meeting to order at six o'clock. Are there any adjustments to the agenda? For the minutes of Monday, April 25th, 2022, do I have a motion? So moved. So I can. Any discussion? I'm hearing none. So moved. Is there any board correspondence? Bill, what's your last name again? My Bill Gore is here for the board development series. So I will let you take over. Okay. I don't see a link to the meeting. So should I just look at that camera and just kind of point that way? You're Bill, right? Right. Yeah. He's. Yeah. So it's a pleasure to be with you again. We'll just jump right in here. I'll leave a mask on. I've been exposed to COVID this last week. I don't have it. I've had some negative tests, but I'll leave the mask on. Hopefully, everybody can hear me okay online. Thank you. So as you, hopefully you can see that slide on your screen there, talking about vision, mission, and then this idea of inclusion. I can share, in fact, I'll try to forward after this meeting, maybe tomorrow a couple of statements that we've been using in helping people develop missions and visions kind of some attributes of effective mission and vision statements. I think that's helpful. But thinking of your vision, first of all, what's the ideal state for the future? A vision should describe if we do our job well, this is what things will look like, feel like, sound like, smell like in the future. It should cast toward the ideal future state. The mission on the other hand, this is what you do. I was just sharing with the room here before we started, I learned strategic planning from a Marine colonel. And so it was very clear, very to the point, very direct. He would insist a school district or a supervisory union's mission is educate kids. And Colonel Vidos, who passed away a couple of years ago, he would say all the rest is fluff or he had some other words for it too. But when you develop a mission, you wanna be crystal clear so that you come up with something that is memorable and it becomes contagious, right? We all know what contagious means. It sticks, people can hang on to it. This idea of inclusion, and that's where I wanna get at the community piece. I've been involved the last 20 years in research and governance, and we have all been committed for a long time about community engagement. We know that parent to school partnerships are important. We can see how the business community and sometimes other intergovernmental agencies can collaborate with a school district in effective ways and we can see the benefits of that. What's the board's role in community engagement? And I would encourage you to think about how does your board engage the community, not the district, not a principal or a teacher or anyone else working in the school system, but where's the opportunity for the board to engage with, involve with and partner with the community? And I'll just share this and we'll dig into this a little bit more in just a couple of minutes. But the idea that in the state of Texas in the last five years, we did a study there that showed a very strong relationship between boards that said they engaged their community in the board's work and the likelihood that their students were improving in achievement and closing gaps at the same time. It's kind of what my former boss used to call the magic rabbit or the elusive rabbit that I was chasing. Like what do boards do in the system, legitimate governance level activities that might have a relationship with improving achievement for all kids and closing gaps at the same time. And many of the elements involve the way the board talked about how they engage their community. Let's go to the next slide, Bill. And you can just keep clicking. So just foundationally here, one of the things important to point out is school boards do affect student achievement, right? They do have an impact. They have your book here. This book published almost seven years ago, Tom Alsbury and I put this together. It's a compilation actually of 22 different authors. It's called Improving School Board Effectiveness of Balance Governance Approach. You buy that on Amazon? Yeah, you can buy it on Amazon or I can sell you one a little cheaper. But I'm not here to sell books tonight. Just to point out, there's a clear linkage between what boards do in the boardroom and the likelihood that students are learning in the classroom. I just know nobody's gonna say if the board does this, kids learn more. Somebody might say that, but they're not very honest and they're lacking in integrity. You can't prove a correlation relationship between a causation relationship between what boards do. What you can show is that in districts where students are improving and learning, boards have different beliefs about what is possible and they have different actions at the board table. So what you see on the slide in front of you right now is a summary in five different areas which research has shown boards have a relationship and what boards do with student learning. One of the things that stands out there is having a vision and goals for the district. It's a governance activity, right? If you think about who owns what, the strategic is in the vision, the mission and then with the goals. And I like to think that goals are kind of a shared area or domain, but the board needs to own and have responsibility for the vision and mission of the district, right? And you need to be measuring and assessing throughout the year and every year are we making progress on our mission and vision? Then those goals, they get co-owned with the administration and with the board, right? But you've got the strategic domain and then you get into the tactical and then however your nomenclature is in your current strategic plan and in your future one, you get down into the objectives and tasks and activities. Those are not, should not be prescribed by the board, right? There may be things that are important to the board but you're down into the how or what a lot of people would call the weeds. So each of these areas on that slide have been shown to have an effect on student success but this kind of elusive one, it was hard to make a proof, if you will. Mary Della Gardell who wrote chapter one in Bill's book, she passed away a few years ago but she was the principal researcher on a multi-state study founded, funded by the Department of Education called the Iowa Lighthouse Research Study and she looked at boards believe some behaviors and what boards did and what they believed and if that might affect student achievement and she couldn't let go of the community engagement piece. She couldn't prove it but she just in her heart and in her mind she knew there had to be something important there and in fact there is. Let's go to that next slide. So we're learning about this community engagement or community involvement piece that again, boards have an effect and what does that look like? What does it feel like? I'm gonna suggest to you that one of the key areas might be a culture of inclusiveness and that's my best understanding. Does the board speak and act and deliberate in an inclusive manner? Are they including staff, community members, families, students in their decision-making? Let's go to that next slide. I can't see them well up there but we're okay. So thinking about how does the board do this? What's the board's role in engaging and involving the community? You don't have any role in those family to teacher relationships, right? You might have a policy. You might have a request of the administration. We'd like to ensure that all of our schools are intentional in the way they engage families and their students' education. Great, pretty high level. But how that happens is gonna vary from one classroom to the next just like how reading is taught, how math is taught, how science is taught, how the activities play out in an individual classroom. You may have policies that you're hoping for this but individually that's going to be adapted. So where's the board's role? Let's go to the next slide. So this was just a list. I've got two slides that I just wanted to show you. A strong effect size. Very, if you look up the statistical measure effect size, you'll find that a very small effect size over a system of schools can still be meaningful and very important. But look at this slide and then the next one and the elements within these things that seem to have an effect or a relationship between what boards say they're doing and whether or not their district is improving in achievement and closing gaps. Look at the overlapping nuances of that culture of inclusion, this community engage. And I'm gonna suggest to you that all the way back to that first slide and the first thoughts here where the board can engage and involve its community is really in clarifying a vision for what success looks like and then defining the mission of the district. Those are two high level, very strategic opportunities for the board to get community involvement and engagement in. Let's go to the next slide here. This is a very important slide. There's a researcher out of Canada named Michael Fullen. He's done a lot of educational leadership work and he emphasizes this idea of coherence. Michael Fullen has promoted the idea that what's happening in an individual teaching and learning opportunity teacher in a classroom of students, it needs to make sense with what the administration is doing, right? I've used the word alignment for years, Fullen kind of poo-poo's that because alignment is that's like algebra one, right? And coherence is more like geometry like these Venn diagrams. Does it make sense? What the board is doing? What the administration is doing?  Do these things fit together? I still kind of like the word alignment and I use it often, but coherence, it's does this all make sense? And you'll notice I think in this diagram, if we're on the right slide, which I think we are. It may have to do with you. That you'll notice there's a role here for the public. There's actually, in my version of the slides, these are overlapping circles, but that's okay. It changes when we go to Google some or, you see it, we just don't see it up there. Megan, you want to go back to it? I'm great with that, sorry. Kathy, you'll have to throw something at me next time. Totally up to you. I think I understand your point, but I just, those numbers didn't make any sense to me. Oh, effect size, yeah. Yeah, the D stands for effect size. It's a statistical technique. I would encourage you to look that up because effect size is a statistical measure that has been widely touted by education researchers in the last couple of decades. And it's like, so if you've got this group not doing it compared with the group that is, what effect does that seem to have on the outcome, if you will? And it's kind of like correlation, but it's calculated in a different way. Yeah. The higher is better. Yeah, higher is better. The higher the effect size, the better. So you see that one with what's considered a large or a very large effect size, 0.650, does the board have a process that includes community and parent involvement in selecting curricula? Now it's interesting, every state's different in the way some of these things play out. In the state where this is done, community and parents rarely have any involvement in curriculum matters, but the board said they did. So there seems to be the effect size is that the board made this claim that they were involving them. So again, from the perception of a person responding to a board survey or a self-assessment, they felt like they were inclusive of the community. Sarah? She's muted. You're muted, Sarah. That's the first time for that, isn't it? Yeah. It's always been, I'm going, I'm back on the curriculum and the board having, you know, involving the board being, but I always thought that was the administration and not the board's responsibility to set curriculum. Yeah, and I would tend to agree with you. I think, you know, this could be a policy that involves supplemental materials, those kinds of things. And again, that would vary. It's hard to know what's in somebody's head when they answer a question and say we do that, but they were saying they did that. And so, yeah. Are you advocating that that is something that we should be doing? Cause that sort of goes against my understanding of the board's role. Now I would advocate that the board involves the community in the board's work. So no, not a curriculum matter per se. Okay, thanks. Yeah, thanks. And thanks for asking the question and let's just keep moving Bill to the next slide. So now let me ask the group, what is your ideal vision for community engagement? If you as a board were engaging your community, what would that look like? What might you be doing more of or doing differently than what you do today? If you were to improve your community engagement as a board, what might that look like? High attendance at the board meetings maybe, depends on why they're there, right? Right. If they're there to watch the show, that's not exactly engagement, that's observing. What would community engagement look like? Could be surveys, getting input from the community, I'm Ethan Bowen here, if I may. Suddenly it comes to mind what we do with our state senators and representatives is that they have breakfast meetings and it's a chance for people to come and just talk and sort of say what we're working on as a board and say, and I have no idea if it would work, but it'd be something to try. Do I share concerns or just get acquainted? Don? Yeah, we have a pretty strong parent-teacher organization and they're very involved in the sports around the school and things and I think that's a good symptom, if you will. Do they get engaged or involved with the board at all? No, the board doesn't have anything to do with the sports. That's run entirely by them, but that's still something that the board doesn't have to do. They've taken that off the board's plate. Nice. What else, what would improved community engagement look like if the board was more engaging of the community? What might you be doing or seeing? You'd be getting more feedback about what people think. You get more feedback from more people? Yeah. About how you're doing or about things but they wish that we were doing in the schools. I think the type of questions you would get would be much more specific because they understand, I mean, this has been my thing for a long time that I wanted a three-ring binder right at the entrance way that has the congriculum in there. Maybe it doesn't get followed, but the idea is that parents know what's going on so then they can ask a question specific. How did the unit on buying go? How did this go? How did the new style of teaching, reading, you know, and we don't, you know, as parents, we don't really get that information. There could be more thoughtful, more engaging questions. Good. Ethan, I have a goal, if you will, a vision that every school board member in Vermont can answer these three questions. How are the students doing in our district? What is our district doing to improve how they're doing and how will we know we're making progress or what the success look like, right? I would like to see every school board member be able to engage with the public in answering those three questions. This is how our students are doing. This is how, what we're doing to improve how they're doing and this is what our expectation is or what our goal is for progress in them. Imagine the board being able to back to those overlapping circles. Teachers in the classroom teaching in an effective way. Administrators overseeing and administrating the work of the district in an effective way. The board being engaged with and thoughtful about how are the students doing? Are they learning what they need to learn? Are we making progress? What is the district doing to improve how they're doing and being able to have that conversation with the community in that sense of coherence? Everything kind of fits together. We better move to the next slide. Okay. Yeah. And so what does engagement mean to you? This is kind of an etymology of the word. Way back in the 14, 1500s, the word engagement was a pledge. It was an agreement between two people. They were engaged. Later in the 1600s, the word started to mean it was occupying our intention. So somebody's calling me right now but I'm not reaching for my phone because I'm engaged with you, right? And maybe somebody else is on their phone, but engagement in the 1600s later began to mean it was a fight or a battle. So two countries would be engaged. They'd be engaged in a war. It wasn't until the 1700s that we started using the term engagement as a promise of marriage and exchanging a ring. And engagement in the early 1800s meant we had an appointment on the calendar. And then later toward the end of the 1800s, it made two gears were engaged, right? A machine was engaged together. So it was a coming together. Let's go to the next slide. Then the question is, what does engagement mean to you? Is it like the dog and cat that are engaged in play or in fight, whatever it is? Is it like the ring where there's a promise? Or is it like salt and pepper that are just two things that go together, right? So think about, when you think about community engagement, what does it mean to you? People actively engaged in conversation, discussion, wrestling through a challenge. Is it gears that line up? Or is it just two things that are kind of side by side like salt and pepper? Any thoughts on that, Megan? Yeah, I just, as you're saying that, first of all, this is so helpful, yet again, another great training, but I'm thinking about students. So I'm thinking, I'm seeing this sort of parallel of board work engaging community members. So it's like this connection and understanding like back and forth or whatever, but this may be a similar goal for teachers in a classroom, engaging with students. Yes, I like the gears when I think about the board and the district or the administration, I like the gears because, we're not micromanaging, but we fit together. This is coherent, it makes sense. Anybody else, something stand out to you about engagement? Bill? I'm having a problem seeing engagement as a goal. I see engagement as a means to an end. I really relate to you three goals, which is, and I think our SU board and our whole administrative team has adopted that or are pushing that as far as to invest by our students and being able to measure it and make sure that learning takes place and that as a board, we have a responsibility for that. One can't just hand it off to them. The problem I'm having with engagement is that to me, one of our roles is a board and it goes back when I was a director or everything else. One of the things that boards could do better than a director is excite the community about the importance of the task, the role, the responsibilities of the organization. One thing the board can do is to not only excite but to have that community support the role, in this case, the educational role of our students. Superintendent can't do that, making up to a point. We've got to be out there and explaining and selling and one thing you're pointing out is we can't just be blowing smoke. We've got to be able to show them results and excite them about we're moving ahead. And I think, I don't know, it's not political, but it's just we're getting so tired and kind of worn down about all the bad news that we're just assuming that it's the same old same old. This isn't the same old organization and our goal is not to be the same old. It's to accelerate and take off. As a board, we've got to be able to articulate that. And so it's that sense of engagement and you might say it doesn't sound too way. But I think it's extraordinarily important and I think it's, if we're not doing that, it's going to be very hard for our team, their administrative team, our teachers, if you have the tools or resources to support to get the job done. Well, you're talking about building public will. And one of those things on the earlier slide of the five was advocating for the schools, but engaging the community in a thoughtful way like an ambassador. I used to like to think when I was a school board member, I would thought of ourselves as ambassadors of the schools to the community and then from the community to the schools, the very, very two way. Let's hit the next slide here. So what does engagement look like? I mean, we talked about this a little bit and we got some input from you, but this idea of what might you be seeing or doing or hearing, one of the most exciting things I heard from someone one day was when I asked, what would it smell like? If the community was engaged in the work of the board and the district in an appropriate way, you know, what would you hear or see or smell? You can hear that we're doing our job. I'd hear the crickets. Yeah, you'd hear that we're doing our job because they would be informed and they'd feel informed. I don't know if that's smell. Here, what was the leader smell? Z. Z. Touch. I mean, we'd see more people, hopefully not necessarily enemies, but at events. At school events. Yeah. I was going to say, I always think it's a good sign. Maybe it's not, but I always think it's a good sign to see a pickup, see teachers talking with parents. Yes. I just think that's a really clear direct communication. And sometimes I see, you know, a regular thing, like once a week or something, I see this teacher talking to that parent. Maybe, you know, I don't have no idea what's going on, but it seems to me that's a very clear indication of connection between, you know, that there's lines of communication. I agree. Let's hit that next slide, see where we're going. So what are some barriers to overcome when it comes to community engagement? What are some speed bumps or barriers to community engagement? People are so busy now. It's hard for them to find the time to engage, I would think. That's good. People are busy. Absolutely. What's another barrier? Anger. Anger, they're upset. People get really angry and it's really hard to communicate back and forth. I think Robert's rules makes it difficult to engage too. Yeah, I think the roles of the school and people's minds have changed. They've given up some of their parenting roles and they expect the schools to do it, unfortunately. That could be a barrier too. One thing I would say about anger when people are angry, they tend to be engaged. They may not be engaged the way we want them to be engaged, but they tend to be engaged. Was it Newton, one of those laws of science that a body in motion is a lot easier to redirect than a body that's sitting still. It's hard to get it to move.  And those people cared enough to show up and yell at a school board. Maybe they didn't come yell at you, I don't know, but they did in a lot of places around the country. And they cared enough, so I wondered how a system might follow up with those people a few months later, six months later, a year later. They cared enough to show up one night. Maybe they actually care about what's happening in the school. I don't know, that might sound a little Pollyannish. It's probably not the right way to say that, but you know what I mean. I wonder, let's hit the next slide, Bill. The other thing I would say is the people understanding the rules of the board. Yes. I mean, I think as a board, we're still learning that, like our role versus superintendent's role versus the principals, the teachers. And I think the community doesn't always understand that. So they don't understand where they can be involved. They can get involved. What if you had a great graphic or a one pager that really described, this is the role of the board and customers that have a complaint about something in the classroom. You know, it's kind of illustrated that chain of command. And so it showed that the board was not the customer complaint department, but you had a mechanism for that. And then maybe even examples of the kinds of things you would bring to the board's attention. Something with the tax rate or, you know, that's actually in the board's purview, per se. We talk about that all the time at our board meetings and we talk about it when somebody comes to us with a complaint and we redirect it, but maybe you're right. Maybe we need, maybe that's something the board can put out. Like this is... Something on the website, little brochure that's maybe at the meeting or at the schools. Yeah, so then people understand that chain of command and how it works and where we can help them. Boards really run amok when they think they are the customer complaint department. Or when they think that a customer is the constituents. Because you got all these people with no kids in the system that are your constituent, they're not necessarily a customer. And it's easy to miss them and sort of focus on the parent and family, but miss, you got this broader business community and service clubs that it would be great if they were engaged, as well as the governmental entities too. Robert had a question. Robert had a question? Are you there, Robert? So identifying some of these barriers, people's time, in some areas, translation is an issue. That may not be here for you, but certainly are your meetings or the opportunities to be engaged? Are they always at a time when some people are not available? And then the idea of surveys to get input so that people don't, they can do that at 2 a.m. if they want to. Some way to be connected that way. Let's hit the next slide. So just a couple more. You know, thinking through those barriers can help you kind of define or get to the type of engagement that you want to have with your community. And the next slide here points out something really important. Who is your community? So we heard the word parents a few times here in the last 35 minutes. We heard the word teacher. Heard board a little bit. Superintendent's by role was mentioned a couple of times. But who is your community? Taxpayers. Taxpayers. Thank you, Sarah, Megan. I guess I kind of have a question. And is our community like the WRVS, we've got two sort of, right? We've got the big WRVSU community and then we each have our individual boards with local communities. So. We have communities within the, you have communities within the community. Yeah, right. And then there's probably communities within that community, right? Like there's the parent community. And the, yeah. Shannon? I would say our students are part of our community. It's been great to hear more from our students lately at some of our board meetings. And hear directly how our policies are affecting them. Yeah, that's wonderful. Good point. Who else do you think of when you think of your community? Who is your community? Anyone else? We'll go to the next slide and we'll stay on this topic. There's a researcher at Harvard. Her name is Karen Mapp. And she has made popular this idea of community map being, right? So you put your district in the center of a whiteboard and you start identifying different subsets of the community. Families, local government, business, click one more time. And then you start to look at, well, okay, well, what about families, right? Are there some two income families, some single parent families, some non-parent families? And then you get to branch out farther like who else is there, right? Even single parent families, that's not a monolith. There's different types of single parent families, right? There's those that are separated by income, might be separated by other kinds of factors, some that are outward and some that are inward. But really, this becomes very important if the board wants to engage the community that you're not just hearing from the same five or 10 family and friends and neighbors that you always hear from or you're not engaging or involving that same group from the church or the gym or the workplace, right? That if we're involving our community, it has to be bigger and way beyond. It is a powerful process to spend two to three hours as a team and right on a whiteboard, okay, who else? Who else? Because it's about the third or fourth who else that you really start to get to some groups that have been, and in this case we're talking about not just individuals, but actual groups of people that may speak a different language, may have a different lifestyle. Who is it that we're missing in our question about who is our community? There's something else. You've got a group in there that I think, how about alumni from the school? Because that would be important to get the input. And very easy to mobilize, right? They have a heart already vested sometimes. And that's gots. Yeah, there's an issue. They have emotions about the way things work, but they're an important group to hear from it. You want their support. So I would encourage you again, just kind of expanding your mental model to get at that diversity of who is in your community that they may all be white or they may be 99% white. So diversity in the way they think, diversity in the way they live their lives, and asking yourselves as a team, who else? Who might we be missing? Let's hit the next slide. How do you engage them, partnerships? Let's go to the next slide. I love this co-author of chapter four here, Bill McCaw. He says involving the community is more than a PR campaign. There's a district I've been working with. It's not that far from here. I've been working with them a lot recently and they're all about communications, communications, communications. And I've been trying to nudge them that it's not the one-way communication, right? It's gotta be two-way. It's not just having a communications director that can tell all the great stories, but it's having someone who will listen, receive here input, and get that back in to the conversation as well. Let's go to the next slide. So a key takeaway here, if you can highlight that one for me. You really want to develop a culture of inclusivity so that everyone in your entire community is invited, they're welcome to have a meaningful partnership with the district. One thing that my board did was we had the round table, somebody mentioned with an elected official doing round tables, we had round tables with other governmental entities. So in our case, that was city councils, county commissioners, as well as state representatives. We'd sit together and have breakfast or lunch and have that two-way kind of governance to governance conversation. Sometimes that resulted in things like one of our cities sharing a tractor with the school district, a partnership that emerged. The board wasn't negotiating that or handling that, we were just bringing people together on a governance to governance level and partnerships start to emerge. There are districts around the country that end up with some really cool innovative programs, whether it be with solar, other steam kind of things, or whether it be with business opportunities where students get engaged, involved with. A lot of times it's because of a conversation that happened between a board member and someone else at a governance level. And it's a, imagine this, what if, right? What if what could be developed with a library board and a school board? What could be developed that might help and benefit a whole community? Let's hit the next slide. So I wanted to share this and you will have this available, all of you. This is from the Illinois Association of School Boards and we've touched on aspects of this. When you think about engagement, is your purpose to inform? Is it to get feedback? Is it to involve or is it to collaborate? All of those things are good and they're all important and you need to do each of them at different times. But thinking about when is the time for the board to actually have a citizen advisory committee or some participation in your decision-making? Something you need the community's support, buy-in and not just for them to back what you do, but for you to really understand what they want. So I would encourage you to look at this as a team and maybe even kind of keep it in your hip pocket as it were, is this a time where we need to inform, consult and all are actually collaborating? And what hits that threshold, right? What is it just, when the ballgame is, when graduation is, where that will be? Well, that's informed. Maybe we've got a critical decision. Maybe there's a budget cut that needs to happen. Do we need to consult with the public and get feedback? And let's not talk about mascot, so let's hit the next slide. Because some ways that you can engage, thinking about, again, how do you address those barriers, whether it's people's time or the time of day or the location or do people need childcare? What are some barriers that would help people be more engaged in the work that the board and the district are doing? And what are the groups out there? Service clubs tend to love to partner with schools. Sometimes interestingly, I've known of nursing homes that love to partner with schools. I've seen programs where elderly people who can't get out can read to students somehow or pen pal situations, right? There's a lot of different ways to be engaged and involved, but it all starts with somebody having a vision for what is possible. Let's go to the next slide, Bill. Just to keep in mind this idea, I don't know who said this first. I've read it by different authors and I looked it up on Google, but people are not up on what they're not in on. So the more that you can engage, the more that you can involve the community in the work of the board at the governance level, the more they're going to have their heart vested in the work that you're doing. And as you move forward in the coming months with revising your vision and your mission statement and anything that rises to that strategic level, I just really want to encourage you to figure out how do we involve the community in this? How do we get their input? How do we get their thinking? How do we get them to help us in this crafting of a strategic direction? And I think there's just one closing slide. It's got my email address there at the bottom. If you have questions or follow-ups, suggestions, please let me know. We're always trying to improve everything we do. So, you know, feedback is a gift. You say, Phil, you talk too much or too loud or too long or you had too many slides, I'll take that as a gift from you and any other suggestions you might have.  Thank you for letting me be here again. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Does anybody have any last minute questions before? Thank you. No, this is useful. Thank you. Yeah, again, the more you can engage and involve your community, the more likely that you're going to be improving in achievement and closing gaps. And remember, you know, have an answer to that question. How are the students doing? What day did he need? What do you need from the superintendent and his team to be able to answer that question in an intelligible way? Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any public comments?  So you all have my report in hand. I'll just add the, and I'll continue to give updates with the local districts about all the work that happened at the end of the legislative session. There were no big surprises. One of the things I wanted to mention that I'm really happy about will one, the waiting study. And again, we will send those figures to you again in regards to what that means for our districts, for a majority of our districts that's going to result in a decrease in its tax rates, which is good news because, you know, I think one of the things that we're all monitoring really closely is this concept of a cliff in regards to the Ed fund. And I worried about the yield. We had a really positive yield this year. My worry about it is what's the yield going to look like in the coming years. And I think we've all seen what that yield can do in regards to your tax rates. And so that's one that's positive news when we think about equity across the state. A lot of work was done there and the research that came out of UVM. The other thing that happened was is that the special education law that had been delayed a few different times did take effect other than adverse effect. And so the block grant spending happened and you put that in your report. But I'll just let you know that really what it does is it gives school districts one more year in regards to making certain that we have our system of supports, our MTSS system, multi-tier systems of supports up and running across the state to make certain that we are documenting and demonstrating the intervention supports in progress monitoring data. So all this stuff that we talked to you about about data teams and teachers meeting about data to inform instruction and teachers meeting about data to inform intervention, that was all part of that bill as well. And so we need to have that documented in running in a proficient method across the state in order for students, for teams to be able to show adverse effect due to a disability to qualify for an IEP. I think it's important for the board to remember you can have a disability, right? A disability does not result in then qualification of an IEP. And so we're continuing to do a lot more, I would say education with our faculty and staff to make certain folks understand what that means in regards to our educational support team process and our multi-tiered system of supports. But at the end of the day, you've heard me say time and time again, it's about responsive intervention and getting what students need in place in a swift manner that's research-based and makes sense. We want the intervention to be able to actually intervene on what the academic or social-emotional gaps are for the student. And so it's nice to have that in legislation, right? Supporting this work. The other thing that I wanted to mention for our unified districts is that the legislature did do a nice job in regards to outlining what the coupling of unified districts would look like. If a community wanted to pursue that, I will send that bill out to all of you for review. I think it's worthwhile for all the board to review that bill. I wanted to mention before I just sent it out to you. So that is one that I would encourage you to take the time to dig into. It's much more thorough in regards to the role of the board, the role of the agency, the role of the state board, in the role of those who gather signatures of petition if they wanted to pursue the decoupling of a district. It also puts the onus though back on the unified district board as compared to it previously the select board. So remember before the select board would actually hold the vote. That's not the process now. It's actually the unified district board. And it requires a study committee prior to holding the vote. Much like you would have a study comrade committee when you had a unified district. So I wanted to mention that bill as well. And I'll take any, oh, celebration. We had our last remaining budget successfully pass on Saturday in a first branch. And so, and it was a real positive meeting. So we were six for six with our budgets this year, which feels good. So we'll take a couple months off from the budget season, but you know, we'll roll out that budget calendar again in August and start working with all of our district boards in the SU board in September. I would like to say a big thank you to Jamie and his team. I feel like our meeting was very well. I wasn't at all of your other time meetings. So, but ours were very organized. It was a great presentation. There weren't a lot of questions because they did a really good job answering all the questions before they could come up. And I just really appreciate what you did putting that together for us. Here, here. Meg, I don't, are you, which bill are you indicating? The unified district bill or the special ed? Nope, the unified one. Or a practical bill, sometimes I do it. I don't remember what they actually titled it, but I will figure it out. Okay. I wanted to comment on contrast between the state of Vermont and their overall supervision and their legislation and policy regarding public education in this state and our wonderful state to the east of us. And I just read in the Valley News this Sunday about how there's major issues with morale and turnover and retirements and everything else. And we have those challenges too. But when you dug into it, it was mostly about New Hampshire. New Hampshire, I might be exaggerating, but New Hampshire has a law that people can sue teachers. And the state can penalize the teachers for what they're teaching or what they're saying. And I just, instead of, here we've got this legislation that's more fair on economic distribution of aid and support so we can have quality schools in our rural areas. I'm looking at our neighbor state and it's just mind boggling where you've got state legislation that could threaten our teachers with the frontline of getting the educational process done. There was another law that I guess got vetoed was schools could not have, could not mandate masks. They could not have that decision. That was gonna be removed from them. So I just wanna say it's really good to be here in this state where we could be working together enormous challenges. But boy, it's disheartening to hear about other places that are putting up barriers to make it even more difficult to get a job. Guys, anything else for Jamie? Anda, are you on? I'm on. Can you see me? Yes. I guess hearing me is most important. You can hear me. Okay, thank you. Well, you all also have my report. I think the most important thing that's going on right now is that we've got a lot of students that are spending some pretty considerable time demonstrating all of their growth this year. And there's just a lot of different ways in which that happens. And sometimes I'll be back in June talking a lot more about the academics. But I think I consistently wanna remind us collectively that there's a lot that goes on in terms of learning and growth in our schools throughout the year. And now is a time when a lot of that gets showcased through concerts and athletic events and all sorts of capstone presentation type things so if you see anything that's getting featured on social media or in school and district newsletters or get invited to anything, it's just an amazing time to see how much has been accomplished this year. And so it's pretty exciting. And I think that's an important part to remember that we get a nice glimpse into a year's worth of learning at this time of year. I also feel like the other thing that I talk a lot to you all about is what we're hearing from teachers. And frankly, I feel like I could survey teachers every single day on a different thing to make sure we're getting their input. And I know we don't wanna over survey them. But we've gotten a lot of good information and interest and feedback and energy around the professional development for the summer and next year. And there's a lot of really good alignment around what our goals are and what teachers want. And they've pointed out some places where they could use some additional training and support. And so we're looking into those areas. But it aligns really nicely to the goals that we currently have around proficiency-based learning, those systems of support that Jamie was talking about that we wanna continue to make sure that we have robust supports at every level and ensure that our universal teaching is really solid, our targeted intervention for kids that need that and that are intensive. So the teachers are telling us they're working for the same stuff that we're hoping to support them with. So that's a really good sign as we head into summer and into next year around our professional learning. And I think the last bit maybe to focus on again is we, yeah, I think we're working a lot on all the grants. So although I'm telling you all to be out looking at all those things happening in school we'll probably be in the office trying to finish those off. But there's a lot of, there's some good resources available and we wanna make sure we're targeting it towards sort of the high leverage needs that we have particularly interesting again in our teachers and our support staff since they have shown us throughout the year just what an incredible resource they are, how hard they're working with students in less than ideal conditions with COVID. And so I think we have a lot to put into them to continue to grow them as the instruction leaders that they all are in their classrooms and throughout the schools. So happy to take any questions, any thoughts? If you also, as I'm, we're working on those reports for next month on the academic reports I think we've gotten good feedback throughout the year on what has been helpful and what do you have questions around either here or through other venues if there's other things that would help make those reports more clear for you, please let me know. Any questions? Thank you Anna. Tara. Good evening everyone. You have my report, it had a lot of information this month I will review the budgets for each of the districts. I provided an overview of our federal grants and then our quarter three projections. So if anyone has any questions, I'll happily answer them or if you wanna set up a time, if it's more detailed than what we can cover tonight, I'm happy to do that as well. Any questions for Tara? Thank you, Tara. You're welcome. And sorry for skipping in on the last part. I have a little presentation. That's right, I have a little presentation and I'm very excited to share this with all of you. Are you gonna start with your report or the presentation? Yeah, I'm gonna go right into the presentation on the good stuff. So I wanna turn to all of you a little bit about since we've been talking about the importance of progress monitoring and also when we talk about multi-tier systems of support that our alternative classrooms here at the White Room Valley Supervisory kind of fall in that top intensive tier when you're talking about a multi-tier systems of support. So it is a small kind of cohort of students. And we have just had an amazing year. We have had two just fantastic, highly qualified special educators this year just do some wonderful work with some of our most intensive students here in our supervisory union. So I worked with them to kind of put this presentation together because I wanted what was important to them to be shared with all of you as well. And so some of these pictures that you see in the front are some of our elementary and middle school students doing some of their work. Some of it is they were exploring and identifying plans and one student was so excited about his learning that he did an at-home planet project and then came and did his own presentation to his class at the elementary level. And then the middle school has been doing a lot of focus with cooking that they're making a school-wide cookbook with recipes that middle schoolers could make at home by themselves. So that's just what some of those pictures represent. So it's very exciting. The next slide just is a description that I did some work this past summer, this past August with the special educators coming into these classrooms, and together we've kind of came up with a description of what would we tell people that you do, right? That what are these classrooms for? And so this is what we came up with this summer, is that it really offers opportunities for personalized learning, whether it be social-emotional learning or academic learning for students that are at the elementary, middle school and high school level. And it gives them time to practice and to kind of really focus on instruction that'll help them increase their opportunities to be in the school-wide community. Sometimes the students who are in the classrooms, they need to learn how to be in a classroom. They need to learn what it's like to be students. There are just some other barriers that are in the way, the kind of blocking that and those, the classrooms and the teachers and all of the service providers for those classrooms are there to help work with the students and teach them about their barriers and how to work through them so that they can be part of the greater school community. So then also the work, some of the work we did this past summer is kind of breaking down. So what do the opportunities look like at each of the levels, the elementary, middle and high school level? And then how do they relate to one another? How is there this kind of like growth in what an elementary student does versus a middle school student versus a high school student? So this is some of the opportunities that are offered at the elementary level. This is just kind of a tip of the iceberg is that they get their direct, highly qualified academic instruction. Also, they get instruction with social skills and self-regulation. They get some opportunities for some mental health work with a clinician or a behavioral specialist. And also they get the opportunity to participate with their greater community. And this year was the first year that it wasn't just a self-contained all of these classrooms. They weren't just self-contained classrooms where the students never left the room, which is how it had been in the past. The students were included in their school communities by going to essentials. So art, music, PE, the library, et cetera. So that they, you know, would have the opportunity to practice some of the skills that they've been learning in their classrooms. So that was, so that was a switch and I do have to say, you know, that just general education community and building principles were very much on board with this. They were very open arms and really just kind of surrounded all of the students with open hearts and open minds. And I think did a lot of learning themselves about how they can support the students in their essentials as well. So some of the elementary data from this year is as of, you know, right now there are seven students full-time in the classroom. There has been eight students that have attended the classroom. There's only been one student referral this year, which is really low, which is great. That means that, you know, a majority or most of our students have been able to be successfully supported, you know, within the general education curriculum, whether that be at the universal or targeted level, which means that just shows that we've got some great universal supports in place for all of our students and that they're responding to it. So that's wonderful. And right now we have two students who are currently in the elementary alternative classroom that are working on transitioning back to their gen ed classes. One student I got word will be full-time in their gen ed classroom next year and it's been a transition that they've been working on for quite a few months and the student and the family are very, very excited. So, and then for the past few years, I just wanted to know that the average class size was nine. So we've been, you know, down a little bit on the numbers, which has just been a great success. Again, it just shows that universally, you know, we've been able to capture students at a better, at a greater level than we have in the past. Thanks. The teacher, her name is Kylie Edwards is the special educator that kind of runs, you know, the elementary classroom. She, you know, wanted to share all of this that they do a check-in, check-out system which is generally used at the targeted level but they've been, you know, using it to kind of stay with what is happening universally in the school. So again, so kids can be connected and not doing something completely separate. So they're kind of learning what other students are doing. The universal goal for the South Railton Elementary campus for check-in, check-out is 80%. But in the alternative classroom, you know, they've decided as a staff and as a community that they were gonna make it 89%, that they were gonna raise the bar. And as you can see in September when school first started, the average for the whole class was 66%. Students at the beginning of the school year, I can say had a really hard time transitioning back to school. But also I think the expectations within the elementary alternative classroom were very different than what the students had left in the previous year. There was a much more academic focus and they were really making it look like a Gen Ed classroom with the built in social-emotional supports and actually practicing in the moment when something felt uncomfortable, you know, what you do, which was just a huge shift for the students and they just didn't have the stamina that you would expect from an elementary school student. So they had to work on stamina, they had to work on this new routine, new staff. And so things were a little bit lower in September, but then the latest data that I had was from April and they hit their goal of 89%, which is a 23% daily increase. So students are now hitting that goal and when I look at each of the months, they've hit it a couple other months throughout the year as well. And what the students look at through this check-in, check-out process, they're in value, they do a self-evaluation after each block, but also the staff do one and then at the end as part of their checkout, they kind of put their two papers together and they have a conversation about what the day looked like. And there's this real emphasis on, well, tomorrow is a brand new day, right? We all have bumps in the road, we all kind of have bad days or bad moments, but it doesn't define who you are and it just doesn't define what the rest of your day looks like or what the rest of your week looks like. So there's this real kind of self-reflection piece that goes along with that. And really they're emphasizing being safe, being responsible, respectful and kind, which are also the PDIS universal criteria that they're focusing on at the South Railton Elementary campus as well. So they're trying to stay connected and not be separate. So also just as an average for the class, there's been an average of five letter levels through the Fontes and Pinell reading assessment. So that means on average students went up five letter levels from the beginning of the year until now, which is amazing. And also two students are assessing at grade level in all content areas and that another student, and this just kind of shows the range of abilities that are mixed in one classroom, that Kiley really has to differentiate and really personalize learning when you have two students who are now at grade level, but then you have another student who was only able to count to 10 at the beginning of the year who is now able to count to 100 plus, which is a huge growth for that particular student when we look at individual students. And then another one was, a student announced to their parents during the parent teacher conferences, that I'm a fiction reader, which the students even know what fiction and nonfiction was right at the beginning of the year and was even saying like, I'm not a reader, like I don't know how to read, I don't care about reading, but now I'm saying I'm a fiction reader, like they found their niche, they found what they love and are now seeing themselves as a reader. So this all just melts my heart and I just get so excited, these are just wonderful positive successes. So at the middle school level, which is at the Bethel campus, that's for grades six through eight, Sarah Fisher Snow is the special educator who coordinates and kind of runs that particular alternative classroom. Again, a brand new first year teacher, same as Kiley, but they both have wonderful background in alternative education. So for that particular classroom, very similar to middle school, I mean, to elementary school where there's this kind of high focus on academics, but also they really bring in the social, emotional piece and also restorative justice within their classroom. Students are able to engage in exploring some flexible pathways at the middle school level. So they're starting to kind of explore what their interests are and maybe what they would be interested in pursuing more once they get to high school. So they're kind of getting high school ready. There's much more ownership over what their program looks like and they do a lot of goal setting at the middle school level. They do have the opportunity to participate in essentials and outdoor education that's offered there and they do do some off-campus events as well. So the middle school data, as of May, there's nine students currently in the classroom full-time. There have been 12 students that have attended or been part of the classroom at some point throughout the school year. Three students have transitioned to all Gen Ed classes. There have been five student referrals this year for the middle school alternative classroom. I think just nationally, there's kind of been an increase with middle schoolers and kind of mental health and more kind of social-emotional demands. Whether that's part of what we've seen with the pandemic or just things happening in our world in general, but just at the middle school level overall in our country, there's been a huge increase with just kind of mental health. And so we're kind of seeing that as well in our middle school level. I think that's why the referrals are also a little bit higher. Not that all five of those referrals actually attended the alternative classroom because when I get a referral for an alternative classroom or even a referral for a special education evaluation, I do a lot of reviewing of data and do a lot of having conversations with classroom teachers and building administration or other service providers that have worked with a student. And some students, there are just things that maybe hadn't been tried. And so I offer supports and suggestions along the way. And so some students can be supported that way. There are just some things that people maybe not have to think of or wasn't sure it was a resource. So there's some of that as well that happens. And then three students have transitioned back, but the class size in the past has generally been about six. So as you can see, there is that global increase and we're seeing it as well in our middle schools. Sarah Fisher wanted to share this data there. If we had waited like one more week, they're doing their assessments this week. And so I won't have numbers up until May, but we'll have numbers till January. So for the start reading assessment that's kind of given as a universal assessment, the average scale score increase from September to January 103 points, which is amazing. Same from math, there wasn't an increase in the scale scores of 40 points. For the, there's a computerized program called IXL. And a lot of the students use that as kind of their independent work time. And as an average for the whole class, as a class, they have shown proficiency in 803 of the skill areas combined math and language arts, which is just amazing because again, I think the academic rigor of this year is very different than what the students have seen in the past. So again, in the beginning of the school year in September and October, there was a lot more pushback about kind of what their day looked like and why are we reading so much and why are we writing so much? There's a lot of writing that happens in middle school. And so it's great to see that they're now hitting all of these proficiencies that they didn't have before. You know, the students, again, like I was talking about the writing, students were claiming, I don't write. Like I'm not a writer, like you want me to write a paragraph. And there's a lot of pushback about that. Now, six students independently write multi-paragraph responses to questions independently, which before they wouldn't even give you a complete sentence. And students are well versed in the tenets of those restorative practices. So when they've done something that might have been inappropriate, whether it hurts someone's feelings or maybe they hurt classroom property or something, they know kind of what the consequences are before or after they do it. And so they are really well versed in having the conversations that need to happen to kind of repair relationships with people if something came between the relationship or even the feeling of everyone being safe back in that classroom community. They know how to have those tough conversations and kind of own up to what they did and what their part was and kind of how it made other people feel. As we know, sometimes when you get to that middle school, high school level, there's that more focus on me and that themselves. And so it's nice to kind of hear that they're taking ownership and acknowledging other people's feelings and thoughts. And they've completed two rounds of student-led conferences. So at the beginning, I talked about they all the students set goals for themselves. So at the first student-led conference, they shared their goals with their parents. And then at the second parent-teacher conference, they actually provided data to their parents to show how they were either getting close to their goal or how they needed to work a little bit harder to get to their goal or adjust their goal. So they're already doing student-led conferences as part of their classroom. And the last one is the White River Valley High School, which is new this year. It's a new program this year. And the high school had a special educator to kind of facilitate it, run it. And then they happened to leave us as part of moving out of state, retirement, different opportunity back in like the first part of November. So since the beginning of November, the alternative classroom at the high school has actually been led by Gen Ed teachers that were teaching some alternative classes within that classroom. It's taken the building principle and myself and some other staff to kind of keep it moving keep it all connected, but there's been this great sense of ownership by the general education teachers at the high school. So I very much appreciate them for that and their commitment to the students that are in that classroom. So it's a personalized learning classroom and they have courses that are geared for their abilities in literacy and also math. Next year we're opening it up to science as well. So it'll be like an alternative science class. Over the semester, kind of that literacy classes is kind of morphed into more of a humanities, alternative humanities class. So it incorporates some social studies with also some literature and some writing. So that's been wonderful to see kind of how that's evolved. There have been some flexible pathways experiences where they're kind of connecting their learning to real world experiences. They've gone on a few trips to learn about kind of how far your dollar goes and kind of what's out there beyond what's in our small little communities. They've gone into kind of West Lebanon and explored some shops and grocery stores and did some kind of meal planning and just kind of really learning about real life. And they've also had the opportunity to work with our mental health staff that's at the high school. And they've also had some opportunity to make their own selection for elective courses that are tailored towards their interests. There are many great electives at the high school from woodworking to ceramics to an art to like a digital art course to some culinary. So it's really great that they kind of get to dabble in these experiences as well as part of this. So the high school data is right now, there are seven full time students but there are 15 plus, it's probably ranges to almost 20 students at this time that kind of use it in a part time basis. And the seven students that are there full time are mostly freshmen. There are just kind of a couple of sophomore but we're finding it to be more of like a freshman transition which happened this year and that the 15 plus are more upperclassmen that are juniors and seniors that were actually kind of using it as more of an incentive and more of a wraparound for them to stay in school and finish. So we're really wrapping around them and their courses and getting them the help they need. And some of it is even just the motivation in their relationship with more adults in the building so that they'll continue to come to school and finish kind of what they've been working so hard for not to give up at the end and it's really working. There's been five total student referrals to the full time at the high school. All of the full time students are now taking two or more gen ed courses whether that be an elective or some are going to a science course. And that's why we thought we spoke with the science teacher and she is wonderful and has agreed to kind of open up and do kind of an alternative kind of general science to try to capture more students because she's really enjoyed having the students that she had and have in her room. So that's just wonderful. Three students were able to transition back this fall from those out of district placements and that we are hoping right now there are three more scheduled to come back next fall. And so next year it's slated that we'll have 11 full time students accessing the room. And so we're able to capture more students and provide them what they need at kind of their upper level. Are there any questions? I was a lot of information and thank you. I'm so excited to share it. There's just been so much hard work from the students, but also the school community is just really exciting to share. I think it's amazing. Thank you. Thank you for sharing it. It's like really makes my heart feel good. Well, that's, I was gonna say it's so good for me. It's so wonderful to put a somewhat of a face on special ed because basically it's just a sped. That's it. It's like a live. Basically all I know is sped and there's these numbers and these things and I get some sense of it. But this is just really, really wonderful to really have a face to what the program is. And the only question I had was just what you answered at the very end was whether we were getting some of the kids back from these. As Jamie sort of put them out, expensive out of farther away programs because that was really the goal was to take care of our own. But I just really, really well done and thank you so much for tonight. I thought it was very, very useful. Yeah. So Ethan, just something to know which I, maybe I should have noted. All of the students that are accessing the alternative classrooms at all levels, all of them are not being serviced via an IEP. So some students are special education. Some have medical 504 plans and some actually do not. They have like, they have EST plans. So it's not just- Get that all confused. No, no, it's okay. And it's just something good to know that it's not just a special ed classroom or a special ed initiative that really it's an intensive classroom or an intensive service that is there for all of our students, right? Because that's what we want our mindset to be is that MTSS, the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support is there for all students at any point in their learning that they need that kind of support or that kind of help. And so that's what it's there for. It just happens to fall under our purview run by a special educator but it really is there for all students just like all the other interventions are. So that's also exciting that we don't have to wait that long, right? We don't have to wait for them to possibly qualify for special education that we can catch them early give them the skills that they need and get them back going in their general education classroom. I mean, that just helps with their self-esteem but also their academic progress and just being able to be part of the community. So, yeah. Good, thank you so much. I just had a quick question regarding the next phase. I know that some of the students on IEPs are eligible to stay in school after their 18th, 19th birthday. Have we started putting a contingency plan in place for that event? Yeah, so currently none of the students that are in our alternative classrooms are either at that particular stage in their life or if they're some of the students that are older that are finishing, they don't qualify for the staying and longer they'll have enough credits and showing their proficiencies and they'll be able to graduate. So we are doing some work in the summer. We're getting together kind of as an alternative classroom cohort with the building principles. And I mean, yes, there are things that we need to build upon unlike, kind of like, how does a student transition out? Like, is there a certain criteria? What would that look like? So there are things that we still need to build upon that we're gonna talk about over the summer and same even at the high school level. This was our first year and we lost a special educator along the way and had to shift left and right and all around. So kind of what is that gonna continue to look like? Cause it didn't quite go the course we originally had planned but it was still really successful just because of the commitment of all of the adults that were at the high school. So we still have a lot of work to do and we have those dates scheduled to work on that. Thank you so much. Yeah, you're welcome. Megan? Hi, I wanted to say thanks to that was great. I was just looking at a lot of the stuff and it looks like really great practice. And so my two, I have two sort of related questions that maybe are rhetorical or answer later, which would be fine, but one is when the kids are transitioning out of this intensive, how are they doing? Like, is it like things fall away and they have to go back right away? And then the second, or are they like, you know, fledging? And then the second is, it just sounds like great practice. And I'm wondering if we have structures in place to like capture what you're learning and sort of bring that to our individual schools, right? Like some of those small class sizes or, you know, individualized, however you're doing this as working in all those bullet pointed lists, are there structures to make it so that we end up using those things? Yeah, so your first couple of questions. So the transitions are very thoughtful and individualized and they don't just happen. The students, for some students, it is, you know, a three, four, five month process is what their transition looks like. You know, for other students, it might be a month or two. We've had no students who have left need to go back. So that means, you know, we've been very mindful in our transition and also providing them kind of what they need for structure and also differentiation when they leave the classroom. So that just shows that we're doing good education with our gen ed teachers and our gen ed staff when they do leave the classroom. So they're very mindful and there's no time limit. You know, that's the thing too, there's no pressure that the student has to be out in a month. And so it can be, you know, it can take a long time but I'd rather it take a long time and be successful than rush it and then they have to go back. Because again, that can just really crush a student's self-esteem going back and forth. And then your second question about what we've learned in implementing universally. I think bringing in kind of the Clara Martin staff, so the clinicians and, you know, the behavioral analyst, Christian Macquarie. I think a lot of that has helped make the connection between what we can offer in a smaller group and then what's kind of being offered universally to all students. We just do it in a smaller setting. But I think definitely some of those social emotional skills and learning are happening now more universally, which I think then everyone's just gonna be more successful and there's that connection between, I can know the middle school, they are doing restorative practices in a few different middle schools and then some of our entire districts, you know, are doing those practices.  So kind of teaching the students in the smaller group how that works and what it looks like and what it feels like and give that time to feel a little success and then kind of branching them out into the larger community who uses the same system, I think is really helpful. So I think really kind of the success is really connecting the classrooms with their greater community and not keeping them separate as separate entities, doing very different things. Everyone is all very connected and doing kind of the same work, which is just really helpful. What's PBIS? Positive behavior interventions and supports. Yes, I could use that once in a while, myself, thank you. Thank you, yeah, amazing presentation. Thank you. It's really nice to see you. Yeah, thoroughly appreciate it and right. Okay, thank you. As I bring up my own report here and look back to my notes, I will of course entertain any questions and the one thing I wanted to add was that we got a minor revision upward in ADM in February, just found this else, only half a percent, but the reason I mentioned is that the other number went up and so I have a lot more confidence these days in the number being robust and lasting over time, as opposed to when I arrived, having to re-report 112 kids this year and the prior year, meaning for 18 months. And then the rest of my report is pretty nuts and bolts not aligning to the goals this time. We've done some work in PD and we faced some component shortages on certain items but we're planning to utilize SIRMONEY to help support instruction in classrooms. Any questions of the break? Thank you, Ray. Maybe I'll just say something. Again, I love making comparisons and I don't wanna sound negative towards another community and I won't mention the community's name, but somebody, and this is all conjecture, but say for years, the clocks in the school, the high school never run out of time, in other words, every clock was different.  And then I'm looking at Ray's report and robotics and this assistive technology and the vector solutions. I'm not gonna ask anybody here to define any of those terms, but look what we're doing and I assume our clocks are basically reporting on time. So that's another indicator in my mind how well we're doing and moving in the direction. Thank you, Bill. The work is its own reward. It's a pleasure to support the education happening around. Right, we're really asked to be a policy committee. We had a meeting at five o'clock, right before the six o'clock meeting. There are two policies that we're working on. We're working on the P35 social media and C35, the verification of student residency for tuition payment and corresponding affidavit. They are in your board packets. They're in your board packets. If anybody has any questions, we have a revision that we're gonna make in the social media one. When that comes back, the committee will move them forward for our first reading. No, just they're there. They're hyperlinks too on the agenda. They should be in your packet, but they're also hyperlinks in the agenda. And I can email them out too. The committee, like I said, they have the residency verification when I think the committee's gonna be prepared to take action and move it forward for your official first reading in June. And hopefully possibly the social media as well. So the goal would be to try to get these adopted by September at the latest. Ideally August would have been great, but we recess in July. So I'd like to have two readings happen. Any questions about the policy before? Okay. Both have been vetted by legal counsel too, just so the board is aware. Legal counsels read through and given their thumbs up on both of these. Jenna? There was some interest from our board to get a flag policy. And we were hoping that might be available by September. Do we think that might still happen? So at our committee, we discussed if the committee was gonna take that up and we're gonna, Jamie's gonna, we looked at a sample policy and he's gonna bring some stuff forward to us at the next policy committee meeting, which will be in June. So yes. I have a very interesting constituent who lives in my house. So he keeps asking. Okay. Next. Next on our agenda is the superintendent's evaluation committee. We met last, so we've been working with the VSPA. We did the survey. We had a really positive turnout from the board this time, which we did last year too, but very positive on getting the survey still about in back. We have another meeting for that committee. So we've still got ongoing work but the superintendent evaluation portion is now finished for us. We're gonna bring that forward to you tonight for hopefully for approval. And then. That's it. That's the discussion item. That's the discussion item. So a hundred discussion items. Superintendent's professional goals, 22, 23. Did everybody receive my email? I sent the final product out that we received from the VSPA. We went through a process where, for the goals that, at least the board got together, the committee got together and came up with some goals. Jamie came up with a set of goals of his own. And then we got together and finalized the set of goals that you see in that document. The one thing we found, which was really, really rewarding and good is that our goals pretty much aligned. We worked on them separately and brought them together and they were basically the same goals. We just fine-tuned them to one document. Are there any questions on the process? Did everybody read, have an opportunity to read the document? Thank you. Kathy, I read the document, but I didn't feel like I had enough time to really give it attention today. And I'm curious about the process of approval. Can you give me some information about the purpose of the document? The evaluation stuff I was fully on board on it was the goals that I got stuck on because I looked at those and I felt like I didn't really quite understand what those were for. So we can go through the goals if you wanna talk about them before we approve them. The idea would be to bring them forward and have you guys hook them over and approve them at the board level tonight. Just so they're, we're Jamie.  I also felt, and maybe I'm off on this. I felt like I wanted to like let our local board see those. But again, I'm sometimes confused about the order of operations and the hierarchies and things. I know that. I think if the group feels like we need to wait and take them to the individual boards, we can do that. But members of the individual boards served on that committee. That's what I was gonna say is that that every board had a representative on that committee. Well, I'll just add, I really, I think having a reading in each district that is something the board wanted to pursue, they could. I think it's good to remind all of ourselves that I actually report to this board directly. So this is the board that evaluates me is the full board. And so the goals are in alignment in attunement, I would say, with the feedback that I received through the evaluation process that everyone completed. And that's a reminder that that's not just board members that complete that survey. It's also my administrative team. And also in alignment with what the committee felt like. I don't wanna speak on behalf of the committee, but certainly a shared vision around the work ahead in regards to the priorities of me serving as your CEO. And what I would say is I feel better about this year that we have some more measurable indicators underneath each goal as compared to prior where I felt like it was a little less quantitative and a little more qualitative data to measure it. John? Yeah, I don't know about now, but I know in the past that if there's been just a single board wanting to go back to there and the individual boards, we've allowed it. I don't know if that's changed or not, but... Thanks, John. Can I say one more thing as that said individual board? Remember, cause I might be able to let it go, but the other question I have is what the relationship between the goals in this evaluation are and the like figure picture, strategic planning, mission vision and things like that. I think that's kind of where I'm stuck. Like I looked at those and they seemed really similar to some of the strategic planning goals, but I don't know how that process has gone or where we are, like how frequently we revisit that. I've been on the board for a couple of years, but I haven't really seen it. Is this that? Is this that happening or is this just look a little bit like it? Well, one of the things we talked about is we're gonna start the work on a new strategic plan. And it's in that document. So I'll let some of the other committee talk and maybe they can explain it better Meg before we... So Andrew. Yeah, I would kind of think of these as the way that we evaluate Jamie next year. So these are the things that we're telling Jamie that are his goals for next year that we're gonna use to, when we do his evaluation next year, we're gonna look at these goals and see how he did on these things. And you can see some of the goals is setting up strategic vision for going forward. So this isn't in place of goals for the supervisor as a whole, though they do clearly Jamie's in charge of the Supervisor Union. So when we set his goals, we're kind of saying what direction the Supervisor Union should go in. But they're kind of a continuation of what they were last year. And then also kind of setting the stage for how providing goals for making goals for where we're going. So I don't know if that helps a little bit, but that's kind of my view on what this is. It's kind of how we evaluate him next year in lieu of the goals that we're giving him this year. Shannon, you're on the committee also. Did you have anything to add? No, I agree with Andrew. This is just setting up what we'd like to see for the coming year. Sarah. I think Andrew said it well. Thank you. All right, and Stacy, you're also on the committee. Thank you, Andrew. And Dawn, you're also on the committee. Do you agree that that's... I do agree that that's the intent of the goals. That's the evaluation crux for the coming year. Thank you. All right, Meg, does that help? That's really helpful information. And I actually feel like unfortunately, I don't feel prepared to vote on it tonight. I feel like there were some parts of the goals that didn't feel like necessarily the direction that I would want to vote for. I will say that I wholeheartedly would approve of Jamie's performance. So I don't want to get mixed up in that. It's just that as we think about directions of where we want our superintendent to take the SU, I wasn't totally on board with that. And I'd like a little bit more time to digest it. The idea of the process that we go with the BSBA, that's what this document is, is to evaluate the superintendent and set his goals for next year for the evaluation. So they're not a separate thing. That's fine, we can move ahead. I might just abstain from voting, but that's totally fine. It's fine with me. Did anybody else have questions or thoughts or about the document that I sent to you? All right, so under action items, we have superintendent professional goals. I make the motion that we adopt the superintendent's professional goals for the school year, the 22, 23 year as presented to us by Kathy in the BSB, whatever it is. Vermont School Board, this is the application. I second that. Discussion? This process is really important and I wasn't part of it last year, but these are meaningful goals. This goes to the core of what we're all about as an SU, why we're on boards, why we're interested in education, why we're interested in kids and community, and they're ambitious. And if we can achieve through our superintendent, and I happen to think that it's our role too to support this, and we'll talk about that some other time, we'll have achieved extremely meaningful improvements and advancement in the education and the wellbeing of our system and our students and our educational community. And the committee spent a lot of time on this. And it was a collaborative effort and I'm proud to say that what we've got here is worthwhile to support. And as Don says, this is meaningful measurements for our administrative team, led by Jamie, as well as the SU that we can be tuning in on next year and measuring as we go. So I fully support of this motion. Thank you Bill, sorry I didn't ask you this. No, that's fine, I'm not shy. All right. I'll offer a little context in the, one that I, the first goal was the one that was hard. I think that's what I want to centralize, but for respect and appreciation to your superintendent as well as the committee. Do you want some clarification on goal number one? Is that, Meg? No, it's clear what it said. I just, it wasn't like it was, that was the part that I didn't choose that first. So that's why I wanted to offer that for future, you know, future committee times next year, coming round or whatever. Thank you. Any other discussion? Are you hearing no, all the question? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Maybe we should do a vote. That was harder when everybody's on the screen. So I'll start with you, Meg. I've seen. Don. Hi. Sarah. Hi. Stacy. Cannon. Aye. Andrew. Aye. Maggie. I don't think I can vote. He's not voting yet. Oh, okay. Sylvie. Sue. Aye. Is that all the board members? Bill. Aye. Kathy's and aye. All right, so the ayes have it. Thank you everybody. And I'm really appreciated that the committee did put a lot of work into the process and the document. And we appreciate the help of the VSBA. They'll have new resignations. So no resignations, no new hires, any other business? Can I ask a question? So we're no longer practicing. If a member has a question, we're gonna just continue on with our business. We answered the question and I don't remember the practice you're talking about. Okay. The other thing that I wanted to put on that we put on our radar is we've talked about board mentors for new board members. We created people to come back with thoughts and ideas as to how we could set that up and make it work. On a new committee now for something totally different from the board. And we have a mentoring program from people that have been on there for a while. And I found it really useful to be able to tap into that information that those prior board members have. So an idea that I have. So I'll try to get it on the agenda for next time. And maybe we can talk more about it if you guys can think about it. Our next meeting date is Monday, June 27th at six o'clock. Yeah. Something for possible consideration for on our agenda in the future is looking at Jamie's goals as more than Jamie's goals as possibly a foundation or a blueprint for our SU board goals. If we're not together, if we're not in the same team in the same room pushing the same direction with the same energy, the chances of achieving these goals are going to be less. So it seems to me it's worthwhile and I appreciate the question about have we looked at these goals in there? Are they really something we're comfortable with? I think that's a discussion they have. And I support that and I think it's worthwhile to have it as a future agenda item with your support. Thank you. All right. Thank you, everyone. Kathy, the next meeting will be the reorganization meeting. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah. But the budgets and votes are done now. So. All right. Motion to adjourn, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone. Have a good one. No.


So in the previous video, we just looked at these associative and commutative properties, but let's just let's just Define them properly and if we define them properly we can use them in future proof. So the first Type of binary operation. We're just going to talk about. Let's get a new and you pin The first one we're going to talk about is just this commutative property. So let's have a look commutative There we go. This commutative type of binary operation and what we're going to define that is on some set Let's define this first. Let's have our binary operator our binary operator and Let's make that just this generic symbol just our little circle. So we have our binary operator We have the set on which we going to This or it's going to apply to elements this operation on elements of the set and let's have this set X And let's have two elements of that set. We're going to have some elements of that set Elements and let's make it X1 and X2 and they are all both elements of the set And we say that this operation this binary operation on the elements of this set is commutative We as human beings define it that is our choice This is how we define it if the following property holds if I have X1 the binary operation on X2 That equals X2 binary operation X1 if I did this operation and I did that I would get exactly the same solution That is our choice. That is how we define it once we've defined it We can now use it when we go To look for proofs the same we're going to go if we look at the associative property Let's put it up here the associative associative property So this associative type of binary operator So our binary operator still is this going to be this is our binary operator Set is still going to be a set of elements And we call that set X and now the elements that we're going to have is we're going to have one Two and three elements They are all elements of our set X They are all elements and we say now that this binary operation on these elements of the set is Associative if the following holds again as human beings we decide this is our definition once we've defined it We can use it for instance in a proof and it is going to hold if the following is such that if I take these two elements Of X any arbitrary elements of X and I do the binary operation there I do that first and this result is then X3 I get exactly this That those would be exactly the same So we have to find this under these Circumstances we have to find this as an associative type of binary operator and in a commutative type of binary operator On elements of a certainty that is how we define those