on the agenda for and maybe you're right maybe it's from something in public comment the month before the trouble I have with that is the amount of time that passes when something's right for people but I also worry about something being brought up in public comment and then speaking about it in that same meeting that's also tricky so like Lane I think you touch on this and you do it yourself in open forum format so it's not necessarily an agenda item although we could put out a call for topics I suppose I think the logic just for context in terms of what Sam is saying is that you know with the open comment the reason that we don't respond is because we have an obligation to have on the agenda what's going to be discussed so people know to participate so if we pick up a discussion that comes from open comment that's not on the agenda other people might want to be weighing in in the community and they can't and so there is a logic behind okay you know if the board senses that this is something that you know we feel the thoughts are incomplete or there's things to dig into here it can always be it could be placed on another we've tried to talk with community members about is that you know if you have something that you want to talk with the board about you call up you know Linda and just say hey I'd like this on the agenda and then it'll be on the you know we have the pre-agenda meeting you know she'll put it on there and then you know the board chair and co-chair get to decide if it's something that stays or not at that point in time I'm not sure that's clear to the public in fact I know it's not clear to the public that's usually been verbal when people have asked how do I talk well this is the process so I think that we should be really loud with that to make sure people understand that they have that access to suggest things or request things from the agenda and so then in that section of the agenda that would become an open discussion where we respond to people saying I feel like this what are you doing about it and we say this is what we're doing this is what there is I think on a prescribed topic though that's what it's got to be clear what it's about so other people that might not have been interested in whatever else was going on the board meeting if they see this and it's powerful to them or a passion they can come in and say the piece I think having open discussion with people who are concerned about things is important because we talked about this at the last meeting now that this is like spurring my memory is that we just are silent and we don't say anything and it looks like we don't care or we don't know what we're doing or we're not engaged so I think that is a great thing how do we do that right I think there would have to be a lot of prepping for us just to remind ourselves that we speak as one you know it it would be tricky which I think is also it's hard for us to remember and it's hard to describe to the public but because we're not involved in operational decisions it doesn't mean we can't acknowledge and it doesn't mean we can't have an open discussion I just think that we'd have to be very present and verbal and transparent about what we can do and what we can say in terms of opinion you know we you know I always you know present it to the PHRA having you know develop a protocol that can be read at the beginning but the other one of the reasons that I like the open forum format and the listening sessions is that it's a two-way conversation so people will come at all the time you know good meaning incredibly well that I've heard this or heard that and it's nice to be able to have that conversation and say no you're spot on or while there's this perspective too that might you know might shape the context behind you know what you're hearing and I think those are important conversations because that can have a very settling effect on the community members as well you know at times it depends upon what the topic is but yeah and I think you know Lane offers things like that and I think if we offer something like that it will help to reinforce that while we are partners and we're working together we are also kind of independent bodies for the district which I think is important to reinforce so new agenda items will maybe be principles giving their us inviting the principles to so do we do one at a time or all of them the same night what do people think I think you mean a principle from each school is that what you mean all at once I think maybe one at a time because I think there's a lot more going on in one school maybe than another issues are different yep and I think that there would be a lot of information at once to process for everyone we have one at each meeting I think we could ask them what they prefer it might be helpful to have all the elementary yeah the best thing to do especially if there's you know ongoing conversations with the community is you know to tell them what you're interested in hearing about that's a way to start it and so they know what they're preparing for what they know to come in and talk with folks about sometimes you know they all have advisory councils that are up and running if the board doesn't have a specific topic that they might be interested in then you can kind of leave it to the the principles and what they can do is they can probably talk about the pertinent subjects that are coming up in their advisory discussions with their communities to make people more informed but it does help a little bit you know have an idea to frame kind of what you want them to talk about their communities being their teachers it includes teachers parents and students it might be more comfy for families and principals to do it up like their respective schools that we have the meetings at like you know like elementary when we're up there brookville brain tree because then you know as a principal trying to remember I usually I did a lot of presentations because we were doing a lot of change work but a typical year you know at a minimum would I would probably present three times but it was usually about it was about you know the school data it was about any kind of policy changes or things that we were working on that were big that we wanted a community input on you know we do those presentations at the board meeting there's kind of another avenue to get that input and that feedback so what are the things we want to hear about should we let the public decide but maybe by or maybe ask the principals like what is a hot topic that's come up at the school so hot topics curriculum what it's looking like I think some component of future I think is important for whether it be job placement or college placement or you know whatever it may be that next step I think that's a main point for the school or preparing for the future and I think that's probably a topic on people's minds the guidance department that's one thing that is easy to present I forgot what the document is called but they prepare a document every year that you know talks about where the kids are going to college you know what the basic test scores were and things like that and that's usually a good topic for discussion you can come in and talk a little bit about placements and what the future plans are of the students that are seniors and moving on out are they going directly in the industry so which industries are we connecting them with are they headed off to college are they headed off to a college level you know a technical center and so those are good things to have conversations about I wish to remember the name of that document it will come to me Sam for the high school would be like college that's looking like and then job placement and then maybe future for the elementary schools would be like transitioning to the high school like different transitioning into I don't know transitioning into kindergarten and first grade yeah with the beginning especially coming out of COVID yeah especially with the new preschools that we built um are you thinking of the school profile lane school profile you've got it you've got it awesome Katie I haven't worked at the high school level in a while so some of this stuff will lose me for a bit okay so what's our process here for getting this off the ground I think a couple things I think I just want to mention again that a lot of people don't know that they can request agenda items or request things that we talk about and I think that's linked with this because we'll want people engaged and to come and hear their principal can talk about the state of their school or a specific topic so I'm kind of piggybacking on your question how do we get that out there initially board could write a you know a quick little make a statement yeah this is a part of your ownership linkage yep I think this is a great idea so our next meeting is in Brookfield would it be possible to do you mean to Patty out there yeah David Roller be a part of our next meeting oh Brookfield that's a good point yeah I think that would be a great idea especially since he's retiring yeah and Kara is taking over so it would be a good opportunity even if it's just being able to provide her a venue for an introduction to the greater community Houston Kara Houston Kara Houston current assistant principal at RAS that's a great idea also this letter to the community thing I love too that this is something that will start to do and oh by the way you can write to Linda I don't mean to flood your inbox I just and what I do is if I get an email which I rarely do I forward it to the board chair there's only been a few times okay well but this is the kind of thing we need to compose and then everyone needs to approve it so can we do this before the next board meeting that's what subcommittees are for sorry about that Sam go ahead no that was exactly my question just going back to process as a new board member I when we make a public statement as our own board voice how do we go about that who writes that and how is it distributed I think I've ever done it before so this is kind of a new thing it's like forming a subcommittee the board takes a vote to empower somebody or a group of people to do the writing outlines what the expectations are when they feel they're complete they would bring that piece back to the full board and you vote on it and say yep we're in approval let's send it out so Sam in terms of process it is not possible for us to do this meeting unless we call a special board meeting to vote on the letter but what we can do is vote to create someone to write it not the clerk it seems a natural fit you'll take it's not your expectation Sam the other piece is there are resources you know Ben Merrill maintained our website for years and a fantastic job he's also a PR person so if that's an easy connection if you decide somebody just reach out to him he'll prepare it if you give him a basic statement he'll clean it up and get it good to go right so well let's is anyone interested in being someone to create a kind of base this is kind of sort of what we want to say is there someone interested in it or yes I can do that and what we're interested in saying is I'd also like to be okay so why don't you and me and Ben Merrill meet because he'll come up with something really good let's meet first okay so we can tell him what we're or is anyone else want to do this I think I don't think we need too many people no too many chefs in the kitchen to write something maybe just right now kind of shooting off the head what you want to well we can all be a part of what you want to include in this if we just have like a bulleted list then we can just send that out there is something to touch base on maybe we should just work on this this over the summer and then have the first kind of thing happen in September yeah that would make sense new year maybe we don't need to jump right on it but if you just if you decide that you want somebody to work on it that would be a vote okay board vote nomination okay so should we get the ball rolling forming that subcommittee okay so I nominate you move to create a subcommittee okay I move to create a subcommittee on drafting letters to the community regarding meetings adding public discussion public discussion adding public discussion with stakeholders in our community got that so good sorry did you get all the urrs and ums in there too but you're moving to create it and it includes who we do that all this subcommittee would include Chelsea and Hannah do I have a second thank you do you want to add that you would include Ben Merrill and Ben Merrill or you can the other way you can say it is and we authorize them to seek public relations person to help there you go okay I like that better second second thank you Sam all those in favor aye aye do we discuss it now like what we want in the letter so that we can or do you and I and then we decide then we have the letter written and we bring it back and everyone says this is good I want to add this I want to delete this and we do another one okay that will take all summer so that's great those opposed abstentions what is the agenda are we on 4.1 governing style policy 4.1 not 4 on the agenda I think they used up your timeline working statement not voting okay motion passes a second review of the N's report and N's presentation so I've got the N's presentation kind of queued up to go easiest thing is to interrupt and ask questions along the way the only problem for those of you that are out in the in the remote world there I don't get to see you too well if you're putting a hand up for things like that so don't be afraid just to speak up and ask a question I am going to apologize a little bit I typically refer to my notes considerably when I do the N's presentation because there are so many details in terms of data that I do not want to be off I want to make sure that it's as accurate as possible plus the fact that it also speeds up the presentation so I'm not going off on the edges to talk about this a little bit before we start and so I can kind of warn myself up there were discussions or comments earlier board meetings kind of from the community and I think some stuff on porch forum where folks were saying hey you know the district at the bottom in terms of performance and I was trying to dig in to figure out where they were getting that information and so what I found out is they were referring to the Newsweek polling Newsweek those rankings every year of schools and I've got to talk a little bit about that because I think there's some misconceptions about what that is and what that means and actually what it means for our district as a whole there are about 26,000 high schools across the United States Newsweek actually ranks about the top two thirds of those high schools we are in the rankings and I want to say that again we are in the rankings we've never been in the rankings before when I look back historically so that means we've moved up fairly significantly from wherever we were prior to and not only are we in the rankings but we're in the bottom third but we're not at the bottom and so that is a significant jump in terms of the school and district from where it started out 10 years ago or 7 years ago or 6 years ago that was an impressive achievement to be in those rankings that said Newsweek focuses primarily the biggest weight that they give in terms of their rankings is the percentage of students that are taking advanced placement courses and so typically bigger schools are going to do a little bit better in those rankings because they have more resources they're able to run more of those AAP programs but I just want to I think there were some misconceptions about based upon the statements that were made out there the Newsweek rankings for the first time this year we are in the rankings so that means we've had a significant improvement to be able to get there so after that little bit of a warm up in terms of the ends a couple of things I think it's important and a lot of this presentation is meant for folks that are viewing and folks that will actually be watching this on ORCA later we usually get about 300 to 400 people to do watch this these board meetings on ORCA so I'm going to probably provide a little bit more detail than the board needs so I apologize about that but it's just to make sure that other folks are connected the important thing here is to recognize that the ends that we're going to be talking about they really only focus on a limited set of data and it's just those data points that are required to measure achievement of the board's broad goals for the district so there's tons of other data that we could be looking at that we actually do within the district but if it's not related to the ends and showing our achievement towards them it is not going to be in this report so just as a caveat there in terms of meaningful data I think it's important to take a look at where the world has been and kind of where we're headed and it's real important to kind of understand the context of where we've been please remember that executive limitations report and ends reports they look back at the previous year and so the year that we're looking at tonight in terms of data is actually 2021-2022 now so look at the context of things 2018-2019 was the last normal year for testing so you're going to see data from them so that we can compare it to where we are now in 2019-2020 the state-wide testing in March of that year that is when COVID hit and the state was reacting and the nation was to something it had never seen before and so testing was canceled in 2020-2021 the district spent the entire year in either remote or hybrid instruction 2021-2022 which is last year the year of the data that we're looking at the state still had a lot of its quarantine protocols in effect and so that was the year where if you had enough kids that were out we had COVID snow days so the whole school was shut down we also had a lot of disruptions because of following those quarantine requirements where we might have to shut a class down within a building for five days and so it's important for folks to understand this context that this was a very disruptive time in terms of the data that we're looking at now I'm not setting this up to say the data is poor because it's not it's actually pretty good I'm setting this up to be able to commend the teachers and the faculty and the administrators for the work they did to have things come out as well as they did so again looks backwards since the district is primarily interested in improving student outcomes it's important to look at growth over time and to do that we've got to be able to compare the same data and it typically takes about three to five years to be able to generate a meaningful trend from the data points the state has kind of made that a little bit difficult because it's changed its testing parameters six times in the last eight years so if you kind of take a look at this in 2015 they moved off the old N the NECAP testing system to SBAC in 2018 they changed which grades were taking the statewide assessment the SBAC in 2019 they stopped using you know they started the Vermont science assessment which was a new science assessment in 2020 they didn't do testing at all because that was when the COVID pandemic hit 2022 which is the year that we're looking at they have still not released state level data it's still embargoed but what I was able to do was the secretary of education had gone and done a news conference in late January where he released preliminary data and so that's the data that this report refers to and we've got another change that is happening this very year that we are in the state is doing away with SBAC and the Vermont science assessment and moving to a new assessment called Cognia so again there is a little bit of an ability to look at the trend lines but it's made things really messy when they keep changing as much as they have for folks that are watching from the outside some basic definitions it's important to know when we're using the word ends those are the board's goals for the district right interpretations when we talk about those right now that's how the leadership team has chosen to define the board's goals in terms of what it is we are to achieve interpretations don't state how we're going to achieve that what they really do is they kind of state the measurements that we're going to collect in the data that we're going to collect to show that we've met these goals and interpretation is considered reasonable if what is being measured logically indicates success of the board's goals each interpretation also sets a threshold that defines the level of achievement that must be reached for the goal to be considered complete or in the policy governance in compliance as we've come out of the COVID pandemic we've set up district-wide teacher-based curriculum teams that we're working all this year and what they are doing right now is they are reinterpreting the ends which makes a lot of sense because the teachers after all are the content and learning experts and so their interpretations are incredibly important further their work in developing the ends that is going to state, you know, their success with the students also helps to increase their buy-in and it keeps the goals that they're shooting for kind of fresh in the forefront of their minds the overall policy goal the policy preamble sets the highest the most global standards in terms of what it means to be successful on the ends collectively on the board's goals this is because interpreting because of this interpreting the preamble provides an opportunity to develop the broad strategies we use to achieve the ends in terms of interpreting what that preamble means what we currently have developed is this idea that it means to have the knowledge, skills and tools to be prepared for the next stage of their lives in terms of the students and what that is it was actually clearly defined in the latter half of the 20th century when a nationwide initiative was funded by the federal government to research what skill students would need to be successful in the new economy that was unfolding which was based on digital information sharing and high technology the results of their research were codified into three different kind of plans here the first was the common core learning standards, the second was the next generation science standards and the third was the 21st century skills the common core and the next generation science standards represent content based academic knowledge and abilities while the 21st century skills represents processed based knowledge, things like analytical reasoning collaborative problem solving and effective communication the CC, the NGSS and the 21st century skills were chosen in this interpretation because they are critical in terms of preparing students to navigate the current rapidly evolving digital society the district is considered in compliance with the overall policy when two conditions are met when all mature ends are self-sustaining and when all critical ends are advancing towards their achievement threshold so we'll talk about what mature and critical means so the first kind of more specific goal that the board has charged the district with working on is critical thinking and critical thinking is really tied to 21st century skills and this is a mature end when it means again mature ends in general mean that we've kind of exceeded the success thresholds for at least three years and they're kind of self-sustaining on their own without a lot of additional input and resources from the district to keep them going so this is a mature end at this point in time how we've interpreted this and this was actually done with some work with the faculty at the time is the assessment is based upon student performance on the senior project and it was chosen as kind of the ideal means to measure this as it requires students to apply what they have learned across their Orange Southwest careers to solve unique problems further students must communicate their process and findings effectively using appropriate technology to explain their solutions because of this the senior project evaluates students on all the components related to critical thinking and is actually suited to measure achievement of this end so here is 2021-2022 data on student performance on the senior project graduating seniors who achieved proficient in all assess categories was at 100% 50% of the seniors actually got exceeds on one of the four categories one of the five categories 30% got exceeds scored exceeds on all five categories therefore I report that we are compliance on this provision foundational knowledge ends the board has established six foundational knowledge ends related to English, mathematics science, social studies, life skills and the arts three of those ends are a current focus for improvement efforts and therefore are called critical ends so what we're working on intensely in supplying significant resources towards those are critical ends and those critical ends right now are English, mathematics and science they were prioritized because they are the most visible to the outside world they drive the perceptions of the quality of our schools especially to new families moving into Vermont and lastly achievement in these three areas is required under federal law for the state and the district to continue receiving federal grant money foundational knowledge the board's end one to one calls for students to possess comprehensive knowledge of a core curriculum in the following areas reading, writing and communications right so this is really the English English end this is categorized as a critical end because the district is highly engaged in its achievement and significant resources have been dedicated to this work the English language SBAC was chosen to measure the attainment of this end because it's an objective measure it assesses student achievement on the common core language standards which include reading, writing and communication our performance relative to the state average was chosen as the threshold for success because Vermont is one of the few states that has equalized spending on education across its district because funding correlates to student achievement equal funding should also equalize student performance in other words all things being equal every district should perform about as well as every other district because funding has been equalized we have allowed for a three point variance from the state average because all assessments including the SBAC have measurement error measurement error is the total variance and scores that would be seen if the same students took the test several times in terms of the percentage of students reaching proficiency on the SBAC type exam that variance typically amounts plus or minus three percentage points so kind of orient ourselves to the graph that's here first the blue line represents the percentage of our students in grades three to nine who have achieved proficiency on the English SBAC the orange line represents the same data for the state and when you look at this three things are obvious we are currently beating the state by about five percentage points students are performing better now than they were prior to COVID and our scores have been rising while the states have been falling and that occurred during the years of COVID when doing any of this work was incredibly difficult and so I've got to put the commendation out to the faculty for all the work that was done on this as well as our curriculum directors since we've exceeded the state average this provision is in compliance if we look at this data by grade this graph shows how we are doing relative to the state at each grade level in English for example 14% more of the district's fifth graders are achieving proficiency in English compared to the state as a whole the only grade where the state is outperforming us is grade seven but we have been catching up over time in 2019 the last year before COVID grade seven trailed the state by 21 percentage points currently trailing by eight so there has been significant improvement they're catching up pretty quickly and they did it during difficult conditions boards and one to two calls for students to possess comprehensive knowledge of a core curriculum in mathematics the mathematics SBAC was chosen because it too objectively assesses student achievement on the common core learning standards which were interpreted as vital to compliance with this overall policy now behind this interpretation is the same as that that was discussed for the English end math the trend line shows that the OSSD stayed steady in terms of mathematics achievement while the state declined markedly during the COVID pandemic further our students are currently performing better than they were pre-pandemic the OSSD is currently outperforming the state by six percentage points this is the first year looking back as far as I could look that the district has outperformed the state in math it should be noted that in 2021 there was an anomaly in the scores from Randolph elementary school that bought our total district score down RES scores dropped dramatically in 2021 and then jumped back up to an even higher level than prior to in 2022 we were unable to find the reason for the drop but the quick return to high scores implies that this was not due to an actual loss of knowledge by the students it seems like something quirky actually went on with the testing of the scoring of the tests but that drop for 2021 should not have been that low again that was an anomaly in terms of and I think this one is impressive and there's a line here I'm going to read twice those how we are doing relative to the state at each grade level in mathematics for example 34% more of the district's fourth graders are achieving proficiency in mathematics compared to the state as a whole and why that is important as we had a discussion earlier this year when we just had to track my progress and start at 360 data to look at that the two most difficult grades across the nation historically been that way with state testing to have high performance are grades 4 and grade 7 and so again 34% higher than the state grades 7 and 9 are underperforming the state by an average of 6 percentage points but that gap has been narrowing quickly in 2019 prior to COVID those same grades were underperforming the state by an average of 19 percentage points this is a significant improvement over time they are moving in the right direction rather quickly and again these improvements occurred during COVID during difficult times science the board's end one two three calls for students to possess comprehensive knowledge of science the Vermont science assessment was chosen again because it objectively assesses student achievement on the next generation science standards which were interpreted as vital to compliance with the overall policy the rationale behind the interpretation is the same as that discussed for English and mathematics as the testing instrument is similar in this graph you can see the percentage of OSSD students who achieve science proficiency over the past four years three of which were impacted by COVID versus the state of Vermont the trend line shows that the OSSD science performance has been improving over time relative to the state further we are currently within three percentage points of the state average therefore I report compliance the board's foundational knowledge ends in social studies life skills and the arts were all what we called perspective ends meaning that they were not previously a part of the district's improvement efforts due to the fact that limited resources were focused on ELA math and science they have been upgraded this year to critical ends we were able to acquire the resources needed in the last budget cycle to begin work and earnest on all three of these areas this year the curricular teams have been working on developing and revamping the curricular for these disciplines and interpreting what it means to have foundational knowledge in them most of that work is nearing completion next year they will focus on developing the measures they will use to assess compliance there's not a lot of real standardized tests and things that are out there for these disciplines and so the departments are actually going to be working on creating their own assessment systems primarily rubrics and so that's their work for next year so these are currently in the works there was a significant amount of work that was done on them this year social studies they have focused in on assessing the students in terms of having foundational knowledge and what they're calling document based questions which is actually a really good measure document based questions or dbqs are an essay type that's used by the advanced placement exams typically in social studies they're fantastic because they require students to analyze an issue or topic with the aid of primary and secondary sources they do a very good job of furthering student social study knowledge as well as critical thinking communication skills by requiring them to create strong theses and support those theses with the aid of source materials to analyze source materials for characteristics such as authors point of view the authors purpose intended audience validity and context to identify themes and contrast differences and to bring in outside knowledge to strengthen their arguments so this is the interpretation that the social studies department is revamped this year life skills we had a series of listening sessions to determine pretty much what the basic skills the OSSD community felt were essential and it was determined that the best way to deliver these skills was through the resurrection of a course called on your own that a lot of alumni here spoke quite fondly of and it had been a mandatory staple here for students until about a decade ago the prospective teacher Deb Larry has agreed to update the course curriculum using the essential skills identified during the listening sessions and it should be noted that many of the critical skills that the community identified are already embedded in current courses those that are not or which cannot easily be embedded are the focus of this initial course this is a work in progress that initial course will be up and running in the fall but during the next school year 2023-2024 the district is going to evaluate the course rollout and the impact that it has on students and then budget willing we intend to create a series of semester courses that are taken at three different grade levels that focus on the skills that are most pertinent to a specific age of student so for example for grades seven and eight the focus is going to be on study and executive functioning skills right to set them up for success during their high school years in grades nine and ten we shift the focus to the social transitions that they're going through and so the course would focus on social interactions and taking care of oneself in grades eleven and twelve that course would focus on kind of financial literacy personal financial literacy interview and application skills to get them prepared for you know entering the job market or applications for college yep that first group life skills that age group is that like learning to use the daily planner and stuff like that this is how you set up to study when you are learning vocabulary here are some strategies that might work for you to really you know memorize those words if you are dealing with what we call process you know like a cycle this is the best strategy to use so we're going to have you practice it and so those types of study skills so the students are really prepared to be independent as they do their academic work and so that they're ready for those that go to college that they've got the skills that they can just hit the ground running know what they need to do to be successful those will be seven and eight and again grade seven we talked about how grade four and grade seven those are kind of critical years because students perform poorly the reason they typically perform poorly in across the nation on the state testing is because there's dramatic changes in terms of the expectations that are placed on them in terms of you know the amount of content they're exposed to and the difficulty of the content seven is usually the worst so it makes sense to really make sure they've got the skills to hit the ground running in seventh grade and then hopefully carry it straight on through the high school and I love Deb Deb is incredibly excited about being able to resurrect this and do this work so the intent is to make these courses mandatory for graduation starting with a yet to be determined class it'll probably be the class of 2025 or 2026 so the course will the first course will roll out next year the year after that hopefully we can get the other two courses in place you know it'll probably mean bringing on another staff member which is fine if this is a priority and then making sure that we started as a graduation requirement with a class that has enough time to actually get it under their belts before they graduate so it's in pretty good stead I'm really excited about some of the work that was done on this the fine arts department is another department that's kind of starting a little bit from scratch and they've done a really really good job this work so I'm going to read some of what they said in their own words the fine arts provides students with social emotional learning and gives them an outlet to process and regulate complicated emotions through creative expression and group collaboration through theater art and music students will produce evidence that shows a firm grasp of expertise and dexterity proof of this is demonstrated as performance presentations and displays assessing in this way gives students an opportunity to collaborate with their peers and also express themselves individually these public facing displays and events allow for a greater degree of community engagement and support in terms of transferable skills critical thinking and adaptability in the arts engages problem solving and growth through the development of new physical and visual skills critical thinking isn't just about solving a problem or strategizing for an end result it is teaching students to think intellectually, ethically, and creatively for the best possible outcomes next year the fine arts department again they're in a position they have to create their own assessment tools so they'll be working on creating rubrics and calibrating rubits that are based on the national core art standards so a lot of info short so I apologize but are there any new art classes being offered in the near future? we have been talking about bringing on AP music in terms of the AP curriculum certain courses hold more prestige than others you know calculus based AP physics you know kind of being the pinnacle the one that is closest to that amazingly is AP music then we have kids that are skilled enough and capable enough to be able to do that work so that is a focus that we're trying to bring on board and nothing in terms of art has been reduced or eliminated there's been some rumors about that you know in the last couple of years and that has not happened so yeah it's a strong program and we've got a really good crew down there doing some amazing work is there like drawing one drawing two like all those classes? yeah you know one of the things and this is a discussion for the art department but it might require additional staffing if you have a district or if you have a high school where you have a lot of students that are interested in going off the graphics designer going off to an art school itself typically what you want to do is structure courses so that students can build a portfolio because that's how they're assessed to actually get into those schools and those portfolios require the students to work in all the different media so right there's the charcoal drawings there's the painting there's the sculpture at a minimum that those art schools you know want to be able to evaluate finished products from the students if they're considering them you know for a competitive school so if that becomes a focus of the district a focus of the community that would be the way to build it and construct it the board's end 1.3 calls for students to be adaptable resilient and able to manage change this end is fairly complex so it requires multiple data sources to ensure that information from all students contributes to the evaluation of compliance and so we start off with the idea in terms of adaptability that the capability for a student to manage the demands of the day-to-day changes that all of us face is really reflected in our ability to be consistent and dependable when it comes to our attendance something that we talked about at the RTCC meeting a little while ago therefore attendance is a valid means of measuring a person's ability to adapt to the temporary changes that affect their routines the magnitude of change that students face as they progress through their middle and high school years is immense they transition from children to adults physically emotionally and intellectually and they transition from being dependent to being independent their ability to successfully navigate these challenges and changes is easily measured by the percentage who make it through to graduation in four years making a district graduation rate an effective measure of their adaptability the only problem we have with this data source is the state has not provided us with graduation rates for that year at this point in time that said our graduation rates have always been among the highest in the state this faculty has always done an exceptional job of ensure our attendance rates are actually quite high you'll see that in a minute has always done a very good job of being a kind and accepting place for kids so they like being here so they show up they stick through to graduation in terms of bullet three on the slide in general students with disabilities often need assistance identifying and internalizing strategies for learning that allow them to compensate for the effects of their disabilities the act of learning those strategies and using them effectively enough to either no longer need an IEP or to move along the continuum towards being on a less restrictive IEP is by its very definition adaptation data on average daily attendance is skewed a little bit in twenty twenty two due to the impact of covid remembering that during that year districts were still required to quarantine students right they had the quarantine requirements that were in place and as a result had to shut down either entire classes or schools as covid infections kind of fluctuated throughout based on our calendar students must miss no more than seventeen point seven days per year for the district to be in compliance even in the midst of the pandemic with all students attending in person where exposure was the highest the district was in compliance with this standard so at least that provision of this this part of the end we can report compliance in terms of student IEPs the graph shows the percentage of the students overall population that is served by an IEP the state average has not been updated recently but historical trends place it at about fourteen percent which is closely aligned with the historical national average there's some quirky data especially in twenty twenty one a lot of things actually were happening there was a surge of new students at the elementary level between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two and a high majority of those new students coming in were on IEPs which skewed this data a bit regardless the overall trend of our IEP population over time is downwards you can see that by the blue line in addition we had a lot of regular education students who chose to homeschool during twenty twenty one to avoid exposure to covid and so if you have a group of students that are on IEPs even if the number of students on IEPs doesn't change if the remainder of the population shrinks because they're homeschooling you're going to see a surge in this number even though we don't have more IEP students and that's kind of what's happening what you're seeing in the data and standards and compliance because the percentage of students on IEPs as a percentage of the overall population is declining over time in terms of IEP severity this one is a little bit different so the above graph shows the average severity rating of students on IEPs a higher number indicates a greater level of service being provided the scores can range between one and six but an IEP score higher than four is a very rare occurrence therefore most of the numbers are going to fall in a range between one and four as we kind of talked about a little while ago there was a surge of new students on IEPs entering the district between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two primarily at the elementary level which resulted in the increased scene in twenty twenty two many of those incoming students needed a high level of services and these were students new to the district the other thing that we're noticing is that we have expanded our preschool program right full day for all four year olds for free and that program is serving more and more students over time and we're finding that the incoming preschool students have a high percentage of IEP needs those needs increase and have been increasing with every new class that we get currently approximately thirty to thirty five percent of incoming preschool students are in need of IEP services this standard is in compliance again because the percentage of students on IEPs is declining overall this interpretation has got to be updated next year to not include students on IEPs who move in during the course of the school year because it skews our data we really only want to be looking at students in the district that we had a full year with because that's evaluating the effectiveness of our programs right if you come in and you're in the data pool and we've never worked with you before that's telling us nothing about whether the programs we're putting in a place to achieve this end is working so if we only look at students that have been with us for a year or more under our programs we're going to get more meaningful data digital literacy is an easy one boards end 0.4 expects that students use and apply information technology appropriately effectively and objectively we interpret this as meaning all students will use a Chromebook computer or tablet in a development developmentally appropriate manner as the primary means of producing, managing, enhancing and delivering their school related work in terms of the rationale for this interpretation since the board description of this end relates to digital literacy it made sense to use the American Library Association's definition of digital literacy as the guide to what constitute compliance how they worded is it's the ability to use information and communication technologies, ICTs to find, evaluate create and communicate information the interpretation is therefore reasonable because it embodies all the components of the ALAs definition the American Library Associations best way to measure the acquisition of a defined skill or defined skills such as these is to require the effective use of that skill set by switching to a one-to-one model as a district is done which requires students to use ICT devices as the primary means of learning and engagement each student every day demonstrates compliance with this end and again I apologize a lot of information but I'm happy to answer questions or expand thoughts if there are any of course the board had an opportunity to read the report what are the different kinds of ends critical end? there's critical, mature and perspective, we don't have perspective anymore critical ends are the ones that we are actively working on putting in a lot of intense effort in directing a lot of district resources towards and that's ELA science and math but it's also your social studies and arts and life skills because we acquired money in the budget to be able to go after those two at the same time and that happened last year so this is just a continuation that work in terms of they converted to critical ends at the beginning of this year and the faculty have been working on getting them up to where they need to be so they got one more year for the most part because they got to develop the assessment tools how they're going to be able to show that the kids are progressing towards the achievement threshold and mature end? mature end means that we've dedicated a lot of time and effort to them and they are currently above their achievement threshold and they've been above their achievement threshold for more than three years they're kind of self-sustaining you put a lot of effort to get things where you want them to be once they're there you can usually pull some of the resources off because that achievement will continue because it's a part of the culture and we're not there yet but the one that we are with is digital literacy there's a couple of them and I can send this around so people can take a peek at right ability to adapt is a critical end we're actually in year two we actually this is one we developed from scratch prior to COVID but we're in year two of that arts, life skills, social studies they're in the process of developing their assessment tools critical ends are math science and ELA but they're getting there and improving towards getting where they need to be and again we don't know what Cognia is going to tell us it was a difficult rollout because it happened under short circumstances I don't know whether it's true or not but there's a lot of concerns that those testing tools were created in a short period of time and may not be tied to common core next generation science standards the way they should be so it'll be interesting to see what happens when they release that data the kids are doing that testing right now there'll be a lot of information that comes out when we see that data was the test valid if it was, what is it indicating for us I talked to Crystal about it the sounds of it is October my sneaking suspicion is that they are going to do what they did during the Vermont Science Assessment rollout the first year that they rolled it out they released individual student data because we have to supply that to parents every year this is how your kid performed but they did not release school level or state level data because they said this was a trial year to work the bugs out so this very well may end up being we'll get the student data because under federal law parents have to have that sheet in their hands for us to be in compliance and get our federal grants but they may say that this is a trial year and they may not release the school level and the state data so we'll have to just kind of wait and see the projections I got from Crystal and again they're taking their best guesses is October for student level data and I think she said potentially as late as February on state and school level if they decide that they're going to distribute it but as the what's interesting is the other groups all the departments that are associated with those foundational ads are reinterpreting their ends statements and their interpretations so that will be different next year when you see this you saw two of them in the report where they're headed but many of them recognizing the discombobulation of the state testing system they might use that as a data point but they're bringing in some local stuff I mean we have tracked my progress with the state assessment so you're going to see in the next end reports that they've decided to rely on different data that's a little bit more consistent so that's been some good conversations that they've been having it's been fun to hear what they're coming up with and they've got some really good ideas thank you laying your throat most hurt it's just a lot of data to try to pack in and I apologize for reading that keeps me more concise yeah it was great and thorough and I appreciate it so this is our second review so next meeting we'll vote to accept or not that's the case maybe for discussion of RUHS and RTCC this is something that had come up in a previous meeting thinking about having a subcommittee to start investigating what a rebuild would look like physical rebuild facilities of this specific facility the tech center in the high school and so we had kind of touched on that a little bit we talked a little bit this complex was identified as the complex the end of its useful life by the state when it was doing its survey work a year or so ago as they were kind of investigating bringing back in a construction fund and so what I'm proposing is I'm thinking about this that the board if you're willing after discussion and some thought given the state of things given that this is like we use the example of a used car that's old that every month you've got the big bill coming in for something that you've got to replace that either you create potentially a subcommittee or charge the admin team to begin a study that would include at least three components and the first one that I identified was just community discussions on the topic and I want to say this next piece twice so that people don't freak out part of the community discussion because of rebuilding like this if we were to run forward with it might happen once in a hundred years and I am not advocating for consolidating the district but I think it's a conversation that needs to occur if we're thinking about potentially new construction which is do we have a central campus you know do we build like a building that's got a central structure where all the common areas are that can be used with wings that go off you know one wing that's high school one wing that's elementary school you know that's a possibility and to study what the savings might be if we do that over you know running separate buildings again I want to be very clear I'm a look in the camera when I say this I'm not advocating that we do that but I think it would be a lack of due diligence not to at least have the discussion if we're potentially looking at a once in a hundred year possibility of reconstructing this site and so that would be the first piece of the study group the second piece would be to get some professionals in to kind of investigate possible sites to see where it actually is possible to build while we keep this site active because the kids will still need to be learning while construction happened and then maybe to connect with an architectural firm to start to draw up some potential plans based upon what we're getting out of the community discussions this is it can be a fairly costly process so people need to know that in terms of a study especially with the architectural piece involved you know this this might be a hundred thousand hundred and fifty thousand dollar process but it is the first step it would be required you know if you know we decided at some point in time in the communities did that we wanted to move forward with it we've got 2.2 million sitting in our facilities reserve fund right now so there is more than enough money to be able to do that study if we wanted to do it so I'll shut up for a little while and if folks have thoughts how much does a new school typically cost didn't you say it was like depends depends what we do you know if we consolidate if we keep it separate I would again off the cuff thinking about Burlington and the work that they're doing there which is a much bigger complex than ours I would probably say you're talking hundred and fifty to hundred and seventy five million depending upon what you do but if the state through construction aid so here's a couple of things to investigate if this state through construction aid is going to pay for half of that or more or a little less you know is that an opportunity that we would want to let pass by we should know more about that by the next legislative session but if it costs seventy five million and we have two million it's not it's a big gap well the other possibility and the other reason to potentially think about consolidation is right you know it would have to go out to bond which means we take out a loan and we've got to pay on the loan but if we consolidate there might be enough savings from that to more than cover you know the increased cost each year what we've got to pay on the loan so again there's that money piece that's in there right if because we've consolidated we're not paying as much because we're running one main building instead of you know three separate ones or four separate ones however you want to look at it there's going to be some savings there they could be significant enough to cover the cost of the bond that we take out we literally just finish paying off Randolph Elementary I think it was two years ago they went out to bond on that I don't remember what the cost was at the time so I think it's a good idea to have the first be the community discussion where you decide who the school is actually for yeah yeah and again I'm not advocating for one there's pros and cons to every to each piece having community elementary schools is an American tradition it's just it's across the country that's just how it's done and so that's a thing that's hard for people in giving up and it makes sense but it's you know those are the types of rich discussions I think we should have because if we don't you know we do the construction it'll be another hundred years before you could consider you know that possibility Sam did you have something did you start talking yeah I do have something to say I think it would be prudent as we navigate this topic and concept to look at existing infrastructure as well we we mentioned talked about this briefly in the art DC meeting just prior about VTCs complex up in the center so that would be one point that I had the second point would just be around energy efficiency and the future of I mean 100 year school make sure we can fuel it so yeah there's a lot of the discussions we touched on this at the tech center would be you know going full solar for the heating and cooling you know using heat pumps to actually do that so that's a reduced cost don't quote me when I was doing research on it probably just before covid hit you know that was a 300 to $400,000 a year savings if we did something like that the problem was is at that time you could only generate so much electricity from from your own site and it wasn't enough to even come anywhere close to covering our full needs those laws may have been loosened those regulations may have changed if we could you know build a solar panel site that would cover our full electrical needs and our heating and cooling needs that would be a significant savings again so that you know we're not having to ask for taxpayers to pony up more so that we're paying off a bond well for sure we should not leave any stone unturned when looking at the different options that's why the studies you know there's certain conversations that you know we or the board could have a community but we want to get some professionals that know all the ins and outs and what's possible and what can be done to to do the study with us would be important so what are you looking for here like a committee to form or well if there's an interest in terms of the board first off to investigate this because you are the representatives of the communities I do know when I mentioned it an open forum or two at the beginning of the school year it was thumbs up by everybody that was there and then decide what process you want to use do you want to have a subcommittee of the board that oversees this and runs this or do you want to charge you know Heather and I and a couple of the other administrators I can pull in and the facilities directors to kind of start this work or a combination yeah does the do you guys have bandwidth it feels like not a small project to just begin investigating it I personally do feel it is necessary to start that process but it sounds like there will need to be an appropriation of some money to move out of that two million reserve to look at this but does the board have bandwidth to do that and does the administration have bandwidth to do that that is just my only concern about making a motion right now hey Wes are you there I see your picture these are one of our co-facilities directors he is probably eating dinner but no he was he literally is at this meeting because he was excited about the potential of being able to get started the same thing with Bob Warling our other co-facilities director about potentially doing this work because they are the ones that are cleaning up the things that aren't working every day so they have got a pretty good indication of what is what so I think the facilities directors it will be a lot of work but the community discussions and things that is not going to be much additional because it is just integrated into what we already do I already meet monthly with the community I meet monthly with the staff with the listening sessions now and so those discussions can just be you know be refocused to this purpose so that is not a lot of extra the study components of it would require outside professionals to come in and actually do those things you know walk our grounds you know see if the soil and what not is right out there if we wanted to build in the backfield or if there is a better location that we should pursue they would also be vital to going up and you know we have the conversation with Vermont Tech to go in and inspect those facilities and give us an idea of what shape they are in and be able to produce because regardless of the shape that they are in they are going to need to be modified a little bit to our purposes what that cost would be so that we can have some cost comparisons between building new and potentially purchasing up there if they even have it available and like we talked about at our TCC I know that Vermont Tech did a lot of deferred maintenance right there is a lot of work and maintenance that they didn't do on those buildings because they couldn't afford it you know what does that mean in terms of additional you know input of capital that we'd have to do to get them up to our needs I really like the Vermont Tech possibility but again we'd have to get some really hard numbers you know it's one thing to build new on existing property it's another to buy the property and then have to do the construction anyway on top of it but yeah there will be some kind of committee formed to just start the discussion with Vermont State Colleges and like you know whatever looking at all the different things the VTC has always been very accommodating when we ask questions even ones like this so it's easy enough to reach out so is there an appetite for yeah I think you so I don't know how everybody else feels I feel like I'm doing all the talking tonight well there was nodding so it was silent talking I saw a nod up there some in here it makes the most sense to me that it would be a combined committee committee Sam you were hesitant though to vote on on creating one is that no I am I think I believe the right step in the process to make a motion to develop a committee that is both comprised of board input and administration input to start the process to communicate with the community on the prospect I and then I think from there we should figure out the money side of it and bring in the expertise and what's needed next so that's my two cents and I can regurgitate that into a motion if people want being the board representative on that committee or is there someone else in the room who might be interested in that I would be happily interested in that if other people wanted being on that is there a motion in there for anyone I move that we form a committee to start the process of looking at a new facility with Sam administration possible staff possible community members members Sarah seconds any more discussion all those in favor aye opposed abstentions okay let's try to rapid fire through these first review of EL 2.7 compensation and benefits any anything to no basically that that's the final EL report for this cycle basically it's looking and kind of putting parameters around how we determine compensation and benefits for like non unionized employees and the contracts that we connect with and a lot of it is making sure that what we are offering is fair and competitive but not excessive right based upon you know what the comparables are about I report compliance in terms of what's in there right now happy to ask questions this time or next time around about it does anyone teacher salaries so teachers are unionized so no we have some folks that are on special contracts like some of our social workers and things if you don't hold an AOE license you're not typically in your professional you're not typically in the union we've got like our drug and alcohol secession person that works with us if we contract out with like Lodge and Astor something like that to do work here if we contract out we have a BCBA that's out in Colorado that does work for us it's making sure that what we're providing them for salary is fair and competitive but not excessive part of it too if you kind of read between the lines is making sure that you know as superintendent or as a business manager as a district that we're not showing favoritism you know oh you're a friend so I'm going to pay you 10 grand more than I would anybody else there's that aspect of it too so this is the first reading are there more questions thank you name how about a legislative update so yeah so that was the primary focus of the superintendent's report was there so there wasn't a lot changed with the exception of two bills that they're working on since kind of the last time we talked in April the first is the state is kind of seeking to create legislation around school safety in response to the hoax calls that came out you know a few months back and the safety that they're looking at is in terms of you know processes and procedures for controlling entry into buildings as well as making sure that districts have a well defined threat assessment system so right you get a report that you know you have a student that may have a gun or maybe a shooter you know what are the steps that you go through to evaluate whether there's a real risk there and what your response is going to be the reality is is it's not bad legislation but all schools have this stuff anyway at this point in time and just to put it out there so that our community knows our threat assessment protocols were redone in 2021 I went down it did some work and had a training with an actual FBI director and then our threat assessment protocol was based upon their research so we got a pretty solid one we don't share it much because we don't want people to be able to navigate around the protocols that we put into place but we have used it has been quite effective the other piece was just more of an interest is that recently they are talking about putting together a study committee to take a look at the impact of the standards based report cards in the graduation proficiencies that they ordered all schools to put into place about five years ago there's been a lot of pushback from a lot of communities that it's confusing it's not you know as effective there's Wes I didn't do it we had a question for you you're on line too and so what'll go ahead what'll happen with it is you know it might end up that we go back to the old A, B, C, D F grades depending upon you know what the result of the study is so those are just 1, 2, 3, 4 now 1, 2, 3, 4 kind of means the same thing in a sense it's easy to figure out though because of the GPA stand so in high school it's so much easier when it's like that proficient, not proficient all those in between the state because the superintendent's group has talked about it the problem with the standards based grading is it can be very time intensive for the teachers right because you know if you got 112 standards in your class and you've got a rate every kid on every standard that can be a lot of time and then the question is the amount of time that the teachers are putting in to do this work commensurate with the benefit that we get from it and so I'm on the side that I think it takes too much time for the teachers to do and that time could be better spent on other things on behalf of kids but there are a lot of very strong proponents for it and they have good arguments you know it's it really spells out you know what the kids are supposed to learn keeps it at the forefront of their mind yeah so there's you know there's good arguments on both sides so those are those are the two biggies great thank you moving on to the consent agenda and let's not forget that there are a couple of additions professional contracts there are actually three administrator one and there's an added facilities reserve request for the gym floor actually all the administrators the current administrators are in there the new administrator is the one I just say got it okay thank you thank you can we do this as a whole this consent agenda does anyone have edits to the minutes for example before we oh yeah did we vote that at the beginning we may not well not just the reserve we had talked a little bit about given the time of year it is usually this year the board considers a vote to give me the authority to sign people to contracts just because it gets real competitive I don't remember if we added that or not if not we can do it at the next meeting we didn't yeah so no that's okay we'll do it at the next meeting it's funny that you reminded me about five minutes before the meeting started still in non-minute it's my fault don't stress okay thank you can I have a motion I was just going to say I'll move to approve the consent agenda with the addition of the additional contracts and the reserve the reserve fund whatever I added before yes all together I'll second that thank you Sarah any more discussion all those in favor they say aye those abstentions right it passes in closing anything to add your report well it was pretty much the legislative update financials we're doing really well we're well in the black did anyone spot anything they have questions for laying about um Katya is not here I do know for a fact that gift cards are being yeah we sent a message out to the staff thanking them on behalf of both admin and the work from the board talked about the gift cards and then we also did service pins for them at the end of the week we move today we're in the process of moving today so yeah you get a break from that I just had one thing on the gift cards I talked with my accountant about the legality of expiration dates and it is true you cannot they can't have an expiration date but they can be for the business owners who ask questions about that they can do a journal entry adjustment 1231 and move it as revenue but the because the gift card is currency it cannot have expiration so just that's the only thing there if anybody asks about that or I don't know what we ended up deciding on that front but yeah I don't think they have one although one of the businesses today hoped we could put a couple months because she felt that she forgot to use them so but anyway I don't think it's on there the district can't but that's on businesses if they want to try to put one on there so I didn't argue get over action items recap we formed a couple of subcommittees today so for instance Chelsea and I need to meet with Ben Sam thank you for being on the subcommittee to start looking at maybe investigating yeah great okay this is a long one I'm sorry guys I did not do good at time management today well I screwed it up so we do have an executive session a couple of topics Sam do you have the link you're finding the link I can send it out again I have the link I'm trying to find my meeting notes so go ahead keep going I got it do I have a motion to go into executive session second thank you Megan thank you Sarah can I get this hi who did what there Megan moved that we go into executive session it's 817 Sarah seconded and you want either of us there ah that was not moved do you want to amend your motion yes I would like to amend by motion and who am I to include them for litigation okay so I am amending and I would like to include Lane and Heather for litigation thank you and I second that with no action to be taking I will entertain a motion to adjourn so moved thank you for seconding Sarah all those in favor I adjourned