 So I'll move that we adopt the minutes of the December one school safety and police relations committee meeting. I second. Great. So I'll just do roll call in the order that you appear on my screen. So, Tony. Will. Hi, Catherine. Hi, Amanda. Mia. Susan. Hi. Eliana. Hi. Edie. Hi. Joan. Hi. Zach. Hi. Okay. So for the first part of the agenda, I wanted to just sort of reground ourselves in the guiding principles and agreements that we came up with at the first meeting. And so. Eliana, are you willing to read through those and guide that part of the agenda? I was going to, I just don't actually know where they are. I was, I just didn't know if he could like reshare them or something. I'm going to just share my screen and project them for everyone to see as you're reading along. Can everyone see those. So it looks like we have ensuring students are ensuring that students are a central focus throughout the work. I think we've been holding to that pretty well. Prioritizing people who come to the most impacted communities. Well rounded group of stakeholders with both formal and informal decision making power. Building in time for relationship and trust building. Establishing an honor group agreements throughout the work. Identified shared values around safety to inform the community's recommendations and incorporating opportunities to discuss and analyze relevant research and data. Listen for understanding and not to respond. Speaking your truths respectfully. Whenever possible at the first voice and responsive question be from a person historically marginalized in our culture, including youth indigenous people, people of color LGBTQ people and women. Taking space and making space so sharing air time. All ideas get a fair hearing on our intentions and intent intent and tend to impact. Avoid jargon personal story share breakouts are confidential unless you have permission to share them and stay present. Any discussion on that do people want to reflect at all on our principles and agreements. I just want to say thank you for the reminder to stay present, which is a good one for me at the end of a busy day. Like it's a good, good time to look back at those especially as we start to like finalize what we're trying to do here I think it's easy to sort of get lost in in what we're doing and it's good to remind like why we're here. I just want to clarify one of them which was the one around honoring intentions and and then the thing about impact. Oh thanks yeah for resharing what numbers at six. I think that's meant to be honor intentions and attend to impact ATT and is that right that's how I've seen that one before that just the idea that we honor that we're all, you know we have trust and honor that we're holding good intentions for how we show up in this and when we've impacted someone else in the group in a way that perhaps we didn't intend to that we attend to that impact right that we give attention to it and do what we can to make amends and give attention to the impact that might have happened even if you know, especially if it was unintentional. Does that sound right. I'm seeing some nodding hands. That's what I think we agreed on I think it was just a type of. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify great. I actually tried to edit the document but I don't have editing privileges so Keisha is listening and maybe she can just go and edit that word for us. She says will do. Oh my goodness. Is it a, is there a birthday. I'm seeing in the chat. Joan, is it your birthday today. It is. Wow. Well, thank you for joining us on your birthday. Oh my God. Happy birthday Joan. It's safe to sing. We're separated. That's I'll I'll I see I can hear you singing in the air. That's so happy to follow your lead will on a birthday song. I really want to it'll probably sound terrible because there'll be a slight amount of lag. So there's pretty much no chance we'll all be in unison. Which might be hilarious but would probably just be terrible for all the musicians among us so I'm happy to just have the singing imagine the singing surrounding me. Thank you. All right, so the next part of the agenda is just to give an overview of what the plan is for tonight. So, we're going to do a reflection on the process sort of where we've, you know, where we've been what the intention with the charge where we're at right now and sort of what the future holds for the next few months. And we're going to look at the questions that everybody came up with and thank you so much for taking your time to write some really thoughtful questions and it was I think everyone has access to the comment the responses there, but it's been really interesting to read through everybody's questions so we're going to do a breakout room and review the questions by column and then try to put them into categories in the breakout rooms, based on who we think would be best for the committee to hear from in terms of an answer to those questions. Let's talk into the main room and talk about that process and kind of look at the spreadsheet. I can do another screen share of the spreadsheet what it looks like. Let's see here. So, can everybody see that. The spreadsheet this is this is the responses so all of your all of the questions that you plugged into that Google form are now here under these five columns. So, I was just thinking that I would assign five random breakout rooms and depending maybe I can just do for depending on how many people end up per breakout room, because some people left question five blank. And then the idea would be to start to start to go through and drop the questions into these tabs down below. And I've come up with a couple of tabs just based on reading through the questions so some of them are obviously, you know should be answered by superintendent council. Some of them are are more directed towards other MRPS staff. Some of them really need to be answered by the Montpelier police department. Some should be answered by students or community members. Some of them seem to be maybe would be appropriate to be answered by other schools, maybe principles or other school districts. And then I left a category for experts organizations and other. So, and in each spreadsheet there's, you can drop the question in here, and then sort of brainstorm who might be the best person to answer this question. And then when we come back together as a group we can start talking about potentially sharing the workload of going out to these people to gather the answers. There was some discussion around how much public testimony we should be bringing into the committee and how many people we have time to like listen to. And so one idea that we had was potentially going out, seeking answers to the questions and just bringing the answers back and that the people don't necessarily need to come to the committee. And I think for future work down the road. In January through March for that level of work, it would be good to hear from people if they're willing to come and talk to us and present to us. But I think for the sake of, you know, the first step could be just to go out, ask people the answers, get answers to the questions and then bring them back to the committee. So, Amanda, like you had talked about gathering some feedback from the social workers and guidance counselors and I noticed that some of the questions were definitely directed towards that group of people. So it's possible that you could be our liaison to get those questions answered by the social workers and guidance counselors and then just bring those answers back that the social workers and guidance counselors themselves wouldn't necessarily have to attend the meeting. Okay. And we'll come back and we'll talk about. Yeah, I just had one little little thought that some of the questions look like we might want to find multiple sources for responding to them so that just to keep that in mind when we do our breakout groups. We don't, they don't have to only live I think in one category. Absolutely. And, um, yeah, so I don't know the best way to do that you could drop the question into multiple sheets. Yeah, I was, um, I just was I just started it that way but I'm open to suggestions you know I wanted to keep it we have to keep it. You know I thought about pulling it out and putting it on to a different type of document, but we have to keep our documents are running documents public. So that one is already shared out. Feel free to like create more tabs or drop a question to multiple tabs or under the under the column where it says who should best answer this question, you could make a list of multiple people there. So then the plan is to come back together. And if there's any additional questions that we want to add at that time we could start looking at you know there's going to be some some of the questions are duplicated. And then maybe in discussion, once you start talking about the questions, another question might arise so we can add more questions at that time, and then try to break out the work. So that each of us leaves with some responsibility to gather a couple of answers. So I do want to at the end. I want to talk a little bit just give you give you some idea of what Sue and Keisha are planning to do for the next meeting and maybe if Keisha is still on with us she can speak to that. And then, you know I would love to come up with a regular meeting time so we can talk about that at the end of the meeting I can tell you what the results were of the survey that went out. It hasn't been able to happen so far but I'm hopeful that we can get some predictability in our meeting schedules. Okay. So anyone have any questions. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I think you had said in an email just clarified that we are aiming to end by seven. The agenda. Did you resend the agent maybe I have the wrong agenda open the one I'm looking at. Yeah, I guess email still is ending at 730 so just if we need to adjust time somewhere could you let us know what those adjustments are. Okay, let me share the updated agenda. Yeah, sorry about that there was a typo in the first agenda and that was just a miscommunication between Anna and I. So let's see are we are we on track 548. Not quite. I did have one housekeeping item, and I can let Tony speak to this a little bit but Tony for various reasons has decided to step down off of the committee. So, you know, obviously Tony represents the Montpelier police department perspective in this conversation and that was part of the charge and so I know that the school board wanted that perspective to be represented as part of the committee. And there, I've been speaking with Chief Pete about how to best fill fill that seat, moving forward for future meetings. But I did, I also consulted with Jim Murphy the chair of the board, and he says that indeed the school board needs to vote and make that replacement so I'll let Tony speak a little bit to that but then if there's any input on, you know, what your hopes and dreams would be to move forward to make sure that we're representing the Montpelier police department perspective. Sure. So first of all, I apologize as well because this this work is so important to walk away from it. But in the direction that you know I where it's headed. It's really more important to have the direct perspective of the active Montpelier police department. I'm the old retired guy now. And then when I was first asked if I could just kind of pitch in before, you know, assuming there was going to be like two meetings, but it's just provide a more of an overview from either my time on the both as the Montpelier chief and working with our last two school resource officers and how the program evolved in Montpelier, but more specifically my work on the school crisis planning team for 10 years as the chief representative of the state of Vermont. And then, but really, as we build relationships and understanding, you know, what are the community expectations and the needs of our students. It really should be somebody that's directly part of the current Montpelier police department. I've had conversations with Chief Pete. He agrees. But he also has some reservations to I don't want to speak for for Brian on that but about making, you know, we doesn't want to feel like there is any pressure on the part of the police department that you know where to have an SRO or not and ultimately, it is up to the school particular, you know, Libby to make sure that whatever plans are in place for safety and, you know, for all hazards and all concerns. You have the city Montpelier and specifically the police department, they're there, you know, they're available and whatever is needed, whether it's information support and they're at the ready. So, and with that, it's just, yeah, I don't think it's really right for me to speak on their behalf. As we get into those relationship building. Thank you, Tony. So is there any discussion on, you know, my gut is sort of to take Chief Pete's lead and let him tell me who he thinks is best to fill Tony seat, and then bring that to the board for a vote but if any of you have any other suggestion or you want to I can open this up to discussion. Okay. I'll plan to move forward that way. I do want to I see that a member of the public that you've joined us and I just wanted to reopen it for public comment if there's anything that you wanted to say at this time. Okay. All right, so that's what we actually are on time with the agenda. So, I read that wrong. Agenda item two. So a reflection on the process and an update from the school board. So, I think, I don't know which is best to do first, but I guess I'll, I'll give, I'll kind of blend the two. So just an update on the process a reflection on the process like kind of where where we started where we are now and where we're going. I'm going to plug into the chat. The two main sections of the charge that dealt with deadlines. Trying to find sorry, I should have it up and ready and on my clipboard. Here we go. So essentially, by the end of December, what was written in the charge is that this committee will. I want to actually quote it and not speak from memory. Make a recommendation to the board on how to proceed with the student student resource officer position by December 2020. I'm going to put this into the chat and that after that we would provide a broader report on safety through the lens of our district's diversity, equity and inclusion policy by March 2021. So, you know, Sue and Keisha have led us through a process where we've been able to go out into the community reflect on our own values around visions and concerns of safety in the school and the idea being that once we sort of know what some of our shared visions and concerns are, we can look at those through the lens of the school resource officer position and see whether that position is really serving those shared visions and concerns. So we're still in the middle of that process. And, you know, there's been a lot of questions about whether this deadline is realistic for our committee to to give a recommendation to the board. And I've been sort of going back and forth on on my thinking of that and what that recommendation has to look like I think initially I was sort of seeing it as a more binary black and white like, yes, we think we should move forward with the SRO. No, we do not think we should move forward with the SRO one or the other type of thing. And I think we talked about it at the last meeting. A few years ago where, you know, I've sort of evolved on my thinking on that and I've talked to some school board members where, you know, I don't think the recommendation has to be anywhere close to unanimous or even that black and white there could be lots of recommendations on a scale in between. The yes or no SRO decision. And additionally, we've talked about during this committee that the committee was not ever intended to be a decision making body. So we've always known that our work is more more to provide guidance to the school board when they decide to make their decision on the SRO. I do think that all the school board members really value everything that we've done in this committee and they want to hear from people. But what I've been seeing is at the school board, it feels like, you know, I was wondering, are we going to be able to do this by December by the end of December and I think that wherever we stand at the end of December. I think the school board will probably be ready to move forward on a decision one way or the other. And so it's, it's about how best to provide our feedback to them by the end of December. That's how I'm feeling right now. And, and I have some ideas about how to do that. You know, you definitely be individualized, you know, each of you is a, you know, all of you are so talented and intelligent and thoughtful. And you've been part of all of these meetings and I think you're probably starting to develop some feeling one way or the other, and definitely after we get some of these questions that we all have answered. In the next week's meeting, hopefully you would be at a place where you would feel comfortable, you know, at least just taking your pulse on the issue of the SRO. Am I you meet you're muted. Something happened. Oh, okay. Where did I leave off. Hi, Peter. At the end of December, hopefully each of us will be able to articulate our position on where we stand with the SRO. Yeah. Okay, so, and then at the, what happened at the last school board meeting last week is we had the budget presented to us. So the first draft of the budget, which is a long process. So this draft of the budget does not have to be set in stone. But in that first draft, they did reduce the amount of expenditure for the SRO line item in the budget. They reduced it and and they earmarked it for school safety. So not assuming one way or the other, not assuming that the school board would make a decision one way or the other but just you're marking it for school safety rather than you're marking it for school resource officer. And then the idea being that whatever the balance above and beyond what they've put aside for school safety, the additional money needed would come out of the fund balance. So whatever the plan that is put in place for next school year around school safety, whether it involves an SRO or does not involve an SRO, the thinking is that it will probably need funding to support. And so that funding would primarily come out of the fund balance for the next school year. And a big part of that decision. And I can let Mia also give her input on this, but it sounded like to me this is a very, very tight school budget year. And they're sort of looking for any areas to save some money. And so I think that the concept of like, well, we'll cover whatever is needed from the fund balance, which is basically like a savings account that the school district has that we've been putting savings in year after year and we have a healthy amount of money in there. So they feel like they can fund whatever this committee and the board decides for a school safety plan for next year. Using fund balance money and then with an eye on the future and sustainability of that position they would plug in whatever amount was necessary moving forward in future years. Mia, would you like to speak at all to I think you covered it Emma. Thank you. Okay. Does anyone have any discussion or question about the school board update or the process and where we're at in the process and sort of Yeah, can I speak. Yeah. So, you know, I believe this is something that you know I think is close to home for me in a lot of areas. I thought about words, you know that can express, you know, about what's going on. So I want to start with the word fear. Like as a young black man growing up in the ghetto of Virginia, Virginia, like, we were always taught to fear the police. And so as a, you know, as I grew up and you know, starting at knowledge school, my first like experience with a police officer was in school with their officer. And I learned, you know, early on basically that is different. But I think that you know what we're doing, I like the process, but I think we're also setting a dangerous precedent with, you know, I guess teaching a whole generation kids kind of like fear the police in a way. I think that's really important to discuss because it's like, I understand basically like, you know, I knew police chief and also chief faculty had wrote a police message basically, you know, things about what's going on in today's society. And, you know, so, you know, and the police department is very clear that they want to support this community and in any way they can. So I guess my first question is like, you know, we, you know, I'm a data guy, right. I mean, so like, I don't think we have seen a lot of data in regards to the study either or either way. But number two is, I don't think we've had any discussion with the police department and with concerns that we have, you know, and I think that's a big part. I mean, you know, I think that the police department does a lot in multiplayer. I understand, you know, like, I would say I live in two roles as a black man living in Vermont, but also as a black man married to a white woman having by racial kids in the state. Right. So I see a lot of different points of view. I think that is important to kind of look at that, basically, but we have had no communication with the police department at all, which I think that is important to kind of get their views and, you know, to help, you know, have them hear what's going on, basically, I believe in discussion and transparency. I mean, I think we're very transparent. I don't think we're having a lot of discussion with parties involved and that that party involved is big party is the police department. So thank you for hanging out. Okay, so I'll just respond briefly, but if anyone else wants to respond as well, you're welcome to. So, Pierre, you were not, I don't, you were not present at the last meeting and then also you missed the beginning of this meeting and we so we did talk about the police perspective and how it will potentially be incorporated. When we, when we divided up by stakeholders to go out and get feedback and bring it back to this committee. The police department was not able to provide that feedback for last week's meeting. Chief Pete has since gone through and provided some feedback so that I can enter that into the matrix and that we can all have that perspective shared. But I think, you know, it's not necessarily a weakness of the designer, the process, but just people's individual time and energy to put into this process and maybe some confusion about how the police perspective would be presented to us. And also, I don't know if you've had a chance to review all of the questions that the committee members have formulated. So I think a lot of those questions are will be appropriate for the police department to answer. And I think the answers to those questions might solve a lot of the concerns that you have. To your point about data, I mean that's been a big topic of discussion since May since we start at the school board level since we started talking about this issue around the SRO and policing in schools. There, you know, there is a lack of local data, and it's not for it's not for lack of interest in it and wanting to see it, but it has not been readily available in terms of numbers of incidences involving the SRO at the school district. It's something that the school board has been interested in, and it's something that this committee is interested in and that came out in all of the questions that people prepared for tonight. So I mean I think, you know, I think moving forward data and police perspective, I think it all will be part of the process. It's, you know, we've been limited by time and vacations and people schedules, and all of that but I have faith that we will hear those perspectives and as a school board member, this is something that I discussed with Mia and Jim before but as school board members we've been present at meeting since May on this topic so we've heard a lot of testimony from a lot a lot of perspectives since May so but what we realized was, oh right, but the committee has not heard all of those perspectives and I talked to Eliana a little bit earlier today about that. There are there are definitely pieces of information that that need to be shared with the committee. Yeah, so agree and disagree a little bit and one thing about me as an administrator basically, I obviously as my job to kind of like, you know, look at everyone's perspective and, you know, and I see a lot I hear a lot basically and I think it's important to kind of have everyone's like lens at the table. And I totally respect what people are saying and what they're saying how I mean we all live in different worlds. Like I said, I mean, I could be either we're proactive versus reactive right so I want to make sure that we're, you know, even if we do move forward and I haven't asked her all basically I guess my question is like what is the plan after that basically so you mean like, we can't just say okay let's take away after all position from the school, basically, and then as an administrator basically you know something happens basically what are we going to do what is the plan. So, I guess you know the, you know, either way based I'm here, I'm actually at a neutral party right now, either way, I'll support whatever we decide to do as a board as school whatever as an administrator for school. But if we can do that basically we can get ready the SO position basically, whatever we can do in return basically we can just take something away, and we can't just say okay let's insert a social worker in that position, or whatever basically we need to come with a comprehensive plan to make sure that we're all on the same page and that our students are getting what they need to successful because again, it's not about you it's not about me it's about we what are we doing for our community and our students and number one priority there basically so thank you. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that piece up I did. I don't know if when you jointly I'm not sure if you can see the chat prior to when you joined, but I did drop drop into the chat the two deadlines that are in the charge for this committee. So the first is to make a recommendation to the board on how to proceed with the student resource officer position by December 2020. And I, I'm trying to sort of see how that will take shape over the next couple of weeks. But where I'm landing is that it doesn't necessarily have to be a unanimous binary decision one way or the other so we can talk about how best to, you know, voice our experience and understanding of the position to this point, our experience on the committee to the school board. And that's something that we can talk about at the next I think soon case you're going to guide us through that process at the next meeting and then the second piece is what you just spoke to, which is to provide a broader report on safety through the lens of our district diversity equity and inclusion policy by March 2021. So that would be more like community values and how are those reflected in our discipline system at the school. So if something happens at the school, how do we, how do our values around diversity equity and inclusion, how are those reflected in that. And I mean, there's only so much that the committee can do in terms of like, we're not going to be writing out a specific safety plan for the school I mean that's obviously up to the professionals in the building. I mean, there's school safety committee, things like that which you know all of us are part of kind of so we understand that piece. Like I said, I mean, I love the process I mean I understand why we're doing what we're doing basically, but I says want to make sure that you know when we do this or wherever we decided to do basically I'll support 100%. I just want to make sure that we have something in place to make sure we do move forward basically and that's all I'm saying. So I see that Susan has her hand up I'm just going to say that we do have until March to discuss as a committee what to put in place, you know whether if we decide to move forward if the school board decides to move forward with an SRO. What does that look like because it will most likely look different than it does now. And so as a committee we will discuss that. And then if the school board decides to not move forward with the SRO. We'll talk about what that looks like, you know and what and what is going to be in place instead of the SRO. Susan. I just, I just wanted to clarify, I wanted to make sure I heard you correctly that you said that the school board would be making a decision by the end of December. Even though they had earmarks the money for school safety, they would, they would be making some sort of a decision on how to move forward with the SRO position by the end of December, did I hear that right. I don't know that for a fact, but I think what I'm what I'm getting. Just the pulse that I've been taking from school board is that they are ready to proceed. You know, and I, and I think they want to hear from this committee and the individual members of the committee. Like I said, we always knew that the decision was ultimately going to be in the hands of the school board and I think the, yeah, I mean we'll, we'll see what happens I can't say for sure what what the school board action will be. But I think that we should plan as a committee. We should plan according to that original deadline, you know, and then if they decide not to make a make a decision fine and we can provide further input down the road. But I do think that we should sort of proceed as a committee as if the school board will be ready to make a decision at the end of December or beginning of January. And I really don't know I mean nobody said that put that on the agenda. Nobody's talked to me about it. We don't know what the future holds, but I just, you know, after talking to Jim, and after looking at the committee charge. It feels like we at least need to prepare for that possibility. Sorry, Tony, I saw your hand up. I just want to kind of springboard off of what some of the comments that Pierre had stated, and just kind of, you know, just be open and honest from my perspective. You know, it's interesting there's been a lot of talk for example around, you know, is the SRO and the relationship to enforcement to punishment, if you will, that kind of accountability. Quite frankly, when I think about the SRO for everything that we've done in my pillar, things that have not been even we even even scratched the surface on, as far as what it means to be a resource officer. In other words, when the, you know, when the evening shift, you know, is that is called to a house for whether it's a domestic violence, an overdose, whatever the case may be and the child's involved. The first thing those officers do is they reach out to the school resource officer to notify the, you know, hey, this is what just happened last night and so and so is home that we deal with poverty. You know, I shared these stories, you know, with Emma. Yeah, the other day, but just for example, an SRO would, there'd be also a code if it, you know, if a student needed to, you know, with hungry. Just a, a, you know, corporal moody or corporal nicely, you know, can we can we meet and it was taken to the cafeteria. The cases of sexual abuse, child abuse, addiction, bullying, these things it's always it's really, and it goes to the heart of restorative practice, it's focusing around the harm that's being done, and how we can help connect those that's why it's called a resource officer. It's not just a cop in school to deal with traffic in the parking lot and whatever the guns that have been even over in weapons over the years that have been we've that we've been thwarted because it had guns in their backpacks. So, so to pierce question about statistics. This was always a challenge for us historically to how do we qualify and quantify everything that the SRO is involved in, and also with very strict juvenile confidentiality, HIPAA and FERPA. Suicidal students over the years, you know, Matt, Matt Nisley was, you know, and he still is one of the department's, you know, crisis negotiators, very well trained. I've heard training thrown out there, cops need more training. What training, because specific that to the Montpelier police department, and none of these things I've heard of so far, but it's, but it's you're on the right track in terms of how do we, how do you demonstrate what you get for your dollar if you will. And are we successful in that. And some of those issues are hard to quantify. And I just wanted to put that out there, because these are so far, I've not heard those specific discussions separate from also the relationships and the trust. So when there is a crisis on school grounds. It's not a stranger there's it's already a well oiled machine. When when resources are brought in to assist with whatever the crisis maybe as opposed to that so I just wanted to put that out there and just thank you. I appreciate you both putting those ideas out there I do. I do want to point out that most of what you just said is an answer to some of the questions that the committee members already have posed. So I think, you know, I'm, I'm also eager to sort of like get into the stories and get into the data and get into the reports from various stakeholders and understand how the SRO is used and look at that data. But I don't want to get into the weeds tonight at this meeting because we have the committee has taken their time to write a lot of questions, and, and so many of those questions. The answers to those questions are the types of things that you're talking about. And I think that we will be building in time at the future meetings to address those questions and they weren't built into the agenda for tonight. And I understand that it's, it's frustrating to not be making like huge strides of progress on all this and to be able to see the big picture all up front and I've struggled with that myself. If anybody I would, I see that, Beth, you have your hand up I guess I'm open to opening up to public comment but I just want to kind of keep it brief because I do want to get through our agenda tonight. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to take a moment to take a step back and just remember what the committee's charge is grounded in, which is the equity policy for the school district. So, you know, depending upon the framework in which you're having a conversation how you come to a decision on what decision you make will change. And so first and foremost, I think the framework of this conversation is does an SRO align with, you know, our policy our current policy on the books around equity and if not, what does I mean I don't I think there's lots of arguments to be made around where a police officer might add value to a relationship with a school district, but that doesn't necessarily look the way it does today in our schools. So just reminding folks that we should really be grounded in the conversation as a framework around equity rather than safety and relationship with police or whatever else. The other quick thing I'll just say is that police officers are not trained and are not the first responders to deal with poverty or mental health issues and I would argue that most police officers don't see themselves as first responders to deal with mental health or poverty. And so if the if the primary challenges in which police officers are coming into the school to address are related to issues around poverty or mental bullying or some of the other things that you mentioned Tony then the response to that should not be a police response it should be a community and people centered response. Again, just recalling where we're grounding ourselves in and that is in the equity policy. And I think it's important to acknowledge that, you know, the just schools initiative folks might have varying opinions about how police involvement looks in school but nobody at the moment is necessarily arguing that police don't have a role in society, at least in relation to this conversation so just a quick reminder to ground ourselves in the framework of the conversation. And I really bet thank you because that's exactly what we've been saying in law enforcement. We're not the first responders should be for these those issues. As we end up being though is when these things unfold sometimes, we're the person that connects the dots sometimes and that's that's why it's called the resource but, but you thank you I mean I've been saying that most chiefs for years, we're not the first responders for those social norms where we have not a fish sufficiently funded mental health and other resources like whether it's food and security or housing so thank you. Okay, I want to make sure that if you know if anybody else has anything pressing to say you're welcome to say it and then we're going to move into the breakout rooms for to look through the questions. Okay. So I'm just going to do for random breakout rooms and the one of the rooms will be responsible for looking at columns for and five. And I'm going to give us 10 minutes. Okay, I am going to put public into the rooms as per public meeting open meeting law. Okay, you all should have editing privileges now, looking a lot better now with the breakout rooms. We'll see you back in a little bit. Hello. Caitlin. Hi. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be part of this or not. I should just listen I don't know. I, I'm not the person. Liana do you know what number did she tell us what column we're looking at. Um, I mean we're room one so I would okay so let's do column one. Yeah, okay. I'm guessing it's just you and me and then we have to observers. And so we put them in this. I feel like you can jump in. Happy to jump in. Yeah, I don't see what you're looking at though. Oh, um, are you able to share and is there a chat screen. I can share it in the chat with you copy. You only have view only. Do you have editing privileges. Yes, what's your email. I'll write it. I'll write it in the chat. Oh no, I just gave I just shared the doc. Oh, cool. I see it. Thank you. But do you, Eliana, can you edit the document. I don't think so. I'm trying to let me try it again. Cause then we can't do this if we can't edit it. We could also just like write on a piece of scrap paper for now, like, I think we can edit it now. I just refreshed. Oh, okay. Okay. So we'll just look through all the questions and column one and then we will decide where we want to put them and we may want to put them in multiple places. Okay. Okay. So would you want to just read that first question. And then talk about it. Okay, I can just read it out loud. Go ahead. What are the current rules and protocols for the SRS presence on school grounds? Do they have open access to school buildings at any time? Do they only show up when called by staff member administrator are all areas of the school open accessible to the SR. Okay. I think that could just go right to administration. Um, do you think to, um, live to superintendent bone steel or somebody else? Yeah, I think she would be a good, good one for that. I agree. All right, I'll put her, I'll put the question in there. Okay. So, um, I don't have access to the document. I requested it, but who knows if I'll get it. Um, are you deciding is there like people that you're supposed to ask these questions to. Yeah, like we're just deciding Caitlin, who do we think would be good to answer those questions. And she's, Emma's given us a whole list of folks, but if you have thoughts other than the superintendent. Um, No, that's great. That's a good person to ask that question to. Okay. I'm just going to share my screen right now. Like, You could also ask any principal. Like, I'm just, can you guys see this? Oh yeah. Yeah, that's good. Okay. Um, yeah, I would say any of the principles to would be able to answer that. I mean, the police department can answer to I suppose. Yeah, there's got to be some like policy sheet that just says it right there. Like, I think we might have had access to that at one point or something. All right, we go back. Do you want to go back to the next to the form responses? Yeah, so could an SRO be present in the schools without a firearm with the MPD be okay with that? I mean, I think that would go for like the superintendent for the police. Like the police department too, because they're, they're on their job at that time and that's like probably part of what's expected of them. Yeah, I was going to say the police too. Okay, so let's go to the police. And to bone steal. We're going to, where should we mark those that we've put them in multiple spots? Do you want to mark it? I'll mark it right on the front page. Well, can you, oh right, you can, yeah. I don't know if that makes any sense though. Can we just put a star and then like on the question on here or something? Oh yeah, you just said. Or I can also say that's at the MPD. I'll just make a note that it's in the MPD section too. Okay. Okay. How often and what are some of the common reasons the SRO is called that. I think that could just go to the MPD again or. I would say the staff. Yeah, yeah, that's true actually. I feel like they're the ones who actually decide if they need it or not. Yeah. Or like, Jen, Jen wall. Yeah, I was going to say like it would more probably, I think go to like staff and then like to like admin, building administrators. Yeah. Yeah, I think maybe it like moves up like first the staff requested. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So staff building administrators. I know school counselors. And social workers. Yeah. Okay. It would be so nice to hear from like a former SRO or something. I agree. Yeah. I'm hoping that they can do that for us sooner than later. Yeah. Okay. Can the SRO be present in the schools and not be armed? Okay, we already have that. Do we have that one? Okay. That's sort of a repeat question. It's unclear to me why the SRO position is part of the school budget in the first place. If this is a necessary role that requires an officer than why is it included in the police department. Huh. I think that's a lot of people's question. Yeah. I would maybe ask. Libby. The school board and Libby. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, school board. Yeah. Okay. So back to Libby. She's got lots to answer. I mean, a lot of things are just like legit. Like, I don't know, like she, like to be able to roll them out. Yeah. Like she probably has a lot of these answers just. On paper. Ready to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She does. Yeah. And then a school board down here. As an option. It's that could be under. Like superintendent, maybe. Cause she. Oh, it looks like other people are using that. Like people are saying superintendent, comma, school board. Yeah. Under super. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Great. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why isn't my thing reading. Was that the last one? Oh, definitely not. What is the scope? All facets of the SRO role across the district presently. We need details. If the board chooses not to have an SRO, how can we be assured that a responding officer has the training not to over respond to an escalated student. So, yeah, that's a good one. I'm not going to support backup position. Oh no. Oh, it's a really good one. Similar. Okay. What should we do? Copy. What is the scope of the SROs rule in the district presently? I honestly think that's. Libby. It's principles. It's the police department. Yeah. Put it in all of those. Yeah. That's like their specific training. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's going into. MPD. I'll put it in there. And then other schools, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. We had a time. Yeah. Do people want, should we just go right back into breakout rounds? Yeah, we were quite halfway through. Okay. Let's go right back. I think they're, they stay the same. Oh, I hope so. We were just getting going. The next one is, I think it would be good for the committee to have a detailed understanding of what the SRO does beyond the basic drop job description. I think we kind of have that already, don't we? Yeah, I think we know, like even based on what like Tony just said, I think it would be good for the committee to have a detailed understanding of what the SRO does beyond the basic drop job description. Yeah. But I think in some of the other questions that we've. That have been asked, like, what is the scope of the SRO's role? Right. Okay. What kind of training do MRPS staff currently have that the SRO has gone through to serve our students? I don't really think it comes from this. Yeah. But. That's just, I think it's kind of been addressed anyway. Yeah, like. I think it kind of goes with making up a police position more like fitting in a school setting. Like, I think that's kind of what the question is asking and that's, we already have it, I think. I'm just looking back at the questions. Cause this one's asking more about the staff. Like the people in the school, like, could they have be trained? Yeah. Like what training does the staff have? Oh, okay. So I think this would go more to like school administrators and the superintendent. Yeah. It's, it's, it's like what de-escalation looks like in a classroom. Yeah. Okay. So that's the superintendent and then I'm going to put it in. Other schools for school administrators. Yeah. Hi. Okay. How do schools communicate with parents. About the resources that are available to them such as the social worker, the guidance counselor, the SRO. Is it a need to know basis or upfront communication? I mean, again, Libby. Or staff. Yeah, I think maybe more like school administrators. Yeah. And staff, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I'll put that in. Other schools for school administrators. Yeah. Or I don't know now. I think that's more for our school, like. I mean, the other MRPS staff. Is that what you mean? Yeah, I'm confused. I'm going to put it in there. I've been putting stuff in other, there's this tab on the bottom that says other schools. And I've been putting like school administrators type stuff in there, but I'm not sure that I'm putting it in the right spot. I think that for other schools, like, we've been interested in other districts that don't have an assignment. And like what kind of restorative practices they have in place instead. And we're just like, I don't know, looking at what they're doing, but. Totally cutting what I put in there and putting it into other MRPS staff. Yeah, I think that's what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying. I'm all good now. Okay. Are we good about this question? Yeah. All right. If students are parents and our staff are truly afraid or uncomfortable by the presence of an SRO. Shouldn't that be considered something to be dealt with? Is it reactionary to simply eliminate the SRO position? These are really good questions. Yeah. I think that. That just kind of shows the importance of our committee as we're like. Making a transition into like a different, or actually no, if, if we decide to like transition into like more restorative, restorative work, it's where it's kind of like. We aren't just like eliminating the position with like. Nothing there. We're kind of just like holding it in a different space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know who answers this question. A lot of people, I suppose. Students, parents, staff. Yeah. I think it's like. It's hard because our survey, like. It was just like safety in general. And we couldn't really ask this specifically, but we got some responses about that. I think you're right. Students, parents and staff. Or community. Students, community and staff. Yeah. And there's also been like the testimony that Emma mentioned. For the board that's been happening since May. There's been a lot of like personal stories from marginalized communities that the committee hasn't heard yet. And I think that those could kind of answer that question. I think Emma was going to share them with us at some point. Yeah. I think those answer the question, but it doesn't answer the. Like, how does this school make sure that these things are communicated? Yeah. That's true. Do you think I should put this into the community members? Um, yeah. I don't know if they have the power to actually. You know, they do, they do to some extent, right? So like move this conversation forward and. You know, with the school board, but. But the school is the one who needs to make like transparency with within the school, like from. Yeah. Administration and like. So it's really like the school administration and students. Yeah. You know, can you make that? Okay. Are we on the stun? Let's see. There's like 16. There's. 16. Oh my God. Oh no, 16 altogether. We're on the 12th one right now. Okay. How many staff. Who work directly with the SRO field of position is an invaluable resource for the school. Okay. I'm putting that. Staff. Staff. Yeah. That one's clear. Staff. Administration. But not even a ministry. Oh, I guess administration, but not Libby work for the school. No, I didn't put it into a superintendent. I just put it into. Staff administration, like school at like principles. That's what I meant. Guidance. Social workers. I think that like administration has a very. Very important perspective in this question. Cause the ones that are contacting them and the ones that are like really like dealing with the, the problems that come up. Yeah. Yeah. What kind of crimes has our SRO dealt with? How would those situations have gone differently if a random PO had. Been assigned to be involved. What kind of crimes. Yeah. Social workers. I think that like administration has a very, very important perspective in this question. Yeah. What kind of crime has our SRO dealt with? How would those situations have been. So I wonder if this is for the police department, but it's also. For the schools, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think administration. That data. Cause it's like, yeah, I think it's confidential within the administration. So they would probably know. All right. So I will say that would be like school administration, right? Yeah. Yeah. And the police. Okay. Three more. Will students be harmed if the SRO position is eliminated? How do we weigh out harm done because of the SRO versus. Oh my God. Versus harm done because the SRO is not in the schools. Students is. How about the student asking the students how they feel. Yeah. And staff, I guess. I'll put them in staff and students. And the last one, the next one, I think we've already done. And then. The last one I think is police. Okay. Nice one. Thanks so much. Caitlin, thanks for helping us out. Thank you. I'm happy to help. Okay. We are not staying on track for time as per use. So I did. It looks like people pretty much got through their column of questions and at least populated the spreadsheet. Get some thumbs up on that. We just had one question left. So we're close. I don't think I'm not advocating. We go back to our breakups. Okay. So my hope was to. Try to brainstorm who would be best to answer these questions. And I think we've kind of done that. In terms of putting it into the tabs. And then just to divide the work up among committee members of trying to go out and collect answers to these questions. All of the ones under the superintendent tab are going to be part of the group. We'll be answering questions. And that's what we're going to be doing. And as part of her presentation, she will be answering questions. So. That part is sort of done for us. Any thoughts or ideas of how to. How we might break up this work. I think that you just already broken us up into groups. I think it, you know, just the groups that were in, basically we take those questions in that group. And then what we can do is we'll do that. And then we'll just do that. So that's now when we kind of get the work and kind of get those questions out there to the stakeholders. That's just my opinion. I like that thinking. Does everyone else feel comfortable with that? So it would be. Whatever stakeholder group, you know, you're representing on the committee. You know, there are obviously like a few missing groups. So there's community members. Amanda and then the superintendent category some of those have other admin or you might want to look through here and Jen would have to look through the superintendent column a little bit maybe not yeah a couple and then the other MRPS staff tab for administrators for administrator questions and then the Montpelier Police Department I can forward those questions on to Chief Pete and then students Zach and Ileana and Edie would take on those questions and then the community members only one question for community members so that's an easy category so then there's the other schools there's several questions in here there's six questions in the other schools category so maybe we could break up that work between Catherine and Will and sorry my brain is not and Joan yeah so we could do would you feel comfortable reaching I'm not sure how that would work to reach out to other schools about how they most of these questions are pretty similar what are alternatives to SRO involvement what models are there from other school districts that do not have school resource officers one thing I used to do you know when you know when I was writing like in the handbooks for us basically it's like I wanted to know what you know different policy work like you know dress code for example so I would I would reach out other schools and say hey you know please tell us a bunch of dress code and things like that so I think that if we can do that basically same kind of questions hey you know like you know we're researching are looking at you know a sorrel position you know and trying to make decisions you know can you tell us about like what the advantages of not having a sorrel in your school basically and you know what are you doing in the place of that so I think those I mean I'll be willing to kind of do that piece myself honestly yeah I wonder if you know we can sort of I mean I want to leave tonight with everyone feeling like they have something to do between now and the next meeting so there's also a bunch of questions under other experts organizations etc etc so we could have Joan and Will and Catherine split those up and then maybe one of you could one of the three of you could also reach out to schools to to get some perspective on how what some alternatives to SROs are those questions that are listed in the other schools column but then I like the idea of I mean I think Jen and Pierre it makes sense for you to hear those stories as well so reaching out to I know that the Harwood school district Stowe Northfield Williamstown U32 all of those schools do not have SROs so those would be good schools for you to reach out to and maybe because you're a middle school administrator might be good to reach out to cross a book or you know the middle schools in those districts I think it'd be also good to reach out to schools that have had SROs I don't know if this is if there's anywhere but has have recently eliminated the SRO position or I don't know if that's out there I know Essex is in process but yeah there's a couple I'm sure just schools initiative could help us with that I think they've done some of that legwork already so how does that sound yet we're getting when new ski in the comments I'm also happy to help with that work since like other experts involves multiple outreach just to help balance the load and I would also be happy to reach out to other districts and as a member of the school like as a member of the school board and or in conjunction with Pierre and Jen also want to just caution me I know that we've talked to you we just say when new ski and you know South Carolina schools those schools are a lot bigger and look a lot different from you know our community you know so they're used to the SROs a lot different I just I know that because I was a teacher for a long time in that district in the South Carolina school district so I just think that you know just have a conversation and yeah very you know those districts we say yeah I think that Washington County and the surrounding areas is important but like in the county is this is a whole nother ball game I think also Amanda's point was to try to gain perspective around how did a school handle that transition from relying on systems that were built around an SRO to not relying on systems that are into creating new systems and I'm not sure how many of those schools have actually gone through that process yet I think these are pretty relatively new decisions that have been made in our state but I know there's definitely schools who have done that like I know Portland Maine is a big one and they did that I don't know a year or two ago so they probably have some more information in terms of what that transition looked like and my background training is mostly in the restorative practice SEL things and I know Northville has an incredible SEL restorative practice program you know and they don't have a school resource officer so I mean I would be really anxious to kind of get in and see what they're doing because they do have some really incredible work over there okay so I'm kind of struggling with like how to actually make these assignments does anyone have any great ideas partly I have a question Emma's is what the expectation is for what we're reporting back on the at the next meeting because that for me would shape like how are we coordinating amongst ourselves if we're going to be splitting up these questions do we need to have another meeting to like figure that out what what is do we have any sense of on the 17th how will we be sharing what we've gathered okay Keisha is commenting she says that sounds to me like a useful component for next meeting and we'd be happy to help compile information about the other schools actions so I think you know hopefully the expectation in my mind was that between now and next Thursday December 17 that we would be able to bring back some answers to these questions and you know ideally bring back answers to all of the questions but if there's some questions that are left unanswered we can certainly explore those answers at a future meeting so I mean Libby will certainly be prepared to answer all of her questions and then in terms of like reaching out to another school district like if we divided up different school districts or different questions I think it would make sense to divide up school districts so that we're not all calling the same people so if you know Pierre was gonna call Northfield and CrossFit Rock then maybe somebody else calls U32 or Stowe right and then you would try to get some answers to the questions and then bring those back to the next meeting. So I will call U32 and CrossFit Rock and CrossFit Rock I'm not feeling cross book sorry that's what I'm doing so I can take notes I mean Joan does that answer your question or no did I not answer your question I'm just trying to get like I'm like literally trying to create a work plan for myself in my head and it's a little bit trick like trying to figure I try to do that in eight minutes seems difficult especially for trying to coordinate with one another around the questions and who's reaching out to who I don't know if this subgroup particular subgroup might just need another 20 minute meeting where we can really look at the questions together and figure out who well who okay who's taking the question and who are you asking it of the other you know because the other ones seem a little more straightforward like the students have their questions they can just go. Well one that I also thought one that came up in our breakout room was I agree Beth. She's 100% right. Yeah so we one of the questions was I would like to hear experiences from our community members and students who have been referred to the SRO in particular people from marginalized communities and I think that that's a really big question I know that we have heard from with people's individual stories and Beth commented earlier in the chat that those are available via Orca Media and previous board meetings they're all recorded so we can try to shuffle through those and the board I think the board members could bring those back and recount some of those stories for you but also I think just if people have heard stories from their community or you could reach out and ask but there's not you know there's not a lot of data compiled around this role of the SRO so we don't have a list of incidences and people to reach out to. So I think that one that one is more of a broad like everybody should bring their feedback on that one and it's not going to be one person going out and trying to gather stories. I'm seeing some more activity that says there should be consistency in what questions are asked and how to remove individual bias. Yeah. I'm trying to envision what the meeting will look like right so Libby's going to speak and answer her questions and then like we're going to share the information we've gained between in the next week like we have a week together this. Yeah so that's the next meeting is going to be facilitated by Sue and Keisha and so I'm not sure Keisha if you're ready to talk about you know what your thoughts are and what the next meeting might look like based on this process. Well I don't want to sort of derail the end of your meeting and apologies for my soft clothes here my hoodie but I was listening the whole time I was in a small group with Joan and Emma and others. I think my big takeaway that I just want to reflect back is and this may make me sound biased in a particular way but I don't have a sense that 12 years ago in Montpelier or in other communities where it started to be the case that an SRO was put in place there was this kind of thoughtful community process and you all are giving people that for the first time and so you know I think you should really celebrate yourselves and what you're doing to try and give people a voice in you know what school safety looks like which is a very emotionally charged conversation and I really appreciate Pierre bringing some of his personal feelings around this you know Emma and I have talked about that as well because for people of color it's a particularly emotional topic and you know Pierre I just really applaud that you're trying to sort of weigh that alongside your role in the school so that all said I really heard you all I think it's an impressive undertaking that you're engaged in. What I'm hearing that would be really useful for next meeting is to have as much data in it in as concise a form about what this SRO is doing in the school district wherever that data exists and what I'm also hearing is maybe to try and leave out things that can't be litigated in the meeting like you know data that isn't complete but it may be helpful to talk to Emma and Eliana and Edie and anyone else who wants to take a leadership role in figuring out what information is going to be helpful to present to the group that can be digested in a way that it seems somewhat objective and second you know I am hearing that it's it is this is a time of reckoning for a lot of schools across the state and it is helpful probably to know what kind of paths they're taking and to sort of see if we can compile that we're happy to help you know I wonder if we can talk to Emma and some others about which schools and sort of see if there's some duplication or there's a way to just take like three case studies perhaps I'm just trying to sort of think about is there is there a way to narrow it down so we're not really all over the place with that and finally you know one thing that we haven't really had a chance to dig into and I was listening for is does this group want to try and make an up or down decision on the SRO or do you want to see what you can agree on maybe which are some principles that you want school safety to sort of operate under and report that back to the school district and then be able to focus on what does school safety look like in a way that meets the equity principles and standards and is holistic and the only caution I would share is that you know having a kind of up or down decision on the SRO when it when you know when it may be just a recommendation to the school board may build some distrust in the group that makes it hard to have that bigger conversation about what school safety ends up looking like so I just want to you know put that out there that there could be a consensus process there could be an individual process there could be an up or down vote there could be let's just figure out what we agree on but I would hope at the end of the day that you can still spend the next three months or so talking about how do you envision school safety in a way that meets the needs of all students equitably and and you know I just want you all to to be ready for that and I'm sad we're losing Mr. Fakus and at the same time you know behind the scene I think Emma did an amazing job trying to talk about some things that are really complicated dynamics but we really you know the police department should be part of the conversation about what what school and campus and community safety look like so we are you know actively trying to see if we can get another voice and one that represents the current police department and you know there is this sense that that would be unwelcome and I've just tried to articulate as someone who's been an observer that I have not seen anything that would make me think that that was unwelcome here and so I'm trying to emphasize that because I think the police department needs to be part of this conversation or you know when when will they be part of a conversation about school safety you know if not now so I appreciate everyone being really welcoming to that perspective and trying to uphold this complexity and I hope that made sense I just also want to add basically that I think Beth you made a good point I would love to kind of if it's okay with the committee basically sit with you know the just schools initiative and kind of create questions you know so we can kind of talk to other schools in regards to the as our opposition I think that you say I mean I think that you know main lens make like work and it'd be easier for all of us to kind of sit together you know not sit first but firstly sit together and like craft questions so we can ask schools that make sure that we get all our answers and we're all very comfortable in that process are you okay with that Beth? I'm sorry I don't we already have questions for schools that's what we just spent right like these committee questions I feel like the committee spent a lot of time think you know and maybe there maybe these aren't complete and there could be other questions additionally but there are questions here and I feel like it probably would make sense you know making sure that whoever's asking these questions understands the question as their phrase so that we can go out and like do our research or talk to whoever we need to do need to talk to and understand what the question is trying to get at we do we do have this starting point right? Yeah I think I'll let Beth speak to it but she had made a comment in the chat about making sure that the way we ask questions are removing individual bias so I think it's really great for Pierre to reach out to her to maybe just consult on so do you feel like if I ask the question this way that it would remove individual bias but Beth I'll let you speak to that yeah I think it's important so yeah I was just trying I can't see the question because I don't have access to them but I was just trying to note that you know having done survey research in my past when you ask a question you need to make sure that it's phrased in such a way that you're not leading somebody to an answer not leading to pro-SRO or anti-SRO but that is just sort of an objective and unbiased framed question so people's answers are reflective of what they believe and not how you led them to answer. Agree. Okay so what if we sort of plan this the same way that we did with the stakeholder feedback which is I will email you sort of your your marching orders your assignments and then in your smaller groups you can consult with each other to decide you know who takes which questions and who goes to which schools. Right now I have notes for you know other MRPS staff would be collectively handled by Pierre, Jen, Amanda, and Susan. The MPD questions are going to be directed to Brian, Chief Pete. The student questions are going to be handled by Eliana, Edie, and Zach. The community questions will be handled by Catherine Will and Joan. The other schools I think this might alleviate some of your concerns Joan. Maybe we can take that on between Jen, Pierre, and Mia and I can take on the other schools questions and then the expert organizations etc. I think that could be sort of split. I know that Will, you had emailed the group, is Will still here? I'm looking all around the screen. You had emailed us some information from an organization and I just wonder I think it was Vermont Legally but I wonder if you might have an interest in in helping with reaching out to experts and organizations. I can do that certainly. It looks like there's four questions on that so I think potentially you know I can help with that as well and maybe Mia so maybe that can also be a school board and then plus Will category. Does that sound good? So Mia and Jim and Will and I'm definitely happy to reach out also to Just School's initiative because I know that they've already done a lot of the footwork to reach out to organizations and get those perspectives so I'll find out you know who they feel we should reach out to. Does that sound okay everybody? So you would so I will summarize this in a follow-up email but but Joan so you and Catherine and Will would be looking at the tab for community members, the community members tab, and then you would be dividing up the questions so you would take responsibility between the three of you to figure out how to best divide those questions. Yeah there's only one question in that section. Let me just go back to I thought I saw more get added. No you're right there's only one. Okay so this is a broad this is a big question though this was the question that we talked about about how to gather experiences from community members so I actually think that that even though there's only one question I think that that's a really big piece of the puzzle here. A lot of people have talked about you know they want to know what is the lived experience of people with the SRO and we've heard testimony from people through the school board lens so maybe it's a matter of going back through some of those you know and I could certainly help point you in the right direction going back through some of those important you know key meetings where we heard public testimony and watching the public testimony and then summarizing it and bringing it back to the group and then obviously also just reaching out in any way that you can to the community to find out find stories and I think that's actually one of that question to me is something that everybody probably sitting on the committee could be keeping in mind and if you have any anecdotal stories that you've heard as a role as your role of serving on this committee or in any capacity you know what are some of the stories that you've heard around the SRO? I wonder if we could brought like this question's pretty specific about students who have been referred to the SRO and I wonder if we expanded a bit just to community members and students who have you know some kind of direct experience interaction experience you know that they would want to share about having the SRO in you know in school rather than just a referral would that make sense to folks? Yeah I think that makes sense does anybody disagree with that to broaden that? Does everyone feel comfortable with the work that we are going to try to do before next Thursday? I just like to say that I would very much appreciate help navigating the past recordings of previous school board meetings it is I've gone looking for specific things before in meetings that I attended and did not find them so any guidance to finding this testimony would be very helpful. I can certainly help and Eliana asked about that too could earlier testimonies from school board meetings be shared with the committees so I can try to go back through the agendas and find out you know luckily public comment usually happens at the beginning of each meeting so when you go through and you watch the school board meetings you can typically watch all of the public testimony pretty early on in the meeting but I know for a fact that there was like a few key meetings where we heard lots of testimony so we can help point you in the right direction and give you links and maybe say watch till you know 15 27 minutes we can help with that. Yeah I think this was a very productive meeting I appreciate you know the lens that everyone's bringing around and I do agree with Kesha I mean I think that the work is daunting but but I think that you know we all have the passion and the love of our of our students to make a really good impact so thank you everyone for just chiming in and kind of putting things together looks really good at this point. Thank you Pierre that's one thing that I keep kind of falling back on is this you know I know that everybody here and everybody in our community and every stakeholder has the best interest of the kids at heart so that's a that's a good thing to sort of fall back on. So my only other thing was about trying to come up with a regular meeting schedule and based on the responses that we had from the survey that I sent out Tuesday night sounded good to people to the to most of you now there was a there was an answer there that said like I might not be able to make some of these meetings so we know that we're not going to be able to coordinate everybody but in general like does Tuesday night sound like a good night to sort of move forward with I mean obviously next week it's Thursday and then I think after that we're breaking until January and then I would be maybe looking at Tuesday nights as a regular thing and I don't think we have to meet weekly I think we can probably meet bi-weekly a two-hour meeting bi-weekly and we can see how that pace feels to us at that point since we will be sort of moving into more of the value statement diversity equity and inclusion policy and how and how we can use that as a lens to move forward. I agree with that and I think that we will also like the next meeting we'll have a lot more data and like those boxes filled in and so after that I mean I think this is a the I guess the top part at the job you know right now basically but I think that like once we come back with like all this information kind of filled in these boxes it's like downhill from there so it'll be easier right now we're just kind of like crafting and making that foundation but once you do that I think it'll be a lot easier for us moving forward. Anyone else want to speak to the trying to attempt a standing meeting schedule of Tuesdays every other week generally okay with people we'll find out when January comes. Yeah Emma I'll email you because I have every other Tuesday commitment so I'll let you know. So maybe you would be a perfect person for us to like decide when our starting Tuesday is. That would be nice but you don't have to do it around me. All right wow that was a big meeting and I think we made a lot of progress and I'm really looking forward to hearing the answers that you bring back at the next meeting. Do we have a motion to adjourn? Motion. Second. Okay Will. Aye but please tell me who said second because I was looking away. It was me. Edie okay I'm supposed to write that down thank you. Uh Susan. Aye. Tony. Aye. Mia. Aye. Joan. Aye. Eliana. Aye. Catherine. Aye. Amanda. Aye. Edie. Aye. Jay. Hi. Aye. And Pierre. Aye. And I just want to make sure is Zach still on? Here's to be. Okay. All right thank you all for all of your attention and care to this topic and I look forward to seeing you next week. Good night everyone. Good night. Thank you. I'm staying on Kasia in case we need to discuss anything else. Emma I had a quick question just about um and a confession I guess. Okay. That my group um we started while we had Tony he was answering some of the questions in our column and providing yeah and providing some um resources some like oh all of that is on the vermont.gov website in terms of like you know emergency procedures and stuff so he was giving us stuff to do um yeah and we got wrapped up in that and we did not move any of our questions into separate tabs so is that is that a chunk of work I mean that um I should what column were you responsible for um we were group two does that mean it was column two yeah um it appears to be mostly police questions I can move those over um it's up to you I mean I'm happy to work with you do you want to go through them now we'll let we could let Kasia go and we could go through them now and sure if that's okay with you together just to make sure it's done do you do you have any business to yeah Kasia did you want to chat um I can schedule something or I can just email you right now just to to see you know I think it would be good to get something on the calendar while it's fresh in our minds and have Sue involved so I will just email you and try to figure out a time in the next two days okay um do you want me to just quickly take a look at my work calendar and see what out of the next two days which one is better yes and I I have Sue's calendar so we can see if that helps us um so Wednesday it would have to be after five Thursday I could do after two okay what about two thirty to three on Thursday two thirty to three um would we be able to do three to three thirty instead yes I have a commitment but I think that's fine all right I can I can always email if my other thing gets moved but um I feel like it's it's a tight turnaround yeah I will I can make that work all right I'll let you two do your thing and I'll send to a calendar invite okay great thank you thank you do you mind Will do you want to just do this no this is great this is if if you don't mind this is so much easier than trying to remember to do it later okay so um I'm going to go back to the form responses and you were column two and so um where did you know if you moved any of them uh we didn't we just got to Tony started talking about a couple of them at once so okay so does yes so let's just start at the beginning the um right it's does the SRO play any role in providing direct training to staff or administrators on issues of safety i.e. leading workshops providing guidance I think that's a living question yes I'll I'll copy it and paste it into Libby's spreadsheet okay and some of these are duplicated but yeah so I see you're in the what our current safety protocols for when student staff parent intruder is threatening violence at the school that was the question that Tony just directed us to the website um to the Montpelier Rocksbury school district website um no to the vermont.gov website let's see where's my mouse um I can if we if we put it on okay experts I mean I can so I think we could put it under yeah we could put it under MPD the Montpelier police department we could also put it under Lib I'm sure Libby could very succinctly explain what the protocol is sounds good um do you want me to copy it um sure I got boom boom okay um when if the SRO is utilized to intervene how often does that result in either restorative practice or referral that seems like MPD and one of the things we don't have data for is there anywhere else we should put it right when or if the SRO is utilized so did you sorry did you copy the um what our current safety protocols and you put that you dropped that into different tabs I put it in superintendant bone steel um is that what we were yeah that's fine um I can I can put it under experts we can put it under MPD also and just see you know if chief Pete has anything he wants to add to that answer answering that question oh what's that and then when if the SRO is utilized to intervene with incidents involving students behavior actions how often does that result in either restorative practices or referral to the MPD criminal justice system okay so yeah I mean I I this is also like a Libby and MPD question I think it is it has been tricky I mean I would love for them to speak in more generalities you know around it and and not feel like it's a FERPA violation to say well we typically get like two cases a month right something like that or based on my best understanding of it we have about six or seven a year you know and I would say that the majority of those are funneled through the the restorative justice center you know something like like in broader terms in broader strokes but um so and I think they're kind of getting bogged down in like well I don't have the exact numbers in the times and dates when these things happened and I don't think we need that necessarily yeah um is there so do you want me to copy that in or I just did um I put that one in both super good about an MPD is there a singular document that summarizes the work the SRO currently does so well you can put that into into Libby's but I know that the answer is no yeah likewise um I was also relieved to hear that Tony said that the memorandum of understanding is in desperate need of upgrade everyone knows that and I think if for no other reason like that's a really great place to say to any community member who's wondering why we're having this conversation it's like the memorandum of understanding is terrible and super outdated and so if if for no other reason we need to revise that yes I was that was a huge relief to me I mean I have my printout out of it is just marked up my yeah I didn't print it out but I have it all with comments highlighted in a digital format okay so um is the SRO just assuming that you're doing all the copying and pasting right I am now doing that yes okay I'm in we're in six I think is the SRO answerable to school admin or are they empowered to make unilateral decisions without meaningful oversight in other words is the school system paying for security guard and or subsidizing them up hill your police department public relations please note that I am not advocating for private hire of our security guard by asking this question so I mean I think again that could be um we could hear from Libby and the police department on that don't you think I would think so I mean it's a it's a question for both who because I know that they're not really answerable to Libby she does not but I think it would be good to hear her you know for her to see that question for her to answer that question and then I think the police department can say I mean obviously the school has a relationship with them and they will call them and I know that a portion of their job FTEs is supposed to be you know in service to the school district but she doesn't have any direct supervisory role over that person and so then it would be um you know what is the chain of command for that person and what does that look like you know and when when do they decide to come to schools or whatever that type of thing um okay um this is a time to accompany a school employee to home or safety checks home visits so it's sort of a it's more of a transition question than a yeah I almost think that that can go to other schools what do you think I think so I mean it if it connects to anything it connects to how for those who have eliminated the role what what has taken its place how do you do home visit safety checks etc you know yeah some sort of an SRO handle that you shall I rephrase it that way yeah okay the folks who are going to be reaching out um if schools do not have an SRO this is uh 8 8c um what the relation would the if schools don't have an SRO what will the relationship be will police be trained to conflict mediation and de-escalation will they work to keep our students out of the legal system as best they can will they be able to communicate with school administration about incidents that happen in the community um okay the first the very first question seems like in other schools at least um I'd like to know if schools do not have an SRO what the relationship between schools and the police will be the rest appears to be a police question I agree okay um so I'm gonna oh good I can get in there and copy and paste them separately other schools done um and all of the rest of it police MPD done for some reason that didn't stay in the cell that's okay um during public comment um it was mentioned that we should consider the SRO one person likewise a guidance council is only one person how will 45k go to provide services and students to students should the school board decide to eliminate the SRO position other schools slash other experts and organizations yeah I would say because that really is up to the community and the school board and the school administrators so I mean it's like if we have if we decide to move forward without the SRO and we have $45,000 to spend on on a replacement for school safety in the absence of an SRO deciding what we do with that $45,000 or if it is $45,000 maybe it's not quite $45,000 so like those questions will be future questions I think for this committee and for the school board you know but it would be good to get input on you know what do other schools do and maybe what other what are other organizations calling for to be done with with those funds I think you're right put it into other schools and should we that also makes me think we should make not to give us more work but um another tab that is essentially questions for January through March the questions that are for us rather than for us to gather from the world okay um you want me to quickly make a new tab sure thank you we'll commit you to consider um is the community really aware of what the SRO's job description is would that change the community's perception of needing or not needing this position is the public misinformed about this position and its effects on our students and staff that's sort of rhetorical it really is I've let's put that in for the committee to consider let's I can't think of a better place to put it all right what measures of accountability are in place surrounding the SRO position um Libby and MPD yeah okay how can we explain to stakeholders with the SRO position is really for that's the same as the other one yeah I think I think it's important um communication transparency of and communication that came up I think it was in our last meeting with Genwell Howard we were talking about stakeholder feedback and we were talking about communication piece and that if there is a feeling that community members parents and guardians and students don't understand what the SRO does then maybe that's a problem you know and we need to like address that misunderstanding excellent that does strike me as next steps it strikes me as yeah for committee to consider yeah it is already there um new category will excellent um yeah this one we laughed about this a little our white males in our school system most affected um the answer to that one as near as I can tell is no I mean there was right and there's no data anyway um that's being broken down for us you know but and what and what has affected me right um I guess what it's another one for the committee to consider moving forward so like who is impacted by policing schools um and are they represented and who is disproportionately impacted we've only got two left does the SRO have different training than other police officers what is it ha ha mpd great if the SRO is in the building primarily the high school about half the time how are they developing relationships and getting to know the students um so definitely mpd also liby slash other staff yeah um yeah it almost sounds like that's like an anecdotal piece you know from matinsley like our previous SROs like giving examples of how do they build relationships I don't know if there's like a definitive you know structured way that they're supposed to build relationships okay it's not in the memorandum of understanding you know definitely not okay that's it that's the end we're done okay great I'm sorry we left that off no that's okay um we had a we struggled to get through all of ours as well so yeah I mean I will I'm gonna put these notes together and maybe look at your minutes and then get back to people with your assignments fantastic I will get those minutes to you very quickly I assume I don't have to put this part in yes where this is after the meeting this is after the adjourning all right great thank you so much well thanks to them bye orca bye