 Hello, and welcome to Town Meeting Television's coverage of Town Meeting Day 2024. This program is part of a series of forums we are bringing you in advance of Town Meeting Day on Tuesday, March 5th. Town Meeting TV hosts forums with all candidates and covers the questions you will see on your ballot, introducing you to community decision makers, and connecting you with issues that shape your local community. You can find all our forums at cctv.org slash 2024 or on our Town Meeting Television YouTube channel, where auto-generated captions are also available. On tonight's program, we will hear from four of five candidates for the Burlington School District Board. Thank you all for joining us. These candidates are Polly Vanderputten for Ward 2, Saja Amogali for Ward 3, Claire Wool for Ward 6, and Bill Church for Ward 8. Not joining us this evening is Lucia Camperiello, and Polly, Saja, Lucia, and Claire are all incumbent candidates. We have prepared a list of questions for each of you, and you will have 90 seconds to answer each question. If you're tuning in live, we welcome your questions at 802-862-3966. If you call in, we will do our best to prioritize your question, though we will screen calls to ensure the questions are not repeated. We ask that you share your name, your town that you live in, and that your question be directed at all candidates rather than at a particular candidate. So let's get started with opening statements, and we will begin with Claire Wool. Hi, thank you very much for having us, and boy do we appreciate town meeting TV. We also run a monthly commissioner corner, so thank you for giving us the opportunities of School Board to connect with our citizens of Burlington. My name is Claire Wool. I'm running for a fourth term here in the city of Burlington as a proud parent of three BHS graduates and a volunteer within the schools. I ran for School Board to make a difference and to garner the support of citizens and be transparent, fiscally responsible, and manage day-to-day student outcomes with the help of our dynamic faculty and staff. Thank you. You're welcome. Next candidate, Polly Vanderputten. Okay. Hi. I'm Polly Vanderputten. I am running for School Commissioner in Ward 2, which is a change in that I haven't changed where I live, but there was redistricting approved last March, so I was the Ward 3 candidate for four years. I am running because I'd like there to be stability on the board. I would like there to be continuity, especially with this new tech center. I originally ran because I am a person who benefited from public schools, and I was free and reduced lunch my entire life, and I feel that public education is essential to students finding better opportunities, and I want to help to support them. Thank you. Next candidate is Sasha Amagali. Yes. Hi, everyone. My name is Sasha Amagali. I'm running for Ward 3. I ran for Ward 8 about two years ago. I relocated. That's how I'm running for Ward 3. I am a recent Burlington High School graduate, and I graduate from UVM, and I'm running for the school board to bring student perspective to the board and also bring diversity to the board. Thank you. Thank you. And our last candidate this evening, Bill Church. Hi, everybody. So I'm in Ward 2. Ward 8. Ward 8. Ward 8. You're in Ward 2. Yeah. I don't want to be in Ward 2. So I'm here because a couple of weeks ago, there was a phone message from Claire asking for my son Sam's phone number, and everybody knows Sam, and I've known Claire since Edmunds. So I gave that number, but I knew it was something different than that. And so after talking to Sam, you called me back and said you're looking for somebody for the school board. And I said, probably not a good idea, only call me if you can't find anybody. And later you called and said, after 19 knows, would I do it? And I agreed. And the reason I agreed is I think we should have some service component of living in Burlington. And I do have a, not an educational background, but I've spent a lot of time in schools, in universities, and I bring sort of a scientific background to this. So I'm very much time to learn. I'm here to learn. Okay. Let's start with some questions. First, we're going to turn to the school budget. Do you support this year's school budget of 119.6 million and associated tax impact of 13.97 percent? And how will you address the challenges facing the state education fund and the impact on Burlington schools and taxpayers? And we will start answers with Polly. Okay. So I do support this year's budget of 119.6 million. Sorry. It's a big number. And I want to acknowledge that and that the tax impact is also quite high. There are a number of factors outside of our control, which I'm sure many people have heard about already, the common level of appraisal, which is affecting school districts across the state, the bond, which we voted to approve here. That's not outside of our control. That's a great thing. But that is definitely something impacting our budget. And then increases in wages and benefits for teachers, which I am a public school teacher and I could advocate very much for why I think that's the right thing. How will we address the challenges? I think one of the things that keeps coming up for me as being really frustrating is lack of state funding for education construction. And this is coming to light not just here, but in many other places. We are the only school district that had a school shut down by the state. And there are other districts being tested right now for the things that shut down our school. And I want to know how is the state going to fund education construction going forward because our schools badly need it? Thank you. Same question, Sasha? Yeah. I am in support of the budget. I know it's a big number. I'm not a homeowner and I can't speak about taxes. But I do understand how it can impact you guys and the community. But we also need to think about the challenges that we have and about the students we have. We've been closed since, I believe, 2020. And recent graduate students had to spend the rest of their senior year in a mall. And it's not an ideal thing that we want our students and our kids to do. It's a lot, it's challenging, but I do want the state support for this because we want the high school. We want our students to go back to normal high school and be able to, you know, have the experience of being in a normal classroom and just being able to be in a high school. Thank you. Bill, do you support the budget? So I do. But it's not because I know the details of the budget. I've only started to do the research on it. I think that anything short of support is probably, doesn't realize the trauma that the school district has been through the last few years. And to lose the entire school, I think, is not the time to say, well, we can't afford the new vision of what we need to have. It's an opportunity, really. And so I do support the budget. Hopefully next year at this time, I'll know how it was developed. The only thing I might ask would be that the budget reflects the vision of what the school district and the community wants, you know, and that becomes clear. And it's hard sometimes, it's easy sometimes to just increase it to cover the costs that we've negotiated or the costs that we anticipate. But I'd like to see that it actually drives the school budget to a higher level of excellence because it really is probably the most important thing in Burlington that attracts business, attracts, keeps people here. We export our smartest kids. Okay. Thank you. And Claire. Well, our school budget would have seen a 5% increase this year if it wasn't for the closure of our high school. That's incredible for citizens to understand and learn. The impact that the state closing our high school and supporting, having a moratorium for the past 14 years on construction aid, basically ignoring the problem of failing infrastructures, sick schools like ours. So we, 76% of Burlingtonians approved our bond. And we were so overwhelmed with that support for all the reasons the three of you have talked about the importance of public schools in our community. We have 11 public schools. So our commitment to follow through as taxing as it is on all of our homeowners and our property owners has to, I hope, prevails. I'm supporting this yes because we have to follow through on this campus that is incredibly daunting. But we are on budget. We are on schedule for an opening of fall 2026. And again, we need citizen support to address the state issues. The state issues around all of our how we fund public schools. Herding taxpayers by our CLA increase, even though we are an attractive state to move to is not reflective of people's desires to not want to support public school budgets. Thank you. That's troublesome. That's hard for them. So the Burlington School District's current strategic plan identifies five priorities. Being and well-being, deeper learning for every student, reimagined high school, educators who look like our students, and relationship-based communities through restorative practices. Which of these are you most excited to work on and how will you do it? We'll start with Sasha. Yeah. I support all of it. I'm very excited about all of it. But I have to go with educators who look like us. As someone who went to Burlington High School, I didn't see a lot of that. Someone who come from a different country and went through high school, we didn't have a lot of educators who do look like me, who understands what my culture is, where I come from, and what challenges am I going to have moving to a different place and being able to just relocate. So educators who look like us, it's something that I'm looking forward for. And I feel like we live in Burlington, it's a very diverse place, and I'm grateful for that. So hopefully having educators who can understand our students and our community and who can bring a different perspective to the school. Great. Thank you. Bill, what part of the strategic plan appeals to you? So I hate to dodge a question, but I have read it, I have looked at it. But I think I need to look at the other school board members and get their input and actually receive some mentoring over what some of this is meant. I wasn't part of the process. My mind goes to how are we going to measure it, but I think there are metrics in there, so I think that that's encouraging. So that's something I have to just learn more about. Okay. Thank you. Claire? I always think of sense of belonging and relation-based communities. We work really hard in each of our school districts for families to feel engaged and coming out of the pandemic, coming out of, again, unique situations from school closures to construction, to still managing the post-effects of the pandemic. That sense of belonging, we just really brought back our parent-teacher organizations this past September for the first time over two and a half years, and families, public school families, and communities in Burlington that support us are absolutely vital to our success. And it has felt like faculty and staff have been doing it alone for the last couple of years. I mean, we rarely, I don't know if we've been able to invite the public into our schools with a grand reopening, because we were still managing students and their sense of belonging and safety and well-being. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Polly? Yeah. So I was on the board for creating the strategic plan, and so I agree with Saja that I feel they're all really important. We wouldn't have put them in there if we didn't feel that way as a board. I'd say probably for me, deeper learning for every student. Like I said, I'm a public school teacher, and I have a daughter in the school district, and I have this kind of awareness of the system and some of the shifts and changes in terms of curriculum and what we're teaching and how we're teaching it. I think one thing I'm really excited about that we invested in recently is a literacy program to teach reading across all of our elementary schools using phonics. It's I think called a phonics-based system. I might not be getting the exact perfect phrase, but anyway, to have that kind of stability across all of the elementary schools and to also have something that is going to benefit our students very clearly, there's a lot of evidence pointing to phonics being a superior way to teach reading. I'm really excited about what is going to come out of that for those students. Great. Thank you. So we're going to change to challenges. What is the biggest challenge facing the Burlington School District, and how would you use your seat on the school board to address this issue? Bill, you start. So as an observer, I'm astounded at the complexity of the building and the financial commitment that a community has to make to that in addition to the increase that we have to have. I really think the time that we have to get it right maybe is not the time to expand too many of the programmatic elements until we get the building right. And I do know it takes a tremendous amount of time from the school board and everybody at the school to get that right. And so I think just the financial impact is really something and it started, our conversation started about the financial impact. And so that's something that I'm aware of. I'd like to see the numbers. I'd like to just understand more about the budget, short-term and long-term, because we really can only do what we can afford. And we can do it better. But I think that once you add a school on top of everything else, it's going to take a couple of years probably to digest that. Okay. Thank you. Claire. Challenges. Yes. Bill said it. We have an enormous project, the largest in the state happening on 52 Institute Road in the city of Burlington. It is daunting. I would say board members don't sleep at night until this is completed. And I believe the mayor, all of our city counselors, any of our civic leaders and citizens are very concerned and supportive. But that is our biggest undertaking right now. We also, just for citizens to know, have the Burlington Technical Center, an amazing flexible pathway, opportunity for students. And we are currently using our academic dollars for all the spaces that we have to rent for being displaced. So getting our public school district in order, our house in order with this campus, the consolidation of all of our rental properties, the large move ahead, the preparation for staff. It's not just the high school. We've made some changes with pre-K and all of our elementary schools. So really getting a sense of space, fiscal responsibility is, I feel, our biggest challenge and for the citizens of Burlington to understand that, as Polly mentioned, a majority of this percentage increase was out of our control. I haven't even touched upon the 17% increase in health care throughout the state. We worked with the state for statewide bargaining for health care for all educators in the state of Vermont, thinking it would produce competitive rates. And we've seen nothing but double digits in health care costs. Health care costs. Thank you. A for-profit system, that's concerning. What is the biggest challenge in your opinion, Polly? I concur with Bill about the complexity of the budget and of making the case to taxpayers for how much money we need and why we need it. I think something that is very, I don't know, it's challenging for me because I work within the system is to see what decisions are made and why they are made. So when a program is removed or cut, is it being replaced with something else and that we have to make these decisions? We can't really live in this kind of idealistic way about education, like we would like to have this and we think this is great, we're always having to make difficult decisions. Just one example is that world languages were cut at our middle schools several years ago and that was a budget decision in a time of crisis and we have yet to fully restore those programs, which then has an effect on the high school world language programs. That's just one tiny example of a programmatic shift that happens and trying to find your way back into what you see as important and what you want and what the community wants when it comes to those budget decisions is very challenging. Thank you. And Saja? Yeah, I definitely agree with everyone. I think for now our biggest challenge is building the high school but not only building it and having it running and functioning. We do need staff. We want to transition from the mall to the high school is going to be hard on the teacher's side, the staff and the parents and the kids too. Being able to go back to normal running school is going to be hard and challenging but also recently we have made a lot of cuts through our school programs and classes and all of that due to the budget and being able to listen to the community and support them and give them what they need. But there's a lot of things out of our hands and we can't have control over and just seeing, like explaining to parents and having parents understand that we support this class or we support this program but there's so much we can do so it's just, it's challenging but I do think, you know, the transition to the high school will be very challenging. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about student life. How can Burlington School's best support neurodivergence students? Claire, we'll start with you. Yeah, we talked about this term and how it's being used these days so students that need acute care spaces for de-escalation, spaces for care, we really are providing social services on a daily basis to our student population and that can begin, it does begin in pre-K all the way up to 12th grade and we also have students past the 12th grade that we serve and how can we support through qualified staff and by attracting qualified staff and retaining staff, Chittenden County is incredibly competitive so making sure that our wages and benefits are attractive for people to want to come work in Burlington. So I think it begins with, you know, teaching excellence and having the care that we need for students. Okay. Thank you. Polly. Yeah, this term neurodivergent is very broad like it covers a broad range of descriptors in terms of student learning style and ability and evaluations that might come about for students for optimal learning conditions. I think first we need to follow the guidelines that have been released by the state of Vermont around the multi-tiered systems of support. They're referred to as MTSS, that's what it stands for. There are some new guidelines for that that are meant to support all students. I would also say that having highly trained teachers who are aware of the range of learning styles every single student we have is a human being and every human being is unique so they're all going to have unique and interesting ways to learn. We can't just put them in one kind of sort of category although that's a simpler way to collect data, it's just not possible. And I would also say having teachers who are trained in recognizing that neurodivergent does not just mean those who are trying to get to proficiency at grade level but may have abilities beyond grade level and how to meet their needs and that could be in math, English, like language skills, it could be in art, it could be in sports. There are a lot of different ways we could address this. Thank you. Also, Sasha. Yeah, I definitely agree with what Polly said versus being able to recognize that our students are different and that's okay. We all learn in a different way. And just being able to recognize that, that's a big step to help and support the students and having training to staff and being able to provide training to staff and also the students give them the opportunity to know that there is resources and there is other resources that we have in the school that we can do for the way of learning and supporting parents with what they need and this is not only about students and the educators also, the parents and supporting the parents and directing the parents toward their right resources is things that we can do to help students and their families. Great. Thank you. Bill, same question. So in my simplistic way right now and I'm learning a lot every day, the mission of the school district is really to provide all our students and all our young people an opportunity to go forward in their lives successfully, however we define that. And I've come to understand that it isn't just the skills and the knowledge necessarily but it's also the safety, the health and the respect of the students themselves which are equally as important as general chemistry. So how do you do both? I wonder whether things that are new such as neurodiversity or if there are technological approaches that could be used somehow integrated into the program that would help offset that. In my own background, the heartbeat of the teacher was always the most important thing to me. I've had several teachers throughout my career that made a big difference to me and I know we have that at Burlington. I saw that with my kids. But can there be technology that helps support some of this in ways that overcomes the limitation in staff, overcomes the limitations in other things? That's how I think about it now, my change, but you guys will show me better, I hope. Well said. Thank you. How can the school district ensure safety of its students and teachers in our schools and in the community? Polly, let's start with you. I am going to give a counterintuitive answer to this and say my biggest concern right now around safety is smartphones and cell phones. That there's this perception that students need to have these and I think there are legitimate concerns with parents thinking about some of the crises facing our city right now with some violence that we've seen and kind of unpredictable behaviors from people and thinking like, well, my child is walking home from school and so I want to be able to communicate with them. But we've had a lot of problems with overall safety in terms of how students interact with other students and I see that as being very directly connected back to phone use and students who interact and communicate with each other in ways that are not appropriate, meaning like bullying or teasing or isolating and it's relentless for them. It's 24 hours a day. So I think that creating a really good policy and with that procedures around phones would actually help a lot with safety and one more quick thing. It does not help when there's a crisis to have students reaching out to parents because parents then rush to the school and clog airways and that is not actually the best thing for emergency responders so I'll end there. Thank you. Saja. Yeah. There is not a straight when I answer to that. I think right now we're facing a lot of challenging in the state itself and then in the schools too. I do think that it all starts from the students home so whatever that's going on in their home and whatever foundations they have can be brought to the schools itself and it can be challenging if parents want their kids to do certain things and then as a school we want them to do something else and it's hard if there is not that like I would say like the middle line between both of them but I would say that as a school if we can start some policies towards safety and maybe more training and education to student toward the like I said the cell phone news and how can it be dangerous and other things to it but really there's no one correct answer to that. Thank you. Bill. So I'll share a little personal something one of my children when they were attending Berlin in high school was fairly traumatized by school events that were happening outside of the state and I don't know whether this goes back to all traumas are now heavily advertised and on the media or something but it was a concern to me as a parent and so that's the reality to me anyway and the idea of cell phones I really like that idea to disconnect our kids so they can learn and take away some of the distraction and in fact I'm trying to read the educational stuff in the papers these days that there was a study recently that they perform better without phones they don't have their cell phones and so I think that's something that may be doable I think it has immediate consequences it calms the entire situation down and I would be in support of something like that but I think there has to be some safety element the world has gotten much different so thank you and Claire. Yeah we are in an urban location and school safety is absolutely paramount to our students well being we ride the public buses for transit majority of our schools are walking so our communities support in ensuring safety for all our students to get to and from school each day is incredibly important I know through our community updates through our superintendent when things have happened in the city that are concerning and alarming we immediately reach out to the community and let people aware of what's going on our administrators do the same thing when events happen surrounding our students outside I'm talking of our campuses but to Polly's point and everyone's also input cell phones have been a struggle over the last five years we used to say wait till eight or wait till high school but we're seeing cell phones in elementary schools and we tried an unplugged day at BHS and we got more pushback from parents than we did children in wanting to you know unplug for the day so I believe we've passed policy or we introduced our first ever cell phone policy at our Hunt Middle School and our Edmonds Middle School this year and we'll be discussing high school as well and our other schools. Thank you continuing in the same theme because you touched on this a little bit how can Burlington schools best support the mental health of students and we'll start with I'll start right now like mental health is challenging you know especially after COVID we've seen a lot of changes from being you know at home doing online schooling to be able to go back and socialize with other students and you know kids mental health is a big subject that it's important to recognize and to address it we should be able to do trainings to staff to provide a safe place for students to be able to talk and to express their concerns sometimes especially speaking from someone who had a lot of issues with mental health my mom like doesn't understand that is something that can affect anyone and sometimes being able to speak to someone outside without having parents knowing it's hard and so being able to give support to the student and also their families and explaining to the families what is mental health and how we can affect their kids and being able to provide the right resources and there's a lot of stigma around mental health and it shouldn't be because it's just if we have the right resources it shouldn't be an issue but educating people about it also it's something that can be very helpful. Thank you Bill. So I would second what Saja has said about mental health it really is part of the family situation and I'm not sure it can be addressed individually in the school without the involvement of the families but I think there's an opportunity for the school to work with the family which families do anyway it can be taking their kids to school to taking them to sporting events to helping them for their homework but in a mental health situation I think the school the family is the should be the focus to help with the students integration and back into the school so the resource maybe needs to go a little broader than just on one on one it's just how I would think about it right now. Okay thank you Claire. Yeah we can't do it alone our community partners the Howard Center all of our individual experts in the field that we lean on this is a new aspect of public schools not it was always there but I love what you said Saja the stigma behind it we try and make it incredibly we have mental health awareness students talk about it and I believe in my you know didn't exist in my generation and that it we have in our schools sometimes posters that we put up to say if you're hurting or if you need support you know here's someone you could speak to our guidance departments are phenomenal and our guy in elementary school we do have a guidance a lot you know that guidance teacher that goes around to each of our classes middle school is kind of you know tough and supporting you know we have a health ed class but I think we can do a better job in our middle schools not more robust because I think that's where a lot of students start to recognize it in our high school you know working again with the support with the families and and our staff I think it is daunting but with the support of our community and families I'm hopeful that each student receives the care they need. Thank you Polly. So how can we best support student mental health first I would say education around cell phones and cell phone use so banning them for the school day but then it is not just during the school day that they are used and I think that that education needs to go not just to students but to families to help them understand I think as a society we've been kind of horn swoggled by the tech companies about the necessity of these things in our lives and I think we really need to address how they have altered students developmentally on the emotional plane on the ability to concentrate and focus and on their ability to interact with each other and with their families I think it's changed all of us I also think having highly trained teachers who create classroom environments that give a sense of belonging and a sense to every student that their voice matters is essential to supporting mental health and it kind of eases the burden on some of the school counselors and social workers that we rely on so heavily because some of the issues that these students have could be somewhat resolved by feeling comfortable in the classroom. Can I ask a question? Do you want my phone in? Go right ahead. What part does substance abuse play in the mental health issues in the school? That's a great question so why don't we treat it as one of the forum questions. Do you have an answer? Not that I'm familiar with I think it's more than we want to acknowledge and is it a mental health issue the substances are being used at interfere with their education or is that a maybe that's a neurodivergent I don't know I'm just not sure what even what currently happens now over these kinds of issues. Okay well with our incumbents why don't we start with you Claire and see if we can answer that question. Yeah I'm just my mind is blanking on the awareness program that we use and we have incredible staff members that do that they do a survey every year for students about usage and the students fill them out in advisory and in homeroom and it hasn't over the last the reports that we have seen or viewed it hasn't been a glaring use issue of percentage a high percentage and but I I would have to go back and I didn't wouldn't want to be firm in my conviction about that but I do think we have a population of students that suffer in their home life and are struggling with maybe potential substance or abuse that's happening in their home life that they're managing. I don't know that much about it and you would think I would because I'm a high school teacher but I don't have a very clear sense of substance abuse among my students I think that there's actually probably less of it than there was when I was in high school I do have concerns about how easy it is to access marijuana especially with the legalization of marijuana and how vapes they're an issue like in bathrooms in the school and because they're odorless essentially and so there are a lot of things that can be accessed that are pretty intense in a school day if you wanted to but I I don't I might don't have as much of a concern about that as I do about cell phones and addiction to say video games and cell phones and that kind of thing. Sasha yeah I'm not 100% like familiar with that but I do think a big issue is that it's the access similar to having access to a cell phone or a video game there's a lot of easy access to that and it comes back to being at home and if your parents struggling with substance abuse you have access to it and you might not you know understand how dangerous that can be but you're also carrying all that the trauma and the heavy lifting of you trying to deal with things inside your home but also outside without bringing it and I think that's something that we can work on on a state level since we are dealing with it whether it's our students or our friends or families or neighbors or it's it's an issue in the state of Vermont that needs to be addressed on a higher level and I do hope we don't see a big issue of that in our schools. Okay thank you thank you for adding an important question. Yeah I think so and normalizing cannabis you know we have a one of our schools elementary school is you know within walking distance to dispensary so I think that is we're just going to begin to see I think you know parents concerned about the location of potential dispensaries around schools. Thank you. Let's talk about the academics so last year standardized test results suggested that a proportion of Vermont students proficient in math and English decreased during the pandemic and has not made significant improvements since. So how do you measure the success of the school district and let's start with Bill. How do I measure the success of the students. I'll tell you how I do it right now. I work at a biotech company and we hire very sharp we look for people that are going to stay in Vermont chemistry and science majors and there's a lot of remedial science they have to do very few of them have any writing skills and these are high GPA college grads. I'm concerned that some of this stuff is not carrying through from high school onward it could be distractions from media and it's a significant to get them up to speed on even basic science things is a lot of investment and it has to be and it's important for them but I just I puzzle why they can't write and I puzzle why they don't have an instinct to read and to layer on then the technical aspects of that to it's it's hard we educate our workers and so I deal with it's a lot when I look at a resume I do look to see if they were on high school sports teams. I'm not so much swayed by AP courses because I think a lot of that I'm not sure the the rigor of some of that stuff and they all like to talk about their semester abroad. But I really think that even in the college level that they're not really getting that the focus they need to have a career or a professional job. Okay, thank you. Claire, what is your response? I recently read this article about the state test scores. And I think it is incredibly challenging to think that with the two years that students have lost or the learning that they did at home, math and science at home in your bedroom. It was a loss of of learning. And, you know, you can't socially hold children back. And we rarely hold students back in middle school. But, you know, that's a disservice to their learning. If it's a if it's stigmatized that you're staying back if you're not proficient. And I think we have leaned more towards the well being of a student. In this generation, we offer an opportunity to redo, you know, to learn the content. Again, back in the day, we were never offered to redo. We want students to learn. So the cause of it and the the status, I think the faculty and staff are keenly aware of these test scores. And I think they would look at all of us and say, we're doing the best we can at this time. But yes, there are times where most faculty will say, can we have a social and emotional reset in our school? Because we're having a hard time focusing. And I think that is impacting our learning. Thank you, Polly. On the one hand, I really appreciate standardized tests because they are a way to measure student abilities. On the other, I'm skeptical about them. The standardized tests we have given have changed at least three times since I've been a high school teacher. And so what is the test? Is it on a computer? Is a student comfortable with using a computer? Who designed the test? How did they design? I have a lot of questions about the tests. And I'm wary of using them as a basis for making certain decisions about programming or the abilities of our students overall. I absolutely agree with Bill about lack of interest in reading and the ability to write, having declined and have quite a few comments about that. One, we made, we did a grand experiment in the pandemic by shutting down schools and going to remote learning, which was something that was talked about as a way for school districts to save money in the future. And then the future came to us and it has proven to be a disaster on many levels to teach that way. At least we learned that, but we are now having to play catch up with our students. And I think the way that reading was taught definitely hampered things for students. It was a lot about guess the word, not actually know the word. And finally, I would say back to phones. We are, we are collectively as a society, not paying as much attention. Everything is a sound bite. Thank you. Sasha. What I'm worried about is the test, the standard standardized test is giving to every students and one test that's giving to every student the same way. But the way we teach our students is different. We're isolating our students. We're provide like especially new Americans. We are not giving them the materials that they need. We are isolating them. We're putting them all in one classroom. And we're providing them with little of English or math. And we're expecting them to do well as other students who were born to speak English, who their parents are college grad or have some educational background. And we can't, we can't measure the success of our students if we are isolating them within the school. And it's not only like, and especially COVID didn't help when everyone went online. I can tell you when I was a student, I was just put on mute, turn my camera off, leave it, and then go back to bed. And I woke up and everyone is off the zoom and I was just shut my computer and call it a day. So just being able to recover from that's going to take a while and then maybe implementing a lot of after school programs that can help our students with reading or writing and just providing them the space for it. Thank you. Okay. So let's talk about language access for the diversity of students in the district. How can the Burlington school district meet the needs of students and families whose primary language is not English? Let's start with you, Claire. I am extremely proud of our multilingual, multilingual liaisons. We speak 37 languages at Burlington High School. And we last year, so last year, the board approved that we support our liaisons year round 12 months out of the year. Originally, they were just paid for the school year. And we wanted to acknowledge that their work in the summer was just as robust as it was throughout the school year with families coming into the district, interpreting materials that they need to prepare for the summer, our summer programming, also our fall programming, follow up with teachers and students. But our language access, I couldn't be prouder. And I will also say this is an example of a school district that not only has such an incredibly diverse student population, but a supportive multilingual liaison department, that we know other school districts have the breadth and depth of what Burlington has. And we, as a school board, passed with the support of many throughout the state. We created a task force and supported and passed Act 127, which was about weighted pupil, longer conversation. But it acknowledged school communities that supported students that needed that needed resources than other comparable districts in Chittenden County and throughout the state. It acknowledged that. Thank you. Polly. I appreciate very much about Burlington that we do have, relatively speaking, a robust program for our multilingual learners, especially the multilingual liaisons. I think that we could do a better job of how we integrate and reach out to families that we tend to rely on a lot of social media and email and certain modes of communication that might not be culturally exactly where we should be with some of these different groups of people and also linguistically very challenging, just as a mode of communication. And I also would, I really appreciate what Saja was saying earlier because I work with a lot of new American students. And I would like to see more integration, like for them to get the support that they need in terms of English language learning, but more integration into the school community so that we are celebrating what they bring from their cultural perspective and their language. And, you know, I feel that they're the hope. They're the future. So I would love to see more of that kind of approach taken. Thank you. Saja. Yeah. I'm very proud of Burlington District because we are doing a really great job of, you know, giving access and including new American families with what's going on in this school, probably more than any other districts. As Paul said, we can definitely do better, especially including families in the school. I know, like, students are aware of what's going on in the school and outside the school. And sometimes it's hard for the families to be able to get in the school, understand how their kids are doing in the school and what can they, what kind of support they can give their kids, you know, whether that can be, you know, your kid is doing great and we just want to tell you that or your kids needs this extra help. And we have this program for your kid that you can help. And if you need help at home, whether it's like being able to bring your kids to school or providing transportation or any other things that the school definitely can improve on that. But in overall, we are moving toward that right now. And then, again, in the classroom, you know, integrating students with kids who were born here and just having them interact with other students and just seeing different perspectives and not only for the new American, but for the other students to understand and be able to learn something new every day, you know. Thank you. And Bill. I am not talented when it comes to language and is here somewhere and would second that. I think that the linguistics is part of the cultural richness of Burlington and I think it really makes it a special place. I can also see, though, that it's divisive. When we think of areas of this country that have large Hispanic populations, they're enriched by the fact that they can speak more than one language. But I don't know with all the diversity we have here how that can become something that strengthens the school district once it gets away from just the English. And so I can also understand why students who speak languages at home need to have that opportunity to express themselves for safety issues at Burlington. And I think that's important. But I question that the French, the Spanish that the schools try to teach really carries through for the most part, until you are immersed in the culture of that. And so that's just my own background. I speak upper Midwestern English and it's mocked at my house. Okay, thank you. I think we have time for one last question and then closing statements. So what do you understand to be the current level of morale in the district? And what is the role of the school board in retaining good teachers and support staff? We will start with Polly. Okay. I think the current level of morale is pretty good. In that we negotiated a three year contract with teachers recently contract negotiations are super stressful for teachers and for the board doing the negotiation. But I think that's good. I think the consistency of the board has been good. There hasn't been a lot of turnover on the board. And I think that teachers and staff feel confident in our leadership for the most part. There have been some exceptions to that. And that's something that we are working on. How do we retain good teachers and support staff? I think by continuing to trust that they are doing their job and that they are committed to doing their job. Teachers were asked to do insane pivots in the pandemic in terms of supporting mental health of students, teaching online, learning how to use Zoom and technology to communicate. And I think there's certain kind of fatigue coming out of that. And so acknowledging that and saying we still believe in you and you're doing a good job goes a long way. Thank you. Sasha? Yeah. The first thing is being able to give the support to our teachers and staff is very important as a school board. Understanding how hard they work and how their job is very challenging and how can there be a lot of challenges doing, being able to be in school and teaching and providing more than just teaching to students and understanding that and just as Polly said, believing in them and knowing that they are doing the right thing and they will continue doing the right thing and helping our students. And just it's hard right now to be a teacher anywhere else in the country and to be able to provide the support that we can as a board and also as a community. And that goes back to, you know, parents like if you see your kids teachers or just walking outside, you know, stop, thank them, you know, appreciate what they do. They do more than what we think and they are sending our kids to be the future. So, you know, being able to give them the support they need is very important and to retaining is to appreciate them and acknowledge how important their role is to the community. Thank you, Bill. I would say that just thanking somebody like Saad just says is very important. I talked with my friends here that there's something we call the Vermont discount, which is that you get three-fifths of what they make in Boston to do the same job. And we all of us have that that's but it doesn't mean that it's right. In my experience, when you don't know what else keeps you in the job, you default to how much money you make. And I've often thought, we'll get the best people if we pay the most money. And what I've come to find, and we just want an award for being one of the best places to work again, it isn't the money. People who have left on the exit interviews have never said why don't I don't get enough money. Something in their life has changed and they want to move on. But the daily appreciations that you do give people, I think, is a big part of it. It acknowledges that you're the same. You're trying to both help each other out. And I think that that's teachers maybe are born with that. I'm not a teacher. But I think they really have this sense of giving to others. And I think we have to somehow nurture that. And I think the kids should appreciate that. I think the children should also acknowledge that that special person up there who is helping you, you should sit on a school board at some point in your life to acknowledge that. So thank you, Claire. Yeah, absolutely. To be in the business or in the profession, it's a calling to not only raise human beings, but influence human beings in the next generation. I've had nothing but an amazing gratitude for our teachers and faculty and staff that support the Burlington School District and the students that they teach. Everything that you all three said is culminated into my appreciation, respect, trust. I I hope that our our our school board represents that stability and that humane decency of working really well, working together to solve issues. It is not a combative. I experienced, you know, we've we've all experienced different scenarios, but this is not a poker game. We are not trying to manage something without their support. It is absolutely the circle of the superintendent's leadership, the governing board and the faculty and staff that create a successful district. And as you had mentioned, as a largest economic engine in the city of Burlington, we've got to be doing but got to be working on all cylinders with that human aspect at the forefront and respect and appreciation. Thank you. That is all the time we have for this evening. So I want to thank each of you for being here this evening and for stepping up to run and to serve. And thank you for tuning in to town meeting televisions ongoing coverage of local candidates, local budgets and valid items. You can find this and many more forums on cctv.org slash 2024 and on our town meeting television YouTube channel. 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