 So I'll call the meeting to order at 6.01. Just trying to change my layout so I can see everyone on the screen. Okay. Any adjustments to the agenda? I have one executive session to add after number 10 due to a student matter. So that will be item number, new item number 11. Hey, Tammy, I promise I'll get times for you this time. Sorry about last time. You're good. I had them last time, but sometimes it's so when I take them just for an awareness of the board members when I take the minutes, I always pass them to the clerk for a thumbs up on anything that is added during executive session or meeting time minutes. And so if one of you happen to now be a clerk or in a future state are the clerk and you receive the minutes. The next thing is you pass the ball over to Christie once you approve them. Yeah, I thought I did that last time, but did not. So sorry. All right. Okay. So we have not been the signing times. We'll just try and get through this as efficiently as possible. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes of Tuesday, April 19th and March 15th? So moved. And I'm here by the way. Hey, Andrew, you can take it back over. I'll second your motion. Did you make a motion to approve both minutes or just the first? I did. Yes. Any discussion? All in favor? Say aye. Aye. Okay. This was staying because I wasn't sure 100% on that point. All right. The minutes are passed. Okay. Do we have any public comment at this time? And then we'll move on to the board comment. Anybody on the board have any comment? I had one briefly. One of myself and Lyle and, and, um, Mr. Hubble meant, uh, can't remember what day it was now, but we met to go over the facility. Um, and I did that again. We did decide during our meeting to create a living document that has been posted so that we can start getting feedback from the facility managers on the needs of the facilities. So that's going to be kind of our first step. Um, I'll be reaching out to each facility manager here over the next week or two to help coordinate that with them, rather than them have to go on with a list of items. I can work through them with some of those items. Again, I don't think we'll get all the items in, you know, in a period of a couple of months. It'll probably take some time, but as we'll get them, we'll meet again and prioritize some of those as well as assess a monetary value. Hopefully we're, our goal is my budget season where we're fired with us. Great. We're going to work for that. Does anybody else have anything else? Okay. Yeah, I'm going to speak. I'm not feeling very well tonight. So I'm going to step out. Actually, I have COVID and I'm just not, just not feeling very good right now. So, I'll see you all next month. It's round to the celebration. Yeah, so I can kick this off if that's all right. So, as you know, one of our overarching goals for the SU, but also for Rudd is to strengthen our proficiency based learning personalized learning and pathways programming. And so, you know, I think one of the exciting things about where we are as an organization and district is that we're really getting to build this now, which means that we're a bit behind in some areas in this work. But I think that we're able to learn from our colleagues around the state. And hopefully be able to build something that really speaks to relevancy, rigor and increased student engagement. And so we were, we've been on a search for a pathways coordinator at the high school really started last spring, and we're able to finally find Mr. Boynton. Not until this middle of the school year. And so, that's been doing a really great job of laying a lot of great groundwork here at the high school for us to be able to implement something that I think is going to be really special for our students. And with that though, you'll, you'll see in the presentation tonight because he's going to talk a lot about the work that we also have to be doing really essentially K through a to get to where we want to be at the high school level. So, without further ado, I'd like to turn it over to our pathways coordinator at the high school. Go over here so I can focus and I might get up and move around so I know that might not be conventional here but I'm not good at sitting for a long period of time so do what I gotta do so thank you. Good evening. Thank you for having me making time to hear about flexible pathways as kind of Jamie set up I have stepped into this position on January 24. Before I get into the presentation though I do want to thank Jamie and read McCracken for giving me the opportunity it's really great. Love it here. I want to thank them and high school staff for ongoing support as I learn the ropes and provide support where I can and work on this building of vision and capacity so pretty exciting. There's a lot to share here in this presentation so I'm going to ask you to hold questions till the end I know that can be frustrating. I'll be happy to go back to different slides talk about whatever you need at that point having done this with teachers I can tell you that if we talk as we go it's going to take an hour and you don't have that much time. Nor do you probably want to listen to me talk for that long so that said thank you for your patience for your attention. And before we dig into flexible pathways at the high school. Jamie suggested and I thought or maybe I asked him but we decided a brief reminder would be in order so how is public education curve and vision and implemented in the state of Vermont. This is a literature in 2013 past act 77 and this is a reminder refresher course so you may know this as written the law was quote established to encourage and support the creativity of school districts as they develop and expand high quality educational experiences that are an integral part of secondary education in the evolving 21st century classroom. To promote opportunities for Vermont students to achieve post secondary readiness to high quality educational experiences that acknowledge individual goals, learning styles and abilities. And finally to increase the rates of secondary school completion and post secondary continuation in Vermont. This act was the culmination of over a decade of school reform and legislative action. There are three central principles or approaches to education in Vermont. Number one personalized learning. Again I will quote describes systems and approaches that deep in student learning by incorporating each students interests strengths and needs, including student voice and choice in what how when and where they learn to achieve the active engagement academic success and preparation for post secondary opportunities. Well, this means finding ways to give students input and even sometimes control self direction in and over how what they learn. It does not mean every student has their own curriculum however what it means is that teachers and students work together to connect the curriculum to the learners. Number two proficiency based education is instruction quote aligned to proficiencies based on transferable skills and standards adopted by the state of Vermont. PBE takes the emphasis away from seek time and pays deep attention to knowledge and skill development proficiency based can be manifested in lots of different ways. So as Jamie referenced earlier we can learn from the people around us who are maybe a little farther ahead in some of these regards, and we can also make it our own. Three personalized learning plans are documents and archives in which students reflect on their personal and educational growth throughout their four years in high school. Though sometimes this work starts earlier even in some districts as early as elementary school I've known some districts that started at grade four. The personalized learning plan is the foundation of learning at White River Valley High School. It provides the thinking necessary for students to take ownership of their education and to guide their own learning throughout high school, including movement between traditional coursework and flexible pathways. In this way it's the key to success for each individual student. These three principles make flexible pathways possible. So what are flexible pathways? Flexible pathways are rigorous, alternative approaches to learning and demonstrating proficiencies required for graduation. They are planned integrated elements of the White River Valley High School experience. Finally, they are for all students no matter skill level, no matter interest, no matter the expected path that provides them. Flexible pathways are for everyone, the highest achieving, the most struggling and everybody in between. So for people with visuals, and I like metaphors, former English teacher, so we can think of the White River Valley High School educational experience as two conjoined trees. So we have on one side the traditional tree, and we have wrapping around it the flexible pathways tree. So one tree is that traditional tree. It's the scope and sequence tree. It's the one we all know from our own school, from when we were young. English, social studies, math, science, visual, foreign arts, physical education and health, world languages, all the electives. That's the old school thing that we all went through. The other tree though is the flexible pathways tree, and that's what we're going to explore together. So we have two trees representing our students' high school experience. Personalized learning and proficiency-based education are the environment, the air, the water, the sunshine. Personalized learning plans are the root system, feeding up the trees. And the reason for that is that it's planned, right? The best flexible pathway work is planned. And the best traditional work is also planned and taken into account. So if they have the personalized learning plan and they know how that works, they know themselves as learners, they can make those choices and understand how to navigate. We all know, of course, that trees need appropriate soil to survive and thrive. Here, K-8 learning is the soil from which our trees grow. That's the next part. To seed in high school, that means students need not only fundamental skills and content knowledge, but also the ability to self-direct and self-advocate. They need curiosity and background knowledge, no matter which tree they're climbing at any given moment. So this is essential. Both trees must thrive. It's not an either-more. Both trees must thrive. Some students are going to grow best on the traditional tree. Some students are going to grow best on the flexible pathways tree. But all students should be able to climb back and forth between the trees, gaining from both to varying degrees. So I'll say it again, both trees must thrive. There's no way around it. We know what the traditional tree looks like because we've all done it. We understand its branches, all those departments, those core disciplines and the arts and all that other material that we study and get exposure to. But we need to understand the branches on the flexible pathways tree. So again, hold your questions because this one's going to get a little long and I'll answer, I'm sure, some of your questions as we go along. This is the part where I'm going to stand up because I need to order. So this image is an aerial shot. It's a little bit bigger, but you get the idea. It's an aerial shot looking down on the trees. You can't really see the roots from above, but there's the PLP. I put it in there to have that reminder right there because PLPs are core to this entire project. There are nine branches on the tree. The traditional tree we see here are part of, and we see as Liam's kind of ghosting up. I didn't want to try to busy that picture. I want to focus on this. I didn't draw that for the record. So there are nine branches on the tree. Some of these are already thriving. Some are just beginning to grow and some need to be cultivated to grow at all. I'm going to walk you through them quickly because a lot of this is programming that exists and it's pretty impressive. That is to say, I was impressed when I got here and find out the things that were going on. The first branch over here is community-based learning. This includes work-based learning, volunteer service, journalism, job shadows, career experience. You have a list as long as workshops, resume and interview support, and classroom enrichment. I have a lot more detail about this from Ms. Waterman than we have the time to get into, but I'll boil it down. More than 60 White River Valley High School students have participated this year in on-site work and in a wide range of programs with more than 50 business partners and nonprofit organizations in the area. That blows my mind to say that a lot. Some of this work is for credit. Some of this work is exposure to other opportunities, and some is volunteer work. Outstanding program. Thanks to Mary Waterman. I have to say thanks to her for her many years of service as you know she's retiring, but wow. Very impressive work. The second branch is career and technical education. She's currently managed by the school counselor. We work with two schools, as you probably know, the Randolph Technical Career Center, at which we have 16 students in seven different programs, and three students in the pre-tapped career exploratory program. Our second school is the Hartford Area Career and Technology Center, in which we have four students in three different programs. They're both too fast. Let me know. Third branch is adult ed, adult education. Vermont's adult basic education and their high school completion program. This is kind of co-managed. Sometimes Mr. McCracken takes it on. Sometimes I've taken some contact on. Sometimes Nicole Ramoff, school counselor, is doing some of that work. We're kind of teaming on that one. So adult education, if you don't know, is a state program that's available to students across Vermont. It's a pretty solid program, but it requires serious commitment from students and sort of getting yourself there, and there's a lot of facets to that. So what we do is we support and help prepare students for the program if we, with the student and the family, determine that it's the best option for completing the learning and work required to earn that diploma. Currently, we have six students enrolled in the adult ed program, and we have three other students who are kind of checking it out, doing the testing, seeing if it's going to work for them. We're exploring their options. Fourth branch is the personalized learning classroom. That's a self-contained personalized learning space downstairs. And this is for students with qualifying disabilities who have difficulty succeeding in their regular classroom. Students are referred by staff following a specific protocol. And the idea for this pathway is that it would be temporary, that eventually students in the program will transition back to their regular classroom. And in fact, Mr. McCracken has reminded me that a lot of students who are in that program are not there all day. Most of them, I believe you said, are not there all day. They're doing some regular classroom work, and they're doing the personalized learning classroom space as well. Ideas for students to transition back, but of course there are exceptions. The PLC this year has served 20 students over the course of the year, some short term, some still there. Fifth branch, where I've spent a lot of time lately, is virtual study, which is managed mostly by me, flexible pathways coordinator, with some support from the school council. The organization we work with most is the Vermont Virtual Learning Cooperative, which you probably know from the pandemic. A lot of Vermont schools really took advantage of that, and I believe from middle school on up, I don't know if there was any elementary work with VTBLC, but Vermont school has been partnering with VTBLC for over a dozen years. It's been around for a while, so it's not brand new. Currently we have 15 active students taking in total 20 courses, including core courses, AP courses, and electives. Pretty cool. Virtual studies a little, it's tough, right? You have to be able to self-manage, you have to be able to provide that, but part of the work I do with those folks is support. We also have three students taking virtual study online courses with Brigham Young University. So it's not just VTBLC, because there are a lot of schools out there that are just doing virtual offerings. Our sixth branch is dual enrollment and early college. The dual enrollment is when a student takes a college course to earn college credit and to meet high school graduation requirements at the same time. Six students right now are taking seven courses through dual enrollment. Again, pretty good numbers, especially for such a small school. Early college is when a student attends college during their senior year of high school, completing their final year of public school in their first year of college at the same time. That's pretty cool and a big money saver. Right now we have two students at two different colleges during early college. Our seventh branch is expanded learning. This is the state's language. I decided to adopt it. I was calling it smaller opportunities. I didn't like that language, so I'm going with the expanded learning. These are learning opportunities with local or regional organizations of various kinds, and ultimately perhaps with more distant organizations that we could explore learning with digitally, using the internet tools that we have. The idea here is that these smaller opportunities, these expanded learning opportunities provide little chunks of proficiency work, and then you can combine them to create what you need to achieve proficiencies in whatever your given discipline is. Pretty cool way to do that. Examples might include, for instance, the governor's institutes, if you know about those. These are week-long academic summer camps. I think generally I'm not peculiar. In previous life, when I was in other teaching, I knew students who loved them and had a really great time there. That's one example. There's an organization called Grow More Waste Less, which is a food systems, education, and action organization. I know the middle school, I think, and the elementary school are doing some work with them. Great folks. Bread and Puppet Theater could be an example. If you don't know them, it's a theater performance and theater that offers performance, participation, and internships, public making, blind to see, and stage work, all kinds of cool stuff. I'd like to work with those. It's a really cool, international experience. Travel and exchange student programs would fall into this category. Eighth branch up here at the top is independent study and proficiency completion. This is where I have been spending, spent a lot of time at the beginning, and I've been working with students, a lot of students on that. This is managed by me, the flexible pathways coordinator. Independent study is when a student wants to study something that we do not currently offer. So student might want to study Russian literature in history. We don't have that. So we can build an independent study for it. For next year, we have two students on board planning to do, hoping to do independent studies. Their proposals are underway. My direction has been to have a design discussion with students who want to do that and then get the student to write the proposal with input from me. And then we'll take that proposal to the teacher record, to the principal, get it approved, move forward. Again, student write, self-direction, self-advocacy. So the student takes primary responsibility for that proposal. Proficiency completion, kind of go together, is when a student has not completed the proficiencies in a given course and needs another way to do that. Right now, I have seven students engaged in proficiency completion. Two of them are seniors. I'm hopeful that they're going to succeed because they need it to graduate. The rest are younger students whose work will probably extend into next year. So the final branch is a new idea. The final branch is research. I get really excited about this. Before I came on here, I was thinking about this idea. Before I landed here, I had been hired because I was thinking about what am I going to do there? Research. Research is a really cool idea. And I don't mean like a research paper. I'm going to go research global warming and write an argument about it. No, I mean academic research within a discipline. So colleges use this. My older child is going to college in the fall. So I've been getting all this sort of exposure to different schools. Public universities are using this as a selling point because their professors, tenured faculty, do independent research for their own careers. And even freshmen at these colleges can step in and join and support these professors in their research work and learn a lot about how that level of academic research works. I'd like to fold that in and do some of that work here with students who are interested in them. This one could fall under independent study, but I kind of felt like it deserved its own branch because I think it could be really exciting. That would probably be an independent study, but it involves relationship building and other aspects. So I think it gets its own branch. So yes, I know that was fast. As you just saw, the branches of the flexible pathways tree are the pathways, right? CBLs pathway, CTEs pathway, independent studies of pathway. So the individual student work makes up the twigs and buds. I'm working my metaphor. Makes up the twigs and buds that are on the tree. And eventually the leaves. In working directly with students this year, I've mostly been working with emergent problems, right? Proficiency completion so the student can graduate on time or can get back on track and stick to their four-year goal. However, as noted back in slide three when I talked about what flexible pathways are, such student work ultimately needs to be planned. We're always going to have emergencies. You can't get away from that. It's the reality of life, right? Things come up. We're going to have to prune, graft, and otherwise heal to our trees. But the vast majority of flexible pathways work should be a matter of design, not repair. It should be planned. So in addition to the pathways that I've explained in the previous slide, all the other pathways, I've been developing with students independent studies and proficiency completion to address requirements at various grade levels. Some of the work that started as proficiency completion is providing structure and templates for work that will be planned for next year and beyond. So the following slides, here we go. The following slides are a snapshot of an independent study that I started designing with a student who needed to demonstrate proficiencies that would enable him to be recognized for one English course and for US history and government, which is a graduation requirement here at high school. This is the overarching design for interdisciplinary projects combining working standards from each discipline, global citizenship, and English. And providing multiple explorations of each standard required for that course. Because that's how a course works. During the classroom, you're working on those standards of proficiencies over and over again to really improve your mastery of your proficiency level. So there were four projects. The first one was a business plan and then regulations. He was doing automotive repair business. So the regulations were it was about environmental regulations, how they came to be. And that was working in standards for global citizenship, about how the legislative process works, about the impact of laws on people in the economy. So the second project would have been about military vehicular technology, the evolution of military vehicles, and the history and impact of them. Third project was going to be about the Navajo wind talkers, who helped to break a lot of important codes in World War II, help the allies win. The last project, which we're going to look at in a little bit more detail, was called Life on the Reservation. And this was storytelling and history of the reservation system in this country, impacts on the people, et cetera. So the next slide presents the responsibilities of student and flexible pathways coordinator. So there were four kind of responsibilities for the student, complete four interdisciplinary projects that was about mastery of proficiencies, learn and practice skills within each of those, multiple attempts at each standard, negotiate projects and assessments with the flexible pathways coordinator. Again, the idea is that the student does some, has input, right, in the growth of these projects. And finally meet with the flexible pathways coordinator periodically for various purposes, instruction, conferences, timing, academic support, whatever they need. The flexible pathways coordinator responsibilities were to initiate the design of the work and the timelines with the student, to negotiate and meet with the student according to student responsibilities, that was another part of the academic contract, which I didn't want to quarry with, to provide lessons and academic and time management support as necessary for the student's understanding and growth, to provide ongoing feedback on all work related to each project, and finally to engage with relevant teachers and administrators to ensure proper documentation for the independent study. That one deserves a little explanation. So when I say relevant teachers, the idea is that actually according to the state, the law is that you have to have a teacher of record to sign off on any work that a student does under flexible pathways. So if I'm doing social studies work with a student, I don't have a social studies license. I don't have that endorsed by an English endorsement. So I could do the English part and I could be the teacher of record, but I would have needed a social studies teacher to come in and say, yes, this is valid work. My idea would be that we will have done the feedback, I would have come with a relatively finished product and a recommendation for that teacher, and the teacher would say, yes, no, do a little more and then I'll say yes. Would give their own feedback. The part with administrators would be to connect with the principal, make sure all along the way that they know what's going on, get their approval at various stages. And then the other part would be, and not that the school counselor is administrator, but in that category sort of to ensure with Mrs. Lamoff, Mrs. Lamoff that all the records she knows enough to maintain the records, which is really, that's her job to keep the transcript and the grade report cards and everything straight in our software. So all these things, oh, sorry, I'm jumping the gun. Finally, here is a glance at the standards, texts, and some of the set, I'm not gonna walk you through the whole thing, it's a lot of words, but I wanna put it up there and I'll do a brief. It's a glance at the standards and the texts. So they would have explored those multiple attempts, remember, of each standard, they would have explored six whole citizenship standards through this one project, for English language art standards through this one project. There would have been one, two, three, four visual texts, movies, TV shows, and there would have been multiple written texts of various length fiction and literature, as well as nonfiction primary documents about how it came to be, what were the legislative actions, what were the policies that created the reservation system, and then what was life like and what is life like on the reservation. Again, primary documents, people live there writing about it and getting us to understand what they're going through. Using all of that, right, using all of that text, all those explorations of knowledge and information, they would create, the student would create two summative assessments. Both of these could involve research or would involve research. Both could mix in some writing with video, audio presentation, right? If you're doing a video, you gotta have a script, so that's writing, right? So you can get at those proficiencies, those standards in different ways. The first one was for ELA, synthesis essay, veracity, authenticity, fiction versus real life. Does it accurately do these fictional representations accurately show what the student learned about from the realistic presentations from primary documents? And then there would be an informative or argumentative essay which would address and explain the creation of the problem, how did it come to be and what problems resulted from the reservation system, the contributions of native peoples despite this adversity, and that's another specific standard in the Global Citizenship Department. And finally, the argumentative part would be how do we address these problems? How do we right these wrongs that were perpetrated through these policies? So if you take all of these together, the last three or four slides, they combine to show the level of rigor and complexity in this standard, in this pathway, excuse me. This sort of planning can of course be scaffolded, right, according to student need. Not every student who, if I reuse this with another student, the next student might not do as much of that, they might not be ready to do as much, but they get the depth regardless. They get the breadth of those things and they get a level of depth to match what they might get in the classroom. Just like in the classroom, they make accommodations and we make modifications for students who need them, flexible pathways do honor that as well. All of those special ed requirements and related adjustments. Projects are customizable, adaptable and scalable. By definition, they are tailored to individual student interests while satisfying the school's proficiencies and academic expectations. Thank you, Parker. Thank you. So that one was the most developed independent study I'd have, but I wanted to give you a shot. That one's really ambitious and I think pretty meaningful. Here are some that are in development, just briefly. So I called this one movement and mentoring. It's a physical education independent study. And so this would meet a requirement, right? This one's called nature and snaps. It combines art and English as a photography and writing project. And again, there's a quick shot of how many standards get worked on. This one's called the archer at work and play, which addresses one physics standard. So it's a small piece of some science requirements and five physical education standards. This one's called seeing the world, which combines art with global citizenship. And again, a combination of visual arts standards and global citizenship standards. Some of these you can see are full independent studies, effectively. And some of them are going to be expanded by many opportunities. You might know too, I did that very quickly, but you might have noted that three out of four of them are interdisciplinary, right? And that's by design. It is our goal to deepen interdisciplinary work, to increase meaning for students by helping them find connections, not only from their interests to their schooling, but among different disciplines in that educational experience. That's important, right? Because learning outside of school is seldom restricted to a single area of study. Even if it's a training for something, there's still multiple things that you're thinking about and working on when doing that. So, if flexible pathways are a tree, then the coordinator is the dendrologist and chief arborist. I'm working my metaphor. It is my job to study the trees, both trees, to understand the trees and take care of them, enabling students to climb where they will and where they must. Right now, and this is the slide about what I've been doing since I've been here, right now I'm working with 28 students in various capacities, including proficiency completion, independent study, virtual study, and academic counseling. That last one isn't a pathway all by itself, but it does help students to understand the trees. This does not include students working in CBL, CTE, and the PLC because the flexible pathways coordinator mostly does not work directly with those students that are in programs that exist in our land by other people. But the ultimate goal is to bring all the branches together under the care of the dendrologist except for the PLC and CBL and CTE again, which branches are tended by professionals hired for that purpose. So we do talk about CTE. I would, Nicole, Mrs. Lamoff right now is maintaining that and doing those contacts with our people there and organizing those and I'm gonna take that into flexible pathways work so we can free up Mrs. Lamoff to do school counselor work. She does a lot here and it's time to share the wealth and share their tasks. So my work this year has so far fallen into two categories, direct service and concrete tasks and working toward the future. And very little of this is done alone, by the way. This is definitely a position that relies on and feeds into and away from lots of different people and departments. With the counselor, I've been dealing with sort of emergent student concerns, academic crises, as mentioned earlier. I've been providing academic counseling, organization, time management, communication, sometimes academic skills. I worked on PLP design and implementation, taking the system that we had last year and starting to retool a little bit for purposes here. And with Mrs. Lamoff and another teacher, we were doing the ninth grade planning and implementation, collaboration with them. And I was also planning and collaboratively working with Mr. McCracken and another teacher for involvement in the 10th to 12th grade field piece. Finally, I recently, maybe three weeks ago, assumed oversight of the BTVLC work. That means counseling students on course selection, supporting them with time management skills and communication, serving as primary contact between the high school and BTVLC. And again, the school counselor remains in charge of records and transcripts. So that is your job. My other category of work has been working toward the future. So the first thing I had to do was build knowledge, not having been here before, not knowing enough about CTE programs and other things that go on here. So I had to spend some time doing that. Good deal of learning, starting with the workings and culture of this school, but then moving into knowledge of CTE and other branches. I've been building relationships and finding collaborations with colleagues. As you can imagine, the flexible pathways coordinator has to work with everyone, admin, teachers, counselors, nurse, front office staff, paraeducators, oh yeah, students. So that's in there somewhere. Specifically, Nicole Lamoff and I have been building a deep collaborative relationship because our functions are really connected. You need to have a real team there between the counselor and a flexible pathways coordinator. And we've been very successful in that. We're good support to each other. Also, teacher support and administrative support, it's just a matter of a school of this size and a staff of this size. Sometimes it feels like there are no restrictions on duties. We just help each other out in every way we can and in the moment. And that can be very small things or much more supportive, bigger things. I have also been engaging in self-design and online professional development, really figuring out this role and what it is. It's exciting to be able to build it, but there are also existing things I needed to know more about. So I've been doing that. Exploring lots of different reading materials, looking at other school-based programs, looking at potential partner organizations, it's doing some self-guided research to figure out what we can really do here with this department. Finally, I've been working on vision, both on my own and with various teams. I've met with two SU teams exploring proficiency-based education and flexible pathways. And I've begun a capacity building and design relationship with Jeanne Phillips at the Tarrin Institute, who was already working with the middle school. So it kind of folded me into that arrangement. That latter work, among other things, Jeanne Phillips is going to lead to a pretty major overhaul of the personalized learning plan system. All of this and everything that came before feeds directly the development of the flexible pathways department that the superintendent can already wants and that I believe we believe that the SU needs. So speaking of which SU needs, this work has exposed some SU-wide needs. First systemic needs, we need proficiency clarity. How is PBE going to work in this supervisory unit? Well, in a way, but it needs to be fully developed. We're not there. This is not my work. It's not the work of the flexible pathways coordinator or the department, but it is necessary that we do the work for flexible pathways to function successfully. I don't mind, I would say, for the school to function in the way that we wanted to do. We have exposed needs in our students. This goes back to the K to H soil. For flexible pathways to work, for deep learning to occur in high school on either tree, our students need to arrive with curiosity, follow through in the capacity for self-direction. Still evolving, of course, but they need to have some of all of those things are we present. We need to foster executive function K to A. This is not, again, precisely the work of the flexible pathways coordinator, but these traits will be further developed through our personalized learning plans and we need those, again, those foundation of those skills and those traits in order to have this work and in order for school children to succeed on both trains. Finally, needs from our faculty and for our faculty. I need teams and we need time for that and that takes us to our final slide. So if the flexible pathways coordinator is the chief arborist, then that means that faculty are faculty farmers. So I get to facilitate that work. As of the middle of next week, I will have met with probably let's say three quarters or 80% of the faculty to formally share and discuss the vision for flexible pathways as well as teacher engagement. What this means in the immediate term or the near term is the building of two teams of teachers based in teachers and me. Team one is focused on the validity and rigor of flexible pathways programming. Flexible pathways must be rigorous. They must be as intellectually or academically challenging as any work you can encounter in the regular classroom. So what does that look like? Right, this team will work to answer that question to ensure that these pathways are as effective and valid as any classroom work. I want to involve students in that process. Don't know what that looks like yet. I don't know for sure what it looks like to involve the teachers because I'm working on that next week. And I do know that there will be some summer work involved here and there will be ongoing work throughout, well moving forward because it's gonna be a team and this team is gonna continue to work. Some of those flexible pathways coordinator responsibilities when I showed you the student responsibilities and my responsibilities, some of those FPC responsibilities are gonna go to teachers on the team, right, to work indirectly with that student. Team two is focused on the personalized learning plan. Oops, I failed to edit there, sorry. We will create for the PLP a flexible framework around exploration of proficiency based graduation requirements and transferable skills so that each student gets to explore themselves, their interests and their educational directions in ways that best suit them and still meet the proficiencies and academic expectations of why we're evaluating our school. The team will design this new system and will lead implementation across the building, providing teacher advisors with the tools and protocols to bring PLPs to life with the students. Thank you for your patience. Before I take questions, are there any slides you wanna go back to or any sort of bits of information that you've repeated? And then we can go to deeper questions. You can ask too. Yeah, us. It's okay. As far as I'm concerned. Okay. Shannon has that hand up. Oh, Shannon, hi, Shannon. Hi, how are you? How are you envisioning helping get this message out to the parents and community members about what's going to be happening in the coming years with this program and what opportunities their students might have? Thank you for asking that. The part of the job, when Jamie and I talked the first time when I came on board was to, I'm having a problem with where do I look? So part of the job from the beginning has been marketing and outreach. So it's not only to the community and the parents, but also to the students, right? How do I get the students to know more about this? So we're going to do a number of things. This has not been, because I'm focused right now on the building capacity, I haven't actually, I don't have a communication strategy in place yet, but I'm going to leverage social media. I'm going to leverage morning meeting in the building and I'm going to use sort of all the various, through teachers, through CVL, through all the programming that we already have to talk to students. And similarly to talk to adults. We'll use the regular newsletter that goes out by email. I have a Facebook account that's going to tie to the high school's Facebook page. Ultimately, I want to work in other social media and we're working on that with our technology director. I've had a meeting about that a couple of weeks ago. So we'll definitely use all those ways to get out there. It's actually really essential, not only for, I mean, you and I met at the, we're a Wildcats night. So you know, but we are actually also going to be reaching out when we go to the middle school and any other kind of outreach we do to recruit students that I'm going to be part of that or the messaging from the department is going to be part of that. So there will be a multi-path through the plan. Ask me again next fall. I'll have more info for you. I'd love to also see some sort of short video featuring you and this program on our website. Maybe also tied to our perspective families page. That's great. Thank you. That's a good idea. I will work on that. Excellent. Thank you, Shannon. I actually have a question. Could you maybe elaborate just a little bit more on the adult education, like kind of maybe like an example of a pathway that someone could take for that? So adult education is a specific program. So when a student has sort of exhausted all their possibilities here and just for various reasons can't succeed here, it's not working. Then they have the option to pursue the state program and be able to access adult ed. It has gates to access and there's a battery of academic tests that students take, three tasks. It's a six point scale. They have to score a five to get into the program and a six to graduate from it. That's the short version. But they do all programming. Like they do all the disciplines, all the things that you would encounter in school. You've got your history in English and science and math is all there. So it's just that it's done outside of the school building and they are not graduates of the school, they are graduates of that program. So there is a trade-off there. But for some students, it really does end up being the best path. Does that help? Yeah. Thank you. Great presentation. Thank you. Thank you really nice. It's a metaphor. Yeah, I think you'd like that always. Man of metaphors. Any other questions, concerns? I'm around, you can always find it. Would we be able to get a copy of the presentation as well as, I know the presentation was kind of an oversea of the model, but maybe a copy of the notes that you used for the presentation so we can go through that. Think about it a little more. Yeah, a little more deeply. Jamie has a copy of the presentation. Yeah. And I can do kind of a boarded high points list and share that with Jamie as well. Probably not this week, but I can put that together. No, that's a great idea. Then you can kind of sit with it a little better. My question would be kind of like, so as I assume like as students become freshmen and start their term, that's when my kind of personalized learning plans are developed and then like what stage of the process do you wind up getting pulled in? Like you're not going to be doing a PLP with every student at some point. So the personalized learning plans ultimately will be led by teacher advisors. The team will create the protocols and then I will continue to be involved in kind of oversight, I guess. And ultimately I probably all teachers will have access to all students because ultimately you pretty much come in contact with everybody, but certainly even in the beginning they'll probably all be funneled through me so I can look at them and think about what I'm seeing, getting a sense of the student body, thinking about this idea of interests and tailoring things to people. So in that sense, I'm involved from the beginning. Then the personalized learning plan, so the state of Vermont requires for instance, if the student wants to take a dual enrollment course, they have to put that in their personalized learning plan. It has to be present before they can access that program. I would like to do that for all of that, for all of the flexible staff. Whatever the student wants to do, it's asserted within there and it's part of their plan. Part of the beginning about it being a planned experience. This has to be not reactive on the plan. Again, there are always emergencies, but that would be the idea. So there is some discussion still and there will continue to be discussion about when students are allowed to access flexible pathways. My position is as soon as they walk through the door, other people believe that it's 11th and 12th grade, we have to go through these gates first and that's part of what the team is going to work on and part of what hopefully Mr. Thomas and Mr. Kanani are gonna have some say and that I'm sure as well. So that is the goal and I'm always mindful of who I'm sharing with. So as we develop these plans and these teams, I don't think we can expect administrators to attend meetings, but they'll certainly, I mean, regularly, but they're certainly invited and they're certainly shared after and asked for approval of the various things that are put in place to make sure that we're meeting all the kind of legal requirements and the vision of the instruction leaders in our world. I add to that. The law says seven through 12th grade. I think we believe when you're ready, like you said, it's not a high school program. I think the work you've done is amazing, by the way. Really appreciative. And it's important that Ben coordinates with the middle school flexible pathways coordinator and that program needs to be brought up to speed and this is gonna help a lot. We see now where the ramp, I can see the ramp too. So I'm pretty excited. And that is the direction and I didn't put an emphasis on that because we haven't gotten to that discussion yet, but I believe, and we've talked about it before, that this is definitely the, ultimately it becomes a seven to 12, at least the PLP part becomes seven to 12 and flexible pathways becomes seven to 12. Of course, there are different needs. As again, I think we talked about a little bit between middle school has some somewhat different needs and high school has some somewhat different needs, but there's definitely overlap. There's a really nice Venn diagram here. And there's definitely a lot of shared thinking. I think we can, I like that you said that about the ramp because I think we can learn from each other. As long as we don't build it out of trees. Right, exactly. We don't wanna knock the trees down, they have to thrive. So anyway, I'm very excited to be here. I'm very excited to work with all these folks and to hear from feedback from the board and from the community. I mean, ultimately, I mean, as Shannon brought up, I don't get it out to the community. So that's part of it. And hopefully, if you look at that CBL program, it's astounding how involved the community has been. You can start to do that with other flexible pathways as well. Fantastic. That's where I wanna go, right? Community engagement should be a thrust of this program. For this department. All right, thank you. I will communicate with Superintendent Karani about the bullet points and one edit to make on the slideshow. And you have that. So hopefully next week or two, we can make sure every package for the board for request. Thank you. All right. Thank you, thanks for the pleasure. Great job, man. Thank you. Good evening. Emily's here, Shannon. Emily, what do you have? Hi, sorry, I didn't speak up during the adjustments to the agenda. I wasn't sure if I could, as a non-board member, adjust anything. And also we were having some technical difficulties getting our GSA kids on the meeting, but I wondered if it would be possible to do that before the other, just cause it is a school night and they need to get to bed, but I don't know, any dinner, probably. But maybe it's not possible in which case they're troopers and they'll probably sit tight. Is everybody okay moving the presentation up? No, no problem. Thanks, go ahead, we can do that now. Awesome. I'd be happy to just give a very brief overview. As a White River Valley Middle School principal and somebody that believes in safety and belonging everywhere, I'm very supportive of the students' work in this, as far as supporting students' identity and who they are becoming or who they are. And the students are gonna speak to themselves and speak eloquently, I know of it. And they have done this work, not just recently, but they started it last year. So I'm gonna let them take over, they have a very comprehensive presentation. So Ms. Miller is, or Ms. Brainer, do you wanna introduce any parts of this? Explained of GSA maybe? Sure, I just also realized, and Elle, I think you were going to do the presentation, but I don't appear to be able to share my slides. Oh, now it's available, so it looks like I can do that. Okay, so I can do that for you, Elle. The GSA, I can give you a real quick overview of who we are and what we do, unless Ms. Brainer would like to jump in and do that. You're good to go. Okay. So GSA just kind of like a general description is a student-run organization. The goal is to unite LGBTQ plus and allied students to build community, organize around issues, impacting the community and our schools and the broader community. We started, because there was student interest, and we started meeting in September. It got a little wonky in the winter, but we've been meeting on every full Friday. Since the beginning, it's been awesome. We have a really dedicated group, it's a lot of fun, but they are really passionate about what they believe in. So happy to turn it over if you are ready, Elle. Hello, yeah, I'm ready. Okay, hello. Okay, so a few of us from the GSA worked on this presentation for this. So why the pride flag should be raised at the middle school or anywhere, I guess. Okay, next slide, please. So why the flag is important? Raising the LGBTQ plus flag is important because in recent years, the world has began to change. We are all learning to find ourselves and accept other groups of people. Topics about the LGBTQ plus community have been more and more common as the years go by. That means more people have more knowledge of who they connect with and find ways to identify themselves as to how they feel comfortable with their own skin. Our middle school has a large amount of people who identify with the community, but some might not feel safe to be who they are. The flag would show that we are a school that will be there for our students and support them. The GSA doesn't even make up half of the students that are in the LGBTQ plus community. Okay, for the community. Raising the pride flag would give LGBTQ plus community students a sense of belonging acceptance. We have taken a survey to understand how the student body feels about the possibility. 61% of the responses we received from our survey state that people would feel comfortable with the pride flag being raised, which is the blue. 21%, 21.8% represent students who aren't necessarily against or for the flag being raised and 16.7% people wish for the flag to stay off the pool. Next slide, please. So this one is kind of like the final, would you be fine if it was raised? So the red fraction of the circle is 73.1% for the flag being raised. And the blue is 26.9% against the flag being raised. So as shown, most of the students would like the flag to be raised or would not mind coming up. Next slide, please. Many schools around the country raise pride flags during Pride Month. So that is, which hasn't been done until recent years. Not many people have thought about it. Raising the pride flag would show our support and evolution as a community for this. This would be our own way of responding to the anti-LGBTQ plus legislation, such as the don't say gate bill, which is not its actual name, but it is a nickname due to what the bill has in it. If the flag were to be raised, then it'd send a positive message to everybody coming to our school or driving by. It represents a welcoming community and our hope for equality. Next slide, please. So I'm obviously not gonna read all of that, but if you'd like to, you can. A summary of what it says is, schools are allowed to tell parents personal and private information on their kid to reinforce fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding upbringing and control of their children. It takes away the ability in school to make or adopt procedures or student support forms that don't allow people to share what was said or groups that encourage a kid not to share with and involve their parents. This applies to things like mental, emotional and physical health. It also does not allow classroom discussions about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels, which is why this bill is known as the don't say gate bill, which this isn't some gruesome or violent topic. It's not harming anybody to learn about this. So, yeah, next slide, please. So some examples of the pride flags being raised are Wisconsin State Capitol Building for Pride Month. The progression pride flag flies at Huntsville public school and Toronto Catholic District School. And okay, next slide, please. So why is this important to the LGBTQ community? The sexualities and gender identities of LGBTQ plus community, the LGBTQ plus community are being used as insults. So I've personally walked through my school hallway and heard people say things like, like that's so gay or you, I'm not a lesbian. And who we are shouldn't be used derogatory. Members of the community feel unrepresented. Like when it comes to television, very few things have LGBTQ plus representation. Communities, companies like Disney try to change the gender of a character just to make the relationship straight. Like, and be blamed from the owl house to kids cartoon. Some members have nowhere to express their true self because no one has let them know it's okay. And there is a safe space. No one has ever told them that so they don't feel like they can share that. We as a community in school need to be open to change. Change doesn't stop because you aren't used to it. Like it may take time to get used to it, but it's something that you will eventually have to do. And I, a few weeks before, not even a few weeks, like a week before writing this slide, I had read in the news that there was a killing of a trans woman in Vermont, which people are like dying because they're gay, trans, et cetera. People are dying because of something that they cannot control. You don't choose to be gay. You can't decide these things. And to lose your life because of that is ridiculous. That's it. All right, thank you very much. Thanks very much. Does anybody have any questions for students at this time? Do we need a motion to act on this? Is it here? Yes. Right, well, that's a good discussion. Good time. We're just having some discussion first. Go ahead, Shana. You're muted. Ella, thank you so much for speaking. I know it's not easy to come and speak in front of this many adults. So I really respect that you came and spoke to us so eloquently. What is it that you're asking of us? We were hoping that we could raise the Pride flag at, I guess, we were thinking the middle school campus, but if both campuses were done, that'd be great. To raise the progression Pride flag, yeah. Well, I'd make a motion to let the principals do that at both sides. I mean, I would wait on a motion to have further discussion. I mean, that would be, you can make a motion, but we can have further discussion. Can't have a discussion to have a motion on the floor. No, we don't have a discussion at any time. Don't have a motion to have no discussion. Yeah, but I think we're okay having either way. Like if you want to make a motion, then we have a discussion, that's fine, or we can have a discussion. Did you have something you wanted to? So I think, yeah, I have something, but just to clarify, so it sounds like that what you're asking for is to be able to fly the flag for the month of June. Is that sound correct? We were hoping the whole year, but if a compromise has to be made, we are willing to do that. And then there's a lot of details, but like for instance, it's actually against a lot of fly another flag on the United States flag pole. So you technically would have to have a different flag pole to do that. I know other places do that, but technically it's against a lot of that. But I guess what I wanted to say was, thank you, Emily and Linley and Ella and Brianna, Nula. I think those are all the names that I've captured. If there's anybody else in there, I can't see you because they're not in the 12 box square, but definitely thank you for coming and I appreciate the conversation and it seems that you're very passionate, obviously on the topic and it's good to hear. I'm a new board member, so I had to kind of do a little research just to find, well, one that currently our school system doesn't have a policy in regards to flags or banners, as Jamie had noted in our packets. And again, this is a new thing. Do we have a student council that has this been a topic that's gone through the student council maybe or? We did not know about this until this meeting. Because a lot of times, just chain of command, usually things go through the student council on something like this. But I did want to, doing some research to date our school system is what I would say has taken a neutral posture on topics such as this one that's been presented this evening. And I think we can all agree here as I reached out for some information is the current neutrality of the school's position has made it successful for all students to represent their First Amendment rights on all sorts of topics. That is definitely something that we should celebrate and feel proud about that all individuals in our school seem open to talk about a wide range of topics that are dear to their hearts. So, you know, I definitely, that's something for us to celebrate. And the challenge that we have as a board and other individuals that may not be here or on the screen that our board members understand that sometimes the decision isn't as easy as deciding on the topic at hand rather than the formality in the precedent that as a result of the the answers to the question. So, you know, and how does that affect not only past and present but also future considerations of any topic? Because when we're talking about First Amendment rights, that's First Amendment rights of any topic, not just certain topics. So, we just have to make sure that we understand that. I think it's a very admirable topic, and but we have to think of, you know, including everybody into this decision. So, I don't, I guess that's kind of where I want to leave it. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that this is a First Amendment thing since this is the school itself deciding whether to raise a flag or not. You know, the students being able to speak about it will be kind of the First Department, maybe not the students, but you know, anyway. So anyway, I agree that we need to consider kind of the, like, we're not just approving this flag, we're approving flags in general for, you know, this kind of expression. Right now it's for the pride flag, but we need to consider other flags as well whether we're comfortable with that in general. I mean, my general feeling is that I am fine with empowering the administration to make a decision about this and letting them decide what is an appropriate as you go up. But I would like to, you know, hearing other people's views on it. Well, I agree with Andrew's position on it. I would empower the administration to decide. Personally, for me, I'm fine with that flag going up and following whatever, you know, it does lead us to think about future requests for other types of disputes such as this place. We're going to have to think about that down the road, but I would support it. Let the administration, you know, with our support, support our community and everybody's part of the community and have a right to address themselves. And this is a form of expression that they're entitled to as far as I'm concerned. But I think we have to also understand that the decision is solely with the board, not the administration. So because there is no policy, administrators follow policies because there isn't a policy currently drafted and this is wholly a board decision. We have to also understand that there is no consideration for other individuals as you have to be equal. So if we, and this is where it's challenging because it's a great cause, but we have to also think that if somebody else presents something to us, we can't think about it. You know, at that point, you have to act the same way equally as we did with another identity or another group. I disagree. I don't think you have to act the same way. I think that it's about, this is about supporting our students and there's nothing about the pride flag that's about hate speech. And I think there are some flags out there that I would say are about supporting that. And I also think that I wanna say thank you to Lindley and Emily for the work that you've done. A lot of these kids, like Ella said, don't have an adult in their lives that they feel like they can be open with, don't have an adult that they feel like they can come out to necessarily. And we know that those kids are at a super high risk for things like suicide. And so I think making a statement and saying, yes, we support our students, we are a safe space to talk about this, to be who you are is a really important message. And I would absolutely, I would support flying this flag year round. I think probably most reasonably, it should be flown at least in June for Pride Month, but I don't think this necessarily opens us up to having to allow any flag that wants to be flown, to be flown. All right, can I weigh in? So I reached out to our legal counsel on this because we don't have a policy and they're still doing some research around challenges that have been made across the state in regards to what you're discussing right now around First Amendment rights and flying the flags. And so I spoke to her literally twice this week, 30 minutes before the board meeting. And so her recommendation was that the board was in support of this, that we acknowledge that the board is in support of it and that the board could do one or two things. They could have a special meeting to actually take action. Once we get clarity from counsel or the board could actually empower the administration to direct the administration to fly the flag upon approval of counsel. And so those are the two options and motions that she would recommend. I'd make a motion for the second option. Well, it's a good idea. It's a bunch of hand drawings. You're correct, yeah. Yeah, just like it seems like the board shouldn't be approving individual flags. Like it seems like we should kind of make a policy on whether we approve flags in general and then let the administration decide and that's what would be in policy but you don't have policy right now, right? Right. But I mean- And there'd be procedure that we would spell out around concerns of hate speech and things of that nature but we don't have, those policies exist in other districts, we just don't have one. The administration does make a lot of decisions that we don't necessarily have a set out policy for them. So I think that us getting direction you're okay with it. That's why I said you can make that motion and you can tighten it up with the idea of administration's consultation with council. And then my next step would be since if that's the motion you guys move toward we'd start working on policy around this, right? And we would look to have policy adopted within the next couple of months. Okay. Peggy or actually, Ella, why don't you go first? So I was wondering which law was talking about that you can't raise a flag on the same pole and I don't think that I'm not saying that like you're wrong. I would just like to know so that the GSA can look into it and like read it more in depth and also yeah, there are, I've thought of like some policy things that possibly might help. Yeah. Peggy, go ahead or do you know what that is? I'd have to give back. I definitely can give back to Ella or one. I can send it to you too, Ella. It's called the flag code. There are rules about the US flag and how it can be flown, but that's not necessarily. Say what you wanted to say. You're talking to me. I wasn't getting good reception. I'm moving out here in the wind. So maybe I will. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? I mean, what I was gonna say was I was thinking along the same lines, we should not have another flag flying on the same flag pole as the US flag. But I would, I love the research that the girls did doing the surveys and getting the information to show, you know, how many people in the school feel that this flag should be flown. And perhaps we do need to have a flag pole that represents that would be for student flags where, you know, the majority of the students feel that this is a flag that should be flown. So I guess that was basically what I was going to say. Everybody put in the, there are two flag poles. Is that at both campuses or just in the middle of school? Not sure. I believe it's at both. One of them flies the Vermont State flag and one has the US flag at the middle school. I'm only aware of one flag pole on South Royalton's campus. I don't know if that's one of these. Lori just changed the flag. So that's how I know that. I was in the office working as she just changed the flag. So there's one pole. I think I made Mr. Chairman, Chairperson. I think they were asking only for the Bethel campus and they referred to the middle school, but there's a Bethel campus. I want to be clear on that too. Flags also that are on the front lawn are not student flags. Right. They're school community flags. And it appears from the flag code that you can only, you can never display a national flag, another nation's flag on the same pole, but you can display other flags as long as the American flag is on top. Okay. I guess back to, you know, Jamie's second option. I don't know how to put that. You word it out and I'll make it as an action at this point. So the motion would have been to move that the administration consider student proposed flags per approval of school council, moving forward until policy set is what I would suggest based on my conversation with that. There is a student council though on the middle school campus. So that's not... Say student council. Legal council. Legal council. A legal council. So that's the motion I'll make. Okay. Is there any second? Can I just clarify that? Was there that a motion to move the administration to consider student proposed flags per approval of school council, legal council, moving forward until policy is developed? Yes. Okay. Thank you. I'll say. Can you just repeat the beginning of that? What word did you say moved to do what to the administration? A person, whoever it is, is motioning to move that the administration consider student proposed flags per approval of legal council, moving forward until policy is developed or established. Right. Tammy, I made that motion. John Olmsted. Thanks, John. Sorry. I was so focused on the words. And Shannon, do you second that? I do. Is there any further discussion we want to have on anybody wants to have on the motion on the floor? Okay. So let's vote on favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? I'm going to vote no, but... And again, no with comment because people need to understand that sometimes things are about formality and not the topic I can't show this has nothing to do with the subject matter. And I think Lindley knows me very well. So I'm all about the formal system and how that is affected. And I would say until a formal policy is adopted that we can allow equal opportunity to flags being flying regardless of definition. You know, I would wait for that. So that would be my no. Okay. Go ahead. So I just also want to say thank you again, Emily, Lindley, Ella, everybody who's here. Can you guys keep bringing us things because it's nice to see you. So if you have things that come up through, you know, chain of command and go up through the principal and Jamie, we love to see you. Love to see the student representation. It's great. Thank you all for giving our kids a chance to speak. That's great. Yeah. Thank you for your time. Thanks. Okay. Emotions approved. Move on to the reports to the board. So you have my superintendent reporting hand and the, and I'll thank you again to the students for coming and Mr. Boynton for presenting as well. So a couple of legislative bills that I want to highlight for the board and for those of you on the full board, you hear me say it again next week. And I also want to put a plug in for the board members. We will have a board training series next Monday as well. We will video record it and push it out with Mr. Gore. So the first one is there was a bill passed around unified districts that spelt out a more precise method for the decoupling of a district, which results in a study committee now that has to go in front of the state boards before district towns would take a vote before it was a petition. And then a vote would happen. And it would go back to the select board and then the school district would work with the select board to try to get factual information out. And I feel like I became an expert in that model because I've had a few decoupling votes here in the last two years. And now this gives a much more specific policy method for how that occurs. Now, Malcolm Wood, I feel like we've done a really good job of coming together as a district around that where Wildcats and folks are seeing that identity. And so I, and I hope in my other districts that folks are feeling better about the promise of the merger and see a pathway forward. So hopefully we don't have to go through that policy but at least there is really a spelled out means now for a decoupling. The other thing is the waiting study awaits the governor's signature. That is going to significantly change how educational taxes work here into the future after next year. And so right now we've been working off equalized pupils for quite some time now. And now it's gonna be a long-term waiting factor that occurs through ADM. And what it does is it actually takes into weight, square footage, actual demographic and population in each town versus, and it increases the weight for students if you're a town that has a certain low rule, they consider it rural type town with less population density within a certain square footage. And I don't remember what that square footage is off the top of my mind right now. So I apologize. But the other thing it takes a weight in is those students service via ESL. English is the second language. It takes into account free and reduced lunch rates. And it's still best taken into account middle and high school students. As you know, equalized pupils always weight those more. The idea being that they cost more to educate the student in middle or high school. And then it also looks at student school enrollment. And I did chuckle a little bit. There's almost a flavor of phantom students in it again a little bit because those schools that are considered small schools the less than a hundred, those students actually count more within the waiting study model. But at the end of the summer rise and we're still waiting from Brad James, what it was gonna be is a positive result on the tax impacts for the district of Rudd and most of our districts with the WRVSU. And the idea is, it was around the idea of rural districts having more equity in regards to the idea when you think way back to act 60 and being able to serve those students in rural poverty communities. And so I do think there's been a great deal of work done with that committee. UVM did a bunch of study on this. Those communities that are actually gonna result in higher tax base increases based on the change of the waiting study model that will actually take a full effect until five years from now. And so that bill, we do expect to be signed into law. I accept the unified district bill to be signed into law. The universal meals bill, I think that that's still a bit of a wait and see from the governor's office. And I say that because that bill uses one time ed funds surplus money to pay for free meals for students in Vermont next year. What it doesn't do though, is have a sustainable method of payment moving forward. So I could see possibly, again, this is Jamie's opinion, right? I'm following the legislature possibly a veto there with the hope of a compromise of funding moving forward. The bill does require that the legislator take up a study committee of how we would fund that moving forward. So that may be enough to get a governor signature. I will tell you, it's one that I'm following closely. I think universal meals are important for a lot of our students. I really worry though about where that costs falls. And whether it's on local districts or whether it's gonna be across the state. And so that's one that Vermont superintendents have followed really closely. And then the other one is, of course, they did look to repair the teacher retirement and Vermont employee municipal retirement system. They did put kind of a stop gap on that. Again, long-term funding of how to prop that up. I still think there's some more work to be done there. That was vetoed. And then there was an override from the legislature on that bill. And so, and then also the last thing was the block grant for special education funding is occurring. There has been a delay in one little piece of that bill for educators. It's not a little piece. It's the change to adverse effect of how a student may qualify for an IEP. There's some significant changes in how schools need to document the level of interventions and supports they've put in place for a student before school could demonstrate adverse effect. As we continue to beef up our system of supports, I'm feeling more and more confident that we're going to have those data models in place. You hear her talk about data a lot. That's gonna be important when a team looks at adverse effect. A student does not receive an IEP just due to a disability, right? There has to be, the educational team has to then be able to demonstrate how that disability adversely affects that student's ability to learn and achieve. And so that model is gonna change significantly. And I would say it changes significantly because now with the block funding grants, we're allowed to use resources that used to just be geared towards students with IEPs now to provide general interventions and supports for students who need them. So funding is not just tied to IEPs now. It's tied to try to do more earlier interventions and supports as well. And so they're saying if we're gonna do that then we need to make certain that you're really showing us that you're using the funds to do that work. And so that one piece was delayed from one more year. We are moving forward to look to implement that sooner rather than later. Philosophically within our MTSS system, we believe that that's best practice. Now I'll take any questions for Sam. I think I brought it up there before but you were talking about, well, the transition that our district went through with our neighboring town and our towns have we gone back to do any type of assessment on how that transition, both at the student level, at the teacher academic level, town level, how that transition has gone. Like I know one challenge, being a parent of two children that just went, took the jump from fifth to sixth grade that there are and continue to be challenges on that jump. Some of them are maturity level and some academic changes. Others is sports related and having 30 kids on one team. So there's been some challenges. So I just wonder, have we done any internal assessments on how this has gone now that we have three, four years under our bill? So the administration puts out some surveys to families that tend to be aligned to positive behavior interventions that supports their surveys that come to us and positive behavior interventions supports kind of the university of Oregon. And so these are surveys around school climate and quality on the atoms has been working. My chief academic officer has been working with the Newton School to pilot a different type of family survey around how folks are feeling the school experiences. We piloted that this spring. We're just getting that data back. And her plan is to then be working with the admin team to see, all right, based on the type of data we're getting from PBIS in this other survey that was a little more comprehensive. Are we gonna look to go in a different direction? My sense is yes, that we're gonna have our own homemade survey that tries to get the root of some of that work. What I would say to you, Chris, is I think we're still in a place as an organization that we're trying to come out of reactionary mode, right? And so what I mean by that is we've been reacting to COVID, we've been reacting to trying to get ourself on stable financial ground and we've been reacting still to mergers that didn't even see a vision for the promise of at 46. And so I think we've now got folks seeing that there is a vision and a movement forward. So now I think we can get back to saying, all right, now that there's a vision and movement forward, where are we missing still? Where are the gaps? I think you gave some good examples, right? Around how are transitions happening? I also think within this district, we gotta look in and say, is the merger exactly the way we want it, right? Or are there still places where we could see better outcomes for kids academically and possibly more efficiency, right? Like in my other districts, I think that, you know, what folks were looking at within our 46 and these mergers was better outcomes for kids, more opportunities for kids and more efficiency. And those are, to me, those are the metrics we gotta be using, right? Are we seeing that more opportunities, better outcomes and a more efficient, stabilized financial plan as we move forward. And there's a bunch of the SU board will be getting a new strategic plan for a five year plan this fall and the communities will to give feedback on and the strategic plan will look at curriculum instruction assessment. It will look at building maintenance and facilities, action planning for each district, like you're talking about, and it'll look at a sustainable financial pathway forward so that the tax rates are as predictable as we can try to make them. Knowing right now still that the yield does a lot in regards to adjusting our tax rates. And so looking at what we can control, how do we make certain that it's predictable so we don't have these highs and lows in regards to tax rates for folks? Yeah, I do think it would be a good idea just to kind of think about some of the general, you know, like when we went into the merger, we came up with a busing plan and stuff like that and kind of looking at it now that we've kind of had it for a few years, reviewing some of our stuff will be a good thing to do. And I know some of that is being done with the sports. Yeah, sure. And just like Jamie said, sometimes you envision something but your end product is slightly different when you envision so is it time to make some subtle improvements here and there? Sure. I think having kind of a continual improvement plan just in general, like that is where we want to be generally as a school, but I think kind of looking back at some of the overall structure thing has worked well. Yeah, I agree with that. You know, I mean, yeah, to be candid, right? I've asked the administration, why do we have two elementary schools? And I'm trying to put it like, this is not meant to get a bunch of people worried or worked up about that, but I do think within the merger, it's like strategically something that we should talk about meeting in regards to just like the why. And I think that that's a big question, right? But I think in general, it's something that as a district that should be talked about. So I would let you know the administration's thinking exactly the way you're thinking too. And again, I don't say that to get a bunch of people upset. The superintendent didn't just say that we need to have one elementary, but it's certainly at times something that, I've said, how did we get there, right? And why was that the pathway? I don't see any harm with self-reflection and always throwing things against the wall to see how it doesn't look. Thank you. I mean, we have to do it, but... Cameron. Yeah, I think what I'm hearing Jamie say is we need to be able to justify why we have two elementary schools. And continue to justify why we have some of the program when we have. So yeah, I agree. Well, I mean, I think that it's that kind of assessment should take place every year anyway. I mean, not just, you know, okay, we're three, four years in, let's see what we're doing well. I'm gonna see what's not working and changing. Why don't we think about that assessment every year? Is there any other questions for Jamie? And we'll move on to the principals. Okay, good evening. You received our report and there's a lot in it. But today, tonight, we're gonna talk about our social emotional data. I'm also concerned that the report was embedded in our report and so I don't think that you better print out of the report. I'm thinking about that right now. Oh, in the packet though, because it was a hyperlink, but we get it here. Okay. And they could have, but we get the report. And I can get email you just the slides. We usually start chronologically by early grades. Yeah, so I think that we're supposed to really focus on the behavioral data. We've highlighted some other things because there's a couple things going on around here. So if you have questions about anything in the general part, we're happy to go over that. We recently, I feel like this has been a good system. We have gotten into the practice of kind of putting this together, presenting to staff and going over our data, having them look at the trends and talk about, and it's linked in here so you'll be able to see. I noticed I wonder on a Jamboard and then talk about kind of goal setting and what the next steps are. So we do a virtual meeting, so everyone's together and then we break out into elementary and middle and high school. So I think when we did that and looked at the specific behavioral data for this go round, and I don't know that I wanna go through it slide by slide, but we can. No, I think, I mean, it's up to the board. What I've been doing with boards is having the administration where we talked about what are they beaming from the data and what are your next steps to addressing those areas of concern? So I would say that in our specific conversations, we started talking about brain breaks, engaging boys specifically if you look at the data. I don't think that's across all areas. And I would say there was nothing specific that we allocated to three to five was like outrageously different from our last time we looked at our data. It's really the same. We know that little kids use their hands to solve problems more than their words. No, they get the more verbal they get and maybe it looks more like non-compliance or verbal things. And so I think those were the things specific we wanna talk about is that in elementary because we did do it all together, we didn't drill down by campus. And I think that we agree that there'd be some benefit to looking specifically at each campus to see if there is some differences. And so that will happen in our universal elementary universal meetings. In addition, I think as far as next steps, we've been talking about how this is so still not even comparable to the last time because we've had a couple kids move in. So it isn't really apples to apples it's apples to oranges. And we know that just a few kids in different behaviors can totally change the picture of some of our data. So I know it was already mentioned but we had teachers do a couple of surveys to talk about how we're adhering to like our PBS standards and their buy-in. And then we have a community do the climate survey. And so I think our real next step is to take this data and the data from those three surveys and create our action plan for next year. Which I would say the last two years we haven't had time to do because we've been creating COVID response protocols. So I highlighted it in our principal's report. I mean, we've had people go to an in-person conference which doesn't sound amazing but our PBS coordinators haven't been able to go in person. So they just came back like excited and regenerated and ready to rock and roll. So I don't know if you read want to talk about. Yeah, I do. And I'll first build on your piece about, you know Shane Oaks who's one of our folks that helps a lot with behavior. I asked him, how was the conference? And he said, it was really nice to see people. Was that at Lake Mart? And we're doing really well from what we can figure out, right? So we have been in a COVID situation where we're not out there talking as much to each other in schools out of different school districts. So that was good. In the middle school, the last time we measured we part of the year we were in isolation pods. So we have three times as much behavior reporting this year as last year. That's one thing that we know is real. There's also been a push to have faculty really understand and document what's happening so we can have clear data. We do see like Andra and I know like Reed, boys are much higher than girls in bad behavior choice and we need to get on top of that. Jimmy, you've talked about that before when you came in schools that you've been in. It's the thing, one of the major things to look at. The other thing, this Jamboard that Andra mentioned is a way that faculty in a meeting, especially virtually can say things and it goes up like post that you'll see it when you look at it. And it's really, it's good for us to read and it's important. And I also want to just be clear that there's three teams. There's a university, there's a targeted team for kids that are in tier two leveling and there's an intensive team for kids that are at the top of the pyramid. So we have three of those teams that meet. We also have a leadership team that looks at this data before we give it to faculty and their faculty members and they're giving us some feedback. So this has been tuned and tuned and tuned and we're living in this data. And it's, I can't believe I'm saying this. It's really helpful. It's really lovely to have all that information so you can build the right bridges to success. Middle school, I'll tell you that the thing that I saw and that I've shared directly with faculty is it's all the soft spots where the biggest problems are. Break, which is recess for middle school. Lunch, before and after those two things. It's too loose, hallway behavior comes into the classroom. So we're aware of that and we're going to address that this summer with the larger team. So I would hand it to Reed. Thanks, Owen. It is great to be able to look at this data and compare it to our last data report. And certainly at mid-year when we looked at this, the number of behavior referrals in the high school was very concerning. But if you look at that last slide which compares our monthly numbers of referrals, it's been trending down since then. So I'm happy to be able to report that. I think the general climate in the high school is perhaps a little bit less chaotic than it was when we first came back to in-person learning five days a week with all 100% of our student body and minimal COVID restrictions. So I'm feeling good about that. And the data supports that the actions we took in at the end of the first semester made a difference. And that was generally also the anecdotal reporting of staff when they looked at the data that after we saw that the number one source of behavior referrals related to technology infractions, specifically inappropriate use of cell phones as distractions in classrooms, we revisited our practices, we tightened up our alignment around how teachers were enforcing the rules in our handbook and kind of classroom rules around the use of technology. And we've seen a decline in that. So it just goes to show that being able to use the data to really focus on some problem areas and intentional actions can make a difference in improving what we're seeing in the classroom. Our review of this data recently brought a lot of great ideas together because if you look behind the data, you'll see that really a small number of students make up a disproportionate percentage of the behavior referrals. And one of the challenges is how do teachers work together as a team around a specific student where students problem behaviors from class to class. And so the ideas that the faculty generated were to spend some time next fall looking at this data and looking at some specific students and maybe getting the teachers of that student in a room together to look at the behavior data and talk about how does the group of teachers work as a team to modify behavior and look at what are the antecedents of behavior and what can we do to remedy some of the problems that are affecting all teachers or maybe one or two teachers have figured it out and it's not a problem in their classes and it gives us a reason to look at, well, what's happening in this class or this class that might be causing the behavior. So we came away with five really good ideas. We'll hand off to Jeff and the rest of our MTSS team to take a look at in faculty time next year that I think will make a difference in improving our numbers. And with that, I would take this one chance since I've got the floor to thank all of you for coming into the SU in the last week to sign diplomas for next month. We were surprised to hear that that's all set. So thank you for doing that. Questions? Yeah, I was gonna ask a few questions. Comments? Do you need a motion to approve your words? Sorry, I haven't gone to the SU. We're supposed to be signing the diplomas now? Yeah, so the diplomas are up in the central office to be signed by everyone. Yeah, I got the message that they were signed but maybe they're not. I think maybe it was the message was they were signed by me. Okay, thank you for making your head too. I'm like, I'm so confused. That works better for the board. I'm happy to have those out for you. There's a special pen that I signed it with, well, I guess special. I'd like it to all be in the same ink if possible and they are with Christie. So if that's easier or if the school is easier, we can have it located at a school. I'm thinking Reed that she was on it, I had signed them. I signed them yesterday. I love that y'all just communicate. Well, I was like, boy, I just signed them yesterday. There was no signature because I don't see you guys required. Well, a good reminder that this is one of the things we have to do at the end of every year is to get that paperwork done. So we're ready to go on June 18th. And you're all invited to graduation. So think about in the coming weeks, whether or not you want us to save seats for you, we'll want to talk about that. And I don't know that now is the perfect time, but I don't think we'll have another meeting before graduation necessarily, but usually one of the board members is up on stage handing out diplomas to students at graduation. And it's usually who wants to do it and if there's a special connection to the group of students that's coming up on stage. I did it with Lisa last year. Yeah. Is there anybody who would take all you like to do it? I'm pretty sure I'm going to be at a soccer tournament unfortunately. And Rodney, I'm sure I'm going to be at the same one. I appreciate it. I don't want to be at the same one, unfortunately. When do you say sure? I said, unfortunately, I'll be at the same soccer tournaments. I just heard that Rodney was all into all to do it. Go Moose. Rodney would do great. Yeah, I could do it. I always vote in the one who's not here to defend himself. Exactly. Why not me, Rodney? We can coordinate over email maybe about finding somebody who's able to do it. I'll talk to Rodney to see if he's able to. Or Peggy. Or Peggy. I was nominated in Rodney. Sorry, I couldn't quite understand what you said. Peggy, what did you say? I said, I was nominated in Rodney. OK, Rodney did. I'll talk about this. Thank you, guys, for that. I mean, I guess the one comment on the clubs. Interesting, because I didn't know that we were going to talk about this so much in detail. But I had a question that I was going to bring to the board at some point in a kind of goal with this. So I mean, the numbers are alarming, right? And it's not like if you just point your finger at the elementary school or middle school or the high school, because it seems like they're all double, if not triple, the number of referrals year over year, which is pretty alarming. But some of the information I got from parents, but mostly my kids. And I'm sure it's looking at this data. There's no picking on one identity. It looks like it's kind of widespread. Is I wonder what the true data really is when I say referrals? Because from what I hear, it sounds like often teachers will allow more things to happen in the classroom now than maybe they would have a couple of years ago. That same person that does the same trick every day, or some of the middle school, some of the language that's being used in around class time, that the teachers now will say they'll hear it and they do this. So what are these real numbers look like? And how do we not discipline? But how do we get our message across that this behavior is not acceptable? And then I'm not up with the policy standards of what our disciplinary policies are, but maybe we need to re-examine those. Because these numbers jumping year over year is pretty alarming, I mean, other things. I'll put them in context. So I mean, we've undergone a pretty dramatic impact nationwide, worldwide with the pandemic and that's a whole impact. And I mean, most of you are not having gone to virtual academy. So what would the numbers look like? And will they level off over time? And so while we need to plan for maybe thinking context of if this type of event were to hit us again, how do we plan for it? But will it level as we get away from it and back to a more normal routine? Will it change over time? That's why it's so important to look at these surveys and action plans to talk about proactively what you're going to do and reactively what we're going to do and all be on the same page. And I think next year too, there's a shift towards how we're going to use our half days and there's been some really clear guidance from the superintendent about that and that we're going to focus on SEL on some of those half days. And I don't think that this year, looking back, we were still COVIDing and doing so much of this on the computer. It's hard to do PD on the computer. So I think we have a lot more opportunities to make sure that we're aligned with what we're doing between classrooms, which we've been so close into our classrooms in the last two years. So I totally agree. We've got to make sure that a kid in one classroom is getting the same messaging of a different classroom. Yeah, and I guess kind of going back to what Chris was saying a little bit about how just like it should be known for like all teachers, parents, students, what exactly is being enforced for different actually because personally, at the high school, different teachers have different, like enforce different things than other teachers. So I feel like there is not like a clear concise like this is what's going to happen if you do this. For example, there was a kid yesterday practically not wearing a shirt around school and to my knowledge, he was not just coded for it. And I just feel like I don't know who that was or whatever that decided that was just fine. But I just think that it would be great if everyone just knew exactly what would happen if kids did like certain things. Yeah, I think that comes to when I talk about building a system, that's what I mean, right? Like that all teachers and students, like we have agreed upon school-wide expectations. And any and everyone should rather say what those are and what that looks and sounds like in each area of the building and that we hold everyone accountable to those. And that, you know, my favorite saying is when I used to do a lot of consulting work on this is we don't do independent contractors, right? Like you don't get to just say, well, in this room, actually, the rule is this. Well, that's not a system, right? And so I've been talking a lot to your principles about how do we ensure we have accountability to a universal system? And that where I said that certainly all students but all employees understand that that vision around when we say we, we mean all of us, is how we do our business. Yeah, so I appreciate that a lot. Yeah, thank you. I mean, the follow-up piece that does once you get to that vision, start making sure we communicate that out to the parents. So, you know, they understand what the limitations are gonna be and what is in theory will be uniformly enforced and stuff. I think if I may. Anecdotally, this is anecdotally, right? What we're doing, I can tell you also anecdotally. I know Andrew makes calls every night to parents or emails. We contact parents all every day. We have a contact set, right? And not everything gets written up. I use the filters and I know Andrew has done it too and read is, is that respectful? Is that responsible? Is that safe? Was that kind? Everybody knows the answer to that if you're talking about that shirt or the hands-on behavior. All great. They know or if they don't, then you sit and work with them. The independent contractor is the danger. The other piece that I don't think you're talking about at all is there's some kids that are in the programming that have different access points that they might be coming out of that personalized learning class and we're gonna do that very privately and you see that. Kids are treated differently because every kid is different but there is a standard we have to have. And I appreciate you saying something, Chris and I know we're both your children at Penn School. All you have to do is just call me and I'll take care of it. Well, no, that's that your daughter's talking to you, which I like. But we hear the truth. They know what the rules are. But we hear the truth from kids. I was saying if your kids are talking to you. I also know having been a parent when the three of them are in the back seat, three friends, you're getting a lot of information. No, that happened all day. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. And again, I mean, it comes down to behavior. I mean, behavior isn't being responsible in the classroom than learning. That's right. We're all here to learn, so, absolutely. No. Oh, thank you. All right. Should move on to the business manager, Tara. Everyone. She's at the ballroom. So you have? Yeah. She's muted, Tara. Yeah, we can't hear you, Tara. It's another mute. Yeah, it's another mute. Oh, no, she's muted. How are you muted? Her body is off. Yeah, we can't hear you, Tara. Okay. Oh, still can't. I can hear her. Oh, really? Oh, we can't hear her. That's weird. Turn on the closed captioning. We can read what she's saying. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Man, we can try that. I'm not gonna care. This is not super accurate. Does that work better? Everybody else stopped talking. Okay, we're gonna read you. Yes, we can't hear you. I can still hear you. That's so weird. I can hear her as well. Okay. Maybe log out and come back in, Tara. Just see. Okay, I'll try that. Oh, okay. Hey. Did that do it? Who needs tech? All right, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna turn it back on. All right, well, that worked. So yes, Bethel just beat Chelsea in the minors baseball game. So you all have my report. It outlines the events that are happening in the business office for the month of May. And then I also provided the quarter three projections. So Parker, if you could put that up on the screen please. So we start on the expenditure side. Overall, we still are having areas of savings and salaries of $56,000. Health insurance, your budget versus the updated enrollment was 17,000. And then your other benefits, which are workers' compensation, dental, unemployment, life, long-term disability, et cetera. We are saving about 120, just shy of 127,000. So overall, the current projected savings on the expenditure side of the budget is $200,244. And then we move to the revenue side. It's getting dark, sorry, I gotta hold it closer. The tuition, we have a shortfall of just over 14,000. We have more pre-K revenue than we budgeted for which is fantastic. We have more interest income than we budgeted for as well. And we've received additional miscellaneous revenue. We do have a shortfall in the rentals, which is clear with not having our buildings open to the public all year. And then we have donations on there but we haven't received our, sorry, student activities. We haven't received any funds there transferred from the student activity funds to the general fund. And then we've received $910 in donations. We received a little less in the transportation aid and that's the reimbursement that you receive for your home to school transportation. And that's a formula that's given to us by the agency of education each year and they determine how much they're gonna reimburse us. So we were shy about $3,000 there. And then we'll get the vocational transportation reimbursement, driver's ed reimbursement. We haven't received the last semester so that usually comes towards the end of the year. And then we haven't received any reimbursements for adult learning. We're still on target for all of our title grants and Medicaid revenue from the supervisory union. So right now there's a projected shortfall in the revenue of $30,808. Then we have the savings on the expenditure side of $200,244. So still currently projecting a surplus to be $169,436. And then again, just the fund balances down below are as of the end of fiscal year 21 which was your last completed audit. And if there's any questions. Tara, we took out that student line, that $12,000 in the next budget. Is that correct? Student activities. I believe we did, but I don't have that budget. I'm pretty sure we did. I thought it would come out. It's not something we get very often. So it would, yeah. I do think we took it out. I knew we took it out. I just, I guess it's next budget. All right, unless there's anything else for Tara. Move on to the policy committee. Thank you. Yeah. Policy, is that you, Shan? Who's on the policy committee? Not me. That's what I'm not on. It's Rodney. You're having several committees with me. And so I'll just give a quick update on the policy committee. The SU board will be seeing a draft of a social media policy that's geared toward employees, contractors, anyone that works within the supervised reunion. And it'll speak to appropriate use of social media as an employee and what that looks like as far as leveraging it to communicate with students and families through like a professional Facebook page or a Twitter account or something like that. And then versus what we would expect someone to do via private social media. That's where they're attorney right now. She felt pretty good about the last draft that we just sent to her. So the policy committee will receive that on Monday night and they do, I do expect that they're gonna wanna talk about it at the full board. And then the other one that we're looking at right now is a policy in regards to tuition, school choice districts, which are the only district in the SU that doesn't have a school choice. But we are looking at an SU policy around school choice districts and paying up tuition of students that includes an affidavit process when students initially enroll. It will require the RUD district to work with those school choice districts, at least within our organization to gather that information if a student was to move in at the high school level. Right now we do have a annual tuition residency verification form, which is a lot more simpler than this affidavit process is gonna be. It also spells out the process that a board would use if a student's residency was in question prior to paying tuition. It also gives me some more teeth. I've been really clear with receiving districts, including this one, that our choice districts are not paying unless that district works with us to certify residency. So it's putting a little on this back on the receiving district, where before they used to just bill us and expect that we would pay it. And I'm saying, no, we're not paying you until you help us provide residency. And so we've been really successful with that around making certain that we're able to get folks to certify that they're actually living in that choice district. And so that policy has a lot of support at the SU level to move forward. So the SU board will see that as well. And those are the two policies that are almost my expectation would be that we'd be able to adopt those in August, that we'll get readings, hopefully in June, and then that we would look for warning and adoption possibly in August. Social media one, I'm hopeful that we can definitely try to get that in place so that that could be part of our staff handbook as we return to school. The tuition verification policy, that's not gonna put more burden on our administration as far as... Well, the burden will get put on the registrars. Make certain if a student essentially was to move in initially that they complete this affidavit form. And what I mean by that is setting them back to wherever district they live in and working with their registrar. And our registrars meet actually with these early release days now, our registrars all meet often on our early release days. And so this is part of a topic for conversation. And it will be making certain that those families complete that. I think it'll help them. The registrars. I do too. Okay. More structure. Yeah. Okay. Any questions about post policies or policy made? Does the school choice between the campuses need to be mentioned at all, or is that just different? No, that's different. That's intro district school choice, which we have policy on. This is for tuition paying districts. Okay. I guess the policy committee might talk about flag policy. And right. And now flag policy. Okay. Task force updates. Who's up first? Oh, we can go first. Recruitment and marketing. I can just quickly, we haven't seen each other, but I think we need to go to Jeff on this one. Wild Cat Night. Yeah. So we are Wild Cat Night. It was a great evening of showcasing who we are. The faculty did a great job. They were in the tours were fabulous as well. Faculty and students. Yes. And students are so. At Paris. So when you walked in the gym, it was the athletic boosters. And then there was all the classes and introduction to them. Ben was there doing the flexible pathways. I don't know. It was a really great night for me as far as being new principal and meeting a lot of different parents and students coming in. We had food and I just thought it was fabulous. It was a great evening of who we are and who we want to be. And I think we need to do more of that actually. And maybe even go on the road somewhere. They have, you know, we can showcase. I know years ago when I was here at South Burroughton, Deppford had it open gym and all the schools were there and all the students and parents went to that. And so it was a great evening. I mean, there was a slide show, Jillian, and did a slide show, phenomenal evening. Music boosters were there. Yeah, drama, sports teams, coaches. Clubs, classes, coaches. Yeah. And it was a packed auditorium. And that's a gym, that's a big gym. Yeah. The parking lot was full and everybody drove well. Yeah, so you know, and we had to sign up by our sign in when the parents came and unfortunately the line was so big, a lot of parents just sort of bypassed and went in. So we had, I think 26 or eight parents sign up, their students and whatnot, but there was a lot more that didn't sign up unfortunately. Yeah, but we gave out bumper stickers. So, and part of the recruiting thing that we're doing next is just sending out a letter to the sixth and seventh graders to introduce who we are and sort of keep that going. So it's not, I think by eighth grade that a lot of students have made their choice of what school they're interested in. So we're trying to get to them more earlier. And then yesterday we met on a webpage and our new web design is phenomenal. It's really exciting. When I first applied for this position, I looked on our website to get information and it was just, geez, not really good. It was unavailable. Yeah, and it was not updated. It was really weak and I was like, wow, because I mean, nowadays, first thing people do is they go to that. So I'm really proud of it and it looks really good. And I think anybody that's looking at our school will look at that and go, wow, it's a great school. I didn't realize that was happening. I just want to say thank you for years now. I hoped that that would happen, be updated. It's so hard to find anything on there. That's amazing and it is the face of the school. So it's awesome. So that's good. I got to give credit to, came down from Jamie Ray to Kate McLean. Kate's been really doing an incredible job. And the task force has been helpful also. This Friday, the three principals are going to tighten up the final edits and it will launch. We know we want it sooner than later, but it is a lot of work, first of all, and it is beautiful. I'm really proud of it. That's insane. So knowledge Kendra Cole has been the collector and on people about getting stuff in, and Angela also on the public campuses. The two of them, we couldn't do it without them. So we're going to launch that website now, but it still needs some fleshing out. And so I'm looking forward to what our principals come up with next year throughout the year for videos with students, with faculty, different arts, academics, and athletics, sort of things to put on the prospective student page. So I think it'll be a really great tool where it hasn't been in the past. Yeah, that is great. Can part of this work be setting up the procedures or responsibility for keeping it updated? Because that is part of it. There will be someone on each campus who'll be updating information. So yeah, I think I don't know if there's some way to have, you know, like at the end of each year, beginning of each year or something like that, something go through the web page and make sure everything actually has that updated handbook and the policies or whatever else. Part of Kate McClain, who we've been using for extra money to really push forward this idea of some better proactive communication for the SU, she's helped build each district has a new website now where we got Sharon Lapted in the WRVSU page, but part of her job responsibility is moving forward is to do just what you're saying. When she's not actually building the web pages, it's to make certain that they're current and that they stay current. Never noticed that something's out of date until you go to look for it. Right, that's right. Okay. Great. Any questions for recruitment and marketing? And we'll move on to child care summer program. So we had our first meeting a little later than I wanted because I had COVID, but it was good. We get together and I think we just added, we took all the preschool stuff that we had done and started looking at where we're going to send out a parent letter to try to gain more people for the task force. But I think the team agreed instead to start with the survey. And you can weigh in Shannon if I'm remembering this wrong. And then via the survey ask if people wanted to be involved in the task force. So with a small but short quick little meeting and we all have homework and we're all gonna work on the survey and tuning that up and we have a next meeting date to try to get that survey out as soon as possible. I will say I think there was a big discussion about we want to save the world and I get it, totally get it. And we want to make sure there's child care for everybody. But I followed up a superintendent Karni, he really wants the scope of this to be school age child care. So just I wanted to refine our focus because I know I think in our meeting it was a little bit back and forth. And I know there is also still the pre-K task force which hasn't met recently, but it's still, still going to be more. In phase two just so the board knows that the pre-K was to expand child care for pre-K. So the idea was to get full day programming for this coming year, but then to have extended child care. My hope would be by next. Technically next year we're offering extended care for three-year-olds. But the year after to offer it even later. Right. And one with the top school program. So I think that's Shannon, what am I missing? I think that's it. Yeah, so that was important. I think we were a little bit confused about our marching orders. So I think that's great to get a little clarification and we'll be coming up with sort of high in the sky. What would it look like? And then what can we accomplish and sort of set those priorities for what low-hanging fruit there might be and then what else can we do? So I think we'll be coming up with some sort of plan to present probably by fall. I don't think, you know, we've got to get the survey data back. And so this isn't going to be something that launches unfortunately tomorrow, but we'll do an assessment of need and try and get as much as we can. All right. We've already done the discussion item and action possible action items and executive session records. Okay. So just need to read. Do I have a motion to enter exactly the session? So we'll move on to the rest of the agenda and your highest resignations. Do you want to go over those? Yeah. So the one reason that we have is Bridget Fortner who was a administrative assistant for this building this campus we just hired her this year has moved back to California. So her last day was Friday, April 29th. She is working for us virtually through an MOU to just help us with attendance still virtually. She's able to pull that off and a couple other special projects. The good news is we've been able to hire Melissa Perkins who had grown up in this area and who has served as a paraprofessional within the supervisory union and also was a hairdresser up here at Cherry Take Quarters. And so Melissa is going to be coming on as an admin assistant this fall. And then of course we were able to finally hire Kendra permanently as an admin assistant. And so I think that's good news. Those were two positions that we had struggled filling since last August. I feel really good about both of their abilities to connect with our community to be the face of the building because admin assistants are that face, right? The first person often folks see and really have a good sense in knowledge of the local community. I feel really good about that. And then the other hires that we had I asked the principals to put in their actual report. And so I'm really, and there's a couple more in the pipeline that haven't met with me yet. So they're not actually ready for recommendation. I do meet with everyone that we bring on board. And so the teaching staff that we're able to bring on is we have someone member of Holly Brennan Cook is retiring. So we were able to find a third grade teacher really excited about that's coming to us from a charter school in New York City who has four years experience in Maggie's ability to speak to what a math instructional block looks like was really exciting. It has actually already joined the RUD vertical math group to do some elementary math PD in planning this summer. That was really exciting. Remember we added a pre-K for next year. And so what you have there is Natalie Williams who's been a paraprofessional for you has her credentials to be a pre-K teacher. So she's coming on board. Anna made a switch in assignment. So that's where that other pre-K teacher comes on board. And so with Kristen, Kristen comes to us from Washington Village School and prior to that also was a paraprofessional for a long time and an SLPA. I really enjoyed my interview with her. Having that background is that speech language pathologist can do nothing but serve our earliest learners so well. As when we think about developing language both receptive and expressive. And then Gabby is coming to us from Norwich University where she was a student teacher. And is joining our team. I would say that the Norwich University program is one that I'm looking to try to strengthen our relationship with. They've done a complete overhaul of their ed department over the last five years and we were able to hire two graduates from Norwich at Rochester Stockbridge last year who have done exceptionally well. And are returning for this upcoming year. So I feel really good about trying to strengthen the partnership there. And then Laura Levitt is coming to us. I'm really excited about her hire. We have a teacher who's been reassigned from South Royals Elementary 4-5 to the middle school math. For next year who has middle school math credentials as well. And so that had an opening there at 4-5. That's where that 4-5 opening came from. And so that Laura Levitt grew up in Pomfret and had done her student teaching at Woodstock High School and had been teaching out in California and came back and had other job offers but really decided that this was the place she wanted to come work. Which was really excited and has actually moved to the community. And her students will be attending our districts. So I'm really excited about, she has a strong background in math science. Which I think is gonna up pay really well with our 4-5 team. Who's the teacher moving over to the middle school? Alicia Hanifer is gonna go back to middle school again after a long time in elementary. And she's excited about that. And I certainly support that decision. Tammy raised her hand. I have a feeling she needs our attention about executive session. You can read my mind. Yeah, no action taken. Great game out. Thanks. Thanks. Sorry, Tammy. Is there any public comment? Oh, we should have asked this before. That's all right, so. Executive session. All right. Oh yeah, we put that executive session. I missed it. You guys have two public comments. We don't have any others. So future agenda items will have spring academic data reports. Is that gonna be next month, I guess? Yeah. And I got EI coming back. And so that will be, they'll start to give you a sense of their projected square foot cost any type of like capital improvements. But, you know, thinking roofs, things like that. But also specifically windows, lighting, HVAC, boilers, fresh air. The only thing I would add to that is that the good news is efficiency Vermont has been in close contact with us about wanting to use some of their money to support our work in the SU, which I'm happy about. You know, Esther, we still have about probably 1.3 million set aside to help support some of this work across the SU. You know, I think SU-wide, you know, we're looking at over 10 million in work to do around our HVAC systems and things of that nature. And in general, the state, that was the other legislative report that I wanted to share. I'm really excited that the state did set aside 22 million for PCB abatement. I knew there was one more thing in that legislative report. Now, do I know if that's gonna be enough? No, but at least it's something. Because we are starting PCB testing in this SU this month. And we expect the results by the fall. So at least they did put some money away for abatement. So anyways, EI will be on the agenda for next month. All right. Thank you, Andrew, for your meeting. So I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Our next meeting will be Tuesday, June 21st at 6 p.m. in Bethel. I'll move. Thanks.