 to get started. And Mia just texted and said she's running a little bit late. She's just trying to get her computer to cooperate. And Jay may not be able to make it. He has a conflict with another city committee that he's on. Though he might try to pop in later. I think that's who I've heard from. So we're called to order the meeting of the monthly or Roxbury public schools. School safety and police relations committee. And I don't see any public present. Aside from Orca media. So I think we can skip public comment. And move to the consent agenda for approval of meeting minutes. We've got March 16. March 17 and March 23rd that Joan has linked into the chat. I don't know if people have had enough time to review them if you want to take a minute before we vote. I'll wait for a motion. If someone ends up feeling ready. Then speak up. I always feel like I shouldn't. If I typed it then it seems sketchy for me to say yeah it's fine. I'll make a motion to approve meeting minutes from March 16, March 7 and March 23rd. Is there a second. Great. Susan. I. Amanda. Joan. I. Catherine. William. Edie. Oh, Zach did come back. Hi. Hi. I'm sorry. The dog is wanting to participate tonight. Okay. So the, the first part of the agenda is the plan is to break up into our working groups for about 25 minutes. And just have some time to review what you've done and maybe add to it. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and do this. Are there any questions before heading into those break out rooms? I'm going to tend to the dog for just a second. The breakout room sound good to me because I think our group, we were hoping to use some time to work tonight. So that feels good to me. I have created the breakout groups the same way that I did last time for that work meeting that we had, but I'm going to go ahead and do that. And then I'm going to open breakout rooms and then you'll be able to choose which one you go into. And some, some people, I think it was like co-hosts couldn't choose. So whoever's left behind, I'll make sure you get into the right room and Orca can choose whichever room they want to go into. It looks like the old timing, like two hours was left on there. Maybe I'm not going to the right spot. It's okay. I'll just put you into budget. I'm going to, for you and Zach, I'm going to stay in the main room just for a minute to make sure everybody gets to a room. And then I'll come back. I can't choose Emma, please, please put me in policy. Okay. That's funny that because this time you're not a co-host. I know it's really. Okay, so. We have a break scheduled for 610, which is an eight minutes. We could take that start that break now instead and come back. Come back at 610, which would be an eight minute break. Does that feel good to everyone? Okay. It's always nice to get ahead of the game. So yeah, let's break until 10 past six. Okay. So the next part of the agenda is just, just have a presentation or a reading of the first draft from each group. So I have the core values group listed first. And do you want to project anything I can make you a co-host so you can do that? I mean, it's short, but. You should be able to now. Share screen. This one. Okay. And I just say that we have about 15 minutes per group. So I was thinking like presentation and then sort of like question and answer or helping to fine tune. And then move on to the next group. Yes. So we, the, eventually this will become a vision statement, but at the moment we just split up the core values and there were, there are three of us and there were six sections. So we've each taken two. And we are still in the process of revising them. From their initial role as a guiding principle for our work. To then an intermediary focus of additional brainstorming bullet points. Stuff we threw at them a few weeks ago. To a final form of. To a final form of a vision statement. Once we have all revised our separate. Value sections. Then we plan to. Make it all one thing that is a vision statements to, to, that is faces the future of this work as we pass it off. To the board. So the initial. So these will probably all smooch together in some way. And then we'll move on to the next slide. And then we'll move on to the next slide. A lot of it has been summarizing some of the bullet points and making them paragraph formed or separating. Them into new forms. The initial one. The first paragraph is pretty much unchanged. And then a facing the future discipline and mediation must be grounded in the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion. Current policies and practices should be reexamined through an independent school. And so the last slide. So I'm going to talk about how it was built with consistent fidelity throughout the entire school community. Mostly what we talked about just now. For the past 20 minutes or so. Was about. Consistency. And, and communication. And the three schools. How they can. Barry. My apologies, Roxbury. Yes, all of the schools can get more on the same page and how that would help. And so as you can see, some of this is still being drafted and hashed out. And a lot of what we just talked about was giving ourselves permission to depart from the initial draft now that these same principles are doing something new. So out of the initial hesitancy that all of us felt to change it only slightly, because this was such an important document, to now throw ourselves into changing it a lot as it transforms to a new purpose. And yes, my apologies for the draftiness, the incompleteness of it. But we're feeling good about the steps ahead within the time frame that we have. I just want to clarify the timeline here for people. I don't know if everyone talked about it in their groups, but we are tentatively on the agenda for the school board to present our work to them on April 14th. So we would have another meeting next Tuesday. Or we could skip next Tuesday and do the 13th. And then we had planned on having like an hour long meeting prior to the board meeting on the 14th. So I think it's totally fine. And that's the core values part is a pretty heavy lift. There's a lot there and we want to get it right. So I appreciate the time that you're taking on that. And I think it makes sense that it's drafty currently. And I definitely like the statement that you wrote for the first one. There was sort of like a paragraph that was more about the core value and then another paragraph about how it relates to now looking at safety through the lens of this core value. I think that was a really solid formatting. I need a little bit of a reminder of what the purpose of adding or sort of rewording the core values is for the April 14th meeting. We probably discussed this two weeks ago and I'm just, but yeah. It's a bit of a blur for me too. But reconstructing it, as I understand it is partly just reframing the same basic principles and passing the baton to the school board. And it's a shift of focus. And it's a shift of, I mean some of the sentences in the original things that we drafted just cut and paste and fit right in. But from the really focused work of this committee to the broader work that we've been talking about of new policies and district-wide things and what we hope to see, it's, sorry, long day. It's a shift of, it feels like a pretty significant shift of direction and intent, even if the articulated value is identical. And a lot of the, like we drafted the original document and then there was a moment about a month ago when we went back to it. Was that a month ago? I don't remember. And we just threw a lot more things at it. We did more brainstorming in groups and we split them up. We each took a couple values and then switched up the values and added a whole bunch of bullet points. That was this great generative brainstorming exercise that opened up the application of each foundational thing from the SRO question to the larger questions that we're handing off. But they were also all over the place because it was that kind of brainstorming session of, I mean I just described it in our breakout group as throwing spaghetti at the wall. So there's just a lot more material that we're trying to honor while also make coherent. And so a lot of moving things around, a lot of noticing redundancies when we added bullet points that are more or less identical to more than one of the values. It's the wrestling with those additional brainstorming material is a lot of what we're trying to honor as we redraft it. Susan? I was also thinking that it's sort of like going to be handy for the board, right, as they're making decisions. It's sort of like this guide or whatever, like while you're making decisions, please keep this in mind. And as somebody who works in this district, it's really helpful to have those guides. We're sort of looking at things with an equity lens now. So a guide of thinking about equity, diversity, and inclusion. So I think that's another purpose of the document eventually. Yeah. Katherine? Yeah. You know, the elementary school parents group put together an equity checklist. And that's what kind of popped in my mind with this. It's like kind of like a checklist for the board or for whoever uses it. So yeah. Oh, Joan, go ahead. Oh, well, I was just gonna say that's all helpful. And I guess I just didn't realize that the core values were like reopened. I thought that they were sort of finished. And they were presented. So I guess I didn't I missed the part in our process where they kind of got reopened for for their evaluation and rewarding. Yeah, I see it also as like, like Susan said, as directly tying the core values and sort of explaining how we see these core values fitting into the future of safety and restorative practices and justice and, you know, discipline and behavior management and all of that stuff within the schools. Now that we're moving forward with sort of a new model that doesn't include a direct presence of armed police officers. So that's why I was talking about the formatting of that first one. It seemed like you had done the most work maybe on that first one. And it was like a nice to synced explanation of the core value that was sort of reflective of what we had originally written. And then a second paragraph explaining how we hope that these will be implemented moving forward, what they look like in practice. That's the goal. And yes, we're we're it would be a much heavier lift to completely open them up to creating whole new core values or like they're the goal is very much to keep them the same and just to switch the application. Yeah, and I think the board will appreciate sort of the consistency of like this was the one of the most important things that this committee did was sort of identify with the community through all these different processes of what our core values are around safety in schools. And now here this is how we see them, you know, sort of in practice moving forward. Does anyone have anything else to add in terms of what we're hoping this product will look like when it's finished? This just came to me and it might actually be me assigning work to my working group and not to the vision statement working group. But I wonder if it we have this list of policies that we've identified that could use some updating thanks to the work that this committee has done. And I wonder if it's worth us tying say like the harassment bullying harassment and hazing policy and saying we think that it's particularly weak or I don't know could use improvement around compassion empathy and belief in each other so we have a strong recommendation not just to use the value statement in general but to really dig into how do we live out this value of compassion empathy and belief in each other through a policy that addresses how we interact with each other and sometimes not our best moments. So you're the committee you're planning on writing a like a one page sort of introduction vision statement type thing in addition to the work that you're doing on the core values. There's some debate as to whether there is a an introductory vision statement or whether the core values themselves become the vision statement by redrafting them with this different focus in different direction and different application. The revised description of each value is kind of becoming the vision statement itself. So I'm not sure we need I mean depending on how the next couple of steps of revising go they might they might not be two different documents they're they're beginning to merge at least in my brain stop me if that sounds labor. I could picture it being presented like PowerPoint style with like a vision for safety through the lens of the core values you know and then each core value talking about what the vision of safety is through the lens of that core value and not and not needing you know a vision statement what do other people think. I also want to make sure like if there's questions from the committee members the working group members you know that you would like help from the larger group you know is there anything that you need from us while we're all together. I'm sure there's a really smart question to be asked in this moment I'm sure it exists. We can come back to it we could also do it over email. Okay so we'll move on to policy recommendations and we only have Mia here to represent your working group. I don't mean we only have Mia in that way. Emma you have access to this document I shared it with you earlier today so you could just go ahead and screen share for folks to all be looking at the same thing. It's entitled SSPR committee recommendations policy. Okay a little slow going but I think I have it. No problem. It's fairly straightforward I think and definitely open to feedback on the on what we're planning on including but the two main things we're planning on including are the the act the recommendations around policies themselves and then what the board should consider and keep in mind when either writing a brand new policy or reviewing a policy so or redrafting. So under the policy recommendations themselves the one that we found that is a missing piece of the district's you know policy platforms or whatever is there is no policy around conflict resolution or you know sort of the old way of thinking about it discipline and then there's a set of maybe a half dozen or so if you scroll down Emma of policies that we identified that could use some updating through this new lens of what's what our safety values are and then if you scroll down even further there's the oh sorry before we move on to the considerations we are we are also no go ahead keep scrolling Emma this paragraph here the committee is not recommending writing an MOU with the Montpelier police department was something that we after discussions with both superintendent bone steel and the and Jay our our city representative had a conversation with chief Pete and both of them felt it wasn't really necessary and we concurred that because the district doesn't have a formal relationship with the police department an MOU doesn't really make sense however because the district because there will still be interactions of police with people within our schools that the sort of way that our values can and should be represented around that can live in the conflict resolution policy and then the this at the bottom here are some considerations that we are or things that we're asking the board to keep in mind when updating or writing policies number one there is that the community values around safety or you know vision statement whatever we end up naming this just so that it's consistent throughout all of our documentation we'll call it that here as well we'd want the board to start with those as as the lens through which they're viewing any policy that they're going to write or update the next thing to keep in mind is that policy is where accountability lives including any data that we think we need to gather in order to measure progress or hold ourselves accountable Jen mentioned that district administrators update handbooks and procedures every summer and they look at policy of course in order to make sure that their procedures are compliant with that and that we can best articulate the learning environment we aspire to by using positive languages in our policies and framing in our policies so many of them are written as like you may not or you shall not do or whatever and we think one of the ways that we can really lean into nonviolent communication for example is to have that framed in certainly naming very clear expectations but have it framed more in a positive way and then the last one is that most of people in our community are not familiar with our policies so not necessarily that this is something that you would do in drafting it but we're asking the board to keep in mind and to be thinking about ways to make policies more than just transparent because of course they all live on our website but how is it that we bring the community into participating in these policies so that's what we have so far oh if you can scroll back up please Emma one thing I was working on when I was in my breakup group by myself was looking around particularly for the conflict resolution policy to see if there are any examples and then I started moving on down to other ones but I didn't get very far but managed to find a real gem at the Seattle Public Schools has a very simple so this is the next phase of the work basically you know kind of between now and the board meeting is I'll be doing and and others are welcome to as well a little bit of research to see what else is out there that we could offer as you know just for the board to look at and build off of yeah so this right here introduction policy statement those two paragraphs right there are that's it that's the Seattle Public Schools policy on conflict resolution it is rooted in as you can see right above it beliefs which to me feel like the work that we have been doing around you know safety values so there there's and then just you can see like as they share this stuff with the community it's all linked very clearly on their website so questions thoughts offerings my first thought is dang that was a good job thank you I'll open it up now to it's a lot is the team effort we had many different conversations to put all this together I yeah I mean I think it's great I really um like that you're focusing on that conflict resolution that's definitely missing um I was thinking down when you at I can't remember now but down at the bottom with the considerations and how I'm just wondering where we can add student voice I don't know how voice can be considered I don't know if we have a student rep on the school board or like where student voice can be come into policy creation or revision I worked with Burlington high school students a couple years ago and redrafting the handbook as it really impacted them and they didn't really agree with a lot of the policy so I don't know if yeah I just don't know where if we can include student voice more that's great then the next thing I was going to ask for was any additions anything anything you think need to be added so I definitely it's named in our value statement but I don't see any reason not to pull it out and and say a specific name it specifically as a consideration and after seeing all these policies Mia it really does kind of make me think that it might be nice to link them to our core values like what you were saying earlier yep yeah it could be like a sub point under each suggested policy this is one where we think it could really use some some beefing up yeah oh sorry I mean I knew there was something else you asked specifically is there a student rep on the school board and there there is um there has been in the past I think there's like the aspiration to have one but we I don't think we have like a real clear process at least I don't know what the process is for a student to join to be appointed to the school board I it doesn't live it actually doesn't live in our policies I don't think because I've read the board expectation policy and I'm not sure there's anything about a student rep on that one just at one of our last few meetings and they uh Jim talked about how they I know that when I used to watch board meetings it was like there was always two students on the board um they don't participate in decision-making I don't think they vote um and they don't participate in executive session um but it's definitely on the radar but we should bring it back up on the radar and just yeah happen I think it was when we transitioned to zoom and virtual meetings that we sort of lost track of having students involved in that but as we know students are very good participators in virtual committees so um I'll bring it back up with Jim thanks Amanda yeah I had a question I understand the statement about the MOU with the police department and I just wonder about um like ensuring that when when police are involved that the practices they're using agree with our core values and yeah I know that's like not really our job that's the police department job but I also feel like it is a little bit our job so can you talk about that a little yeah that's a that's a really good point I would agree with you that it is incumbent on us to set a standard and an expectation to say that when we are asking you to assist there are certain things we're gonna ask you to follow on because they meet the building expectations now even as I say that out loud I could see how like they can't that can't be like if there's an emergency and the police show up they have to follow their own set of protocols for that so there's probably there's got to be some sort of balance of those things but um I think I think that's what we meant by having that named in the conflict resolution policy um and then from there it's a matter of the district staff in this case it would be Libby um I think working with the police department to say this is then what we need to put in place as far as like actual procedures we definitely could bring that up to or when I say we will has stepped up to volunteer to help be our liaison with the city committee that's working on analyzing um police practices in our town and so that could be something that we make sure from our committee that we add to their template you know our core values something like that yeah and I think the other place it can live is in the the one in the handbooks because Jen was saying that it's in the handbooks is where it's laid out these are the situations under which you would call the police so it's not necessarily that the school handbook doesn't say and here's how the police should behave when they show up but it does get to the um establishing the standards for when it is appropriate to call the police and when it's not and I think one of the changes we're working on we very broadly um in the district is our shifting habits from um the default of okay we got to call the police right now so so I think it makes sense to to something that's more like this is now how we handle a situation like x y or z whereas before the default was to call the police and that takes some time and some work to and should also should live in the handbooks it sounds like is the right place for that Mia was there anything that came up in your working group um that you would want specific feedback from this group while we're all together just any additions to the stuff around other things that the board should be considering when updating policies um I think we have a pretty good I think we've gotten pretty comprehensive on which policies need addressing so it's more of the considerations part okay any other questions or input from me on um I just like looking at all of it I've been thinking about the importance of the data collection part because I feel like I was just wondering if if we're hoping that's like an annual sort of thing and that like influences the the like reviewing the handbook every year and stuff like that but I don't know I just like I hope that that's a really key part of the recommendation because that's just like actual evidence that can be used every year and I just really liked um you linked something it was the western justice center foundation they like have a clear connection between like um conflict resolution pact education and how that is directly tied to academic achievement and I just like would really hope that the school like considers that but I think it's you have a really great draft so far thank you I'm putting some of these comments or adding them as comments into your document Mia um yeah I was thinking about the handbook too that um it feels like the handbook is like sort of quickly revised and really by only school administrators and I feel like student voice and staff voice and that more eyes could be on that handbook I mean when we brought it up it was like not everyone knew where to find it or what exactly it was or you know if there was a separate one for each school so it seems like there could be a process by which you know maybe at one of the maybe maybe some teachers are given like a stipend to like give an hour of their time over the summer to look at the handbook and make comments on how it could be revised because it does feel a little bit like things quickly evolve and best practices change and that handbook and ends up staying a little bit outdated and we're always playing catch up with it so I don't know if that's something that we could type in as a recommendation under the bullet points but um I would like to see a more collaborative process when looking at revising the handbook annually yeah Emma I was just going to jump in sorry Eliana and just say it used to be like a printed handbook right and now it's just scanned in printed pages so it's not even like you know it's it's it's really already way outdated so working off of that doesn't make sense like maybe revitalizing the handbook or rethinking the maybe it need it should be a website instead of a handbook or something like that um so I'm right there with you on that yeah like like a wiki doc yeah I was just thinking like another way to include more student voice in that revision would just be like sending out a similar survey to the one that we just sent out to the students about their knowledge of the current um conflict resolution practices because I think as a baseline like a lot of kids just don't really know what it is and that's really interesting and I think if we could watch that change over the next few years like that would be a really good indicator of how well our policies are doing um and I don't know who would send it out or if that would happen but I just like I wouldn't want to just cast that aside because I think it was really cool and yeah if if we couldn't have like it's just an indirect way to have a lot of student input in that revision I guess just broadly um I something I've noticed about um handbooks at a bunch of different schools and a bunch of different kinds of schools and how terrible they usually are um there's there they're often um reactionary in that they they describe some sort of thing just went wrong that the handbook did not help with and so language will be added to the handbook of the kind that we wish had been there a month ago before the thing went wrong so it's always there's just a weird kind of time travel and very rarely a forward thinking um revision or or sensibility while drafting them um that and so the so what um I I wish what you're describing now had it was a process that had been envisioned and put into practice for pretty much every student and faculty handbook I've seen that they're they're usually very patchwork um things trying to respond to something that's already happened yeah making it more proactive and less reactive um and I like the idea of it being like a website something that when you make a change it's immediately seen you don't have to wait for it to be like republished at the end of the year you know and the whole it definitely relates to all of our conversations around communication and transparency and like bringing people into the fold and letting them know like what our values are and what our systems are um so that also could be part of the core values work somewhere I'm sure it already is but the handbook could directly be named in that so um are we okay to move on to the budget recommendations okay I'm gonna hope for Amanda to take the lead on that do you want me to um project Amanda or share screen and then Zach I figured I would just share since your internet connection isn't great unless you want to hop in that sounds good with me I can add anything in the chat if it's wacky great I appreciate it so Emma's gonna share um what we have in a very drafty form as well um some ideas for the school board around um budget and spending money so this community liaison position was um given to us as an idea from Libby Bonesteel um as we're getting a pretty hefty I don't know what the number is a chunk of money the district for um recovery I think it's for recovery I'm not really sure what it's for exactly um and since the SRO position is no longer um we've eliminated it and a big part of what the SRO did was working on truancy the idea was hiring um a person tight I don't know the title could be something different a community liaison position that would be um working um with uh families caregivers and students who are struggling with truancy um so we just bulleted some ideas of what that position like what we'd be looking for with somebody um in that position so um a social worker licensed mental health counselor um they would build and maintain strong and positive relationships with students families community resources schools um again this is all in draft form so we'll welcome any feedback um advocate for families and students work closely with the school counselors social workers administration facilitate and attend meetings I'm not going to read word for word um unless you guys want me to um provide a bridge between school and home for students and families by providing families and community support uh and resources that will help them to be in a better position to engage so really the whole idea of this person they're trauma informed with um resiliency practices restorative justice um experience um conflict resolution experience um experience working with diverse families and systems family systems um and they would really help like they would we don't have like Libby told me they don't we don't have a lot of folks who are truan but it's a handful who need a lot of direct support and could really use um wrap around like really targeted wrap around support um and what else did I want oh the other piece is that I um I'm going to bring this idea to the social workers in the school uh in both all three schools um to get their feedback and ideas and suggestions around this position as well um and add to it before I write up a whole job description um and then the last piece was um that's highlighted there is to help create a local community support network who can be called upon to advocate for students and their caregivers based on their prior experience with either truancy community justice local police so I think the idea here is like to really utilize um community members who have had experience potentially with truancy or the police if that's what we're dealing with and can really provide a support um to our students and families and advocate in that way so that's the first idea it's a pretty big idea I guess um and then other ideas we had for the budget were trainings um the the district's already moving towards restorative practices um so I suspect that's already in the budget but to really re-emphasize the importance of that and we kind of put down some ideas of who um who could be beneficial to do trainings um the district's already using john kidda who who works with lots of school districts in the state to do trainings um and then trauma-informed practices and resiliency so thinking about trainings and consultation with um currently the district's using joelle van lent um maybe continuing with that um there's another woman she works with julian brudrow and then um we just recently added dav melnick who is a psychologist who works I think he worked with our district ms said like seven years ago um on trauma training um we have such you know there's staff turnover so it's kind of like this training can't just be one and done which I think we've done in the past and it really needs to be reinforced and over and over again um then we added mandatory conflict resolution training for all staff um and then the last piece what was the community justice center is just having money set aside if if needed for families to access the community justice center as I guess we we found out um last year families who were participating in it with the community justice center ended up having to pay a fee um that was associated with it so if we had a chunk of change set aside to help families and caregivers and students with that that's what I that's what we have so far for ideas any suggested edits revisions additions I'll just say that I was able to follow up with katie berea today to interview her a little bit more about the questions we had presented to her and um she did mention that truancy was a big issue that she feels is a gap I've been glad to hear there was going to be somebody to work with that I can just speak for myself like I don't ever I don't feel like I do students enough I don't do enough for our students who are truan and I don't have enough time in my schedule and it really needs like really specific and it just needs a lot of time and attention so I think having a person dedicated to that could be really helpful potentially I don't know it's a tough tough issue I think you guys did some really great work and I'm noticing themes under each one of those ideas right so it's like um training in restorative justice practices um relationships with resources that can help and I really wonder if we want to really hone in on the part about the trainings for everyone you know um I I feel like that's really going to be super important including like bus drivers and coaches and like everyone everyone and um that's going to be expensive and kind of a challenge but I I think it's we definitely want to highlight it um and emphasize it I appreciate this work you guys did it's a really good plan it's exciting yeah I I agree Susan it like everybody needs to be included and that's just partly like if we're building relationships everyone should feel like they matter in our part are important in in the school yeah that's reminding me of um Andrew LaRosa did a presentation at the um board meeting last last board meeting about um the facilities all the different buildings and one thing he really highlighted was the um the head of maintenance at the middle school really leans into developing relationships with students and how they have I don't know if it's a causation or simple simply a correlation but there's no graffiti there's like no graffiti at the middle school and that it's not necessarily that students are afraid they're going to get in trouble it's like they have a relationship with this guy and anyway that was what he was highlighting and it just I'm remembering that now talk as you all are saying like everybody should have this these you know build up these skills I don't know oh go ahead go ahead Aliana oh I was just going to say I really like that like it's making me think of a sort of like a Russian doll like the inside is these really strong relationships with everyone and really really awesome practices we have within the schools and then but once we can't necessarily deal with something and anymore if it gets beyond our can our our capacity we have this other shell that's just this still really strong resource like the community justice center or even if it has to be the police sometimes like and we just keep going out into these other layers of like really strong systems and I just like it's really cool that to emphasize the the most inner shell as well because that's where it all starts just with the relationship so not any feedback but I was just thinking that I love that that's work um on this training's piece I don't know um if it lives here in the budget but it feels like there's something around and this might just be I don't know that it exists already and I don't know that exists but there's something around like is there any sort of measurement of of our progress along the lines of getting more and more proficient in conflict resolution and using restorative practices um so that it's like we now have I don't know 75 percent of of district staff are fluent and can can intervene not intervene well whatever I as you can see I wouldn't know what that measurement would be necessarily and again I'm not sure it lives in the budget or maybe it goes into policy but um it feels like what we need to be doing is like setting these like benchmarks for us to be moving toward on this long journey of we're always working to get better at it of course um but that we are moving in like towards some sort of goal yeah I may I think that's a good idea we need to put that somewhere I just don't know where well and I almost wonder if it's kind of like um you know the each building or each school sets its goals right for the year and they vary right with with the ages and the levels so it might be a task for each school to have one of their yearly goals focused on conflict resolution right I mean that might be enough to start yeah that's a great idea yeah that could be part of the like handbook revision process at the tail end it's like oh so now we can see that we didn't necessarily comply with what we said and so how can we turn that into a goal for the next year I just had a little thought about the community liaison position and I'm wondering like if there's data around truancy which I'm sure there is if if you know at what grade level or which school it's the most problematic and if we might recommend this person's office be in that school whichever school is sort of struggling with it the most um unless it's just a dead heat across all schools I don't know the answer to that Emma I do think that the issues are different based on the age um but I don't know where I bet it's the same across the board but well I don't know maybe Libby has that data I don't know if I can like eloquently further the Russian doll metaphor but it's sort of like you know it does seem to all boil down to relationships and if there's like strong relationships and sort of a strong understanding of the value around like consistently attending school and being part of the school community if that's sort of instilled from a young age and this person this social worker starts to work with families at a very young age and they build their relationships when they're in middle school and then they like move through the system with them maybe can we can we make that fit to the Russian doll um okay so should we move on to the report out to the community group and do one of you want to project or share screen we'll have a couple different things to share should we do we Susan do you want to start with your one pager sure I think I can share I think I have the ability yeah I just keep making people co-hosts in the end well just I'll be co-hosts so um one of we we had a couple of different ideas of sharing to for the community and um this was one of them and it's really draft and the little icons don't really work um they're just there as placeholders but um it it's sort of like a one pager a graphic design thing just reporting out what we did as a team and it's trying to keep it pretty simple um and trying to relate to sort of your average community member who hasn't been involved in the process sort of what we've been doing and so it's really just a head start and as I said the graphics don't really work um but um Eliana and Joan and I came up with these headers and then we thought we could you know populate the content a little bit but that's one of the things we were thinking would be real handy and we could have it in a physical form or it could actually be shared electronically um we thought we could talk to Anna a little bit Anna Hipco because that is part of her job um public relations in social media um so that's just one thing we've just barely started on um and then we had a couple other ideas of ways to share out so I'll stop now and also with that like if people were intrigued by it which they will be they can like um access all of our materials um with if it's online like everything we've used so the document will be pretty straightforward but there's more underneath it that people can access um and we also talked to oh Will did you want to add a comment I did just a I like the current icons that though at least one of them implies that there's a vaccine against bullying so that sounds great there was a person in a bathing seat that I'd covered up but I couldn't cover up earlier I don't know what that was one um we also talked about possibly preparing a short commentary for our local newspapers that um it could I guess we can talk about this more whether it would be on behalf of the committee as a whole or if individual members of the committee would just independently sort of um publish this but I can share an outline oh that's the wrong button um while you're sharing I'm gonna just read this up now because this was something that I think I forgot I don't know if I can't remember if I brought it up at the last meeting or not but um there are a couple of senate bills right at the Vermont legislature around um school resource officers and uh even sort of behavioral discipline type of policies and they have an interest in having um um what's the formal word for it testimony testimony testimony so yeah I thought perhaps I mean we would want to run it by a liby and make sure that it was okay for the committee um to be included in that testimony but individual committee members could testify or we could try to do something um as a group um so this is this is just an outline of what could be included and it's really meant to be more informational than sort of take you know advocating for any particular policies um that's something pretty short you know 500 words or so that basically talks through um why the why our committee's work is important a summary of what you know what our charge was the timeline of what we've done why it's important for the whole community to know about this and care about it um and really just summarizing the main points of the presentation made in February the final outcomes that we'll deliver at the April meeting and inviting people to learn more by checking out the website um so it's really this is really just as I as I said designed to be really a report in the sort of objective sense um but you bringing up the bills um um you know I yeah so there could be further opportunity for other kinds of commentaries either from the committee as a whole or just individuals um and um Eliana had raised the thought of having the students on our committee kind of take the lead on actually writing this which I guess you three can decide if you um if you want to take that on and um yeah and then we can decide whether this is something that's sort of signed as the committee whether it is and I don't know exactly what the protocol is for that sort of for this sort of thing in terms of public statements which this would fall under in the category right of a public statement so I can look into that question yeah thanks Emma um Eliana do you want to add anything well yeah also like just looking at both what Susan presented and what you presented I feel like we could also try to make them overlap like even a little more like the the commentary can just be a more in-depth version of the one pager um but also including the points you mentioned because they're really important so yeah and also Mia said that it looks like a script of a podcast episode and that's what another one of our ideas was to present to the community so yeah yeah and I think I mean having the same main points in like these different formats is actually great because some people will will listen to the podcast and others will read the paper and others will be like drawn to the really visual graphic thing but probably not everyone's going to check out all all three um and then the last idea was I don't know Susan do you want to say more about the Mary Mello bridge connection oh sure so Mary Mello has been consistently writing articles for the bridge that are about sort of crucial issues in our school district and um I think everybody knows her but she was a longtime kindergarten teacher in the district was she your teacher Emma? She was she was my kindergarten teacher and then she also was Petra's kindergarten teacher so she's retired now but she's taken on writing and um I thought she might be able to help us write a um or help us share some of our information she sort of has a particular style of being gentle and sort of being kid focused so it would it might be another interesting way to share some of the work we've done um I haven't had a chance to connect with her yet but I hope to see if that sounds good to the group. Honestly yeah that sounds so cool like I didn't really I didn't know it had this sort of different tone and I feel like that's really important because making our information as palatable to anyone as possible is like really cool in terms of like transparency and stuff so I like that. And we haven't you know since we're part of what we're putting together is just summarizing um the work we've done and then once we've finished up after April 14th we'll be able to actually finish so our work will kind have to continue a little bit past um that April board meeting just based on whatever we all you know put together and present um but yeah any thoughts? I want to thank you Joan for just like bringing up the idea of having this as one of the end products because as you're talking about it it's like the most exciting part for me like I'm very excited about the ideas that you're talking about um and I think it's going to be really necessary because we've actually this committee has sort of become like a beacon for people all across the state that are considering removing their school resource officers and at the legislative level when they're talking about it we've been considered sort of a model like somebody to point to you know they've been talking about the good work that this Montpelier committee has been doing so all of you are sort of locally famous across Vermont for the work that we've done on this committee and people have been emailing me a couple different school districts who are forming similar committees have emailed me to ask for input and explain our process and so this is exactly like if we had something easy to forward on and make public for other schools who are going through this process um and at the state level for the work that they're doing I think it's really valuable so thank you. I think this all looks so great what you guys have put together so thank you for your what you've done so far I am like MS I'm really excited about it. Is it okay to put Edie, Aliana and Zach on the spot for a moment and here if you all if you think you'd be willing to draft that commentary that'll just help us figure out like what the next steps are that piece of um the work or if you're if you're not ready to say that's fine too you can we can circle back. I'm into it. Zach says yes and yeah um we yes we talked Aliana like asked us a little bit about that um and I think Zach and I both said like we could totally say some stuff there. Yeah we could each just even take on a few bullet points and then like edit each other's work and stuff. Fantastic I I know um in the draft that we created in our working group Zach was I feel like Zach you have a future as an editor if you're interested because your comments were so great you know and definitely added to our draft. Any other ideas or input or questions for that working group? Just want the thought on the podcast I I don't know how long it takes to like the lead up for these is but it seems like um Libby and Anna have got a pretty good schedule going because there's been four that come out now so I'm wondering if it makes sense to email them and say hey could we talk about this or get on your radar or you know and maybe signpost it for shortly after the April 14th board meeting um to to do it and see if one if they think it would be a possibility and if they're open to it and then two um get it get it scheduled and get get the ball rolling on it so it's not like too far after the fact um and then figuring out who we think would be good guests because I'm I'm guessing it would be Libby interviewing people that's how the format they've been doing so far um and I don't know if any of you have listened to them I think they're great um she's interviewed staff of the district she's interviewed a student she's interviewed teacher she's interviewed administrator so we could probably just have our pick of the people in this committee to and I would definitely advocate for at least one of the students to be one of the interviewees um probably no more than three people um I'd love to see one of our community members be one of one of the interviewees and maybe Susan or Amanda like I think that would be a really great rounding out of our cast of characters um so but I just wanted to flag it as it seems like we should probably get going on that even before some of these other things are in place if I will initiate that email to Anna and Libby and I will cc um Joan Susan and Eliana on it okay um so I wanted to close out with getting I guess we need to firm up our meeting schedule first so um how are people feeling we have I mean I think the pace of this meeting was really manageable and it makes me feel like we're getting really close to the finish line um so you know we can continue work in our working groups on sort of finalizing these drafts do you think we should meet again on the sixth or on the 13th which are both Tuesdays um we could meet on both but for shorter amounts of time just to sort of check in on the draft process what are people's thoughts I feel like um like if we were to meet again next week like I like most of the like time would just be with each subcommittee meeting with each other like that would be like a check-in point but I also feel like those groups can sort of do that on their own time like I feel like maybe just having the 13th meeting is good um because between now and then it's just going to be the subcommittee committees working together but yeah I don't know oh and the the sixth is Zach's birthday so Joan celebrated her birthday with us so we're expecting Zach to attend we could throw you a party here perfectly fine last week it worked really well to have the the meeting open um just to for for working groups to show up and make use of the breakout rooms and about half of us did and half of us didn't so um and and my my my working group talked about that that would be a good and helpful thing next Tuesday so do we feel okay about a a non-mandatory but open room possibility yeah that's really easy for me to get organized so I could just uh warn a meeting that's really just work time for the working groups and so and what we did was we just put all the working groups into breakout rooms for the entire duration of the meeting and then the working groups decided when they wanted to leave they just left and then some people organized outside of that time so yeah let's let's plan on that a work group time scheduled for the sixth and if you don't if you can't meet on the sixth you can schedule a different time over the the course of the next couple of weeks and then a regularly scheduled meeting on the 13th could I just ask it would be helpful for me to have um at least a few days to review whatever the final sort of drafts of things are before the meeting on the third because I'm assuming on the meeting on the 13th we're really trying to like totally finalize what's going to be presented the next day at the school board meeting so for me it would just given my time commitments and schedule be if we could set a deadline for things to be sent out to the committee I don't know if like the previous Friday or even Saturday before that meeting on the 13th um then I I feel like I could have more be more thoughtful in my responses to to documents yes I second that Joan absolutely it's so helpful so if it would be okay let's set the deadline for Thursday night the 8th anytime up till midnight on the 8th and then I will have time on Friday to gather all the drafts and get them out to the committee so deadline for final drafts from each working group Thursday the 8th and send to you Emma email to me great and also like I feel like the the final draft for our my subcommittee will sort of depend on the final drafts of the others so like my final draft like it it just won't be at the same time like there will be a have to be a window after that sort of but you're the other two committees don't depend on the work of our committee so it's it doesn't really matter I wanted to I do think it would be nice to have like it's almost like the stuff that you're creating in your group would actually be good to present to the board um and I think you were inferring that maybe you would send this letter to the local press prior to the April 14th meeting board meeting no no probably after okay yeah uh but I wonder if we could in those two documents Susan and Elliot just have a placeholder for like a you know two sentences about the what's presented on the 14th because it seems like a lot of the the rest of it we've already worked through as yeah thumbs up so we can have a pretty close yeah yeah I that's totally fine that sounds good since we're actually going to be meeting two nights that week maybe we want to make it a little bit shorter what because we're going to be meeting an hour the next night I heard the prior strange idea shorter meetings just a thought um we request to be put at the beginning of the of the agenda for the school board yeah I forget what happened last time was there something there was something before us right and you had the budget pretty buried yeah yeah I will talk to Jim about that I guess I was wondering if we meet on the 13th do we need to meet on the 14th or is the is the meeting on the 13th gonna get us landed enough to be ready for the 14th we could decide that night if we feel like we need more time we also could just meet for like a half an hour before the meeting yeah I don't know like I didn't feel like we needed it last time that we presented it didn't feel like we really utilized that time it was just more of like a check-in so I agree that it's not necessary are we gonna do the same sort of similar format again putting students on the spot here where the students take the lead on presenting things to the board is that what other people were picturing I would be I'm interested but I also like my work isn't hasn't been in those other committees so I'm less familiar with the material but if that's something that people want I could review it but I just want it wouldn't be as strong as it could be just because I haven't been like doing that work but I can also just like read read something like I don't I don't mind I wonder if maybe you could help us put the work into a visual presentation format and then the students could take the lead on sort of like intro the introduction of the presentation and then one member from each working group could present you know the draft the final draft of what we've created for that working group oh I mean you're muted yeah I was talking my family telling them to be quiet okay well I mean that also can be decided I mean I guess it can't be decided on the 13th that's sort of what I'm getting at is that if we want somebody to take the lead on creating like a PowerPoint or a presentation Google Slides we probably should figure that out tonight like the last time even though the board had gotten packets ahead of time it did seem like the visuals did have impact so I'm kind of thinking about if you're sitting there and you're an board member having slides probably does help so I think it might be a good way for us to go I have an idea that we have this deadline of the eighth if someone could take the lead on just creating the the slide deck that this stuff will go into it could be part of our work that we that we have the deadline of the eighth to do for each working group to put their stuff into the slide that corresponds like there's probably just one slide that corresponds with the policy recommendations and it would be on my group's job to fill out that slide and then there could be somebody who makes it more you know formats it to look all smooth and you know cohesive and whatever after the eighth but that could just be part of our work that's due by the end of the day on the eighth if somebody can take point on just like making that space feel like actual slides or maybe we could just make a copy of the one that the students that you created for February and we just clear all the stuff out of it and put our new stuff in probably easiest way to do that yeah that's a good idea I mean I could do it I don't know if um whoever created the first presentation if you could share it with me so that I can steal it Zach was it you I can't really remember um I'm not sure but I can find it thank you thanks for doing that so yeah I like that just it would be at everyone would have editing privileges and over the course of the next couple weeks you would sort of plug your stuff in in your working groups okay um someone mentioning board packet made me think is there a deadline for a packet to give to the board with our presentation materials to present that we need to be working with in terms of final documents I think Anna sorry go ahead man Anna tries to send it out the Friday before but there are often things that get added with less lead time so I think if we felt good about our final product on the 13th it would be fine to send it the morning of the 14th ask Anna to share at the morning of the 14th it's not perfect but I think it would be fine yeah and actually there are other instances where we've had trainings where the actual training slide deck was not shared with us until the moment that it was being presented to us so I don't think it's critical that it's shared ahead of time but it's always nice definitely last time I felt like there was just so much data for for people to sift through if they were interested in looking at all of those survey results I wanted to give them the opportunity to do that but I think with this one it's not as important that we provide the information ahead of time so I want to just close by going around and just hearing sort of final thoughts of where people's heads are at after tonight's meeting it can be a real simple one-word answer or sort of closing thoughts. Amanda will you start? Yeah absolutely I came into this meeting really tired and I'm leaving feeling re rejuvenated somewhat I feel really excited about all the work everyone's done and I feel like we've all put in a lot of time this year and everyone I don't know I'm just feeling really grateful and impressed and excited. Thank you Amanda. Well okay you said hi now scoot. I was I was going to say something about my brain being optimistic mush and feeling this most committees that I've been on kind of fizzle at some point but this actually this this feels lasting like something not only that we accomplished something substantive but that it has really significant ripple effects and that is a tremendous feeling so thank you all. Thanks Will. Catherine? I have enjoyed I'm a relationship person although I'm an introvert but I've enjoyed getting to know everybody and just kind of working past our differences to a unified vision for our community which is in the schools within it and just creating something that's practical and tangible and not this abstract aspirational thing but something that I think like Will said can actually come to fruition and we'll see results and positive results that'll bring people closer together and that is all. Thanks Catherine. Eliana? I feel really good coming out of this meeting. I really love this committee and it's cool how we've just always been on a computer together and yet I get so much meaning out of all the conversations we have and it's cool and I just feel like it's a really good resource for the school like in terms of having committees like this because it just allows for a lot more communication between the administration and the people in it in the community and I like that's just so important and I just think it's really cool that we get to do this every few weeks. Thanks Eliana. Joan? Yeah I'm feeling really grateful for this committee's work and it's always a good feeling to feel of use and I feel like our committee's work has really been of use and will continue to be for our schools and our in our broader community and our students so I'm feeling good about where we are yeah and the combination of aspirational and pragmatic is impactful I think. Thanks Joan. Susan? Yeah like all of you I feel really hopeful and it's really nice to be on a committee that's been really organized and focused and I really feel like our community is going to benefit and the children and youth in our community especially will benefit from the work we're doing and that's just heartwarming and I've also enjoyed really getting to know all of you and working with you it's been really nice it's been rewarding. Thank you Susan. Mia? I don't think I have much to add to what folks have said I also have felt like this work has been really rewarding and at times you know hard and hard to find the time to do it but also feeling really motivated to do it in part sometimes because I didn't want to let the rest of the committee down like I've really felt like everybody's been putting in such an effort and it's really been just such an amazing work of this team that I didn't want to be the one that was like oh now we got to wait on her so that's been motivating but also just our broader mission has been really motivating for me so I yeah I'm just really really grateful to have been able to have been a part of it with all of you. Thank you Mia. Edie? Well a lot of this stuff that's already been said like I've heard a lot of sentiments that I share like I'm coming out of this meeting feeling good about where we're at for a little while it felt like we had to kick our momentum back up but I really think we have especially after tonight we just have so much and it feels kind of sudden and that just excites me and I also just feel like even though we've only met over zoom that these relationships are there's something I get out of these meetings that's not what I would have expected to exactly. I think that like there is a connection that you can make even like without being face to face. Thank you Edie. Zach? I think a lot of a lot of what has been said it's nice to see like real tangible like change happen from like something that feels at least for me sometimes it can feel a little not real just being like on a zoom meeting in general and seeing something come from that has been really good and I think it's fun. Thank you Zach. Thank you all. Yeah I'm feeling all the same feels that all of you have talked about and feeling a real sense of pride and accomplishment and connection and Catherine wrote about getting together after all this is said and done and I I agree I can't wait when that is a reality and I think everyone's like 16-ish so maybe we can all be vaccinated by the end of summer. Yeah I agree with what Edie said about and some others also echoed about feeling a little like there was times where things felt a little overwhelming and like I don't know if we're gonna get there like I don't even know what this looks like anymore what are we doing and then tonight I really felt like there was something some aha moments tonight where things became clear and came into focus and now I'm feeling really good and I and I've been trusting in that process and trusting in the the makeup of this committee all along like it will it'll work out like something's gonna it's gonna clarity will come and I think Mia said it a few meetings ago is the special sauce of this committee but there's there's some special sauce happening here so cheers thank you all and I think we can say good night and I will email with warnings and you know bullet points and notes from our meeting tonight thank you good night everyone take care thank you good night