 So it's 6 31 and I do want to start promptly. So I'm going to call this meeting to order and the focus of this meeting is to do a policy training workshop using some of the scenarios that we have from the Carver Institute that gives us sort of a possible, something possible scenario that might happen and then how we would use our policies to interpret and adjust our actions due to the policy that were present due to the scenario and the policies that we already have written. I chose this one, which I emailed to you a couple of days ago, because it's something that has happened before and has happened recently as well, is when board members want more information from the board about something that has happened in the most recent instance, which is only a week or two ago. I was approached by a community member who wanted me to answer some questions for them, which I then put to Lane, a few other board members did as well they were approached by various community members about athletic policies, etc. So Lane was about the water, the lead in the water at Brookfield School. So we approached Lane and he emailed us that he thought that this was taking a lot of time and not necessarily, you know, board work. So this scenario just seems perfect for us to address like how should we interpret our policies in this instance. So we're going to go through this, this scenario, using your policies either you've got them in a paper copy, or there's one available on our website, you go to OSSD board under governance governance and function, and then drop those down you'll see our copy of our policies there. So what I just not assume people have already read through this. So, using I'll give 10 minutes, so we'll get back at 643, and we'll discuss where do we find the evidence in our ends or executive limitations or board management delegation, etc. And then we'll talk about how we should best address this situation. All right. All right, so 10 minutes. Are we ready to start discussing this. Okay. All right, so everyone's read the scenario. I'll read it for a board member keeps asking the CEO for detailed reports regarding operations. The information required does not pertain to any ends or executive limitations policies the CEO has refused to supply the reports saying that it would take too many staff hours to produce them. What should the board member do. All right, so what have we already said in our relevant policies. Obviously, this does not address our ends it's nothing about our ends so someone pipe out what does it say in our executive limitations. Well, you know, if it didn't have that part that the info asked for had nothing to do with Andrew executive limitations then in 2.8.1 data required by the board shall be supplied by the superintendent. However, because that phrase is in there 3.1, then comes into play the unity of control instruction from individual board members. I'm not reading it I scribbled notes from individuals is not binding and if the superintendent deems it to labor intensive time time intensive. For the staff. Did I jump. Am I not doing this right. No, that's right. It says anyone else have anything else with executive limitations and in the two's time that you know, all the 2.0 policies to 2.8. 3.3. 3.33. Also talks about the board won't interfere with what has been delegated to the CEO. Okay. What else 3.1.1 is unity of control, right that it is our ourselves as a unified body. Anything else. Those are the two I had 3.1 3.3 under board and then under governance I have 4.53 a with the interaction to the with the superintendent is limited. I also had 4.1 point to the sentence about the board's major policies intended on and not administrative or programmatic needs to attain those. Anything else in the floors. Oh, I want to be sure I'm not going to name a number right now but this scenario but also thinking Laura about the scenarios that you specifically said in our world that just came up. In terms of board interaction with the community and how that happens that you know they can come and we have a public session and we can't necessarily do anything about it but that's how they can bring stuff to us. And that we're not necessarily the go between from that they can come to they can go directly to the superintendent they can come to a meeting. So I have no number but those are things that are coming up for me. And 4.13. We need to be disciplining ourselves about making sure that we're following our policies. That's why we're doing this. Exactly. Anything else in the governance process, you know in the force. I tried it down. I think for me where this becomes a little cloudy or is our relationship to the public that we do. We are the representatives of the public to the CEO or the superintendent and I find there's a little bit of a rub there is that we are called by our constituents and you know that's to me is sort of the point of conflict sometimes. Because we are called to represent the constituents that we serve and their interests in front of the superintendent. Yeah, I think, and I think it's a really good point. I can tell you that it's kind of similar to the superintendent's role. You know if I get a complaint or a concern that comes in over a teacher. You know my job is to refer it to the teacher or the principal first. And so it's kind of the same thing in the most difficult time to do that is usually your first six months in a new district because typically they have it hasn't been done by the previous administration. And so it's a tough six months because you know people are looking to you they're judging you, you know they want you to be responsive or interactive on their behalf. But what I usually find is that probably after about about four to six months of sending people in the right direction it gets it gets a lot easier. People get the message that that's the expectation so they do tend to start to go there first, but it is not easy by any means. So I agree with you 100%. The other piece that I would say about this one is that as a board, as a board so not as necessarily as an individual, you always have the right. If as a board you decide that there is more information that you want or you need out of me, I will usually provide it if I've got the time just because if people have the question you know I try to answer. You sit down in a board meeting and say, hey, no, you know, I'm making a motion that, you know, they needs to provide this report or these details. And then you guys vote on it and the second you vote on it and there's a majority. It's a done deal. And the other time that that should happen in terms of the board, if there are questions about me being honest with what I'm portraying or with what the superintendent is portraying. In those cases, you always want to gather more information. But again, that's a board function, a board role. If an individual has a concern in the board meeting, you bring it up and say, hey, you know, I'd like to make a motion to examine this information because we're not sure if the right information is out there. And that's a part of your oversight, which I would argue, you know, you should always do if there's questions. So just my thoughts as we're bouncing around here. Well, along with that, in the conflict of interest complaints of conflict of interest so 4.5 and way down there. Just the interactions with the public recognize the same limitation and inability of any board member to speak for the board. Of course, I can't find what I was just looking at, but that individuals can't make decisions or speak for the whole board. In terms of our contact with the public, which is hard in a small town, but yep. I would also say, Lane, though, that you have to be careful about saying, well, if we want information again, we need to make sure if it has to do with monitoring one of our policies sure. But if it's just somebody in the public is is demanding that we turn over information it has nothing to do with ends, or with the policies that we monitor. Unless we want to change a policy, we follow our policies so no, even I mean, we can we can I guess vote as a board to decide to request that information. But I will not be voting along with the rest of the group because we'll be breaking our own policies. And but monitoring performance, pardon, also monitoring lanes performance, not just not just monitoring that we're following our own policies, we also have a responsibility to to monitor and review lanes performance performance that performance is in meeting the outcomes that are that are out in our hands. And in how he is following the executive limitations policies. That's the only information that we are allowed to use to actually evaluate him. Now we can go out and get some information we can monitor a policy on our own. But we can't. That's it, unless we want to change a policy and that's why I keep on saying, you can't just willy nilly decide Oh, well, we don't like what he did what he did over here because we're hearing a bunch of fuss from community members. And if it's, if it's legit, then we need to go into our policies and say, we've monitored this policy. Maybe we need to change that policy because he's, he's somehow doing something that is causing a problem in the system. And until we change that policy, if we accept the monitoring reports, which we have been accepting all of the executive limitation monitoring reports, and the ends reports, that's how we evaluate. That's what we look at, unless we want to change a policy. And I want to throw this governance structure out and and pick a different governance structure. And right now, all of those policies. And I'm in agreement with with what he says in the fact that, you know, those exceptional circumstances where you're checking, you know, should be the exception, not the rule. Right. Because if something exceptional comes up, you know, you need that flexibility as a board to be able to check on things. But if it's happening all the time, then you probably got bigger problems to worry about then. Yeah, either with your superintendent or with with the interpretation of the governance itself. Yeah, I think if it's an ongoing issue, you know, you look back at say some of the policies that might fit to cover some of the questions, you know, if it's treatment of staff and students or it's, you know, that those communication and support to the board or the questions come sort of under the realm of those policies. Then you can revisit those policies and say, well, you know, maybe we need to broaden that that interpretation so that we can better understand or ask questions about Lane's performance. And have him give those reports to us under that executive limitation. Let's move on. So according to the board's policies, the next question, does the scenario refer to anything that's been delegated to the CEO? Who is our superintendent? I said no on that one. Everyone in agreement with Brian. I mean, I said, yes, and that, you know, he's expected to deal with us report to us as a body. And to provide the board with the information that we ask of him as a body. So, you know, Brian, you're right in that if it's just one person, it's the answer would be no. And I would, I would also say he's, he's got to have an idea of how this, how we govern as a board also himself. So he, he's aware that, geez, I'm getting asked to provide this and this and this and I'm trying to do my actual job of creating these outcomes for the system. And I can't do it because I keep on having to produce a report to justify what I'm doing over here that that doesn't allow him that flexibility to go out there and and produce the results that we want him to produce for the entire system. So the next question would be, does this scenario reflect behavior consistent with the board's governance process and board management delegation policies? What did you guys think about that? Yes, the CEO said I'm not going to produce this report is going to be too cumbersome on me. I've got other things. And he refused to provide the information. What action if any should the board or board member now take actions that you believe would be consistent with the governance process and policies. If the board members want some action, they need to have the chair put it on the agenda and discuss it and for a possible motion for action by the superintendent. Any other thoughts on that one. I would also say we need to look at is this an issue that has been is has been delegated to the superintendent but in a way that's so open or so flexible that we need to dive down one one step further and give him a little bit more guidance in terms of what is allowable or not allowable and and and Amanda policy if we if we needed to. Which would take place in in the discussion phase and then if, however, we would decide then we would go to a motion on what action whether it would be a new policy or to designate the superintendent to produce the report. Any other thoughts on this. I thought was was a little more basic but just educate the board member on proper procedures as well and refer them back to the policies. I actually think, I mean, this is a scenario that's bothered me for a number of years, I think. This is our policy and she probably remembers me about eight years ago challenging our former superintendent about this, because I think we're where there's a gap here is that when the superintendents, you know, have always said that the that right in the community with certain concerns needs to go directly to them to voice concerns and complaints. And what happened back then is that the superintendent brought up this exact same scenario when we try to advocate for positions of our constituents. And I think the cool or the gap is that we as a board have no idea then if it's just one person or two persons complaints or issues or concerns, or if the superintendent has received 10 different concerns from people going directly to him or her. And that is where we are not able to monitor the situation, because our constituents are going directly to the superintendent, and the superintendent may not be communicating that to the board. Therefore, have no way to know the concerns that people in Brookfield, Braintree and Randolph are sharing with our CEO. So it's happened before. And, you know, major things were not uncovered because of that. For instance, some of the issues with our former facility director. And I think those are major issues. And as a board, I think we need to figure out how we can address that sort of in our interpretation of these policies. I don't know, Lane, what do you think? Am I totally off the deep end here? No, and I think we talked probably a few maybe a year or so ago about this because it was a concern that I actually brought up in one of the EL reports. And I think kind of where the discussion was at that point in time was this idea that, you know, if it's come to me, and obviously I haven't addressed it to people's satisfaction, whether I should have or not, it's a whole other question, they should be coming to you. When it comes to your level, if you're hearing it repeatedly, that it hasn't been resolved or that, you know, you're getting it from multiple people. I would argue that's a time when you as a board would say, hey, you know, there's something bigger going on here. You know, Lane or the superintendent has said it's been resolved, but we're still hearing these complaints and things don't match. That's when as a board that I would say you would stop and say, hey, let's pass a motion to look a little bit deeper into this. These are the things that we think we need to look at. Or if you think it's something that's rising to an even higher level, I mean, it could be criminal or whatnot. I would even, you know, connect with, you know, like Pietro have an independent investigation done. So, you know, you have two pathways depending upon the level of seriousness of what you're hearing. Because if I as a superintendent had had a long time to address it, and I doesn't feel like I have addressed it, and I haven't been keeping you in the loop on how I did it, or if what I'm telling you doesn't match what people are telling you, that's something you should look at. And perfectly within your right, and I would expect you to. By the way, you know, in some of the comments, you're right. If the superintendent doesn't present the information to you, you may not know. And that's a problem if that's happening, right? You know, usually with the executive sessions and the superintendent's reports and other conversations we have, I try to keep you in the loop as much as I can on stuff that might be critical or might hit you in terms of somebody asking you questions or having concerns about things. And so hopefully I've been doing a good job about that. But yeah, that would be a concern. But I would argue if you're getting stuff that, you know, just isn't adding up, you check. Yeah. Any other further steps or questions about this scenario or how we would handle it as a board. If you know something like this comes up. I do have a question. So I do appreciate this overview. It is helpful for me. I do get approached a lot as a school board member with questions about different aspects of the school. And I was one of the people that had reached out to Lane about the athletics. And I guess, you know, according to what I was told by the people who came to me is that they had reached out to the athletic director they had reached out to the principal, and they had reached out to Lane. I did share with them that, you know, Lane has a lot on his plate. So if there was a delay in getting that information that, you know, please be understanding, but that there's with COVID a lot going on. You know, they weren't happy with what the athletic director said or the principal. I guess I in my, I just don't know in my opinion, what I sure in your opinion, what I should have done differently. Do I, they were saying they weren't hearing from him again being respectful of Lane's time. I understand Lane I think you did get to them. It was probably a rapid email following the one that you they had sent already. I was defending the school and their, their situation. But should I not bring that forward. That's kind of the way that I feel right now is that I just shouldn't say anything because I hear, I understand clearly what and says about our governance, but I also feel like since the first time I joined this board. We wanted that wanting to be have better communication with our communities. We wanted to be approachable. We wanted this to be the community, you know, our community school. So I sometimes feel like there's a real rub with that we're told this is what we want, but well you really can't do it this way. So I know I often feel like a lot of this frustration is because of me and and what I'm doing. In my other world. My job is to communicate communicate communicate communicate and which is what I do all the time so this is just very different for me. When I don't feel like that people come to me they've neglected me in a position and I just have to sit back and say you know please come to the school board, share your concerns, but we're not going to take any action on it then. Sorry. I'm not and I'm certainly not saying that anybody is right or wrong here I'm just sharing how I feel about it. The conflict piece is this is that I responded pretty quickly to the people that asked me questions. And I think that's one of the reasons why that conflict protocol is so important. It's really easy for somebody to go to a board member and say I talked to Lane when they may may have not. And it's a lot easier to have it come back to me and then you check in with me hey did so and so actually check in with you and have a conversation. You know, then it's it's so I can say yeah I did you know they I tried to explain it they weren't happy. They seem to have concerns so you know it's appropriate, you know for the board to take over at this time. But that's part of the the problem and one of the concerns that I have is not only did I respond to everyone, but most of the responses were quite lengthy required me to go in. You know, well I don't believe you Mr. Millington I need you to go and get the guidance and show me the guidance. And so it took time to go and get the guidance and cut and paste and explain what the guidance meant and then have people argue with me that I was interpreting it wrong. And then me right off to the agency of education and have them do an interpretation which took a week to get their interpretation out of it to find out that my interpretation was correct. So that's that's part of the I think part of the conflict piece is it just is making sure that folks have the right information. You know, I did a long lengthy report on students that were allowed to go to other schools, based on an assessment from a person to who to this day is unknowns to me with accusations that I was allowing teachers to move their kids around willy nilly wherever they wanted to go as a benefit to teachers, which was the farthest for the truth. And to that day I don't know if that misconception has been addressed because the person was not asked to talk to me. So there are, again, some of that can relay misconceptions about me or what I've done or or my record and that's concerning to me because I to live in the community. As an administrator, it's important to be seen as transparent and open and honest. And it's it's it's hard to do that when you can't connect with people. Try to connect mis misconceptions or have a legitimate conversation with them about what their concerns were because it just it's it's difficult. It's difficult. So go ahead. I was just going to say the other thing is, we still have, I mean, as a board member, this isn't is this is a little bit different way of running a board than a lot of other boards are run. And when people oftentimes think of school boards, they think, Oh, well, if I talk to the board member, then they can get in there and they can, you know, influence the operational decisions that are being made and and and be involved in that. And that really isn't what our school board has been or has done for the last for a long time now since we've switched our governance structure. So we're looking more at what what outcomes do we want to have. And if folks are, you know, community people are really concerned, then how is the sports, whether or not the sports policy for COVID, how is that impacting outcomes. And that's where again, our our communication to our community is not it's not let's be out there and and open up the floodgates to have everybody tell us what they don't like or what they want for the system in terms of operations, because every you're never going to be able to please everybody but we've got, well, unless you disagree with it but we have a set of policies that are that are aiming us hopefully toward creating a system that that produces well educated and well prepared young people to move on to the next stage of their life. That's what our focus is about. It's not about second guessing, whether or not, you know, Lane should be doing such and such in order to produce those outcomes. That's all his, his area and the professional educators area. And that doesn't mean that parents because generally it's parents who have operational issues. They, you know, there is a way for them to express their feeling we don't have a parent parent teacher organization right in. I don't think in any of our schools. So again, if you've got a group of parents who want to work with the principles and influence in that direction. That's a great way for them to feel more integrated in the schools but as a board we haven't unless we want to again unless you want to change the way the board is operating. We're looking more systemically K 12. And where are we going what do we what do we need these these young people to be able to do when they finish our system and move to the next stage. So it's a more it's, it's not a it's not we're not looking at the micro we're looking at the macro when when we're looking at the system as a whole. Yes, I think that's true. I think that some of the scenario that Lane just talked about though, you know, parents exhausting, you know, their, their avenues through the AD and the principle and then coming to him and he's still doing work. Right. It's, you know, circumventing us, but he's still doing a lot of work that, you know, answering those questions that doesn't involve us at all. Right. You know so I don't think I don't think that's saving him any work really because instead of having people come through the board, basically he's asking answering lots of individuals questions who are coming directly to him. And as the manager, he can then work with his administrators and say, hey, we need to communicate better with our, our, our community because people are, are concerned or hey AD, when we, we've really need to make sure that parents understand that when there's a case in the school, that's going to influence the sports and that's going to be a major rub with the community and we need to be out front on this and make sure that our, that our, that our customers know that. And, and, and be a, be ahead of that but that's his management of his administrators and, and his, you know, instructing his, his people to get the word out to, to his, to the community and to parents. Well, I do appreciate the conversation because it is really helpful for me and I think that when I'm caught in the moment, I trying to do the impossible, which is to please everybody. So, I appreciate the conversation. Thank you for the clarification. Are there any other comments. I just wanted to kind of chime in a little bit. And I understand what everyone's saying, but I can tell you from, you know, from the other side, when you come to the board and they give you the line of, you know, I can't answer that it's policy governance, you need to go down. That is so frustrating as whether you're a parent or a, you know, taxpayer or something and that's the answer you get it. It really seems like the board is just blowing you off and you can't do then as a board member it feels the set you're that you're actually doing the same thing is these people have elected you and you just have to pass the buck down the lane and your hands are tied in it. I don't like that feeling one way you from either side. But, you know, that's our policy that's our policy but I don't like it so Well, and I have to chime in and say, I think I would like to have a conversation about the structure and the possibilities of changing it because I don't think that the community necessarily they don't get these trainings right so they don't necessarily know what they're electing us to and what they're electing us to could be something that we can't do under this current structure, and, and frankly, perhaps not what someone would run for school board to serve and something that's in that structure so I, I'd like to make a motion I'd like to suggest and I hope that we can look at our structure and just like we should look at our policies and think, is this serving our community. The best that it can. And this is, and I don't say that in order to please everyone, but I do say that, again, to serve the community as best we can, and perhaps a policy governance structure is not how we can best serve our community and our district. I will caution you. A couple of things. First off is that people will respond based upon the expectations that they have. And if board members are always inviting folks in to have those sorts of conversations that through your own policies are supposed to be pushed down to the superintendent. If you don't have that uncomfortable moment with them and push them where they should go, you will always get people coming to you without expectation. Right, you set the expectations for folks. Number two, if you plan on moving away from policy governance, you need to check state law, because state law in terms of the board's relationship with its superintendent is pretty close to policy governance. So just a couple of cautions there. And I in no way mean to imply I definitely think we should do that or that I understand everything that it would take to do that or what other options are I just this brings up for me. Again, is it and I don't think that an alternative structure would be bring it on people it's always open forum it's always come and tell me all the things that pardon my language piss you off about how the school is being operated. I don't I don't think that's the. I'm having I'm being distracted here so I'll stop there. I was going to say, I'll jump on the bandwagon here. And I think it was just really interesting on a side note watching that conversation just unwind and every single person on here was doing a lot of this. So I feel like there's a lot of consensus into into keeping this discussion open. And I think that you know again as a newbie you know it's it is that question of of as Hannah said as Brian said like how do we as a board serve the community in a way where the community feels that it's being served by the board members they elected so that's kind of where you know I feel that situation lies to so that's it. Yeah it's a really interesting conversation and you know possibly something to be pursued at a retreat or something like that either with a policy governance model. And just asking you know a specialist about that these are our hiccups with PG and you know where we go from here to make our constituents feel better heard, you know, just an idea. Can I ask a random question do we know or maybe Lane you have the answer to this how many school boards are run under this type of policy governance what's the kind of percentage. It's fairly high in Vermont. I've actually been called into one or two that are thinking of converting to it to talk with them about how it works. I can guarantee you that if you do not have at least a similar model where the superintendent has clear separation from the board you won't keep the superintendent. They won't you won't get a good one that'll come and want to work with you. So that's you know that's the other caution that I want to put out there because it's a very it's a very difficult role to do when you're not your own master if the board is taking over everything and what do you need a superintendent for. So I just just a couple other things to think about. And I'll say my wife works in the Berry School District and they're not policy governance and it puts a lot more work on the board members than than what we have. They just lost their superintendent. Well they they got a new new one it wasn't because of their policy though. I know the old superintendent was he wanted to go to Colorado. Again I interact with those guys. A lot of it was the lack of a clear definition between board and superintendent. I wonder if the opportunity we have though maybe in educating our public on our role with policy governance might actually go hand in hand as we share the new strategic plan. Is that an opportunity for us to actually educate and reeducate through a different media as you know is it you know up there could be a written one there could be something on the website blah blah blah all that stuff but that actually explains this is the role of your board. And this is how we you know work collaboratively with the superintendent who he is doing all of this and this is the strategic plan. So maybe as we work on that process this is our chance to reeducate our communities really on what our roles are and what we can do in this elected position. Thanks everyone for an interesting conversation. I think you know it's it's worthwhile going through these and just reminding ourselves of of sort of the ways upon which we are governed and under which models sort of that we're supposed to adhere to so I think that was great. Any any further thoughts before we adjourn. I'm just curious how many of the board members have. I know Ashley and Brian you were you were at that training with Miriam Carver herself right when you first got on the board. Was that that we did in the fishbowl. No I haven't been on any policy governance training then. Okay. And can anybody hear me. Can anybody hear me. Yes we can. So Miriam Carver hasn't come to do a training with us since I've been on the board. So it's been more than three years. I think the only two points that were there were in and Laura at the time that are currently on the board. Right. So no one has had any training and how how our board governs. So I went to a training put on by the by the BSBA in Montpelier. It was an evening shortly after I was initially elected that was policy governance based and so I feel like I've had some training in addition to the little scenarios that we've done. I had done an online one shortly after I was elected. It was put on by BSBA and it was an on you know a remote one just online. It wasn't anything in person. And we've done a couple of facilitated retreats with Val Gardner who of course is a policy governance expert. I don't know how many of the current board members were there. I think Rachel was I don't remember if anyone else was. Yes I was. So it's definitely something that we need to you know schedule in our last facility retreat with Susan wholesome before the strategic planning one was on governance although she's not a policy governance expert I would definitely hire someone more like Val to do the next training if that's you know the way we want to go. All right. Thank you everyone. We will adjourn the meeting at 726. Don't forget that there's a budget informational meeting on Wednesday this next week the 24th and a the town meeting before town meetings so Monday, March 1 it's called the annual school meeting. That's also what our UHS. All right. Have a good evening. Bye. Thank you. Thank you all.