 And before I start, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that this is the first meeting after the school year was completed. And I think we should all take a moment and congratulate everyone who made that happen. It was by no means a certainty that we'd have in-person school for all of most of this year, much less I think with the smoothness and effectiveness that we did. And I just want to acknowledge everyone who worked so hard to do that. And it's literally everyone. It was, I mean, Libby and her team dealing with a near and possible past just to figure out what the system would be. It was all the teachers who went above and beyond every day to make it happen. It was the IA's, the staff, the custodians who had to do I think more than they've ever done just to keep the building clean and safe. It was all the parents who cooperated, the students who did a fantastic job under conditions that are tough for kids to do things like wear masks and comply with social distancing. But we all did it. And it was everyone on this board who was supportive and listened and made the right decisions. And so I'm just really, really proud of the community. And it was fantastic to have graduations for all of our schools last week in person. Just a wonderful end to a very difficult year that we pulled through. Just take a moment and recognize that. And thanks to everyone who made it happen. So the first order of business is public comment. So the way we usually do this is there's a participant bar or participant button down at the bottom of the screen where you can, if you press on the participant button, the bar pops up and you can raise your hand. And if you have difficulty with that function, please just go ahead and raise your hand physically so I can see it. But it looks like we have one person, EGMR is the name. So go ahead and please introduce yourself for the camera. Hi, my name is Adisa Gonzalez-Rabia. I just wanted to thank you all for the time and dedication that you give our district. It's extremely commendable. And I would also like to encourage you to continue sharing opinions and ideas as well as questioning each other. Because to me the true value in the board is the diversity in your perspectives. So thank you so much. Thanks, Adisa. Any other comments? Great. Let's move on to the consent agenda, which had a few items added. Oh, roll call. Thank you. Jill, oh, you know what? We don't need to do roll call anymore. We are done with special, we are done with the special. So we have, since we have a physical vacation, we actually do not need to do roll call. And we can just do voice, INAs. So we're done with that. But thank you for the reminder. But now that we're physically out of the emergency requirements, even though we're on Zoom, we're technically physically at the library. Thank you, Mia. And Jill. So we can, we don't have to do that anymore. And I will just call out the members that are here. We have Jill, Amanda, Emma, Kristen, Mia, Andrew, Jerry, and Anakin. So it looks like I pulled back. Andrew. Just really quickly, is the plan for next meeting to be all in person? Let me talk with Libby about that. I think it depends on what the custodial situation is. I think because our school year technically ends June 30th. I'm not, and June 30th is that day. I'm not sure we're going to be fully equipped from a custodial standpoint to be all in person, but we at least need a, we're going to need a physical location. So someone will have to be at the library, but yeah, it might be all of us. Okay. Thank you. And I want to, and I, and I'd love to get, I'd love to continue the Zoom option for the public and talking with Libby about how to get some sort of screen. So we continue to have participation for people who can't make it to the high school. So they, the consent agenda, have a motion to approve the consent agenda with the item that Anna added to it, which, which include the, it's a warrant and a few new hires. So a motion to approve the consent agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda. Do I have a second? I'll second it. There was Jill, an advocate and a tie. Any discussion? All those in favor? We can say it all at once. Hi. Hi. Hi. Any opposed? Great. The ayes have it. So now moving on to discussion. And mostly want to talk, discussion is future board trainings and then equity committee update. Also in future, around future board trainings, I just want to talk about ways to make the agenda more of an involved process. The proposal I have is that we do three things. We include then the next agenda in the current meeting packet. So people can see a draft agenda for the meeting one ahead with a link to the calendar, the planning calendar that Libby and I populate. So you can see not just, so you can go to that link and see, you know, several meetings ahead and kind of see what's being discussed. And then just have, have that be an item we can either pull out of the consent agenda. If people want to comment on either the next agenda, especially as it relates to future agendas, like, you know, when are we going to talk about this? Or there's no way we can talk about all three of those things at the next meeting. Can we spread them out? Or I see that we're talking about this in, you know, three meetings. I really think we need to talk about it next meeting. And maybe we can move this other item back. So have some discussion about the agenda at the beginning of meetings. And then, of course, additionally, you know, you can always email with agenda items so we can have discussions about the agenda beforehand, but to have some dedicated time in the meeting to talk about certainly the next agenda kind of as it relates to future agendas. And I think that'll get easy too as we get into future board trainings, which part of what will be goal setting. So would love thoughts on that as we kind of go into the next discussion. And then for future board trainings, we've had several. I think we definitely need more. I just want to acknowledge I think we have a super talented board. I think we have people who are by and large have similar visions for the district. But with a lot of new folks, I kind of, I don't know, maybe I'm aging myself, but I kind of think of that series from the late 70s and early 80s, you know, the greatest American hero, where this guy found a suit that gave him superpowers, but there was no real instruction manual. So the whole series was about him kind of like figure out what it actually did. And I kind of feel that as a board, we're in a similar place. So I think we need to spend some time kind of, you know, figuring that out and also I think we also have to do it while we make decisions and kind of operate within that. So we've done, you know, we've done some of the SBA trainings that I think have given useful information. But I also, the consensus that I've gotten just from talking to everyone is that we need something different, particularly around kind of communication and trust issues. I think we made some progress with Nathan on that. And we certainly have an invitation from Nathan to continue working on that with kind of the next building being I think goals and priorities, which I think would also help with the agenda and some focus. One training I would like to advocate for even though it's not super sexy is Pietro Lin who's our lawyer does a very good training on roles and responsibilities kind of from a just baseline. You know, here's what is required of us to do and here are how we have to navigate certain situations. You know, it's a little black letter, but I think it's a valuable training and he's got some availability in July. And then I'm open to other suggestions. I know Emma has had some suggestions. Amon has had some suggestions. Mia's had some suggestions. I think, you know, Andrea has some thoughts. So would love some suggestions about that and kind of how we can space it because I think, you know, summer and early fall might be a good time to do that. Because once we get into budget season, we're going to be be pretty busy. So if we can come into budget season, I think, you know, having done a couple helpful trainings, done some work building trust, and then also I think particularly thinking about goal settings and priorities to help guide that budget discussion in fall. That would be a kind of summer well spent. So I will stop talking and just open the floor up to ideas and then we can just kind of have consensus about what we want to do and then just assign some reach out. Emma. So one of the suggestions I had when I spoke to Jim one-on-one was potentially doing some restorative justice training. I think that it's something that our district has really invested in. It's something that the school safety committee made a lot of recommendations around and one of the recommendations from the school safety committee was that the board learned restorative justice practices so that we can sort of resolve any internal issues that arise within the board dynamics using those strategies. So that would be something I would recommend. I do like the idea of setting priorities with Nathan as well. And I think if we do something with Pietro, it might be nice to come with a couple of concrete examples of like things that we might want to accomplish. And then he could tell us how to accomplish those goals within the bounds of the role of the school board. Yep. Great. Thanks. Others? And Emma, just following up on that. Do you have, I know there's the Center for restorative justice in Montpelier and it's got offices elsewhere. Do you have contacts you could reach out to to kind of get a sense of what that would entail and availability, etc? Yeah, it's Montpelier Community Justice Center. And I do have the director's number somewhere, which I can either forward to you or start an email thread with you on it. That'd be great. Okay. I'm doing a training, a training, a trainer actually program from August 2nd to the 5th. If anybody's interested, there's still spots on it. And it's from the Community Justice, Reserved Justice Center in Beverly, Vermont. This is a three-day 24-hour training. And I think there's only a few that are doing just like two-hour trainings, not that many. And that doesn't cover a lot. So if people are interested in this training, I will send it. But if you could send a link to the board, that would be great. What were the dates, you said? I think the second to the fifth. The second to the fifth, yeah. It's at the Lake Montpelier Resort. Can you all hear me? Okay. Oh wait, now I can't. You go. That's right. Okay. So Jill and I are just trying to make sure we don't blow anybody's ears out. I just wanted to second the Emma's recommendation for restorative justice training. And I think it's because my understanding from, you know, what people shared with us as we were learning about it in the School Safety Committee was that the way that it, in order for restorative justice practices to work when there is a conflict is to build that foundation of strong communication and trust. So my hope is that that's what would be involved also in a training like that is that it wouldn't just be about like, okay, so when you have an issue that arises, here's how you handle it, but that also we start at the very, very beginning with the trainers and the facilitation. I realize that Nathan has started that process for us. And I think that it, for that to take hold, that's obviously a lot more than just one training or one retreat. So yeah, I think just bringing in the support for establishing strong communication practices so that we are starting out with working from a place of trusting each other so that we have that foundation to work from when a conflict arises. Great. Thanks, Mia. Anaket? Thanks, Shem. Yeah, I do like the idea for training and all the things that you guys have mentioned, they seem like from different, they seem to cover the different aspects. So like the Pietro thing that you mentioned, you know, it seemed like that was a different angle for the training as the restorative justice or what Amanda mentioned. But in general, I do like the idea of training. One thing I do want to kind of mention is the timing of this. Unfortunately, I've got a couple of things that I won't be here in town. So I'll be traveling and the first week of August is one of them. So and then July, and then there's one more. So we need to, I guess, if we need to fix up the dates, we need to fix up sooner and then kind of figure out what works out for all of us. Yeah, that's a good comment. And one thing we could do is, you know, what we can communicate schedule by email. So if we could just start an email chain with a run on the board, just putting the times that you know, you're going to be be out of out of town. And then that can help us pick some dates. And then we could have a couple things we can obviously take this into to, you know, the fall as well. And I think kind of going to Mia's point that, you know, this is, this is not a one and done thing. This is something I think that requires constant work and kind of constant look back. So, yeah, I think we want to talk about trainings throughout the year and keep revisiting the same issues. Yeah. Just on the scheduling note, my understanding is that for something that is truly a training, it wouldn't, we wouldn't necessarily have to do it at a board meeting. It's something that could schedule at a different time, because it's not a place where we would be making any decisions or, you know, following those kinds of procedures. Yeah, no, exactly. And it's also something we don't have to do. Just something to consider. Yes. Jill? Is that a hand or no? I'm not in the audio visual field for a reason. Sorry about that. No, it's okay. Alana? Yeah, I think it'll be helpful for me at least to have like just like the vision of what each of the trainings, like, like, which trainings we've had together as a board for the past, you know, whatever months that, which ones weren't, like, all of us together. I would love to have like a training on the budget. That would be really helpful to, like, really understand the budget, really understand how to read the quarterly reports that we get and, like, put those attached to kind of those board roles. And, like, so that would be really helpful for me. I would love a training on the roles of each of the committees, for example, the negotiations committee. Like, what do they really entail? Like, how does that happen? Like, who are the stakeholders in that process? And really understanding the role of each of the spending committees. So, and how the decisions get flowed into the full board. That will be really helpful. And, and I would say a priority just to get everybody kind of like on the same because that so so that and then with the work with Nathan around the values and principles that we do have a vision of that communication structure. And also, but also like, you know, and I talked to Jim a little bit about this, like, having like a real analysis of all those implicit bias trainings that were done and the documents that we discussed or that you guys discussed before I got I went on board with Mara and, you know, like how that fits into the work of equity and what else is needed, but really to do an evaluation of what of the why those trainings are done and how that actually relates to the actual work and the people then in the communication structure. So, I think having that and just like for me, just like I think like vision is like, okay, why are we doing this training? Where are they taking us? And what what what is the afterthought of that? Like, what is the result of it? Like, what are we gaining from it? I think it's really important to become effective. Yeah, so I just have some thoughts on what a couple of Amanda's suggestions, because I've served on the finance and negotiation committee since I've been on the board. And I was thinking, in terms of the quarterly reports, I think we have a couple of options for that. One is at our next finance committee meeting, anybody who wants to attend could attend and Grant walks us through those reports each time. So that's a that's a really good opportunity. Any board members welcome to attend those committee meetings. It's not just, you know, the finance committee or the people who need to be there to review and ask these questions. But if you're if anybody's interested, I welcome you to comment in the past. We have had some members come to other committee meetings. I'd say the one exception to that role is typically the negotiations because we have a group that's negotiating and the groups like to know each other. So if you want to be involved in that process, doing that from the beginning makes sense. But even what I feel like any committee I've ever been on other than the negotiations committees, any board member has been welcome to attend and I've attended some other committees as well. So that might make sense in the next the next quarterly report will also be the year end report. So it'll be a nice overview of how our expenditures came out in relation to our budget, which is and, you know, that'll that'll probably be helpful. We could even another thought is we could go from that finance committee meeting and we could carve out part of the board meeting for it. But I really feel like we have so much on our plate right now, maybe if anybody's interested, just come to that next finance committee meeting and let let the committee and let Grant know in advance if you have any specific questions. I generally send Grant like five to 10 questions ahead of time so that he can look into issues and be prepared to respond to them at the committee meeting. So that's that's a thought for those quarterly reports. For the budget, I feel like at the outset of our budget season because we're going to be heading into a long budget season. That would be a great time training on that. And also, I think we might want to consider bringing in someone either from the tax department or from the joint fiscal office to explain how property tax rates work. Because we talked a bit about that last year and it's really complex. There's some folks on Jill's team that could be good. There's there's some other folks at the tax department that could be be good that work with our team. So that that might be something that that we could request. Because I think better understanding how those things work will will help us all. Those I have, I also have a thought on negotiations, but I wanted to stop on the finance and budgeting. Does that to those sound like reasonable approaches in terms of coming up to speed on those issues? Yeah, I think the idea of a budget presentation prior to budget season makes a lot of sense, especially with so many new members because so many questions. Emma, just having my own hand there. So yes, I like that idea. I just I think that it might be nice to carve out a little bit on on an agenda, like maybe make sure that Amanda and myself and I don't know if me is interested, but maybe Kristen, like all of us newer members, like find out a date that we're all able to be at one of your finance committee meetings and then like actually make it an agenda item to like walk us through. Sure. I mean, I like that idea. I think that's great. Yeah. And he just so you know, he will he walks through every single time the different the different lines, like, and unless we say, you know, we got it, we don't have any questions, let's go like that is his modus operandi is to to do that. So yeah, let's let's look at that because I guess it will be the summertime. So another option is if that didn't work, maybe the next one, they're on a quarterly basis. But we could also have like an ad hoc one just for this purpose as well. I wanted to put in a plug just you said that any board members welcome to come but also any member of the public, right? Oh, yeah, they're totally open to the public. Yeah. Yeah. And we have gotten some members of the public at them, but it's it's not often. Amanda, I forgot. Oh, I just like thinking that grant went when is he leaving? Is he leaving this year or next year? Next year. One more year. This is last year. Okay. Just like to think about transition and like what that looks like for future people that will be doing this report. I think like it's really important to make sure that we have that transition plan in place if it hasn't started. And I agree with that. And also I grant a bunch of kudos because when I first came on, I asked for that financial report, the quarterly report, to be expanded and it's about double the size now with information that I think I'm the main person who's requested. So I'm thankful for that. Like you can see what our our debt obligations are over time and things like that. So thanks to Grant for that. And then the other thing I was going to say on negotiations, I do want to just say the different the negotiations with the different bargaining units are very different. And the contracts are a bit different. And the ground rules used are a bit different. And the issues that we address each time are a bit different. So typically what we've done in the past is when we're in the middle of negotiations, we have like monthly executive session meetings with the board to walk through. These are the issues that are on the table. This is what we're talking about. So what I'd suggest is because we thankfully do not have a negotiation next year, which would literally have negotiations every year for the past three years, the nuts. What I would suggest on negotiations is that when we're heading into a negotiation at the outset of that, that we use that as a time for like a primer. And then when we're in these executive sessions talking about proposals that are on the table, that's a really good time to ask any number of questions with regard to those issues, those ground rules that time around because it varies. The nature of these negotiations do vary even with the same union from year to year. And who's on that negotiation team might change that dynamic a little bit. And there's no better way to learn about the negotiations committee than to be on it. Yes. I was just going to say that that's one thing I kind of was forced into it. Not forced into it, but I forced myself into negotiations committee without knowing anything and first couple of meetings I was just fumbling, but maybe start picking up things. So that's a great way to learn. So what I'm thinking is not like the little details of what happens, but how I think it just be it doesn't have to be a training, but a conversation around the committee's role and how it trickles down into the board decision, right? So if things are negotiated and then we decide on things, so what are the parameters in there of the questioning and that we have to know that we should know, right? Because I feel like if we want to give committees the empowerment to be able to come to the board and say, this is what we are recommending, I'm just making this and then making sure that we know the information that we need to make informed decisions that we're able to ask the questions that we need to. So is that conversation around how committees interact with the full board so that when we have the board meeting and decisions are being made in committees work in particular because I'm in the policy and equity committee that there are certain parameters that we as a group come up with that, you know, give away for that communication structure to flow. Yeah, and I guess I should say having done this three times, my first and second time doing this, I was not as senior of a board member, but I did play the main point person on the teacher negotiations and there were some issues that, you know, I wanted to go one way and the board ultimately voted to go another way on and I respected that and I'm just giving you an example of how this dynamic plays out and, you know, it was the will of the board to do this, it made our negotiations more difficult and, you know, we just had to represent the board as the negotiations committee. Ultimately, when considering various provisions, we bring those to the board say, is the board okay with this? How does the board feel with this about this? And if there's an issue with something that we think might be easier to negotiate and the board says, no, we don't want to go that route, we want to go this other route, we honor that we're representing the board. That's really the role of that committee is to represent the board. That committee does not act on its own. So I just want to put that out there. And no committee ultimately acts on its own. Yes, that's a good point. Yeah, really good point. Yeah, and like the finance committee, I think I made, I brought this up last time, the finance committee doesn't make any decisions with regard to the finances of the district. It's simply to be better informed. So if questions come up, we can explain things. So, Kristen, I see your hand has come up a couple of times physically and Jill has had her hand up virtually. I want to go with Jill and then Kristen. Yeah, even though I'm in the school. I did want to just echo, I appreciate the idea of the agenda development. Like I have, I kind of want to update all of you on the Center Vermont Career Center stuff, and that would be a great example of like, well, when do we have a lighter a lighter board agenda where I could throw that in there because I'm excited to fill you guys in. I think we're still sort of, I don't know about anybody else. I feel like we're still sort of trying to run before we've walked. And I actually would, I really like how Mondex explained like, I would like the context of some of our decisions because I think even like a flowchart or something that sort of articulates the overall budget and the pieces that are fixed costs that don't require a lot of our discussion versus then we have things that come before the board like a track or a project or consultant and we throw around terms like fund balance and capital fund and a bond vote. And I understand what those things are to some extent, but I still feel like I have no way how to react to things like the track as I'm just using that as a latex example because I don't have the context of how much flexibility we have or, and as Amanda's pointed out too, like we had a few folks over the last year come before the board with things we're really excited about. So have we kept track of that kind of wish list of things and also sort of looking ahead, we're going to start having our facilities meeting again. And there might be short term investments, especially with like S or money that in the long term could actually free up funds for other things. But I'm still feeling like I don't think it would hurt to like really step back and sort of have a fundamental conversation about how the budget works and where we have flexibility versus what are fixed costs, if that makes any sense. That's it. Thank you. Yeah, no, I think that's a great point. Kristen. Thanks. Yeah, the reason I'm raising my human hand is I actually can't find the button and I have the participants bar up and this happened to me last meeting. So if anybody wants to, I'm a user of Google Meet all day at work. So Zoom is not my forte platform. But yeah, this is connected to roles and responsibilities. And I think we've talked about this a bit. But I'm particularly interested in getting trained up on kind of our role as representative of the of the community and how like what is what is really best practice community engagement look like. And just really exploring like that part of our charge and our role as as board members. So would that just be like a broader communications training, like how to communicate as a board member, but you know, with your constituents, from your constituents to the administration. I mean, not communications, but like communication as a you know, when when I'm talking to yeah, what do I say and when they ask me questions, where do I go? Yeah, that would be great. And I think with a specific focus to yeah on that just what is kind of best practice for in engaging, you know, there's there's the community member coming to you. But then there's also the practice of going to community members. You know, I think part of the goal there is to how can we best, you know, hear voices that we don't come that don't commonly come to the table and how can we do our best to engage those. I just want to echo what Kristen's saying and and not as more of like a detailed training on like how to talk to the community but about what has the board been doing historically to engage community members and what are our best practices as a board for engaging community members. I was just reading the memorandum tonight about now that we're going back to regular open meeting law and like posting, you know, just little things like where do we post our our agendas so that if anyone asks me, I'm knowledgeable about that. That sort of that sort of thing. I think it kind of relates to what we were talking about a training with Nathan, like maybe identifying certain priority priorities and, you know, visions for the board. And I think it sounds like Kristen, if I may over the course of the last few weeks when you've been on the board, it seems like community input and like stakeholder engagement isn't is a priority for you. Yeah, I think especially as we're approaching this time that we're going to be, you know, launching a visioning process that's going to include, you know, really thinking about how Roxbury and RBS sort of, you know, fits in. I think that that piece feels really important to possibly even proceed the starting of that process if possible. Yeah, that obviously is going to be a process with a lot of community outreach and community engagement. Amada? I think community engagement, having a 360 view, not only about like here's how we do it, but you know, so like taking a little bit of pieces of dialogue conversation around what has been best practice and where do we want to go from? Like, you know, so I'm thinking like, how do we involve, you know, people that speak different languages? And how do we, you know, like, so I think that that could lead to a policy around community engagement and around like, how do we really listen from the community that we are accountable to? So not so much. So I would think like, when I say 360 is like, here's the training of how we do it, and then being able to have the conversation of what is working and what is not working and how to move that to create our best practices that board of like what we want to see community engagement look like within our roles and responsibilities. Any other comments? So what I've heard so far is turn around, raise practice on community engagement with kind of a look back, look forward approach. A budget training, which I think will be a great thing to proceed our budget process. And I think with so many new people on the board makes a ton of sense because that that is a Byzantine process. And I think just laying out what it looks like beforehand would make a lot of sense. Restorative justice training and Emma is going to set along some contact information. Setting priorities and goals kind of furthering the work with Nathan. Roles and responsibilities with Pietro. And he might be able to talk about some some best kind of practices with a lens towards legal obligations as well. Amanda is doing a train to trainer at Lake Moray, August 2nd through 5th for folks to sign up for if they're interested. We also want to do I think a deep dive and I'm not sure if this is probably not training, but it's probably some space to put on the agenda of what our various committees do and how those committees interact with the board in terms of decision making points. And what else am I missing? And then obviously, you know, on communications equity trust, etc. These are trainings that we want to kind of keep going because you know, this is work that we never we never will fully arrive at. So we want to obviously keep keep working on it, keep evolving. I don't think that I will throw in just it's a little further down the road, but there's a meeting of all the state's boards that occurs in November that I think might be great for as many folks to attend as possible. I think that's also at Lake Moray. But it's two days, and it's it's a it's a peek into what other boards in the states are doing the issues they're facing. A lot of presentations, I think it's just it's a good I've done it a couple times. It's a it's a great just a great look at at the issues other boards are facing and how they're dealing with with various issues. And then obviously, you want to keep this conversation going, but that seems to be with with everything else we have going on, that seems to be a fair amount for the next few months, if we can get all of these things on the calendar. Any other comments, questions, observations? Excellent. Well, I think we can actually make good on our short agenda. I know we've had some long meetings. So I think we're we're due a short meeting, especially with the summer upon us. So do I have a motion to adjourn? We have the equity conversation. Oh, we do have the equity conversation. Thank you. I knew that was too easy. Equity committee update. Is that Mia? I think I can kick us off. So the equity committee has been working on establishing what our charge is. And then in the process of doing so, we also started to piece together what it might look like for us to gather the information that we think we would need in order to be able to set some some goals that for around the work we would do to advance equity at the at the board level. So that's why Anna included the minutes from the May 11th meeting of the equity committee, because that's where we recorded what our draft charge is. And then just to bring everybody up to speed, Jim reached out after reading this and said, oh, hey, standing committees of the board don't actually need a charge. So, you know, this is a little bit more, I still think this warrants, as I said to Jim, some good discussion from the board to say to because, you know, this is a committee of the board to get the input from you all to say, yes, we think this is generally what we imagined the equity committee of the of the board doing and or no, or have you thought about this or whatever. So that's the first part of what we wanted to to get your input on. And the second part was that kind of draft timeline or actions that we want to take together input from the community. And then the third one was about the survey that we're that we think will be part of that process of input gathering from the community. We are thinking we really want to make sure to have it translated so that we can make sure to be gathering feedback and perspectives from those of us who in our community who are not native English speakers. And so, as we think about that, we wanted to put it out on the radar to potentially use some of the money from the board line item in the budget to do so. So those are the three things. No big decisions need to be made. We're just we just want to hear what your thoughts are. And Amanda, Kristen did did I miss anything? I think that's a good start. Andrew. So I have some questions. I'm going to start with the the initial I appreciate the charge. We're going to talk about that facilities commit to because it helps us state focused. It's like what are we doing? I was wondering my question here is do you guys have some examples of things that you're thinking about already in terms of projects, services, work? I have to imagine that this survey, obviously, what are you thinking about in terms of that? Like, can you give us some tangibles? And if it's at the nascent stages of this and you're like just formulating thoughts on this, that's fine too. I can give it a shot. So yeah, I think the two mechanisms for just outreach, I mean, really that we've been talking about it, I feel like we've been primarily focusing on how do we reach community member or how do we reach, you know, families, caregivers of students in the district and try to gauge their experience in the district in terms of in terms of inclusion and representation. And so kind of the two mechanisms to try and gauge that that we've discussed is both a survey that would go out to families and caregivers. And then we have also kicked around the idea of leading some focus groups with groups that may particularly be affected by, you know, lack of inclusion or representation within the district. Thank you. That was that's helpful. So my I sent Mia some like just like budget type questions with regard to budget proposals, just like general considerations that would be helpful. But I have a larger thought here, which is I'm curious to know many schools and I'm pretty certain I've seen, I know our school has recruited for these positions at least that part time FTEs before I'm curious to know what resources our district already has for interpretation. Because for it's not just non native English speakers, it's really those non native English speakers who who who need and want interpretation in another language. And I have to imagine, and maybe I'm wrong, I guess I'm curious to know and Libby's not here right now. So but I guess I'm curious to know what resources the district already have for this, because we should be providing these services for a range of communications. And that would then lead me to raise the question of, can we leverage those existing resources for this exercise once we have a survey generally fleshed out? That's, you know, that's my 5000 foot level question on this. I can answer some of those. Yeah, I can answer some of those questions. One is that I know, I know because I am as part of the US caregivers alliance that some of the questions we've been having about how to like engage our, our, you know, families that don't speak. So there's, we have over 20 languages that we speak at US alone. Only four languages are translated into when families require interpretation. That doesn't mean that all of our communication that goes out is translated into those four languages. So, and this is because I know, first time because I talked to Sylvia who leads the ill department two years ago. So this might have changed since the time I started those conversations with her in 2019. And so I actually brought this when COVID because other districts are doing a really good job. They do have a bigger population of refugee communities. Burlington school district is really an exemplary district that has done this way, you know, above and beyond. So they have, for example, all the superintendent calls are being are like the robocalls are sent out in the different languages that the families speak. You know, and that was part of the multilingual task force that was created at the beginning of the pandemic, where there was this need to disseminate the COVID-19 information. So they created that there's a YouTube channel where all the governor press conferences were translated into the 10 different languages that are community of refugees in Vermont speak and immigrants and and then the district took some of those photo files and then translated them. Granted, they do have community liaisons that speak those languages as well to support those students. So they do have, you know, a system in place because of the population that they have to something I would love to see here around the language access, what we call language justice. We know that we have some families of that, for example, one parent speaks English, the second parent doesn't. So they don't require, they don't ask for interpretation. But most of the time, the person that stays home is the one that doesn't speak the language. And so or the who's like English is the second language. So, you know, being able to like really in terms of equity, and like when we're thinking about this, that was the that we were talking in the committees. I ideally equity is not like you you don't have to request it, you just get it because there's a lot of cultural implications around people asking to have, you know, the district to be, you know, translate this for me. And so and sometimes those translations get lost. So there's, you know, lots of that's a lot of things that happens. I think I think we could do a lot better as this trip. And I think this equity committee, like, kind of leading a little bit on that. So there's resources, we have two organizations in the state, you see a US CRI, who is the organization that places our refugees in our state. And then we have ALB, which is association of Africans living in Vermont. Two of both of them have translation services where you can interpret, but you can also and in most of the folks that do the translations are folks from the community. We do have in the district telehealth, whatever it's called, it's an organization. So if they do need it, they have either voice call or like through Zoom, like some of that interpretation, those people are not from here. So sometimes my experience is that the translation is not very good sometimes, it gets lost. But I know that we do have that service because it is required for us to translate when families requested is by law, they have to, we have to translate when people request it. But if they don't, then they just don't get the information. Yeah, so I think my like head goes to, you know, this could be an opportunity for us to assess, you know, and I'd want to touch base with Libby and probably Mike Berry, probably has put some thought into this, I have to imagine. I'd be curious to know, you know, how are we providing for those needs right now. It sounds like you have a good finger on the pulse of where we were a couple of years ago, Amanda might have not changed since then. And then the question is, you know, beyond like just appropriating money for this issue, this one survey I'm thinking about, well, if we, if there are people who need this for this survey, that they need it for, for other communications as well. And so that it would be, it would be nice if we could, we could get a better feel for that need out of this process and figure out, you know, I guess to me that I'm thinking about like even beyond this survey getting a feel for that need and providing for it. So I just want to put that out there. Emma? I think it's going to be great to have an equity committee that's helping the rest of the board sort of move forward on some of these issues and not having to carve out so much time during our school board meetings that it does feel like an issue that's ready for its own committee. And I know that the policy committee a couple of times could have used the help of an equity committee to, you know, for example, we, I think Amanda, you were on the policy committee at the time we were talking about the homeless student policy and it was just it got tricky really fast and it would have been great to have an equity committee to sort of run that policy by. And Andrew, you were talking about that in our policy committee strategy of like some of the policies might be run by the finance committee or some of them might be run by the equity committee or some might be run by the facility committee. So I think it's going to be great. Just quickly because it's on my mind. One really easy way to add accessibility to these meetings is to put on the live transcript option. So I could stay on after the meeting ends tonight to help Anna if she's still on or Jim learn how to do that. But it's like super simple and it allows people who are who are hearing impaired to understand and listen and participate in our meetings. That's a great suggestion. Jerry. I think Emma covered it. I was going to say if we're going to interpret, we should also think about people who are deaf or blind. The other thing is though I really feel like we're getting into solutions before we have data. So I would hope that the first step would be gathering data so we know what the size of things are and how to yeah just so we know how to scope things. Can you give an example of how it feels like we're are you talking about the equity committee specifically moving into solutions without having data? Yeah just everything. Like for example, I mean I don't know what the demographics are in Montpelier or Roxbury frankly. So it would just it would be nice to know for some of the larger issues we're tackling just what what what is the scope of the of the different communities what are their needs before we solve that's it it's just part of the data collection. Yeah that's that's exactly where our heads are at too which is why we thought we wanted to take pretty much the whole rest of this year to gather input. Yep. Following up just on Jerry's request about about data like can somebody just enlighten us to the process of how we go about getting kind of like demographic data or what does exist and kind of what the district's current processes for collecting that information and how it it could become available to us if it's helpful. I think the question is best to Libby. I think we might want to put on the agenda item at some point probably soon. It looks like there's a hunger for data about demographics in our district and kind of what we know and I think that might be a thing that the the board could discuss at another meeting another meeting soon. And yeah maybe put a request in to the administration to you know I know Burlington has some reports that do a very good job of kind of looking at the data that that's available both the community data and the school data and performance data and putting that out in report form. I think that's that's something that we have a hunger for. I mean Burlington's Burlington is a larger and more diverse community so I think they are going to have fewer problems running up against things like FERPA but I think we could do we could ask the administration to do the best it could with the data we have and then explain where the limitations are and you know where the areas are where you know the data samples for instance are too small to give the type of information that could potentially be revealing. Jerry is that an old hand or? Well yeah I guess just a follow-up yeah because let's say and I don't know I have no idea if this is true or not but let's say there is not a single deaf person in the Montpelier area who's who has any interest in school board stuff we wouldn't want to you know we also have to think about the taxpayers so I just I want to be really sensitive about you know the money we spend and whether if it's needed of course but if it's not needed you know I'm sure we will we just need data to make those decisions and then that could change at any time so how do we continue kind of collecting that information. Joe. Yeah there's definitely twice a year head counts that the schools have to collect and report up to the Vermont AOE that then go to the federal AOE. I think some of it might get suppressed by small n numbers because there might be smaller numbers but I think at the very least they do have to collect that and I think there would be some valuable stuff in there but I'm also just wondering this might be a good time of year if the forms that that parents fill out each year for their kids enrollment for the fall if there was a place that families could request their preferred language for materials to be communicated to them I mean at least for the principals to have that each year and and be able to provide that I think it doesn't even have to be something that gets reported out if it's too small of a number but just so the principals have that and can sort of proactively know that and prepare that that might be a way to capture what families need proactively rather than waiting for them to ask for it. I'm here. Thank you. I was just I'm just noting the time and wanting to make sure that we kind of stay on track for the purpose of of this conversation. I think Jim Euk's saying like let's let's put on a future agenda a discussion about data is a really great idea so I just wanted to bring us back so that we aren't going down too many tangents tonight and staying around too late just opening it back up to the board for any input on the charge or mission statement however we want to think about this for the equity committee and then any other thoughts on the the timeline that we put forth and the actions we think we're going to take to to gather community input for the rest of the year. Jerry did you have your hand already? I think it's Andrew. I mind an old hand. I mean I I think I think this is great. I appreciate this update. I appreciate I appreciate the focus. No I can hear it. Okay maybe you're muted. I think I think you know when when you're heading in to as you're working on the survey and pulling the survey together I think I I I just think it's worth seeing I think it's worth some some conversations with Libby maybe Mike Berry I don't know who else at our district level focuses on on some of these issues but with regard to some of the information that we're already receiving that we might be able to use I do think there's going to always be limitations with small numbers of personally identifiable data when used for school purposes I mean the FERPA is highly restrictive to provide student privacy and you know it's a civil liberties issue frankly the ACLU has championed around that law and a range of issues for a long time on a lot of good issues really issues of equity frankly and so you know that's that's something that we'll have to navigate I think that's something that on the data front will will always be something the board will have to navigate when it's collecting information because we're a small district it's something that happens even at a statewide level for some issues so I just I want to I want to throw that out there but I ultimately think with regard to developing a survey and everything as I think this committee you know go go do it and come to the board when when you have a draft ready to share I think that's my thought Amanda I mean I think the thing about equity is that we don't you know we make some decisions that is long-term that is going to affect if tomorrow another person moves in and as our states becomes more diversified and like how it relates to people that are coming to Montpelier and living here that we really think about like long-term goals I so for the climate survey we had added some questions from this company called Panorama who like that's what they do is develop surveys in for schools and they have like a very variety of tools and me and I actually I restarted them and I was like yeah we're using some of your questions and I just want to make sure that that's okay and say yeah this is open source everybody can use them and I want to ask them what their prices so for a mere amount of $7,250 like to be used from Kessler two funds we could have a contract with them for 12 months where they will they could do this is just an idea to put out there they could do all the series they have all the service translated into about 10 languages they'll pull out all the metrics and like develop like in a lot analysis system of what you can do with the data and like think through many many you know schools are nothing or I don't know who uses but you know they're getting a lot of the questions and we use as their refunds from this and they said yes but that so that's like a thought of something but we you know we are thinking of using some of their questions which are open source and we can use but that's also a service of that they're using and again like they already have a lot of the service translated into the different languages and they're willing to come to the school board to present their tool and everything that you can do with it and you know like you can use all of them like if you wanted to do students me and I were talking about like surveys also like we don't want people to get tired of surveys because I know that Ryan already did a surveys at UES I don't know the other schools did I think maybe the middle school also did a survey so it's like how many surveys but it's really important for our data for us to be able to have the data as an equity committee to really think through long term of what the things that great so thanks for the update is there anything else that you need from the board now thanks for the work on this I'm really excited to have an equity committee and I agree with everyone that it's really important to inform our work and make sure that we stay stay on top of this this issue which is you know really important I think we can entertain a motion to adjourn well that is a question if you're interested in having them come to speak or if that is zone deal for you to think about for the next meeting but that's something like that is of interest to have them come and do a 30 minute presentation around the tools that they use and I'll send the link through the yeah no definitely if you could copy let me have that too that'd be great no it sounds like I'm supposed to have a lot of great information to share I did a motion to adjourn I moved to adjourn second second all those in favor reiterate my volunteer to stay on if you want me to help teach you how to do the live transcript stuff great and Anna are you willing to stay on I am I can stay on as well it'll take like three minutes okay perfect all right thanks everyone