 in terms of opening up the meeting. Yeah, let's open up the meeting at, I think, 207-ish on whatever the date is, May 13th, 2021. And then I took the first order of business is public comment. Do we have any members of the public? I'm driving back so I can't see. No, you're good, Jim. Okay. And then, primarily private consent agenda or the agenda in front of you. We don't have anything on the consent agenda, right? We just have the- We have a couple of hires on the consent. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move we approve the consent agenda. Do I have a second? I second. Any discussion? No. Jill? Hi. Amanda? Yes. Mia? Hi. Kristen? Jerry? Hi. I don't know if Andrew's on, he said it was gonna be late. He's not here yet. Emma? Hi. Anakit? Hi. Did I miss anyone? Great. Well done. Consent agenda passes. If I recall, we have a brief discussion of PROM. Is that next? Yeah, fun topic. Don't count your chicken. Oh, no. Okay, so for PROM, we got the guidance for PROM probably about a week and a half, two weeks ago that we could even have a PROM. And so I'm just a PROM committee, kind of senior committee led by teachers and students. We're scrambling to find a venue for PROM. The students are quite adamant they want it off campus, but that limits the number of venues that we can access with the number of kids who wanna do PROM, of course. So they did find the Capitol Plaza as being able to accommodate the number of kids who want to attend PROM, which is awesome for May 22nd. However, the Capitol Plaza is requiring that in order to have the PROM there, that there has to be a police officer on premises. So the Montpellier Police Department is requiring before they ask any of their officers a letter from the board stating that the board is, or that the school district is the one who is asking the police for their presence there and with stipulations around the dress of the officer. So I have written a very short and simple letter for the board to consider. I'm gonna put it in the chat right now. And I just found out about this very recently, which is why it wasn't in the board packet. Hold on one second. I'll make the restrictions open. Okay, so here is the letter for you all to consider. I can also share my screen if that's helpful, that addresses the police department's concern. Jill, you have a question? Yeah, I was wondering if you knew the reason why they wouldn't want it at the school and can, is there any authority to say, because it seems like that'd be really safe. There's parking, I don't, the students wanted off campus is like something extra special. That's the only reason I could give you, I really have no other reason other than the students wanted off campus. The gym, I mean, we can do it in the gym. I mean, I'm impressed they get to have one at all, which is awesome. It just seems like that would be the path of least resistance and less money and safe and, I mean, who gets to sign off does like the principal or somebody have to say, yes, we, it's either at the auditorium or it's not happening. Am I just a big meaning? It's either at the Capitol Plaza with a police officer on staff or it's at the gym. Right. I can tell you that this would be the first, if you're in the gym, this would be the first year anyway that there weren't, there wasn't a police officer on duty for prom. So that's standard anyway. Yeah, Harwood has two lined up, South Burlington has two or any did some research on it before she came to me with it. Okay, thank you. So I think what we need is basically approval to send a letter, correct? Yes, so the board would either approve it so Jim can sign the letter and get it to the NPD so that they can book the Plaza, the Capitol Plaza or the board does not approve it and I can let the students know that they will be having their prom in the gym because we can't, because this wasn't approved. Amanda, you have a hand up? I do. So I mean, it seems like we just went a whole year talking about safety and what it means for BIPOC students to have police officers on campus. And I don't know if there's any negotiation that can be done with Capitol Plaza or, but it just, and because I didn't have a chance, like I don't have a chance to think about it and like really look at pros and cons. It seems like a rushed thing, but just throwing up how like the feeling is right now. It's like, we just went through a whole process for six months around safety and what it means to have police officers and uniforms and all of that. If the choice is... The officer will not be in uniform. Can I have a clarifying question? Oh, can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I see that it's as business casual, but I think that still means that it's, this is an on-duty officer, which means that they're still carrying a weapon. I guess that's... Sorry, I was not saying, I'm not speaking, sorry. Yeah. Well, Montpelier Police Department has made it very clear that they can't have an on-duty police officer and not have a weapon. Right. So while it's not exactly uniform, that the person will be dressed, if we go forward with this, the same way the SRO was dressed whenever on campus in previous years, is my understanding. The SRO is dressed in many different ways, but yeah. They would be in the khakis and the MPV polo. Mostly, yeah, okay. Okay. Looks like Emma put her hand up. Oh, sorry, Emma. Go ahead. My gut is to be supportive of what the students and the faculty and the committee have planned, and if that's what that class wants to do for their prom and they understand that a police officer has to be present and that's still how they wanna proceed, then my gut is to be supportive of that. I feel like this grade and last year seniors, they've missed out on a lot of their sort of benchmark moments of being in their final years of high school. So I'm sure that they're like a prom is like beyond, you know, the imagination of these kids almost at this point. So I'm inclined to be supportive of the event. I sort of agree with Amanda that like maybe we could at least have one more phone call with the Capitol Plaza to see if we might be able to hire a security guard who wouldn't have to be armed. I think there's a local security company that does that type of thing, but I don't know if that's something that has already been explored and ruled out. The only, I have not been a part of these discussions, so I'm only relaying information that I have. The only information I have is that they first said that they wanted three police officers on duty and Renee talked them down to one. So my hunch, and this is just my hunch, I don't know, because I was not part of the negotiations, is that they are pretty clear that it is a non-duty police officer. And then one other, just as a teacher who's fairly recent past has chaperoned proms. It's one of my favorite duties is. You're weird then. I just love, I love prom, it's so fun. And Danville did like this crazy, I'll have to tell you about it sometime. But anyway, usually the, either the security guards or police officers would be outside of the actual space where the dance is happening. So they're not like in the room with the kids. Is that something that we could explore? Renee, we're talking about just that this morning. And while of course we can't promise that, but that is the intent of the officers that they would most likely be out on the parking. It's mainly for substance abuse, quite honestly, and to watch for substance abuse. So while again, we can't promise that because if something happened inside, they would need to go inside. And the Capitol Plaza would most likely want to be able to state where they are. Our intent would be to have them. Kids aren't engaging in substance abuse in the actual prom area. We'll put it that way. That's not where there's lots of adults in that area. Mia, did you have your hand up first or Jill? Emma asked my question. Okay. Go ahead, Jill. I was just gonna say, I'd like to offer a motion that the board, Director Murphy to sign this letter requesting the Montpelier Police Department to have the officer on site as required by the host site so that our students can have a call. As the parliamentarian, I'm sure that's not how Robert's rules, which I've now gotten would have me say it, but I would like to make a motion that we support this request. Thank you. No, I think you did a great job with the motion. Do we have a second? I second. I think Jerry got there first. Any further discussion? Mia? Go ahead. Yeah, I don't know that there's anything we can do about it, but I wonder if there's any conversation that could be had with the student organizers and the committee about, you know, I just don't want any student to feel that there's a barrier to being able to enjoy what Emma has just pointed out is like this really momentous occasion. And I guess I do also hear you saying Libby that if it were 2019, and even if it was at the school, there would have been a police officer. But now we know more than, or if we were in Harwood, or if we were in South Burlington, you know, but we just know so much more than we did about what this impact is on BIPOC kids. And I don't, I mean, I'll vote to sign this, to tell Jim to sign this letter, that's okay. But I just also would like to have this be, you know, I don't know, go, not go back to the committee, but just like ask the committee to weigh that consideration if they haven't already. Thank you. Amanda? Yeah, I would like to see an actual engagement with BIPOC students and a very clear path to say, we made this decision. I, and for the PROM community to make that consideration, but also to inform students that that was the decision they made. I think it's important just to, yeah, just for students who don't feel safe around the presence to be able to make the decisions for themselves, whether or not they're gonna go to PROM because this happens, you know, it's that simple. So I don't know how it works when you don't, I also just feel like decisions like these are really hard for me, like in the 20 minute, okay, let's just move on, it's feeling so like in that, you know, I don't know if people are used to people voting no, and then just having the majority vote, so or abstaining from the vote, I would like to do that because I don't feel like it goes with the principles of the work that we've done for the past seven months. Now also hear what Emma's saying about, you know, like this is what the students want, but it is a committee and I wonder if there is representation from the students that do not feel safe with these things and if there are conversations around collaboration and, you know, like what is the decision so that that's where I'm at. Yeah, yeah, that's right. We definitely have had no votes and abstentions in the past. Any further discussion? I guess I'd be interested in putting a line into the letter that's saying that the school board will allow this, but that we want the committee to, you know, reach out to BIPOC students and maybe consider any other possible alternatives, like hiring a private security guard that would be unarmed. This letter is for the MPD, it's not for the get- Yeah, I was trying to say this. I can ask the group to do that, promise in two weeks. So there's not a whole lot of time, but I can certainly ask the, I can talk to Renee about that. Does that suffice, Emma, or? Yeah, I'm having a lot of feelings like Amanda, I mean, as the chair of the school safety police relations committee, I'm just really torn on this because I wanna be super supportive of kids planning this great event that they're, you know, are probably super thrilled to be able to have. And then I also wanna like be true to living our principles, especially in the work that we've just done. So I'm a little torn and it's hard for me to, you know, I wish I had had some time to reach out to some people and ask how students are feeling or, you know, get some more stakeholder input here. All right, I'm sorry. Did I skip over your job? You wanna go ahead? Okay. I'll go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead. Okay. Just a point of clarification, we can still do all of the other things just because we are voting on this. We're just saying that we're delivering the letter where we're giving Jim the authority to sign this letter and that's to the police, right? And so we can still do other things, talk to the committee and do other things. This letter is not actually binding us to host a prom at the Capital Plaza and, you know, not have it at the, if it does go that route, not have it at the school, right? Yeah. Jill, and then I think I'm gonna move to a vote so we can get through it. Yeah, I agree. I want us to have a retreat, which I'm pretty stoked about. I was just gonna add that, you know, I think it's important for those because I understand this feeling feels rushed, but I think it's important to remember that normally we wouldn't even be involved at this level of detail. It's that the police department is specifically asked for this. I think in great response to all of the work we have been doing over the last several months and that the board has been really clear about this. And so, rightly so, the MPD wants to have a formal ask so that they're not put in an awkward position and they have our consent. So I agree, it does, it feels rushed and quick, but I also think it's important that normally we probably wouldn't have even been involved in this level of sort of administrative decision. That's helpful, I think. Great, thank you, Jill. And with that, I'll give you the first vote. Zero. Do I just have to say aye now, since I made the motion? Okay, aye. Thank you. Kristen. Aye. Anakit. Aye. Jerry. Aye. Mia. Aye. Amanda. I know with the caveat that I am in support of BIPOC student feeling safe. And I just want to have that in record that it's not about throwing shade at the students that really want this. I want you to be there, but I just want to support BIPOC students and students that don't find that safety. And this is why I'm staying from this vote. Okay, thank you. Emma. Aye. Andrew, I know you just joined and missed the discussion for voting on the letter to the Montpelier Police Department about Rob basically saying that we are okay with a plain closed officer being there for basically because the Capitol Plaza requires it. Can you give me a little summary of the discussion? Or I can just abstain to keep this moving since I wasn't here and I haven't read the letter. Okay. I'm going to abstain just because I just know I'm not going to have a lot of time. Yeah, the reason than that. So the motion passes with nine votes, four votes, abstention. Wait, that doesn't work. You get only nine of us. Huh? There's only nine of us. You get two votes, Mia. I get two votes. You get two votes. You get two votes. Oh. It counts for two and the Roxbury residents count for one. It was how we balanced the board without making it like 15,000 people. So, yeah, so it's nine to four, which is quirky, I know, but no, sorry, 10 to four. 10 to four. It passed. Okay. Now I think we can hand it over to Nathan. Okay. Thank you for being patient. Absolutely. You know, I love this stuff, as you know. Andrew, welcome. I just posted in the chat on the Zoom, a link to the mirror board that we're using. Once you are rolling with that, your icon should show up on the mirror board and we'll be set to the rest of us. What I would like to do is for you to turn off your Zoom cameras to conserve bandwidth and move over to the mirror board and in the bottom left menu, I think, for you will be a little video camera and click that. And then we can be video visible in the mirror board. And then Anna Hipko is gonna share her screen. She has visibility of the mirror board and that's gonna be the way by which the public can engage with this. We will probably also wanna mute ourselves in Zoom and just go with the mirror, but let's see how it goes. I still don't have it and I don't hear anybody. I'm playing around on this little board where I can move little orange things. I mean, are we just supposed to be reading the board right now? Yeah. Nathan, are you there? It kind of looks like Nathan's talking, but I can't hear him. Emma, I'm unmuting in Zoom, so I might be echoey. Can you use the link in the Zoom chat to get to this mirror board, Emma? Yeah, I mean, I think I'm on the mirror board. I just don't understand how it works. And you have to sign in. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Andrew? Yep, I can hear you. Okay, Emma, can you hear me? And have you figured out the video chat in the mirror yet? Is the video chat in the mirror just pressing out a little video button? Amanda, thank you. Anna, can you report back? Maybe I'm rushing that. I can see you, I cannot hear you right now, Anna. Okay, looks, Anna's giving us thumbs up. I think we're good to go. Anna, just let us know if that's not working and we'll, okay. Now you've got it. Thank you. This is a serious reverb. How about now? Stella? You're still a little echoey. We go back to Zoom. That's okay with me. I think that's probably the time of year. So I'm now in Zoom, unmuted, but also with video off. I see Anna sitting, sharing her screen. Does everybody hear me without an echo? Yep. Okay, great. All right, so the next piece is to ask you, all right, there we go. Seeing a little bit of more writing. What I would like you to do, now I'm gonna adjust my screens, is to then take a few more minutes and start sorting these value statements in ways that make sense to you. It's okay to copy one and paste its copy somewhere else in case you wanted to occupy space in sort of multiple areas. It's okay to talk while you're doing this unless someone wants to have sound free space to think. Nathan, can you say again, what do you mean that into a space that makes sense to us? Is that what these gray rectangles are? That's, yeah, that was an arbitrary structure I put there. But for example, kindness and empathy might be in a similar bucket or equitable and inclusive. Okay, kind of group them together. Yep, because eventually what I would love to, what I think would be useful for you is if at the end of this exercise, we're able to aggregate these into five value statements that describe accurately the things you all care most about in this process, in this work. And if we can, this sort of sorting of concepts helps us towards that, I think. So I'm appreciating, I think it's Amanda who is, I made four rectangles and Amanda's made a circle and is making space for that circle. Is that right? No, it wasn't me, it wasn't me. It was me. Nice job, Andrew. That's Andrew. It looked like we needed a new spot and it also kind of felt like things were sprouting from that area. Yep, no, I think it's great. That's one of the things I like about this tool. Okay, so I'm gonna call on Emma for the moment. It doesn't mean that other people have to stop working. Emma, you are working to sort of stretch the left hand rectangle. Do you wanna talk about what you're seeing over there? Well, I actually just was moving the rectangle so that it was like fitting all of the sticky notes in it. But I think I spent more time sorting the sort of student voice, the one to the rectangle to the right. Go for it. Talk about that. Community centered, collaborative, stakeholder input, just being inclusive of all of our stakeholders, but in particular students. I wanted to say, I wrote that one, it's pink responsibility for fostering world citizens, but I welcome word smithing. I couldn't think of the phrase, but basically I hope that makes sense, but I'm trying to get at the students that leave our space. We want them to be responsible and engaged citizens. So I welcome edits to that. And I think that's a good addition. And also, are we, we're our audience in Zoom now, right? Yes, and it sounds way better. Okay, looks like the transparency socio-economic fiscal responsibility rectangle. He's starting to have some resolution. Somebody want to speak to that. Aniket, do you want to speak about that one? Sure, I can, I'm getting an echo from myself. Aniket, you unmuted yourself in mirror, yeah. You did it yourself in Zoom. Do I have it now? Yeah, you got it. Finally. Okay, well, thanks. Yeah, I'll try to take a crack at it. To me in that rectangle, the fiscal responsibility jumps out the most or is important, especially the diverse, economically diverse population that we have in the community. But in general, one of the biggest things I see as a directive for board is the budget. And so long-term sustainability of the district. And so keeping that in mind, fiscal responsibility jumps out. Transparency is a big thing as well. One of the values I feel we should uphold is being transparent to the community of the decisions that we make and the process that we go through to arrive at those decisions. Focus, that rings a bell too. I think transparency and accountability go kind of hand in hand. Nathan, to me, that box, they fall under, that box is almost like the discipline box, but not discipline like as in somebody being disciplined, more like self-discipline, organizational discipline. And I feel like on fiscal responsibility, I think in today's day and age, that can be conflated a little bit with fiscal conservatism, but I don't necessarily view it that way. I guess instead of fiscal responsibility, I'm thinking of like fiscal strategy. For example, what we see, how we see the pensions having been handled at the state level, there was a lack of fiscal strategy and responsibility there, and we're seeing a really unfortunate situation play out right now as a result of that. And there's also been a number of other times that I've seen in Vermont and around the country and world just through reading and studies and experience when a lack of fiscal planning has led to having to play catch up for many years for organizations, and that means that other priorities haven't been funded as a result of a lack of financial planning or financial strategy. So for example, because of our district's financial planning and strategy heading into the pandemic, we were able to have resiliency and flexibility in how we spent funds, and we were able to buy computers for families that didn't have computers so that their kids could participate in classes and things of that nature. Yeah, and I want to add to that too, that being strategic financially and planning ahead also avoids crisis spending and can save a lot of money. I wanted to add too. I raised my hand, but I realized maybe we're not doing that right now. I do feel strongly that the word responsible is important because, as Jerry put in her little stick, and I added, we are also responsible to the voters and the taxpayers who support our school budget. So it's not just what we do with it, but that we have been entrusted by the public who voted us into these positions that we are responsible for using their money appropriately. So I get that it might, that phrase might come with some sort of connotation, but I definitely want to make sure it's accountable, it's responsible, and that we've been entrusted. So I just didn't want to lose that sentiment completely about our responsibility to voters, not just the students or the families in the district, but everyone in both of our communities. Yeah, and I just got a point of order on, because Joel mentioned the hand raising function. I cannot participate on the Miro board and see the Zoom participant hand raising function at the same time. So are people okay, just kind of shouting out? Otherwise, I'm happy to toggle between the two screens. But I'm in the process with you. So go ahead. I'll try to take on the role of monitoring the Zoom. I've been, I had my notes for the, for facilitation over top of it. So I'll be, I'll be more attentive. All right. No, I don't want people to have a hand up. That's not being, thank you. Also, I have to computer, so I can support if needed, in terms of looking at the Zoom Miro on computer. And I have the hand. I want to take the weight of that off of the board members. So I'll do my best at that. Okay. Okay. So we've talked about some of these areas. Somebody want to speak to the left hand rectangle, fair, honesty, respectful, integrity, kindness, et cetera. I will start to call Jerry or Kristen. Do you want to speak to that? I see Jerry's got her hand up. Go for it. Sorry, I clicked the wrong buttons. Lower my hand first. Okay. So these are kind of basics to me. Physical safety, fairness, honesty, courage. Integrity, I think these are things that people would assume the school board will do. It would be hard to disagree for anyone to disagree that their priorities are part of our foundational values. Okay. And then speaking to the third rectangle, resiliency, accountable, moving forward, not complacent. The, Libby, do you want to talk about that one? Toggling back and forth here. Well, the accountable might be part of fiscal responsibility as well, but it looks to me as if this rectangle speaks to the board's role in decision making for the district and that the board provides the structure, the vision, the goals that are broad and overreaching. And it's their responsibility for the data and that kind of thing so that it doesn't get off track. The shiny objects, so that's how I take that rectangle. It's speaking to the goal making and the visioning for the future. And then Jim, do you want to talk about the, or Andrew, do you want to talk about the circle at the bottom? Andrew, you created that, so let you go for it. Yeah, I just noticed that a bunch of equity, social justice, related, are we calling these values the post-its? Sure. Values were kind of being consolidated together underneath the others and the way that I've viewed like our equity policy and a lot of our discussions around equity in recent years is it's a lens that we need to apply pretty much everywhere. So for example, when I think about the financial and budget policies that the finance committee should take up at some point here in the not too distant future, we should be applying, my general thought on this is we should be applying a lens of what does this policy mean for advancing our goals related to equity. When we look at a range of different issues, what does that mean for the equity of our community? Are we implementing things in an equitable manner? How does this impact our community's marginalized populations? How does this decision impact the have-nots and the haves, if you will, from a socioeconomic perspective? And to me, that's something that should be kind of rooted kind of at the foundation of everything we do. Thank you. Here's a point where I'm going to point out that I named an arbitrary number of sort of final value statements of five. I do think it's a useful number and it's useful to sort of maintain some discipline and try to stay within that number. So we have five zones. What I would like each of you to do is there are 10 of you. I would like you each to spend about five or 10 minutes drafting some, you know, these are these are sort of when we say innovative or strategic. That need we need to expand on that for it to be a useful statement. Even, you know, even equitable probably needs to be expanded upon. So trying to create some sentences that capture, you know, we will ensure that all students have equitable access to academic resources or something like that. So quietly, I would like two people each to claim a zone and just work to to generate some statements. Jerry, do you want to tell me where you want to work? Sorry in the wrong screen. I could work on the the collaborative box. Great. I'll work with Jerry there over in the student voices collaborative box. Okay. Yeah, that's our hand up. Thank you. Mia, where would you like to be? Oh, that didn't raise my hand for that, but I'll go to the far left rectangle. Okay, who wants to join me there? Mia, you're on your own for a moment. And Kate, where would you like to work? On the second rectangle of the fiscal responsibility, accountability and those kind of things. Are we working in a breakout room with another person? No, what I want you to do is literally create a sticky note and just right within these areas because we can't do breakout rooms for reasons of public meeting. And it's okay. It's good for this work to just be visible as it goes. Maybe maybe in the initial stage, trying to be distracted by what other people are writing. Who wants to join? Annika, you're on your own for a moment. Amanda, where would you like to work? I guess. I would like to be in the sample. Indra, do you want to be there or is that should I take the weight off your shoulders on that one? Sorry, my cursor is stuck between screens and programs. I'm happy to work in any of them. So if somebody else really wants to work in this area, I will go wherever I'm needed. I'm happy to be in any of them. Okay, so I need to hear from Jill, Emma, Kristen, and Mia, I see your hand up. I'm happy to do the third box. Okay, great. Mia, please speak up if you've got something to share. This is Emma, and I'm already assigned to the far right box, the collaborative box with Jerry. Right, sorry, thank you. Nathan, I was just waiting to let people choose where they wanted to go. To not like take us off track. Who's speaking? That was Mia. Can you hear me? So I'm just waiting, I'm leaving my hand up waiting for folks to just choose what which box and circle they want to be in. I'll join Jim. This is Kristen in the third box. Great, this is Jill. I'd love to be with Mia on that first one. Great. Libby, where are you going to be? Happy to go anywhere. Do you want to work with Amanda on the equitable justice-rooted and diversity? Sure. Jim, I think that you are with Aniket for the moment. I thought I was in the third box. Oh, sorry. You can put me with Aniket. That's fine, Nathan. I said I'd go in any of the boxes wherever I was needed, so. I was counting and just wasn't figuring out the Jim and Emma already assigned. Okay, I'm going to be quiet. Let's work quietly for 10 minutes and see what you guys can draft up here. So Nathan, this might be the time to make the point that I wanted to make, which is that the ones where I commented community initiated are the stickies that are the values that came from the school safety committee, which was a result of a lot of community listening and stakeholder. And I don't think that we just automatically adopt them necessarily, or it's only about just like, okay, those are our values. But I also think that there's something about not straying from those significantly because it would be because it would, you know, we got a lot of community input to inform those. Can you repeat then? Because I did take note of that. Can you repeat the name of that committee? The school safety and police relations committee. Okay, what I'm going to do while you guys are doing some writing is to change the ones that you commented on that did come from there to this blue color that I just started. Okay. And Mia, do you think it would be, would you be able to put your hands on that document really quick and link it in the chat just so that we could have that for reference? Oh, sure. The one that's just the list of values. Yeah. Thank you. Got that, Mia. Okay, great. I have a question on this activity. And are we, are we writing a new sentence using these words, or are we trying to form a sentence with the sticky notes? Yeah, you're trying to write one or two or several statements that encompass what you're seeing in these areas. Okay. This was going to be group work, but that's not the way we can do this. All right, got lost, guys. Folks, what am I doing? So in the area that you're working, you're trying to generate one, two, three statements that describe the values within there, within that group. Oh, and we're just doing it, like, leaving our just writing together. We're not talking to each other. You can talk to each other. You can write together. You can write separately. Okay. And how do we do that on top of everybody too? Just start it. Yeah, start it somewhere and go for it. Baby, I don't know what I'm doing. Sorry, Amanda, that wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to put a link in from the equity team's work around the definition of equity that they've been working on, but I don't know how to get rid of it. Hold on. You can also paste it off to the side somewhere. Wait, there's a link right there. Okay, that's easier. So I don't know if that's helpful or not. Amanda, if you're on that where it says down towards the bottom of the first page on this draft and that equitable learning community is one where that definition right there is one that we've worked on quite a bit. It's long for a value, but Nathan, I wonder if you could talk for a minute or not. I'm wondering about the difference between a value and a goal. Right. So we, for example, we value transparency in our decision-making and our student data that's probably wide-ranging. But that's a, then as you're making a policy decision, you can point back to that and say, okay, I'm worried that this is going to obscure how we make decisions about who gets special aid support. Right. And we have a value that is about transparency. So that's, you know, it ends up being a tool. The values are sort of a tool to keep yourselves honest or keep yourselves focused on sort of how you go about the work. And so the goals are, goals might be useful to think about this as ends. Those are, or the outcomes. So if sentences are starting with like MRPS will, then that's not, that to me is sounding more like a goal. Yeah. I'm doing a lot of goals. Whereas a value would be, we believe in community-driven decision-making. Right. Exactly. So are we aiming for goals or values? Values right now. Goals are to the right and we'll get there. And that's okay. We can resort. The nice thing about this is we can pull things over. You know, innovative, like we strive to be innovative in our approach to education. That's a, that's a value or an approach and the outcome will be, you know, 100% graduation rate. And Bob, got about three minutes left. Hey Jill, how are you feeling about the, the top sentence in our purple sticky? No, I like it. Can you see I'm, I'm trying to communicate. It's much better. Thank you for doing that. No, we have a good start. I think I'll get rid of the, the bottom half so that it's just, it's cleaner. Does that seem okay? Yep. Yep. Much better. And can you see my purple sticky? I'm adding comments since I can't. Yep. I see it now. Maybe it's our communication and our actions or something like that. Anna, can I finished one sentence? I don't know what you think about it. It's in the upper left of our box. Yeah, I've got a few sentences which are more goal-oriented than value, but the second box is a couple of values. Amanda, I was just trying to pull in some of those words and think about the equity statement from the committee, but feel free to revise and jump in on that. Thanks, Livia. I'm trying to write one too. I'm just going to extend my timer for five more minutes. It seems like folks are doing good work, so I'm going to let it roll. Those of you who are finished writing, maybe drag your, the products of this work down to the lower part of the, the screen so that we can sort of move our, you know, send our screens down there in a minute. Andrew, the only thing I wanted, I was wondering, was the long-term sustainability. That's whether we should include that or create another statement. Do you want to add that maybe? Yeah, that's what I was saying. I suck at these things. Wordsmithing is not my forte, so that's why I was gently hinting that you can add that. You think that gets out of the amicote? Yep. I like the purple and the like blue and aqua colors. Just, just a preference. Very, very like late 80s of you, Andrew. I was born in 1987. What can I say? Yeah, I was not born in 1987. I think I was going to prom in 1987. Was it at the Plaza Hotel, Jim? Not at the Plaza Hotel. Did you wear a red cumberbund or something else? I did wear a red cumberbund. I'm embarrassed to admit. Nothing embarrassing about that. There's plenty embarrassing about that, Nathan. That's a good, I should, that's a good icebreaker. Ask a buddy about their experience of prom. All right, it looks like we are getting close. Andrew and Aniket, we believe in strategically allowing school resources. That's the piece that that's one of the pieces that you generate. Yeah, Andrew, generator. Jim and Kristen is one of you active on this one that says, I'm on a PS board value strategic program process. That's Kristen. That would be me, yeah. It's Kristen, minor above and at least apparent to me is super small. Okay. Jim, are those are the ones that you wrote in several pieces? Are those intended to be one value statement per? Well, they are just by brainstorm. Okay, so if you will take a minute to maybe just gonna try this. All right, so Jim, I've taken that first one and I've made them their own piece. Yeah. Is that all right? What do the other ones all go away? I just moved the omnibus one to the side. I'm just writing and writing. We're going to pull this all together in a minute, but you guys are being productive. Livia, I made some comments in those boxes. Mia, I can't get the image of an 80s nylon swishy onesie out of my mind. Now that you made that comment. You're welcome. Glad I missed it. I was writing. I'm going to give a shout out to one of my classmates who went to prom in a saran wrap dress. Montpelier prom at National Life in a pink saran wrap dress. Excellent. Okay, so I'm going to, I think it's time to ask you guys to pause. Yeah. You're probably going to have to crawl around a little bit to see all this because it's getting pretty big. But what I'd like to do is have everybody, once you move your cursors off of the side somewhere so that we're not trying to read through those, take three minutes if you haven't already read what's been written by others. Please do so. And then we're going to do just a little bit of a straw poll and see how people are feeling about how each one of these is landing. Okay, so this is, this is not a, this is not a binding poll or a vote, but I'm going to start a poll and give you about five minutes. You each get five votes. You can single, double, triple quadruple quintuple vote on a single thing if you really care strongly about it. I just want to see what people are ending up in liking this language and which particular statements are landing. Go ahead. Hey Nathan, I have a question. I'm having a hard time telling which one of the stickies is the sort of like final draft from each rectangle. So, so I just made a bunch of stickies bigger and then attempt to answer that question. Um, so that might not be it. Emma and Jerry, the one that I'm on right here, that's a blue one, it's a student-centered, we value-centered all MRPS students in the work. Yeah, do you got it? Yeah. It goes from the students, from the safety committee, I think. Maybe not. That's why we made it blue. Okay, but, but that's also part of your final draft. Yeah, or your draft, or no. Yeah. I'm not sure I know what you're asking. So, yes, it was one of the sticky notes that was in our section, but we highlighted it blue to indicate that it was also something that was put forward by the school safety police relations committee. Great. So, I'm a little bit lost, Nathan, sorry, because... So, what I see... In my work, we kind of worked individually. Yes. So, we didn't really get to talk about what's final for our circle. Okay. So, I see, Amanda, in your circle, MRPS believes in educational equity, diversity of people, thoughts, and cultures makes us stronger together. The other ones were pre-existing that are visible to me. Libby and Amanda, am I missing some? Well, I put all in the notes of my comments that I have in all the things. Okay. Okay, good. Sorry. So, should I put them in... Yes. So that, like, for example, the note that I'm reading right now, MRPS board seeks to create equitable systems that are rooted in justice centers to needs of all students, blah, blah, blah. That, I would love to have that in a sticky. I'll just do that one because I'm looking at it. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry, I was not following how you're doing, how you were doing that. All right. And we're just giving a thumbs up for the ones that we want. Yeah, so give me a second to start that poll. Let me, I want to make sure that this is prepared. And I want to honor the work that Amanda was doing by making it more visible to you all. The effect of some of this is that I'm going to sort of obscure some of the things, but I think they're captured. Oops. Amanda, this one that says powered with as shared responsibility, can you? Yes, I can. I got, I got, I think I got one that's going to capture. Okay. Thanks. This is a perfect time. I think I mentioned in my previous calls, perfect time if I am messing something up or misinterpreting something that's important to one of you or something you said, definitely say, whoa, slow down. So Mia and I have, have one sticky that was representative of our value bucket. Yeah. But am I seeing this correctly that some of these have like multiple stickies? Five or six stickies. Okay. That's okay. So for example, up top, Jim, Jim did some brainstorming and put them all in some stickies that were hard to read. And I broke them into three stickies each. And then I made an arbitrary sort of circle over top of them to, to tie them together. All right. So now I am going to launch this poll. And you can vote on, so your votes will not be visible to each other. I think during the polling. And then when we close the poll, we'll see where they go. You got five minutes. How do we vote? You see a little, I see a little plus signs of that. Hold on a second pause. Some of Jim's stuff is falling outside of this frame. So I need to fix that. We are doing all the big ones, right? Pretty much. Right. Okay. So, so I'm just trying to get Jim's pieces into a place where they can be voted on. So Emma, your purple is all of it. Oh, you just put it all in that one, right? That's not my section. I think purple might be Andrew. I think I remember him talking about how much he loves purple. I do love purple, but our section, it uses teal, which I also love. More just the two teal ones right here. I think you might be referring to the one that Jill and I did. This one. Right up purple. Yep. That's, that's, we did. And I think to answer Amanda's question, yes, we put it all in one. Oh, yeah. Sorry, sorry. Me and Jill. Yes. Thank you. Sorry. I have a question for you on that one, Mia. Would, would you consider that color to be mauve? I don't know. Does it change your vote? So I see the vote countdown is going down. I still, I'm sorry. I don't know how I'm vote, how to, how to actually literally vote. Yeah. Can we have some more time? Yeah. Let me see if I can. Also, there's another one on the, on the left side that's falling off, right? Uh, I think it. Click on objects. I also just want to clarify whether you consider that mauve or not. It's getting one of my votes. So are people able to vote? No. Yes. I'm not. I don't know what I'm doing to vote. Jill, if you go into the screen, the mirror screen, you should see a vote now, like a black box that says Nathan Souter has started a voting. Can you see that? No. It's in the upper, upper right side. Thank you. Oh, it says I have one second left. Okay. That's okay. We can. It's one minute. Oh wait, I can only vote in one thing. You should have five votes you can use. You just click the plus signs that are appearing over comments. When I started my voting round, there was a little box that opened up to the left and it showed the sticky notes that I had clicked the plus signs on. And then it showed like a countdown on the top left that said you have like three more votes left, two more votes left. Is it bad if I vote in all of my? No, it's not bad. I'm kidding. Got about 10 seconds left, a little bit less. Can everybody see the results there? That's not what I wanted. The results still visible to you or no? There we go. Yes. Okay. So I feel really stupid. I'm really sorry. I don't see the results. Try on the bottom of your screen next to the video camera. Is there a thumbs up? Yeah. Click on that. Do you see something that says values round one? Yes. Okay. Now I see it. Thank you. Yep. So just to pause, this is intended as sort of a straw poll to see where people are falling. On these statements. We're also at 3.50 p.m. What I want to do is just take a breath and take a pause. So you can stay looking at this and reading through this if you want, but I want to just give you about five minutes to go get a drink, turn off your camera, and then we're going to come right back. Okay. So that is 3.55. It's when we're coming back. Okay. That was good. Hey Nathan, I was able to see it and then I closed it and now I can't get to it. If I click on that vote icon, thumbs up, I just see the upcoming three things, but I don't see the results. So on that menu on the left that opens when you do the thumbs up, on the bottom of the menu, do you see values round one completed? Nope. I just see upcoming three things. Huh. I show a values round two, but I don't see round one. That's what I see. Yeah. That's upcoming. All right. Values round two is upcoming. The votes and votes are typically going to be a struggle. Okay. While you guys take a quick break, I'm going to see if I can figure out how to make that visible because I can see the results in you. Yeah. The first time when the voting closed, the resulting popped up and I was able to see everything and then I, you know, I closed that one and now I can't get back to it. Okay. Okay. Thanks. All right. I see you guys still playing around on the board. Come on back with your cameras when you're ready. Hi, Jill. Next time we'll just do this out on the lawn when it's this beautiful. Yeah. I appreciate the break though. Thank you. I apologize. I'm going to have my camera off while I cobble down my lunch. What are you eating, Amanda? Cereal with the other. That's what dinner would be at my house if my wife were in charge of dinner. So there's no shame in that. Okay. So what I did to make the votes visible is to simply tag each item that had votes with a little red tag. Do you see that? Jill, can you see it? I can see the votes on my screen. So I can see the number of people. Oh, good. Okay. So I'm not sure how you can see the votes, but Aniket could not. Well, I can't see who they are. I don't think, but I can see the numbers. I can see the ones that have nine and five and four. Is that what you mean? Great. Okay. Yeah, I can see the red tags. I still can't see the results. But yeah, red tags, nine, eight, seven. Yeah. So I just translated the results into the red tags. Yeah. Okay. And I'm going to note, for example, that, is everybody back? I need to attend to that. Jim, are you back? You can just thumbs up. Libby's attentive. Mia, I see you. Andrew, are you back? Emma, are you back? Emma and Andrew, your cameras are off, so I don't really know. Jerry, I see you. Kristen, you're there. Emma and Andrew, they've gone to get popcorn for all of us. It'll be home delivery. Sorry, I'm here. I've got the popcorn. Okay. All right. Now, of course, I've lost track of my notes. Give me just a second to these screens. Okay, let's take a pause and just do a quick circle. And I'll just read through the list. We're going to start with Andrew. That'll give Amanda time to eat. So, Andrew, Anna Kate, Emma, Jerry, Jill, Jim, Kristen, Libby, Mia, and then Amanda. And the prompt is would you describe, hold on, we did it right, would you describe your work on the board as working on a home or working on a garden? And why? And I can remind you of what order that is. Andrew, you get to start. That's a really good question. I feel like ultimately working in a garden because we're creating systems to help other forms of life grow, whereas I think working on a home is more, I'm thinking like, how do I keep the water out? How do I stay protected through the winter? And I think there can be other analogies that make sense for working on a home. But I think my mind first goes to working in a garden. How can we set in place systems that support and foster growth? And it's also going into the garden. I just went outside to check on some seedlings. It's cool to see how different seedlings grow in different ways. And depending on where they are, what kind of light they're getting, they might grow in one direction a little more than another. Or if one's not set up for as much success, it might be growing kind of at a diagonal, like this one seedling I have out there right now. And I'm like, okay, I got to turn that pot to the side a little bit and give it a little more light on the other side so it can learn to stretch in those directions. So I think garden, yep. Boom, mic drop. I agree. That was excellent. Aniket, you're next. Hard act to follow. Yeah, I know, right? So I want to echo all the things that Andrew said. The only problem is I don't garden. So the, I mean, in theory or conceptually, it all makes sense. What Andrew said, thenology fits perfectly. But I don't have that experience of going out and gardening because I don't garden, which is a really bad thing for me to say in Vermont. But that is where I am. So yeah, that's where I am. On the house side, if I want to draw any parallels, I would want to say that, and that's one of the reasons why I kind of chose to work in the financial responsibility or accountability rectangle is because when I'm looking for projects to do it or things to do, I want to work on things that are long-term sustainable with keeping in mind my finances and budgets and making sure that I can provide value to the project that I'm working on or the things that I'm doing would provide an increased value of the house as the same time kind of balancing the financial aspects of it. Thank you. Emma, you're up. I just put a snack in my mouth, but I like both. I mean, I love analogies, so I could go either way. And if we had more time, I would really dig deep. But I like the garden analogy in that I feel like we're more like tending and watering and trying to help grow, but it's not this isn't a garden that we planted necessarily, but we can always plant new crops and new seeds alongside the more established growth. I'm also not a gardener etiquette, so I'm with you there. But I like the idea of sort of like tending to a garden and helping it grow and not, you know, the building house analogy doesn't resonate as much with me because I feel like the house is already built here at MRPS. It's built, but we can always improve it. And as we all know, living in Vermont, I'm sure most of you live in houses like I do that are pretty old. Over 100 years old, our district is very old. There's a really strong foundation. So it's about sort of being caretakers and stewards of this beautiful house and just trying to upkeep it as much as possible. And if additions are needed, we don't shy away from those. We don't try to stay always historically perfect. We don't do all renovations according to historic design. We can grow and add modern renovations. So I'm with both. But I like what both Annika and Andrew said. Thank you. Jerry? I want it to be a garden. But I think for me, it's a house. Having an 1840 farmhouse that's crooked and needs a lot of work. The structures, we are committed in a sense to certain structures. And I think sometimes they can feel a bit limiting, just like an old house. But that doesn't mean you can't put solar panels on the roof. And that doesn't mean you can't modernize it in ways that are important to modern living. So I guess I love what Andrew said. But I kind of feel like it's more of a house. That's how it feels to me. Thank you. Jill? Thanks. I agree, Jerry. That's a good perspective, actually. You're making me rethink my thoughts. One of my favorite phrases that I tell myself a million times a day is the only constant is change. And I think back to when our formative years and how much they still impact our lives now. You know, I'm in my 40s and I still am feeling the impacts of my K-12 education. So I do think it is a garden. And that the idea is that we are fostering an experience and then handing off these amazing young people into the world. So I'm going to go with a garden. Jim Murphy, in case there are other Jim's on the call. Yeah, I think it's a garden. I think Andrew articulated it quite well. But I really feel that we have an educational system to cultivate our students and to cultivate our young and to give them the conditions that they all need to grow and to prosper and to thrive. And like a garden, you've got your tomatoes and your peppers and your cucumbers and your carrots. And they all need different conditions to thrive and to grow. And they all need different levels of attention and different inputs. And it's a lot like people needs. We have to meet them all. Like we need to meet all the needs of the plants in the garden. And ultimately, unlike a home, which is something that I kind of built, I think a little for me and that I intend to stay in forever. The things I cultivate in my garden, I want to go out into the world. I don't want my kids to live with me forever as much as I love them. And I think of that, that's why I have schools and so I have an educational system to cultivate things that grow, that take off, that thrive on the conditions we give them, but then ultimately mature and become their own stewards and their own caretakers. Kristin? Similarly to Emma and Jerry, I live in an old, rambling, crooked house. So I kind of took it through the personal filter. I kind of consider my house to be like a Pandora's box. So I went to the garden analogy also and I kind of immediately went to the action words that I think about. I am an avid gardener. Most people would say I have a gardening problem. But I went to the action words that were sowing things, were seeding things constantly, whether it's new ideas or projects and there's harvesting that happens within the system and kids are harvesting knowledge. And I thought a lot about digging in. I know somebody said that in the chat, but it is like this role in particular feels like a deep digging in to what our schools do and what they mean and how our communities experience them. And then there's also just like the weeding out. There's this constant kind of prioritizing that has to happen and out with the old and in with the new and fertilizing. I was like budget, we fertilize things. You bring the fertilizer in to make new priorities expand and grow. And I thought about I approach my gardening from kind of an ecological standpoint and that a healthy garden is a garden that is full of diversity of plants and types of flowers. And I think that's this particular board that we really value a diversity of perspectives and can sense that we are stronger than more diverse perspectives that we have at the table. And just also feeling that houses feel kind of their structures. It feels more difficult to change them, but gardens kind of feel more modular and changeable. And there is some real opportunity in that. Thank you, Libby. I took a completely different take on this when you first asked it. Nathan, you have some good questions. I'm just going to put that out there. The excuse me. I get and agree with every single thing that people have said from my parent perspective thinking about my child's district that they are in as but I'm not answering this one as a board member. I'm answering this one as a superintendent of schools. And I think well I don't think Emma one time referred to me as the mama bear of MRPS and the thing about this that I know Jim knows as well is that I am fiercely loyal to my people. And there are three groups of people in my world, my family, my friends and my place of employment because I spend so many hours here. And so I went straight to home because this has to be a home for me and it has to be a home for my staff and it has to be a home for my students. And so I went straight to home because home is like my favorite place, right? And so I want this place to also be people's favorite place and that means that it has to grow and it has to change and it has to really cultivate people. But I went straight to home because that's where my loyalty to this place, like my loyalty to my home is the same thing. So I went straight there. My garden can go to crap but my house can't, right? That's the place that holds my children, my most important asset. So this is, I went straight to home because of my fierce loyalty to this district. Thank you. Mia? I think for me, I take the approach around the garden. I think of it as a garden. And in addition to the things that others have said about framing it that way or thinking about it that way, for me, it's also that I do really enjoy gardening. I really get a lot of joy and happiness and pride out of what I am putting my efforts into. And I have moments where I find it incredibly frustrating and challenging and hard. And I have to make decisions in that those moments to either give up and just forget about it or lean in more deeply. And maybe that one plant isn't going to do it but maybe it's a different one there or something like that. And so that's the only thing that I would add to as far as why it feels like attending to a garden to me. Thank you. Mona, you want to take us home? I'll take you everywhere. So when I think of gardening both thinking of home and land immediately makes me think around the inequities in land access for people. And so thinking of right now we're in a housing crisis in Vermont. So when I think of home, it's like what roots people were like that gives people the ability to go to a school district like ours. So I was trying to like maybe I can bring the garden inside the home but because it's like I really like Andrew's analogy around taking care of some of the seedlings that some might not like the sun. Some might not be able to be on this side but we'll do much better on this side. And some might like this food and some might not like that. So and then the home makes me think of the structure. You know, I'm privileged I was able to get a house but one of my best friends in Montpelier we just lost her to Barry because she couldn't afford any houses here in our town. So when I think of house, I also think about class. I also think about privilege. And when I am doing this work as a board which was the question that you posed to me when I think of this work, it's rooted in that it's understanding the privilege that as a Latina married to a white man that now I have a house that I have that security that I've never had before but that I know that many of my friends and people don't. And so like when I think of the work I think of the inequities in our system, in our house and in our land, access to land, being able to have a backyard. It's a privilege within itself. So being able to have those sit-links, you know, all my life I lived in little rooms in houses. So like I was never, I never had access to that until now that I am privileged to be able to unfortunately kill the little plants I planned. But I get to see that and experience how awful I am as a partner. And thankful for Issa, my daughter who is much better harvesting than I am. Thank you Amanda. Okay, I know I'm not giving a lot of time for us to contemplate each other's statements, but I'm just conscious of the time that we do have to work on this project. What I've done on the Murrow Board, if you turn your attention back there, is to take the statements that got voting support and move them down below. If you click on my icon, you can find where I am on the board in the middle. There you go. So Jill is down there. So this is a, we have 11 that got any votes at all. And we have some that got a lot of strong support and some that are sort of in the middle and a few that are lagging in support. This is a, I want you to think about how this would, how adopting a limited set of these value statements would help your board work. And then as you think about, again, my arbitrary number of five value statements, if you are sorting these remaining 11 and you're, you want to advocate for some that are, that don't have a whole bunch of voting support, I want you to raise your hand within the Zoom and then be conscious that you're sort of, you're advocating for moving that value statement up into the top five, which would probably mean displacing something that's above it. And so just, just think about that for, you know, as you look at these, and I'll just don't put any hands up yet, give it a couple minutes to look and think. So I don't want us to vote again just yet, but I just did one thing which was taking two that I think were both authored by Jim that I think expressed a similar thing. I combined them and moved one out of the way. So if Jim accepts that sort of friendly amendment, I think we might be down to 10. There may be some room for some more consolidation rather than just, you know, sort of cutting and sorting. Anybody have thoughts or suggestions about consolidating into these? I think on the equity piece, I thought it was interesting that those two, I was, I was torn between those two and I don't even remember which one I voted for, but I felt like they captured pretty similar values, those two that each got five. Yeah, educational equity diversity of people and create equitable systems rooted in justice, those two. Yeah, and I realize they're not exactly the same, but I think there's, they could be merged into one. That was my comment too. I think they're both getting it the same thing. Similar. I think Amanda authored those. So Amanda, I want to check with you before I combine them. I think Libby, did you take the diversity of people, thoughts of cultures that make us stronger from the equity committee? Yeah, I pulled that from there. I always think with equity statements, and this is going against some of these statements, but shorter is better, shorter is stronger. And so, so can we say things succinctly and still get the idea across? Yeah, that's my thought too. And also, I mean, a lot of the, a lot of the specific terms around equity are, you know, evolving. So, like the more we can capture concepts that are term dependent, the more durable it will be. So before we get too deep into wordsmithing, I want to state that I don't think any one of these is ready for sort of, you know, aside from the fact that this is a public meeting, I'm not sure that any one of these is ready for the website. And so what I'm trying to capture is sort of the sort of the core sentiment in your hearts, and are we getting close? And so with that in mind, I don't mind making the equity one kind of big right now with the understanding that it will get refined, but I only want to do that with everybody's consent. So a thumbs up from Libby, but I can only see some of you. So you're going to need to speak up. Yeah, I think keep the detail just so we don't lose it. Yeah. Sounds good. Okay. Yeah, I agree. So at this point, I'm moving forward and I'm trusting that someone will speak up if I'm doing a kind of miscarriage of your will. So what are you doing? Sorry, are you mixing them? Yeah, well, not mixing. I'm just just pasting the more succinct one alongside the one that you created and trusting that if we, if enough people like that general feeling that thing in making a succinct statement can happen later. Okay, any other consolidation that would be helpful? I'm seeing two orange sticky notes towards the end, one with three votes, one with one around community engagement and being community centered. I feel like there's an opportunity to merge those. So if I just, if I just paste those together for right now, can we start with that and trust that we can solve the wordsmithing later? Sounds good. Just, just to be transparent, when that's the royal we, because there's not going to be that kind of time later today. So, all right, so now we can put this collaborative in that, in that, in that one too. The community one. This collaborative is tried to get us in collaboration. It's like committed to community engagement, community center. Yeah, I see that too. It's like the collaboration is the me is, is kind of like the avenue of sorts. Yeah. All right, let's try that. So this is, this is good. I think, let me close what we have here. That's seven. I want to go back to one, one comment you made, Nathan. Please. All right. You say something about if Jim, if Jim's approve. Yeah. Was it? So this is like bringing it back to like, you know, collaboration and, and, actively share leadership, which didn't make it into this thing, but so I, was it that Jim picked the nine values that we need to work on? Okay. Earlier, just in the last, say, 15 minutes, there were, there were two things that had gotten four votes each that both came from the rectangle he was working on and he had authored those. And I wanted to combine them, but I felt like I wasn't the author. I see. Okay. So the same way that when I was talking with you and Libby about the equity statements, I wouldn't have felt comfortable combining those without you giving consent. I appreciate that. You see, I'm projecting. I think there might be another, I think this, I'm going to go with Grello because, you know, we talked about this purple one being mob. So this is Grello here. And I think the Grello one could be merged with this top one about strategic aligning school resources in transparent ways, strategic goal driven process to propel our district forward. I think those could be merged. I'm listening for anybody to speak up. I wrote the one in Grello. And I think what I was trying to capture in that was you know, that particular box seemed to was identifying kind of, I guess, that we value and see the need for clear goal setting and vision setting. So toggle back and forth. So, and I think that it seemed to also convey that we want some invitation or element of accountability or that that strategy making would create opportunities for accountability, that if we have a, you know, a clear strategy that's coming out, then we can kind of come back to it to see that if we're on track with our work. So I think there's like some consistency in strategy, but I see that top one kind of having to do, especially with around funding and the use of financial resources. So I guess I feel like they're a little bit different in terms of intent. That makes sense to me, Kristen. Okay. Can I suggest, sorry, can I suggest that this piece around that, that, that we believe that we're accountable to the community we serve could also be included into the community engagement piece? What is that? Yeah. And the collaboration and all of it, that? I'm just being quiet because I'm reading and I'm waiting for you all to speak. So yeah, I just have to, I've got you on the phone. I need to, to find my daughter somewhere unexpectedly, but I will have you with me and be listening and should be quick. Thanks. Alana, I think what I hear you saying is add it to that big yellow sticky, but not cut it from the grillo one, right? Yeah. Yeah, I would be, I would support that because that's, it's the accountability piece I think that keeps us truly community-centered and collaborative with the community. And one of you just scribe that in there in a way that feels right? I can do it. I mean, we're not worth smithing, so I just copy and paste, right? That's fine with me. That one's going to be hard to read soon. Here, I can. We're just removing the tag, which makes it a little bit more legible. Okay, so here's a, we're at a little bit of a decision point in that. This feels like it's been quite productive for it's seven of these. They're kind of big. Getting them down to, to something succinct will be some work. We have 40, we have 30 minutes left. Holy cow. I think it might be useful to move over to goal setting, but that I don't want to make that decision, you know, this, we either push this process forward further on the values piece, or we can turn our attention to goal setting and other things. If you feel like you guys can manage some goal setting, either on your own, or we get to do some other work together in the future, then we can stick with this. Of course, the chair is now in his car. So yeah, I mean, my, you know, I think with 30 minutes, I think the goals flow from the values. So maybe let's, I think that can guide later goals, just kind of like we don't know what to face those goals. Also, I think, I think the goals will flip the values. So let's, let's spend time with the values and boldness here. I don't know if others feel differently, but that's my thought. I think it sounds like you were hit with the tranquilizer, Jim. I may have been, but we, but we, I got the gist of what you said. Anyway, stick with the values. Keep pushing on values. Great. Yeah. I have, yes, sorry. If we're going to stick with the values, I have things. I think, I think we should stick with the values as well. Does, does everybody feel good about that? How does, how does everybody feel on that front? I agree. I'm seeing thumbs up. I'm good with that too. Jill is about to say something. I, I do think it's helpful to have a facilitator with the goals too. But I don't think, I think we're, we're rolling and so we should keep going. And, and I think Jim's right. We can't hop over finishing the values to get to the goals. So. Yeah. And, and we might, we might have some room to, you know, bring, bring Nathan back to talk about goals. You know, at a, at your meeting without having to do another retreat thing. So we can, we can put that in a parking lot. And so I've got, I'm just starting a queue. I've got Amanda who's got some comments. This is a good time to just breathe from it and then sort of talk about this because it's, it's at this sort of, it's at this inflection point. If anybody else wants to pipe in or add themselves to list, just raise your hand on zoom and I'll notice that. And then Amanda, please go ahead. I have to Google this inflection, but new word for me. So in the disinflection space, I don't think I'm using it in the right way, but I'll just try. So I think this is great. I think that one value conversation that, that I don't see capture here is how we value each other, like how we interact with each other. That I think is really important because of the, because we are, you know, new to each other in, in many things. And so I'm not sure if that was captured here. I don't kind of see a capture that in a way. And I also like wanna about relationship. So like, I know that Libby said when Libby, when you were talking about the home and the, and how you, like you protect your staff, you, I am trying to understand the way that we see each other, like our relationship together as superintendent and board and how that it's kind of missing as a value in, in, in the conversation. Like I saw that work in the, in what was it Mia and Jill did in the purple around like honesty and, and like things, but that didn't make it that right. So that's, those are my thoughts. That one's in here though. Speak to that. Did I not understand what you were saying? In the, in the vote, I didn't see it. So did I waste my, your time by saying all these things that, oh, I didn't see that. I did waste your time. I'm sorry. Don't worry about it. But is it, I mean, but is it, is it the way that we treat each other or is it the way, because most of these are how we interact, right? Like with community, it's like what we believe we are value in this thing that we're going to do, but like how we interact with each other. So Ken, I think it was Mia, maybe who's, who was saying that this is in there? And then will you read the part where, where you see that? Well, it's, it's also entirely possible that there's more that can be put here to push it a little further. But the one that I think you're referring to Amanda is the one that's purple, mauve if you're Andrew and kind of colorblind. We believe in each other. We are honest, respectful, inclusive, compassionate in our communication and practices so that we can learn and grow together. Just kidding, Andrew. I do good mauve. Okay. So how about this? Amanda, I just, on the two pink, pinkish rose colored ones, I tried to capture what you were saying, you know, how we value and respect each other and then the board and superintendent relationship. I can, I can sort of paste some of those into that purple slash mauve sticky if that feels like it would capture enough and, and, but I'm just, I just want to check and anybody else too, right? I mean, I think this is the, the sort of culture of this working group, which, you know, doesn't technically include Libby in its architectural structure, but functionally includes Libby in a lot of the work that you do, or the superintendent, because Andrew, I do see your hand. So if you want to speak, go for it. Yeah, I really appreciated this one from Mia and Jill. And I was raising my hand before to highlight it, but then I saw, I heard Mia way in here. So when I, I just want to say when I read that I did interpret this to mean how the board treats each other, but not just how the board treats each other, how the board and the administration treat each other, how educators and students treat each other, how students and students treat each other, how, you know, custodians and students treat each other. But, you know, I think this is an area that we could, we could certainly dig into and expand upon upon, but I just wanted to, I just wanted to make sure we were aware that that one was there, which Mia pointed out. So I think my hand was up from that. I want to put my vote in one for that could be considered magenta. And I, but I also initially read that, and I guess this is like a context question a little bit, Nathan, that, you know, are we writing these in terms of like really board values or are we trying to craft something that is specific like for our like district at large or these like specific to us, because I think I read that one in particular. I guess I had, I hoped that that had been, and it resonated with me that that one was written in thinking about us as a board. So kind of echoing a little bit of what Andrew said, plus the magenta. Yes, but I really, that's a great question with me. I see you there. Do you want to, do you want to respond to that Mia, or should I speak? Yeah, I'll just share my thought on it. I'm not sure it's the answer to Kristen's question, but my thought on it is that as the board, I think it is the, I think it's both because I think as the board, we lead by example within the district, you know, you know, maybe some folks don't take it all as far as we would around something like fiscal responsibility, but yeah, we would still have and hope that any staff person in the district is also, you know, behaving in a way that is, or making decisions that are fiscally responsible and tied to that value, but that's my general thought on it is that as the board, we should be held to the same standards and expectations as anybody else in the district and that our values are the district's values. I think that's well said. I mean, I think that there, there's a, there's a process note here, right? On the one hand, you, you as the board are responsible for the vision and arguably the values of the district, right? That's, I think that's squarely in your job. I see, I see Libby nodding, not quite vigorously, but she's right there. And so, you know, the process note is that this aside from the safety school safety committee, which did have community input, right? This moment where, where we're sort of sorting and voting and refining, there's not, there's not community engagement in this moment, right? So that's, there's a risk, there's a process risk from my perspective and as, you know, somebody who cares about community engagement. On the other hand, you are elected by the, the folks in our district to represent them. And so that is, I think this is squarely within your work. And these are not going to be etched in stone, right? These are things that can be revised. And in fact, they're not, they're not even finished now. So I think, yes, to all those things, board, board and administration, students and staff. And, and I think you want, you know, in the first, in the training we did last week, there was some mention of people feeling safe on the board, speaking on the board, making community, making sure that community members feel safe. And so this is the, the one that's what I'm calling purple, right? Is that anybody should be able to point to that and say, Hey, this is one of our values. And that didn't, what just happened didn't feel respectful to me. Can we talk about it or something like that? Right? The, the power of good value statements is that they, they, they're like, wait, why? That didn't feel quite right. Oh, I can look over here and there's this tool. I'm going to use this tool and I'm going to use the tool to address what just happened. Go ahead, Amado. Thanks. So yes, yes. And I think they're just because we only have 15 minutes and I just want to throw that at the process of like how we're moving some of these conversations together. Other things that I've seen in value statement is like making sure that we are doing some like how to do some of these things. So what happens? Yes, we believe in each other. We're honest, respectful, inclusive and compassionate. And what happens when that is broken? You know, like, what, how do we deal with it? And so dealing with it is also, you know, a way of being like, and when that happens, we will use transformative justice tools to get us there, you know, whatever that means. Because I think that having value statements is just like by having them without, without adding tools for it when things are broken, it's, you know, it just makes us just have statements and that's it. So I think that we do, I mean, ideally, those goals will be like we do if we are going to say that we believe strategically and align in school resources in transparent ways, what does transparent ways mean? You know, what does that mean? So I think that's part of our work. It's like, yeah, what does it mean to be transparent? What does it mean to be accessible to our communities? What does it mean to be accountable to our communities? Because that's the meat of the, of the, of this work. It's like, let's break that down. I think that's very well spoken. Amanda, if I were to, the two pink ones that I, that I put in as you were speaking earlier, would it be okay if I remove those and we stick with the purple one? Yes, thank you. So we have, I'm just going to read from left to right and top to bottom, strategically using resources for sustainable outcomes, honest, respectful, inclusive, compassionate, equity, diversity, just justice, student centered, authentic ways for students to share their voice and have agency, community engagement, community centered, collaborative, academic excellence that prepares for success, innovation, et cetera. And then strategic goal driven process to purport to propel the district vision forward, accountable to the communities we serve. I'm not seeing any more obvious overlap or combining. You all could choose that seven value statements would cover the territory. We could try to keep pushing for five, but pushing for five is going to mean some serious loss, I think. Andrew, is that your hand up again? Yeah, I'm just thinking about general process for this because five versus seven, I don't know if we were going to say, what are we focusing on this next year? I feel like we should choose three main tangible areas that we need to focus on. These are our values and I don't think that it's a zero sum game with values, so I don't necessarily want to lose anything there. But I'm just thinking about this in terms of process because what Amanda said just before really resonated with me. And I feel like we're talking about our values here that then lead to our goals and establishing goals. And I really do feel like as a board we need to set strategic goals for this year, like what do we want to accomplish? Because there's no shortage of major issues that we can work on. But if we try to accomplish 10 big goals this year, we probably aren't going to end up accomplishing very much compared to if we channel our energy. So I'm thinking about values to goals. But then what Amanda just said really resonated with me on the level of how do we get there? We have our values. We have our goals that come from our values. I feel like we need to be strategic and we're going to need to focus and prioritize. But some of this in terms of like how we, I think the purple one is a really good one, in terms of how we treat each other. Are we honest, respectful, inclusive, and compassionate in our communication and practices? What does that look like? How do we get to that place where we honor that value? And I feel like that's another really important part of this conversation that we need to have and need to continue having. So I just want to put that out there. Yeah, no, I agree with all that. But I also feel these values should be used to shape our goals and our goals, our priorities. And I think with goals and priorities, we might want to be a little more disciplined in terms of having a concise list, especially with priorities. I think just it's worth saying that with goals and priorities, a parking lot approach is much more viable, right? You can say, well, we're going to defer making real progress on that until later, because these things are made focus. I think with values, you don't want to, you don't want to say, well, we'll get to, we'll get to equity and inclusion later. That's not important, right? So that's why I just, again, the sort of reducing this to five is my arbitrary number and it, it helps to get us to this point. I would recommend taking these seven and, you know, asking a few people to do some wordsmithing and moving it, moving it forward from there. I don't know how that would feel to you all. Kristen's got her hand up and we have 10 minutes to go. Kristen, that's not pressure. It's a lot of pressure just to find the unmute button there. Yeah, I was, I mean, I'm looking at this and wondering if, you know, the blue one or periwinkle, student centered sticky could be either combined with the orange sticky, like if that's kind of like there's a student corner or a student hub, the one that mentioned student excellence, or if that periwinkle student centered sticky could be fused with the community engagement one, because I think what we're saying is that students are really important stakeholders in this process and we really value their voice and want to incorporate it into decision making, you know, school operations, what have you, but, you know, if we are trying to kind of pare down, and I know five is maybe somewhat arbitrary, but it seems like that could be incorporated into either. So just a potential suggestion. So either, you know, creating kind of like one, you know, one value or principle that's really student focused and it gets incorporated there or it goes into this community engagement. Being silent to hear other voices. Should I raise my hand or go ahead, Jerry. Gotcha. I do think it's a little bit different because we're engaging the community, but we're centering everything we do around that kind of student. So it's it's slightly different. It could be combined, but I do think it's slightly different. I also like keeping students separated from community as like the primary driving force for everything that we do here, you know. So I felt like it was important to pull it out and have it be its own thing if for no other reason than to just indicate how important of a stakeholder we feel that students are. Agreed. So go ahead. Amanda, you got something or somebody else? I do, but I've been speaking a lot. So if other people. Yeah, let me let me get a chance to indicate I haven't heard from you in a while. And Jill, I'd like to hear from you. Yeah, I agree. I agree with what you're saying more generally. I do agree that the student centric conveys a different meaning, at least in my opinion, than the community engagement community can be engaged to have a student centric approach to the two different values. One point I'd like to make is is we should yeah, I don't think we should we should go down in the values we have all talked about and discussed all these things that are important that we feel are important to us as board members and as district as district. These values are going to drive our goals and that's going to drive our priorities. Of course, I agree with Jim and Andrew that we need to set priorities and we need to set a we need to come with a set of goals that that are for for next year that we can concentrate on. So the more I don't want to use the wrong words but reading through the goals and and setting up priorities and picking the the goals that that we feel are important or we should consider on next year would be the next step. But I do agree that we need to keep the values as as they are. We don't need to arbitrarily go down to five values. Joe. Yeah, I think we have the right number just by way of what they are. I definitely don't think we can mesh the student centered in community. I do think it's very different. The students are compulsory. And other than voting, the community can choose to be involved or not or reflect their values or not. And we have to be proactive in reaching out to them. I really like these and I think thinking ahead towards goals. I want the flavor of these values to be the lens through which we look at those goals. And I think we've captured it pretty well, frankly. And I just I have not been looking at the screen share. Can you scroll your screen down off the sort of jumbled part into this part down below? There you go. Those yep. Thank you. Just for the benefit of the public. Okay. So next steps would be the board. If I were, if I were on the board, I would suggest that some subset of you refine these and then come back to the board with a refined set of value statements. I'm happy to support that or I'm happy to take our first swipe at it in this role and then send it back. And then you guys would look at these and adopt them or affirm them. And then that would be the next step before moving forward into goals and priorities. I also want to make sure that Amanda has a chance to share what she was trying to share. And we have, and I also don't know how stringently you guys are observing the five o'clock hard stuff. Amanda, you're muted. Go ahead, Jim. But then Amanda. I was going to talk about time. I think it's close to five. It's possible to be good. I know that they were at several decent wrapping up place. And I think your, your next steps make a lot of sense to, yeah, if you want to take a first stab and then we can, I don't know which maybe policy committee tasked with further revising from there. And then I think we can use these draft values until they're perfect to start working on goals and priorities kind of in our next meeting, which I think we need to do particularly new student growth and later. I think we can, I think we can start the goals and priorities process from, you know, these, these seven values before we get boarding on these seven values as precise as we want it to be. Great. Amanda? I do agree. We need a facilitator for that. For that. I would just say that, you know, equity has its name in all of these things that, you know, that's kind of like the frame we're talking about strategic and aligning school resources for equitable outcomes. And that all of the, all of it requires collaboration. So I know people are short in time. So I'm not going to go into these onto all the like vision that I had because I think everything's connected and, and there's some right now there's just like we use the words is like the how to get there. Like we, we believe in creating equitable systems that are rooted in justice and how we gather is ensuring that we are, we have community engagement from parents and students and like the community at large, right? Like that is just like that these are, some of these are values, but are also tools to get us to this bigger picture around equity, around academic excellence and around the, the strategic goals is like that. That's how we align. It's not collaboration, collaboration is the, but the rest are like the tools. How do we hear from? Thank you, Amanda. We have one minute left. If anyone has anything to share, we don't have time for a closing. I hope I get to keep working with you on this. And I think this has been, to my mind, quite productive. Thank you. And yeah, no, thank you. I'm just, do you want to take a stab at, at misogyny this language and then I think that's, that's one to, yeah. Yep. That's fine. Jim, I think, awesome. I think we do need a formal motion to adjourn. Yeah. Do I have one? This is Mia. I moved to adjourn. I second it. And there's a quick second, uh, uh, it's five, five o'clock. So, Amanda. Yes. Uh, Jill. Jerry. Hi. Kristen. Hi. Um, Mia. Hi. Andrew. Thanks all and thanks especially Nathan. It was, um, uh, great having you facilitate and doing a wonderful job and, uh, apologies. I was somewhat distracted the last half hour, but I, I heard everything. Um, and yeah, we will, uh, I think we've got made a lot of progress and, um, have a lot to, to build on, um, with our next group of meetings. So thank you everyone. Thank you. And I will, I will find a way to share this. So you need, you know, copy it all if you don't want to. Thanks, guys. Thanks everyone. Thank you, everybody. Bye. See you next week.