 So the first item on our agenda is a reception of guests. It looks like we have one or two. Hello, welcome. My name is Matthew DeGrode. I'm the chair of the SU board. Usually we ask people to introduce themselves and to give us a little bit of a sense of what item on our agenda or what issues they need to speak to. So I'll give you an opportunity to introduce yourself. If you could be like me. If you are a guest. I'm a jailbreak. Are you here to speak to any particular items on the agenda or just to listen to them? Okay, great. We're here just to listen or you want to speak to something at some point? Okay. We have a report out on that. We'll talk a little bit about it in a second. Okay, are there any revisions? Any revisions to the agenda? Yes. We'll do that under, I think that 4.10 I guess. Report to the board. Is that just the report? Yeah, we got it here. Okay, so we'll make that at 4.10. Kari, is that an order? What's better than an order? We're getting some. Which way do you want to go? I'm curious. So also under agenda revisions, I just wanted to mention a couple of things. One is that under discussion agenda 3.4, the policy committee charge. This is something that came up in discussion at the executive committee last week. And I know that the policy committee has already discussed and responded to something thinking about there. It was not our intent to actually put an item for discussion on the agenda about this, but rather to tee it up for our next meeting in August. So we're just going to note that. That we probably will table that although happy to explain why it came up when we do the executive committee and all the committee reports. And then the second thing that I want to note is just to basically address for a second the element in the room, which is, as I think everyone's aware, the AOE report for recommendation came out on Friday last week. I know that you've already seen an email about it and probably at least looked at it and may have many, many things to say. I'm out and I know I have many things to say about it myself. The executive committee and the board chairs will also set an end with the executive committee when we were discussing and forming this agenda and talked about this quite a bit. And we basically agreed that as much as we want to talk about it, we felt like we really have to discuss as a board setting an additional meeting to have that conversation. For a number of reasons. You know, we really felt that obviously this is an issue that is fundamental, maybe in some ways existential and sort of warrants a full discussion. We really don't have a lot of time this evening. We have a lot of other businesses to kind of act, which we have to take that to. We're also still congested in some extent by our recommendation, having a chance to discuss as our respective district boards. So I understand the media had a steam and maybe you would have come a lot of things to say. My request that came out of the discussion of the executive committee and the board chairs is that we not deeply in the discussion about it tonight, but rather discuss when it comes up on the agenda if we want to set a special meeting and then try to see if we can set up a date for that where that would be our whole agenda. So that's why you don't see it in the discussion. I've never read the report in the word before. So for the people that came to hear about the Act 46 report, unless there's an open revolt, there's a strong majority here who really wants to side-to-side our whole agenda this evening and tackle that on that whole. We probably won't discuss it in depth. But if you want to speak to us when it comes up as a report, it would be happy to hear from our guests at that time. Not your group folks now. We'd rather have a full discussion at a different date. I would rather, but I don't want to dictate to you. If you came to speak, we received guests and we're happy to provide some free time for that. But yeah, I think it would be more productive. Assuming that's the direction where we're going to go, if you wanted to come back and participate in a fuller conversation, that would probably be an exciting sense. Yeah. I'll probably want to say something very, very big. Okay. Would you like to see the next item on the agenda is Assuming there are no other revisions to the agenda. The next item on our agenda is public comments. So if you wanted to not stay, for the rest of our exciting meeting, you could potentially make your comment now or you can wait until your... Yeah. Go ahead. I agree. You want to wait? All right. I'll wear the other public comments or correspondence. Okay. Next is the Consent Agenda. Is there a motion to approve the minutes of March 28, 2018? Your move. Is there a second? It's Carl. They're on page five of the discussion. Of the minutes. In the minutes of March 28, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions. The first item on our agenda is the Supervisory Union Board Goals, which are here on page ten. I think everyone is pretty familiar with these at this point. But just to recap, at our last meeting at the end of March, we looked at a list of goals and we went through a process to try to get a sense of what the majority of the groups are the priority, priority topics for goals. Identify them free. Then the executive committee and myself and Carl were asked to flush those out and have discussed every district board, I believe, and it ended up now with the language that we see on page ten. So what I'd like to suggest is that we go one by one, actually, and provide for discussion or questions or suggestions for each one of these goals in turn. And so we'll start with goal number one, which is on board governance and operations. And again, this is a bit of a recap, but this came out of some interest that was expressed throughout the Act 46 discussion process and proposal preparation process around particularly policy governance but also just generally considering the mechanisms for models that the boards might consider for their own operations, possibly to improve the way we operate. So the goal here is to basically review how we operate, how boards operate, and evaluate alternative operating practices and determine how we want to operate. I will note that there are two small changes or changes to this goal since the last version you may have seen in district board meetings. There was a suggestion that we eliminate an unneeded term at the end of the proposed sentence that was moving forward, so we just took that up. And then under the who would be responsible for this, we have put executive committee and other board members as necessary, but we thought that was confusing, so we just put executive committee and the committee will determine if and when we need to invite the board chairs in to those conversations in that process. So is there any comments or discussion or things people want to offer up on the goal? It looks good, okay. Thumbs up, you know, go faster than I was thinking it might go. All right, if there is no discussion on goal one, then we can go to goal two. Goal two is board monitoring of student learning. And this came, I think, out of both to board's mental sense that we'd like to do a better job or understand better how we monitor the school system effectively, particularly some interest in the work of the school quality committee, which was commissioned by the youth of two board last year. It's been working for several months already on this topic and it was re-commissioned for this award in our last year of March. And I was reading the goal. The goal is to develop a more thorough database in understanding of student learning and our ability to inform more of all the strategies about its monitoring and communication. There were a couple of questions raised that were discussed with the last executive committee meeting around particularly the terms data-based in student learning. So the executive committee, we discussed that again, and decided we wanted to lay out to be as you board our discussion about those two terms in particular. So there was a question around the term data-based and whether that was maybe too narrowly focused on quantitative measures in particular and perhaps on testing around specific academic disciplines. And so we had a broad-ranging discussion about the nature of data and the fact that it is a fairly wide-open category includes both quantitative and qualitative measures and we cited as an example the recent implementation plan survey which was done with teachers across the USU, the results of which were shared with the executive committee at our last meeting and the results of which are also in your board packet. So that's an example of qualitative data of people, how is this going, how did it improve, what you find challenging and we get a lot of kind of responses back and there's some attempt to kind of identify if there are themes that come up again and again and sort of how to address those essentially. I just wanted to stress that data-based is not meant to be necessarily a limiting factor. And then student learning, there was kind of also I think a suggestion whether this is maybe too narrowly focused on academics, whether there are other dimensions to student life that ought to be the objective of our measurements here. We also had quite a discussion about this at the executive committee. Ultimately, the end point of the discussion was that we have spent a lot of time as boards talking about what student learning means to us and we have actually codified what student learning means to our school system in our student learning outcomes, which you can see displayed every time we have a meeting. And that the student learning outcomes already include, for example, you know, transferable skills, many of which can be considered to be life skills as much as they are academic skills. And there was also a concern expressed in the meeting that we may want to be wary about broadening the scope of the mission of the schools into areas that are sort of bringing the purview of institutions like the Department of Children and Families and Washington Medical Health and other institutions of which exist in society and perhaps there's a perception that schools are more and more likely to pick up the load of underfunded institutions elsewhere in society. So we want to be careful about that and also, you know, maintain fidelity to what we have all collectively decided already are our student learning outcomes in this school. So that was my discussion. If you think you can come in again, if I have any questions or suggestions or comments on this one. Yes, floor. Thanks. I'm not sure whether you encourage or write. Yeah, some of us have gone to purchase homes more than once with our reports etc. So that's part of things like you're not hearing as much comments, but I do have a comment about that. We did talk about it at the extended committee and at the quality committee and then I understand that we need to leave those measurements that we don't have data of. So whether it is child living or disciplinary or the whole child that's at all, but we're still holding ourselves accountable and posting the gap at those affect posting the gap. So, you know, when we're monitoring you know, I think we're trying to have this conversation at our meeting. So we're holding ourselves accountable knowing that those other elements affect our scores, our data. So how can we get better whether it is a local climate, where it is you know, other support without jumping I don't know how to explain it. We hold ourselves accountable for some other things that we're not measuring whether we want it or not. Yeah, and I understand you, I do. I think that there are you know, as we look at the data we have, we become aware of many things that affect learning and I think those are all up for discussion. There's a question about the school system, may or may not be able to do it out. Yeah, that's about it. There are also at times other sources of data that come through and I'm not going to steal Karen's thunder from later, but you'll hear about one such source of incredibly rich information about precisely the sorts of things that that Flores is talking about that we have to hold ourselves accountable for. Other comments or anything? So, I was in this discussion of the executive committee, one of the things that I really came up with that I presented to the board was the piece about data is that when you collect information your methodology in which you use to interpret the data is really critical. If you want to have valid qualitative data, just reading and going through and doing a theme analysis. I used to do this before I went through some qualitative methodology courses and now learned how important it is to have a methodology to doing that. So, it's if you it's really important with qualitative data because it has taken a, there have been some conversations that qualitative data isn't as valid or reliable and it can be just as valid and reliable if you state with protocols that they're accepted around qualitative measurement. So, that's really important and that that got into the data piece. And then the piece that you just spoke to and Scott we talked about that the piece that Flores just talked about, I know I can say this for the leadership team and it's what we said to you back in October. Your mission says all students but say some students or those students are all students means every single one. So, I think that's what you're speaking to Flores. I hope I interpreted that correctly but the leadership were committed to that 100%. Any other comments or questions or suggestions before we move on to number 3? Let's do that. So, goal 3 is community engagement. I think we've talked about this quite a bit and certainly sort of had some self-examination around it because we've worked through it again primarily the equity access process and the non-justice process about what does community engagement mean and the board level for the school system and each community is generally. So, the goal here is to for the boards collectively to define the purpose and strategy for board level community engagement and identifying each of the needs. There is some it's become clear as we have discussion about this goal in particular that there actually is some confusion around what community engagement is and how it's done and when it's best done by whom. And so that's why this goal is a pretty I would say high and off-road level it's really about figuring out what we mean when we're talking about this and how we want to go ahead with it. It's been increasing the effectiveness of their community engagement and I'm wondering if budget-wise or what we can have where we could potentially consider one person who has knowledge of this that could help all the schools but would all need to I guess what I'm saying moving starts in a very long day is that for instance Romney I think might have difficulty in funding somebody just do that but if we all shared the funding it might be more possible to get somebody to genuinely help us because I think there are some very specific things that can be done to improve the quality of community engagement that do take genuine knowledge. In that area of community engagement I'm recommending Cal. I think we constantly confuse lack of participation because we're talking to okay sorry we confuse the lack of attendance a lot of men need lack of public participation it isn't really the case I think as long when we have to focus on making sure that we've got good platforms and information so that people across the country have no where to look for intervention and times when we really need public input they will be there when they feel their input is important they will be there and people many people in the community are engaged in many things and that's why we have boards because we can't all be at all things and so what is important is that they're educated enough and that the platforms are there for them to easily access information when they first of all easily access the information to begin to determine whether it's time for them to show up and be heard and I think that's that consistency of platform is important for us and I think that we have not been great at that that's where we need to the issue will come when the issues are there you know they show up so that's why we just have to make sure we know about it and then they've got the information available to make a good decision Ruben so I was struck by the contrast in the last two in the last two folks comments and it really underscored to me I started looking at the graphical language I think there's I think trying to get to the how and the who we're not there yet I don't think we know what it is that we would want a consultant to help us with I don't think we define what community engagement means as a board and I think that's why the graphical language is exactly what it should be right by November 2018 the WCSU boards is to find a purpose and strategy for board level commitment engagement I think we need to define what community engagement looks like and what it is that we're trying to get out of the community before we just start discussing how to get it we don't have what we're after yet so in my mind the draft will make a ton of sense because then it will direct what what you read and I'm sorry Allison it will direct those conversations about how and who we want to get I'll just comment that I think people have really talked about feeling that a need for some training around this topic in particular for people who really specialize in the topic and three of our fellow board members attended the training in April we all received and I think people thought very highly of it and so we're the next item on our agenda is to talk about a board retreat possibly in August and we're talking to the trainers who worked at that event about possibly coming and working just with this group so that we can all have a common frame of reference and kind of get exposed to some of the same material and maybe that would help facilitate or spark more detailed conversation about that need for the basic Dorothy what I understand I was one of the people who attended engagement workshop and it's not so much of setting my understanding is not so much of setting meetings and getting people to come to the meetings as for us to find where the meetings are our town, where the people gather and to be part of those groups and able to talk about what's going on in our school district our vote on our high school statewide whatever talk about school issues and it's more of us finding a way to get to be part of those places I think most Wooster has the same luncheon at the town hall going to that a lot of callous people go there maybe middle sex people maybe that's a good place to go and have lunch and just talk to people but I think that's a lot of what community engagement is it's not getting people to meetings but going to people's meetings other people's meetings what a perfect opportunity for me to meet as well with the Wooster Farmers Market tomorrow yeah it's awesome nice music too any other comments or discussion on Goal 3 okay thanks appreciate the expeditiousness I've said many times that at every one of your meetings my personal hope is that of all of the CSE boards would consider adopting these goals tonight so that we are united in essence the work we're going to hold ourselves accountable to has come here it's kind of clear obviously I do recognize there are outside forces which also have an impact on our workload and the things we have to discuss this year there's no question about that I do want to recognize that because there is a possibility of certainly the timelines are presented here getting interviewed with but all the same the hope is that we can adopt these in common and at least be clear in expressing our intentions about what we think is important what we want to do so with that in mind I guess I would ask if there is anyone who is motivated to move that the WCSE board adopt these goals for the 2018 to 2019 is there is there a second is there any further discussion all those in favor of approving the motion please say hi opposed to extensions so the next item of the agenda is the WCSE board of treaties so we did a doodle poll to see if people were available I don't have the exact numbers in front of you but I want to say about 80% of board members responded to that poll I believe we had 18 people give out right yes to the date that they are available that date August 2nd we had I think about 3 or 4 people say that they could not attend and then we had another whatever the remainder is basically said it was a hard maybe and other things going on that they would be able to attend or maybe they could come from 9 to 3 and we would have to leave for that kind of thing so the executive committee felt that was sufficient interest and response to kind of go ahead with that data to really the only option that we have given the press of the schedule that the leadership team is under at that time of the year their ability to join us for that so we are going to go ahead with that data trying to plan something for that day August 2nd I can't remember the day because it may get Thursday because I think the committee also recommends to the SU board that maybe 2 or 3 people be designated as a kind of organizing committee with that retreat trying to put together an agenda identify a fairer trainer so speakers are already going to come with that kind of thing I certainly volunteer floor, Dia Smith is a volunteer if there is anyone else who wants to volunteer feel free I'll go on here and vlog this where it would be built and then in terms of topics and things we several have come on but I think the two we've been talking about was recently our goal 2 was student learning there was a a gentleman who did a study in the state of Vermont a couple of years ago on student learning that presented board chair training that BSB gave a couple weeks ago found it incredibly interesting Chris Winters was also there so we thought to possibly invite him and then as I imagine the trainers from the community gave him a training also would probably look to plan to set aside a block of time again we're talking about in a certain way it'll be act 46 because even if we have a meeting in June it's likely that so that's generally what we're looking to plan and if you have other ideas or burning issues or speakers that you feel are quite changing please go ahead and give a touch with either Stephen or Flor myself, I'm happy to talk about that we'll find a venue that's maybe a little less I should say maybe a little more outside than this we'll see if we can do that but a place that maybe we wouldn't traditionally meet we'll try to provide different kind of opportunity for networking and are there any questions about that? I really appreciate everyone's responses and kind of the lateness to set aside a summer day potentially for this I think it will be very helpful I hope it will we read nothing on this it's a list of sort of meeting norms and guidelines on page 12 these were adopted first almost two years ago now it's September of 2016 we've had two elections and some turn over in our board since then so it seems to me appropriate to probably review this periodically and see if we still agree but these are probably we'd like to follow and subtract from so that was the point of putting this on the agenda I'll just give you a minute or two to review this and you have a chance to do so direction of words but on the third bullet at the beginning it might make more sense just to say more something like start on time and on time instead of giving specific hours sure start on time end on time and stay on time I actually thought about asking someone to be your time keeper for tonight but we haven't got the norms yet so are there any other comments or thoughts on these are people generally comfortable with these? if we adopt them I intend to hold them so keep that in mind attention resolution or a question we don't want to have in a discussion but I will read it and share summarizes where the conversation is and in what positions have been voiced so that it's not live in the statement of the last person spoke I want to make sure that it does that it's shared it's not imposed on value on a discussion when it's not ready to handle it's a little ambiguous to me I have witnessed this at times and that is not a good place to be and I just want to make sure that isn't the same thing that isn't read it that way I didn't write these I think it's a good question you know I guess all I can really say is that it certainly would be my intent to try to I think that the gist of this is I understood it when I read it I'm not sure if this is accurate or not but it's that if we're having a discussion about emotion for example when our decision needs to be taken that it would be the chair's job to try to summarize fairly in essence the points that we have expressed so that I think the driving sentiment here is that you don't want to end a conversation with you know a powerful declamation and have that kind of carry the momentum that into the decision but that's how I would see it so I don't know if that will raise your concern for answers to that I just want to make sure I know I mean I've witnessed this I'm sensitive to that because I'm not just here when I've done a lot of public opinion or share if you get a biased chair or that starts to drive a conversation a controller conversation I just want to make sure that that is not as real as it is with the news that I want to make sure we stay away from that world I guess someone I would also say if you feel like I am at some point partisan in my summarization of the discussion please feel free to point that out and that based on the history of conversation among our boards I would expect that people would not have a problem doing that I'm not referring to you I understand you know in their discussion is there anyone who feels motivated to move that the C Board adopt these norms how do we move to adopt these norms is there a second all those in the neighborhood of permitting, motion to be signed those in terms of rejection again I would move that we table the policy committee charge discussion until our meeting in August and again when we get to our executive committee I'm always thinking about your board I'm happy to kind of explain why they even got an agenda so that is the 3.5 which is you might get fondarization for check orders for more boards so I think I'll speak to this Matthew every year in June the board reauthorize that if you do not have a meeting that we can still pay the bills of the district of the district I should say so every June you've authorized that I just for the six years I've been here that and Gloria didn't help me think about how far back that's been but that you have a blanket authorization motion that happens in June and that just keeps the pain of the bills going on otherwise we'd have to convene if we missed a meeting we'd have to have a special meeting we figured that there are a couple things in tonight's agenda and they're all right here that I would talk to you there actions you'll take to your local boards except for one is this one so the SU board does not need to the SU board doesn't need to do this you did the executive committees done this that you did in May for this next coming school year and all the local boards that you can do that tonight so this is a regular meeting we do this every year but since the bill can't attend every meeting that happens tonight since they're all happening simultaneously if there are any questions or if you want to ask about this we'll leave them here to take action the district board meetings 3.6 revenue anticipation note investment is for local boards so again this is something that would be done in all local board meetings as you know we need to take out loans to anticipation of taxes and to keep the district running so that happens every year we reinvest that money to a nice thing that Lori helps manage with the bank so there's a little profit on the interest it's called private trials in the public arena which is a nice thing for us you'll see I think the recommendation Lori we need to talk a little bit about the bids we're receiving a bunch of bid and the team act of being passed 4 of the bids just gave in a bid and a there's a community bank community bank and a community bank and a is the winning bidder you'll see in your board packets it's a summary of motions for you to take the first one is to approve the loan documents and you will all have loan documents to sign at your respective boards the second piece is to award the investment bid as we'll mention we are earning a profit of 1% which in this scope of things doesn't sound like a lot but at the end of the day for the entire SQ it's about 117,000 dollars so the principals have those documents they've been handed them and they'll be able to bring the teams to the meetings I don't know if there's any questions for Lori or myself on that that's been usually been an annual piece okay thanks and that brings us to point 7 the auditor recommended superintended authorization so this is on the supervisor union board piece and this is something that our auditor talked to us back in February we were back in this room we presented the audit reports he didn't give us a finding on it but it was a recommendation that annually the boards authorized my signature to sign for the boards for contracts and other purchasing so we in your packet you'll see a draft language and it is to authorize the WCSU super tend to sign all documents and contracts on behalf of the WCSU supervisor union districts it's something we've been doing for years he suggested that we have it done annually by the different entities in the district you may remember when Ron was here doing that back in February he suggested that we do so we're trying to add that to our annual June agenda I don't know if there's any questions about that or if anyone has any concerns I'll be glad to answer what I'm going to do here is the SU it's just on page one it's an action agenda of 5.2 so we don't have the verb engine here it's on page one 5.2 that is the wording of the motion this we're in here and we can't discuss for any discussion is there any discussion of the motion so the motion is to authorize the superintendent to sign all documents and contracts on behalf of the WCSU supervisor union I think that's probably where it would end I just was wondering about the clarification this doesn't mean that you're just sort of signing for the SU board more than anything that I think if something for contract exceeds a certain amount then the executive committee will review it and will give you their okay it depends on the entity by statute for 15,000 has to be awarded by the bid has to be awarded by the board so the statute requires that in Vermont and our own practices we're at the 15,000 in the practices too and we also have a February of limitations that actually lower that for some of the title cranes so we're trying not to do as much in motions and policies if it's covered by statute so that's a good clarification board are we doing 5.1 and 5.2 at this late or I was not right now the motion is just 5.2 we'll take up 5.1 next I think 5.2 has been moved hearing no other discussion I'm going to write you a question okay we're making a vote on something at the WCSU level and something that does cover the individual districts also how does it work in that for instance tonight not all three of our designated voting numbers are here does that come to that so by your bylaws it doesn't matter the town it matters that you have a form of the supervisor you need for it but I'm not mistaken is this something that we also voted on by each is this this vote covers the requirement we're covering the requirement here for all entities all those in favor of authorizing the superintendent to sign on documents and contracts on behalf of the WCSU supervisor we need districts I I those extensions I do we also want to move with 5.1 Bill it's up to you if you'd like to do it I'd be glad to talk to them so let's why don't you talk about it then we can for the past few years I would say at least five or six now the board has authorized myself to a war we'd go out to an RFP for the whole supervisor union for fuel, oil, wood chips wood pellets and propane and the reason that one of the main reasons for this especially for propane and oil we have 24 hour turnaround from when the bids come in to award so we've been doing that for about five or six years now you've given that authority at this meeting I don't exactly remember but it's the next couple weeks of those bids will be coming in and if anyone you know we can make sure we let everyone know what they are we usually get we're down to about two or three suppliers that usually get on although we send it out to them Any questions for Bill? Do you want to be any further discussion? Hearing none of those in favor of authorizing the superintendent to approve fuel, wood chips and wood pellets we'd say aye so we are to the board four point one so I will briefly try to do this and anyone in the executive committee or the board chair from there can jump in and remind me that I forgot something but essentially we are going to take quite a bit of time talking about the board goals and the board retreat and setting the agenda for this meeting which are all things we've already covered we also have a report from Bill on the results of the preliminary results I would say from the implementation plan survey that I mentioned earlier which is feedback from teachers across DSU on how they feel the implementation plan is going particularly how the extent to which multi-tiered systems of support is understood and in use the extent to which data is being used actively in accordance with preferences in classrooms and schools identifying possible professional development needs for teachers and these kinds of things so this data is in the package it's not something that we felt was necessary or appropriate to bring to the board this time just to mention that we we also have a discussion as I mentioned about the some questions came up about the some aspects of the policy committee's work after reading the minutes from their meeting earlier in the essentially there was just some discussion about whether we knew if the policy committee had a charge from this board about its work that it was using to guide what it was doing and to our children we realized we didn't really know and if there was one or if there was one we couldn't identify what were the guidelines being used in terms of whether a policy should be specified or not and then if there was an estimate of how much work that it might entail both for boards and for administrators to tackle the policy work that the committee was looking at I don't think the executive committee felt like any of this was particularly urgent to address but I did summarize this in the email to the committee and it had Monday discussed and I got a message about Rick summarizing their take on it we didn't feel like we would have time to get into it at this meeting but we wanted to put it on the agenda for August so that's essentially the plan so I don't know if anybody from the policy committee wants to speak to that and then we got a presentation from Kari about a diversity included in the legal lease statement and policy process with either the two board which he's been working here a little bit so that was kind of the board of the executive I really wanted to thank the non-participating board chairs who attended an extra meeting that our executive committee last week to help out with the goals of talking about this agenda so 4.2 is financial reports alright I'll talk a little bit later so financial reports at the board meeting the board meeting tonight are on pages 1838 I'm only going to take a few minutes of your time because of the long list of agenda items so in recapping on page 18 you will see that all of the schools have a good fund balance the entire projected fund balance at the end of this year is currently at about $2.3 million and it's on page 18 everyone's there you'll see that three of the schools look like they've re-independent deficit this year Berlin, Kallus and East Montpelier but that's not the case what that represents are board authorized spending beyond budget for transfers to the capital funds for those respected schools because they know they have a lot of capital needs in the coming years so everyone has really ended on a surplus is our current projection we've closed down utilities you'll see it in your local fund balance reports there's good news is savings this year due to the weather and fortunately less snow than usual so everyone has some savings in utilities that's with chips, oil, electricity we also see at the individual schools the state ended up providing additional funds for student transportation this year beyond budget so each of the schools will see a small increase in the bulk of it at the high school for bus reimbursement and then we closed down the instructional programs pretty much right now through the end of the year, usually the supplies are purchased by now and the things that are remained that are not in these financial reports are 12 month programs like operational plan, principal's office and also field trips are still open as you can tell and special education has not closed yet so I didn't want to give a big shout out to all the principals and administrators and bill for helping with our monthly meetings so that we can give you accurate financials and we feel this is a good way to close the year so if you have any other questions I'll be happy to take those or you can contact me through email at another time thanks Lori the policy committee does anybody from the policy committee who wants to do you have a new chair? alright we'll upload and tell us all about it the policy committee met on Monday and kind of ironed out some of the issues that occurred I guess and figured out that we've addressed or the group had over the year addressed all the required policies by the BSPA and now we're moving to the recommended policies and also putting that charge question out there to work on during the retreat we've never had a chair so I became a chair I think what's been discovered is things haven't been kept up over the years as far as policies being rescinded or cleaned up or where they stand and I think that would be part of our charge and what we're looking for for the direction of the policy committee school start time committee okay so school start time committee was about a year ago and we had a good charge and our charge was to consider whether school start clients and our district should be changed I mean later for older students and younger for earlier and assessing district and school system readiness and creating an implementation strategy so everything is on the website the website is a tab which will start committee I encourage you to take a look at every single thing we've done everything all the minutes, all the articles and links that we gave out, all the survey results so we have survey data that's very interesting and we should really dive through 189 comments I've been taking notes and bucketing and what we came up with is we have four public forums and I think when we talk about community engagement I think the biggest thing we learned is you need to go to where people are they can't always come to you so what we are asking you is whether you want to sunset our committee with our committee on recommendation for any change at this point or if you want to grant us to care enough to continue the work what the committee would do is try to do more engagement and outreach because we do not feel the community is completely ready it's really pretty easy to be divided and in order to have the community buy in and go for this kind of thing we need to put resources into it so as a board we need to allocate bill and staff to basically so we can have an outside expert come in and talk about brain science and children and sleep and those types of things we would need to have some modeling so specifically people can't buy into it they don't have specifics of how my kid would get on the bus and get off the bus every day how I would deal with what would you provide me to help me care for my younger kids so if we're committed to it I think there's always solutions but we would have to put money into that because it's not something volunteers can get together and just create and the other piece is of course extracurriculars you need to know specifically how the kid would play baseball how would the schedule work what would the other communities do so we ask you whether you want us to continue to work for another year put resources into this or we want to cable it thank you simple start choice I hope I presented that in an unbiased manner I won't even try to sum it up any comments or questions discussion bias towards we want to keep it just the way it is and so I think we need to consider whether or not we feel that we have more data such that we should continue to pursue this or if we sort of accept that a large number of people wish to keep it the way it is and I'm wrestling with this a little like my personal opinion oh no we just need to consider that that's a pretty unfortunate closed minded way of looking at it I personally feel that we can change our schools our times and I think it's really important I think our kids would benefit greatly I also am hearing very much that our community does not necessarily feel that way so these kinds of it's a bit of a hard thing to decide to go ahead with it anyway I know that's not a very convincing argument there's no argument so thanks for the survey just came out recently I know I haven't looked at the survey results I don't know about other people but would it make sense to come back to this in August to decide after all of us get a chance to look at all the data and information and sit through it and then say to this committee we think you need to go forward with this work or it looks like you're at a denim instead of just deciding to make it so one of the things that I wrestled with in my admittedly fairly brief read for the very debts I'm not a data that we go back to the survey which the survey was done brilliantly it was incredibly non-leading at balance but one of the things that stood out to me as a as a start talking community member is that we were doing information gathering but what people were trying to respond was how they felt about change but we didn't define a change and so what that means is that that we don't really have an inclusion to draw us at this point in my mind you know the data is pretty clear but even the data is a little clouded by the fact that people weren't given okay if we do this how do you feel about it or if we do this how do you feel about it it was more how do you feel about a change and we didn't actually define what that change might be so it makes it really difficult to sort of parse through that I think the one thing that was called out to the committee very clearly that the board as a full board we need to be very mindful of is that we are asking a lot of the supervisor being in staff and something that was that Bill was pretty clear about is that there are limited resources in the supervisor being in office and so it as a full board we really want to dig into this more it means that something else is going to have to get pushed and so what we really are looking for what we have to reflect on as a committee as a board is what our priorities are in terms of board goals and all of the other work that we're doing and also looking at this and I think all summarize what I sort of moved my take away I apologize for having my back to the whole bunch of the room whatever this if this work continues it's going to take a lot of work it's going to take a lot of engagement it's going to take a lot of energy and it's going to take a lot of time because people have really serious and valid concerns about what a change to school start times later or earlier whatever it's going to mean for them as a community and for them individually as students and families so going back to what Karen said we're going to have a lot of work to model this out at least sort of have it clear about what the choices and what the recommendation is and so so there's a lot of work I think there's a lot of prioritization and sort of the internal reflection of what our priorities are that have to go into this decision I agree with what Katie said and also with most of what you said particularly with regard to the survey being a response to some big idea of change and without any detail to show as Karen was referring to how certain accommodations could be made I think from my perspective I would I agree with Katie on punting until later in the summer on a decision but my own personal preference is for the committee to continue on its work without engaging the professional staff in any immediate way actually or from behind me as advisory as clearing to make sure that the excessively wacky ideas are shot down before they fly too far but basically this initiative seems like something if the research is to be believed that will yield significant improvements in student learning and if that's the case then it's worth working on I actually agree with everything that was said here on both sides and I think Scott particularly was like if the outcomes of this are something that are really significant something we pursue but what the way we pursue it is we really need to get no specifically those impacts and then on the families how is that affecting their ability to get their kids to school and then what do we do what do we have to do to review those if we go forward I mean I think that definition of the problem is critical why are people why are people hesitant or what is the impact of the lives of ways that doesn't work for them so we need to we need to get specific so we can fix the problem or not I mean if the benefit is there if the research said that I think it is worth pursuing I do get not I mean maybe not doing this in a general sense we need to get down to the real nuts and hopes of will and work what will it take to make it work just like to have I'm sorry go ahead I think that tonight we should let the committee continue to work and present options to us because we are going to rebuild that data but we haven't been completely involved in the work so if just as the community needs some options maybe from that data they could present to us at the next meeting I know that might be a mistake with your timing but some ideas here would be two options just as the community needs some options then we would have a better I don't think that collectively as a group we want to come up with those options because we know that this next practice I have a similar feeling about that is that we don't decide tonight we ask the committee to ideally for me it would be a summary report what are your findings what are what do you think are our options or a recommended next step and what would be the resources needed to pursue those and allow us to sort of study that think about it and come back and discuss it after we've had the discussion about Act 46 because then we're going to have to decide do we have the capacity as a board the staff has the capacity and also do we think the community has the capacity to engage with us in light of Act 46 and anything else so I guess what I'm hearing is there's some interest in this issue and a suggestion to ask the committee to maybe talk a little bit more and come up with some recommendations that are meeting in August I would like to add to the scope of those recommendations I'm convinced by what I heard that there are some possible benefits to pursuing school time change but I'm also very mindful that the central office and the leadership team in general are under a very tremendous load of work right now so I'd be very curious as part of that discussion that you might continue to have as part of the recommendations that you come back with to hear some kind of consideration of a list of a few things that the leadership team might take on to improve student learning where would this one fall would it be ranked number one because it's the absolute like we really wish we could do this tomorrow is it third, is it fifth I don't know I'm just curious about that because I think that we as boards and the administration are going to face some very difficult choices over the next few months and next year about where we are playing so I think that's really an important question for me to be able to consider remember that was actually one of the questions that we were wrestling with is I think most of us that are at least on school boards and I would say their majority of parents and community members that came were pretty open to this idea and the challenge that we were wrestling with is after again a pretty brief digesting of the data that we saw we were wondering about the cost benefit analysis right there is some benefit from an educational level but at what cost from a community level would that change and start a time problem and you know again we're not going to be able to do a lot more data gathering to be able to quantify beyond sort of a gut feeling because again we weren't asking about a specific change and so a lot of the feedback that we got was more just about change so we're not going to be able to dig too deeply into that I don't think over the summer but it is something that we're mindful of I think we'll jump in but I think what we could do over the summer is sort of digest this data and come back with a little more clear like you know there's a lot of inertia it's going to take you know some curfewing and effort to get over that we think it's still worth a shot but it's not the same reason to hold since I am at least in theory serving in this community I think we're going to wrap this up pretty quickly there's someone else that's got something to say I've had lots of chances over here I just want to say I was just able to look at the student data I thought it was fascinating what I saw just like a quick read of that was that students weren't really speaking to this when schools started but they were speaking to when schools ended so I think it might be useful as you look at that data to identify patterns you see in that way maybe my students might be quite excited about the thought of getting them to call back that's where our extra half hour can be but just to see creatively what those patterns are and maybe think about of what other solutions there might be I can start about just tabling it we have a fair amount of momentum on the school start committee right now and I personally think that it would be great if we could convince everyone but I also don't want to force anything down our community's throats so maybe we could use this time with Matt's comment in mind about whether it would work to consider propaganda through the summer rather than saying come to the meetings why don't we put little bits of data out there and maybe we could get it put in newsletters so maybe those of us on the school start committee could talk about trying to promote it within the community and then come back to this with the idea of getting more data from the community in the fall I think we can cause a shift with not herculean but maybe just a small effort is that see reasonable I hate the idea of just letting it go I don't think any, so I just wanted a couple things first of all in general I don't hear anybody saying we should just let it go I think the sentiment of the conversation that I'm hearing is that there's an appetite to hear more specifics from the committee about survey data and maybe what a path forward would look like a sense that we don't really have the information we need to kind of make an important decision in that sense I also a little, I would be a little concerned about trying to make a decision to find a kind of propaganda or marketing effort over the summer particularly in light of the fact that the VAO report is out I certainly as a member of the Doty Board feel some responsibility to be talking with our community about that and the implications of it and I'm very very weary of trying to get out of budget messages at once especially over the summer so that would be my response to that I appreciate the sentiment but just as a token so Matthew I definitely might have a phone to have so much I'm sorry we can't see you our respective decision I think the procedure and from my perspective I would one like to unburden the start time committee with community outreach over the summer and for me what I would like to know is at the beginning of so in the fall whether it's August or September based on the research that the committee has done what do they recommend you know we think that we should change our time this way and the information that we've received suggests that for this particular change the information we've received as a community is pretty evenly divided background on that specific recommendation and then we as a board could decide okay here's what they recommend we do here's what they've seen as strength and weaknesses and support and lack of support and what do we want to do with that so that's a good segue the charter committee technically expires today so we want to continue and continue to do something for August or September then we need to craft a motion around that I think so is there anyone who wants to take a stab at that so this will just be a discussion of the motion I'm not totally clear but we would extend the timeline extend the charge of the committee to a date sometime in the August or September I don't have a calendar so I don't know precisely that's an easy way to do it it sounds like a good motion Stephen alright thank you is there a second to steep the motion to extend the work of the discussion they'll say it till September yeah then I agree with Stephen I think what's important is that we then take this out of the realm of the abstract and then that task comes down to getting down to specifics about how it impacts we're going to take it to the people let's give them something that shows how it's going to impact the lives of they can tell us and we can play whether it will work or not because we have to address that so we're going to say we try to get to specifics any other discussion all those in favor of the motion before we move to the next item I just wanted to thank Karen and this whole start time committee I've been a member of that committee again at least a very since March and it seems like I'm working at a dense rent essentially and the attendance by the meeting isn't the work that they've been doing it's been impressive to me even though I've been going on the meeting somehow this committee has drawn the short the shortest draw in terms of being able to be there but I just wanted to appreciate the work that you've been doing for the few months that I had that chance to participate so school quality committee yeah so really briefly the school quality committee is motoring subcommittee history so we've actually been in existence in one form or another for about five years started with as a E32 subcommittee and helped the SU develop our student morning outcomes and after that we helped define how we're going to measure those and this first monitor report this is all last fall and now we see our work is really goal two helping the SU develop a more thorough database understanding what this information is telling us and so we've actually started a little bit of practice of analyzing data specifically and basically we're going to help frame up the discussions that happen in the fall when we get to the next report and hopefully translate that into strategy and budget and communication any questions? yeah so I just have three things to share with you you have read the last update we are asking for resolutions and although people don't really understand what resolutions are we haven't got that many but resolutions for us it provides guidance for the call which is at the state house it provides guidance to us in which issues to represent you so the deadline for that is July 9th 2018 so if your local board want to draft something you can submit it online this is a lot easier than it used to be and just be clear on your intent and what your request for action is and you still have time to do that that's the only part I want to share from that part the other two important issues is that the house today has the budget that is intended to keep the government open but they did not really still have a question about the use of that much money so they're still in limbo they're going to retake that planning or that work on Friday either their government or the other side has really decided that they're going to compromise there's another a proposal by prospective browning yeah but the governor needs to hear from you so basically what they need to hear is that we as boards pass this is just my point of view it doesn't have to be your point of view but right now they're not hearing from you know our members they're hearing from your representatives at the BSBA or they're hearing from the call but the governor needs to hear more from you we as boards fit our job and brought you know 2% instead of the 2.5 threshold that we have so I don't know figure out a way that we're not in this constant perpetual educational crisis right so if we use this money it is my opinion and I know that it's not necessarily the board's opinion but some people share this is that if we use this time one time money again right now we're going to be in the same place next year it doesn't really it it doesn't really address that we need to add more resources into that education if on so we need to you know the revenue needs to change so if you could take the time to reach out to your representatives it would be appreciated thanks board are there any questions about the administration reports that start on page 45 if there are no burning questions I'm just going to move right along then to the 4.8 university inclusion okay so on the last page of the packet is my memo to the executive committee to serve this process but it basically explains that while the U32 board was making a very specific decision about black lives matter of fact we also realized that we had to think more broadly about diversity inclusion and we were wrestling with the idea of what to do in terms of developing not potentially a policy we decided to create a statement of beliefs and sort of draft a second draft of our statement of beliefs is in the packet and we're talking more about that but we may well adopt that later tonight and our thinking is that that would then translate into potentially a policy and because we tend to think of policies on an SU level we realized that we should really bring this matter to the executive committee and potentially the SU board the SU board or the executive committee was generally open and supportive of the idea of developing a policy on this but rather than taking on a fourth role the idea was that to ask the U32 board to develop a sort of inclusive policy whereby more than just U32 would be involved in developing a policy so we're going to talk more about that later tonight but we're certainly open to any feedback or discussion with either on process or content of the statement. I'll share some of the comments I made with the executive committee in I think we're supportive so sometimes my intentions are misconstrued but I felt like it was a topic it was very important but it needed a lot of discussion and for me it made a logical tie-in with Goal 3 young community engagement where it's less about us wanting the community to provide feedback on something and it would be more about us wanting to hear from the community how do they view diversity, inclusion and equity and what's important and what would they like to see and how do they feel about it not saying this is what we want to do, what do you think about it and engaging the community just to simply say what do you think about it, this is something that I think I'll share with you I think before you know this Lauren and I were part of a symposium that happened in late January that was a combination of about 50 to 60 educators from state of Vermont from college collegiate all the way to the K-12 that looked at equity and an equity statement came out that I read to you as a board I've been including in your packet the toolkit that's coming from the SBA and there's a draft policy that's in draft form right now based on some great work that's happened nationally and the national work on this same issue so there are plenty of resources Are there any questions for Kari about the state of the police or the work on the policy and if you wanted to do let's do 4.10 the associations update and now we can do that I think I'd like to just defer Bill Thanks to them So as many of you are aware we've had some issues with our outside management firm for our health reimbursement accounts our HRA HRA's and the company that we were using ceased to do business with us as of May 1 we've been in conversations with the association about how best to provide that service but it has made some of our agreements that you made with the association on how we deliver services for HRA's that we're not now impossible for us to deliver those services so we're currently under conversations about how to do that and how to best support our teachers and having the support they need for their health care and that's been we've had a couple of meetings on that and we're still talking Is that anything Suzanne? Oh yeah we're not the only tool it's what about half the schools in the state are in this situation so we're not the only one and there's many ones Thanks So 4.9 our last item is the Act 46 update so I'll just briefly I wanted to relay back to the SEA board that following the action taking the March 28 we did communicate the addendum to our ADS proposal to the agency of education so just so you know that that didn't happen that was regarding some basically clarifications about recommendations from the agency for what we had or had not so as I mentioned the executive committee recommends that we try to schedule a special meeting where this would comprise the bulk of if not you'll get them on our agenda for discussion I will just go ahead and assume that this room would like to discuss this and that we could probably talk about it for a long time The date range that I have in mind is June 19 to 28 or so both because there's an executive committee meeting on the 18th so that gives us a chance to frame a couple things or plan and it also I think probably would be a meeting before certain occasions start to happen I think the easiest way and I find the date is to do a poll rather than to sit here when we're open trying to figure out something that works for everybody so I would suggest that we do that by electronic poll and that's really all I have to say but I wanted to avoid discussing it tonight because I feel like I can't get out of hand very easily but I know we have a couple people who come special and have waited quite a long time to speak to it so I want to give them that opportunity before I do run there are any board members in the field that they simply must speak I would just like to make sure that this is well advertised this is a meeting that I think we're publishing there there's a lot of start feelings around it from yours to our supervisor and after years of work we'll find out where that goes in very acceptable ways yeah I think that's a good point I mean we'll try to develop a communication strategy that we can kind of get the word out to as many channels as possible and try and see if we can at least make sure people are aware that there's an opportunity for them to come and hear a discussion on this and contribute to it as well Cheryl if you could read this we just wanted to thank this group again for the way everyone came together and collaborated put together a unified proposal to the agency and I'm sorry that the agency didn't end up listening to that and I do think the analysis they did if you can even call it an analysis was very dismissive of the hard work that this group did over years and many many meetings so I do see some new faces that were a part of this couple of years of history and so the only thing I'd recommend is leading up to that meeting as it really is important to read the entire report the alternative government structure that this group put together and then read the about 10 pages much of which is copy and pasted from other parts and report the agency did and compare those two those two documents and also draw attention to the top of I think it's page 56 where there's a very sensitive discussion in this group about how to deal with debt and I remember many meetings where people talk about every possible way to deal with debt and I think if you look at what the agency says it's kind of worded rather suddenly as I read it they say that the two towns Calis and Worcester that would be harmed by taking on the debt of other towns shouldn't worry because their schools will eventually close and they can send their students the other buildings and I lock out was very worrisome I think that Dony and Calis board members talk with the committee members about that and by the way I'm from the middle side so I have three students and Romney and just participated as a member of the public in this process so thank you again for your work thank you for listening to the community and we have your back in the proposal to the agency the communities have your back and defending that in the same way thanks Susan Clark and I'm in middle sex as well and I also want to just really support you in the report I think that you might have a tendency to feel rebuked by the state and being told what you did wrong and I really want to emphasize the exceptional thing that we did right that you did right I'm the town moderator in middle sex and the town moderators talk to other town moderators a lot especially during training and I have heard tremendously troubling stories about communities being pitted against each other both within the communities and community against the community in the course of this R46 rollout and there have been places that just have been deeply, deeply divided to the point of horrible stories and thanks to your thoughtful and deliberative work you know people in Calis and you still love each other we still love each other we still all love each other and if we can hold the course I think it's our communities together that make decisions rather than I'm a little concerned about the idea of having a meeting between now and when I think the next step that happens is that we defend this to the state board the agency of education plan is just a recommendation to the board of education so it has no actual power there's no action for us to take besides go before the board and defend that then you know if the state or smerges there's plenty of time to decide as rules what to do at that point so I really just wanted to say I don't see a lot of advantage of revisiting this but every advantage to retaining the mutual trust that you have worked really, really hard under really difficult circumstances to retain and that continuing goodwill is crucial if we are going to continue to work together as five towns with I certainly hope that we are so thank you I just wanted to say thank you for all your work yeah thank you Susan and Kyle I just wanted to reassure you that at least for my part I don't feel rebuked at all quite the contrary I think nobody should take the report personally this is a political document through and through and you know from the mighty games and the tone to the strategic misreadings and all the rest that's just part of the game and you know it's politics from here on through November so that's the way it is Rick and then I think we are going to try to adjourn if we can I think there's danger in that Scott you know this is it's pointing to a foreground conclusion that we've kind of seen from the beginning and it's more than politics that there's imbalance in power there and I think this is something that we clear where you're going to have to push hard on because I think that will be it is a recommendation but it's also an excuse we use this as an excuse because our legislators they know this they know this is unpopular everybody is going to use this as a they're going to want somebody else to point and it's pretty clear where that's going to be so I think we actually have to speak with some force if we want to stop and if there's a very deliberative effort to ignore public votes through this process and it's been all through the process we've been deeply involved with since the beginning and you've seen that and I've seen that I mean we can't let that happen this is a democracy and there's real problems with this process and all that's why we project I think we actually have to have a fairly loud voice it's a lot of politicians now that this isn't going to be politics there will be a cost if there is I just wanted to be clear that that's making the assumption that everyone is against this and that's not true because the community is divided much like my school start time thing very divided on it and it's not all against it and it's not all wanting to fight what makes sense to a lot of people so I think it might provide this order pretty much like it has all along door tickles you're the last speaker so make a count well I just want to say is I believe everything AGS that was proposed to the state went down so we are not alone and having been shot down and I think you need to pay attention to that okay thanks everybody well I think we have a lot to discuss on this forward to it feature agenda items I have I guess I'd rather call the work of the policy committee I took a little rather than positively to each other to honor them for August school time start committee also will be on the agenda obviously the equity in the schedule in terms of board comments I guess I would just ask for a second are you going to tell me you put the microphone in my hand so my sons play on the video games they have difficulty levels easy, moderate advanced and impossible and you know over the course of many years serving on the board certainly the last few months it has been impressed on me time and time again that our school administration here is our leadership team our central office staff and our teachers are operating every day on the impossible level somehow they can have work we will have one more meeting in June to address one specific topic the last official business meeting of the school year and I really just want to recognize our educational leaders for the work that they have gone through what has been extraordinary here on top of their day to day work trying to sort of lead and ensure the education and growth of hundreds of young people they also had to deal with staff 46 conversations and efforts throughout the fall student protests and walkouts around gun issues spraying as well as counseling and then certainly the end of the year it has to take the lead on what is an extraordinarily challenging conversation for our society in general one which our society often chooses to adopt a legal amount or a civil leader to adopt that conversation it is really just a tremendous amount of effort I guess I just want you to join me in expressing our appreciation to them for their work the second of the year that is very meaningful my last comment before we move to adjourn is that I would again ask the district to please consider adopting the goals that we adopted tonight it would be great if we could walk out tonight with a community of voice around our priorities for the coming year so if there are no other comments or objections we are adjourned at 7.23