call to order at 6.01. And we will buzz through our agenda. Everybody remember we have to go to our wagon meal meetings after we complete our work here. So we have to go through quickly tonight, everybody. All right. Are there any adjustments to the agenda? Do I have a motion to approve the minutes of Tuesday, March 28? So moved. Second. Third. Is there any discussion on the minutes? All right, hearing none, so moved. Is there any board correspondence? Anybody have any correspondence we need to talk about? All right. Are there any public comments? Do we have any public on tonight? I don't see any. Okay. All right. So we are on reports to the board. Jamie, you are up first. Just so the board knows, Orca is here tonight in attendance as well. You just wouldn't see them, but they are videotaping us just so the board knows. And so under my report, you have my report in hand. There's a few brief legislative updates that I want to give this evening. One is the one that I wanted to focus on is actually the bill that came out of the house around PCB testing, which is House Bill four, maybe eight, three, I might be making up the number. I just was in a VSA update meeting with the House Ed Committee Chair and another member of the House Ed Committee on that. So they constructed a bill that would pause PCB testing, not forever, but until the legislature took up a comprehensive bill on how to fund mitigation efforts of PCB, and looking at school construction in general, in regards to the fact that what we're finding is that a lot of our buildings in the state are in significant need of upgrades due to deferred maintenance. And right now the current PCB testing bill is an 80 20 split 80%. The state covers 20% is local to mitigate PCBs. But that there was a money that was capped. And they expected that cap's going to be hit quickly. Based on PCB findings thus far. So we've had two schools tested and they both were acceptable rates. That was at both schools of the White River Unified District. We are due to have PCB testing at Rochester Stockbridge schools this coming spring slash summer. And so right now the House Bill that passed would call for 100% coverage for mitigation for schools that have received elevated levels of PCB via state testing, pause testing efforts until that the legislature can come up with how are they going to fund mitigation efforts moving forward? The fear right now is that one PCB levels that the state is looking at as their threshold are much lower than national standards. Anyone that's followed the Burlington incident, I think that that's been put out there in the literature throughout that time. And then two, we're one of the first we are the first state in the nation to be testing for PCBs. And three, we didn't really we put up that we put forward the testing before we knew how we were going to be able to mitigate levels of PCBs, which is a concern for folks. And certainly there's some colleagues for you guys as board members right now navigating that. And certainly I have some colleagues in the superintendent role trying to navigate that. And the concern with all this is, is that if we don't have a plan for mitigation, thank you, Chris 486, I tend to make up these bill numbers. So thank you for that. That it could result in closures of schools. And we just came off of schools closing due to COVID. So that's the worry that's in the Senate right now it passed by 11 to one vote of the house ad and then passed overwhelmingly out of the house. There are this bill originally for PCB testing came out of the Senate. There's some worry that it's not going to gain traction in the Senate. So based on the information I provided you and or if you want to discuss it further, I'd be happy to I believe the Senate's going to take up a vote on this bill this coming week. I do plan to send letters in support of the house bill because I believe it's going to be it's going to provide a more comprehensive approach to how we deal with deferred maintenance. I also believe making certain that we have 100% of money set aside is an important thing when we look at dealing with levels of PCBs in some of our schools across the state. And then, you know, finally, I think one of the things to that they're hoping by a pause is to really look at what it what makes scientific sense around the PCB thresholds and do they actually have the threshold dialed in right now that it should be? So I'll take any questions on that. Any other bills? There's and my written report. Michael has Michael. Hey, Jamie, thank you for that and I'm just wondering if you could just fill us in on a couple of the other bills that you've been tracking, particularly looking at, um, you know, tuitioning and stuff since that comes up at our board meetings. You mean in regards to the bill that came out of the house that went into the Senate around? Yep. Yep. I believe that that bill has not gained much traction at the Senate, which is something that I had talked about previous. I have not seen what the Senate plans to put out as their version or if they're just not going to do any action on Carson v. Macon. Right. Yeah, I mean that thing's going to be it's gone really silent in the Senate. That that bill's gone pretty silent. I do know that the other big bill, of course, is the early at pre-K bill, of which I do think there's still opportunity within the House Egg Committee to possibly look at 1.0 ADM for funding of pre-K programs for school districts that already offer four year olds five days a week full day pre-K programming. I do expect that that amendment's going to come out of house set. Okay. Thank you. But yeah, the the Senate side of that bill that came out of the house around, um, tuitioning to, uh, private and independent schools, even though s 66 originally was created by the Senate, um, that has gone silent as it's hit that the Senate Egg Committee. Yeah, I guess the concern for some of us as board members is it's not silent in our communities. And so if that's going to continue to be something we need to be thinking about and talking about and, um, you know, I feel like I could use some guidance on some of that. So just a just a sort of an ongoing thought for for a lot of us. Yeah. No, thanks. I mean, um, as I had said to the full board last month when they were getting ready to take that up out of house and I thought that a lot of the um, assurances made a ton of sense for protecting students who are receiving public funds to go to independent schools. So, um, I had shared with the board that that is a bill that I had supported. Um, and I have written out to our, I did write our senators about that bill. Um, but I have not heard back, um, from any folks in the Senate thus far. Well, I think that the designation, the designation piece is something that would be worth us following up on as the designation piece is totally out of the bill. Yeah. But it's not out of people's minds in our constituencies. So it's just something I love to talk to you some more about. Yeah. Don't you take it up now? Do we need to, um, in some way, as an SU board or district boards weigh in on this bill that appears to be, um, problematic on the Senate? Are you talking about the, um, assurance bill for, um, independent school tuition? Yeah. Stay tuned. I'll send you guys information once I receive it. Um, my sense is right now that the group that would be focused on it is Senate Ed, who they, the, the bills back with them, um, to reconcile and we don't have any local senators on Senate Ed. Um, the PCB bill, just so everyone's aware, the VSBA did approve a resolution to support that House bill on PCB abatement and pausing for a more comprehensive plan. And one other comment. I, um, want to commend you, and I was excited to read in your monthly report that you're working with the team to provide a full board overview in June of the work occurring throughout the SU to strengthen our explicit instruction and phonetic awareness and phonics through the SU full board celebration of learning. I just think that's phenomenal what's going on and sharing that at the board so we understand what's going on and we can support you in any way we can. So thank you. All right. Anything else, Jamie? There's a lot of great things happening. Um, I was a real privilege. I was in the covering at the White River Valley Middle School, um, today, which is always fills my bucket to be in classrooms. Many of you know that. Um, and so I did see members coming together across the SU, um, for their first initial meeting, uh, and I have referenced this in my report around our portrait of a graduate for WRVSU. Um, and it was really exciting for me to see our students working together and representing all of our districts there in attendance. Um, and so we had representatives from each district, their teachers, um, administration, students, and as I told you, one of the, one of the things as we start to map this out will be certainly how do we bring that group together with the full board? Um, and then the greater community. So know that information is going to be forthcoming. Nice. Very nice. All right. Any more questions for Jamie? Thank you. Um, so you saw in my update for this month, April is, uh, turned into a, uh, a very full assessment month. We are doing the third of our three benchmark assessment windows for, um, English language arts and math, uh, in kindergarten through eighth grade. So, uh, students and teachers have been working on that over since the beginning of April, um, and we'll finish that up before they head out, um, for break at the end of the week. Is that where we are? Yeah. April. Yeah. Two different breaks. Um, so that's good. And then we've also started in on the, um, the Vermont, uh, state, uh, some of the assessment, uh, trying that out in some of our schools and some of our content areas, mostly seeing it in science, um, as that's not a subject that we're testing, uh, on track my progress. We're sort of separating those two things out. So just, uh, a huge kudos to our, uh, our site, uh, test set, test coordinators at the building level, um, and the teachers who have been working on that, because it has not been without its bumps, which we are hearing statewide, um, and there's just, uh, a lot of perseverance and, and really good attitudes around, um, you know, taking longer than it should to log in and things like that. So I'm really, um, happy with our teachers and, and students for, for handling all of that. Um, and then the other big thing that we did at the, I think at the end of, um, March we didn't talk about then was survey all of our, uh, staff on professional learning that they've engaged in this year, um, looking at both what they, um, participated in as part of what we called their SU wide course, an opportunity to, um, to, uh, work and learn together with folks often in the same job, but you know, on the other side of the SU from them, um, and, uh, and then also, you know, the learning that they do within their own buildings on either, um, kind of faculty meeting days or those other, um, half-day in services where they don't travel necessarily or meet with people that are with their own school community. So we got a lot of good feedback there, what worked well, where can we improve, what are people thinking they need for next year to continue to grow their practice. So we looked at that as an administrator team, um, with all the principals here around this table two weeks ago, um, and, uh, are using that both to think about what's happening across our whole SU and then helping principals as they plan for next year within their schools. Nice, great information. Any questions guys? Two comments. Yolanda, this is Michael, um, I'm really curious when you get to dig down into what they thought was accessible, what worked and didn't work, is that, is that information that you're going to break down for the, um, boards or the full board? Uh, yeah, it's, you know, as you might imagine it, it really varies by sort of individual and experience and, you know, for example, we offered courses that were, you know, in person in one location, in person but rotating locations, um, or, um, completely virtual and it tended to be that most people picked the thing that they wanted, if they knew what it was, they picked the one they wanted and they thought that worked really well for them. So we've got outdoor educators who love going around and seeing the other outdoor education spaces. So for them a rotating, um, location was great. For other folks, you know, being able to just log in right at the time it's going to start and do some, you know, learning without having to travel anywhere else in ASU, that was great for those people. And then some people really wanted to learn in person, are tired of learning online and they went to, oftentimes, you know, our central, like South Royalton, one of our central locations and then there are two hours over there. So I think you'd love to find, uh, trends that sort of pushed one way or the other, but I think we did find that people, there were differences. We did break down some of the data by employee group, so thinking about both our paraeducators and our teachers and what they may need is the same and what they may need that's different given their, you know, what their roles are, their experiences. So certainly we can share some more information. I have lots of data and I try to be careful of how much I inundate you all with it, but I'm happy to share some more details if that would be helpful. Well, I mean, maybe it's not of interest to the full board. I'm interested because it's a huge undertaking. I'm not asking because I have concerns. It's just, you know, when you've got that many people with that many varied interests over that big geographic area, it's really tricky and I'm just, you know, it's just always curious about how we continue to make that as successful as possible. So, you know, at some point I'd love to talk to you about it, but it's not out of concern at all. Okay. Just want to make sure to understand that. Thank you. Yeah, two comments. First of all, I'm a believer in asking questions and very few organizations ask the questions of the key people of their organizations. Those are the people that work in their organizations. Why don't, why are they hesitant because they're a little concerned about what they might learn from asking questions that people are doing and I want to commend you for asking the questions. We're not afraid to find out how well we're doing and nobody knows better of the teachers and the support staff and we can learn so much together. So again, I think that's a wonderful organizational tool to grow and to be a better organization and I commend you for being seeing that as a positive even though you can't control the results and some of the results can surprise you, but you learn from that. The second observation I like to make is that your report is chuck full of enthusiasm and intelligence and commitment and passion from through throughout the whole organization and the strongest organizations aren't the top down in my opinion. If we have lousy leadership, we're in trouble but the strongest, the best organizations are those that have strength throughout the organization from the bottom up to the top down and your report is chucked full of that enthusiasm, that participation, that commitment of our teachers and special staff of believing in what they're doing, interested in what they're doing and wanting to do it better. And I don't think we should take that for granted for a second here. This is something that's been building and I've only been here for a couple of years but it's very, very impressive and we want to continue to be able to support that effort if we're going to be the best we can be. So kudos to you. Thank you. I'll share. I had a message from a teacher last week at the end of the week saying, could you just get in there and just look at my results for the math track, my progress? I feel like there was a lot of progress. I just want to get another set of eyes. That's the sort of cooperative and collaborative work that I love doing with folks. I was up with another teacher today who was just thinking about, I just want to think about monitoring progress in a little bit of a different way. Can you come up and talk that through? And so I think that's the stuff that, it's kind of the one-on-one work but it really is that stuff that makes it really exciting to be able to work with folks. I think it's good. I think on the getting data from people, it's also helpful when we had people asking, wait why are we testing in April? Don't usually do this in June. I said, oh I asked you last year. Here was your feedback. You said June was too hard. April you'd use the data more. And I think that's also helpful to people because when you're in the midst of it, you can forget sort of what we talked about last year. And so it's always helpful to have that when you're making decisions. And I wanted to third point in a bit quick. Bill, I have a 715 meeting. Let's go. The third point is the strength of managing by walk around. That's the whole, that's a buzzword going way back to when I was in management. And you see throughout the staff, the leadership team out there, in the schools, in the classrooms listening, asking questions, observing, being there. And I think that's another sign of this organization being very, very healthy. Anybody else? Anything else guys? So you're on. Hi. Here you're up. So again, each month I do a spotlight on a rule change. And I heard at our last month's meeting and I've heard at a couple other times people talking about vocabulary and our acronyms and things like that. So I thought, okay, I think I'll do a spotlight on some of the vocabulary that we use most often or that you'll hear most often or have been. And so that's what I focused on for the rule change was giving you a lot of information about the terms and the vocabulary that we use a lot of, most recently. Also, I just wanted to just highlight that, you know, we're continuing to put together summer programming. Some of our plans for our writing intervention was kind of been on pause because we just recently got word that the project read, which was the company that we were going to use for the Framing Your Thoughts writing intervention is being bought by Hegerty, another company. And so they just weren't sure about after their initial training, like what materials or consultation would be available because of this like merger that's happening. So we're trying to decide where we're going to go next with that. I did have one resignation due to retirement long time wonderful employee, Diane Doubleday, who is an occupational therapist in our supervisory union is going to be retiring. We're just going to miss her expertise at the end of the year. At the end of the year. Not right now. No, no, no, no, at the end of the year. And so just now I have an already for her position for next year. And then there's the last piece was I just wanted to give you just of what extended school year services look like. It's also called for a background of ESY. And that's students who attend summer intervention over the summer as part of their IEP services. And really the what is required for that is that they that there's data around regression throughout the school year. So it's really to kind of help them maintain skills so that they're ready to start at the place where school ended in the fall. Even though sometimes, you know, kids really gain over the summer. But these were just the numbers from last summer. Again, that was my first summer here where I kind of knew from the beginning who was attending. And so we'll just see how those numbers continue throughout the throughout the years. But just so you have an idea of who attended last summer. And right now we're in the midst of planning and this summer. And so I don't have those exact numbers yet. Thank you. It's hard for me to understand the graph. It shows participation. So I'm looking at our son which I represent. And it's very low. But is it low because there's very few students that need intervention? Or is it because their parents or they're busy whatever the cases aren't participating in this wonderful opportunity. So it would be helpful for us to get a sense across the SU of not only the numbers but the percentage of the kids that need it as far as your evaluation is and that actually participated and we'd love to see 100 percent. Yes. So no, actually all of these numbers look pretty accurate. Like this is what I would expect for the number of students that are service via IEPs in each of those districts. Like our suds, the district is really low. Your numbers are really low to begin with so I wouldn't expect you to have high numbers participating. Okay. So that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing. No, none of these are bad. None of this is bad. No, this is meeting the needs. Yes. Year-round education and support. Absolutely. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions guys? All right. Tara. Yeah. Anything everyone? You have my report which outlines what's happening in the business office throughout the month of May and when there's any questions I'll be happy to try and answer them. I had either a question or accommodation but I read in Christie's report it details the PDFs files and I looked at your file and you had a new title which was bus manager and I'm wondering with the with a new bus company whether you have a new title or whether that was the shortage of Yeah. Okay. All right. Well then I'll So I'm so the business manager just in the beginning. You want to be a bus manager? No, I don't want to be a bus manager. I don't think so. Thank you. All right. Fred. Okay. All right. We have had 110 students participate in Cognia VT cap mostly with science as I want to say but we've had some ELA and some math at the high school. This is week two for us. Started in Bethel last week and working our way around the SU. There have been a lot of issues around the state. It appears that we have not run into those nearly as much as anyone else. We hope our luck holds and I think it was a great idea for us to avoid the very first day. Thank you, Honda. And as Honda said, our teachers proctors as they're called in this system have done a great job and are doing the best under the circumstances. Have some other stuff in there specifically about enrollment and I will entertain any questions about any parts of my report or anything else in this department. Questions guys. Can I add something? So you all will be receiving population projections from NASDEC in your local district reports and meetings this coming month. This is our first time partnering with NASDEC to complete population projections for the SU. What they have shared with Ray and I is that they this is based off 2020 census data but they do feel like over time that they're going to be able to really get that they're going to feel like that their algorithm in regards to their band is going to narrow in. The more times they do it the more accurate they will become. So I just want you to know like this is first shot at them. I think we could use them over trends but you know again understand that you know that statistically it's going to become much stronger the more we do it. So we have about 1700 students total roughly 1300 of those are in our buildings 400 tuition students about half attending public schools and half attending independent schools. And through about 10 years out enrollment is projected to be fairly flat but a bit up. So that all seems like good news. Any other questions for Ray? All right. Policy committee we had a meeting just before here. We made some changes to the board of Civility and Code of Conduct. Board of Civility and Code of Conduct we went through that and then the committee made some more changes so that will come hopefully I think it'll my sense is I don't want to speak for the committee but it'll come out of committee and be on your agenda next month. That is our intention. And Superintendent Evaluation Committee we have another meeting on this Thursday the 20th so that committee is moving right along. That was warned as well. Just so everyone committee members seven o'clock. Seven o'clock, yes. We needed Jan. We're doing a seven o'clock meeting. Everybody on the committee agreed that that time worked. Great. And we have policy adoptions act to adopt the WRVSU special education policy. So this was warned for action and hasn't received any feedback contrary to what you have in front of you so hopefully you'll be ready to to move on it and that will be appreciative I think. You want to motion that Kathy? Yes please. I make a motion to adopt the special education the WRVSU special education policy. A second. Is there any discussion on the policy? All those in favor? And the eyes have it. We have adopted the WRVSU special education policy. Thank you. We have discussion on fiscal audit. So we talked about the audit at the meeting last time so this is the final draft which included the completed single audit on our S or 2 and I had put in the cover email when I sent it out to you that I'm happy to report that there was no finding. Is there any discussion on the audit? Anybody have any questions for Tara or Jamie? I make a motion to accept the audit. Second. So it has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor are saying I would adopt in the 21-22 fiscal audit. Say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right so the 21-22 fiscal audit is passed. Thank you all. Congratulations Tara that's great. And public comment is there anybody on the public now? Christy. Anybody has any public comment that is on the call right now? No comment. No comment. Thank you Matt. Okay. Resignations new hires. We just talked about it. Just talked about that. I am interviewing the last special education this week so we should have one hopefully moving forward. And is there any executive session for labor relations? Yes just to talk about it. Actually. I need a motion to go into executive session for labor relations. And you can probably release the rest of the admin. I make a motion to go into executive session and invite Jamie to join us. Tara I think you can even go. I think I've got all the numbers down so. Second. Okay thank you. Good night everyone. Night. Thank you. All right so I make a motion to approve the collective bargaining agreement between the WRV SU board and the WRV education association support personnel for the years of 2023 through 2026. Second. All right is there any discussion on the motion? All right so all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any nays? Aye's stain. All right so the ayes have it. And we have an agreement. Congratulations. All right so. That's exciting thanks team. Is there any other business tonight? No. All right future agenda items. So there's some future agenda items if you look in the data calendar that I sent you you're going to be receiving local assessment data next month. So that's certainly one of the agenda items that you're going to have is you'll get our SU wide track my progress data in May. Okay one thing I didn't say we do have a mentor committee meeting scheduled for Wednesday night. We also it's really good that you put together it's really helpful and really good. Thank you. Now we just need to put the mentors to it and we'll have a we'll have a plan. I was going to say just as a future agenda item discussion of 523 goal achievement remember we established SU goals and I think towards the end of this calendar that calendar year but school year we should spend some time evaluating how we did. And maybe spend a little time seeing if we want to do another full board retreat. Yes that's. Here's a W or a VSBA seminar whatever webinar coming up on board retreats to I think it's in May. Good tip. Oh just a shout out and I'll continue to do it at local meetings a reminder to SU board chairs that we've registered you to attend our mandatory by state statute training with the VSBA and VSA which is upcoming before our next full board meeting. So board chair should have received a confirmation of that hopefully I asked Christie to register you. You could only wish for that. You have to do two meetings then. I think somebody failed to mention that when they talked about this is my job description. It should be a really good time I'm actually I'm really excited it's in person. It has not been for the last few years. Yeah it's in person. I'll send all that information to you guys again but it's in Burlington. Yeah the one last year was virtual and it was it was interesting but it was hard to like it was hard to it was hard to stay focused on. Eric get ready. All right guys if there is nothing I thought would be cool I'd go. All right do I have a motion to adjourn. So move. All right so we're adjourned guys see you on the next meeting if I'm. Reminder 715 should shouldn't take too long so we can complete ratification. All right bye guys see you next month if I don't see you before.