 Welcome to our board meeting. We open our meeting early today at Recording in progress to go before guests. So could I have a motion to go into executive session for a student matter? I moved to go into executive session for student matters floor. Should we include anyone else besides the board in that executive session? Yes, please include Jen. To include Jen Miller or Snow? Yeah. Could I have a second? Second. Okay, I'm going to give it to Dennis. So Jonas and Dennis. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The break room is open for you. Please go in. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to our school board meeting. Sorry, we're a few minutes behind. It took a little longer than we expected, but thank you for joining us today. I think I see we have some members of the public. I'm going to give the board. We have been meeting for the past hour and a half. I'm going to give the board four minutes and we'll be back. Yes. Oh yeah, yeah, let's do that. Let's do that. Yeah. Sorry. Let's go ahead and. Yep. So I, I move to accept the administration's recommendations regarding the two student matters we discussed during executive session. Thank you. Okay. Second by Dennis. Daniel. Daniel. Sorry. Okay. Okay. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Hi. Hi. Thank you. Any opposed? Hearing none. The motion carries. Thank you, everybody. So it's 610. I'm going to give us four minutes, literally. And come back at 614 so that we can get started at 615. Okay. Thank you. Okay, everybody. It's 614. Can you hear me? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Great. All right. So let's welcome our guests. Are there any public comments? And just from that quick reminder that we have time limit and it's strictly. Enforced. And, but we want to hear from the public. So if you have anything to share with us, please raise your hand. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mark, can you confirm that that's my, your recollection to or Jen? I don't see any. I don't see any. All right. So it's not just me and my phone. The business. Quite an agenda in front of us. So any agenda revisions. We have one little one and wanted to make sure that you guys have any agenda revisions. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Just want to, we just want to make sure that you saw that any other agenda revisions that you guys think we missed or. Okay. I don't see any heads knowing and I don't. See all the screen. So, okay. Let's move on. Yeah. To our reports. So student reports. I don't know if Maya or. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Well, Anna. Had her last meeting with us. And it's going to graduate on Friday. So I don't see anybody here. Am I missing that too? Or no. Okay. So Jen. Okay. It started. Sure. So the first report tonight is the COVID-19 update. And, and for the end of the year, Maria wrote a report. I think that the biggest thing I'll highlight is just the sheer number of cases that we have experienced this year. So, and that number. 661 was as of last week to as of about an hour or two ago. And I last checked it's now 672. So even this week we're experiencing more and more cases. We obviously went through a lot of change. And I think that's what we're seeing. And I think that's what we're seeing. And I think that's what Maria wrote. Yeah. Months ago about that Greek philosopher quote, nothing endures, but change. And that was absolutely our experience over the course of this year with changing guidance and changing protocols. We are well poised to next year to distribute tests and implement the testing program. Those of you who want to come to center office, one of these days, I'm going to talk a little bit about the vaccine clinic. I'm going to talk about one file cabinet. So we have a nice set of tests. One thing that Maria and I realized we. Forgot to include here is the vaccine clinics. And Maria, if you are here, I'm not sure if she's, I know she's on the meeting, but I'm not sure if she's right there at the computer. Yeah. Maria, you want to talk a little bit about the vaccine clinic since we forgot to put that in there. I think we tallied up 10 vaccine clinics this year. Two of them we did in collaboration with Shaw's. And the rest were all done with Waterbury ambulance, which was contracted through the state. So we just held five clinics at Berlin elementary in the last two weeks because of the boosters that were available for the five to 11 age range. Those were very successful. And then we did two clinics at Dodie in January, right after break while the wait, we did one before break. Didn't win December. That feels like so long ago. December and then again in January, when the five to 11's first became eligible. And then again at the beginning of the year, we did two clinics at you 32 for ages 12 and up. So we did provide some good services to the public that I'm really proud that we were able to offer. Thanks Maria. And I think that other thing I would underscore just for the community at large as well as is the piece that Maria put in there about Maria herself. I'll say, and our school nurses in general just really just being champions the whole year, taking whatever face them, working hard, often needing to share unpleasant news with with families directly while still, you know, maintaining a good sense of relationship with everybody overall. So it has been a hugely busy year. We're grateful for Maria and our school nurses. And I would invite any questions that you all might have regarding the report. I am. I don't have any questions. I just want to say thank you for the detail. And I also just appreciate. Again, the communication that's been going on the. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm. Treading that path that made sense for our students and for our staff. And just following that, that lead of science. So thank you all for that work. Thank you. I think seeing the clapping hand from Lindy, I think, you know, behalf of all the board, Maria, Jen, and all of the nurses and everybody, you guys have really championed. For our kids this year. And it's really. Thank you so much from all of us. And thank you for this. You know, the letter was really cleared. And. Makes our work easy. Thank you. And. Seeing no other hands up. Do you want to move into our summer food availability, Jen? Sure. And this will just be quick. I wrote this in the community letter last week. I just wanted to also share it with everybody verbally as well. The summer meal program that we are able to operate in Washington Central will take place between the 5th of July and the 5th of August. It is free universal meals for any students. 18 years old and younger. Again, Berlin elementary school breakfast between 830 and 9 and lunch is available between 1130 and 1230. And they're likely our other places in central Vermont. That are also going to be sites. This is the only one that we're operating for our school system. But we can. Attempt as we find out more information if necessary to disseminate that to the community as well this summer. Thank you, Jen. Any questions from our members in that. Okay, so let's move into our continuous improvement plan. Thank you. Thank you. Remember, everybody, we had our nice community meeting. Last couple of weeks ago. About it. I'm wondering if we could start with a motion. If that is. Thank you, Carrie. Yeah, I'd like to make a motion that we approve the district continuous improvement plan. Thank you, Carrie. Could I have a second? I'll second it. Thank you, Lindy. I'll have a second by Lindy and now we can move into discussion. Jen, do you want to comment? Sure. I'm happy to just share a highlighter to from the memo. I tried to streamline this for you all. In the sake of efficiency, we have a lot happening tonight. So the memo highlights the process again, the key dates, the desire to have coherence in all of our plans. I shared with you that 48 people ended up completing the meeting. I think that formed the vast majority of those 48 were staff members after we did the presentations on the 25th of May. A couple of community members. Commented, but very few. I wrote for you some of those key themes. I want to publicly thank Michelle. And Kat. There they were the ones who really went through the data carefully to just to support me and getting this work done as well. Again, really a need to be more explicit about student engagement to be a little more specific regarding behaviors in general. There were definitely a lot of concerns that there were inequities and issues pre-pandemic and so that possibly going back to pre-pandemic levels of staffing might not be wise. And so we were more thoughtful in that approach. And I want to say, you know, again, we all talk about budgeting being a year-round process. During the budget process, we're really clear that some of those staffing levels have been increased because we have the RPSR funds. And so we'll just need to be thoughtful about that and figure out where we want to head in the year and years to come when that federal source of funds is no longer available. Also just a little bit of question around some timeline. We're doing some of that work internally here as we're planning professional learning and a desire along those lines to be a little bit more explicit in our connection to the importance of professional learning. So we took all of that feedback into consideration and the feedback that we received from you all at the forum and have done some revision. The key revisions, if you go to page eight in your packet, you'll know in those goals, the Safe and Healthy Schools goal, a little more explicit mention of student engagement and then more specificity in those prioritized strategies and change ideas. And sort of a, we stepped away from the idea of the pre-pandemic staff level restoration piece, but more explicit reference to professional learning as well. And then I would point out on page nine, which is where the academic achievement goal is, that that goal also, and I said this, I think during the presentation a couple weeks ago is aligned with the FY23 budget parameter that you all have set, which I think again adds coherence to the system. And then we tweaked that so that there's more explicit reference to professional learning. And I will preview for you a commitment that we've made to that end is that we will be doing some book groups across the entire school system last year. We had some success doing that when we all read Onward Together about emotional resilience and well-being and educators. And this time around, we have six, we had 10 books that we're giving our staff members a choice to choose one. And then a core group of us this summer will be organizing some professional learning. The books are all related to areas where students have been historically marginalized. So issues of equity regarding race, some gender and gender identity, neurodiversity. So those titles are out and that work is actively being planned right now. And then the final thing I'll say for you just so you understand it is that the equity supports piece was just cutting and pasting of the goal of the academic achievement goal, but for each school and the LEA for the category in which it was each school or the LEA was identified for need and being identified for equity supports. So that was just to meet that particular requirement, the formatting necessity. And that's it, Flora. Thank you, Jen. Any other discussion from board members or questions before we move into voting? I don't see anything. I just want to also publicly thank you, Jen for putting this presentation together for us and also thank the board members. You guys have been really engaged. I think engagement was really great. Everybody contributed a lot and thank you to the administrators for, you know, getting that input into the plan. So with all of, all of those in favor with the motion as read by Carrie and second, I have it right here by Lindy. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Any opposed. Hearing none, the motion carries in the set for the record that I should have just stepped out, but give me written authorization to approve the continuous improvement plan. Okay. Thank you. So let's move into board operations. Staff appreciation. Yeah so again I think the theme tonight has really been appreciation for all for all staff and for all the work that has happened this year. We haven't been able to it's been one of those things that suddenly crazily it's you know June 15th but I would just suggest that board members consider sending a letter an email expressing appreciation for a great year and wishing opportunities to re-energize and reinvigorate over the summer and again words aren't enough but they're what we have right now. Thank you Diane okay let's let's go to 6.2 and that's the school board retreat. So I was able to share with the steering committee and I told the steering committee that I'll share this with you today so we we went ahead and we're going to have the retreat in August 8th and from 4 to 8 most of you have already replied to the invite I know it doesn't work for most for some of you not all but but but I had to share with you today is that we we're going to have Sophia from the Vermont School of Association will facilitate a 90-minute discussion and we'll provide an overview so that we we were trying to find a common place with with Megan has been part of this too with the steering committee to make sure that this is meaningful for us so provide an overview of improving school board effectiveness and a balanced governance approach and how we can the board student and how the board influenced student achievement too. Yeah so so that is sort of the overall theme so what we were he's a balanced approach which is a book that actually he wrote with two other scholars and what we had talked about was that from September 7th which is September 8th which is our retreat through June 7th of 2023 we will use part of our first Wednesday we can decide that as as a board and we will facilitate board learning discussion and we will walk through this book so that will help the board members that can attain can attend this retreat we would all have this common language and include how boards affect student learning and how they need to know what they need to know and do to provide effective governance and oversight to support and improve achievement achievement which is what we all have been talking about so that's the update that we have the suggestion from the steering committee also was that we can decide at the end of that meeting if we want to move forward we're doing this on a monthly basis right so you don't need to make that decision today but I just wanted to share that information with with you today okay any questions oh Maggie you have your hand up yes question is would it be possible to record her presentation for those of us who are not available to attend that board meeting in august so when we do get together and begin that conversation and study in september that we're actually on the same page so I because it's a retreat Maggie I'm I'm not sure that recording might be the best but I know that there there would be a way for for you to to to catch up and it would just be we would discuss just the first chapter but let's let's think about how we can make that I want every treat to be sure that people can be you know not feel like they're recorded is that do you understand what I mean like so it just it's not a board meeting is that a retreat yeah maybe I misunderstood I thought she was giving a presentation and it would assume there'd be like Q&A afterwards I guess I I'm no no no no it's a yeah no it's every it would be it would be a retreat after that we would have every every month is the proposal yeah we would have a continuous learning together and and we can frame that however best serves the the board but you would have the information so you wouldn't be behind because you would have that first chapter two to the review and we would be I would be happy to fill you in and the board conversation too okay yeah again I might what I thought I was hearing was that this that there's going to be a presentation as part of the board retreat like a lecture so that's my misunderstanding from what I was hearing yes 90 minute board discussion on that and there would be and there is going to be a 90-minute discussion also with Pietro Lin so the board is if the retreat is broken into two into two pieces yeah but you would have you would have the information for both but we're not going to record that retreat okay I see your thumbs up sorry but okay let's move into superintendent evaluation so Carrie do we need a motion sorry I don't know what I'm not sure I thought we were just sort of recapping the process here reminding you yeah so what we got to do two things one recap the purpose but we also have to authorize the chair to sign the evaluation and to accept the evaluation oh okay so that that is the motion I was looking for but we can start by recapping the process and then however you want to yeah so this would just be for any guests so just to cut you up on what the board has been doing we're conducting a super performance evaluation of our interim superintendent Jen and we used the Vermont School Board Association's model is based on a rubric of professional standards and we surveyed ourselves Jen provided a self evaluation and we also took input from the leadership team administrators and tonight we looked at a compilation of that the survey results had a discussion and now our evaluation committee will compile those results and debrief with Jen next week and produce a summary document so I would make a motion to authorize the the board chair to sign that summary document to be placed in Jen's personal file eventually thank you Harry thank you Dennis all right any other comments or discussion from board members seeing none all of those in favor please say aye thank you any opposed hearing none motion carries okay 6.4 monitoring calendar so I'm going to let Jen and Carrie leave this so this was a request that um that you all made to put this monitoring piece together because we had some monitoring reports and big ones from the education quality committee and from the finance committee and when Suzanne and I were working sort of independently and putting this stuff together there was a desire to make sure that we weren't doubling up on any one month so that the board had a ton of information to process in any one month so Suzanne and I looked at what we had originally proposed and there wasn't any overlap and we were feeling great about that and then we realized one thing that we hadn't fully factored in was that you historically receive and process the previous fiscal year's audit report in December of each year so we made just a little bit of an adjustment from what we had talked about at the ed quality committee meeting I will make that I'll swap out two months on the ed quality committee calendar the topics will remain the same but this way we felt like this flows in a way that um that makes sense in terms of the the workflow and the business that's happening in the school district and allows us to share with you some big chunks of important information in a timely manner so this was the proposal and I just wanted to be completely transparent to let you know it's slightly different than what we had talked about it um at the ed quality committee and that's it I don't know if there are questions or comments thank you John any questions or comments from our members just want to say thank you for putting it together I just want to say that this um this is a good step for us this is going to you know is part of our calendar for the coming year and just as we're talking about budgeting year-round we're also monitoring our performance financially academically um year-round and and so it really kind of puts our work into focus I think thank you thank you Karen all right so with that thank you again let's move into the finance committee part so just getting my stuff ready I have a much smaller table than I usually have for my post-its so hold that limit welcome Suzanne welcome Chris and I'm gonna lean on my finance committee today to get this done and on Suzanne and on Chris so please jump in if I am not making sense so the monthly reflection I'm gonna uh because it's our last meeting of the year Suzanne I was gonna let you talk a little bit about it it's just for information for the board so if board members have questions I won't have her talk about it but if I don't see any hands up I'll just let Suzanne do a quick review it's always helpful for the public too okay go ahead and do a quick review Suzanne good evening everybody um the reflection this month I wanted to talk to you all about the visit from R.H.R. Smith our auditing firm and uh some of the recommendations that they provided us with when they did the pre-audit in May um one of the recommendations was that we perform a physical inventory of our food service uh our food on hand more often than once a year currently we do it at the end of the fiscal year um so we've got plans in place to do it at the end of the break before winter and also right before summer breaks so twice a year instead of just once a year and the second recommendation was that we uh have two signers on all journal entries currently we have a preparer and not necessarily a assigned reviewer most of our journal entries are uh one of us on the team whether it be Matt Virginia or myself identifying something that needs to be journal entry and Matt prepares the journal entry in the system uh but we don't have a physical uh signature in place so we've got uh that process implementation going now and uh beyond those two recommendations which by the way are not mandatory they're just uh intended to strengthen controls and systems in in the district um they the auditors felt that we are well on our way to being ready for the audit in August so we're we're pretty pleased with that and then the next thing on the reflections report was just to provide you with a timeline of our month end or our year end process I felt like it was one thing to say that we're incredibly busy in June but then another to really show you all of the key dates that happen um specifically payroll and all of the events that occur through payroll because we have summer paychecks uh final paychecks and first paycheck of the fiscal year and the timing of everything is so key and so important so I wanted to show you all that uh and then in an effort to increase our efficiency the central office uh has been documenting even more procedures than we have in the past we we have numerous procedures in writing but we're just going through and trying to make sure that we have everything documented well documented so uh some of the first procedures we've started with are grants and uh HR so we're pretty excited about getting that and writing and I think it's going to make it um make operations more efficient and also provided you with a finance committee agenda timeline for FY 23 so that we can start thinking ahead about what we're going to be looking at next year and when we'll be looking at it thank you Suzanne that was wonderful and any questions from board members otherwise uh could I have a motion to award a revenue anticipation note and reinvestment bid I move that the board approve the revenue anticipation note for an amount not to exceed eight million three hundred and thirteen thousand twenty dollars and investment bid with community bank na and authorize the board chair to sign the loan documents on behalf of the board thank you Ursula could I have a second Diane second all those in favor please signify by saying aye hi hi all right any opposed and I see the checks hearing none the motion carries thank you okay then we have a word the property liability and workers compensation insurance bid I move that the board award the property liability and workers compensation insurance contract for the district wide coverage for July 1st 2022 to June 30th 2023 to Hitchcock and Boardman slash Liberty Mutual for 191,513 dollars thank you Ursula could I have a second second Jonas okay thank you any questions and discussion here no okay we had a lot of discussion as a facility as a facility I always call it facilities as the finance committee as a finance committee so I just wanted to thank here both Susanne and Jen for going into this adventure it was not something that it was something that we've been wanting to do for years as a district and and compare why we were not part of this bid this was a very accurate comparison it's information that was really valuable for us as board members especially board members that have been on this forever so so thank you Kari just curious does anybody know our word comp mod factor I don't have it off the top of my head but I probably have it in this packet and can find it in a few minutes or you could email it to me it's just a curiosity I will get that to you yeah thank you thank you Kari okay I don't see any other hints up so all those in favor of the motion as read by Ursula and second by Jonas please say aye aye right see your hand Dennis I'm assuming that's your vote okay so it's motion carries unanimously and moving right down to very exciting adopt our capital improvement plan page 23 I moved at the board adopt the final draft of the capital improvement plan included in the packet thank you Ursula second oh come on oh sorry it's a little delayed maybe it's my computer so that was you Jonas yeah okay any questions coming again just really thanking the entire team that put this together looking at you Chris you've always come to our meetings too so everybody and so all those in favor please say aye aye I see all eyes any oppose hearing none the motion carries okay and then we move to the very exciting parking lot project and budget so motion for that yeah go ahead I moved at the board authorized the superintendent to engage engineering ventures to complete bidding for the U-32 parking lot repaving sidewalk replacement and driveway circulation improvements for an amount not to exceed two million ninety thousand three hundred and fifty four dollars thank you Ursula and can I have a second second thank you Diane okay any questions Chris is here and happy to answer any questions or give you a brief description Diane wow that's I mean it's a lot of area but that's expensive do we have an anticipation of how long this will last I mean there's no guarantees but what are we thinking for maintenance and life that's actually that's a good question and I don't believe that's even come up in conversation yet I would expect I believe the last time that was done that was 20 years ago or more so I would expect that we'd at least get that out of it but I don't have an exact a good answer for that that's the first time anybody's even brought that up Diane so but I can but I can ask engineering ventures and and get that number hopefully about fifth hopefully about 50 years yes yeah yeah we you know in construction we said for parking and there is 25 to 35 and depending on maintenance but so I don't know if I'm okay Lynn um oh I was just going to comment that it was the parking lot was put in in the year 2000 so was that the last that must have been the last it hasn't been done since then 22 yeah that'll give you an estimate see if they'd listen to me back then my senior year we would just left it a beautiful lawn and we wouldn't need to repaid it good point there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of sub base work that has to go in to to it to there's a lot of sections that really need to they need to dig down quite a bit and put you know specific types of gravel not everywhere but in certain areas I have all those details if anyone so wishes to review that thank you Chris yeah I don't see any other hands up so all those in favor of accepting the motion that's read by Ursula and second by Diane please signify by saying hi hi hi hi okay any oppose giving none the motion carries thank you okay just move the proposal to transfer general fund balance to the capital reserve fund the finance committee had a recommendation Ursula would you mind you're muted sorry I moved at the board approved transferring 1,500,000 from the general fund reserve to the capital reserve fund thank you Ursula could I have a second second thank you Daniel okay questions discussion gotta be some questions no okay sure okay I don't see any questions I'm just I'm glad that I was that clear this is a big step for us and it's setting this precedent it's really it's really great and we need it to continue to you know be mindful of about our buildings and our capital fund and continue to move forward with the division of our capital improvement plan that we just approved so thank you everybody so all those in favor please signify by saying hi hi hi hi thank you I hear all eyes and see a couple of checks so any oppose hearing none the reason and that is the end of our part and then we'll move into policy and floor you little sketchy can you hear me okay yeah I can hear you I'm gonna stop my video and see if you can hear me okay okay great thanks so I have one comment that I heard pretty clearly the need to develop a school tourist policy and so we will we will have we'll work on that policy committee work on that we'll solicit input from the administration and have some you know I think the first step as well would be to have just a general discussion at the board as to what you would like to see in a school policy not a school choice policy be and whether it should be broad choice or narrow choice just because as one district that the what a school choice policy really could include could be very broad and allowing more fluid movement or not so we should get the policy committee should get a sense from the board as to what the board would like to see in that regard but for tonight we have first reading of policy which would be scheduled for adoption in august and it's the c8 the pupil privacy rights policy has there been any is there any comment or questions about this particular policy hearing none we will have it back for you in august for approval second up is c1 student educational records policy any questions on this in our final policy for tonight is second meeting for policy to be adopted prevention of employee chris sorry to interrupt we had c14 in there also for first reading it just didn't make it on the agenda that was the revision that um that floor stated earlier that's okay do a quick first reading of that one sure thank you very much thanks so we have first reading for c14 as well section 504 and 88 grievance and protocol for students and staff and the policy committee went through this on several occasions um soliciting input from a variety of um stakeholders and so we're looking for any comment from the board sorry I just have one correction that I noticed in there chris that didn't make it from policy committee that we did discuss at length and that would be on page 50 of your packet it's the step three chris the made a shall if you want to talk about that do you remember that conversation yeah so what we want to clarify was um the appeal procedure and just to have created certainty that and we changed the may the may to a shall so that agreement who was going to appeal had a certain so the policy created more certainty as to what they were supposed to do this doesn't this isn't an exclusive route route of appeal but if they're going to appeal to the superintendent this is what they needed to do goes we're concerned that may might seem too discretionary it didn't create enough certainty for the administration for us and also for the person who wanted to appeal lady has her hand up chris i don't see anyone who does i'm sorry i did i do um i just have a question because there's a may in the first line and a shall in the next to the last line so just to clarify which may or shall oh i'm sorry that's okay the may the shall is in the first line the first line if the agreement wishes to appeal in step two he she may submit no shall submit that's step three yeah oh am i on the wrong page yep i think i didn't scroll down to the corrected page is that what i did it wasn't corrected lindy that was why i'm getting it out okay i thought she was saying okay now i get it so that that first line is shall submit assigned thanks i just misunderstood thank you any other questions is this the first time we've had this policy so this is like a first for us yes this is a brand new policy from the bsba we do not have an existing policy but this is a required policy through the bsba thank you okay um next up is um b five which is um policy toward adoption and it's the school uh the employee unlawful harassment policy is there any questions is there any questions about it chris i have one um work hard so the policy itself looks fine over the years uh this is an example of a concern of mine in the training section where there it's not just reactive there is a requirement for proactive training and how does the board know um this training is happening is sort of the question so we monitor budget we monitor academic achievement what is the system for knowing that these sort of proactive requirements are happening um other than people you know raising raising an issue and we're reacting to it and that that's just a question i don't know if you discussed that at all um the way to know would be to incorporate a requirement of reporting um that would because it would be the superintendent who would be responsible for ensuring that training is happening and then reporting to us that it did happen um that's a way for us to know that it did happen and so we could amend the policy to require that superintendent report that the training has occurred on an annual basis and put in a um like that during one of the monthly meetings and specify which one that's where to do that is that a proposed amendment i don't know lindy has her hand up too it's a good point to you know you know a lot of our policies require things but we don't know that they're actually happening we we rely upon superintendent to ensure that they're happening i guess so um sorry who's got who's got their hand up i can see this it was me lindy and then so if this is a state requirement type training is that gen that it is yeah and we are required to do training on um on unlawful harassment every single year and we have mechanisms to collect the data in terms of participation um and you're right we we haven't reported that to you but we we do it as part of our annual training every single year we collect the data we have people sign in attestations that they've done it and um we we could incorporate some sort of monitoring if that would be helpful to the board so it would be like the blood-borne pathogens and all those things that as teachers we do every fall this would be one of those we just haven't had it reported to the that all state required safety trainings occurred during the pd days prior to school or whatever that's right gen can you just describe what the training is like is it set and is it a self-monitor or is it instruction type training where people gather in a certain location and go through the training so it has varied over the years um sometimes it's been more self-directed in terms of uh will develop slideshows in uh collaboration with either the folks in the district who are leading the effort or legal counsel or both and will create a slideshow and have and carve out time during the contracted day for people to complete the trainings other times if we're noticing that there are topics that keep popping up will do more in-person training or if we hadn't done the like in-person circle of training will do that um you know if we hadn't done it in two or three years we'll do it that way too so it has varied it's been a little bit of each as um as there are nuances to some of the laws either we get guidance from the state that something has changed or the way that we have done mandated reporting that requirement had changed or um title 16 or something around universal precautions all of those things then we'll highlight them more than we might for just the the typical annual review of these practices so it's a little of both and it depends on uh changes and what seems to be arising to the surface the most is there a a date by uh which the training must be done by yeah so we always uh with a leadership team establish the date it's typically by the middle of September what we've done in recent years is we've had people complete an attestation through a google form so that we can monitor participation and follow up this coming year we're looking at doing it through um a different online module that uh that we use for supervision and evaluation in general so but we do have a systematic way to collect it with a deadline and work follow up okay um are board members satisfied with that explanation as to what the practice is it sounds like the has this been a practice how long has the practice been in in going for as long as i've been here we've been doing this i mean many many years and based on your uh history um do you see do you think it's adequate in terms of getting the training done i think that it's adequate as long as we also are building in time for some of the things that seem to surface more and more right like we definitely heard feedback for example outtake blood-borne pathogens that people don't need to have the practice with the epi pen and the gloves and all of that hands on every single year and we've heard that people want more clarity around uh reporting bullying hazing and harassment for example and so we tailor our approach based on the needs that we're hearing either because of things that we are experiencing administratively in the schools or because of feedback that we're getting from our staff okay thank you um so is there a sense from the board that um this policy should be amended to include a reporting time and a certain board meeting it's a Chris before you ask the fine question we have Natasha and Daniel and Mikhail had questions too so Natasha and I know that you can see them so I'll just call them for you okay thanks um Jen you answered some of my question mine was going to be I was curious about reasonable training program um knowing just all the different trainings I'm in especially around equity and the constant changing and vocabulary and the constant changing and what you know defines um gender what defines sexuality you know all those things so I'm curious as to like who creates the training program around the equity piece um and is that one of those programs that kind of continues to be done throughout the school year as things are changing so if I'm understanding you correctly Natasha I would say I would not I would not categorize equity training with our annual mandatory trainings because I think the equity training goes much deeper and takes a lot longer and a lot more um sort of face-to-face engagement so that plan um to do some of that work around the continuous improvement plan that you all did earlier we're looking at a plan that could be many months if not a full year to do those book groups that we're talking about and that's one way to get into the equity work it's not the only way does that answer your question yeah um I mean it you know considering that it's after all of these examples of unlawful um you know harassment I just I'm just I'm just always very cognizant of you know whoever is going to be kind of dealing with the um the complaints that are coming in and doing the investigations are as up to date as possible on the changes that are happening with all of those kind of categories that are listed below um and the nuances that are in there um because depending on who that person is you know they just by default of who they are aren't necessarily going to be aware of you know of all the nuances and things um or might not see something as you know harassment that is very apparent as harassment to the person who's being impacted by it so I just I just want to make sure that that when it says you know reasonable training that it's that it's more than adequate training but you know that we're really trying to cover all of our basis with that yeah I think the one thing that I would would add is that the annual mandatory trainings are like that baseline training for all of our employees but if somebody is responsible for intake or investigation or decision making those folks have more extensive training well apart from the annual mandatory training right um their trainings that are offered um frequently either through vis-vit or the vermont higher ed collaborative or we've employed legal counsel to come and provide some training for all of us who have more leadership roles around those issues okay thank you very much that answers my question thank you Natasha uh Daniel I I had a question about the non-discrimination coordinators and just for clarification sake is there a single non-discrimination coordinator in each school so this is something that we are going to figure out um together in the summer because with this policy and others there are lots of um there are lots of folks who are identified to do work and it's um all slightly nuanced and one of the improvements actually that I think that we can make is to be um more public and maybe even on the website name clearly who is what role and why in our schools it's one of the notes I've taken from this year we include it in our annual mandatory trainings and we have that information and family handbooks and it would be probably helpful for the school system to have it all labeled uh more prominently on our website so um I can't answer for you exactly right the second who that is going to be I can tell you that we'll make sure that it's published in time for the school year great yeah that that sounds like a great plan I'm pleased to hear that I also think that the policy has written sort of presumes um maybe not infrequent situations where a designee is actually acting as the non-discrimination coordinator which is concerning to me if it's a specialized role with specific training um in a relatively sort of sensitive circumstance so I guess you know however you mitigate that I'm glad you're putting thought into that because I think it's it requires some some thought whether there's two people that are adequately trained and are sort of you know there's always basically a backup in place who has the adequate training and there's not just sort of a an ad hoc designee um that seems like a situation ripe for for um sort of deprivation of due process or for something for for a complainant we would ensure that the designee is adequately trained for sure we do now and we will continue to do that okay um was there there's someone who's mckaylin yeah um I just wanted to point out that age discrimination in vermont is stricter than the federal guideline and it's anyone 18 or older based on vermont's fair employment practices act so we should probably change 40 to 18 yes we should to make you comply with the law kary thanks I just wanted to respond to chris's question and clarify my earlier point I I don't think that we should amend this particular policy in isolation um with some kind of reporting I think that we should think about this question of how do we as a policy board know you know sort of systematically and proactively that our policies are being executed as we um envision them and think about that we can think about that as a group maybe in our retreat and maybe in our trainings over the course of the year and we can also ask the policy committee to think about this issue as it's doing its work as our policy experts and you're going through these individual policies and maybe in in time I think maybe the solution to this will emerge a little better that would be my proposal thank you kary so um any other comments on this particular policy um with the change to uh on on age discrimination number five to include eight to eight anytime 18 years or older so it complies with vermont law as well then do we have a motion the daniel you is that an old hand or a new hand is it older you it sounds like it's sold okay so is there a motion to adopt b five well isn't this a first reading no no okay I didn't realize that so this is yeah it's the third reading yeah Jen I would just share with you all because this one we we needed our memories jogged a little bit on the policy committee as well this was the one where the question had come up because originally it had just said um it it said sexual harassment only and you all raised that question specific to the training which is why it went back to the policy committee for some more work a little consult with legal and um and then it came back to you in the way that it did so this is the second reading and if we're voting to approve is it with those changes the 40 to 18 we don't have to do those and come back again I don't believe we do and so we're changing two changes would be the may to shall although we that just didn't make it in and then the 40 to 18 going I'm sorry no just the 40 to 18 yeah yeah we need a motion and you do you want to make the motion Chris to accept the move that we adopt um v5 employment unlawful harassment policy with the change um on page 53 or sub five for age to make the age 18 or older with that change that move that we adopted policy thank you Chris thank you Ursa I think we had enough discussion so all those in favor of approving adopting policy b5 be signified by saying aye any oppose hearing none the motion carries unanimously thank you Chris that that was the end of policy right yes it is all right thank you to the policy committee and this moving to the education quality committee and we have in page 58 of our global citizenship student learning outcome kari yeah thanks so this is an exciting moment because it's the final student learning outcome in this process that we started two years ago of going through basically our mission as a as a district and saying what we want our students to be proficient in by the time they leave new 32 so we're going to hear about global citizenship and and have a little bit of time to discuss maybe Jen are you ready I'm ready and many of you actually were in attendance at the at the ed quality committee meeting the full presentation is in the packet and when I was thinking about tonight I didn't want to do like a super quick run through of it what I thought I would do is talk to you about when we distilled what the implications seem to be based on the information that's in that packet all right and those of you who are attendants in attendance I'll share what I pulled from that and you all fill in any any gap but we you know we talked about that c3 framework I think one important thing just to lead into this is that what we had originally articulated as standards and global citizenship has changed just like science so we have three standards instead of five that allows us some and our students some more flexibility to meet our expectations and I would say what the ed quality committee was thinking were some key implications were first you'll notice when you review the data that we have fewer sources of data in global citizenship than in many of our student learning outcomes so really figuring out finding ways to collect the data and show what our kids know so that we can let them know and let their families and let our school community know as well we talked about the fact that really these skills related to inquiry and analysis are lend themselves to being integrated more fully with literacy and mathematics and that we need to continue to do that especially in the elementary school where literacy and mathematics are the building blocks of the curriculum the board head or the members of the ed quality committee had also indicated interest in learning about from students directly what their interests are what's important to them in their lives related to global citizenship so that we can continuously respond to knowing that in that arena more than in many there's a responsiveness to current events and making connections from history to current events that that make sense for us to be able to help our students process we talked a bit about time and values that whole idea that if you look at the elementary schedule in particular that there's a finite amount of time we talked about that during the budget process as well that time is as much a resource as money is and how do we allocate our time in alignment to the community values world language stood out as something for us to continue to be thinking about it as you know right now we offer world language an elementary Spanish program in one of our schools elementary schools and and only in one right now and everybody comes to you 32 we talked about also I think finally an implication was continuing and this goes back to I would argue some of the equity conversation that we've had earlier tonight but continuing to support our teachers so that they can have hard conversations with students you've heard that our students have said many times they want to engage in those hard conversations and they want teachers to feel comfortable facilitating them and knowledgeable so that was an implication as well for us and again hopefully part of the way that we're structuring that professional learning for next year it's going to help us do exactly that so that our students outcomes are better and they're feeling more prepared to be engaged citizens in a respectful way and have hard conversations that need to be half that would be what I would highlight anything I missed anyone who is there I think one one point that I got from our conversation is that they're to the point about time there is a lot of synergy between global citizenship and literacy and math and you know that if students are have a good foundation in those they will get more out of of global citizenship and vice versa and also that this is an area where there's a lot of richness and adds a lot to the curriculum and people's experience of school I think and help also helps to make sense of current topics such as gun violence in America or war in Ukraine and so that just is such a such an important part of our of our curriculum so would anybody like to add anything from the committee or not any questions or comments about this student learning outcome I don't see any I guess just thank you and Jen for putting this together and for taking us through this journey it was important I think to something that we could do with policy too and that would inform the community too just but I didn't have any other thoughts on this one just one thing that we did talk about it's not the way you just said Carrie was that this is a living topic and that's what is exciting about this particular student learning outcome so with that in mind just thanking both of you and the committee the quality committee and which is the best committee as far as I'm concerned for this important work for students if anything else for members otherwise we're gonna keep moving on trying I was trying for 730 but it's definitely not going to be 730 so we're into our consent agenda hey could I have a motion to approve the minutes and see the list that we have hopefully you had a chance to read them so could I have a motion I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes from May 18th June 1st and June 10th thank you second second thank you Dennis so move by Carrie second by Dennis any discussion amendments Natasha my name needs to be corrected in one of the minutes my last name is backwards did it get the hyphen yeah so the hyphen needs to be removed and in one of them it's it's banning Eckhart instead of Eckhart banning okay this uh do you get that I see you but I yes she's got it okay sorry yes I will correct that thank you okay yeah all of those uh signified by saying aye we're proving our minutes as amended hi hi any oppose hearing none the minutes carry unanimously or orders Wendy they came separate so yes I have them I just couldn't get unmuted okay I make a motion to approve the board orders in the total amount of 589 134 dollars one cent second thank you okay second by Diane any questions okay seeing none all those in favor of approving the board orders please signify by saying aye bye bye thank you any oppose any abstain seeing none the motion carries thank you now exciting let's move into personnel Wendy all right um I make a motion to accept the new teacher nominations of Pamela mallet for Callas Christina Snook Dodie Andrew McCarthy Callas Rumney PE Health Sarah Lund U32 Rebecca Sweeney U32 thank you Lindy thank you thank you Ursula all those in favor please signify by saying hi hi hi any opposed hearing none I see the yes check in all here all eyes so the eyes have it the new hire yeah I I wasn't oh I guess because it's not a separate different position that's why it's a different position yeah um the new hire nomination for Derek Dunning as the U32 athletic and activities director thank you have a second second thank you Ursula all those in favor please signify by saying aye I any oppose hearing none the eyes have it yeah I make a motion to accept retirement of Roger Grove U32 music teacher thank you Lindy thank you Ursula those you yeah no sorry Natasha sorry right could we add with appreciation yeah with appreciation to the many many many years and we are singing that to you Roger and a good voice which I don't have but thank you okay all those in favor please signify by saying hi hi hi hi any oppose hearing none the motion carries you will be miss Roger all right okay I make a motion to accept the resignation of Sarah Yurt U32 special education teacher and a second second thank you Ursula all those in favor please signify by saying hi hi hi hi any oppose hearing none the motion carries unanimously okay um I make a motion to accept the extended leave of the absence request for JB Hilferty the U32 middle school social studies teacher second that was you my Kayla you're yeah correct I have a question yeah yeah yeah okay um so is it yeah what's um just explain the interrelationship between number five and number eight where JB is going to be US U32 dean of students I'm happy to do that so JB has been a long time middle school social studies teacher the dean of students position is open and JB is really interested in exploring that position looking at just issues of school culture and some proactive work to do in addition to some of the reactive or responsive work that a dean of students needs to do and it would be a brand new position and so for him and although I think he's going to love it and do an amazing job also taking a leave of absence from his social studies position for next year allows him the flexibility to return to the classroom as a social studies teacher should the dean of students position not work out so we would be supportive of this uh of this move for him I think it um it's it's a great move for the system and it's supportive of a long time employee to to allow this leave of absence to happen great thank you thank you Jen so let's do this one motion that we have in front of us right now to accept the leave the extended leave of absence all those in favor please signify by saying aye any opposed hearing none the motion carries thank you so let's do the long term and then we'll move into that number eight yep I make a motion to accept the long term substitute recommendation from Maxwell Sagala e32 social studies long term sub thank you Lindy uh second Dennis thank you all right all those in favor please signify by saying aye hi hi hi any opposed seeing or hearing none the motion carries okay now in the change of position dean I'll make a motion to accept the change in position recommendation for JB Hilferty to u32 dean of students and the second I hear a second there but I don't know the name of that little guy I think Daniel's got that second in okay Daniel I love that that's great correct Daniel seconds and with excitement we accept I think also agree that JB will be phenomenal and the kids will be so lucky to have him so all those in favor please signify by saying aye hi hi hi hi hi any opposed hearing none the motion carries and I see that I'm putting half of you asleep already we're almost done guys so updates and vacancies so we are continuing to advertise we are continuing to experience some vacancies especially in special education and so I wanted the reason that we included that middle school interventionist job description in there is because I told you at least two meetings in a row that we were starting to try to be a little bit more creative about how to meet our students needs when we keep advertising for special educators and having zero applicants and so we advertised and you just approved a middle school interventionist act 173 provides us the flexibility to provide to to meet some of our students needs in ways that are not directly provided by a special educator when that's not what a student needs or it's not what's called for in an IEP so we put that in there we've had middle school interventionists and we've in the past we recently our classroom teachers have done more of the intervention at the middle school level than people who are strictly interventionists and we have had a job description and it was lost in the ransomware attack so we created a new one in the template for you that's why that's in there not because we're asking you to have approved a job description it had been approved a number of years ago that being said we're we're still trying to be creative we have a number of special ed vacancies again primarily at U 32 we still have one special ed vacancy at Berlin elementary school we have a one and a half a speech language pathologist vacancies so we're we're continuing to advertise and we're continuing to figure out how might we ensure that we can meet all of our students that's how he needs we have an open literacy interventionist physician at Berlin still we have a classroom teacher grade five six at doady that remains unfilled and we have a number of para educator physicians that remain unfilled so we keep advertising we keep refreshing um and we're advertising in lots of different places and uh we're remaining hopeful but those are the vacancies as of June 15th thank you Jen any questions from board members okay seeing none let's move on i'm gonna skip future agenda items and moving to board reflection today i mean board reflections i wanted to potentially use this time so this is our not our last meeting with Jen because she would be part of very many meetings with us but it's our last meeting with Jen as our interim superintendent yeah we'll probably have other things going on next week but since we didn't get to get together this week i just wanted to use this time to reflect on how lucky we have been to have you with us in that sense of you know a piece that you brought to our school district in a very tumultuous time for our district just not just the pandemic but so much going on and you immediately brought that warmth that inclusion of everybody and have provided a solid leadership with a very kind heart to all our community so we're going to use that time to thank you on behalf of the board and board members feel free to use your reflection time i'm just glad she's not going anywhere i said earlier tonight i see that night yeah sorry can i go um i just want to say earlier tonight i said and you weren't there Jen but i think this was a much more difficult year than the previous year in a lot of ways for a lot of different reasons and um and you probably had the hardest job of all um in any in anybody i know and you did it you pulled it off so well so it was so much grace and um just really appreciate what you did for us overall and what you did um for us individually i really appreciated working with you learned a ton from you and i'm really looking forward to next year when you can do the work that you prefer to do thanks so with that and around the past for Jen we can emotion to adjourn and thank you hopefully you get a little walk after today or something it's still sunny out there guys so i make a motion that we adjourn second thank you thank you Jonas you got that lisa okay thank you everybody for making this happen today we'll see you next week at our training all right okay thank you good night good night good night good night good night