 Let's start with the Director's Meeting at 6.33 a.m. First order of business is public comment. And I know we have a lot of people here talking about some pretty sensitive and moving stories. I just want to reiterate that the board is here to listen. We don't respond to react in real time. That doesn't mean that we're not hearing you. It doesn't mean that we're not sympathizing with you. And I know that the issue I think most of you are going to talk about is one that's of extreme importance. We had a retreat on Monday. It's one of the issues that came to the fore as something that we want to focus on in the next year. So it's a topic that we will tackle in more depth. I think throughout the year. So, you know, if we are appear to be listening and don't engage, that's, that's what our role is tonight. And it doesn't mean that we're not hearing you and sympathizing with your stories. So with that, I'll open it up to public comment. Let's start with the room. So anyone in the room who wishes to go can go and just walk up in whatever order. If there's a lot of people we can sit down here. Yeah, please sit down. Please also introduce yourself for the camera. Right. I'll get through this. Okay. Take your time. My name is Adrian Gill. I worked all day. No, is he still love is he. She's giving me permission and encourage me to share story. And you want me to start off and then you can jump in just to like give you a break. Okay. I'm sorry. You're right. General. Yeah. Why don't you start. Dr. Sorry. This is a Jocelyn will check. And as soon as my sister Adrian Gill is able to take over. You can. I'm. And have been involved on the sidelines. But basically I'll summarize this. I think it's something very boring like a dog walking around the block or something when you kind of clutch yourself, but. There has been a pattern of bullying that has been persistent and consistent and ongoing at the middle school. It started with snapshots from three boys at the middle school. And then the other boys. They were attacked. Attacking my niece Izzy for her autism disability. Fortunately, he was unable to take screenshots of those snapshots and you cannot retrieve. Data from Snapchat because they do not keep it. We don't have that raw data, but, but in addition to the stocking on Snapchat. She was able to video. The personal attacks and bullying that that happened on the school property. And some of her friends were able to be eyewitnesses to that. And Adrian, any time you want to jump in, please jump in. Okay. Okay. See y'all. Sometimes you just need a little. A little bit of her. Okay. So to know Izzy is to love Izzy. Isabel Gill is a 13 year old autistic eighth grader rising ninth grader at the main street middle school. Izzy has given me permission and has encouraged me to share her story with you all today. She is a victim of inappropriate behavior at our main street middle school. Izzy was harassed by a group of fortified boys for over two months. And she has been harassed by a group of fortified boys for over two months. And she is saying that she is autistic, that she has no friends, that she should die. They made memes with her face and send her pictures. They would corner her during recess and just call her names and tell her that she has no friends because she is autistic. She tried repeatedly asking them to please stop that it was hurting her feelings and that they were being mean. She finally broke down one day and told me everything. The school followed the harassment and bullying policy as mandated by the state of Vermont. We also filed a police report to have this behavior on record in fear of retaliation. In the end, it was deemed inappropriate behavior and was not filed as harassment. There were many interviews that were conducted on both sides and it ended up being a he said, she said courtroom style case with minimum physical evidence. The mental damage was already done. We also filed a police report to have this behavior on record. I think Izzy was beat down. Thank we have a lawyer in our family. Thank you, Jocelyn. That guide us through this complex policy and all the Vermont state laws that outline anti-bullying harassment. Our physical evidence was not strong enough to build the case. Just because Izzy didn't screenshot or record every interaction, we're not able to pursue further action. We're not able to pursue further action. We're not able to pursue further action. We're not able to pursue further actions at our main street middle school every single day. People are afraid to speak up and sit here. This is a very hard thing to do. And as one administrator told me and Izzy in a meeting, this is just the way they are. Can you imagine? This is just the way they are. After she's sharing her heart and soul. That was sent from Izzy Bell. To her all of her teachers. The administrators at the middle school and superintendent Bohn still on Sunday, June 5th. This was after the investigation was complete and deemed inappropriate behavior. The harassment continued. The title was harassing bullying and feeling unsafe in the school environment. This is from Izzy. Hello, as most of you know, I've been constantly harassed and bullied by a group of boys. They have sent me unsolicited and SFW. I had to ask her not safe for work. Images after me saying I was uncomfortable with them. I would block their numbers, but they would make new ones over and over again to contact me and harass me. They would go on to different TikTok accounts to comment and harass me after being told not to by the school. Your plan to keep me safe has failed me. I feel overwhelmed with anxiety by the boys constantly contacting me. They should receive a more serious punishment. And if not, I will take matters into my own hands and attempt to get a restraining order. I have already filed a police report on harassment as teachers. It is your job to make sure that your students feel safe in the classroom and right now you are failing. I have come out time and time again about this and nothing has changed. I have been making this up for a long time. I was not being held accountable for my investigation. I was made fun of for being a snitch. All of my witnesses stories matched up and the boys did not, but they were only giving a slap on the wrist. Given their track record. It's obvious they were lying. This whole ordeal has given me so much mental breakdowns and trust issues and much more. I have to deal with the trauma. I demand this is handled as a serious matter. not working with kids or at schools. If you can't do your job to make your students feel safe or even happy in the classroom, Isabel Gill. Thank you for your time today. Thank you. Okay, so I'm gonna reach right here. So I'm Jessica and I have three children, two at elementary school and one in middle school. And this past year, our family has experienced one bullying incident with my elementary kid. And then my middle school has experienced something that is very tricky, it's not bullying, but she has witnessed aggressive behavior from one kid. He's very disruptive in class. And I have told the teacher many times about it because she has kind of stressed out about this situation. And of course, my kid at this point doesn't feel like she has the same feeling, like she feels hopeless that if she shares more with me, there is nothing, nothing is gonna be changed because since we've been complaining from early in the year, she doesn't see any improvement on his behavior. And she's also afraid that she's gonna be callous niche for sharing stuff with me. And that really, it puts me in a very tough situation because this particular kid has said racist comments. And at the same time, my kid, she's half Latina, but this kid doesn't see that. He sees her, she looks more like a white kid. And she doesn't feel, she still hasn't told me the holy story of exactly what she says because she's very afraid that I would go to the school and say exactly what this kid has said. And she doesn't feel safe. She doesn't feel safe telling me. And she doesn't see, she doesn't trust the school for any, she doesn't see consequences for his actions. The way she describes this particular kid is, he's disruptive, he says very racist homophobic stuff. The behavioral, according to what the school is playing to me, there is a behavioral team that takes the kid out for walks. She sees these as a reward for this kid because they remove him, he goes for walks, he comes back and sometimes he's even more disruptive. So at this point, she just doesn't wanna share much with me about it. And then on my other children, it's also sort of the same situation at this point because there was a bullying incident. I tell the teacher, I tell the school, they tell me, okay, we're gonna do something. This kid has been behaving that way throughout the year. And at the end of the year right now, there was another incident and she had to share with me because we saw this kid in an outside the school and she did not wanna be with this kid in particular. But so she felt pushed to tell me something. So these two incidents for me made me feel like they don't feel safe in the school or the school, the procedure they have about bullying and aggression, they don't feel like my middle school says, they don't see a consequence for their actions. So they rather not tell me the whole story. And as I'm a single mother and the way I see it from my point of view is I don't know the details. I'm not in the school. I hear from them, the school tells me they're gonna do something, but there is no transparency on what actions are gonna be taken. It's very, I mean the shadows of what's gonna be done or how this is gonna be fixed. And my middle schooler is getting to the point that, I mean, it hurts me when she tells me, well, this is the way it's gonna be, right? Like there is not much we can do. And for a girl to start thinking a boy can do that, it's a very bad feeling. Like I don't want her to feel like that. I want her to speak out and tell me exactly, like if she's very uncomfortable about it. So then I believe like the current system that is being used at the school is not working. It's not working for their safety. I'm very frustrated and I'm very scared of, I have three kids in the school district and they come with these stories and I don't feel like they're completely safe. And it's just, the system right now for me is it makes these children be discouraged to speak up and these abusive behavior are getting bigger and it's just not, it's not a good, it's not gonna be a good outcome. It's not happening right now and I don't see it's gonna get any better. Thank you. Robles, R-O-V-L-E-S, thank you. Let me just see, who on the, is there anyone on Zoom who wants to speak on this topic before we, I think John in the room wants to speak on something else? Yes, I do. Okay, thanks, Mel. And again, so you state your name even though we can see it on the screen. Sure. Mel Hauser, H-O-U-S-E-R, I am a board certified family physician with a clinical focus on providing primary care to kids and adults who learn, think and communicate differently. This is one in five people. This group has higher rates of physical and mental health problems across their lifespan. For example, autistic, ADHD, dyslexic kids have higher rates of anxiety, depression, suicidality. And when these kids become adults, they have a four to nine time increased risk of completed suicide. Fullying is a risk factor for suicidality. I have appreciated that this, I'm also the parent of a child in this district. And I have appreciated as a parent that the district has stated an emphasis on socio-emotional learning and the mental health of children. But the thing is, as an expert in the brain science of mental health, I need to share with the board that safety comes first. When the brain does not feel safe, there is no learning. And in my professional opinion, this includes a zero tolerance policy for bullying and district wide intervention for the prevention and response to bullying. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Edisa Gonzales-Ravilla, you can call me Edisa Muller if that's easier. I just wanna add that I have a daughter, an eighth grader, now a ninth grader, who's in Izzy's class. And when we heard about all of this, we were really upset and I reached out to the school on numerous occasions. And like Adrian said, I was told we followed our procedure and we did what we had to do. We can't tell you what we did, which is fine. I don't need you to tell me. I really don't want these kids to necessarily have it on the record, but I want my daughter and Izzy to feel that if you come out and you speak, something will be done. Not that life continues and these kids get to go and filter with you and sit behind you and do whatever you want, whatever they want. Thank you. I had not planned to speak. That was here for Adrian and Izzy. Please. My name is Tanya Kristen and I have a daughter in Izzy's grade going into ninth grade. Her name is Olivia and she has experienced a variety of different harassments in its beautiful form, but nothing to the level that I have been able to understand that Izzy went through. Having that personal connection has obviously touched, my heart, it has come into my community and to my home and I have a better understanding of that. In my role as a director of a nonprofit organization that oversees kind of community work and community organization and looking at the larger picture of how we can make positive initiatives and move forward and have a much longer term view. I hope that you can start looking at when we're talking about really individual instances like this, can you reflect it in the more larger view of our nation right now when we're looking at the historic number of gun violence and when we're looking at the moments of bullying that have led to those devastating outcomes. And I think that this is an opportunity as painful as this is as a community for us to confront that, yes, our children are not perfect. Our children can be very mean individuals. Our children can be substantially hurt, but how do we as adults really look at that in a way that is this is an opportunity for us to address a system that is failing our children in many ways, not just in bullying, but in a variety of different ways of how we approach our children and teach them ways to navigate throughout the world. So I hope that this is an opportunity for us to learn from this experience and to open up the dialogue with one another of when we do have a bullying situation, yes, come to the aid of the child that is being bullied absolutely and provide an absolutely safe environment, but what do you do with the children that are doing the bullying? What is the answer there? And when we're looking at the dynamic of male to female, and I don't mean to bring gender into this, but the tendency of it being more boy led or male led, and we look at those that are the primary historic shooters in our schools right now, it is young men. This is an opportunity for us as a community to start looking at this very seriously before we become one of those communities that is dealing with the horrific situations that other communities are right now. Thank you. I see one more hand on the screen and then we'll go to you, John. Roxy? Yes, hi, this is Roxy Garland. Thank you, Kanya, thank you so much. Dr. Hauser, thank you so much. My son is also a client of yours. And Adrian, I stand by you and Izzy 100%. I just wanted to let the committee know that and the people online here that my son was also bullied this year and is so unlikely for him to be targeted. Generally speaking, he's a very happy boy. He has a very robust social life in the past anyway. He was VTVLC learning last year and it's like night and day MS, the middle school from, you know, the years in between the pandemic. And I think that might have a lot to do with what we're dealing with here. The school did react right away when I had mentioned what had happened because it was of sexual nature, boy, excuse me, I don't mean to bring gender into it, but I will boy to boy. And my son did not want to go back to school and he hasn't wanted to go back to school all year. It's made it very hard for him to learn. But they did react. They got on top of it right away. But what my, where my disappointment led is that communication wasn't, didn't occur from department, department or teacher to teacher. Some individuals who Carter was learning under did not know what had happened. And he was put in situations with the person who had violated him in other classrooms. So somewhere the communication had broken down and that's when I brought Libby into the conversation and things moved a little bit faster. I don't like to bring in upper management into these kinds of situations. I wanna see a team of people who are working on helping these individuals, whatever they're struggling with, I don't want anybody to get upset with me here, but there's a part of me that feels for the bully too because there's obviously something there that is happening, something that needs to be addressed that child needs some help. If they think that what they're doing is funny, it is not. And that needs to be addressed. But I do wanna let you know, let the people here know that at least in my situation, it did get addressed. And I also talked to my son and I said, listen, here are some tactics for moving away from these kinds of situations. And the biggest thing you have right now is your voice, so use it. And he did and things have been a lot better since. I'm with you guys. Everybody here today, I'm with you, and thank you. See, three more hands up. I don't wanna set anyone up, but we are at seven o'clock. So is there anyone else who would like to speak? Because I'd like to make sure and move on to the meeting, but this is a very important topic. And again, this is something that the board will pick up later. And then John, I know you're in the queue as well. So let's start with Jesse. And Adam, and then it's gonna be Jesse, on Kylie, Adam, and John, and then we'll move to the agenda. But thank you everyone for stepping up. I'll try to be brief. I'm really speaking more towards a less direct form of bullying, but more of just the classroom environment. And I think some of the positions that our teachers are in and potentially just don't or potentially feel helpless. Not being able to deal with behavioral issues or discipline or in some fashion that actually serves the students who show up to class with a mutual respect for their classmates and teachers. It tells these students that their needs potentially are not as important when their classroom environment is disrupted over and over by similar kids doing the same things. And they, as someone else said, get let out of the classroom to go on a break and then they come back and it continues in the next class. These aren't kidnappers anymore. These are young men and women in middle school looking to go to high school. And I feel that there has to be repercussions. There has to be responsibility taken for their actions as they're getting older because they're gonna be driving soon, right? You know, the consequences for students who mistreat disrespect or fail to cooperate in class. You know, these are now individuals in their mid-teens and the permissive behavior is dangerous. And the students understand exactly what is going on. You know, they're well aware of teachers' opinions and scapegoating and this decision to pass along the problem rather than address it by just, you know, we've spoken to our child to try to help her have a strong voice to stand up herself, right? So the students have to be the ones to stand up and tell the disruptive kids, hey, this is our time. And I believe in that, but I also feel that maybe some other approach would help. And I'm gonna sign off now. Hey, Josie. Sorry, I can't turn my video on. I'm on my back because my back went out. I just wanna stand in solidarity with Adrienne and Izzy and what they went through and my daughter has experienced some really difficult moments. I know that the counselor is extremely taxed and busy. After this two years of pandemic, I think a lot of our young children are struggling so much mentally. What monies can we earmark to do training, to do outreach, to do some of this work, to build back our community? Because I feel like there had been a different kind of vibe before the pandemic hit and these kids have been so isolated. I think we need to really use that pandemic money, that overflow, whatever it is, and earmark it for some of this mental health, anti-bullying, I think teachers need to be trained. I think students need to be in conversation. I really feel like this is a need that we cannot overlook. I would rather give up the track. And I know how important this is. I would rather give up the high school track so that we can focus our energy and our monies on the mental wellbeing of our children. Thank you. Kylie, you may be muted. Do you want to try? Sometimes there's headphones or a speaker. If there's anything plugged into your computer and all you want on it. Sometimes it works to dial back in, too. Did Adam... Do you want to let Adam purposely put his hand down there? I don't know. Adam, do you still want to speak? Maybe I'm the first one. Yeah, we still can't hear. You know, often if you just leave the meeting and then rejoin, like that can solve the problem. We just have to go out and then put the link again to join. Yeah, why don't we have you exit and come back in and in the meantime, we can hear from John. My issue, by the way, is far less serious and I certainly didn't intend to pile this on tonight. But it felt that you guys need to hear this before the end of the school year. So I prepared a statement. I'll just read it. I'll try to get through it as quickly as I can. And I don't have to get to this result. No, I'm going to get it right here. Perfect. I prepared this statement tonight not to complain, but rather to help our school district be better, not just for one cohort of the district community, but for all the members. I don't know many of you as most of the board has changed since I was involved. For those of you who don't know me, my name is John Guifre. I used to be the school board chair in Roxbury and also chaired the merger committee to form our current district. I'm a public school product and I firmly believe in the power and value of public education. It's why I participated in that process for many years and was a notable advocate for the merger. But my family's recent experience with Libby and her leadership in decision-making has been less than satisfactory. It's very unlikely you'll hear this perspective from her or Jim since I've discussed it at length with Jim and it's clear he believes in Libby and her perspective. That's fine, but I need you to hear this from me because you as a group are Libby's employer, you offer and sign her contract and you can and should demand behavior fitting of that position from her. I submit in this case, she has not lived up to the standards of behavior we should expect from her position in this matter and the behavior should be reviewed by her employees, i.e. the board. For the past three years, we've been concerned for our youngest child's education with regard to him being in a developmentally appropriate learning environment. He's a November birthday and old for his grade. He has always been a quick learner and has an older brother for which those of you have multiple children know tends to accelerate some of the milestones in their development. Four years ago, we asked about skipping the second year of pre-K and going straight to kindergarten and that was denied by our previous board. We were okay with that since he was so young and we figured it's turned into an issue further on. We'd look at it then, unfortunately it has. Our sons were homeschooled last year because of health risks in our family, primarily my risk. During that time his primary teacher was my mother, a former teacher in the district as his and the pre-K teacher at Roxbury for almost 10 years. We were concerned based on his performance last year during homeschool, he was going to lack a developmentally appropriate environment. We made his teacher aware of this concern prior to the beginning of the school year in the optional parent teacher meetings. We asked him to keep an eye on it as he is in a one, two classroom and that would be a perfect place to see if he was really functioning as a second grade. We asked to check back after a few months to make sure he was doing the appropriate things. We never heard from his teacher and I did not wanna be too pushy on this as I know he was new and had a lot on his plate. So I waited until prior to winter break to request to meet again. In that meeting I was told our son was doing very well in group with the second graders in math and reading because it's a multi-grade classroom and that's how things were done in that room. I asked twice in that conversation if he could simply be moved fully into the second grade curriculum for the rest of the year and he dodged accordingly twice. So I offered to write to Beth the principal which he said was a great idea. Beth responded quickly but categorically saying that wasn't an option and that she would get back to me with more info something she never did. I then followed protocol again and sent a letter asking to meet with Libby. It took until early January to get that accomplished which we did via Zoom. That meeting turned quickly sour when I challenged her personal feelings about grade promotion. She in fact said in as many words she quote would not be in favor of grade promotion under any circumstances. A statement I found naive, reckless to unilaterally levy as the CEO of a school district and really poor judgment. It was so alarming that when she ended the meeting abruptly I asked one question asking to make sure I heard correctly in that under no circumstances would she support grade promotion and she confirmed that statement. In that she also stated to me that quote all the research shows that it is not helpful to kids. I've now asked Libby three times for that research so that I could better understand her position. She has never provided it to me or for that matter acknowledged the request. Life has taught me that when someone says something definitively then asked for proof and won't provide it that something is awry. After that contentious conversation I started doing my own research. Keep in mind I've been an educator in one manner or another since I was 19 years old closing in on 30 years in a lot of very varied environments. As has my wife, a seasoned teacher at U32 and other school systems in New England. I don't have time to research this for a thesis. But I did make enough time to read plenty of it to see clearly this concept is not unchallenged educational canon. Over the past six months I managed to find this research, speak to the researcher twice and have sent Libby over 300 pages of research all very recent that talks about the prevailing wins of the 1980s and 90s that grade promotion was not good might not actually be right. Based on her education and age this timeframe is likely when Libby formed her opinions on this matter and it is unlikely especially since her time here has been so overwhelmed with dealing with COVID understandably. She has had any time to do further research on this matter since joining our district. A timeframe during which this research was published. I won't bore you with much more of this. I'll be forwarding all of Libby's and my written communications on this matter to your school board emails. Please let me know tomorrow if you don't have them. You can read through how I try to many different ways and angles to simply have the district evaluate our son at the end of the school year using objective testing measures and comparison to his peer group so that if data showed he was on par with his peer group that he'd be allowed to move on to the third grade with the second grade classmates he was already working with in his everyday classroom. You also see communications evolve as the communications evolve Libby seems to get more and more annoyed with me in fact at one time purposely referring to me as a quote caregiver instead of a parent. That's not a mistake or an omission of words. When Libby rendered her final decision back in February according to her account she spent a few hours at Roxbury reviewing our son's information and writing samples. As a literacy expert she seemed to base her proof on that one metric alone and she misrepresented his star 360 writing results in an effort to minimize them and support her bias and hypothesis. And most egregiously she used a 14 year old writing sample of one of her students when she was teaching in another state to show us what a second grade grader should be writing like. A pedagogy that is so flawed it's almost hard to imagine someone in her position would even consider using it as a comparison not to mention as primary evidence on why our son wasn't ready for the third grade. Finally she did exactly opposite of what we asked her to do which was to evaluate and make this decision at the end of the year. She chose to make the call in the middle of winter. I'm happy to report our son's trajectory has remained where it was and his final star 360s indicate his math at the end of third grade and his writing at the end of second grade. I suspect right in line with his second grade peers in his current classroom. When we met his teacher back in the spring we asked him what had been done. And it seems at that point the grand total of how the district has addressed his math support which was one meeting with an outside math consultant to give his teacher worksheets that our son could do on his own and then go over with the teacher. I then asked him frankly what are you gonna do with our son in September? What happens if you aren't his teacher and move on? What do you do with the kid who's already excelled at the entire year's curriculum and has to do it again? I won't speak for Daniel Vales, his teacher who by the way I think has done a great job given the challenges of teaching that classroom. You should ask him. Ask him how he would have handled our son in his classroom next year and decide if that's a reasonable thing to ask of a teacher in a multi-grade classroom whose time and attention is already spread paper thin. I then ask you to reflect if that's fair to the other kids, perhaps the ones who are needing more of Mr. Vales's time for him to spend with my son in order to keep him engaged and challenged. But then there's one further complication. Mr. Vales has moved on and up to the three, four classroom and should our son attend RBS, he'd have a new teacher trying to handle that dynamic. A possible scenario I brought into question earlier with both Libby or not with both with Libby, our two Roxbury resident school board members and Mr. Vales during the course of the school year. Keep in mind, all along we have told the district we do not want nor were we asking for any special treatment for our child. We have no interest in losing a year at home with him by graduating a year early because he moves forward a grade. Nor do we have any ego involved about being able to brag about how our kids skipped a grade. It has nothing to do with that. We just want him in the right environment and let the environment do the teaching. The school district seems to be bending over backwards to try to figure out what to do with him next year when simply putting him in the right classroom, a solution that by the way costs nothing and imposes no burdens on the staff is cast aside because of the bias and leadership of Libby who stubbornly refuses to look at this as a means to appropriate educational environments. Sadly, we aren't the only family that has been given the quote all the research shows reasoning by Libby as another Roxbury family was given this explanation for a similar request two years ago that student is no longer enrolled in the district. I just hope that this is the last time this district allows for this leadership to persist in this matter. I like Libby. I think she's a good person. I don't think she has much experience as a leader and seems to struggle with communication and conflict and is still learning. She also is clearly blinded by a personal hubris about her expertise and doesn't like to be challenged. That doesn't make her a bad candidate for superintendent. It's just something she needs to correct should she want to succeed in this career path. As further proof, you'll read in her second to last communication with me. She offered to me to set up a meeting with her to bring suggestions on how to make the district community better. It was clear that this was an invitation meant to brush me off into the sunset, particularly because she had once again denied our request and our appeal. When I took her up on the offer, I think unexpectedly from her position and told her, I didn't want to talk about my family situation anymore, but would like to talk about the policy and lack thereof for the district regarding promotion. This was an effort to make that conversation productive. As I asked her to provide the research, she has been pointing out so that we got the most out of it. Clearly annoyed and not hiding it, she abruptly replied, she didn't have the time to discuss the matter with me. A wildly inappropriate and unprofessional action. If you are an expert at something and a non-expert constituent in your view challenges your thinking, a good leader will bring that person in, educate them and bring them in line with their thinking or perhaps even learn something in the process. Instead at every opportunity, she's dodged this responsibility and it does not make for a good look. What's the end result? The end result is a bad one for everyone involved. For one, I'm here publicly airing dirty laundry. That's not good for anyone. It's not good that one of the chief architects of the district merger, me, is now standing here before you pointing out a structural leadership issue and potentially having to pull his child out of the school system. It's bad for my family because we can't in good conscious sent our child for a repeat year with a new teacher because the superintendent doesn't want to talk about it. It's bad if we send him there because his new teacher will already have too much on her plate and be asked to teach a kid who has already completed the entire second grade curriculum. It's bad if we did send him to RBS because the district would have to run around trying to find ways to enrich and challenge him for the next three years, which doesn't come free. It's bad for the district and it's taxpayers because if we send him to RBS, the school, if we don't send him to RBS, the school will lose an FTE and the money that goes along with it. It's bad for us because we need to send him to St. Monica's at a cost of over $7,000 and a lot of senseless driving. When a perfectly good third grade is available for him right down the road for free. As a side note to that, our son and his scores were evaluated by St. Monica's and he did a shadow day there with the second graders and all reports were he'll fit in great. It's bad because this turned into an issue about a superintendent's ego because make no mistake, this has been entirely Libby's decision because the district does not have a policy that speaks to my son's situation and only to promotion at the high school level vis-a-vis completely objective data, i.e. credits. Because of that situation, it falls on her to make the decision and she has. She has failed our family and I propose her duties to the district as a whole. I don't expect the board to override her decision but would certainly welcome it as our preference would be to have our son at RVS as a third grader next year. I do, however, ask that the board seriously discuss this behavior with Libby and put it in her formal review. As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility and superintendents don't get a pass on this type of thing. I hope that her promise as a rising superintendent and Vermont is only bolstered by this experience and that it pushes her to be better for our district and its families. I also hope the policy committee looks deeply into this outdated and certainly not universal wisdom that grade promotion or retention for that matter is a bad thing. The recent research shows that developmentally appropriate learning environments are the best places to learn and that is a specifically focused concept that does not have room for absolute bias or blanket statements. I would welcome the opportunity to be part of that committee's work and would work hard to bring the researcher that I spoke with multiple times from Vanderbilt who is a leader in this field to present his group findings to the committee not so that we adopt what he promotes but simply to provide an opinion during that policy making process that will not be provided by Libby in her current frame of mind. Thank you for your time. Thanks, John. Kyle, do we have sound? Yes, do we have sound? Yes. Yay! Sorry, I had to switch computers. Yeah, my daughter is in fifth grade at MSMS and she had been telling me often on throughout the year about a couple of boys who had been calling her fairly obscene female type names. And she referred to these two boys as her frenemies. Like sometimes they got along and sometimes they didn't but it was always this kind of ongoing sort of tension. These boys showed up at our house one day when my daughter was at home, said they were here to prank her. And then, maybe a month ago, I got a call from the assistant principal saying that one of the boys' mother had discovered that he had a bruise on his arm and that my daughter was the perpetrator. And therefore she would be suspended for two days. And this was the afternoon of the fifth grade dance. So she missed the dance, which was, as you can imagine, very, very upsetting for her. What she had said is that she was, what had happened was that these boys were saying these things to her. And then they were whispering to each other and pointing to her as if they were sharing a secret. And she grabbed one of their arms and said she was gonna hold on until they told her what they were saying to her. And that's how the bruise ended up on this child's arm. So she was suspended for two fairly traumatic days. And she wrote a letter to her teacher that she sent just a few days ago to the teacher. And again, this happened, I forget the day of the dance three weeks ago or so. She told me today that her teacher said that this happened weeks ago, she needs to get over it. But what she wrote was that she got suspended. This is, she typed this out. I got suspended for standing up for myself. These boys have been bullying myself and two of my friends most of the school year. I stood up for myself and held onto this other child's arm because they were walking away and completely ignoring us. My friends were leaving a lunch group with Mrs. Bravacus. I saw the boys looking and whispering. When we got close, they stopped talking and started looking at each other and then walked away. We wanted to know what they were saying, but they ignored us and shoved us as I held onto his arm. I didn't mean to hurt them at all. I got suspended for standing up for myself and protecting myself. Yet they get no punishment for calling us disrespectful names, making fun about our past and hurting us physically. Also another thing I left out, my daughter is adopted and one of these children has said to her several times that her birth mother hated her and that was why she gave her up for adoption. She said this several times. They also make fun of her and her brother because her birth father left their mom when she found out she was pregnant with the twins. She says, her letter continues, I would appreciate help with our situation. This has gotten to the point where I no longer want to go to school and I'm afraid of everyone. I don't want to show how scared I was. The assistant principal has created this environment for me. This is not good. We can't ignore the situation any longer. This needs to stop. We shouldn't have to worry about this. I feel like no one understands what I'm going through and I'm scared. Please listen to us. And according to her, the response she got from her teacher was that she needs to get over this. I've heard this sort of antidote from people repeatedly about how boys get away with things. My daughter has said that she and her friends get called out if they're talking to each other. But meanwhile, the boys can be like throwing paper airplanes around the room and no one talks to them about it. And I think it's very similar in a smaller way to Izzy's situation, whereas people were saying things to her, they didn't leave physical scars, but it was abusive. Another friend of mine, she has taken her son out of the school, but he complained that some boys were saying to him that they were going to hunt him down and slit his throat. He complained to the teachers and they told them, oh, those kids are always saying things. These kids are always saying things like that. This is like not OK. These are 10, 11, 12-year-olds. They're being put in situations where they have to deal with sexual harassment when they're children and they are afraid to go to adults for help. I wish there was another option for school because I would take it in a second. Thank you. Kaley, before we lose you, what's your last name? Oh, Donlyn Kite. D-O-N-L-A-N-K-I-T-E. Finally. Yeah, thank you, everyone. It was very touching and really appreciate hearing that. Probably saying a lot of that was very tough. And again, this is a subject that came up at our retreat. Is this something that we will delve into? And I'm sure we will have quite a bit of further deliberations on this as the year moves on. Moving to the next item of the PA. Can I just say one thing? I just want to acknowledge and also just want to say to the students that we are here to support you and that we, as Jim said, we're going to be talking. But I just want to acknowledge that the students are not alone either and that we're here and that we will do what we can. What is in our sphere of influence to move towards having a safety environment. So I just want to appreciate all of you for coming. Thank you. Now the consent agenda. You have a well, you want to add a quick item, right? To the regular agenda. To the regular agenda. Yeah, OK, we have to do it at the beginning. I drove a motion to approve the consent agenda. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do I have a second? All is in favor? All right. Any opposed? All right. No, Zach, unfortunately, could not make it. I also want to, I know this is the last meeting of the school year, so I want to thank you, Merrick and Zach. We'll have a little token of appreciation that will come soon, but we really appreciate the great work and the updates you've given us and the time you've taken to spend with the board. It's been really great for us learning more about the school and you've really been a thoughtful contributor as to all of our discussions. So thank you very much for stepping up and doing this. And thanks to Zach, too. I know he's not able to be here, but make sure he hears it as well. And thank you to the board for allowing the opportunity for a Zoom perspective to be heard. I will say, too, that I did speak to Zach about their intentions for the summer in the book, and to keep coming to some meetings for the summer as they're able to simply be our last, last meeting, but officially end of the school year last meeting. Thank you so much for all that you've done. Yeah, and I know that you're both not seniors, so if you're interested in doing this next year, we would love to have you again. So I know Merrick is. Thank you. Well done. Can I go ahead with the student update? We don't have a student update to see that. All right, well, but we've appreciated all those have gotten. And yeah, congratulations to the school year, and I'm sure you're probably eager as my kids are for summer. So the transportation budget. So I gave the board late last options to consider. I just got to know from Anna, too, that she's having a hard time hearing you. So if you lean forward into the mic a little bit more at home. So you have some options in the board packet that Kristen looked into. Actually, Kristen was the one who brought in the Northfield commuter. I had no idea even existed. So thank you, Kristen, to hard work. I don't actually have a recommendation. I think all of these options have some positives to them, and all of them have some negatives to them as well. So I actually don't have a recommendation for the board to do moving forward. I can tell you some of my opinions, but I think it's more for the board to discuss the options that were put in front of you in your board packet. Do you know the students who need this, use this? Yeah, so the different options have different amounts, right? So if we were to run a bus and run a Montpelier route, my hunch would be that some students would jump on from Montpelier if we were able to go up Town Hill and around Galveston Hill and over to Sherwood there. But we have no idea. They did pull the 13 Roxbury students who are here at the high school. Five said they might use it, two for athletics, and three said because they want to hang out in town after school and could catch a ride home later than that. So there wasn't a whole lot of, with the Roxbury students who are currently in the high school, they didn't pull the middle school students. It would be a 70-person bus, 75-person bus, and it would not be full by any means. I mean, the question was, is it more like 20 students we're talking about, or talking about five? It's really hard. I really don't know. I really don't know. Do you know how many Roxbury students we have? Yeah, over here. There's a proxy. Just high school? No, in middle school. OK. Yeah, we have, let me tell you exactly how many we have, actually. Give me one second, so I don't give you a ballpark number. I believe it's around 30. And I'll, 32. Between the middle school and high school. And we have four coming over, four fourth graders coming over. But I'm not sure how many graduated just recently. And there's also a timeline of post-mercher when Roxbury students were still grandfathered into U32. Yeah, they're actualizing. I mean, in terms of the numbers and what the averages might be, are still sort of settling out. Could be, but there's not a lot of grandfathered kids, as we saw in the last budget round. I recall Grant saying there's many less than what was predicted. So sorry, I just want to get a better sense of what the problem we're trying to solve. So is it true there is a right after school bus for Roxbury students? Yes. And so this is to specifically address run a bus at like five or 430 or 530 or something like that. An additional route. Yes. That's a quick one. And I think it's important to remember in not really a Roxbury. We're kind of a funny spot. As far as Vermont school districts go, I don't know of any district that learns additional. I should try to look into that. Most kids are driven to and from school or driven to and from extra filler. I don't think we're unique in the challenge of trying to figure out how to get to its home at 5 or 530. If anything, we're kind of unique in that a good chunk of these kids can walk or bike. It's kind of cool, but it's not the norm. But I just think a little perspective of like, I don't I don't know of any other districts. You 32 or Harvard, all these 32, they run. They do run to like, yeah. OK, all right. Very does not prepare. It doesn't have any bussing. OK, in Northfield, historically, offered late bussing. I haven't had to wait with like pandemic challenges. But OK, it's the more they're not the Mansfield, my my kids school district runs a late bus. What time are those about? Same idea, like 430 to 530, something like that. The Mount Mansfield, I only can speak to the parent here. My my kid can get on the bus at four, but they also have clubs after school that are different than ours. We this would not run until six. If we were to get a bus, it would not run until five or six, which I think I have stated here in order to get as many practices as possible and activities. Yeah, that becomes a challenge, mainly in the winter season, because we only have so much gym space. And so practices run in the winter and gyms in middle and high school from 330 to 930 at night. So there's just no way that we would be able to capture all the kids. And those six or 16 is a pretty common and stopping place where it's cool to put out what it is. Yeah, and then there are some other challenges, too, like some like the Nordic team oftentimes goes up to Morse Farm. So they need to get up there and then get back. But there's so many problems to solve. And I also just wanted to use district bands. That was our solution in the first year of the merger. Grant Geisler drove that band because we couldn't find anyone else to. That is not a solution. That's not a solution. Chris, I just want to respond to you, Jill. You know, what was the kind of a problem that we're trying to solve? And I think part of what, you know, I sort of brought this to the floor after we heard just this like resummoning support and got really deep into like what the track program offers. And it's incredible value. And then I think solidified by some of the like the tour that we did of MHS and just seeing all of the things that do happen during the after school hours. And for me, as a wrap of the Roxbury community, just really thinking about, you know, the students in the community that I am beholden to to really work toward ensuring that they have access to programming. So I think it really brought this topic, you know, to the top for me. And and then I went in and kind of did some digging around in the original merger document, which did say that the new school board would move ahead with a new transportation policy and plan that would allow for students from Roxbury Middle School and High School to be able to, I think, like reasonably access after school extracurricular activities. So I know it was happening previously. It definitely had its bumps and its hiccups. And of course, COVID came along and just sort of shunned everything. And I think just from a personal story and this is this is one individual, but there is a student in Roxbury who I would see multiple days a week, all summer long, playing soccer by himself. And I imagine while the student must be on the team. And when I when I spoke with this student, not on the team because not able to access due to transportation. So that again, that's like a case study. That's one story that's not representative of all, but it is. Yes. So it just really brought that kind of like, you know, to the to the forefront for me and just thinking about what we can do, you know, in our role and to really kind of follow through. I think in my perspective, like the merger is still very young. You know, it's like the merger happened. And then I think we got maybe one or two years max. And then COVID came and it was been a really big blip. And I think, you know, I think in some ways, Roxbury hasn't even really had the opportunity to really kind of settle into what this merger could be for them and the value that it can provide. And so while we might not be seeing high rates of participation, I don't think that should really kind of define what participation could look like in the future. And I think that I think like with a lot of things, like culture happens slowly, right? Like when there's a culture of sort of belonging and membership and participation, those things pass down between kids in the community, among age groups, between sibling groups. So I do think that there's great potential. I mean, I think about my own child and just the amazing things that, you know, and this is really, I think the heart and soul, the merger and why it had so much support in Roxbury's, because there's so much to take advantage of by way of joining with Montpelier and that Roxbury citizens saw this as just an incredible opportunity that they weren't currently experiencing. So I'm just thinking about how does transportation play a role in that and helping our kids in Roxbury to get access? Thank you. Yeah, I want to add that it's not just for the kids in Roxbury. Yes, I think there are some opportunities for low income students, single moms that can't be shoveling kids back and forth. I think there was a last year there was a kid. What single parents? Single parents. What did I say? Two moms. Yeah, single parents or, you know, grandmothers or, you know, foster parents or all kinds of old families that are not the two. So like there was a family that shared with me last year of her. She's a single mom, which is why single moms and her kid, if there was a volleyball and like they had to do. I forget if it was volleyball or they had to go to U-32. She couldn't. So she missed like six practices because she couldn't go there and she was unable to go. So like just thinking of that, that it is not just for Roxbury, but like how do we extend? And I'm wondering what. Like what it looks like at the beginning of the year when kids are like, OK, well, I want to do these after school programs and and like be able to design it that way so that like you can design a program instead of saying, we're going to commit $40,000 right now to have a bus that's going to run. The only five kids are going to use like have that. I don't know, like I don't know when certain sports start and like what are the transportations? Like I have friends of soccer, but that's like, I don't know. They are always traveling. I don't know what my kids are nothing just part two. So like I don't know what's out there. But, you know, what are the points that people access and what they want to do? Like and then plan from there. So I just I feel like we should think of policies. We should think of like, what is this conversation going to be? And like again, like the big picture of how do we think with the community? Versus us making this financial decision right now. And I think with the kids, who's coming here? What are the programs that we offer in after school? What the when do you travel? Like being able to do a little question and survey of all the coaches? Like, do you travel? Like, who are the kids that are coming? You know, are we creating barriers that we need to remove for all the kids? So whether they're low income, whether they're. From Rocksbury, whether they have different things. Hello. What is our position right now with the fund balance? Like if we earmarked $25,000 for this, where are we at? So you could pilot it. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I feel pretty strongly that if we committed to something in the merger documents that we shouldn't be backing out of that, like however many years into this four, five, four, because the merger was the reforming four, OK, into the merger. So I feel like we should honor our commitment to Roxbury. I also feel like if you build it, they might come. So if you have it and it becomes part of the culture for Roxbury kids and they start to see their peers participating in after school activities and then getting catching the bus home, then there might be increased ridership. So I think you have to sort of do it in order for people to start to use it and rely on it as a mode of transportation. I would be interested in sort of doing a hybrid of what Amanda is suggesting, sort of like information gathering. I think, you know, when I see that twenty five thousand twenty four thousand two hundred and seventy five dollar figure, I'm thinking, well, geez, maybe somebody would do that from Roxbury, you know, if we with the van option, if we just paid them twenty five thousand dollars and it was more of like a salary and not an hourly, that would be a fairly high rate, I'm guessing. Yeah, there's some logistics for that, though, with the school van, they'd have to drive to Montpelier, drop their car off, get the van, drive out. So maybe someone that lives in Montpelier and they and it's just two hours of driving five days a week. I don't know what that would shake down to hourly. Sorry, that's the cost of the ten to twelve thousand dollars. It's primarily salary for the two hours. We're down in the band. OK, so right. So and what is and what does that represent hourly wage? I think we looked at like minimum wage for it. So like, would we be able to double that so that we're getting that increased flex? I mean, these are questions that I think could be addressed down the road. But if we just earmark twenty five thousand dollars tonight to like sort of look into and potentially try to solve or pilot something next year, earmark twenty five thousand dollars and then see what we can do with that twenty five thousand dollars. Yeah, I would say if you if you go with the route of putting that much amount of money, I would go with the school school bus system simply because it's their responsibility for substitutes. It's their responsibility for, you know, providing the actual transportation and and scheduling. It you know, it's it's what they do. So that's if you're going to spend that much money, I would just do the bus. Yeah, yeah. And and to us, but the bus option would also get some of the far points of up there as well. We're a band, which is we just go to Roxbury and back. It would only be that because you can't fit one five kids in band. Right. To me, there's that the survey that had two kids saying that they wanted to hang out is a huge indicator of the possibilities for this larger band, not the band, the bus. Five spaces for five is really limiting. Extracurricular, co-regular activities, sports teams, all that's wonderful. But one of the things that we need to build or that we hope to support is just relationships and you're a middle school kid. You're from a different community. You don't know the other middle school kids. Now you have this opportunity to go to your friend's house and take a bus home to make friendships, to get to know families. You know, these connections are something that I'm very much concerned about, you know, not in a bad way, but it's very much on my mind. Can I get the parent groups to organize to say, hey, you know, we want to be at the UES playground on a Sunday afternoon. We would love it if we could if, you know, there are going to be a couple of Roxbury kids there. I'd love to meet some of our friends, you know, some of our future peers. That's something that I'm thinking about now. But I'm thinking as a middle school kid, you're getting you're getting up, you're sort of pushing away from your family or getting this opportunity to sort of develop identity that's like, you know, significantly separate from your family and that ability to make friends and hang out with them is going to be deprived of the Roxbury kids if there is no option. And it's team sports are amazing. I'm all four team sports of every kind. But I'm also just for friendships and my kids getting to know each other and being able to hang out. And I think that that could be, you know, a huge use of this. It could be a huge benefit that we may find kids that aren't in an organized activity, but that are taking advantage of it because they just want to hang out with their new friends. And I would make a motion. I feel like maybe Kristen might be your role to make that motion. After all the work you put into this issue. Can I just say one more quick comment for the motion? I I don't want to, I don't I don't think we can develop it now, but I'd love to use this year to look more into the green transportation option. I think if we go for serious about it and zero policy, figuring out a way to use public transportation and increase ridership. Yeah, I mean, I don't think we can do this season, but I'm looking into that more. And I also think that would be a way to get probably more flexible options for Montpelier as well in terms of you know, being able to service some of the, you know, further out locations. This is also where a lot of the lower income families in Montpelier live. So if we could, if we could, you know, maybe have a bus next year and use that year to have some serious discussions with both, you know, as part of the net zero, maybe make some contacts with the city. And because I think that's an untapped resource, an flexible one and one that really points well to net zero policies. I would recommend if you go with the bus that you charge us with collecting data on usership and ridership, collect data on ridership. They're going to use it and where they're going. Well, whether they were just sitting here with a friend or what they use it for. I'm not sure if we could really get that information in any kind of realistic form. You know, we could get like battering of questionnaires. Well, we know these teams and we might know, you know, you could compare it to how many kids that know are on teams, I guess, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that data, but also the data of data collection of like what kind of after school programs we did have who my or even if it doesn't currently use a transportation, might be able to use transportation and like how that works. So just like understanding those systems a little more so that you can then in year to make more informed decisions in terms of budget and all of that. And I'm just going to say, I think if this is something we do, I think when the signups for things in early August go out, I think that would be the most important time to let folks know about this option, because I think there might be some that say, well, I'm really sorry, that's not going to work. And then that's it. But if we make it really clear, because I think you're right, it might take a little while. But I think once it's there, sounds like maybe more people will use it. But we've got to let them know before they sign up, because they may not sign up if they don't realize that's an option. Maybe even just like a flyer in the beginning of the year to all the families that are coming into Montpelier so that they really understand the timing of the bus and what's available. But we get a we get a time period because I really think we should include those far outreaches of Montpelier. Like Main Street gets on street closer, you know, kids who are on Rome Street closer and then Town Hill and Gavison Hill are a brief our way. Yeah. And you're. Mm hmm. I'm not. Traffic is off. Not traffic, but. Yeah, and we can have continuous providers. I mean, that like sends out, you know, the first four events and etc. Make sure it's clear that there's going to be a lesson option. Is there anything that's ever student driven that's put out there in terms of like extra curriculars, you know, like sports fair, you know, in terms of just like trying to like engage like new interest and participation and just kids knowing exactly what's out there for them to partake in. I'm just curious, like, how do kids find out about what's available to them and families for that matter? And especially if you're a new family coming into the district or is it somewhere listed in the family guidebook, which very. I think Matt probably read. Matt, like sends out everything around sports. Drew McNaughton at the middle school sends everything about after school, it goes home or it's in the newsletters. They had just had people for the people here, which is a club event that introduces high school students to all the clubs that are available. But the high school is the same thing. And then Keana is in charge of the theater piece of it. She's got a few look in the hallway. She's got show choir stuff all over the place now. So a few extra theater options as well. It mostly comes through the the emails, the newsletters, like the Gator News at the gas school and the Solon Salute here. Yeah. Yeah. But there's some stuff that comes physically home, like I don't know if they do it anymore, but the community connections offerings used to be printed up and home and kids folders also. Yeah. No, that would be a great collaboration with the U.S. Caregivers' Alliances because they put out some things that people actually read, that they don't read in the scoops at the elementary school level, which is where I'm more active on. Like we get things there that are like, oh, I didn't get the scope or I didn't get this, but I got it from the U.S. C.A. Newsletter. And before the pandemic, we were like printing out some information and putting each of the kids' backpacks up to go home. We didn't do it this year because of the pandemic and we didn't have access to the printer. But I think that if we collaborate with them with us, if we collaborate with, you know, all of that info can also go in there. That's like more of the better. So I'll make a motion. No, I'm not going to make a motion. I make a motion that we approve the expenditure, $24,000 to, showing $4,275 to offer a late day service bus to serve both the students of Main Street Middle School and Montpelier High School of Montpelier and Roxbury. We have this here. I'll second. Keep it in Roxbury at that one. And just for the discussion. Just real quick, and I'm going to vote in favor of the motion. I do think and maybe we'll talk about this at our board discussion, but I get very concerned that we still haven't sort of set parameters. I feel like every meeting, there's sort of an unexpected expense or something that comes up. You know, we're hearing about crises happening. And so I'm hoping we do sort of get to a point where we feel comfortable of what we do or do not have wiggle room for things like this that come up. Clearly, we have a we have an agreement and I think this is actually a fantastic solution now that I've gotten more information. But, you know, is next month are we going to get another request for another $25,000 for something else? They're all very good things that need to be done. It just makes me a little nervous that I don't know what's coming down the pike financially. And what if two months from now we have something major and we've sort of dribs and drabs taken money out of our savings account and then we don't have money. So it's just a just a board process. Concern I wanted to raise, but I'm certainly in favor of this of this. And I do understand from grants, previous presentations that we can rest assured we do. Still have some money that we can use for things like this. Thank you. Chris, and I may ask that you amend your motion to increase that line item just because that's such a specific line item and I just would want to give flexibility. You know, I've talked to Stacy, who runs our bus company a bunch and we're good with that. Yeah, we're good. It may not be to just to appease Jill. It may not even be that much. That would be the most amount. But when she, you know, has to lessen a route somewhere, like doesn't pick up at a bus stop or something like that. Then yeah, like she makes. Yeah, it works out. So it might be less than that, actually. Great. We need to add the data connection to the motion. No, no. Just that just that was OK. Can you get it? Yeah, we'll just talk about it. And then if you're thinking about this is a pilot. Should we include that in the budget for next year? When you start talking about budgets, what's one thing that's tricky is that the budget, I mean, you all approve the budget in January. So that's you don't have one full sports season. You don't have one full musical. You know, like it's there are lots of things you won't have by then. And we start talking about the budget in December. You know, like the first presentation was the first board meeting in December. Yeah, I just want to point out to Jill's point that if we are. If you're presented with the expenditures going in, we and this may this may turn out to be an annual thing. But it's not a pilot thing. So we should we should even if you're not adding it, we should definitely consider this when developing budgets. So when we move on to the board work plan, let's make sure we put the put into the board work plan when you'd like data around this particular pilot. Yeah. Any further comments? All the better. I any of us. Great, thanks. So we're a little behind schedule. Although we've made up a little bit of time, so we'll break into the further committee discussions regarding board goals. How should we structure this? We have committees go for 15 minutes and come back. I think we can probably work around the table. OK, we're going to your you were an expert last time on Monday about this. And we talked about policy, facility. And finance. So when we talked about. And I think. I think facilities. Equity should do to each. We just do three because there's nine of us. And people are going to have to choose. But I think policies, facility and equity, because it's where I mean, finance is kind of more of an oversight. Yeah. So does that make sense to break into groups roughly around that? Some people may have to make some choices about which table they're at, but we'll come back together. My notes from Monday. We did end it on Monday because this was written prior to Monday. Yes, we did talk about Monday to talk about the work plan for the year. And not remember, we talked about not doing the committees. Yeah, I don't know if we talked about not doing the committees or not. My I mean, I'm OK. Not to the committee, but I my recollection is not there. My my note to myself was that we were going to wait on goals and things until the visioning committee. Could present that is tentatively scheduled for August 2nd. And then. Look at the board, I'd have a discussion around the. Presentations and information that they want presented to them or things they want presented them throughout the year so that we could plan those and trainings that the board might want throughout the year. So let's do this. Can you cast that on the screen? I can't. OK. Why don't we just work off that and work as a group? Does that make sense? I was just like, oh, good. I wanted to I'm looking at your email to us, Libby, coming out of Monday. And do you want to give the superintendent timeline right now? I think before, before the session, better, this is going to be more of an update. OK. OK, so eval committee update. I'm going to pull this up so I have the dates in front of me. And then I will email all of this to board members so you have it. You don't have to only remember it because I know that's hard to do. Sorry, let me find it. Too many. Here we go. So to conduct the superintendent's evaluation, I will share with all the board the that worksheet form document that we've all looked at at various points as it has been updated over the course of the year in template form that you should make a copy of. And this will be your time to actually start to use it. And you will fill it in as best you can. There are probably things on there that where that, you know, are part of the superintendent's job that you might not feel like you've had a whole lot of access to or observation of. And so it's OK if you can if you end up leaving some soft blank, but the things that you feel like you have had an observation of and you want to be able to provide feedback on, fill it in. Each board member will fill in their own form and then email them back to Jim and myself. And the deadline for that is next Friday, the 24th. Then the Eval Committee is going to take a few weeks and pull together all those all that information and input from the board, Libby's own self evaluation through which she has pulled in the evaluation from her direct reports and will also bring in the climate survey, some data from that. And by the 15th of July, we'll have a summarized Eval report that the at the end of the month of July, the Eval Committee will meet with Libby to discuss that draft report. And then in early August, probably that August second board meeting will do an executive session for matters of personnel at the end of the board meeting and then that will be where we the board has the sort of like final say on what the Eval report is and we'll use that to start to work with Libby on goals, her goals for the upcoming academic year and we'll have a draft of those by the end of August and then in September, we will approve Libby's goals for the academic year. And like I said, I will email all of this to you so you can actually see it in addition to hearing it as well as email you. Sorry, yeah, template. Oh, yeah, good. There you can see that first box executive session. That's the first board meeting in August. That's August. Yep. We might have I think we might bump the superintendent goal approval back to the next to September. That is the first board meeting in September. Where it is now, I was thinking of that as a real calendar and not as. OK, thank you. That is the September one. OK. Right. So that's the update. I'm sorry, what? And I would be here August. But that's Jim might not either. So we might get flexible with it, but that's the plan right now. OK, so. This is the blown up. Yeah, would you send that deadline? Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Yes, that's part of the email I will send tonight before I go to sleep. And the comment I was going to make Jim is about what we're doing right now is reading Libby's email from to us from Monday was that we the other component of this discussion was to figure out the what goes at the kind of like pre current budget process that we will use. What kind of timeline do we want to get input sort of pre budget process? And also, what do we want post that? And where and I think the one of the things was like, where are we going to be asking for data along the way to look at the effectiveness and the impact of budget decisions that we're making? So I I scroll down to the budget line here. Sorry, I had to make it bigger so you can see it. So where it says finance committee. What I did with last year's I take last year's calendar and I kind of move things over, you know, because there's some things that have to be done at a certain time period of the year and so I move things over from that. So this is where the board had opening conversation budget priorities process timeline last year. So that's the first board meeting in September where that's listed now. So nothing is set in stone here. We can revise it as well. But that was where you had it last year. And then the next board meeting was planning community outreach for budget priorities and then talking about the community responses to board meetings later. If I remember correctly, that was a short turnaround for you all. Well, this is to also right now. I think I'm kind of beat up the budget process. What would you like to be prepared when? Let me this one on November 2nd. That is that the first present official presentation from you and the finance? No, the first present official presentation is this December 12th. I'm sorry, December 7th, 7th. Yeah, yeah, it's always the first board meeting in December. Yep. OK. I mean, one thing I like to just kind of leave with as a frame, and it's kind of pulling up what you said earlier, Jill. I mean, we've had some, I think, fortunate years financially where we've been able to spend without really any tax implications. And we've also had a lot of really expecting to get hit by COVID. We ended up with a lot of COVID money that's allowed us to make some investments, many of them, you know, one time expenditures, a lot of long time gains, some other kind of things, more temporary expenditures to deal with some COVID situations. I just want to be cognizant that we have some trends out there that are somewhat troubling from a financial standpoint. I think that the equity waiting committee, like, makes sense. It's the right policy. It will have tax implications from a player that are quite real. And it also will be compounded with a trend. It's noticed our our early grade numbers right now are really at about two thirds of what we have been historically seen and, you know, I know that the the complications are or the calculations are complicated, but, you know, tax rates go like this when student numbers go like this. So with with a waiting system that's going to add a potentially enormous financial burden, even if our student numbers stay steady and our student numbers are not staying steady, they're going down. Plus, we're on the edge of a recession with spiraling inflation, we might. And also, I mean, if you were listening closely last budget presentation, we're already at numbers in some grades where it's difficult to justify current staffing bubbles. So I would love to see how we're thinking about these trends to ensure that we're able to continue to invest in all of the great things we're talking about, you know, closing the achievement gap, you know, achieving equitable education because this is a town that wants to say yes, but when you start talking about 10, 12, 13 percent tax hikes, it's going to be a very different conversation with tougher questions raised than answered. So I just want to put that context out there. Mia. So what do you do you have something that would inform how we hold the process because of that context? I want to make sure that we don't get into a budget discussion tonight. No, but I think I would like to see in terms of like the information we're given. I would love to see if there's planning for that. You know, what what are we thinking about in terms of staffing? What if the numbers continue? How are we how are we leveraging money that we have and planning for because actually one thing granted a fantastic job was he really. You know, he would he would plan for swings. And I would just love to see how that's being done when we know that there's a good possibility that we are going to have tougher budget asked for community for similar levels of funding and when then there's a lot of desire, I think, to invest even more. So so from a process perspective, I'd love to get information during the process that prepares us for not just this year's budget, but what is next year's budget, because I think the thing we want to avoid and get out ahead of is like a year where it's like, you know, a wholly blank. If we want to keep what we're doing, we're going to have to have a 15 percent budget and then a scramble to make cuts that are that are not planned and could be really harmful to the educational objectives we want to achieve. Amanda, I would just add that another contest that grant is not going to be here anymore. And so we have a new person who knows the system, but we don't know that person. We have not worked. So it's like, I think if we start a little earlier, you will be able to understand how she works and those interactions with the board and like her brilliant mind, how that comes to be. Right. So I think that's like another layer that we should buy ourselves more time just because the grant was there for such a long time. So in terms of process, I would say that the first meeting should be for us to all again have the little or like for as to I know we have new board members that have now been part of the financial process. So like what is the information we all need to have as a baseline? You know, I still I'm still learning a lot. I'm still like, what is the silly and what is that and how do I get that? Like, I, you know, hopefully when I graduated from the board, I would know how to talk about these things more. But right now I still have a lot of learning curve and a lot of questions. I, you know, I need to get like for me, that's an important one. Like, OK, let's all be in the same baseline. What are the things we need to listen? What are the PowerPoints we need to get? There's one piece and then the other piece is like, how do we involve the community and on what stage? Those are the questions I have for you, experts. Start that too soon. Like, I think finding the context for things like how the tax rate impacts things and how my universe with like CLA's and reappraisals impacts things. I don't think it's ever too early to start to like, if especially we are merely a new board that context so that by the time we're actually looking at budget numbers and seeing what we do have have control over versus what we don't, we have that bigger context. I feel like in the summer is like not too soon. Jill, as the expert, we don't have. I mean, when do we get those numbers? Or when do you get the predictions of those numbers? So like we can talk about the waiting and we don't be getting like the maybe but like I'm talking like generalities of like the context of our budget. Like, do people understand the things we do have control over? The I think there's a pie chart about what makes up salary versus operations. It doesn't have to be exact numbers, but just kind of painting that broader picture so that then when we do start to look at like the federal aid money or the transportation or the operations or the salary or the health care, whatever it is, we sort of at least have some context for that. I don't know because it is a big it is a huge responsibility. And I feel like if I remember correctly, by the time we actually started looking at the budget stuff, you know, it was like almost sort of already so much of it is baked in and we can't change those things. So it's helpful so we can focus on what we can change. So you're not talking about actual numbers? Correct. Yeah, you can draw a picture of what the budget process looks like. I think we've got this already in a PowerPoint, but it doesn't have to be this year's numbers, just context. I was just going to try and make this more concrete in saying add a step in here somewhere, maybe it is instead of community. Maybe anyway, in September, we asked for a presentation from Christina where the board ahead of time sends the specific questions that we would have that maybe you could provide, Jill, that was a great overview of like what maybe we would be looking for and the board could ask send Christine the specific questions ahead of time when we sit back and think like it's our responsibility to approve a budget that we send to voters. What are the things we wonder about that Christina could make a presentation around? It could be folded into that first. I'm sorry, if I cut you off. Yeah, September, because that's the meeting that that generally Grant has come to the board and saying, saying, give me give me something to shoot for. Give me a percentage that you're all comfortable with. And the board typically says you go you go make a budget that you need to happen and we'll work from there. So that's usually how that conversation goes. But that could be a context conversation as well about where we are. Like things are the way to say, I'm not sure if we'll have that information of how that truly affects us yet. Then knowing the way as I do, it probably will come what we needed. December 7th, it will probably come December 6th at midnight. But we can do the best we can. And we could add that into. I would say August. Context, like we started August because we have been late on building that community building piece that we can understand that knowledge beforehand. Then September is like more typical questions is the presentation that Grant already does that we have. And we all have the baseline for that same understanding, you know, being able to ask the questions. Andrew had. What was this other woman that works at the tax department who also does this presentations, who could be Chloe, is it? Yeah, who does great presentations that we could all, you know, invite her in that first meeting. I mean, unless everybody knows and we could just have a separate training for those of us that still will like to be more on like understand this more, like one of our biggest jobs. And I still feel like every year I'm like, what does that mean? How does that, you know, my mouth is not my strength. So I'm a bookkeeper. It's like, so I'm just saying what I need. So it might be that not all of you need it. I'm going to make sure you're better. I have to review all the things every year. You're not alone, but I live a lot. I live agree that stuff, so you're not alone. I think I'm just elevating what Joe is asking for and sort of wouldn't get just suggested, but and and Amanda is chiming in like more information earlier. So for me, I think about like sort of here are the big things that we know are kind of coming down the pipeline this year. So you mentioned one being staffing because of declining enrollment. If that's a big theme that we most likely will have to do a reduction in FTEs, that's good to know. I mean, we kind of we're hearing it now from Jim. But, you know, I'd like to hear that in an official capacity, sort of what the general thinking is. And I have a lot of respect for Libby's budget process. And I like how collaborative it is with the other administrators. And so I understand that a lot of, you know, their thinking on things won't be on the table at that juncture. But at the beginning of the fall or the end of the summer, it would be great to hear from you and sorry, who is Christina Christina about sort of here are some of the like red flags that are popping up or maybe do they call them green flags, red and green flags? Here are some of the hopes and dreams from last year that we're hoping to revisit and get into the budget this year. Here are some of the things that we've been sort of deferring to cut from the budget, and we most likely will be looking at these things. If we know those things ahead of time, I think that puts us into a better position to talk to the community about their priorities, because a lot of times, you know, what we've what I've discovered the last couple of years is that a lot of times like their priorities just don't aren't realistic or don't match with what the priorities of the administrators are. So if we have that information first, it probably would be helpful to initiate those conversations with our community. So right now, that opening conversations on the first meeting in September, hearing people wanting to move that to the second meeting in August, maybe if the Visioning Committee is going the first meeting in August, which will probably take up some time. Are we doing a special day for the Visioning Committee? I did. We also have the we sent around a doodle for the another retreat. Which could be the Visioning Committee. I think that makes sense. And I think for that initial August, it could just be a half hour presentation where a lot of those vision years on which years kind of are locked in expenses. Yeah, some trends were seen and informal. I needed to be in a PowerPoint either. I mean, it could be in a full of us, a little less. And then, like, honestly, I think a lot of it's just point out some of the ground will slides and yeah, sitting with them a little. I think the more we see them, the better. And I read or were you? I'm thinking that with a lot of open positions, the fund balance kind of grows in some ways. Is that right or wrong? And if it is, then it presents opportunities that become complicated, I guess, with how to how to use the fund balance if it's growing beyond what was sort of expected because there are unfilled positions. So I don't know if that needs to go into our calendar to sort of look at where that, whether or not it's having an effect on the fund balance and whether or not there's, you know, we we had extra money. We had extra other extra money. We had a big project that came up on us quick. But if the fund balance does grow because of unforeseen circumstances or positions can't be filled for one reason or another, then that becomes a really, I think, important thing for us to have a good process about, I guess, it does read that information will be beginning to take surface until the first quarter report. Be in October. Just because that's when and quite honestly, it's a guess it's a guesswork game there. You know, and hopefully we're going to fill those positions too. How much of a difference it makes. And I think that it's it's it's a process that needs to occur after the budget process, in a sense, because. It's sort of a separate process. Yeah, but I guess it's I don't know if this is what you're saying or thinking or not, but it's not like if we have an unfilled position when that paycheck typically goes to a teacher, that paycheck goes into the fund balance, right? That that's not how that works. It's just in our bank account until really the end of the year and the auditors, actually, like when you see the audit or the draft fourth quarter report until September, then we start having a sense of what that fund balance will look like from the previous year. More direct sense. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think so. Well, what granted, what granted this past year was he used some of that fund balance to offset that tax increase, right? Yeah, we do that every year. So I mean, it does. It is part of their process is not necessarily part of the board process, but they analyze how much money is there and can they use that to like reduce the tax rate and grant makes a recommendation. Yeah, has written a recommendation of the board each year. And then you all approve to use that or decide to use more or less or whatever it's kind of part of the budget. It feels like it's built in already. It's built in the budget where he recommended that as part of the budget, we have this extra fund balance where we use two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to put that towards the budget and that makes up the budget. But I was I was wondering about the the vacancies and what not some of that would get used by substitutions and things like that, right? So not all of that would just get into the fund balance and then also the quarterly reports where some of that expenditure and overage and all that stuff is mentioned to that that kind of is a an estimate, isn't it? Yes. And it's not yet until the auditors give us that it's just an estimate that can get revised from quarter to quarter. As we're getting those reports, the finance committee gets some. So those will be great topics for this first meeting that we can learn about all this different context, which is a good segue to say. Are there other trainings or presentations that the board would like to have? Yeah, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Well, I think that's a good suggestion. I think we have a budget context, but it's a lot. I think it sends a presentation on. In some harassment, bullying policies and just where we're going. Implementation, implementation. But also just what's going on would nice to learn from an administrator's perspective, what they're doing on the ground, how the policies are being implemented, where they see the shortfalls are, where they see the struggles. What makes sense for that to go? I mean, it's an ongoing problem. So I would I would say that earlier the better. But you know, there's not a time specific date that it has to improvise. Really quickly to circle back to what we were talking about before. My worry is, you know, it's clear Grant is going to leave a big hole. If his replacement Christina, right, if she gets too deep in the weeds, what kind of support structure is there for like? She was she's a seasoned business manager. She was a business manager in a different district. And she's been with Grant as assistant manager for the last two years. I have a little worries about Christina. I think she'll be fine. Are there are there. Are there ways that the board can learn more about the current research on discipline and or, you know, supports for challenging behaviors? Or I don't know if that's a thing that is possible. Because I know a lot of, you know, the public is like, do something and it's really complicated because you can't exactly deprive someone of their education or the opportunity. And so how to know what I'm sure that there's current research about. The best ways to support children that have behavioral and or emotional problems, because that would be good to know to be able to communicate to the community. Because I'm not I'm not up to speed on that current research, necessarily. And it must have to drive the responses that I think the district attempts to come up with. But if there is a way for the board to be able to communicate some of those more recent concepts to people, it might help. In some ways. I was just going to say, I really wanted to speak tonight as a parent. I was or I didn't. But what I am hopeful for is and I think something the board could make really clear. And I appreciate what you said, Jim, was that we have new administrators starting at the middle school and high school. It's a fantastic opportunity to be a lot more transparent and clear. And also so that families know where those resources are. Because I think, you know, if you're if you these things are messy and they're personal and they're private and they're painful and so people don't know where to go. And so I think if we can maybe take a time at a future board meeting or as a board, make some sort of expression of support for and encouragement to our new administrators about addressing some of these because I very much. It's it's not clear. And it's it's a and I thought Anna's point was really valid about. We're already in a tornado of feelings and emotions and dealing with coming out of a pandemic of which we're still suffering and that. We probably don't even know the level of the depth of problems that students are having. And so the more clear and and. Transparent, the district can be. And the more that we can make clear that we hear that and are taking it seriously, I think that's a lot of reassurance and gives families somewhere to go. And also to hold us accountable if those things aren't being done. But right now it's like you sort of have to know where to go to find answers and you sort of have to have trust and it's hard to do that if you don't see what comes from that, even if something has been done. So. Well. Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that we. There are a lot of creative ideas that can deal with this. So I sit in the Bullen Harassment Council in the state level. We don't do much. We haven't done much for the past two years. And. But we what we have done is come up with right now some ideas of what is happening on the ground. This is not just in Montpelier, the explosion of bullen harassment. And it has to do with race. It has to do with disability. It has to do with being queer and it's exploding in a lot of the middle schools, not just here. The biggest consistent hurdle is that parents don't know their rights in all the materials that every district, including ours has is geared towards kind of like this is a procedure. But parents don't students don't know what their rights are. So it's hard for students to speak up when they don't know how they're protected. And, you know, we don't do a good job at saying like, here's the policy. This is how it works for you. The language is big. The language is legal. Like if you read the policy, it's like, what does that mean? Who's like it is? And like so there are ways to make that more accessible to people so that they know. And I think there is a way to collaborate with families to like it's not about your talents, but like that a conversation needs to be out there. So like I think it's really important to like what ways we can improve the system is one, yes, training is hard. You know, like there's tons of trainings that teachers need to get. And sometimes they get it for like an hour or whatever. I don't know what the process is here at MRPS for every single teacher. But what happens when a teacher transitions out? Do they understand, you know, in our website right now, our policy still has like the Mr. Farrell of the elementary school is hard to, you know, like keep up because there's so many policies and things that need to. So the actual policy and procedure, which is legal by nature and created by lawyers is really not accessible for families. And that's just the truth. And that is has been embedded by many community members that I'm working with and other districts and students and parents that have given them to look back that to see how they can understand the process better. So I think that's one concrete way that we can say we need these materials. Translate into plain language. There's a great organization in Chicago that does their job and it doesn't close match. I just have been trying to say if 32 page report to a six page report, eight page document for $1,200, they have like is really very good. And they're part of the federal program to for plain language. That's like something very specific. And then like that the rest is like kind of a levy's part around how training is being done. And that's why I brought up the intersection between our process and restorative justice and discipline and bullying, harassment, how they connect and how those systems are together and how you like you see it. What we heard is discipline, it's mental health, right? It's like a lot of disruptions. And that is also reflected in the climate and the climate service that says that discipline is kind of like everybody kind of like has different ways of looking at discipline. And so how do we strengthen that system together from our lanes and and and working with the community? Because I think this is one of the things that we are not able to solve as a board of as administrator, but as a community who's out there doing this work and who are who is connecting with the children. How are we connecting with the social workers, with the therapists in town that are dealing with these cases too? So I'm going to bring us back to what kind of presentations you'd like to have and when trainings. I would recommend a train at Dr. Gemma training with Heather Lynn because I've never we've never gotten close to expulsion before this year, but that will be a board that would be a board responsibility to weigh in on that. So I'd like to not be reactive when that happens, but know that you know your roles and responsibilities in that process. So that might be a potential training for you all. And all those repeated. They do a training on Blaine harassment, don't they? They do lots of trainings on harassment. Yeah, one a while ago. Oh, to board to this to the job. Yeah, yeah, we could totally do that. Yeah, it was rather good in terms of I think because I think it's good for us. I mean, I'm not as very correct. Like the the the rules around Blaine harassment are very technical and very legal and very dense. And they did a really good job of kind of distilling it so so we can understand more because I think a lot of times when people are thrown on these terms, like they have they have specific legal meaning that might not be what you think they are. That's also why when you do a Blaine investigation, it takes like hours and hours of human time. So I think me and then Jill. Um, this will probably be a multi part series then because I can't imagine all of that in one night and I would want to make sure that for us to that we would be getting a holistic understanding so that it's in addition to like what's the sort of letter of the law and what is the role of the board if and when something like an expulsion needs to happen. If we would also understand, get more, get an understanding of what. What what could be done to prevent us from getting to a point like that? I don't know if I'm making much sense, but I think that there's more that we can explore beyond just like, OK, the the terrible terrible thing has happened and now we have to do something. Think what I would like to know more about how to prevent this stuff from happening in the first place. And so maybe that would be like we have a new SEBL coordinator at the district level coming in, and that would be, I think, a great presentation to have from them about what's the what's the groundwork happening in the schools? And then that can maybe spark some ideas at the board level of what either policy or investment we could be making to support that. Joe, I was wondering and I will be offended if the board wants to include in this leading up to the budget planning a presentation about the Center Vermont Career Center. So we are members of the Center Vermont Career Center District. I'm your representative on that board and a lot of a good number of Montpelier students do go to the Career Center and we do as a district pay. You know, it is part of our budget that we pay tuition to that. So I'm not sure if it needs to take precious real estate in the budget discussion, but I think it's really helpful for you all in the community to hear about the things that are happening there, the outcomes for those kids, what Montpelier is like uptake of of students that are going there. So I'd love to offer that. It could be like a presentation that Jody and Emerson and I do and I'm open to whatever time of year that makes sense. But I'd love to have like a sort of a once a year spot for this board to get an update on the Career Center. And yeah, I was just related to the discipline. I just want to stick with that. Hold on one second. I'm sorry, I was going to recommend that like the March dates are usually kind of light, Jill, because it's right after the budget has passed. Yeah, here's cross the budget has passed and new board members are on. Can I put it in there? Great. Thank you. Sorry, Emma, go ahead. Restorative justice has been or restorative practices has been a big theme of like from the community asking for it, the SRO Committee recommended it for both board practices and for within the school district. I know that the school district is like moving towards and trying to improve restorative practices within the schools. But it would be good to get a progress report on that. And I don't know if it's just related to sort of this discipline report out and and sort of wrapped up into that. But sort of a progress report on where we stand currently and what the plan is for the school year for restorative practices to improve those within each of the schools. Where would you like to see that? I mean, logically, to me, it feels related to discipline and bullying and harassment. It feels like it's connected. I heard some of the people who spoke tonight it felt like they weren't satisfied with the process. And being a teacher that's worked in schools that use restorative practices really regularly, I feel like a lot of those those emotional experiences where you feel you walk away feeling empty, like nothing has been resolved. Oftentimes, restorative practices help with that. I know that bullying is a whole other very delicate and sensitive subject that both parties have to be involved to be able to to do it well or maybe to do it at all. But I do feel like there are opportunities that are missed in these experiences that I've had personally with my kids and that I've heard community members having with their kids, that there's some missed opportunity there where restorative practices could help heal over those situations. So I feel like it's related. So I'd like to have it somewhere close to that. But if it's not possible, time wise, you know, or even as part of that conversation, I feel like there's sort of two trainings or presentations that we're asking for, one of them is more of more of like, what is the board's role when discipline measures reach the level of board action? That seems separate to me. Then I recommend putting it where we have the CIP continues improvement plans, folding it into that conversation. OK, because it fits in there. Great. Because you're talking about training, like trainings and professional learning around restorative practices is where we are, what our goals are around that. Yeah. So I think that fits into that conversation. Does that work for you? Yeah. And then also just internally, the board, it would be great to have some training and maybe this happens outside of regular meeting time, but a training with the Community Justice Center, like maybe we run through a restorative circle together about an issue or communication mishap that happened internally in the board, because I would like to see that sort of up and running as a tool that we can access if, you know, a measure of support that we can access if something should arise within the board, a confusion or miscommunication or something of that nature. One other thing I would ask for is I love the idea of like exit interview type of presentations, maybe something towards the end of the school year with the administrators like Rose and Thorn type of thing, celebrations, things that went really well, but things that were a struggle within each building. Yeah, I think on one thing we don't think we're going to get to, but I know talked about that. I think it's personally my fault for forgetting is an exit interview with some exiting administrators. Very quick. Yeah, I don't. You're exiting fast. Yeah, I know. I think it was during a board meeting and the executive. We have to do the exact same. Yeah. Yeah, I will just say something that I would really appreciate. Yeah, we're I think it's ticked off for. Yeah, but. Yeah, it's here. I'm just saying. All right. Sorry. Oh, no, go ahead and something that you typed in there, leaving before with the social emotional learning, having Heather Lee do that. No, I was just in addition to I was just a no idea if they could come to that meeting and I was just a note to me to talk with Linlin and like to to see when and if they could come do some trainings or that. I wanted to first take on the the idea that Emma said about partnering with the Community Justice Center. That feels like that's more a threat of the work that we just barely got started with Carol Plant and that Jim and I have volunteered to carry forward. So rather than put that on the board schedule, I'll just own that. We'll we'll get get going. We will get going on that. And I wanted to request I really love that the CIP plans are a presentation to the board already planned. And I wonder if there's if we could piggyback off of any the tracking that you and the principals do over the course of the year, Libby, like, OK, well, here was what our plan was, you know, we're three months past setting that plan. Here's where we think we're at right now. Could we get any little like little mini updates on progress within those plans? Yeah, that that would be considered part in my mind. But if it's not the same as what you're sharing, then please let me know, OK, around the literacy math data, you know, because that directly is impacted by our plans, right, intervention and with our theories of growth and all that kind of stuff. So I would fold it into those presentations. But if that doesn't work, then let me know. Yeah, that I know I think I would agree with you and I'm definitely willing to be like, sure, for this year and then tell you that's not just let me know. So OK, so you've got that November 2nd. There's three times a year. And then. Yep. Oh, yeah. OK, fabulous. Thank you. Thinking how to fold and the recipe piece that we've also heard from. Is that just the special ad? We are. It didn't happen this year because the person we had lined up had couldn't do it. But we have a literacy audit in our IDA, IDEA plan that I'm going to have Peggy Sue or who's our new director of student services line up is like that's going to be one on one of her to-do lists. So can we hold on that? I'd like to get the audit and then be able to present that to the board. I'm sorry. You're going to start. The audit will start. We have to we have to line it up still. But I'd like to get some more information of that's possible first because then the board will get information from an outside entity who specializes in special education systems so we can get some non-subjective data. And would they be auditing this past school year? What what typically happens is they come in and they they audit what's actually happening, the actual practices that are happening in the school currently. Yep. And give us advice on whether there be any data for the special educators to report out on. Specifically, like how I don't know, the complaints that we've heard from the community are basically that we're not meeting needs. I don't know how to report out on whether the special educators in the district feel that that's, you know, true and what they need as supports to be able to meet me specifically what I've heard from most of the people speaking to us about special education is our lack of training in Orton-Gillingham, a structured literacy approach for students who are really tangled in reading and they're accurate, they're 100 percent accurate in that. So that's also that training is also represented in her ARP IDAA grant funding. So that's a very specific type of instruction that the Stern Center very much believes in. And a lot of parents who are talking have spoken with the Stern Center that that's very much what they believe in. So if you want a presentation on Orton-Gillingham, specifically, we can do that at any time. But if you want a presentation of the overall state of our special education system, I would recommend waiting until the an audit can happen. Again, we had that planned. We'll get it. We'll get it going because I find it I think it's necessary. It's often easier for educators and just people in general to hear a person from the outside looking in who specializes in it to get the information that it is from administrators and that kind of thing. And with that, what do you imagine the timeline being for that? I think it would take a while. We have to find the person we had retired. So we have to see if he would be willing to do it as an independent. He was going to do it through EVM. So we have to first make sure you can do it through as an independent consultant. And if he can't do it, then we were going to have to go find somebody else to do it. I don't think so. They're very specific and they want to be looking at all special education. But you think maybe by December, you might have something like that in place? I don't know. I can't give you. I don't want to promise you something that I can't deliver on. So we'll, you know, we'll let pay you to tackle that. That includes some of the question around accessing testing. Like these are the assessments that we do give here, some of the barriers. So in terms of data, I think like for bullying, harassment will be how many kids have we suspended or expells. And if there's any way to disaggregate, somehow that will be helpful. And then for the special ed to be like when you get an audit, like trying to figure out like who's who's trying to get us to like access those testings that we don't have the resources for. I think that I think when we come to some of these newer presentations, I will most likely ask the board exactly that. Can you send me some questions that you're really interested in knowing the data on? Just to be clear, though, we can't expel anybody. You expel people. Achievements, you that's already there in the counter. Yep. Can we leave some blanks so that we can like we always do. Yeah, we always do. Yeah, OK, so that goes in when time when things come up. Yeah. Any other specific trainings that the board is looking for? So these are trainings that don't happen during school board meetings. No, they could happen during school board meetings. They could be through the BSPA. They could be through our lawyers. I think something we brought up a couple of meetings ago was just how the board interfaces with the data animal and really understanding like what, like getting some guidance. I mean, I know we're asking for data, but, you know, just getting some training on how how boards use data in terms of decision making. I mean, I get I'm getting the feeling that this is like, is this the first time the board is really like asking for data or that it's becoming like an organized piece? And I guess the data might just be information. And it might be very clear and we might know exactly what to do with it. But I thought I had seen like a BSPA training specifically on data and just how school boards interface with data and how it can be utilized in effecting decision making. I'm sure the BSPA does something like that or could. Yeah, I'm not sure if it wasn't for the second. I'm with stages jumping in there. I'm guessing sooner rather than later. The other trainings. I'll see if the experience. Let me just think about this. Just like if there is a way to think of another attorney that is not our attorney to the bulletin harassment training. So Heather Lynn created, wrote the policy when the statute passed and the procedures for the agency of education. So they're very involved and they they're the ones that do the trainings for a lot of the districts in Vermont. And what I am learning is that because they're very technical, they're more geared towards like this is how you protect yourself in a way as a school board. And that that might be good. But I think I also want to just hear from the other perspective as well. Like this is how you can support your community in making this better. And like here are some of that research base. Finger training, the one that I know is very policy based. Not so much like this is how that intersects with the social emotion learning, how it connects with all of that in a way that can give us more guidance as to OK, like here's some wiggle room that we could do in terms of whether it's policy or resources or like thinking just like the bigger context since it's such a big problem. Amanda, just to be clear, I would never have come present to you all on social emotional learning and what we can do as a community. What I was saying there is that should an expulsion happen, I have never experienced that as a superintendent and this board has never experienced that and and it very well may happen. Right. And so that would be a training on the board's roles and responsibility with expulsion. That was very clear. I would they are not experts in social emotional learning, so I would not have them come in to do a training on that with you. Yeah, but I think if we want so we should put somewhere an HHB training so that we can tackle what just we heard today at some point, like we all need to be like, here's our policy, here's how it works. And and then this is how it ties in with the social emotional learning pieces and the restorative justice and just like keep that big picture of like, OK, so that we can then go back to the community was like, here are your options or not or like I'm very touched by the stories that I heard today and this is not the first time that I heard and I feel like we should proactively be like, what is our wheelhouse? Our wheelhouse is the policy piece. Try to make it better and knowing how to put the resources and the connections that need to happen. So I just like want us to rather than waiting later on to start thinking about it because of the school year. Are there specific things we can move? You know, like we're looking at weapons before the start of the year. The start of the year. So what are the other things that we can look to kind of minimize the culture that we have right now that we heard today? There must be organizations that are looking at like what schools have been doing that have been successful, what measures are schools put into place? It's hard right now. It's not it's about mitigating. Some of it, you know, it's not like a. Yeah, this is a big discussion. That's what I imagine I don't want to bring in. I also want to bring that my, you know, that I sit in this various positionalities, like looking at this because of all the stories that we hear as a community member, as someone who's doing racial justice who like just like is not like what we heard today is like what is happening in all over the state because of the mental health crisis. It's and because of everything that's happening in the context of the shootings and there's a lot of, you know, explosion of racist incidents that weren't as evident three years ago. Amanda, what you're asking for, is it different than what you saw up there? The the social emotional learning with a focus on bullying and harassment? Are you thinking of something in addition to that? Yeah, well, I see it as one. And then I see I hear maybe rightfully saying that we need to and we should learn what we're going to do if there is a very. Yeah, those are different and they're different, but I see them in the same block. So and I just think like we should make sure that we have those two conversations at some point earlier on earlier on the year, which we don't have that many earlier, sorry, I was wondering when we were on our calendar going to talk about the climate survey and that initial raw data was devastating. And my opinion, I really want us to take that seriously. And I just didn't know is that August? Is that September? You read the contract because we have to actually report back to the. Yeah, so there's a timeline given it just says that the following the survey that a summary and kind of written report needs to be provided back to staff in a timely manner, so that timely manner is really on that committee and coming together and just sifting through all the data and writing a report. So I think we need to give ourselves a timeline and get back to work. OK. And we absolutely do have a statutory requirement as the board to annually, at least provide our policies in age appropriate language and directly to students, including examples of harassment, hazing and bullying. Can you send that to the policy committee, please? Just take a picture of that thing. I have one more request and I don't know who could provide it. But Amanda, you just made me think like I think the board would benefit from an overall presentation on on the state of racial justice in our education system. I don't know, you know, like I don't know who would provide that for us or maybe you maybe you do, but it feels like it's a piece of the context that we none of the one none of the ones that we've asked for so far are touching on. And just for us to, you know, just to keep educating ourselves. I think I get the presentation or training. I just heard two different things from you started as presentation training. No, but you went to training or you went to professional learning. It's not like at the end, I I was thinking more presentation. I'm not thinking of it as a training for the board. I'm thinking of it more as a presentation about the kind of lay of the land. And I'm not saying what is racial justice like in this district. I'm actually thinking about it more holistically as a either the state of Vermont or our nation just as a piece of context for our conversations, because we're not really bringing it in very much. But like I said, I don't know who does those presentation, I'm sure we could find somebody with a mom's help. Where would you like that? I don't know. You ever consider an equity audit of our district? I have not considered an equity or that hasn't been on the list of things. It's so always something we can do. That would be anything. I think it's maybe related, but maybe not. But there is a district equity team. Right. What are they called? The equity team, the district equity team. It would be great to hear from them what their priorities are. And we're starting just next year. OK, so if you were to report out, it would come from them. Oh, now we probably have up for learning come with the students to because the students are doing a lot of the work around just right now. So it probably come from the administrators and the students and up for learning. We're doing a lot of that training at the moment. OK, so sorry. What is the district equity team working on right now? They are what we decided this year was that at the end of this year was that there were too many scattershot groups that were working on desperate things. And so in order to truly move forward, the restorative justice work, we need to focus in on restorative justice. And so we've hired John Kitta and up for learning to help us with that work. And so there isn't a separate team working on that right now. It's I see, you know what I mean? Yeah, but they will be the district equity committee again next or team next year. I don't know if they will or not. OK, well, if there is a district equity team next year, I would like to hear from them, maybe towards the end of the school year. There will not be one for next school year, like a distinguished team for next year. OK, because they've shifted their focus to restorative justice, because we've restricted it. Yeah, instead of doing desperate things, we're all focusing in on the restorative justice piece. When you say we all like everyone in the district, all committees or teams are now doing. No, not all teams, sorry. But the work around equity is focusing in on restorative practices. And so the the people who are planning and doing a lot of that work are the people who are directly tied with up for learning, which was different than the equity team and will they so the equity team or what was the equity team will continue their work with John Kitta and restorative practices for next year, as will all the staff in the district. OK, but everybody. Yes, yeah, I'm sorry, but they're the leadership team. Necessarily around it. OK, so just there just was like too much work to be done to have an equity team. Sounds like there are too many disparate things happening because of the equity team and the equity team was one of those disparate factions that was separating people and needs too much. I see. I think we need to talk about it because that gives us just. Kind of like a frame. You know, like look at special ed and like. I know a few districts that have done it and. Kind of it's a better kind of like tool to be able to plan. We have like this just we have a special ed audit, we have. The climate we have like all just things that can feed us. Close the data. It will just feed us with a lot of work that we can do together to to be better. I joined a chapter. I cannot really go to that's mine. I'm happy to hand the chair to Mia. You guys want to keep talking into the wee hours. Is there a quick way we can can wrap up for the people that joined similarly? I mean, I think this I think we've got a good start. A sort of live process that can be amended later as needs arise. And as we all have time and energy and mental wherewithal to meditate on what was popcorn tonight. Yeah, I think, I mean, unless it's other. And I think taking it up again with a vision committee with a retreat in August, I think we can think more about what we've talked about. I think we've got some really good things. Yeah. Out there and, you know, give Libby some some time to clear her brain and think about it and us as well. And we can throw out some time at the August retreat to look at what we've got and see if there are gaps or if our minds have changed. It's not a training thing, but we had talked about committee updates. See that that we dropped just regular committee updates throughout throughout. Wondering if it's a standing agenda. OK, we can we can we can slot them in there. If it's not an agenda and you feel like we should just let me know. I heard an emotion to a turn over there. I think the motion. Second. Was it ever I.