 So starting the Monthly Rocksbury Board of School Directors meeting at 632 on February 3rd. And let's do roll. Emma? Here. Gil? Here. Brian? Here. Let's do... Andrew? Here. Yeah. Starting the Monthly Rocksbury... Right there. Amanda? Here. Let's do the Monthly Rocksbury Board of School Directors meeting at 632 on February 3rd. And... Jerry? Let's do roll. Here. Emma? Here. Gil? I'm a kid here. Here. Brian? Here. Let's do... Andrew? Here. I want to do... Yeah. Starting the Monthly Rocksbury Board of School Directors meeting at 632 on February 3rd. Okay. You can make it. Okay. Is he the 850 number? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anyone I missed, you're all jumbled with the crowd. Okay. Excellent. First order of business is public comment. I know we were going to make some room for Laura Merchant and Mary Zantara to talk during public comment. So this is a time for you to go. Anyone else as well? And just a reminder, I know probably a lot of people want to talk about the SRO committee presentation. I just, in terms of time, I want to just remind people we've heard quite a bit on it. And the students have taken a lot of time to prepare a presentation. So if we could not dwell on public comment too much, I think that would be considerate to the students and then the committee and give the board kind of maximum time to hear the presentation and ask questions. So, you know, feel free to give public comment. But if it's largely repetitive of something you've said before, maybe either put it in an email or, you know, realize that we've heard your comments before. So Mary and Laura, why don't you go ahead and anyone else who wants to give public comment, please raise your hand in the public comment. Anyone else who wants to give public comment, please raise your hand in the participant, if you have the participant button at the bottom of your screen, there's a raise hand function in the sidebar that comes out. If that does not work for you, after Mary and Laura go, just unmute yourself and shout out. I can't get everyone on the same screen, so I'm not going to necessarily see a raised hand. So Mary and Laura, and remember, even though I just said your names, please introduce yourself, including your name for the camera once you go. Hi, I'm Laura Merchant and I'm a parent of a student in the Montpelier schools. And with me tonight is Mary Zanterra. She's a fellow UVM grad student and also a Montpelier resident and parent. I first learned about the petition to remove the SRO position in the Montpelier schools. I thought it was a really bad idea. And I wondered what would happen primarily in an active shooter situation if we didn't have an SRO. So I decided to do some research about SROs and see if they made schools any safer. And at the same time, students in my trauma grad course were also interested in the topic and learning what alternatives were available to schools instead of SROs. So it became the topic of our final project. In my research, I wasn't able to find anything that stated that schools are safer with SROs. And in fact, I found a lot to support the opposite. When I interviewed Montpelier police chief, Brian P, he stated that if there is an active shooter, it's an odds game as to whether the SRO would be present in that school at that time and that he would not promote that as a reason for having an SRO. So with that, and after learning more about trauma informed practices, which includes racial trauma, I realized that my experiences in fear do not and should not trump someone else's experiences and fears. So being white and growing up in a virtually all white state, I was taught to trust our police officers and to go to them for help. And that was my experience. So the opposite is true for the black community. Parents have to teach their children, particularly their boys, what not to do in the presence of a police officer in order to avoid being shot and killed. So what we're seeing in our country right now with police officers time and time again killing black men and women, it might not be happening here in our community, but it doesn't remove the fear and trauma that police presence causes and the systemic problem that we have. There are doable alternatives to SROs. The school to prison pipeline is real. The ACLU states that black and brown youth are far more likely to be suspended, expelled or arrested for the same kind of conduct in school than their white peers. Students who are suspended for at least 10 days are less likely to graduate and more likely to be arrested and incarcerated by their mid 20s. And once they're in the juvenile justice system, reentry into school is difficult and the vast majority don't graduate from high school. So you can argue that SROs are needed to deal with truancy, runaways, crises in the classroom. However, do we really want an armed officer in this role when that can retraumatize students? It is our understanding that the student resource officer in Montpelier is a professional, thoughtful and caring community member. However, no one who works in or with the Montpelier Roxbury school system is immune to systemic racism. It lives in our bodies in the form of implicit biases. The mere presence of an armed, uniform police officer could touch racial trauma in any one of our students, causing automatic nervous system activation. This trauma response is an adaptive normal response to an abnormal situation and can inhibit learning and the well-being of some of our students. Maintaining the SRO advantages, the safety and access to learning of some of our students over others in our school community. It is for this reason that we ask you to vote for the removal of the student resource officer and replace the position with trauma literacy for all staff and students in a trauma-sensitive restorative school system. Thank you. Jim, you were muted. Thanks. Thank you, Marilyn. That was very helpful. I see Lizzie Fox also with her hand raised. So Lizzie, go ahead and again, please introduce yourself for work out. Hi, thanks. My name is Lizzie Fox. I'm a resident of Montpelier and a student teacher in another district. I've also worked as a guest artist in Vermont schools through the Vermont Arts Council and other organizations for several years. And as a writing instructor, I help students express themselves on their own voices and use creativity for social good. I love what I do, and I know that students learn best in spaces where they feel safe, supported, and included. I'm lucky to be student teaching in a district that uses restorative justice practices and does not have an SRO on staff. While there is always work to do toward becoming a more just and inclusive school, these practices model for students how communities can come together to heal rather than ostracizing individuals who may be struggling or further dividing students along lines of difference. Studies show us as much more eloquently put by our last speaker that SROs no matter how well-intentioned or good-hearted they may be as individuals as a profession are more likely to target and punish students of color, LGBTQ plus students, and students with disabilities. And they represent a key link in the school-to-prison pipeline. I know you've heard all of the statistics before, and I don't want to take up too much time or be redundant. I'm grateful to this board for taking seriously the issue of SROs so far in this process, and I'm very grateful for the advocacy and hard work of the members of the Justice Schools Initiative. And I just wanted to further encourage you to, you know, keep on this path towards a more just community, voting to remove the SRO position once and for all from our school district and paving the way for more inclusive and just practices here in our community. Thank you. Thanks, Lizzie. That is the only hand I see raised. So if anyone else wants to speak out, either raise your hand now or just give a, unmute yourself and give a shout out, otherwise we will move on to the Consent Agenda. Okay, great. Thank you, everyone. Consent Agenda, do I have a motion to approve the Consent Agenda? I'll move that we approve the Consent Agenda with the addition of the warrant we received today. Do I have a second? Second. Emma? I. Jill? I. Brian? I. Andrew? Yes, I. Mia? I do have a question, but it's not like discussion or anything, so I can wait until after the vote. Oh, sorry. Amanda? Jerry? Hi. I think I got everyone who is here, right? Yeah, Mia, your question and then also just Libby, were you going to give a quick update on the vaccination thing? Yeah, if you could do that, that would be great. I just as an update, we had discusses in a couple of meetings ago, more information came out from the administration, so I thought it might be good to get an update and see if we still want to kind of weigh in with the administration. So, can I also add to that, and I spoke with Libby about this and she asked that I just bring it up at the meeting. In addition to the vaccines, can you also talk about the governor's proposal to return all school staff and students back to in person full-time and what that would mean for how you interpret that for our district as well? Great. Mia? My question is about the policy that was in the consent agenda. I think it's the one that we talked about at the last meeting. The removal of policy D-15, is that to get started on the process or is that the start and end of the process that we just removed a district policy? I believe that's the starting and end of the process, correct? Would recommend the policy committee check-in with the VSBA, but from my limited knowledge, because we've never actually rescinded a policy under my superintendency, so not positive that the policy committee reach out to Sandra Cameron over at the VSBA just to make sure that it is the process that you just have it as consent at some point, and if it's different then we'll correct it. Okay. Let me want to give those two quick updates. Sure, and when you say vaccination just to be clear, Jim, you're talking about vaccination of educators, correct? Yes. So the state officials have, as probably most of us know, talked about prioritizing people based on death rates, which is completely and utterly understandable. So they prioritize 75 and above right now. They have a limited supply which is apparently increasing under the new administration, however they still have a limited supply of vaccinations, and they need to decide how best to use that limited supply. The CDC has recommended that educators be part of the 1B. Vermont doesn't seem to have a 1B. They're now in the second phase. They're calling it. So they're using different language and our state has decided to not abide by the CDC recommendation and go rather with vaccinating first 75 year olds and above and then 65 year olds and above and those with compromised systems that put them at a higher risk for more intense COVID situation which is completely and utterly understandable. Their goal is to reduce death which I applaud and I'm right there with them. That does however leave our educators out and other essential workers who are not healthcare workers out of the fold for vaccinations and being. What we know right now is that educators will be able to be vaccinated when their number is called essentially when their age is called and that's the knowledge that we have at the moment. However, the state has given themselves an opening to reexamine their decisions once they get through those priority categories that they've named and thinking about where they will be then with the number of vaccinations that they have available to them. I don't envy their position in making these decisions in any way shape or form and I understand the decisions that they're being made. However, when statements like students will be back full time in person in April are made and educators are not prioritized for vaccination it has our educators scratching because they are with many people many more than the average white color worker is on a daily basis in very close contact every day. So those two things seem to be at odds for our educators right now and that is completely understandable as well. So that's where we are with vaccination front right now educators are in the same boat as every other community member not 75 and above or not in one of those categories. We do have some educators who have been vaccinated there was a loophole with the healthcare worker piece where the state didn't specify healthcare social workers or healthcare guidance counselors or healthcare speech and language pathologists and we use that loophole to get as many of our people vaccinated as we possibly can. So and I call it a loophole it probably wasn't mean to make that sound like a negative political statement in any way shape or form so but some of our guidance counselors some of our social workers some of our speech and language pathologists we got them the information they needed and they were able to get a vaccination and our school nurses have all been had their first shot and we'll be getting their second shot very very shortly so we do have some school personnel who have been vaccinated because of what the guidelines have been so far as as far as reopening Andrew's question regarding reopening schools in Vermont the governor and the secretary of education have made the statement that by the end of April schools could be back in session full-time they have not given any changes to the guidance around that piece so we're at a little bit of a limbo state and in addition to that the way that we designed our system which we have a remarkable bit of evidence that has worked up until this point with only one interruption in our schooling up to this point and that was in very early October and that was only in one building so three of our four schools have not had any interruption services to students and one was very short-lived we designed our system for the full year based on the guidance that we were given and based on the safety guidelines that we were given there is no way that our high school could change what they're doing right now because they moved into a quarter system at this point they're in quarter three they started it last week so kids have taken half of their full year course loads at this point and they're in their third so basically their sixth full year course load end of April they will have completed 75% of their school year and with 25% left because of the quarter system and it's just not possible to bring them back full time and say and know what they're going to do for it they would have to do the full year course load in that day and I'm sure Amanda who's a guidance counselor can speak a little bit more eloquently than I can because she knows the schedule much better than I do around the high school in regards to our K-8 buildings right now but our pod model if we were told that we had to bring all students back to full time instruction the first thing we need to consider is that 18% of our K-8 students are in a virtual world and I don't believe many of those parents would want to come back some would but most wouldn't they don't feel comfortable yet especially with their kids and their teachers would not be vaccinated at that point in addition we really have to reorganize our students so that because of our pod model and because we designed our staffing based on the number of students who wanted in-person versus the number of students who wanted virtual we would have to completely reorganize classrooms so that Susan Koch who's also here would have a different set of students than she does now potentially because we'd have to reorganize our grades of kids into classes to make them even across multiple teachers that's not what's best for kids in the end of April with six weeks left of school so my the way I am choosing to look at what is coming out of the state right now is that the state is speaking to systems like the ones my children are in my 12 year old is in where he is only going to school for two days a week and he is virtual for three days a week that he will have more in-person instruction our kindergarten through eighth graders who have chosen in-person instruction have had a full year of school in-person instruction yes it's a shortened day however they've had a full year in school and our data does not suggest that there's any learning with us happening right now for our in-person students it is not what would be best for students and children and families in terms of consistency or our staff for that matter the overnight we'd have to reorganize school again so from our perspective we have a system that has worked we have safety guidelines that are working and we have evidence of that and we have learning considerable learning that is happening in our in-person instruction and there is simply no way for us to change that schedule in the end of April even if all the guidelines change and all the safety guidelines change would be highly recommending that we would stay the course for the last six weeks of school keep kids as they are keep teachers as they are because they're comfortable with the situation right now most likely teachers will not be vaccinated by April based on the number of vaccinations the state is receiving right now and how they're prioritizing those vaccinations so that's where we are right now at the leadership meeting this afternoon and we all agreed that we are once again in a place where we need to start making decisions without having all the information we need to make those decisions so we will be we will be muddling through that as an administration team again we're talking about how we can communicate out to our families and start that communication now and we certainly are in the beginning stages of redesigning our schools once again in the fall assuming we can get all kids back in school for the fall great thank you Libby Amanda? kind of unrelated to this it's one step back so I don't know if people have questions or I just wanted to thank the members of the public for being here I really really appreciate and like really hope that you come every meeting so I don't know it's kind of an abrupt thing so thank you, yeah I know likewise yeah I know and especially the committee members any other questions for Libby Jill? and I'm looking at the raise hand function too so I just wanted to thank Libby for that I support that 110% I'm really impressed by what she's done I was really thrilled and knowing we were all kind of holding our breath at the start of the school year because I do feel like we were out in front a bit in person instruction and I think it's been a overall very successful year and a crazy time I know I can speak as a parent that my child is having a very challenging in the best way possible year and I see that in her and her friends so I support that 110% it's pretty great to look at where we are right now versus the angst we were all going through this summer preparing for the school year so thank you yeah, no absolutely this school year under the circumstances has been a tremendous success yeah, likewise just speaking speaking as a parent my kids are thriving this year under conditions that we all were really worried about kind of with that in mind it sounds like it might make sense to maybe write another letter or a letter from the board expressing concerns about both the implications of the opening plan especially with vaccinations the way they are does that make sense or do we wait? I want to also chime in just to voice my support for the administration and I think that under some very strange and bizarre and unprecedented circumstances you worked all summer long to come up with something that would be the best case scenario for the kids in the district and I think it would be a real shame and waste of energy emotional energy and resources to try to shift gears at this point and come up with a whole another plan to have a plan that's working if guidelines change distance can change between kids or different spaces can be used or masks aren't worn anymore and those types of changes but to have to completely shift gears and talk about changing dynamics of classroom assignments and it doesn't make sense to do it at this juncture it doesn't feel like it makes sense to do it at this juncture so I would do everything I can to make sure that we're on the board to support you in sticking with the plan that we have through the end of the school year and I think everyone's eager to get back to normal and I share that eagerness and I think everyone does but I don't think we should do it you know at the detriment of the resources that we have in our district yeah I thank you for that Susan Gok has made a beautiful relationship with her first graders and I know that because I know Susan and I know what she does but she's not going to do that in six weeks with new kids and then if you move up into third grade just to further the point third grade starts S-back testing which they have not canceled yet I'd say yet maybe they will but so that happens in May so can you imagine we reshuffle classrooms for our kindergarten in eighth grade at the end of April so it starts May 1st then we put them in S-back testing with new teachers and new systems and new kids around them and then it's the end of school it doesn't make sense for us so I think I would encourage the board if you do write something to the state it's what we've designed as a district is working and it's what's best for kids is to limit the number of transitions they have to do right now and keep them in a way then something that they now know and they're comfortable in and we have lots of evidence around that rather than in this crazy pandemic that we've got our kids in right now changing it up again it just doesn't make sense to me unless you have my kid which is only two days of insert person then he can go to school more I was going to say that exactly that you know I will just strongly suggest that it is our this is what works for us because of all the work that's been done because we know what's good for our kids but some districts do actually want to go back or some educators and those kids that are only going to this week so it's like two levels one is the vaccine like educators have been going to school five days a week like we want them all vaccinated now no matter what that's one conversation and the other conversation is like the transition to go for us this is what works because of the great job that the administration has done to get us to where it is and it doesn't make sense for our kids I'm just like to now be advocating for other people that might not work for them they might want to go back Emma? Just quickly piggybacking on what Amanda said I think the only place where I would see sort of making flexibility and changes would be for people who chose virtual initially and now would like to join in-person instruction and if there was a manageable number of those families then maybe we could allow for that we don't have the staff so if the board is willing to hire teachers for in-person instruction which we won't be able to hire we don't have the staff for it I've been in contact with Jim quite regularly we have literally three seats open under the guidance at the middle school three for three children and they have to be seventh graders they can't be at the other grade I'm more talking about if the state issues new guidelines around space and distance and that would allow for you to increase class sizes again slightly if those types and those are a lot of what-ifs It seems like the and my suggestion is that I draft a letter including the next meeting's packet and we can kind of word Smith and agree on it and send it out is that just giving districts the choice in April if what's working now works and maybe giving them a little more flexibility to change if they want to change but it seems like a mandate to change doesn't work for mob failure and it may not work for many other districts as well anything else on this I want to be mindful of time as we have a budget presentation and I know the students I'm sure are eager to give the SRO presentation so Andrew just one thing really quickly and we've talked about this or I've talked about this offline with a couple of board members but to Amanda's initial comment about the public attendance I think a major silver lining of the situation that we find ourselves in as a school board is that we've received so much public participation and so much public input and that's a really really great thing it shows how much our community cares about our schools and as we move forward and I imagine when we have our retreat in the summer but over the next year two three I really think we need to have like some lessons learned to sessions and figure out how to continue involving the public in this way whether it's having one in person one remote meeting a month or I don't know exactly what it will look like because we don't know exactly what the world will look like but to me this has been a real positive development and so thank you everybody for showing up today. Great, thank you. Ryan? Sure, so the potential statement we were thinking about had two themes one the position to go back to school earlier for most districts and also the decision whether or not to promote more support for teachers being vaccinated we didn't spend too much time on that second piece I just wanted to highlight as we're talking about school year teacher schedules the vaccination schedules etc I'm a little bit hesitant to merely jump on board with the idea of really pushing for teachers because by the time we get through the 75 year olds and we go through the month long process of the vaccination schedule itself for the vaccination person we're going to get at the end of the school year it's like that time piece is something for us to consider and obviously we're not the ones making the decisions about who goes when thankfully I don't have that pressure on me but at the same time it is something for us to think about as we're making statements yes when I support all of everybody in our district staff students everyone for sure but at the same time by the time somebody would actually be vaccinated at this point is it really the biggest bang for our buck is a community as a state as a nation etc school year will be coming to an end here before too long so that was all I just wanted to as we're right thinking about those two themes I'm sharing that one of the second one and yes Libby's absolutely right less destruction in our schools let's not mix it up yeah no good point and maybe as I worded and we can words with it next meeting we can just kind of link that a mandate to go back to school does not mesh well with not vaccinating teachers especially if it forces some staff that have chosen to work remotely due to health reasons back into an in-person situation I think grant is here and ready to give some I think news it's going to be all very welcome on the budget and that's a quick presentation and then we will have the SRO presentation so out there on grant going to go ahead and I'm assuming you're going to want a screen share so I'll let whoever does that do that yeah great we actually have some really good news to share regarding the dollar yield and its effect on tax rates so we have a handful of slides to show and I'll get through this real quick so you can go in and talk about communication because this will kind of add to the the need for some communication especially around this piece so Libby if you can go to the next slide so as you know the tax rate calculation is a bit complicated and some of the factors are really hard to define dollar yield is one of those I wanted to put together one slide to just talk about dollar yield since that's really what's driving today's update so the dollar yield is a statewide factor it's the estimated amount that districts have to spend per pupil in order to have an equalized tax rate of one dollar while also generating enough money for the state's education fund the amount of the dollar yield should increase each year because inflation goes up each year the better the economy the higher the yield and the lower the tax rates the dollar yield that we are supposed to use is estimated by the tax commissioner on December 1st each year but it isn't set by law until usually after town meeting day which is why a lot of times our estimated tax rate ends up being off because it gets set by law well after the budget process is done so for FY22 some specifics a little quick recap the tax commissioner recommendation was 10,763 we anticipated that it was going to be set higher and so at the last presentation we were using 10,863 the big news is that house ways and means has passed a bill that actually sets it at 11,385 so a huge increase that increase decreases the Montpelier tax rate by 8.7 cents and to give you kind of a feel for the magnitude of that if we wanted to cut the tax rate by 8.7 cents without a dollar yield change we would have had to cut the budget by a million dollars it does also decrease the Roxbury rate and I don't mean to kind of belittle that but Roxbury's rate was already decreasing so this just makes it a bigger decrease I will warn though this is just house ways and means so it still has to be set by law but this is a good indicator next please so the updated dollar yield dramatically changes our tax rates obviously but it does not change the overall budget our education spending or our spending for people because it doesn't change any of those things our budget articles and the warning that was approved and published is still valid because those things only refer to our total budget and our spending for people those two things haven't changed so just wanted to make sure in case you were wondering does this mean our warning is bad no everything's fine next so we created this slide to define the terms that appear in the tax rate calculation we've discussed some of these in the past so I'm not going to go through them property dollar yield is on here again but I wanted you to have this because once one it's kind of a preview of what we plan to show for the informational hearing and two it's hopefully a good reference for you to have in your back pocket as far as if you get questions about the tax rate calculation and the next slide actually shows the tax rate calculation if you look at this you'll see that nothing really has changed until you get about halfway down where you see property dollar yield and that's where the big change happened that number is $522 higher than it was and then of course the tax rates are all recalculated the just to give you and it's not on here so a reminder is if you look at Montpelier's tax rate of $1.78 here last time you saw this it was $1.87 so that's that big 8.7 cent decrease equalized pupils and property dollar yield you see are still highlighted because neither of those is final the dollar yield will be set by law hopefully it should be close to this since the House Ways and Means Committee took action already equalized pupils have been unknown and I don't really have a whole lot of confidence in that number yet in the past week or so we've received four different equalized pupil counts and those changes ranged from an increase of .2 which was barely nothing all the way up to an increase of 30 pupils where we stand right now the last number I got showed an increase of 13 higher than what we're showing on this chart if that 13 holds then our tax rate in Montpelier would drop another 1.9 cents which would get us down to just an increase of 3.8 and the percentage increase would only be 2.2 so we're hoping that that holds and that for the informational hearing we'll have an even better tax rate for the place next please so these are the updated tax rate impact charts the text box under Montpelier is just to reference what the numbers looked like the last time we showed it so for example $100,000 in property looked like it was going to be an increase of $144 now it's an increase of only $57 it's a 60% reduction without changing the budget so that's one statewide factor changed like I said hopefully these will be even lower numbers on informational hearing day you can see in Roxbury they're very safe they were already in the negative numbers they're even further in the negatives so that's very good and then just one last slide we always end with kind of a budget summary so the total budget increase spending increase remains 2% but the residential tax rate figures have obviously changed dramatically so Montpelier is now sitting at an increase of 5.7 which is just over 3% which makes me feel a lot more comfortable and if you take out the impact of CLA if the CLA hadn't changed at all the increase would only be 0.7 Roxbury's decrease is now 13.6% a reduction of 8.5 in the last year so that's what we got for you as I said very good news I was hoping maybe some media would be present today so that maybe that would start kind of a new communication process but I may need to reach out to somebody tomorrow to kind of give them the update but this kind of dovetails into I thought David here he's here don't you worry so this but this does dovetail into your next topic which is communicating the budget but before you get there if you have any questions I'll be glad to talk to them Jill I see your hand questions for Grant and yes Jill Grant I was wondering if you could explain a little more why the Equalized Pupil number fluctuates that much because isn't that like a head count based on like the age or special education like isn't that like a hard number oh Jill there are no hard numbers Jill be professional Grant be professional I think it's important that the board and folks listening understand and I'm actually kind of curious that it's fluctuating that much yeah well the first number that we got was an increase of 0.2 which kind of makes sense because you can you know an equalizing ratio tweak might do that reporting district might make a minor change then it went all the way up by 30 kids which made no sense but that was a pure mistake in the spreadsheet that the AOE did I pointed it out I expressed concern because our poverty number went up like 20 kids and our poverty the raw data didn't change at all so it made no sense the number that's up 13 now it's a little surprising that it's up that much but as I look at like the prior year for how much waiting we got for poverty it's pretty similar to last year so I'm hopeful that it's the same but what changes is the statewide data system is really tough for student information and so pulling that data in from that new statewide student information system has been challenging and it continues to be and some districts are late to report and all of that has to get factored in whenever they do this equalizing which basically brings the total number of kids back down to the two year average ADM so as any number changes they change the equalizing factor the AOE is frozen that equalizing factor so that won't impact us anymore the only thing could impact us is if they look at our data and find out that something got messed up and hopefully they've looked at that enough times by now that we should be good but in addition to the just the overall student information system the other piece that's tricky is your like free and reduced data your English language learner data all of those pieces have to be weighted so like for if you have an English language learner student that doesn't count as one student that counts as 1.2 and so you have to look at all that raw data and make sure that's calculated correctly so it's not really a slam to the AOE it's very difficult and challenging but it is a little frustrating and hopefully like I said hopefully the number of an increase of 13 is good and we'll be able to make that call before the informational hearing and give the appropriate number then and Andrew yeah I just wanted to provide a little bit of context especially for new board members who might not be as used to these shifts in the yield this is a really really big shift because there are other revenue sources like sales and use taxes the really really big one other than property tax that goes into the education fund and when that was forecasted in late August we had a very different political government situation economic situation there was just a lot of uncertainty and so in January when a new forecast came out and sales and use tax had been performing better and there was new federal stimulus bill and the coronavirus relief funds were extended all of these positive developments where the economy happened the sales and use tax forecast was upgraded by like 17.5% and that accounted for 90 plus percent of the change in the education fund which meant that it relieved pressure from property taxes and that's this is the result of that so I just it's all kind of connected because we have the statewide education fund great other questions for Grant and then we can quickly discuss getting word out on this and I know that David is here that will help and hopefully he'll report on it great so in terms of communicating out obviously a story by David would be very helpful also Andrew has I'm being shameless sorry Andrew has offered to write an op-ed we can also post this and other presentations Grant has given on websites on the district website already but feel free to share the link on Facebook or Twitter and obviously other ways talking to your community members answering emails etc are great ways to communicate this out too but obviously this is a big change in the budget and I believe most of us have received several emails when the number was up around you know 89% with some fairly legitimate concerns about that being a difficult number for many households so the thing about ways to get out and continue the conversation next week any comments on that or questions? it will be great to can I raise my hand? go ahead it will be great to maybe just like really reach out to community to like asking for like if they have questions before like all this week like you know do a google form with you have questions about the budget coming you know like here we are willing to respond to any of the questions because it takes work to go to the website on each school board member and there's like all these regulations which is like really have and like get people to to ask questions if they have it before they call and I think I developed a bunch of questions which I have not sent to grant that I had like that and some of the questions that are coming in around like the Roxbury so developing that Q&A in the next week or so will be really important to just say why is this Roxbury so expensive and how did you figure this out and what are the things that I think like having that as really accessible plus a space for people that can ask questions without having to go through the website to find emails and board members and things like that so you're suggesting that living around together like a FAQ yeah we talked about it last last month if you can all tell me the questions that you're getting we're happy to do that we haven't got any questions from our end so at least I'm speaking for myself I don't think Grant has either from the community so if you email us the questions we're happy to do that Jill speaking as a shameless stealer of other people's ideas is it appropriate for the Montpelier Roxbury school social media stuff that Anna does have just a hey update for in preparation for town meeting the tax rates are XYZ because then I can and others can share that on social media rather than sort of recreating our own message but if that's not an appropriate pass no we've already got a plan we had that well in the works yeah and remember all these numbers right now are and will be for a while estimates so yeah we were waiting for the social media blitz until we were closer to town meeting day I think that's important to say to people these are which is a reality that many people don't know that these numbers fluctuate and that's how this works and this is why we need a new system but that's at least like the point that you know I think people need to community people need to understand that that this is where we're at so that later on when things change I was like but you said this so I think clarity and accessibility are the two things that we need to move things forward Andrew yeah just a couple of quick things so the budget numbers that people will be voting on those are set those aren't going to change what changes is what to a lot of people is the most important thing which is what am I paying which is based on the tax rate and that's based on all these different factors so I just want to clarify that for members of the public who might be interested anybody who might be interested that we the budget numbers will not change it's just the tax impact changes based on these other state variables and you know we have I feel like we have pretty strong estimates right now but when you're in this environment of really tremendous uncertainty there there are fluctuations that occur and fortunately the fluctuations have moved in a positive direction and that's a reflection of the general economic well-being of the country and the state so just put that out there yeah Ryan just a quick housekeeping question we've advertised March 1st is our informational presentation date have we advertised a time is our time set for that presentation discussion yeah okay I kind of assumed it wasn't but I figured if it was we should probably start sharing it now so forthcoming it's typically around like a typical board meeting time yeah that's when we usually do it so we offer interpretation for that if people request it to make sure that that is for in-center that if people need interpretation for that they that they get it if somebody does I would encourage them to reach out to us as soon as possible so that we can set that up and we put that in our communications that if they need that to ask for it any other comments or questions for Grant Emma I'm going to turn it over to you to introduce the SRO presentation and I'm also going to thank you and the committee for all the great work you've done I know you've put in a ton of hours and a lot of hard work and good thoughts so thank you and please take it away yeah thank you it's been a really great process and I'm so appreciative of all the committee members and many of them are here tonight we have Amanda Payne Will Alexander and Mia Moore Susan Koch Katherine Nenally and then we've made a decision as a committee to elevate the voices of students on our committee so our three student representatives will be taking over for the presentation portion of the evening. They are Edie DiNafrio, Eliana Morehead and Zach Henningson so I'm going to hand it over to them okay um Susan whenever you were able to present the slideshow okay thank you hi folks my name is Zach Henningson and I'll be presenting today with Eliana Morehead and Edie DiNafrio I'm going to have to keep my camera off during this meeting for wi-fi purposes and I'm super sorry about that um the purpose of this presentation is to share what we as a committee have learned throughout our work within the community in regards to Montpelier Rockbury school districts relationship with the school resource officer. We will be presenting you with student and community feedback and analysis of core values that the community believes to be important and providing you with statistics in regards to employing a school resource officer um we're just going to remind slash tell everybody what our committee's charge is uh the charge is the committee will conduct a thorough analysis of the intended and unintended impacts that the presence of police officers and the SRO position has on our community and in our schools hi my name is Eliana I'm a senior at MHS and so how did we fulfill this charge um we basically just need to talk to the community a lot and we engage in really rich conversations with chief Pete and former chief Tony Fakos uh Mary and Laura gave us a great presentation about trauma informed and racially informed practices and I feel like the real meat of our work sort of came from these surveys that we sent to the community where we were able to have the stories and experiences of parents, students teachers, all kinds of people and so those are linked in the community materials tab which is the stakeholder and SRO feedback surveys and so after we sent out these surveys and combed through all the wonderful responses we were able to sort of extract some main core values of school safety um that the community sort of represents and also that can ground this board in decisions that they make in the future and so yeah we'll just jump right into those core values um these core values were drawn from two stakeholder feedback surveys which together represented hundreds of people from many different stakeholder groups in the Montpelier Roxbury community this presentation will be grounded in the community core values so um we're going to introduce those and further explore them after this. So the first core value we gathered from the community is justice rooted in diversity, equity and inclusion and our definition for that is we acknowledge the weight of history, the realities of inherited privilege and the urgent need to actively embrace anti-racist practices in matters of equity and justice for all members of the community and so I have some quotes that are directly from the surveys we sent out and when asked to elaborate on feelings of safety regarding the SRO, a BIPOC female student said quote they do nothing for us except confuse and scare kids people of color are already scared because of what's going on and what we have to put up with in school having an officer there standing around doesn't help to make a kid feel safer and close and when asked what makes students feel unsafe in schools a non-binary LGBTQ plus disabled white students said quote more than anything else cops they make me fear for my own safety as well as for the safety of others particularly BIPOC students and staff. Ever since I was in elementary school there have been armed police officers wandering through school and it's extremely scary and stressful to see that and from the same question from a white LGBTQ plus female student cops transgender people have a 15% chance of being sexually assaulted by the police which is much higher if there are people of color the presence of police officer makes me feel physically unsafe and if you'd like to see more of these responses they are linked in the committee materials page so next slide alright so our second core value of school safety gathered from the MRPS community is compassion, empathy and belief in each other our definition is we prioritize community and our relationships with each other we care for one another and we seek to understand each other's perspectives by working through initial reactions to recognize the humanity in others we believe we each have important contributions to make to our community and we support each other in doing so and when asked what makes students feel safe in school a male white LGBTQ plus student said connections made with teachers and those in power in school settings equality of opportunities and a willingness to discuss difficult important topics and from a BIPOC, Latinx female parent or caregiver quote school culture is one of respect, empathy and one that cares about each other's success and mistakes and from the same parent or caregiver on what contributes to an unsafe school environment they said quote a culture of punishment where discipline takes precedence over a culture of restorative practices and empathy and I'll hand it over to Zach alright so our community centered core value is nonviolent communication built on strong relationships and we define this as nonviolent communication and restorative practices among our staff faculty, students caregivers and the wider community rely on strong healthy relationships built by listening to and accepting each other to do this well we must regularly evaluate our proficiency at honesty honestly communicating with and openly listening to each other and a few quotes as we had before from a disabled white female parent quote I believe honesty, humility and respect towards students by the adults in the building would go a very long way the adults learning and teaching nonviolent communication would contribute greatly to a safe and supportive school environment I believe then students could feel that they truly listened to and supported in who they are rather than who the adults believed they should be their opinions and thought processes would be valued and thus students would gain agency and self-esteem and want to be more engaged instead of being afraid to engage if we think a police officer's presence is going to fill that gap in education I think we are all looking at it wrong we are then fostering an environment with fear as the center rather than open and respectful communication we need to act out when their needs are not being met we should be looking at that how to meet the individual needs of every person and then from a female white student in regards to having an SRO and how comfortable it made them it's extremely comforting slash calming to know that if I need to talk to someone someone trained and knowledgeable is there like a sounding board and then moving on to our next slide thank you the community's fourth core value is student voice which we defined as Montpelier Roxbury public school system is a student centered learning community which value student voice and creates opportunities for their participation in decision making the quotes chosen for this value are from a survey done within the student population alone specifically in regards to how safe they felt with the school resource in building versus the larger community surveys that the quotes from before have been from from a female white student quote a little after the schools were closed I started having rather intense anxiety that just stuck so before the school year began my guidance counselor need put in place a little plan in case I started panicking and need to leave just walking down to the main office I don't remember if we talked to the SRO about it or ran it by them but knowing that someone was there if slash when I needed was really comforting I also interviewed them last year very nice had interesting insights quote and then from a non-binary student I am inherently distrustful of anyone who a has easy access to weapons that could potentially harm or kill me B has such a large amount of authority in my community do solely to their job C voluntarily joined an organization that is rooted in the oppression of minorities particularly black people you'll forgive me if I distrust people who despite having no reason to do so could kill me or ruin my life ridiculously easily with no guaranteed repercussions unquote and that is the end of that slide and I'll pass it on to Edie all right so our fifth core value defined by the committee is physical safety and we define that as every student will have no fear of bodily harm punitive threats intimidation or retaliation from fellow students faculty or staff a few quotes from feedback we received that we feel pertain to and resonate with this definition are one from a parent of color my kindergartner said mama why does that lady have a gun we've been discussing police violence at home quite a bit since May that made us both feel triggered and scared seriously why was there a person with a gun greeting children on the first day of school and then from a white male student SROs have the training necessary to keep the school community safe teachers and staff members do not have adequate training to deal with many types of threats both from within the school or the greater community the SROs help prevent my classmates from threatening the remainder of the class incident with the individual who robbed the bank went as smoothly as it could have and SRO also would have been a valuable resource during the potential election turmoil and on the next slide our sixth and final core value that we identified is system-wide standards and nuanced approaches that recognize and support an individual's whole well-being the definition we came up with was we set system-wide standards based on a broad range of individual perspective and experiences in order for the standards to fit and work for everyone we understand that individual experiences will affect how we approach meeting the standard we bring a holistic trauma informed approach to accountability and resolution of conflict in order to strengthen each individual in our community well-being so these quotes are responses from surveys put out by the committee for the purpose of gathering feedback SRO and the first one was one that I believe Aliana already said from slide one a non-binary student wrote that police make me fear for my own safety as well as the safety of others particularly BIPOC students and staff ever since I was in elementary school there have been armed police officers wandering through school and it's extremely scary and stressful to see that and then a response to the survey question what makes you feel unsafe in schools from a BIPOC male member of the MRPSVT community lack of human resource officer and computerized security system so now I believe I'm passing it off to Catherine on the next slide for considerations I'm going to start with talking about the benefits of keeping the SRO position one of the benefits would be that this position fosters communication and cooperation between schools in our district and the Montpelier Police Department another is that the SRO is a resource with specialized knowledge beyond what faculty might have they can assist on home visits provide legal information direct support provide direct support to faculty and staff and also facilitate and safety drills the intention of the position is to help keep students out of the criminal justice system and from the feedback we've received some staff, students and families feel safe with the SRO the relationship with the SRO helps some students get through school without turning to criminal activity the SRO can be helpful and it's helpful for them to be familiar already with families when situations in which police are called for happen and can help with domestic situations involving children okay next the benefits of removing the SRO removing the SRO is a way to act on our equity values and follow through on our district's plan our policy it can remove barriers to education for students and families who have shared the very presence of an armed officer is such a barrier there are a myriad of alternatives that exist that our system could move to besides having the SRO it opens up the conversation for more creative thinking around safety, justice and restorative practices to better prepare our learners for life beyond school it can remove harm from these students one of the examples of an alternative is a liaison to fill needs such as an emergency response and communication of incidences where students are involved another benefit to removing the SRO would be eliminating negative power dynamics and I will pass it to Susan so I'm going to talk about some other considerations that didn't actually fall into either category but we really wanted to raise awareness about these considerations to the board so one of the considerations was that student voices should be centered in safety related discussions and decision making and we're really happy to have the students help with that right now another consideration is that the MOU between the district and the city needs to be rewritten as it predates any current administration superintendent bone steel and chief Pete are trusted to manage the paradigm shift of a new system if necessary so the board should present a clear alternative to existing procedures if the position is eliminated or changed one model that we found really interesting was the district liaison officer model at EWSD it's an alternative to an SRO and that you can find that in the committee materials information there's some survey folks from that district so you can find that there if the SRO position continues then raising the Black Lives Matter flag becomes performative allyship without substance substance the SRO's work requires consistency a nuanced understanding of situations and adaptation to complexity another comment was that school staff is already taxed and should not be overloaded training specific to the SRO should be expanded to all police officers we heard some arguments that an SRO would have certain training to deal with children and youth and the belief of the committee is that that training should be extended to all the officers the existing role of an assistant principal has changed over time and how does that fit into this equation there is a lack of granular data in Vermont and experts advise the committee to extrapolate from the national data and Mary and Laura have lots of information to share on that the SRO role requires trust to function and that trust takes time to build and though the SRO does not make disciplinary decisions their presence can be used for discipline and intimidation the sight of an armed uniformed police officer is for some a source of fear the mere sight can also trigger global high activation causing nervous system dysregulation and re-traumatization so those are all things that we'd like you to consider when you're in your decision making process and I wanted to say one more thing I'm sorry I passed over an important point on benefits of removing the SRO it can create a safer school environment for BIPOC and LGBTQ plus students with disabilities and help them feel more psychologically safe thanks Catherine that I believe is my turn I have been tasked with reading the executive summary which is lengthy I'm not going to read everything in the document that was written in part because some of that material has been covered already during other parts of the presentation also there are some very recent additions to the text in response to some feedback and requests for clarifications that we got just recently as covered the work began with a survey to a variety of stakeholders on safety itself and the results of that survey are linked for your perusal students, families, faculty, staff and members of the MRPS community at large articulated safety concerns patterns emerged the presence of firearms on school grounds regardless of who carried them was the second most frequently cited concern from parents for example bullying was the first which is interesting within that as illustrated by many of the quotes already shared now many of the respondents who identified themselves as LGBTQ plus and or BIPOC also identified SROs as the specific source of their concern and a recurring theme throughout our research is that SRR programs disproportionately impact LGBTQ plus students BIPOC students and students with disabilities our next step we gathered questions from community members from school safety and the specifics of the SRO position and then collected answers from the Montpelier police department superintendent Libby Bonesteel MRPS staff, MRPS community members, other Vermont schools advocacy organizations and other experts superintendent Bonesteel and chief Pete provided detailed descriptions of SRO duties and responsibilities and made it clear that they were very willing to cooperate with the MRPS board and community in order to protect students staff and the community with transparency and accountability it is noteworthy that the descriptions shared did not match the outdated memorandum of understanding it has already been mentioned that that should be looked at and possibly completely rewritten it is also no official complaints regarding the SRO had been made during the superintendent's tenure many comments and responses from school staff and community members including members of the SRO Matt Nisley for his demeanor training and expertise positive relationship building trust and connectedness are clearly essential to the work of a student support team and a feeling being safe in schools members of the committee interviewed school administrators in other districts regarding the duties of the SRO and how they're handled elsewhere and learned that most Vermont schools research shared by Mary and Laura which they mentioned earlier during public comment gave a specific numbers 59 schools in Vermont had one or more SRO as of 2017 the most recent available data 247 did not a lack, speaking of data a lack of local data emerged as a universal frustration among practically everyone that we spoke to in any capacity the former chief described much of the SRO work as confidential and unquantifiable and both the ACLU of Vermont and Vermont legal aid expressed concern that detailed information on the impacts and outcomes of the SRO program has not been collected locally in the absence of that information to work with experts and advocacy organizations warned us against Vermont and urged us to extrapolate from national data many also cited a 2015 study conducted by Vermont legal aid called kicked out unfair and unequal student discipline in Vermont's public schools that study is online and linked to the resources and it concludes that quote when it comes to school discipline rates and disparities Vermont is not faring better than most other states Vermont students with disabilities and students of color were two to three more times through three times more likely to be excluded from school through suspension and expulsion and these disparities persisted for restraint, seclusion and referral to law enforcement now to be clear we got some questions on the part I just read so I need to briefly elaborate school resources are not involved in suspension or expulsion decisions that quote is not included as part of this presentation in order to link those disciplinary actions to the SRO positions also here in Montpelier we should take justifiable pride in the fact that expulsion has been extremely rare nevertheless in the absence of specificity and local data we have to extrapolate from the information that we do have and this is how we have done that national studies indicate that BIPOC students with disabilities and LGBTQ plus students are disproportionately impacted by SRO programs local data such as it is confirms that students with disabilities and students of color are disproportionately impacted by disciplinary decisions in general including referral to law enforcement the civil rights data collection records for 2017 in the Montpelier district indicates that students with IDEA status on file that's individuals with disabilities education act represented 21.1% of the student body but 66.7% of students referred to law enforcement by racial students were 7.5% of the total and 100% of those referred to law enforcement in Montpelier LGBTQ plus identity was not federally collected now we do not know the substance of those referrals to law enforcement we do not know the outcomes we will not presume to speculate about either the statistics I just cited do not constitute evidence of any SRO misconduct bias or even involvement necessarily they do however stand as local and recent evidence of disproportionate impact and further indicate that we should not indulge in Vermont exceptionalism or even Montpelier exceptionalism as Vermont legal aid puts it quote Vermont is not immune from racial, ethnic and disability based bias and discrimination related to this the executive director of ACLU Vermont also informed us that no empirical study to date has demonstrated the safety benefits of SRO programs and Laura mentioned this during public comment as well it was confirmed by documentation from Vermont legal aid both in their open letter to Vermont school boards and superintendents of June 2020 and in other materials and summaries of school safety research quote there is no evidence the police in schools make schools safer and the independent research conducted by Mary's and Tara and Laura merchants they already referred to so I will not repeat that now anecdotes of SRO encounters collected from this community provided a range of both positive and negative experiences the range itself is interesting and potentially troubling it showed a lack of consistency in SRO involvement availability and the application of restorative justice practices the inconsistencies also suggest the community expectations of both school administration and SRO authority may significantly overestimate the limits of their purview both after hours and off campus SROs are not on duty 24-7 for example and cannot be expected to be now in the anecdotes intimidation emerged as a significant theme in a couple of different ways some families described the SRO as a trusted and familiar face who made difficult experiences far less intimidating for affected students others described scare tactics employed by a former not current administrator of UES who requested the presence of the SRO in order to deliberately intimidate a third grader during a disciplinary meeting we received some questions about that last paragraph why didn't we emphasize the positive interactions and outcomes more fully firstly I believe that we did to be a trusted constant and familiar advocate in a frightening situation is no small thing and to have made that situation less intimidating is the important accomplishment to emphasize secondly well we got more anecdotes of negative experiences than positive ones so more details would not have communicated a sense of balance third and most important the elementary school incident described above the single incident was selected for particular emphasis because it illustrates a power dynamic directly relevant to our charge one that does not reflect poorly on SRO conduct but illustrates the impact of SRO presence this is important to clarify as much as possible the guidelines provided by Chief Pete do help clarify that school resource officers do not make disciplinary decisions this is often emphasized and should be discussed however the incidents with the third grader described above illustrates how an SRO can become a disciplinary decision by their mere presence or the threat of a disciplinary decision that anecdote did provoke some outrage at least on my part on behalf of the SRO as well as the student and his family who were deliberately intimidated our interpretation was at the former administrator put honorable service to dishonorable use that incident is also noteworthy because it provides an illustrating example that reinforces the survey feedback from LGBTQ plus students at Montpelier High School quoted at the very beginning of our presentation I'll refer just briefly to one of them quote the presence of a police officer makes me feel physically unsafe and therefore illustrates how easily disproportionate impact occurs independent of officer conduct judgment or decision making this point again was further reinforced by Mary's entire and Laura merchants research and overview of trauma informed educational practices the mere presence of a school resource officer on school grounds can be and has been traumatic to students especially to students who belong to those three demographics in particular and in that heightened state of alert and alarm learning becomes neurologically impossible I understand that that wording may seem like an explicit recommendation or position statement I can only assure you that this is an accurate summary of both our process and what we learned in very briefly this this committee found anecdotal evidence of positive beneficial interactions with the SRO as reported we also found both anecdotal and empirical evidence that programs are detrimental specifically to students of color students with disabilities and LGBTQ plus students the empirical studies and there are a lot of them are among the resources we provided they are not balanced by an empirical demonstration of SRO benefit because those studies do not appear to exist either locally or nationally during one meeting a member of this committee expressed gratitude for the DARE program a precursor to the contemporary SRO program and concern that we are quote raising a whole generation of kids to fear the police that concern might well be accurate and we may share very serious concerns about the erosion of trust and law enforcement but we cannot deny that distrust is present in our district and this debate that we are having right now is not the cause the summer of 2020 subjected all of us to constant viral footage of police brutality that had a searing impact on public consciousness an atmosphere of fear and distrust will compromise the ability of any SRO to establish a rapport with vulnerable students it also compromises the educations of those same students in closing the school safety and police relations committee commend the board for giving their time and talents to serve the MRPS community and we appreciate this opportunity to attend to the press and community concern there is still important work to be done whether you vote to retain or remove the SRO position as Chief Pete said in his interview with Laura Merchant quote, there needs to be clearly defined boundaries of what the community wants from the police department we as a subcommittee remain committed to that work and in the second phase of our charge will provide a broader report on safety through the lens of the district's diversity equity and inclusion policy in order to better fulfill MRPS's mission to ensure that communities are caring, creative and equitable communities that empower all children to build on their talents and passions to grow into engaged citizens and lifelong learners thank you for your patience we so thank you for reading that was really good we wanted to just remind the community and anyone here of what we and the community that you should ground your decision whatever it may be in these core values and that is all I have if any of my fellow presenters or committee members have things to add go for it and if not I believe we have another slide about questions folks have questions yes I open it up to the board for questions and so go ahead Amanda I have no questions I just want to really really appreciate all the work that you guys brought today the voice of the community and I'm blown away I think that is very comprehensive and I really just want to thank you for that very well put together and really appreciate hard work Emma I just wanted to say that Eliana Moorhead has volunteered to sort of help popcorn the questions if board members have questions she will help direct those questions to who is probably best suited to answer those questions so I would encourage questions from the board Andrew so I also want to echo what Amanda said thank you everybody so much for your effort, time, energy empathy everything that you put into this I know it was it's been a bit of a process and it's clear that you really considered you really considered this issue from a range of perspectives and really put equity front and center which is something that I'm trying to do now for the past several years in terms of how you focused your energy on this so I want to just echo what Amanda said and thank you very much for your effort on this I have some smaller questions but my larger question is and I don't know who would be best to answer this but my larger question is so this is the presentation on the SRO and SRO specifically in the second phase it's my understanding that you're going to kick the tires on essentially what Chief Pete asked for which is what does the community want policing to look like and I guess my larger question is what does that look like for this committee focused on schools versus is there going to be a larger effort at the city level because you know we're the school board and we really obviously these city considerations impact us but you know how does this all come together Emma would you like to take that sure yes I've actually been in touch with some people who are working on a committee that's working with the looking at policing as a whole in our community and juvenile interaction school interaction is just one I think it's like one 25th of the items that they're looking at like different ways that the police interact with the community so at the city level there is a process that's just beginning and they have asked this committee to sort of be the voice for that part of their work which I haven't really brought to our committee yet because we've been so laser focused on the first part of our charge that we haven't really spent time on the second part of our charge the second part of our charge reads provide a broader report on safety through the lens of our diversity equity and inclusion policy so we imagine over the next couple of months meeting regularly as we have been to work on that part of the charge and then come back to the board when we're finished with that part of the charge to make further recommendations that answer your question Andrew yeah that does and I realize that that matrix that you all put together about the you know why might you want to keep the position why might you not want to keep the position and then there are kind of considerations that some of them it's my understanding just from reading it over the other night that it seems like those are just general considerations and some of them it's not a big deal if they conflict with each other is that right that's just you're just representing different perspectives there is I'm talking at the bottom of this because on one hand and I'm just thinking from a board perspective there's a consideration that the board should present a clear alternative to existing procedures if the position is eliminated or changed and I really think the board would would look to the work of this committee and look to our administration and to to come up with that I don't think that's something that the board would do on its own but at the same time I also see just near there it says superintendent bone steel and chief peter trusted to manage the paradigm shift of a new system if necessary so those I'm just wondering are those so how do you interpret this I think the way that I would interpret it is first up to the first part of your point is that we spent some time on consider considered recommend considerations to for you all to think about when you're making the decision and there were sort of considered recommendations in favor of keeping the position and in favor of eliminating it and so that's how we decided to break up the recommendations and then there were was you know some information that we didn't feel information statements feedback points that we didn't really feel fell firmly into one category or the other it or maybe it was biased or anecdotal so we put it into that third category for just you know here's some more stuff that committee wanted to say about this but we didn't really feel comfortable putting it into one category or the other and then in terms of the work of the committee for the second part of the charge I imagine that we're going to come up with some pretty comprehensive recommendations of how to move forward with a fair and equitable system of discipline and justice in our schools and then I think the statement that you're referring to is just that we do have trust and faith in the administration and the police department to carry those out you know we we don't think that you know it would be extending the purview of the committee or even the board to be making very explicit directives of like you need to hire you know point five of this position or I don't think it will get into that level of specifics because as a committee we've discussed you know we do have faith and trust in the administration team and the police to take the recommendations and then do what's best for the district thanks for that explanation Jill just real quick I know you guys probably hear platitudes like this from you know educators, your parents, whoever we are so indebted to you as a community and what you've just done for the hundreds of kids that are in this community I think it's really hard to articulate it's not easy to sort of kick the rocks over and see the ugly sides of our society and call it out and be and handle it with such grace and maturity so I really appreciate how balanced and illustrative your slides were but things that you heard so thank you very much on behalf of our community for everything you guys are doing and I just wondered real quick I know we have a lot of folks with a lot of questions but I'm curious to know if you guys felt like you heard sufficiently from fellow students I'm assuming the same survey went out to I know I took it as a parent and a board member I'm wondering if you felt like you got a good sense from students if you had more time do you think there's anything else that we should be doing more from students or staff I didn't see a lot of comments from staff I'm wondering if you felt like you heard enough from them just one of your sort of impressions on the survey and if it got you what you needed, thank you I can take that one and Zach you can feel free to jump in but honestly like we got a good I feel like we got a pretty good read on the student population but a lot of the students who responded were like white female students and I really wish that we had had more we can build this in but just getting a lot more BIPOC and LGBTQ plus feedback would have been really helpful because they are disproportionately impacted by this so yeah I feel like we definitely the core values we found are representative of the whole community but just elevating specific voices a lot more than we were able to sorry to add to what Eliana was saying I agree with all of that about a lot of the student voice we heard was white but also with that said I was very pleased with the responses we did get it was honestly a little more than I expected being a student myself and just sort of like you know sometimes seeing the reply all chain under a survey sent out to the whole school like it's it's easy to see certain things in the school environment and feel like really there's not a lot of people who care enough to you know give their honest feedback um and I feel like we did get a lot of that although there will always be student perspectives and voices that we don't hear but I am very glad that we heard all the ones we did thank you Amanda sorry yeah I agree with that I feel like I wasn't expecting to get as many in-depth responses as we did especially from students who weren't necessarily like directly impacted by the SRO like they were able to extrapolate just on like society at large and just like I don't know I feel like it was a really good moment of reflection for a lot of students and myself included I'm just gonna jump in here just for a second because I heard a question about educators being represented on the survey and that was the work that Amanda Payne and I did and we really took some time to interview at all the schools all four of the schools we interviewed staff and faculty and that information is included in your media packet as well and we found it particularly helpful to talk to school counselors and the school counselors had a lot of really interesting information for us and the big message I got from the school counselors I spoke to at Roxbury and Union School was that they are not on 24-7 so they need help for the kind of work they have to do especially with things often happen outside of school hours and then are brought into the school setting so to help kids access learning we need to take care of them and so I just wanted to make sure you knew that that voice that part was in there as part of the survey thanks yeah and I just wanted to add too that when we put out the survey it was around the vacation time so we didn't get as many responses from I would say like faculty and staff so I would love to have more time to be able to get more of their voice it felt sort of rushed and same with students I think we just had more time I think we could get a larger voice but I was impressed with how many people did respond given the short time frame Amanda I'm confused about the conversation around well now we're going to like put these in then paraphrasing obviously and the administration to kind of like take the next step and I guess that's the question for the committee isn't the next step to provide an alternative like that's the whole idea like remove and replace with what and is that so when you are you saying like that then the administration and the police are the ones that are going to decide not understanding that correctly I mean I don't want to speak for the whole committee before we've even dealt into the second part of her charge so it's a little bit hard for me to be put on the spot about work that we haven't done yet but my I just want to I'm not putting in the sponge I just want to understand that comment that was made yeah so I'll clarify my comment just ask us a question what is the next the next step is to what now we're going to decide if there's going to be an answer now or not and then what well the way I'm just going to read again like the way that it's worded in the charge it says to provide a broader report on safety through the lens of our diversity equity and inclusion policy so I believe that that will include recommendations of how to proceed so if we decide tonight that we are removing the SRO we would make recommendations of how to proceed in the absence of an SRO what types of systems we would like to see in place of the SRO position and if we decide tonight as a board to keep the SRO position I think we would still have a lot of recommendations to be made around how do we want to see the SRO position moving forward because I think throughout this process we've realized there's definitely changes that need to be made so those would come in the form of a recommendation and then really it's just about how the board operates in relationship to the administration team and there are limits to the powers of the board and the powers of the committee right so the power of the committee will be to make recommendations the power of the board will be to maybe vote on those recommendations make policy out of those recommendations if needed and then the power of the administration which it seems like the sentiment of most people on the committee would trust the administration to move forward with those and then make decisions accordingly to carry out those recommendations so it's really more of a structural it's a structural thing where the committee doesn't have the power to say we want you to hire a .5 social worker you know or community liaison was a position that we've looked at a lot you know the committee doesn't have that power and I don't believe the board even really has that power so it's about making recommendations and then the board taking those recommendations and voting on them or creating policy around them and then the administrative team carrying them out that's clear other questions or comments so do we want to move to a vote on what to do the recommendations do we feel we need more time and information I'm happy to entertain any sort of motion anybody wants to make Emma I do just want to make make space for any of the committee members who if you're holding on to something right now that you feel wasn't said in the presentation or any sort of closing thoughts that you might have as a person that's been serving on the committee since October and has heard and processed a lot of information that if there's something that you're sort of holding on to in this moment I think now would be an appropriate time to share that as long as Jim agrees yeah no absolutely I didn't need to I was going to say you did a great job Edea playing traffic cop with commentary and making sure that everyone was heard so thank you very much for doing that Eleon played that and Will and Catherine I know as you know it's not like you guys had all this spare time and I'm incredibly grateful for the time and effort you guys put in I was really glad that you were able to get into this and I didn't want to exclude my thank you to you guys as well because I know it's a huge amount of work and it's a lot to wrestle with on top of life so thank you very much thank you also to our administrators and to educators who assisted with this and support staff the students still deserve most of your thanks but we'll take some thank you Susan do you want to make a comment you know it's been a really lovely opportunity to participate in this group and I've learned a lot and I have to be honest in the summer when I heard the idea of not having an SRO I got a little panicky because I was like whoa I sometimes use the SRO to help with safety issues in my classroom about once a year to be honest and then as I worked with this group I learned information and I learned about schools in our state and I learned about some of the feelings of not being safe my heart broke when I heard about kids in our district not feeling safe at school because of an SRO in the school it really was upsetting to hear that because my whole career has been to help kids feel safe so they can access learning so one of the things that's really intriguing to me and I would recommend that the committee look at is the Essex Westford school district I think that's what it's called I'm not positive of the name of it they have created a role that works for them they've created a school liaison role and it kind of in my eyes it kind of takes the best of the function of the SRO and removes the weapons and removes some of the disciplinary sort of power type situation and the liaison we have in our materials the charge for the liaison and it's to work on communicating with families and helping the school district navigate situations that are tricky and it includes working with school counselors and social workers and so I just wanted to share with you that I was really moved when I came upon their model and it was really encouraging to hear from the schools out there working it's a new model they don't have a lot of data collected yet but it seems like it's something that we as a district could think about is moving in a direction that's a slight shift to protect our kids and to keep our students safe because they're the most important thing in our district so thank you all for allowing the space for this committee to do that work and I'm really excited to keep working I'll just second what Susan said that I may have come into this with my own biases and after listening to all the testimony and the evidence given you know I can't dismiss the voices of the students and the families and the community members and I do feel like we have been exposed to alternatives that in the MRPS context may serve our schools better than just having the student resource officer that we could you know there's a great potential for successful outcomes when we have a focused collaboration among school staff, students, parents, community organizations and agencies, community members at large and you know the police department is going to have to probably be a part of that because we are going to have crisis situations we're going to have criminal activity to deal with safety concerns and also prevention activities so you know that's going to be a piece of this and that's why we included that Chief Pete and the Montpelier Police Department are going to have to be at the table to collaborate but you know I do think there's a lot of potential to create a new safety model that could have greater beneficial outcomes for our students and our community great thanks Catherine other comments I see Mia has her hand up Mia I just wanted to say thank you to Susan and Catherine for sharing that and particularly for sharing and you know being vulnerable in that way to share your shift in thinking and the journey that you went on through this process because I think you're demonstrating for all of us the work that we need to do and I just really appreciate you sharing that with all of us thank you all thanks everybody I echo all the thanks and the hard work everyone put in and the thoughtfulness so I pose the question again are we feeling like we want to take action or do we feel we need more information and if we are feeling like we want to take action so it's to yeah Jill and then Andrew yeah I'm sorry I was just going to say real quick that on the agenda this was posed as the presentation from this group so I don't know and I know our budget is already set and locked down without an SRO funding so I'm a little unsure what the vote would be at this point rather than in a few months or something but just curious thank you yeah and I think that's kind of the question I wanted to I mean do we feel we took action already for this year by not having in the budget because right now we do not have an SRO position so we can just I mean that could be our action and or we could charge the policy committee with coming up with some sort of policy around an SRO I think or yeah or we could settle it so I think those are kind of the three things I think Andrew and then Mia and then I see Emma with her physical hand up so Andrew yeah so I was just about to ask something very similar to what Jill was and yeah so I'm just you know the SRO we don't have an active SRO right now in our schools correct and we don't have an SRO in our budget correct yeah so you know in some ways we've already made this decision but we could memorialize it and if we kick it to the policy committee what are we asking the policy committee to do I'm not entirely clear on that especially I feel like we might kick something to the policy maybe kicking it is the wrong term we might send something over to the policy committee once we have the second round of recommendation from this committee but right now I guess the question would be you know what would actually go to the policy committee yeah and yes we may want to wait until we get a further recommendation Emma I believe your hand was up next I believe that this community and the committee deserves for the board to take definitive action around the school resource officer position and I don't think you know what happened with the budget was a little strange and confusing even to me who's very entrenched in this process so I think you know whatever happened with the budget in terms of sort of removing funds from that position I think that was sort of a separate issue that actually wasn't you know it was formally voted on in the in the form of approving the budget but I think that the community deserves after this process that's gone on now for many months to hear from the board whether we are going to be moving forward as a district with an SRO or without an SRO and I think that information will be critical to the work of the committee as we proceed in the second part of our charge if we're making recommendations of how to proceed the whole time it's been this sort of like confusion with the committee of so are we going to be making recommendations of how to improve the school resource officer position or are we going to be making recommendations of how to move forward with a completely new system in the absence of an SRO position so I was very eager for the board tonight to definitively make a decision Jim you're muted Jim you can make a motion without effect as well I don't know if you want to do that now or later I think Amanda is next and then Mia and then Andrew I think Mia was first yes I don't want to repeat anything Emma just said I'll plus one all of that what I'd like to add to it is that the budget decision to do it while I support that feels to me like a temporary one like something that could be undone next year and I do recognize the confusion that the board might be feeling because it's not as if the board ever took a vote to establish an SRO position so I do kind of understand that we feel like we're kind of on you know maybe uncharted territory so perhaps the way to move forward is that it is simply a resolution of the board that we as a community recognize there is no need for an SRO in our schools and therefore we state as representatives of this community that we don't want to have one ought not have one however way we want a wordsmith that we can but it feels like that would be the definitive thing we could say at this point in the process while there still is not at leaving open work for the policy committee to maybe follow through on our district policy on diversity equity and inclusion I could definitely see a very strong policy having to do with how discipline and policing shows up in our schools and or doesn't that follows the very strong lead of policy F 22 and that can be furthered on the road but I definitely would say for tonight we need to make a statement that recognizes the work and recognizes where we are all at as a board I'm ready to make that motion though I don't know as you can probably tell don't exactly have the wording exactly right but I also wanted to leave space for those who have their hands raised I believe is next well again I'm just going to say that I'm so proud of the community today three years ago we raised the Black Lives Matter flag yesterday we raised it again as the anniversary for those of you that didn't know alone and current students of the Racial Justice Alliance work hard to get the Black Lives Matter flag flown again we did a run we started a move and read for Black Lives the thing where we can sign up and I will send that information later but you know we are making it out of a priority to make sure that our Black families are really welcome that our LGBTQ students are really welcome so today I want to honor all the work that was done by all the community members in Montpelier by those who fill out surveys, by those who made phone calls, by those that were concerned that by those who learned and changed their hearts and I with that say want to move make a motion to remove the SRO position permanently from the district and begin the process of replacing the critical functions and increasing safety of MRSPS students so that's my motion and that's what I have. Second. That moves us to Tim can you Amanda can you just repeat the motion part just because my internet cut out and I want to make sure I hear the whole thing. Acting I move to remove the SRO position permanently from the MRPS district and begin the process of replacing the critical function and increasing safety of MRPS students. Second from Nia puts us into discussion and Andrew do you want to make a motion? Yeah I'm all for that motion I think we need to take direct action so I think that was well put and yeah I think based on everything we've heard and I read all the materials that this group produced I don't see how I can't come to another conclusion to support that motion. Great. Any other questions? Really clear I was in no way suggesting that we not. I was more literally I'm a kind of a black and white person I was wondering what resolution I was going to be voting on so now I know and I third it. Thank you. Amanda is your hand up or is that from any other discussion? Excellent. Hi. Jill. Hi. Brian. Hi. Andrew. Hi. Nia. Hi. Amanda. Hi. Everyone's fixed up. Jerry. I'm still with us Jerry. Are there any other board members I missed? I know Anakit is out. Excellent. The motion passes. Thank you committee for the fantastic work. It's a great result and we're really looking forward to hearing back from you in the second phase. So thanks again. Great work and I think that's a great result for the district and I think we can move the next six steps forward for our equity and diversity and inclusion work. So that was wonderful. So thanks everyone. We have one last order of business before we adjourn and that's the policy monitoring reports approval policy monitoring reports the 11 travel reimbursement and the F10 study students. Do I have an motion to approve those two reports? I move that we approve the monitoring policy reports in our packet. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion about the reports or questions? Emma. Hi. Jill. Ryan. Andrew. Mia. Amanda. Yes. I think that's everyone who still left. Policy monitoring reports are approved and next order is motion to adjourn. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Can I have questions tonight? Can I just invite you to move and run with the Registration Alliance. You can purchase the t-shirts at cost and you can take pictures of yourself while you run an exercise. There's a list that we can send you to read about Black History Month and then on the 17th we're going to end with a poetry jam session with Black authors. Black poets from Vermont. I invite you to join the Registration Alliance Club who's been doing really great work and celebrating this month. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you for that, Melinda. I think we got a motion to adjourn from Jill. We need a second. A second. Great. Emma. I. Jill. I. Ryan. I. Andrew. I. Mia. At only 10 minutes after scheduled ending time. I. Amanda. Yay. Great. I'm going to go back to the discussion here. I'm going to go back to the discussion here. We're going to go back to the discussion here on Zoom. When we get back in person we'll just do a universal IRN. It's one of you that we will not have to do this cumbersome routine forever and then on. Thanks, everyone. Thanks especially to much prep on the presentation. So thanks all, and we will see you in a couple of weeks. Good night.