All right, I think we will go ahead and call the meeting to order, it is 535, and we have, we kept this regular board meeting, because we're trying to work on school goals, Berlin-specific board goals for a while, and we're hoping to have some time to work on that, as well as you'll see on the agenda, the SU board communication goal, which is tasking each of the local boards to report back on what they believe that means, what the community engagement and communication looks like. We also had leftover from last meeting, a hiring process question, and those provided some information on that. And the board handbook statement that we took a look at last time, and we're given the homework of coming with some revisions to that this time, if you had any. So meeting has been called to order, item 1.1, is there any revisions to the agenda? So one of the things I didn't put on here, Chris, and this is the approval of the board orders, I think we want to have that under there. All right, it'll be our one, I think, action item tonight. We had also talked about coming back to website as far as if we had numbers yet to look at. What were the numbers you're referring to, Chris? It was Bill saying, knowing about hiring new people, how those numbers were working out. Would you be able to report on that tonight, Bill? I've been ready to report on what we think it might take to, as in hours, I didn't put together a salary projection on the total cost and that we have to keep ability within new hires and that's what we're going to talk about now. So bring it here. Okay, with this, we can bring that up either if it comes up under the Berlin Board Goals, understanding engagement, or under the SU Communication Goals when we talk about website. Any other revisions? Any public comments or correspondence? And then 1.3, just a reminder of our future meetings we have another meeting in two and a half weeks at the U32 and SU carousel meeting. So that calendar thing get figured out where it came out saying that it was at 11 to 12.30? Crystal was fixing that today. I know it was not her task list. She was on this past week on vacation. She was trying to understand by how that came out at 11. We had this issue a couple of years ago and it goes to somehow your individual machine links up to the global clock system for all the computers. Yeah, I mean I looked at mine and all my settings looked right because somebody had said to me, are your settings right, Corinne? And I'm like, yeah, my settings are right and I checked with somebody else and they've had the same problem. I said the same thing, but I just assumed it was just a... She's trying to get it. It means 530 institutional. I was just... Yeah. Will we have enough Berlin board members at the September 26th meeting? I would like to go to the U32 mod player soccer game which is at six o'clock that night. So... My daughter will be in that too. Yeah. So I think there'll be some pretty important at 46 discussions happening that night that are very crucial for which direction boards are going. If I can read the tea leaves from last week's meeting and our executive meeting in a lot of next week. You mean not the joint meeting that that will happen? Make your best decisions, I would never say to over to the parenting duty as someone who pleaded to one of your fellow board members I was supposed to have a meeting on Friday. I said, I'd like to go watch a soccer game in this country. It takes me two hours to get there. Not two hours, but an hour and a half to get there. So I get it. Just want you to realize. And if you're like any other game? Yeah. I'm totally fine. I'll do my community service. I'll get back to you if I'll be there. I will try to be there. I might not. Do you know how roughly... What would be done by seven? I do not know because the... I just don't know. The executive committee will make a decision. Matt and I have been having discussions. We might need to go really long for the SU meeting that night. Because I mean, there's some really crucial dates.  Yeah, I read the article on the paper. Well, that's part of it. That's not all of it. So there's just some crucial decisions that need to be made in the next... We'll live within the next one. Because we have a lot in front of us. With all the draft articles and how transition boards can be put in place and where the board is thinking. There's been a question out there about what the direction is. So should that have been a discussion agenda for tonight? Because I don't know that I feel like we... No, the executive committee. I'm trying to be cautious about the confidential conversations I have with the full board chair, Matt DeGru. But at the same time, say the urgency for the meeting. I'm sorry, I'm being kind of vague on that. No, I just, I honestly don't have a sense of what direction this board wants to go in. And I know I missed a few meetings, so I might be out of the loop. I really have no idea... You have a standing plan? We haven't really discussed the direction. I don't know that we've even talked about it much since the last time I came here. We haven't. We've all kind of had a sit back and watch approach for a while now. But it's coming to a time when we need to start talking about it again. I wasn't going to put it onto this agenda. I was thinking about putting it onto the next agenda. But I've been approached to join a lawsuit as the chair. Not as the chair. Ask the Berlin Board. We want to join an Act 46 lawsuit. And I just haven't dug into it enough yet to be able to bring it to the full board to consider it. That's something we need to at least consider. I did receive that correspondence. A new one? I know a year or two ago, there was a couple of things. I think I even passed along something to you when I saw something. Yeah, it's a, it's, I think it's the same. And maybe the same group, I don't know. It's, it's a different group. This group, this is a group. This group has not gone as a group before. This is, there have been three lawsuits in the state for Act 46 and they've all been thrown out of court. So who, may I ask, who asked? It's a correspondence from? The Vermont schools. So not the, nobody in the administration. No, no, no. And it's a, it's a group that's doing it on a volunteer basis. And they're saying you could choose to join if you aren't forced to consolidate then you can drop out of the litigation but they're just trying to see who might be interested. I don't know that it's quite right for us to make a decision yet but I wanted to gather a little more information on it and bring it, bring it before the board but I wasn't ready to do that for this meeting. Okay. But you're right. We have to have a conversation about this. All the dates are coming to a head. The executive committee is working. I've asked the executive committee to tell me I guess how do you want us to budget right now because we're starting budgeting now in the buildings. You know, the S.U. budget I'm going to suggest the executive committee is put off another month. So what time does the full board part of this start? Exactly. Five thirty. Okay. All right. The executive committee no longer meets on the same night as the carousel meeting. Okay. We've, we've changed it because it just doesn't work.  We, I finally learned Matt and Stephen and I all said, let's not do this anymore. All right. And we're still planning on local board meetings that night. Yep. I think there's going to be, he says probably, I mean, that's some of what we're going to figure out the week before with the executive committee. What's the game in England might be a go back and forth a couple of times. Sorry. I wish I just don't know. I mean, people look at to me all the time here like, so what are we doing on this way? I'm like, I don't know. It's a governance question negotiations. It's a governance question. I don't have an answer. I just say that to the teachers. So I don't know who you'll be negotiating with past November 30th knowing our boards will support the people that will be here that are here now at the beginning, but I don't know. Do you know anything about the state board like taking all the way to take right up to November 30th? Could they possibly come out of the meeting scheduled? No, their last worn meeting right now or scheduled mean, I should say is November 28th. So I bet the goal is to November 28th. They also are looking at the 90 day part that people read those draft rules and looking up in town meeting and getting that timing right. Yep. So things can happen in town meeting. Okay. All right. Anything else under 1.0? 1.1 to 1.3? We'll move on. Go ahead. Could I ask one other question? I think I've sent something to you, Bill, to ask, which I guess would kind of fall under communication, but I was a little confused on the school website. It had, when it said check out this important, I forget how it said it, important letter from the superintendent or something. It's a letter to Washington Central educators where I was thinking it would be like a copy of the welcome back letter. And so I wasn't really sure if this one to the staff was meant to be there on the website and if the one to the families was going to be posted there. So that letter that I wrote is to the staff. And it's on the front of the website. Okay. We can switch that around. So I was thinking that it was meant to be one for families, but I wasn't part of it. No, I never write one to families. The principals do that. Where did you find that under? On the front page after it says that... Oh, in the miscellaneous... There's some message about the school has been here since 1969 and at the end of that paragraph when it says look here, here is capitalized. So moving on to the discussion agenda, 2.1 Berlin board goals at the last meeting or maybe it was a meeting before I forget. We adopted the... I think it was the last meeting. We adopted the SU board, those three broad goals. Goal one being board governance and operations. Goal two being monitoring of student learning and goal three being community engagement. Those cover a number of things that we had in our Berlin specific board goals. But there was some discussion about there being some particular details in those that we might want to maintain as opposed to just discarding those for the three big SU board goals. And it's always good to come back to these every once in a while and update them to these. I don't know that they've been touched much in the last two to three years. I actually don't like the way these are laid out. I don't know. I feel like there's a piece missing there as far as how the board's going to monitor that these are being done or reposited. I feel like there's a piece missing because of that reason we don't revisit them. Yeah. And some of them are very difficult to measure. They're not... What's the acronym? SMART goals. Yeah, they are measurable. Some of them are not time bound so you don't really know when you've gotten there. Achievables and other ones. So are they achievable? Specific, measurable, achievable. So the R is relevant. Relevant. Thank you. And time bound or timely. Yeah. So yeah, I don't have any ties to this. It was part of the original drafting of them but I'm open to starting from scratch, changing format. And I do want to actually hear from both Bill and Erin. What's helpful to you if we're as a school board trying to kind of set the direction or set the North Star here? What's helpful for you from us? Can I? Sure. Just put it in. Yeah, go ahead. Just for us as a board, I don't want to get like stuck in the weeds on wordsmithing and making sure they're absolutely perfect. I want to see us spending our time like, get our goals done and not drag it out over five meetings and work on a timeline when Bill or central office or Erin will get back to us, which I think Bill has very much worked on that timeline. So I really think it's worth looking at the timeline that you have built for recording back for like the academic pieces, the communications. I'm looking just looking. Falls on us. But I feel there are other pieces that are already built into a timeline. Let's build it from there and pick out the ones that we feel are the most important and pick out the ones that we know that we can work on. And that's where I feel like some of these that it's not worth that we have to deal and if we're going to work on some of the else I want it to be meaningful and something that we're going to get the results back. I just asked if he has any chart paper because it might be easier to list. I mean, I think you guys could say in probably about two minutes what's important to you and come to agreement on that pretty quickly. And how does the board ensure that? And Vera's been in the school quality conversations for a couple of times now. So that I think it's been a really helpful conversation to hear from colleagues what's important. And then the reason I was just asking Erin for some chart paper was just to kind of show you some of the key milestones for when data can happen and link it back to the work that we did with Nate this summer. Nate Levinson and say, so you can see because there's one of the things that there were good and bad parts that no child left behind. Good part use data to drive your work and set goals. Bad part some of the misuse of data and the misuse of assessment. So showing you a quick little timeline I can drop for you. We'd make it a lot easier to kind of see that and do what you were talking about Vera. At the same time, like how do we how do we know that? How do we how do we ensure we're doing the monitoring we should do as a system? Yeah, that I think you all heard from me. I really believe that's a really key piece of board.  Does you kind of lose the force to the trees in my mind? It's not just monitoring the forest either. It's like when do you need to go into a deep dive? And when don't you I think there's reasons to do that as a board when you know you're not seeing changes or improvement. Absolutely. I mean you look back at these and what I think what these really did accomplish was we talked about behavior and disruption in the classroom. And I think it was a lot was set off from that. That was what was high on the list of the time and it comes up in like every goal. And but I mean that set that helped inform I think you and Carol that that's what we were really concerned about at the time. But there's a as Vera said there's a lot of stuff in here that's just kind of I don't know what thinking out loud detail specific that probably wasn't measurable and not real helpful to you all. For me it's I think for any any system what gets monitored what gets done. But if you try to monitor too much or too fine a grand level then usually it's like yep can't do all that. So it's it's that right level and it's it's giving authority and responsibility throughout the system. You can't get authority without responsibility. You can't get responsibility without having some authority maybe had your own input. So that's a this one of my big management philosophies. You have to get that and then a colleague of mine said Bill you should add the word accountability. So authority responsibility accountability like and that's the checking part that we're talking about. The other thing that always comes to mind for me here is we shouldn't be reinventing the wheel. I know all the other schools in the district all the other not all of them some of them some of them have already done this work. Well they don't want board goals. Right. There are some that don't want it. Yeah. Yeah. Vera's right. They want no part of it. Which is kind of I don't know how you get some direction in some. Well even whether or not you call it a goal of just things that you are a word planner. Well routinely checking in on such as the behavioral stuff. I mean it doesn't necessarily have to be us that brings it up. But if we haven't heard anything from Erin in some time in it just one of those things that you want to go back to and say how is that going. It's the same with most of the stuff on there with communication. You want to even if we have the best goals best plans I mean to me is just one of those things you just kind of touch base on everyone. So open to suggestion on how we start here. I don't know how we start but I'm going to jump jump jump right in. Sure. So two of the ones that I don't feel necessarily fall into the whole board goals that we had was increase academic growth and success. So are you under goal one. You can number it whichever one you want. I mean under the existing goals or you don't want to even start there you just want to know I think she's just I'm just starting. Okay. I guess for me the goals that we have as you why would he one two three and then gotcha this would be a four or some other number yes depending on if we were prioritizing. So say that again. Increase academic growth and success which to me I'm leaving it broad for a very specific reason why I don't want to see a pigeon home into something but to me that opens it up. So it doesn't necessarily have to be in the classroom. It can be in the community. It can be many different things and number two. I'm not sure that they would agree with me on this but as a board provide and support professional development for all staff support that I would support that. I just I didn't know if you'd support as a goal for us per se but that I'm just I want to know more about it. So this is either way and then the last one was policy which obviously were there. So I think to hold us accountable for making sure we get through this process is making sure that the policies are up to date in order. Well to that one I would tag on policies and procedures conversation about that. I missed and we didn't have the minutes. We don't know. There's no I took them off one. Because you have your regular schedule means on the 26th. So your business means on the 26th. So this was not I didn't put anything on here for business. All right. So those are the what I have and you would I'm assuming from that that you would say maybe you wouldn't think I've been told that we don't get into the minutiae of how it's given the direction of this is what our goals are and how they get there is not to us. Correct. Not that you don't want input or feedback. It's I think let me put it a different way. I think it's to say if there's something that if we said a how and you said hey the community is going to have a real big problem with that you should know that but when it comes to educational practice when it says to increase student email just go off of that one or support the PD. Let's go to that. Like we want to make sure as a board that resources are there so all teachers are doing professional they need to become the best practitioners they can be. So you're not going to say you know pick this I interpreted it this way and tell me if I'm wrong. We want to ensure the resources are there. The teachers are doing it. If you need more days let us know you need more resources let us know. But you know which PD is the best one for math instruction.  Let them go figure that out. Yes. You know but what you were saying Vera was not just teachers you said staff. Yeah and they'll set all staff when he. I thought she said teachers there. I mean but and I'm not you know I think for different. You know this goes back I mean this is why I think having that grounding in the retreat work. I mean I think Nate really kind of helps set up those kind of those lines delineation to like hey board members you should really be ensuring that these things are happening and then ask your leadership team and that's part of what we're talking about school quality is we want to see increased learning. So if we're talking about goal to that's that's in there who sets the goal who actually sets the smart goal way Chris was talking about that says we're 50% we're going to be a 59% who sets that you know and who sets the methods to how to get there and what I heard you say I want to see increased I'm not even telling you how much. You know who because there's like how much growth can you expect to see and it's different depending on where the performance is that within a system when you start to look at the student population. And you know for any one that's in either of our positions I would say you can't get there until you've had a conversation with the teachers when they look at their initial where the kids are at and how many kids they think they can move from performing at this level to performing at that level. One of the supervisory full board whatever we're calling that at the policy meeting we were talking about the community engagement there was a policy that we were looking at and everybody agreed it's not really what we were all thinking. And so that's an area though we're getting some more specifics from each of the boards to find out what we had in mind when we said community engagement what do we mean by that is really important because everybody certainly does seem to have their own spin on what that is. That's what I was kind of going with my question was we do have one goal here that's public engagement. I heard what you said earlier about that it's really the board's job to drive that. Is that an appropriate goal for us to set for the school or is that a goal for ourselves? I would say that's a goal for us but that's like I said that's one out of three of us. Yeah, I mean I guess it's kind of a little bit on both but I really feel like where the school is at and when it comes to budget and the exciting things that are happening. I really feel like it kind of falls on us to promote the school and sell the school and to put ourselves out there to answer questions and to be that kind of in between the community and the school. I'm not into selling but I'm into informing. Okay, that's about it. I will change my words. I take out informing is better. When we were discussing it the policy that we were looking at seemed to say like you want to reach out to the community and like find out what their expectations were and all where I was thinking is that you have this ongoing back and forth you know that it isn't just getting out some information before budget time or having the community say whatever and checking back with them in two or three years you know what are you thinking now is just this very much ongoing in many different avenues of sharing information. Which is Adrienne said that's the sense that she got from the B32 Board also is more along the lines of this ongoing communication with the community both school community and wider community. Just say that I fully support those three that you mentioned I could get behind those I don't know about you Erin. Yeah. I just wonder if there are any others the we had four categories of goals and have four categories of goals was academic and behavioral fiscal which has never really made a lot of sense to me. Some of the subcategories in fiscal are good like we want to have a long range capital plan we want to have a clear and understandable budget that gets community support but I'm not sure those are I don't know that I see the utility in stating those goals. The third was school climate which I think probably deserves a little bit of discussion and public engagement was a good goal and does that just mean communicating informing or is that also getting people into the school and having activities in the school and maybe having the school itself through the administration piece of communication engaging the public too. Did you have some ideas please? I'm excited to hear. Well one of the areas that you just mentioned Chris was behavior and while behavior could stand on its own you could also think of it as being a piece of the increased academic growth and success and that behaviors need to be working well not only for individuals to see that growth but for their classmates to see that growth. So I could see that being encompassed. I think so too. And I think it's really good to have goals be as positive as possible and just saying behavior out there I think a lot of people immediately think of poor behavior rather than outstanding behavior. I agree the fiscal I mean that's not really a goal that's just ongoing every year we deal with budgeting and unforeseen issues that come up that are going to end up needing to be dealt with I don't see that as being a goal at all. I didn't either. Yeah and to me are not necessarily saying we feel it needs to be a goal right now to me doesn't take it off the table totally it means you can only have so many goals that you're focused on and it doesn't mean you are necessarily going to drop the ball on anything else that should be checked in on a regular basis but if you have too many goals there's nowhere to focus. So I think just having the supervisory wide goals and having you know what number to say I don't think you can say a number keeping it to a minimum is good to not have too much to have it be overwhelming after all we only meet so many times a year. So are there any areas in particular or concepts or things in particular that are important to you current to have a goal toward beyond academic success this professional development that Vera mentioned and the policy governance pieces? No because to me the policy is so big I mean and we just now are all getting on the same page literally and still need to get the procedure stuff with it and that's how can you know how can you have any oversight or comment if you don't know what you're working with and so I think this is still going to take some time to get this all where we're all comfortable with what's included in what we have. Nothing more? As you're looking at this I'm hoping we can have a better template than this for our next set of four goals when we adopt them. I think so I think it's going to be rather short which is what I'm hearing and some fairly broad statements that can encompass a lot I think the whole public engagement piece can go right within the goal number three of the board supervisor in the board goals trying to think if school climate needs to be addressed in any way or if that's wrapped into any of these other goals it was kind of a brain dump of what we were thinking at the time and not really a strategic goal setting exercise when we put these down I think. For me I think that could come out and it kind of can be taken over by the provide and support professional development for all staff because to me it kind of falls in that school climate of working together as a team and within your community within your school kind of all encompasses in that professional development piece. Yeah I was wondering if there's some way we could extend that and add a few words that would show that it's a little broader than that. I don't have a thought about that because it's very vulnerable. When you get them written down you'll have more time to react. I think something along the lines of provide and support professional development for all staff that creates a increases that increases student performance. That's what you're going after. We give support to a custodian or they're making sure that the facilities better maintained and cleaned which is environments in the top 10 of things that are true to student learning. Isn't that the outcome you're after? It's kind of an end statement. If we provide high quality professional development. Well to me the example you just gave wouldn't just be about custodial staff having it just be about the environmental things and all but there might be something about working with students or other people just because they're people that are around all the time in all kinds of different situations so I would think you could even broaden out what's available to them. Over the years there's certainly been some that just really stick to themselves and others that you see having conversations and some of that's a personality thing. Vir, how is goal two from the SU and the increased student learning that you had put, how do those differ? How is the SU one? The SU is develop a more thorough data-based understanding of student learning and our supervising to inform board level strategies, budgets, monitoring and communication. I guess it doesn't other than less worried. So it really sticks out there. So it really isn't. I mean it is encompassed in that. Could you read that one again? Develop a more thorough data-based understanding of student learning in our SU to inform board level strategies, budgets, monitoring and communication. I guess to me that one is more about the reporting. Who's going to report? What are they going to report? When are they going to report about the student and this one is more about the first step of increasing the academic growth and then that one is more about the reporting out piece of it. I mean this does fall into that. I guess for me this would be I'd want to see the increase in academic growth in all of our students and that would be the follow-up piece of creating the reporting out when it's going to be reported out which then affects your fiscal piece. And what was the second part that's in that? Board level strategies, budgets, monitoring and communication. The strategies on how to approach if there is a child that's not meeting, how are we going to do that? Well, what I liked when you were first saying that, although you were saying academic growth and success, you were quick to say not only in school but in the community and it just seemed more of a it's about the kid not just how they're doing a math. Right. You know that. The whole child. Yeah. Whereas that in hearing you read it to me sounds much more of a what's happening in writing. So do you as a board want to be accountable for everything that's happening in a child's life? No, but I like how this was just kind of open. I mean Vera was saying she had this open and broad on purpose to be able to look at it. It's not saying that it has to be for each and every student. It's just... Under my notes I had growth within and I used an example of genius hour and then I went on to say students are empowered to explore their own passions and interests in the real world of it could be what they take for music lessons outside of school. No, I'm not. I don't want to put the board in the situation that we are trying to control but to oversee what's happening outside of school but yet bring it into their everyday learning in school. So the reason I'm asking these questions and there's no right one to think about but we went back to the acronym for smart goals. Specific, measurable, attainable. Relevant. Relevant, thank you. I always forget that one. And timely. So the more specific we are to it is trying to find that. That's what you've been talking about since the beginning here Vera is like what's the role where we do that and then where do the administrators and where do the teachers do that and why do the students do that exactly. So I think that's trying to find all that balance and for me the data piece, it's a cycle. So your first place you're like where are you at right now? So that's my data. What's that tell you about the kids you're working with if I'm a teacher, if I'm a principal, what's that tell me about the school from myself? What's that tell me across the SU? Where are our kids at? How many, let's dig into that data and try to tell us and what do we think we can do for strategies where the resources we need for those strategies implement them and then we're back to that data step again. So I think it's more, I want to show more like a spiral of that as I go around here with my hand to think about that planning and you have that data informant. So I think you can come into that data wherever you want to come into it realizing it's that spiral that you're going to have. The first set you just took might be a learning pre-assessment and you might have a post-assessment but that post-assessment might be the pre-assessment for the next step. Explain that a little. Maybe you want to interject in there. And so it's, I think there, I think it's all good. I mean I think that, I just that's what I wanted to kind of hear from when I asked you Vera was, you know, what are you envisioning thinking because I like the idea of the increased student learning. I think every board would argue that's what we want to do and how does that fit in the monitoring. Because one of the questions, one of the conversations Kari and I had this morning is I said, Kari, I don't, I think the board, and this is one of the things Nate left with was saying you should ask the leadership team to come back with a goal that they're going to meet. Insisting there is a goal but not saying what it is and tell you how it's going to be done to see if that house is going to be okay with the community. Because he gave a real good, he told a real life story for himself that he didn't understand the community piece in his job and that came back and he was trying to go too fast for the community. So it's that figuring that back and that's why that how discussion is, it's important to have not to govern the exact how, but like here's feedback like that, you can go try that but that might, that'll work really well or you might want to change some of your message in that one or think about something totally different. So I don't know how to put that all on the goal piece for you right this second sitting here but that would be some of my thinking about that student monitoring and I'm fine either way with it being another goal for Berlin or being interjected, I'm just giving you some points to think about. Okay, thank you. So I think I have enough to come up with a rough draft for next meeting for you all to look at some brief broad goals in addition to the three SU board goals we'll have at least these three from here if you come up with anything Corinne send it my way and they have one or two myself and then we'll have something to react to at the next meeting. And we'll get it before the next meeting I'm just thinking about if Peter, no I just mean if Peter will have a chance. I wasn't going there I just meant if Peter would see it before before the next meeting. Yes, for sure. All right. On the agenda is the SU communication goal so I think we've started to talk about this a little bit. But I think what the what we're looking for our task as a local board is to provide input on the purpose of board level community engagement. So like you said Corinne everybody kind of sees this as something different is it communicating out to the community is it gathering input from the community is it a dialogue is it some other form of bringing people into the school there's a lot that could go into that so our jobs to kind of try to put to paper what we consider community engagement to be what's the purpose of community engagement. We do have our board goals for the moment which had a whole section on called public engagement and again it was kind of a flow of thoughts more than a purpose or a goal but it talked about at the time we had a lack of community awareness or involvement with the school board we had limited communication among parents and community and educators that students were disconnected from adults in the community that the school culture and climate negatively affected by disengaged is negatively affected by disengaged parents and community parents not involved in their child's learning as teaching partners community unaware of educational goals PTA and board do collaborate that was current state at the time still is somewhat where we're missed opportunities with interested audiences and we might be stifling motivated community members to participate in the school and as a desired state we wanted the community informed about school successes and challenges we wanted volunteerism to be high well attended school functions contributions to our budget discussions contributions to our vision for the school an open line of communication with the board that parents, teachers and neighbors are all engaged the school board and select board communicate and collaborate and that there's a maximized information flow and transparency within every available method I think that just kind of helps frame the variety of approaches you can take to this goal means a little something different to everybody thoughts on the purpose of community engagement or what our goal is as a board in engaging the community you mentioned selling or promoting the school or informing people about what's going on at the school that's certainly one piece of it I think it's I think sometimes it's difficult to reach the whole community if people are visiting the website or receiving the newsletter is the newsletter back to just once a month but it's still up once a month if you don't mind can we what's our purpose in communicating before we get into the specific ways can I ask a question too to make you think I don't need an answer what's the difference between school engagement and community engagement think about that can I give my opinion you can get do whatever you want you can decide to respond or not I just I've given that same question to many boards school engagement to me it means messages are only going out to just the school people the school community whereas the public or community to me would be the whole town like whoever's on the checklist or however a whole town piece of mailing would be sent out which to me are two very different things I mean we have 220 and 20 families whatever you got it versus the however many how many are on the checklist right now about 1900 and where I was going with that is how we communicate and who we communicate with sometimes are going to be very different things obviously if let's get signed up for soccer that's not going to go out to the whole community that's going to be to the school community whereas we're having this act 46 discussion that's going to affect everybody in our towns in our surrounding towns please join us for this discussion would be a whole town community piece to communicate but where I was going with that is sometimes how we communicate can be costly to make sure that everybody is getting the information whether it's our agenda is posted in the newspaper or you know we have this upcoming act 46 meeting please join us we want your input whatever sending out postcards any of those pieces can be costly so I think that's where sometimes I struggle with how to communicate and not have it cost the school in the town more money I disagree with one of the things you said the example that you used as far as if it's soccer sign up time that is only for the school if they're home school and families in town unless they go to the website and find it there and all there could potentially be others that want to know or could be somebody like my husband and I no longer kids in school but a reminder seeing soccer is happening and they're still looking for coaches you know you might get somebody that would actually be willing to to help out if they knew if they got that reminder and I think that's been part of the issue with communication in my mind is that there's been a lot of great communication and great stuff going on but it's been very inconsistent as far as when it gets out it's like okay so for a couple of things in the last year we decided that a postcard or something was going to go out to people on the checklist or however you decide you want to do it but people might not have heard anything by that means in quite a while and so it's like oh here's a piece of information you know wonder why I haven't heard anything else from them and just getting things consistent so for as much as we need an overarching you know why are we communicating and what are we communicating about to me it's more of a a checklist of you know these are the ways we want to communicate out in will and having there be real clarity as far as who's going to do it because we've even stumbled since I've been on the board as far as well who's going to put it on to front porch forum you know is it coming from one of us is it coming from the office are we getting it from bill first and there can be a whole lot of delays of people waiting on each other you know who's writing the message that's going out to say nothing about who is actually putting it in places when Chris Dodge was principal he did a great job of getting photos into the world on a regular basis you know which is a wonderful thing but that does take effort from a particular person to make it happen and you know meet deadlines if it's a timely thing if it's not timely you know you could send it and it's okay if it happened two weeks ago and I think something that we really lost when the school newsletter went to being monthly was really making it clear what's coming up it's a fantastic job of looking at what's been going on for the last month but the calendar of events that does get pushed out some weekly I think that's still sketchy as far as who to get in touch with when you see something's coming up because it used to be in the weekly newsletter you'd get a lot of detail with that as far as who's doing it and who do you get in touch with about it and so forth and now it's just this little line of you know it's happening but it may not give you enough and you may not grab hold of it and say okay I need to figure this out couple questions just some what we knew is there a a community newsletter of some kind that includes all municipality stuff my thing would be the closest thing to it the town hasn't put out a newsletter in several years they used to have one that would go out twice a year and that fell by the wayside because of staffing issues over at the town and there's been talk about bringing it back that was something that had some advertising on it to help pay for it and was sent out paper copies by the town and so what I do the news to know in the front porch forum those are really the things that get to the most other people it isn't necessarily only some of it overlaps in that I know I'm not sending it to a lot of the parents that are here so it's the school that needs to get the word out to those guys but I had a whole lot of other people who don't have kids at the school I look at the question that's on the table about school families versus the rest of the community I guess I wonder what everything I can to meet whatever the expectation is if the expectation is that the school needs to get things to everybody in the community what are some of the resources looking at the town website under community I mean you have all the different departments if you will is there expectations for those you have the library historical site department are they getting things out to all families in some way that we could mirror I know it's different municipalities if you will but I'm just trying to think about these seem mostly to their websites are we going above and beyond to reach out to families beyond what everything else in the community is doing or is there a way that we can all together be part of something where it's getting into the doorstep so it kind of sounds like that's the way to get what you want out is to get into the hands of the people in a zero way I guess that was my question about the newsletter is there one of the things that I've tried to encourage the select board and it still hasn't happened yet was to at least get out a mailing to all folks that describes where they can find information because I think we have a lot of new people there's all this turn over in town that may not know what does exist for communications and there is a page that's in the family handbook the last one which was information events and that tells some of them as far as the recorded message thing that we update at the town every week which includes school stuff if we know about it it seems like something that community should know in the front porch forum in the news to know and bust out conversations and the orca media and just trying to make it clear and having a variety of things because everything doesn't work for everybody which is why you try to get it out in so many places so somebody that doesn't have computer access they might like just calling the recorded phone line because most everybody in town does have a phone even if they don't have a working computer or the orca media although a lot of people use it online you can turn into at least some people can turn into one of the educational channels and watch it on TV and that's just it it's figuring out a consistent way and what information would be appropriate to get out in those different ways so I've heard a lot of how and what and I actually heard Karen say we know why I haven't heard you guys verbalize why you want community engagement maybe I missed it but I didn't hear that like why are you doing it I think each have your own reason but if you come to a collective why then you can get to the how and the what because I think you'll bound around a lot of how and what's without knowing the clear why because if you know the why and this has been said through public access and talks about engaging democracies if you have that why really clear then you'll find the correct how and what to do that why you don't have the clear why you try a lot of different things well to me you try a lot of different things because not everybody can get the information in the same manner but as far as why it's because this is the community's school a lot of people see it as the center of the community a lot of money in fact more money then goes into the town budget goes into school budgets and so to keep people informed and make sure that they're aware of how they can be engaged for pieces of it that they would be interested in and whether that's coming in to watch a performance whether it be a concert or play or whatever some kind of performance whether it's that there's adult pickup basketball or volleyball going on or that they need somebody to come in and talk about their Canadian roots or you know whatever it may be for something that's going on whether it's Genius Hour or whatever is going on making sure people know about where their tax dollars are going having somebody that can explain it to them and just realizing that even if you don't have kids here it is a very important piece of the community I'm probably missing several other points but I mean to me it's simply the I don't know can you say the heartbeat of the community it really is there's so much that's going on in my other school we did a we had kind of school board partnership to do a monthly newsletter well it wasn't monthly it was like four or five times a year quarterly I guess we both shared a cost but it was mostly school stuff there were other pieces of town you know a road report, commissioner report senior clubs or whatever that was kind of a shared cost who actually did it who put it together we had somebody that I don't know if it was volunteer but it was one person that helped coordinate all the pieces that she got we did was it postal patron which gets to everybody so resident at type of address I mean it's really I don't think this is a new you know the challenge that is unique to Berlin I think how do you get something to all residents I mean what are the I would say what are the what are the ways we're kind of getting away from the wild a little bit but what are the ways to get something to everybody I mean still in this day and age it's in their mailbox not everybody's internet, not everybody has Facebook or Twitter or or you know we as a school can't phone and call every one person through an all call so you know what's the most impactful way to communicate to everybody it's in their mailbox you know those kinds of things I think about too like how can we go beyond just families so it's just I don't know if you've ever thought there as well I could find one I know you would I said it just in case there's any questions I think you covered it well Corinne when I think about it I want to engage the public I want to bring any assets from the community into the school bring any assets from the school back out to the community it's the whole buy in piece of having to know what's going on in the school so that the community will hopefully support whatever budgets we bring forward assuming they're responsible budgets it is the center of the community and it is the school that's paid for by Berlin residents so taxpayers and we want to engage everyone in the success of our children here so I think that's some of the why for me it makes I think for a successful school is making sure we get the word out the input back in it's a two way stream that's really interesting to think about a community newsletter that might have town school our department police library folks whatever else historical society each have a little piece in it maybe and share the cost of publishing it it's really hard to reach those people who are not online it's not that hard it's just more expensive and it's time consuming well it would really make you sit down and focus if it was going to be for instance quarterly just because I can think quarterly in my mind that's kind of seasonal and I mean you know the things that are coming up on a regular basis you know from year to year but might be new to people that are new in town or maybe new in some other way I mean new to the fact that we don't have any kids in school and reminding them of you know some stuff going on so you really have to kind of think that out I know with the mailings that we did some of those were kind of last minute got to get it done got to get it out because a vote's coming up and so you really need to be more thoughtful as far as what's coming up to try to get it included appropriately in something that's already going out which is nothing wrong with that to be planned in ahead and I appreciate the distinction you're asking for here between community engagement and school engagement because we're all always getting earful about what the school should be doing or what a specific you know specific teacher should be doing to stay in touch with parents that's very different from the community engagement because I would say on the volunteer side Berlin has probably one of the highest percentage of parent volunteerism of any of the schools in Washington Central and just with a volunteer volunteer support person for every classroom I'm not talking about number of hours but just the people that are engaged it can be something as little as an hour or two it's much it's really high when I've ever been to community events since maybe only been three or four over the years I've been here great turnout compared to some schools I can think of so and all of Washington Central parents they're a lot a lot a lot of community turnout so I would say I think you should be commended and our community should be commended for the amount of school participation that there is we always want warm and that's always a good thing but we have good involvement well as I said I think there has been a lot of good communication and all it isn't just the most consistent in getting it out and I think sometimes people kind of slip and think oh well everybody knows about that because we do it every year and I don't just mean the school I mean anywhere in town to them it's something annual but if you're the new person in town or newly don't have a kid involved in something then if you don't put it on their radar soon enough then it's a shame if they wanted to be involved then couldn't be getting dinner at the church every fall I only know about it because I see the sign outside it's not because they send something out or it's because they have limited ways in which to get it out did you have any other thoughts on the why? I think you guys covered every so thoughts on the how then and being in mind the distinction between school communication it's not necessarily going to be out for the whole community sometimes it might and community communication which is probably going to land on us the school newsletter that's being done once a month I do agree with Corinne I'd rather see it like yes, let's celebrate the successes and things that have happened in the month but also have it very directed to what's coming up whether it's our harvest luncheon we want people to join us for the harvest luncheon you can buy tickets be more informative about the things coming up rather than just have it show up on the calendar in front but actually a little blur about some of the events coming up because a lot of it is this is what we've done this is I guess old news but along with that how the things are coming up you know and I guess being mindful of that timing because sometimes the newsletters come home not on the day that they're printed in the office but they're held in the classrooms for a while so something might have happened last week on a Thursday and Friday but I'm not getting it to the next Friday because some teachers are holding it to go home in Friday recently last weekend we talked right before the meeting and I said what did you think about that and we haven't had a chance to talk with her so I don't want to tell her she has an assignment through a board meeting but Aaron talked with her and said is this something that you can take on and we can reallocate some work around here to do more of the organization of the website just the example of current products let's make sure we have the right information up there a very important thing that you said was consistency if we start using things in a consistent way then it will draw that following and people will go to the website and know they can find the latest information there and I know that's a hard thing to do so if you think if you think about it you know I don't know what she had, what her cost is per hour but if we said roughly if you wanted me to do a back of the envelope cost we're probably talking about $3,500 to $4,000 for the year I just did 5 hours a week 36 weeks in the year to get myself into that ballpark but I haven't done I mean I haven't done it and asked Lori and Sally to put together what the total cost is on that but that's the type of thing I would think that it's an hour a day once things are set there's some ramp up time and some training time I think it's worth it but I'm really going to utilize the website and that's kind of the arrow to for that and for me that's more the administration the law school Amy Young will still do her work that she does to work with the teachers here in some other classroom the consistency is just huge, I don't know if you guys had noticed but the board policies are looking much better on the website than the last few weeks they look much better however I asked at the policy media are the WCSU policies separate somehow because I'm not seeing them there and that was just kind of an oversight as far as a quick look had been given oh is this stuff online yup but nobody really went through to make sure all of them were so it's getting there but it's making sure that consistency of so all the policies are there for people to be able to look for not just the Berlin ones I think I will take some homework again here and write up something about what we discussed here maybe it'll be in minutes but maybe I'll try to draft a document that will speak to what we think the purpose of board level community engagement is because our homework for October is to have the executive committee and board chairs draft a written purpose and strategy for board level community engagement so we'll talk a little bit about the why and a little bit about some of the options for how that we've talked about today and we can add to that at the next meeting and have something hopefully it'll be ready to go to the executive board executive committee the month after to the WCSU boards as a whole to approve hopefully in November and our next agenda item is the hiring process Bill did you want to speak to this yeah I'm sorry I forgot to write in my notes what the policy was that's in Berlin we were totally looking at this the other day it's under personnel probably it's D1 which the policy that Berlin has on D1 which is the hiring process Karen and I were in the policy committee because this is one of the recommended policies that we're looking at and I'm sorry I didn't put the policy in the packet but the date on the policy is June 1, 2009 it's in that book yeah and this policy directs that all the final hiring decision for all positions will be the board for all staff and as Karen and I were talking I saw the light bulb go on for you Karen tell me if I miss if I'm just characterizing it but that when I said this is in conflict with statute in 2011 Act 153 was passed which gave the which gave the hiring of non-licensed staff the responsibility of the superintendent it doesn't mean you should be informed of what's going on but that and so that puts this policy in conflict with statute and the way I've been trained is that statute not always but usually supersedes policy so in 2011 there were many changes that happened to this one curriculum was centralized special education became the responsibility of the supervisory union many things happened in Act 153 so under Title 16 subsection 242 which is duties of the superintendent it was to select all non-licensed all non-licensed employees so we need to update this this is something we were talking about the policy committee so at our last meeting I believe it was when we when I asked there had been a couple of hires that hadn't come to us and Bill had said well according to statute I do the ones that are non-licensed ones and so I went home and kind of perused on that but then when I was getting ready and I looked up the statute and I looked at our policy I said wait our policy says both license and unlicensed that's when I wrote an email saying hey our policy actually says something different but then when I was getting ready for the policy meeting and looking at one of the policies before us the language had it where it's just licensed that we deal with and then the difference the key there is it was at that meeting that Bill said oh well that was changed in the statute like six years ago like that's the piece that you didn't mention at the meeting that it happened six years ago now I have a clear understanding as far as how it usually happens why we are looking at the school board association vetted policies is to make sure they include things that are current with statute but Bill also pointed out that besides that a lot of changes in the laws and the statutes are things that he hears about from I don't know other whoever updated by school by Vermont school board association Vermont super intense association and through AOE regulation and memos I guess the only thing that I was still kind of left going hmm is that we've had a policy in our books for six years that was in conflict with the state's statute and so hopefully those are really few and far between because I think you're right I think you typically defer to state statute but if you don't know what the state statute is it's hard to have a policy in front of you saying you're supposed to do something and not realize that that's not really the way it works so it's still going to take the policy committee a while to get through the recommended they've already gone through the required but there's still a bunch of process in front of us to get everything updated so the school board association the Vermont school board association they update their policies from every year every summer they work with the joint fiscal office and with AOE legislative staff joint not joint fiscal sorry joint legislative you'd have to help me that's actually called but the legislation the legal staff that supports the legislative council legislative council agency, AOE staff attorneys and the Vermont school boards attorney they have one person that's legal staff and they sit and work on all these and get the model policies up to date and they usually tell us somewhere in the fall like our model policies are up to date now for the past legislative session unless there's one that's a really that's getting a lot of attention like he's in harassment and bullying they'll jump on that pretty fast because my mind was still trying to wrap around as far as okay like some of those required policies that have already gone been gone through so if something happens in the state statute you know is there anything in those model policies that says hey you know I've now been updated you know you might have passed yours in 2017 but now there's new information from 2018 but I really think it's hearing from our superintendent about changes that he's heard of going forward but as I say that's kind of hard to know that well for six years I didn't really say what it was supposed to but I still think we should adopt the policies well for the most part that's what we're doing except for like the community engagement one that's really not what a lot of us have been talking about so it's really hard to say let's just go ahead and adopt something that doesn't really look like what we talk about but I think for the most part there's been very little changes so as far as the hiring process itself we would want to be informed of hires for non licensed staff you should be I will admit in August I just one of the things I slipped with Aaron because usually Carol just took care of that for me and it's one of the things that Aaron and I hadn't worked out and I should have had that there for August we still haven't gotten anything what we left at the last meeting was to make sure all five of us knew that we'd get something as far as the office and the food service and there hasn't been anything maybe it was just move forward before I misspeak well we all know that one thing about email is that sometimes computers burp I think we've all experienced that that was one where I got a lot of questions from people to say do we know who's working in the front office do we know Aaron did you send an email that had the new please welcome our new staff that was what I sent Friday because I got some feedback regarding that so Friday it was Friday at 8 a.m. because I sent it through the campus it was open house it was just a little more about starting the year including new folks so if you saw that then you got the one from Friday about open house so there's nothing else except maybe back to school letter maybe had that that's what I saw back to the school letter packet I was just having that back to school letter that's current if anybody comes after that I'll do it in a different way I know I think it was in the back to school packet I don't think I put that in here because I did see the list of alright move on that's alright with everybody here board handbook statement and I just I apologize for just emailing that today hopefully you may be able to find it on the website before then or have seen it at some point but this was from a month or two ago Lori was going through the student handbook and asked me about some of the information in it so I started taking a look at it and there was a statement from the board in there that was fairly I've never seen it before I've never seen it before and it was fairly outdated so I started to take a look at it and review it and thought that's something that ought to come to the board so I took a step at redrafting it that's the email that you saw today I know you had some additional suggestions for that and I know my redraft is not perfect mirror your email address in there I think was incorrect it was missing a digit so there are a couple of things that I know we want to change to that and I wanted to bring it here for anybody to make additional suggestions for how we word that do you happen to have any hard copies of that? I do one of them got my scribbles on it but that's fine and I have a document up here which I'm going to draft if people want to add anything to it and so this one that you sent us today which is what is in my hand now right? that is different than what was in the book last year yes? yes well it's still in the book right now I believe so this is not anything you have drafted or you have? I did draft that what's in this and I think maybe Lori held off on changing it obviously that's right oh yes so my draft here has Aaron on it so maybe I didn't hand you the one that might have been what I brought to the last meeting that's what I'm thinking yeah cause it still has Carol on it so that's probably what I brought to the last meeting I don't have what I've drafted and sent by email but if you want to make edits on this I can tell you if I've already made that edit um well it's got Aaron on it so that's good I got that part um I just don't have it with me I did read it today I think you had struck about school productions yes was anything and would this be the place to add something about farm to school or maker space or anything like that I don't know what do you think I mean as a school director's message at the beginning of the handbook I really love the farm to school presentation that we had and how it's finding its way into the school a variety of ways as far as lunch snacks gardening going out to farms I think it's become a kind of big piece of what's going on to school was that in your your email comments to me it was okay I still have those I could add that do you call out one program do you do that at the exclusion of others or do you start getting into a big list well that was that was the paragraph where there were several things including school productions that I thought needed to be struck because we're not doing school productions as far as I know so I don't think what had been in there was all encompassing but it seemed kind of like a trade off to me alright I can add something about that and I think the school board member terms I think you had just taken out the how many years and that kind of solved that problem why was there not well what I don't have the right things in front of me three year term and then had you to 2021 I think it's a two year term right and it's not a two year term very you were the two year term I was the three year term I think I got that and so he just took out the number and left the year that it's doing it and so that resolved that I think the rest of it looked good to me yeah I what you said I don't have any problems with it all I read it or earlier today when I said you know to add in my it was before that was after something you had mentioned in your email to me maybe some sort of update about the facility talking about the renovation the roof yeah might be a nice thing to put in there for this year yeah because I I haven't seen the back to school note that went to parents so I don't know if you included anything about the roof or any other renovation stuff that was done I mean there's no point necessarily in repeating stuff if it's already been out there in a place where everybody will see it excuse me there is a statement here that we meet the second Monday of every month at 5.30 except for when we don't is the other part of it so just trying to think of a good way to say that I actually had that part up we meet on a monthly basis can we reword that say on a monthly basis please see the school calendar for dates and times dates times and location and I would put location there because we do move around yeah anything else I think those were the big points great there is a spot on the website where our street addresses are still listed I thought I had heard at one point that people did not want their home addresses on the website someone couldn't find them if they wanted to but just not to call them on the website to have name, email address and phone number and leave it at that any thoughts on that I think that's fine I don't think it would hurt to maybe say that people could write to us in care of the school oh I wasn't thinking of mailing address that's how we forget people who might not be on email but they do have a phone where they could write to us in the school that's an option I mean all of our I'd like to think that people in the office know who we are so if something came in the mail that it would get passed along to us okay I'll add that on the web page you want to get off the Berlin cab or a school board cab is yeah I mean I don't mind I mean people can google me and they'll find that but I think being consistent is good if some people don't want it then just say get in touch with us through this and Erin I'll draft all this up and send it to you and to Laurie to take a look and hopefully it'll be clear what we're asking for and there are a couple of different places on the website where this stuff exists there's a little ambicide and I've never quite gotten that other than like the below was like part of the letter initially but it ended up being duplicated on the side they got either dumped into the handbook or dumped from the handbook to be the school director's message which it's kind of takes up more room than it needs to but then it's another thing as far as when they're not consistent is the issue so great thank you I'll take care of that was there anything going to happen as far as this value statement is it being pulled? are we doing something with it? the value statement I did not I thought it was okay but if anyone wants to make any edits to that part of the question was do we know for sure where it came from I was thinking that it was part of this family school contact but I'm not positive the part of it was it didn't really say whose it is why it's there yes, great opposite I think this piece from Miss Gothier a few years ago at open house right in the front entryway she had a big posted thing that said you took little post-its and you wrote down your thoughts you know what you value at school about a vision statement mission statement when you took your little post-its and you put it up on individual post-its for each separate thing that I just mentioned I wouldn't be surprised if what she gathered that night somehow she worked with maybe some others in the school and came up with this but so was it I want to say it was like Carol's first year here that that would happen it was I would say at least but so what are we saying then that whose value statement is this that it's the school that values this that it's the community that values this I'm still not clear I think that's where it came from and if it is then it's the people who are here at open house that put thoughts in there but again I'm not a hundred percent sure that's where that came from but I would it's in the current student handbook but it doesn't mean it didn't happen we could check in with Cindy and ask her if that's well I think moving forward either we leave it or we strike it I think is where we're at correct right in my mind if we're leaving it though whose are we saying it is or who would where it came from right we can make it our own or we can let it go do other schools handbooks have it not that I know of there's a few old missions still kind of floating around but slowly as the student learning outcomes and the Washington Central Mission it's been replaced let me just say if we don't know where it came from exactly and to get to the ball that it's going to take it just take it right out and if we don't know whose statement it is exactly and I think from year to year our families change and to just carry it over from year to year it could be I mean different people have different opinions I would just take it I was just looking to see what then is going to land opposite if nothing else change principal letter and then our thing and then it goes to the family school contacts unless that has changed at all yeah I I think it's probably better to not have it than to not really be clear about it and find that that will be in the email too unless we can find a source for it easily which I'm not sure we can agenda item it's 2.5 an action item the board order just the one that we added at the beginning of the meeting I don't have an action agenda action item on line you might have the Chris sent one out before she left a week ago Chris and I added it as we said what's the agenda for the meeting 3.1 I'll make a motion to approve the board orders in the amount of $162,345 $172 $162,000 $345 $172 okay thank you for future agenda items sorry is there a second yep so moved those in favor say aye 4.0 future agenda items I have a board goals draft a community engagement draft and I think we'll need an act 46 update any other future agenda items keeping in mind well I guess we'll put as many on as future agenda items as we want Chris we're going to be occupied our next surely have we occupied our next local board meeting well you need to talk about that I do not want to say it publicly to be updated on if we are going to have any extra time in a position for doing the website I'll be asking you for I'll be asking for general fund balance use of general fund balance to cover that so I made a note for myself that next time we put an approval under action to reserve certain amount of dollars for website work the other thing that I was wondering and I didn't think to say it at the beginning of the meeting but at the last meeting as far as where we've ended up with teachers and classroom assignments wasn't sure how things shook out as far as grade levels and teaching assignments I know that has changed some beginning of the year the last few years so I have a regular principles report yeah we can tell you the configuration state as they were good that what was said in June where there's one kindergarten we've been moving to an extra three four is what has happened we didn't have enough kindergarteners for two kindergarten sections but we can show you the numbers I was hoping all the principles saying we're not releasing student numbers until we get past the fifth day of school because they change rapidly those first couple of days so we can give you the student numbers enrollment update anything else? that comes to mind great thank you we will adjourn at seven twenty five


I wonder if you've ever used silence as a boundary, I know it sounds strange, but what I mean is when you're around people who you know do not listen to you and don't see any value in your words or your voice or opinions, then silence is a great thing to choose. I don't mean silent treatment, I don't mean that reactive manipulative thing, I mean a calmly chosen silence that you choose which is saying I value my words too much to waste them on people who are determined not to hear me, not to listen to me. It's a silence that springs from self-respect, it's a silence that is saying I value my words more than I value your listening to me. It's not a silence that belittles their voice, like all boundaries, this is not about anyone else but you.


Hey guys, Thundee here and welcome to another gaming video. This time of course, we're looking at the Pixel 7 Pro and the Pixel 7 to find out how well the new Tensor G2 chip performs on both devices. Now you guys know I do gaming videos on this channel and last year we took a look at the Pixel 6 Pro and the Pixel 6 to see how well it performs with the Tensor G1 and this is what we found. But it also means that a lot of things there do not match up to high-end mobile gaming at this point. I don't know if it's the processor itself or if it's just software. So this year we're trying to find out if the Tensor G2 is better on these devices. So quickly some dimensions and specs for you. The Pixel 7 Pro is a six for seven inch device, 120 hertz display, 5,000 milliamp battery, Tensor G2 12 gigs of RAM, while the Pixel 7 is a six for three inch device, 90 hertz display, got like a 4,300 milliamp battery roughly and we've also got a device that has eight gigs of RAM. Now, want to give a big shout out to our sponsor of this video, Spigen, they make some really awesome cases and accessories for the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro and these are made for Google certified. Okay, so first thing we want to do of course is check out benchmark. What are the new benchmarks for the G2 processor? Well, I can't really show you that because Geekbench is not updated for this at least at this point in time. So I get this message here when I try to download it that it does not support this device. So I cannot give any benchmarks on both the 7 Pro and the Pixel 7. What we are going to do is show you gameplay. I can give you gameplay benchmarks and I will also give you some speaker demos as well. Now the one thing the Pixel has carried over from the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro to the 7 and 7 Pro is you now have, of course, you still have that built in game benchmarking tool where you can go in, it has a floating bar, you can see your benchmarks on screen, which is pretty nice. It also turns off, of course, notifications for you and you can screen grab and record on screen. So that tool is there. So let's start off with our very first game, which of course is Call of Duty Mobile. Now Call of Duty Mobile on the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro, both can run the game at the ultra settings and we got some really great performance from this year. So you've got that smooth refresh rate, game looks really nice and smooth. And on the Pixel 7 Pro, we got 89 frames per second, which is solid and comparable to everything on the market right now and the Pixel 7 itself got 90 frames per second. So Pixel 7 Pro 89, Pixel 7 90 frames per second. Then we move over, of course, to Apex Legends. Now Apex Legends is a game that has a lot of different settings and we kind of went with the ultra setting here for Apex Legends and we're able to get a nice clean solid 60 frames per second on both the Pixel 7 Pro and the Pixel 7. Aligned for really smooth gameplay and it really performed very well and also temperatures went check. We'll get to temperatures in a second. And as we move on here to PUBG Mobile. Now PUBG Mobile is where we got some really solid benchmarks. So PUBG Mobile on both Pixel 7 and 7 Pro gameplayed well when we played at, of course, Ultra HD Ultra, which is now available on the Pixel 7 Pro. Remember last year we couldn't actually get this to run at that setting. We're able to get a solid 40 frames per second on both devices, so that was actually pretty good. And then we got to play at smooth extreme and we got a solid 60 frames per second for both PUBG Mobile on both Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. Now you're gonna be asking, what about Genshin? We'll get to Genshin in a second. Let's talk about, of course, battery drain and also, of course, charging here. Now when it comes to battery drain, use the device, the Pixel 7 Pro for about two hours of gaming and lost about 30% battery life. That includes playing Genshin Impact for about 45 minutes and then playing the other games that I mentioned earlier for the rest of the time. So that's actually pretty good. The Pixel 7 actually had slightly less battery life drain from 100% at around 25 to 28 in that time period. So that was actually pretty good to see there playing again. Genshin Impact for most of the time at around 30 minutes or so then the rest, of course, on the other games mentioned. So really solid battery performance, but of course, how do you charge these devices? This is where, of course, our sponsor comes in in this video. Now, speaking does provide a lot of great accessories for the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro. That also includes the speaking PowerArc ArcStation Pro charger. It's a 30 watt charger. It's a gun charger that does really fast charging at the top speeds you would expect on the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro. Now, not only that, I also have a couple of cases that I definitely like to use and that includes the liquid air on the Pixel 7 Pro as well as also the rugged armor on the Pixel 7. Both cases allow for better cooling on the devices that I use, especially while gaming, but also I do like the texture on the liquid air gives me more grip on the device as well as the nice, smooth and comfortable surface on the rugged armor for more protection. So for me, it works well for my gaming needs and also keeps the devices safe and protected. Now we're moving on to Genshin Impact. This is where, of course, we had huge issues last year with the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro. Now, Genshin Impact last year did terrible where we got about 41 frames per second and this year, it's no different except it does take slightly longer. Last year I'd mentioned that it took about two to five minutes to get to 41 frames per second. This year it was around 10 to 11 minutes where it got to those frame rates. So the frame rates dropped really fast to that point which was a very, very disappointing. And of course this is playing Genshin Impact at its highest settings of 60 frames per second. So that immediate drop was kind of drastic to see compared to other devices that do have, of course, much better frame rates and keeping it at a higher level or taking a longer amount of time to get to those lower frame rates. Now, in terms of temperatures though, I do have to give it to Google that they've maintained their temperatures and it doesn't run extremely hot. So the temperatures go to around 106, 107 degrees especially playing Genshin which is a very power hungry game which is equals to about 40 to 41 degrees Celsius or 106, 107 degrees Fahrenheit. So temperatures were consistent to what I got last year in terms of using these devices. So I do like that. I wish it still was a bit cooler but it's still better than a lot of devices out there mentioning the Galaxy or even the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Now when it comes to using accessories and streaming services, well, you know, Xbox Game Pass plays very well on the Pixel 7 Pro and the Pixel 7. It also works really well with my Razer Kishi V2 so that camera bump doesn't hinder while using that accessory. So that's something you guys can definitely pick up. And of course, we have to mention for the very last time, Google Stadia because we know that service is dying but if you're still using it, you can go ahead and use it on your Pixel 7 and 7 Pro without any issues but I'm just gonna say a last word and prayer for Google Stadia. You will be not really missed but nice try Google. Anyway guys, that is gaming on this device. To summarize everything for you, well, you've got really good gaming performance when it comes to a lot of your main FPS shooters from Call of Duty to Apex performs well. If you're gonna be playing something like Genshin Impact, then you're gonna see that huge drain especially when you're playing at a high frame risk. You still can't play the game pretty well but don't expect to max it out on the Pixel 7 or the 7 Pro. Streaming services do work as also, I know some of you are gonna be asking me about emulators does work well as well. That's just something that works pretty standard and when it comes to audio, before we go I'll leave you with this quick sample from both devices so you can hear how well they work. Okay guys, thank you very much. Hopefully you enjoyed this video. Stay tuned to see how the Pixel 7 Pro compares to the Galaxy S22 Ultra in our next video. Till then, always enjoy your entertainment.