 Hey, good evening and welcome to Montpelier Civic Forum. No town meeting day is not coming, I can guarantee that, but we do have a show with John Odom coming up who will be talking about August Selection and November Selection. That is well worth watching. Tonight's episode is extremely important. We have Libby Bone-Steel and we have Jim Murphy, who are our superintendent and our president of the School Board of the Montpelier Roxbury School District. We're going to discuss reopening. And before we do that, I just have a couple of comments. One is that all the years I've done this, I've never solicited comments from the public before. I have for this show, let me take this off, I have for this show and the public's come through in ways that I'm just so amazed at the depth of knowledge and the questions and curiosity, people who didn't have school kids were writing in and they're the basis for this show. But I also want to talk a little bit about the preparation that the district is doing right now. This is not summer vacation for them. For Libby and her team, this is hours and hours with no comp time above 40. And for Jim and his school board, this is a period where they're puzzling through the most incredible kinds of unique policy that the district could be facing and is facing. Some of it largely out of their own hands. When Libby and Jim say we don't know, we're working on that. That's not an evasion tonight. That's a we don't know, we're working on it. And may I say that today's date is July 24th. I normally don't say that, but this is Friday, July 24th. This tape will go on forever. But as I say, it's an evolving policy. So what you're looking at is a policy at this point in time in July 24th. We're going to identify as much as we can tonight when decisions can be made. And finally, before I start, I nailed them on another show. We'll have another show around the beginning of schools that which we didn't have answers for now. We will then and we'll have future questions. Now I turn this over to Jim Murphy and I turned over to Libby Bonesteel. Jim, how long have you been board president? Two years, two and a half? No, three. And this is an extraordinary period for the board. Oh, it's absolutely. I mean, it's an unprecedented period for I think everyone, especially schools who are at the front lines of this challenge. Now, I have you here because there's a difference between policy and administration in this. And I wanted to make sure that the public understood that the board has a role in this and that Libby and her team have a role in this, that Libby is not the goddess of this and you are not the god of policy. What's the difference between the board's role and the superintendent's office and their role and the principals, of course? Yeah, the board sets broad policy. It doesn't deal with operations. It doesn't deal with the day-to-day function of the school. The only employee that we supervise is the superintendent. We supervise her through her implementation of policy. So most of the day-to-day functioning of the school, most of the oversight is the duty of the superintendent and we oversee her and make sure that she's doing her job and following the policy. But policy tends to be pretty high level. And again, it doesn't influence the day-to-day functions of the schools or personnel decisions or curriculum, et cetera. How much of your role comes from the state board and state setting policy on schools? How much freedom do we have in terms of policy? We have some, but obviously we have to comply with the law. We have to comply with state mandates. So we have a fair amount of freedom to set out our own individual agenda to push the school that we want to, but obviously there's a lot of state restrictions, a lot of state mandates that we have to fulfill and that's things we need to adhere to. How often is the board meeting? Twice a month. Libby, let's go back to March. We're in school in February. When do we start to have indications that possibly the kids are not going to be in school? March 10th. We know the exact date. On March 10th, I pulled my team together saying, we're going to have to close. We need to start making a plan now. A week later, we were closed. How much did you have control over we're going to have to close? Did that come from the state? It came from the state. I had influential control in the sense that the superintendents across the state all met for the entire weekend prior to the closure announcement to help the governor and Secretary of Education understand the position we were all in and the position we were facing from pressure from our community and some school boards. And so there was some influential power, but the governor and the secretary made that decision. What pressure were you facing from the community at that point in time? There was a lot of unknowns right then. We didn't know what this disease meant. We didn't know how contagious it was. We didn't know where it was. All we knew is that we saw growing numbers on a daily basis across our nation and in Vermont and that it was scary. And so parents were put in a very hard situation of, is it safe to be there? Our teachers were nervous about it. We just didn't know anything about this disease. And so there was just a lot of fear. At that point, did we have a plan forward? Was that a plan? Obviously the board was deeply involved because that's a policy question as well as an administrative question. Where do we go from here is basically core policy, but we went into virtual learning. Did we know that at the 10th? We knew we were going to have to devise something. So starting on that week, we spent a lot of time with my fellow administrative team and our union leadership devising a plan of how we were going to do this and how we were going to do it the best we could with the board offering a lot of feedback and support both behind the scenes and at school board meetings, which I appreciated. So we tried the best we could during that week to virtually change school in a week. I imagine there was guidance from the Department of Education. No, very little. Other school districts were kind of sideways to you just offering hints and had anyone done this before in the state? No. My fellow superintendents and myself as well as the principal groups around the state are very well-networked and close. We talk a lot, but all of us have different school buildings and different staff and different cultures and relationships, so we all made it work the way we could. What did we do? If you could explain, because there are people watching these shows, and this in particular, who don't have children in the school, what happened? So we went fully remote. We took about two weeks of kind of, we were allowed some leeway from the state around two weeks of what they called maintenance of learning. So just maintaining where they were at that point in time. And then we moved into continuation of learning phase. And our schools attacked it in a little different way. Our elementary schools decided to go with a very heavily software-based approach with some reading software and some math science software. Our middle school went in a slightly different approach, and what we did in our high school went in a completely different approach. So we had three different ways of dealing with this based on the age of our kids and what we could do. I think it's important for everyone to understand that teachers have families as well, and every single one of us was in a state of flux at that moment when our entire state had shut down. And so our teachers were also juggling their employment, which is teaching other kids as well as their own kids. And I think every parent in the state recognizes that they were doing a whole lot of the teaching as well. So it was a really tricky time for our teachers and our administrators in trying to make it work for everybody. Jim, did we have metrics of success? As a board, were we, in any way, were we able to get our arms around whether what Libby was implementing on the fly was successful? We did not put in specific measures of success. Our primary interest at the time was to make sure that the kids were safe and make sure the community members were safe and to give the administration the support they needed. And a lot of the directives were coming down from the state, and a lot of the directives frankly didn't give a lot of guidance. So we were, you hate to use this phrase, but we were building the plan as we were flying it. And my primary focus as board chair was to make sure that the administration had the support it needed to make sure that the communication of the community was as timely as we could be and as informative as we could be. And to make sure that Libby had what she needed for her and her team to do the job. And then also we gave some direction around, you know, that we did need to give around the treatment of employees, particularly, you know, employees who were, who we could not bring online. Also things like making sure that food service continued and actually was expanded for families that needed. So it was, our focus was, you know, less frankly on educational outcomes and more on just making sure that people were taken care of. How many staff did we have to furlough? None. Okay. We weren't allowed to by state, and we wouldn't have either. Before any kind of order came down from the state, Jim and I talked to call an emergency meeting, I think it was a Friday night. And I asked the board to ensure that every hourly employee would continue to get their full paycheck and the board immediately agreed to that. So we, our employees didn't lose anything. When we're doing this in the spring, the reason I'm going through this is simply this frames the fall, the spring experience will frame the current discussion. What happened to special needs kids? Students with special needs and their IEP team, so an IEP team is composed of IEP stands for Individual Education Plan. That team consists of parents or family members and guardians and the case managers or special educator, classroom teacher, anybody involved with the students. So the state required us to make distant learning plan for each of those kids. So our special educators worked with each family individually to devise a plan of what services could be put in place virtually and what simply couldn't. And they made collaborative decisions themselves, those teams. What happened to those who didn't have access to the internet at home? We did a survey about that very early on to see how much of a challenge that was for us and we had less than 10 families who simply didn't have internet across our district from whom we could get in touch with. We had really high attendance rates as well throughout the whole closure period. So our hunch is that most of our families have internet. We tried to help a couple who didn't and in other districts that was a significant challenge that they had to overcome. Absolutely that wasn't a significant challenge we had to overcome. What happened to the extras, physical education, art, music? It was different in different buildings. UES did a wonderful job with, what did they call it, I can't remember. They had a catchy term for it where it was remote and the specials teachers kind of took a day and did a project that was optional for kids. And in the middle and high school, our art teacher at the middle school had a wonderful Instagram feed going of her students and families making art together. So it was different across the board but our specials teachers were definitely doing some top-notch fun kind of creative work which I would expect nothing less from them. What about our English as a foreign language students, English as a second language? Yep, it was very similar to our students with IEPs. So the distance learning plans were made with those students and with our EL teachers. It's difficult, it was very difficult for our teachers because they care so much and probably very difficult for their families too I can imagine. The graduation from the high school, well from all three levels but particularly the high school, what was that involved, what was involved in the Montpelier High School graduation? And did the students and their families feel that it was special? Oh, I'm not going to speak for the students and their families but I can speak for our administration team. Renee DeVore who's the principal at Montpelier High School and her team met with students and said, students what do you need and we'll make it happen for you. So the students gave some rules that they wanted us to follow, they wanted it outside like a traditional MHS graduation, they wanted a big tent that was decorated, they wanted to be able to walk across the stage, they wanted to be able to be with their family there. So we devised a plan on the soccer field out there going by the students' wishes and I can also say that our high school staff who participated and helped with that were there for probably 11 hours a day for five straight days making that happen and every single student that pulled up, they were just as excited for that student as they were for the one before. They were amazing during that time and exhausted. And Jeff's saying Selah and Solens? He always does, yeah and Jerry Tillerson did a wonderful job with his speech as well. What did we learn from that spring from the parents? Were the parents generally pleased with it? Did they have comments? Did you get the kind of questions that I got? We did survey our families at the end of this experience and some of our schools surveyed them midway through and people's experiences were across the board. There was no one common answer or theme as to we did well or not. By the end I think everybody was pretty sick of it. That was probably a common theme that by June everybody wanted this to be over and our teachers were not, our teachers were right there with them. So by the end we saw a bit more critique than we did throughout and I'm talking like the last week or so of the spring semester. But most of our parents, they were really quite literally across the board from thank you for everything you're doing. This is amazing work. We recognize how hard you're working and that this isn't easy and we're doing the best we can at home too. This has been the most awful thing that has ever happened to my kid. So it's really across the board as to how we did in the spring. Now what is the difference for the person who didn't experience this? What's the difference between this and homeschooling? Homeschooling, the school has very little interaction with. So we don't, according to our homeschool policy, we're required to have opportunities available to kids, some opportunities available to kids, specials for instance, if they want to come take our art class they can. But other than that, there's no interaction between the school district and families who choose to homeschool. Approximately how many families get in touch with you and say we're homeschooling during the last year? They actually don't get in touch with us. They get in touch with the agency of education. But we had 16 families last year who were homeschooling their children. Now do you anticipate that that number might go up this year? The secretary told us yesterday in a conversation with superintendents that the number of homeschool applications have risen considerably across the state. Do homeschooling, again, going to homeschooling, do homeschooling parents have access to curricular types of supplements and the like? They have access to classes, to certain classes. They don't have access to curricular materials. When we talk about the fall, could you explain to us what the thinking is? Let's go directly into the fall right now. And what your thinking is in terms of, I'm going to break this because the questions I got came in two different categories. One, I feel uncomfortable sending my kid to school right now. How can I adjust to this and work with you? On the other side, I feel comfortable sending my kid to school, but I'd like to know, I'd like my comfort level to be higher. Let's start with the people who don't feel comfortable. And that's a lot of these are those people, but this is just not a random sample. When I put out for questions, I expected people who had more skepticism to answer. What are you telling those people right now? What's offered to those people who want to stay in the same format that they had in the spring? The same format of the spring is not going to happen simply because we need to do that better. Better in what sense? We need to provide more routine, more expectations. We need to actually have kids learning at a high level like we do on a regular basis, regardless of whether they're virtually or in person. We were actually told by the secretary yesterday to lower our expectations that's simply not in my vernacular to do. So when we're offering virtual opportunities next year, then we are going to work to make those very good virtual opportunities. Jim, has the board discussed this, the expectations that Libby is speaking of? Yeah, we've certainly we've asked for updates. We've been informed. I think what I've heard from the community reflects what Libby said. It's been across the board. I think I actually think for the most part, the community has been very supportive and very understanding has understood the challenges that Libby and her team and all the wonderful teachers we have throughout the district have faced. And I think they stepped up in the spring and did a fantastic job, literally unprecedented circumstances. In terms of the fall, we have not set specific expectations, but Libby has been very clear with us that in putting together virtual learning that they're going to learn from the spring. And now that they have the time, the preparation and a very skilled team, they're going to put together as they rolled out just the other day. Virtual learning that has the type of expectations we expect from the school. I mean, in the spring, quite honestly, it was just the goal was to get through and to get healthy. I think as we move into the fall, we are hearing from the administration about how we can do this better and what we've heard so far. Yeah, it was very encouraging. Are there any shared virtual learning amongst districts so that it doesn't involve your teachers? It's a shared product from other districts that parents might avail themselves of? Yes, for the high school level. So at the high school, we partner with Vermont Virtual Learning Collaborative. That's a statewide entity. And basically, it's teachers from across the state teach an online course. So most likely our high schoolers will have the opportunity if they're taking a virtual option to take that through Vermont Virtual Learning Collaborative. So their science course could be taught by a South Burlington teacher, but they'll get their science credit that way. That's one option for our high schoolers. We're still working out other options for high schoolers through MHS teachers. What is that? Montpelier High School teachers. I thought this was a new acronym for me. You asked me a true question there, Richard. Yeah, so we're working out different ways. But there is the Vermont Virtual Learning Collaborative that we will be relying on heavily. Our students also can take early college online courses through BYU and other places. So we will rely on that as well. AP courses. Those will be only offered at the high school or will those be virtual? I'm not sure if there's virtual AP offerings, but our high school... Advanced placement. Yeah, our high school teachers will still be offering our AP courses in person. In terms of extracurriculars, will there be sports? I don't know. That's not my decision to make. That's the Vermont Principles Association and the state's decision to make. When do you think that decision will be made? Within the next week, we're told. A choral, where it's difficult to take that kind of social distancing. The safety guidelines don't allow choral instruction to happen in person. Or wind instruments. Is there anything else that we're caught from social distancing in terms of extras? Musical theater is not allowed to take place. We're not allowed to use our cafeterias or gym for their intended uses. Could you explain that? So any place that has mass congregation of students, like a gym or a cafeteria, is not able to be used for their intended purpose. So students will be eating lunch in their classrooms. PE will be done in a different fashion. And we will be working with our music teachers in particular at the middle and high school level to be creating flexible schedules to offer small group or individual online lessons with students. What is the virtual academy? So we decided to go down a route where we're offering both in-person learning opportunities and virtual opportunities. We're a very small district with a very small staff considering. And so the way we're doing it is essentially creating our own school. So our virtual academy will be a separate school. The principal will be Mike Berry. He's our director of curriculum and technology. And now he's the principal of the Virtual Learning Academy. Is the Virtual Learning Academy K-12? No, it's K-8 because of other options for high schoolers and other multiple reasons that has to do with staffing. So our Virtual Learning Academy students can opt in to the Virtual Learning Academy. And it will be staffed where right now we're gathering numbers for how many students want that option. OK, are there any restrictions on the students who can be accepted for the Virtual Academy Day have to be high risk? No. There was perception in some of these. Yeah, when we first started we received word from the state that a full virtual option was permissible under Vermont Education Law last Wednesday, the same day as our last school board meeting in the afternoon. It was 2 o'clock when the guidance came in. And that night at the school board meeting we debated, the administrative team debated, whether to even bring it up because it was so new. And we had absolutely zero time to think about it between 2 and 6.30 in the midst of a crazy day altogether. But I did decide to bring it up so the board would know that we are thinking about it and it was on our plates. And at that point in time our administrative team made a very quick decision to pull our students who are at risk because that's information we have in our files. So our nurses quickly pulled that out. What is that risk? The CDC has defined categories that are people who have these certain conditions are at risk for higher contagion for COVID-19 and higher. So it's not academic at risk. It's health at risk. No, it's a medical reason, yes. So we had that information in our files, you know, when students fill out their health forms we have that information. So we decided to ensure those families that we were thinking about them and that we ethically have a responsibility to provide an option that's safe for their child. From there we were really, Emma Winthrop asked, or I'm sorry, Emma B. Hansen asked at the board meeting if we would consider students with immediate family members who are at risk. That's not information we have in our files. So we knew we were going to have to figure out a way to pull that group as well. And as just on Wednesday this week the administration had a long, hard conversation about our virtual academy and who we opened it up to and we just decided to open it up to anybody who wanted it. Now what does that mean? What does a parent, how does a parent make an informed decision on enrolling their students who's in K through 8 in the virtual academy? I think that's a parent decision. What information, based on what information? Well, we've given out what our model will be for in-person instruction. So we're trying to mitigate risk as much as humanly possible in our K-8 instruction. We've walked through every single classroom in our district, including the high school, measured it out, measured how many desks we can fit so that there's still six feet apart between kids. And we discern that we can fit all of our classes in our two elementary schools and the middle school with six feet apart. We're going to have to move some kids at the middle school because not all classrooms are big enough. So we're going to have to... Are any of the kids that are currently at Union going to have to go over to Roxbury because it has more room? No. In terms of the virtual... Coming back to the virtual academy, how would that be different than what we were offering in the spring? It's a school day. How long was the spring instruction? It was very flexible by teachers. We were trying to make it work for our teachers. So our teachers really had flexibility in how they designed the day for their classes. And so it was pretty different for each teacher. This year, our staff will be working a full school day. So even though they may be doing it at home, they'll be working the same amount as our teachers who are teaching in person. The day will look different because we can't have kids staring at a screen for five straight hours. And it won't be completely synchronous. When any virtual option is chosen, then there's a much stronger partnership in the learning with a parent. So if Jim chose a virtual education for Fiona, his new fifth grader coming in, then he would be committing to really helping Fiona stay on top of her organization and helping her through some things because she wouldn't have that person right next to her as she would in the classroom. How does Fiona submit homework in a virtual academy? Through a virtual means. So a virtual academy basically does have a serious amount of structure. Yes, we are designing it. What about the extras in the virtual academy? I got those questions as well, whether someone can be in the virtual academy but then maintain social contact by coming into the school for music or... No, none of our kids will be moving to music and PE like they traditionally do. Or anything in the school so that they're still in contact with the kids at Main Street Middle School and in contact with the kids at Union Elementary. We have been told that risk mitigation is the primary safety lens. What is risk mitigation? Getting rid of as much risk for COVID-19 as possible. And so the idea of people coming in and out of our buildings is not happening this year. So if somebody chooses for virtual learning, they're choosing virtual learning and they're not in the school building. This question came up. I chose virtual learning. You know, my wife and I thought it was a good idea. It isn't turning out for my child. Can then they get that child back into Roxbury or into Union Elementary? No. What is the commitment on that? We're designing our in-person structures around how many people are in the building. And we are a very small staff. So we're staffing both places with what it needs according to numbers and grade levels. And so we can't have kids back and forth because we're planning it for that number of kids. I got one question that was really interesting. You know, a person saying that I would go into the virtual academy for my child if that would free up a slot at Union Elementary and make it easier for that teaching staff to conduct at Union Elementary. Is this an either or? I mean, are there a limited number of Union Elementary slots and when those slots are taken, you're in virtual? No. So how do we assure that we don't have too many people at Main Street Middle School or at Union Elementary? We already determined that even if we didn't have a virtual academy, we had enough space at Union Main Street and Roxbury for all of our student body. What happens if one of our teachers gets COVID? Are we covered? What do you mean by are we covered? Will that teacher, I mean, will we have a substitute teacher? Do we have sufficient pool of substitutes? We're trying to not use substitute teachers. Again, that would be an outside person coming into our buildings and we're trying not to do that. We've been told not to. So we've devised a pod model. So every classroom at UES and Main Street will have at least two adults in them, if not more. Those two adults will stay in that classroom for the entire day and we've paired pods together. So if we have Susan Koch and Emily Carly as a paired pod with Susan and Emily being first grade teachers, then we have a special educator in Susan's classroom and the music teacher as the pod partner in Emily's classroom. We have built-in substitutes. So if Susan is sick, then the special educator will take over as the main classroom teacher. If both of them are sick, then either Emily or Sam could come over to take over that class. So again, we're trying to mitigate risk as much as possible. What are we doing with IA's instructional institutions? IA's will be pod partners or they'll be one-on-ones with students. But IA's will still be in there. Yes. The school nurse, is there additional training for the school nurse? The school nurses are in very close contact with the Department of Health. The leaders of the Pediatric Society have been awesome with our school nurses. They have a very strong network going and are getting a lot of support and information. Our school nurses are very involved with our planning for process. How many school nurses do we have at this point? We have three right now. We're looking for a 0.5 school nurse at Roxbury if anybody's interested. The school board just raised that. What are the qualifications? I believe they need school nurse licensure. But right now, we'll take anybody who's a school nurse. So we needed, we had 0.2 FTE at Roxbury. So that was just a day of school nursing at Roxbury traditionally. And the school board just allowed us to up that to 0.5 so that we could have a school nurse there at least every morning. But we're still looking to hire that position. What is the protocol coming into school? Will the kids have their temperature taken? And what's the temperature threshold that will send a kid home? Temperature threshold is 100.4. All kids will be temperature checked at their first point of contact. So that could be before riding a bus or it could be before entering our school building. They'll be asked two questions. The questions are, do you have any symptoms of COVID-19 and have you been around anybody who has COVID-19? So then they'll be allowed to enter. Around meaning? From a kid's perspective, what is around? Good question. It's one of our concerns. In terms of flu season, I got a couple of questions about that. Do you anticipate that there's a possibility that the schools might shut down for flu? Yes. And get vaccinated? I think it's very important that people who don't get vaccinated get vaccinated for the flu. Yes. What is our vaccine policy right now as a district? We don't have a vaccine policy. What's the vaccine policy of the state of Vermont? Well, there's a religious exemption but everybody else must be vaccinated. Approximately, how many kids in our district do the parents utilize an exemption so that they're not vaccinated? I got those numbers for you since you told me you wanted to know. See, that shows my preparation. There you go. And mine. At Roxbury, 97% of our student population is fully vaccinated. At UES, it's 90%. At MSMS, it's 90%. And at MHS, it's 87%. What's the state average? Any idea what the state average is? I'm not sure what the state average is. Has the board ever considered speaking to vaccines because somewhere along the line, this is going to play into a COVID vaccine, hopefully? To my knowledge, no, we have not set this specific. I don't know if you're allowed to. Yeah, and I'm not sure we're allowed to. I think it's a health standard set by the state. So our children are going into buildings. And then this is all the way from the high school down. I can't imagine high school students walking around all the time with masks on let alone elementary school students. One question came in asking how that's going to be enforced. The administration talked about that the other day. Right now, we really want and need parents and families to be getting their kids used to wearing a mask, that this is just another piece of their clothing that is integral right now. Governor Scott, just two hours ago, mandated masks everywhere, which I think is a good move. So I think most of our kids will be accustomed to it when they come in. Now, we work with adolescents as beautiful and wonderful as they are, who are just learning the world of control and independence. So we fully expect some bucking of that system or attempting to buck that system. This is going to be a partnership between administration and parents. We'll give kids maybe one shot to get that mask on with a reminder. And if there's continual pushback on that, then that child will be enrolled in our virtual academy. How do we deal with bathroom? Keeping six feet of separation. And when kids all want to go to the bathroom, we're on lunchtime. According to the guidance, we have to take planned bathroom breaks throughout the day, so kids won't be going to the bathroom and mouse. That will be a teacher's job to enforce and regulate. Are there any other regulations that are coming out that we didn't think about in the question or that I didn't think about? Is there anything else that comes to mind? There are considerable regulations that we haven't discussed yet. There are too many to name right now. Any come to the top of your head is ones that you think are going to be difficult to enforce? The six foot distance rule will be hard to enforce, especially once kids are out of a classroom. And during arrival and dismissal time, that will be nearly impossible at schools like UES and MSMS. So we're going to have to do the best we can. And with our parent partners, we'll have to really focus on that. And the police department and fire department help in traffic control, I think, in those two areas. What's going on with our school buses? Will we have two kids riding on a bench next to each other? So schools are starting in step two. And school buses are starting in step three. So the step two guidelines are that. What was step one? It's closure. Step two is thou shalt do these things. There's not a choice. And step three is you should do these things. So try as much as you can. Work as hard as you can. And so on the school bus, we're working to get a bus monitor on every school bus. So the bus monitor can do the health checks prior to boarding. What are the health checks prior to boarding? Same thing for entering the school building. So a temperature before boarding the school bus? Yes. Do you think you can hold on to the bus schedule doing that? We're working on that right now. Everything's going to take longer. Yes. So you anticipate, now this is merely speculation on my part, you anticipate more parents driving their kids to school then? We've asked more parents to drive their kids to school. If parents can get their children to school on their own without using our buses, then we appreciate that effort. What is your communications mechanism with? You say you've asked parents. I know that there's emails coming out of the principal's office. And the website, of course. Are there other means of communication besides sitting on my show? Yeah. Every Thursday, I send a letter out with information in it. The principals follow up on whatever I send out for building specific on Monday. So it's a Thursday-Monday pattern and any other time during the week that they feel is necessary. I update the school board regularly at our meetings for a good, long time of everything that's going on. So people can access that that way, of course. And then our website is up to date. And all of our social media accounts are immediately updated. Jim, do you anticipate social distancing and actual live meetings? We've met in person just once since COVID broke. We did do social distancing in our area's room that way. And then we had all the participation from the public via Zoom. We will probably continue along those lines until we get to a situation where we feel safer in a closer environment. The school board is required to have public comment. And we are required to keep visitors out of our buildings, which makes it impossible to have a public in-person meeting and not allow visitors in. So we've been doing that via Zoom, even if we're meeting in person. But again, that's only been one meeting that we've had. But still, it's Zoom, and that's its own peculiarity for people who aren't as computer-savvy and the like, or who don't even have a camera attached. Although, I mean, honestly, that's a mixed bag. It also allows people to participate when they're at home, watching their kids, dealing with dinner. So we've actually had some of our higher-attended recent meetings via Zoom. In terms of getting to the school bus one more time, because that's so important to so many parents, what about the extracurricular activities before and after school? Some extracurricular activities won't run. We won't have any before school. The after school, we're still looking to see what it is we're offering. Many will be done virtually instead of in-person. Pre-K, is that still going to happen? Yes. So that will not change at all. There will be no virtual pre-K. There is not a virtual pre-K option, no. Are we getting as many enrollments in our pre-K as we're used to? Our pre-K is full. We have four on our waiting list, and we usually have quite a much longer waiting list than four. But it is full currently. We lost an alternative school in the community. It closed. Are we picking up students from that? I'm not sure. Do we anticipate other alternative schools possibly feeding our school? I'm not sure. I have my finger on many things, Richard. The alternative attendance is not one of them. Is the district growing? Yes, we are still growing. I've gotten at least this week, I've gotten at least five emails of new enrollees. Which is positive. Do we have room for those five enrollees? That's not a question I am allowed to ask. We have to have room for those five enrollees. How is our kindergarten doing in terms and our first grade? Are we still on a growth curve? Our kindergarten currently is a smaller enrollment number than it typically is. However, we typically get a big enrollment right before the school year starts. This is a year unlike any other, so I'm not sure where that's going to go. Protecting our staff. I have questions about that, concerns about our staff. What measures are we taking to assure that our staff, on all levels, are secure? I have an ethical responsibility to take care of my people, and my staff is my people. So we are working incredibly hard to find out which ones of our staff are at a higher risk for COVID-19 or who have an immediate family member who is at risk for COVID-19. And as we're finding numbers out for our virtual academy, we will prioritize those teachers first to give them an opportunity to teach virtually. We're going to do everything we can for our staff to keep them as safe as possible. It's not a question for me. And it is most definitely a priority, and it's also most definitely one of the biggest problems we are facing right now. I'm going to ask you a question, and you're probably going to say, geez, I'm not the expert on this. But you have been talking on a regular basis with the health department. Transmission of COVID to children and among children, and keeping those classrooms as clean in a COVID sense as we can. Could you address that a little bit? Yeah, we are very fortunate in that our lead custodian is a man named Tom Allen. And he comes to us from Fletcher Allen Hospital. And so he is hospital grade ready in terms of his knowledge of cleaning and disinfecting. So Tom has the lead on this. And honestly, with all the challenges that we, myself, are facing right now, this is one that I'm not as worried about because I know who Tom is. And so we're starting in level two disinfecting. That's a stronger disinfectant that kills any coronavirus faster with contact time. He's also talking about buying black lights that he can place on desks to ensure that all of the germ that is on the desks are picked up. I don't know, I couldn't tell you more about that, but he's investing in that technology. We're picking up our responsibility for high touch surfaces already. The custodial team, we call them our clean team, and our buildings are absolutely fantastic and have been working amazing. I can also tell you honestly, Richard, that right now I would not want to be a custodian because they could get blamed for a lot of things right now. So we are working very hard to let our custodial staff know how much we appreciate them. They are part of our family. They are an integral part of our team and how we can educate children. So they really have been working hard, training hard, getting our rooms ready for kids to come back. And they will be clean. Our rooms will be clean because of this. Every day? Every night? Oh, multiple times a day. Multiple times a day. One more, Jim. As a school board, is your level of oversight going to be greater the same as it's always been? And how do you see, again, this is an evolving process that Libby is speaking of. The virtual academy is being created as we speak today. And I imagine the virtual academy will refine itself over time and become a more perfect version of what a virtual academy is. How does the board oversee that? I think our scope of oversight is going to be the same. I think it's going to be different. The primary thing is being informed, being informed of the changes. So there are going to be some policy-based decisions. I mean, I think the decision to ensure in the spring that our hourly employees, who could not be brought into a virtual work situation, we're taking care of, I think, as we confront situations where, frankly, there's not enough guidance or regulatory holes. We're dealing with the risks and work situations that most of our laws were not designed to deal with. We intend to give guidance as guidance is needed. I think the most important thing is really just staying in touch, making sure we're informed and aware of the decisions that the administrative team is making, informed and aware of what the mandates are of the state, and giving support and guidance where it's needed. But our scope of oversight is not going to expand during this time. But it's going to be different because we might make different decisions or give guidance on things that typically were well-covered by other forms of guidance, like state laws, et cetera. How do we know that the virtual, I mean, back to the spring again, how do we know that the virtual academy is preparing students? Will we be looking at, adequately, will we be looking at their test scores versus what we anticipated their test scores would be? How do we a judge that the virtual academy is truly meeting those high standards that Libby is setting out for? That each of those students, and if a student isn't meeting those high standards, if you can't get out of the virtual academy, what happens? Our students who are in virtual academy will be having the same academic experience as our in-person learning. They will be using the same materials, the same curriculum. The teachers of the virtual academy will still be participating in professional learning communities and meetings with their grade-level colleagues who are in-person. They'll just be doing it virtually. And they'll be doing the same assessments as anybody else will, and will receive intervention, much like anybody else will, should they need that. So I'm not necessarily worried about that. However, it is something to be aware of and look at. It's one of the reasons why we put Mike in charge, so that our principals who are in-person principals, Ryan Heridy, Katie Burria, and Beth Kellogg, don't have to worry about that piece, so Mike can have a more. Mike also has curriculum, doesn't he? Yes. For the district. Yes. This is an added responsibility for Mike. But he will be able to keep more of a focused eye on just what's happening and have an outreach for a person to talk to parents and work with parents as well. Now, you don't have control over shutting down this. If there were a hotspot in Montpelier, would the board and the superintendent be able to shut this district down? Yes. Yeah. In terms of Thanksgiving, what is the current thought on that? When you have so many students leaving Montpelier to visit family remote, and then having to come back in quarantine? They would have to if they're going to a spot that the state requires them to quarantine. And I think that's a choice family's going to have to think long and hard about. But I think most families are understanding the holidays. They're probably going to be different this year than they should be. So any other schedule type of things spring break will be the same as spring? Are you considering jaring the schedule around for anything other than snow days? We have done that already a bit. We haven't played with any of the vacation time. That's in place still. And the state is discussing right now an executive order to have a statewide start date. We haven't heard word on that yet. But I've already changed the student start date to August 31st because my staff needs more time. So we did that by waiving three student days in our contract and student contact days in our contract and changing a couple in-service days during the year around to put them in the beginning of the year to front load it. So in practical terms, we'll be coming in on the 31st. And then Labor Day will start when? When Labor Day always starts. So kids will be in a very abbreviated period before Labor Day. Yes. Now, when our district does come together on this and eventually comes together, we'll have two separate experiences. We'll have the virtual experience and we'll have the in-person experience. Now, if we do sports, the virtual people will still be able to participate in sports? Yes. And our food service program. So your food service program will come to them? No, they'd have to come pick it up. From the school. Is there anything else that we covered so much? And I told the viewers that we were going to hopscotch on this. Jim, is there anything else that you can think of that I missed? I mean, I think the couple things. One, I mean, I really just want to give a shout out to the administration. And they've done a fantastic job of navigating a very difficult situation, both in the spring and I think in preparing for the fall. When the Virtual Academy rollout came out yesterday, they have done a great job of structuring it, explaining it, making very clear what the parent obligation is. Frankly, providing an option to those parents who aren't comfortable sending their kids to school, an option that is, I think, quite an improvement over what we saw in the spring in terms of really putting together a structured curriculum that learned from the experience of the spring and is forward-looking. The other point I want to make is, don't get used to anything this year. This is a rapidly moving situation. We do not have the virus under control. We're very lucky in Vermont to have the numbers that we do. But obviously, this virus continues to rage out of control in many places in the country. The numbers could change in Vermont. I think that would cause different reactions from the state that obviously could throw everything we just discussed into a very different situation and send us back to the drawing board. I think I really ask the community to be understanding, to be prepared for constant flux and constant change, and to understand that the administration is working very, very hard with the best interests of the kids. And the school staff in mind. Libby, any final words? Thank you, Jim, and to our citizen board, who's also probably putting up all the whole lot. So the only other thing I'd add is we've gotten a lot of conversation around outdoor education and getting kids outside. And our teachers are absolutely dedicated to outside education and learning outside. And they also recognize getting outside as much as humanly possible is a good thing to do right now in these circumstances and in any circumstance. So that's a teacher-related decision. Teachers will make those decisions. And they will be getting their kids outside as much as possible. Speaking of that, now I'll add an aside. Parent-teachers conferences, will those be virtual? Will those be live? They'll be virtual. We're actually going to add two days of parent-teacher conferences before the school starts in our K-8 settings so that both virtual and in person so that teachers can get a sense of how the experience was in the spring for the child, where they are social-emotionally, what kind of supports we may need to put in place for a child. And so parents can hear and kids can hear what's the routine going to be in the next couple of weeks. So we're actually moving our parent conferences prior to the school start. I want to say thank you for watching this. But at the same time, go to the website. I visited the Montpelier Roxbury School District website in preparation for this. It's an extremely good site that really is populated with the kinds of information that you're hearing today. And that is an excellent source. If you feel like you still have questions, I hate to say this because everyone's watching, but the superintendent's email address is on there. And her staff does respond. And the elementary school, middle school, and high school principals do respond as well. This is a back and forth, and everybody realizes the need for communications. Now let me put the plug. We have orca shows on those school board meetings. Those are posted on the orca media site. And we have shows with Anne Watson talking about the city's reopening. We have Carolyn Brennan talking about the Kellogg-Harvard schools. We have John Odom speaking about the upcoming elections. We have Dan Groberg speaking about our downtown. And we have an excellent show with the two chiefs, with the outgoing chief and the new chief. And that was an excellent presentation. I thank you for watching this. Have a good evening.