 Um, um, this is my brother's keeper. I'm Jermia, and this is my friend Boney and Oliver. And, uh, yeah, if you would like to introduce yourself. Sure. Sure. My name is Tom Flanagan. I'm the superintendent for Burlington schools. Awesome. Oh, I guess we can start at that. Uh, what is a superintendent? What is a superintendent? Oh, that's a good question. I go, I go, uh, to schools. Right. Probably four or five school visits a week. And I always, the elementary school students say, who are you? Now some, now they know me, so they don't ask that so much. But I always say I'm the, I'm like the principle of the principals. So you know how you have a principal who leads your school. I get to be the person who helps the principals lead all of our schools. And so we have about 12 school schools or school programs in Burlington, uh, in the Burlington school department. And so I get to work closely with the, with the principals, uh, with the school communities, with our school board to make sure that our schools are safe, that our students are learning, uh, everything that they, that they need to learn that you all feel that you belong and, uh, and, and, and have, have caring, um, and supportive classes and teachers. And, uh, that's really my, my work. Awesome. Uh, since you work with all schools, what is the next plan about wearing masks? Oh, masks have been a big, big thing in, in schools, right? Do you, do you like wearing the masks or no? No. Yeah. Yeah. Um, we are, we are probably going to be wearing masks, um, for, for a bit longer. Yeah. I don't see, I don't see a clear end to, to when we stop wearing masks. We did hear from, uh, the governor and the secretary of education for all of Vermont this summer, and they have some guidance or some, some, um, some written guidance for us that we can, that we can use and adopt, make our own for each district across the state. And what they told us was that when the district, um, is at 80%, when 80% of, of, of people have their vaccination, then we can stop the masks. So like, how long does it take to get to 80% just like sounds like an easy number to get to, but yeah, well, it's hard to actual, it's hard. One of the hardest parts is tracking and understanding who has the vaccine and who doesn't. Sometimes people don't feel comfortable sharing that information. So, and for some people, it's public information, but really one of the big, one of the, one of the big, um, obstacles is that our grades five through our ages, five through 12. So basically all of elementary school wasn't vaccinated until, until now. And so for elementary school, um, because it's, it's, it's a student population for 80%. When it's, when 80% of students are vaccinated, then, then we can go away from the masks, um, as this kind of state guidance tells us. So like, how do you really know like a kid is like vaccinated? Do they ask their parents that they're vaccinated or not like to keep the majority? You, you, uh, students and staff soon will have to share, uh, and give proof of their vaccination. And first, and, and we also, as a state, we collect the, those people who are vaccinated. We know, we know who's vaccinated and who's not vaccinated across the state. So there's also, there are a couple of different ways for us to tell. And also since you said, uh, uh, we have to get to 80%. Do you know what is the percentage right now? So right now we are still working on, on gathering all the data so that we have the, the right number. But one of the other things is that each community is different in, in across the state, some communities across the state said they don't want them. They don't want to wear masks. What we've heard in our community in Burlington, I know, I know, I get tired of wearing the masks. I know you all told me you're kind of tired of wearing the masks, but the community is saying, look, it's not that hard to wear a mask. Let's until, until we start to see the numbers go down until we start to see, to be, to feel like we're safe. Um, let's keep the masks on regardless of whether or not we get to 80%. And I think there's, you know, as a, as, as a new variant comes, comes our way. Right. As we learned about Omicron and a new variant, or we're going to be learning more about that in the next couple of weeks. The numbers are still high. The daily count of numbers is high in, in Vermont now. And so it doesn't make sense for me to, to, to go away from masks now. We have to start seeing the numbers go down and we have to feel like we really understand where, where we are, uh, with, with, with COVID before we go away from the masks. Yeah. Like how long it's going to take to know, like, uh, but you, you haven't reached the 80% of the people who have vaccinated and just goes, that's a good question. And I don't, I don't know how long it'll take until we get to that point. For secondary school, for the, for middle school and high school, I think we probably will get to 80% pretty quickly. Our, our vaccination rates are pretty high across, across Burlington, both for students and adults. So we may be, we may be close right now. Um, and so it's not necessarily the 80%. We, we need to at least get to 80%. Then we need to decide afterward 80%. You know, do we feel comfortable now without masks for elementary school? They're just going now to their second round of shots. We have about a third of our students who are vaccinated. So we still have some more work to do, to do there for elementary school. Right. Um, I was going to ask sticking to the COVID topic. Um, how has things been different from like two years ago into like now? Everything's. Oh boy. What's not different? Everything's a little bit different, right? Like how different? I think the, the big thing last year was that we weren't in school all the time, you know, half of the students were in school at one, on one day, half the other day. Uh, we weren't, we weren't in school in person on, on Wednesday. That was a big, big difference. And I think that, uh, I think. I imagine you all felt it, uh, as students, right? Being away. And I heard particularly when the high school didn't have a school building, when you all started to come back, what I heard from students was it's just good to be back together in person. So last year was very different. This year is, is a hard year because now everyone's back. And I think it's been hard on our community. I think the past 18 months has been very hard on people's, on people's, uh, well being, you know, I think people have had a hard time in, in a bunch of different ways because of the pandemic and whether that be through kind of being stuck at home, right? Maybe people had to, had to stop working. Uh, all different kinds of things happened to different people in our communities. And so what we're seeing in our schools is they're kind of, you know, there's a lot of work. It's a lot of, a lot of making sure we're taking care of each other and, and really paying attention to relationships, making sure that you all, you know, and all of our students feel like they've got someone that they can connect with as a, you have, you have students you can connect with. We want to make sure you also have adults, you know, that you feel like you can really connect with, uh, at school. So, you know, I would say we're getting back to more normal. But now, you know, lunch is a little different. Masks are a little different. Um, and, and so those are the big things, big things now. I didn't realize how much I liked school. Oh, really? Like, take me back. What was Zoom like? Not the best. It wasn't that bad. You got enough time to sleep. I mean, yeah, that was the best advantage for sure. But still it, it wasn't working out for me. The thing is with Zoom, I would wake up because like my Zoom classes started at 10, I would wake up like probably at 10 and then join the Zoom and then go, go in a bathroom, take a shower and then get out the shower and then they make breakfast and then get back into the Zoom. They will never even notice I'm out. Yeah, yeah. Was it hard to like engage? Is that why? Or you just were kind of like, I'm at home. I can't, I can't focus. The thing is you can't focus when you're like in your bed. Sure. Plus, yeah, you feel like you want to sleep. You feel like you want to do something else. Yeah. And did you get to hang out with your friends or did you were you not able to really see each other as much? We hung out a little bit. Yeah, but it wasn't as much. It wasn't as much. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was really hard. Yeah. Like, what is the hardest part of being a superintendent? Yeah. Um, I think the hardest part is just managing all the different pieces. You know, it has this job has a lot of different, um, a lot of different challenges, a lot of different, you know, parts of the job. And so for me, it's thinking about what do I focus my energy on? You know, there's so many different things we could focus on. What, what do I focus on? And how do I help to make sure that my team is focusing on the right things? And for me, that's making sure that we're always focusing on students. You know, a lot of times we're a school system. So we're designed to support students. But you'd be surprised how often our decision making the things that we think about are more about adults than about students. So what I try to think about is my most important job is to make sure that we're focusing all of our decisions on what's right for students. So I would say that's, um, you know, that's the thing that I take most seriously. The, the thing that's, that's, um, that's challenging is just managing all of the different pieces and making sure I know, I know what I need to prioritize. And the other thing is I have, I have 12 bosses. Oh, dang. Yes. The school board has 12 people. And as a, as a whole, they are, they are, they, they evaluate me. And they are also, uh, voted in to their roles. They run for this position and they're voted into their roles by the people of Burlington. So that's probably, that's one of the most challenging is that all of the citizens of Burlington, plus the 12 board members as their representatives are my boss. Pretty tough. Yeah. It's a lot of people I have to report to, you know, also you said that you've been working for about like one year and a half, right? I've been here for a year and a half. Wait, what, what I've been like, uh, your, your favorite things to do so far? Oh, by far it's being in school, visiting classrooms, talking with students. Yeah. I have, I have a, uh, so I love that. I love every, there are 12 school leaders who are running schools or school programs. I count on top and horizons. Those are, those are two schools as a, as a school. BTC has, has, uh, Mr. Gingold, he's, he's one of the people I, so I, I go meet with those school leaders and we walk classrooms and we, we say hi to people and we watch, you know, what's happening in class and talk to students. And that I get to do, you know, five or six times a week. So that's, that's where I really like to be. Um, and then I also have a couple of advisory groups. I've got a family advisory group, a student advisory group. Um, and a teacher advisory group. And I, and those meet once a month and I enjoy, I enjoy that part of, of my work too, because I get to hear from people, um, last, this month, we, we were working. We haven't met with the families yet, but we met with the, with the teachers and the students and we, we asked them, what would you like to see in a, in a new high school? Uh, and so they gave us some ideas. Uh, the students want to coat check. They said they didn't need lockers. You just want someone to do a coat check when they come in the door. What do you think? You want to lock her? I'm not a sportsman, but I was going to ask you like, how about the old DHS? Yes. Like, I, I, we heard some reports about him, like before when the closest go down originally was because of the sand or something. PCBs? And then the changing that report, this thing, like it's good now without like what's going on with that. Oh boy. There's a lot, what's not going on with that. There's a lot, a lot going on. So when we learned in a year and a half ago that the PCB, uh, PCBs are chemicals that were used in the building materials way back when the building was built in the 1960s. So they're in the window in, you know how you have caulking around the windows to keep the windows in that, that stuff. Uh, there were, there were PCBs in that and that's a chemical. Um, and so we, we, as we were getting ready to do a renovation of the, of the old Burlington high school, uh, one of the things you have to do is check for, check the materials and see where there might be toxic materials. And so they learned that there were PCBs and then we had to learn more about those PCBs, how bad, how, how, what was the level of PCB, um, that had got, gone into the air was one of the things that we needed to learn about. Right. So we learned that they were in, in F building in the, in the back building where BTC was, they were a couple of classrooms that were very high and then in the, in the other buildings, they were, they were high, they were classrooms that were higher than what is allowed in Vermont, but that what is allowed in Vermont was a low number, 15 nanograms per cubic meter was, was what could be in the air. That's a low number. Um, and so we were very far away from that when we, when we learned about what, what we had in our, in the air at the high school. So we had to close the high school at that point. Then what happened was the whole state started to worry, what's going to happen to buildings across, across the state. And, and what should be our action level? So they created a new thing, which is called an action level, a new way of looking at PCBs in the air. And that action level is now 100. Oh, so instead of the 15, which was the screening value, they created an action level, which is 100. And in that action level, um, that has us, that has us, that makes us need to question whether or not we can go back into the building. Yeah. Um, but it's important to know that still, uh, a third of the classrooms, about 30% actually of the classrooms that we, that we, um, have in buildings, uh, A through, uh, D are over 100 still. So the, the, the numbers are still high in that, in that building, not in every classroom, but in the classrooms that we've sampled in 30% of those classrooms. And the thing to, the thing that's important to know too is it's not only about the air anymore. When, once you learn it's in the air, then you have to test all the materials. So they test the ceiling, the walls, the floor, and they found the soil, and they've learned that it's in the floor, the ceiling, the, the soil and the walls, it's in the building materials, right? So it still is a problem, you know? And so we now have to learn more about what that means and how that will impact the project of a new high school of building a new high school. But I, I haven't changed, uh, nothing that I've seen so far has changed my, my thinking that we still need a new high school, but we have asked the experts, we have experts that really understand PCBs, uh, who work for us as consultants. And then there are also, um, these state agencies that help us understand the PCBs and we've asked them for, for their feedback. So we still have to get more information from them. They're going to give us an opinion, the, our experts and tell us what they think. So we still have some, we have to learn some more. Pretty much it's just a delay because we're going to, we're going to build a new building anyways. So I mean, at least if we go back, we won't be there to see it. Yeah. Unfortunately for, for, for you all, the, the building, a new building, we're going to stay on our timeline right now. We're not stopping the, the plan to build a new building while we wait and learn more because we don't want to set that back. So we're going to keep planning for the new building, but that new building wouldn't open until, um, at the earliest August of 20, 25. You got one already. Come on, man. I don't get to graduate there. Yeah. We're going to go to our meds these men. But how, how is it downtown? Downtown is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're next to a subway. I mean, you can tell between night and day, but it's still fun. Yeah. And how does it work for learning? For classes? I mean, it depends because like the first, the first like, the first weeks, it was just a little bit difficult because it was like loud. And people were like trying to figure out where they can go in and start learning. Yeah. And if like, where the classes were, if like they put an AOL class to a different class, that's not an AOL class, just so loud and it's hard to focus. But like how they figure out everything's just so easy to learn. Yeah. I mean, it's not that easy. Like the last class, I mean, the last week that we had, but. Right. I got you. I got you. But they've been able to rearrange things so that you're feeling better about the first one in like the walls weren't done all the way up. Right. But right now it's a bit better. Yes. So like, we can like actually talk next to other classes. No, a lot of luck before was too loud. Was it in the beginning? Yeah. But it's not pretty good. Good. I think we have like an AC issue or something last year. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The air conditioner went down. Yeah. That's how I'm playing. That was, that was bad. It was a little. I mean, we thought we still have it because like on the downstairs, it's just cold, but upstairs is fine. Yeah, that's right. And the new gym is nice. At where? At the Y? No, at the, we got like a new, new stuff. Oh, in the back. Yes. With the workout, with the equipment. You like that? Yeah, it's pretty good. Good. You should go check that out. Okay. Okay. So it's okay. It's doing the job. Yeah. Okay. Let's go. Let's go later in subway. That's all the money. Yeah. Yeah, but the escalator I heard was breaking down too, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've been, I've been talking. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sometimes kids will just click on the button. Oh, now I know. Yeah, now I know. Yeah, because it's like a big cloud going down the escalators. And when kids see the button, they'll be like, Oh, a red button. Cool. They just click on it. And how does it stop? Soft? Yeah, it's so hard. It's so hard, but like to turn it on, that's when you get travel out to turn it back on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So they have like to just close it. Yeah. Okay. Just niche. Right. Yeah, I wasn't one of those kids. He didn't say who was doing it. He said, I kid, who's that kid? Yeah, who's that kid? Yeah, good. Well, I'm glad to hear that it's gotten better. Yeah, it's getting better. Yeah, it's working out. For sure. We were very lucky to have a building that big that was open on the inside and to have people who would help us to get it up to speed. And you know, the governor gave us three and a half million dollars. Three and a half. So that to help to help get the building ready so that we could be in it. Oh, wow. Yeah, the whole whole community, the whole state helped us. That's a nice one. Well done. We also have one question. Yeah. I was wondering like, imagine somebody like in the classes gay COVID or somebody in the family of COVID. What do happen to the other student? So anytime anyone has COVID in a school, what we do is we, we do contact tracing. So we look at, okay, here's the person who got sick, right, or became positive and who was around them for 15 minutes or more for at a certain distance. And then we reach out to all of those families or students and we say, you were a close contact. Please stay home, get a test, right? And then, and then come back. Oh, so when you tell them to stay home before they're coming back, they have to bring up, like, approval. They either have to have a positive test or they have to stay home for a certain amount of time. Isn't it like 14 days? Yeah. Uh, yes. It depends on how it depends on when they first, when they were first a close contact. Yes. Um, but we've, we've, we have a lead nurse, uh, whose name is, uh, Becca McCray and she coordinates everything with the principal, the, the nurse at the school, and then they work with, with the, with a little team and they make all the phone calls and do all the communication. We send out an email to all the parents, um, at the school and say, this is what's happening. So we've got, we know how to do it now, but it's, it's been challenging. It's been challenging. So like, uh, for closing up our conversation or just wondering if you have any questions to ask, to ask us. I do. Although you've helped me out with understanding about, about the, um, the high school and sort of how you're feeling about it. But I'm wondering what you think I should focus on. What do we need to do to make Burlington schools even better? Well, I have a good question. Probably start with lunch and then. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I've heard that a little bit of that from my advisory group. Yeah. The thing is lunch is good, but it's just some, some lunch is not, it's not just, uh, pre-appealing. Okay. Okay. We should have, we should have a more time like to meet with teachers, like to talk about your grades. Yeah. Oh yeah. I teach as a more flexible student or anything. Okay. Yeah. I mean, not just like teachers, but like, uh, who is it? Counselors and stuff? Yeah. Super Counselors. If you want to see a counselor there, you won't be able to, you have to like make an appointment for three days, four days. Okay. So you're having a hard time getting in. Yeah. Yeah. And when, when would, when do you think that could have, when, how could we create a schedule? Do you think it's more flexible to get to meet with teachers? Maybe like, uh, during like the whole week, right? We should have like a day that like you're able like to go meet with your teacher, counselor and stuff like that. Oh, so like set up a time in the day where you could go check in with people. Yeah. Oh, during advisory because like sometimes the advisor is just so quiet because nothing. Yeah. We're doing nothing because like in the beginning of advisory, just a conversation. And then after that, you just sit on your phone or Chromebook, whatever you're doing. Got it. Yeah. Got it. And how about even before high school? Middles, did you all go to middle school and elementary in Burlington? I went middle school. Middle? Yeah. So what was, how was middle school? What should we work on? Middle school was pretty fun. Yeah. Yeah. I think I went to both, huh? And Edmunds. Okay. I hated the stairs at Edmunds. I don't know if you can change that about the stairs. It was crazy. Really? It's like, they're like this big. I was like, I was 11 years old. Like, it was so tough. I feel like a worker every day. Okay. Okay. I don't know if it's something. Oh, that'll be hard for me to fix. Yeah. I'm just saying. Yeah. No, I think I had fun most of the time. Okay. So more time with teachers to kind of get some individual work. Want the food? You want us to take a look at the food? Yeah. Yeah. I don't want anything. Okay. Yeah, I'm always like, hungry. And what kind of food? What should we be, what should we serve? Lots of B.H.E.s, like how he was. Yeah, almost like the B.H.E.s serve from last school because like the school that we had lunch was like cooked at the spot, but there we don't have a kitchen. So it's just a little bit tough. And sometimes it's just cold. And there's like ice in the middle sometimes. Oh, I see. Yeah, before I'm pretty good at B.H.E.s. Yeah, that's because we had the kitchen there. Yeah, it's been very hard on the food service people who are organizing all that. And then we've also had staffing shortages. It's been hard to get enough people for some reason. And so we've been working on trying to recruit people. Yeah. What grade are you all in? I'm a senior. Senior? Senior. Junior. Junior? And what are the, do you know what the plans will be for next year? What are you thinking? Probably go to college. Good. Assuming if the application is not done yet, but... So you still have to do the application? Yeah, I haven't finished it. I've already done half of it. Okay. I'm not done yet. All right. And who's helping? My school counselor. Okay. Me for you. I can't say the same. No? I mean, you don't want to go to college anyways. I don't know. I don't know. I haven't decided. You don't even decide. You just see things. I haven't decided. Okay. But yeah, I've been having a bunch of personal conversations with my family and stuff. Okay. I don't know. We'll figure it out at some point. All right. Well, let's talk. Yeah, I got you. Yeah. All right. And I'll help you with your application too. I bring recommendations. Oh, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, there you go. Uh-huh. Now that I know, now that I know you. Oh, yeah. I've been like that before, right? Oh, yeah. I remember, uh, lunch, I think I saw you. Yes. We've been at lunch. Yeah. Yeah. Those the guy with the camera. I was like, why is he doing here? I was like, you know, there were a lot of people interested in seeing the high school. You know, they, they, uh, it went that the story about the high school and being in a mall went, went across the world. Japan, Germany. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was all over the place. Oh, we're famous. You're famous. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was nice talking to you and seeing things. I mean, from your perspective, that was nice. Yeah. Thank you. Hope we have another interview. Yeah. I'm ready. And I hear you want to talk to Director Sparks? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe both of you guys should be. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're, we work, we work. Yeah, that would be nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then we'll see each other soon. All right. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you guys.