I'm going to call this meeting to order is 6.18. Thank you for being here with us. I first want to acknowledge that today is the first day of a Passover. And in Judaism, this is the holiday that can commemorate a Hebrew liberation from slavery from Egypt. And I know that this day was not convenient to everybody. We apologize. We're going to try to do better. It fell right in our calendar. And as we explained last fall, we're going to try to do better in our calendar as we move forward. So sorry about that. But thank you for all for being here tonight. I'm excited about the conversations that we're hoping to have ahead as we continue to develop a unified vision and make sense of the future together. And this continues to do that groundwork for that continuing trust and collaboration for years to come. And we can all develop a share understanding of what we want for all our students at Washington Central with that. I'm going to pass it on to Megan. Great. Thank you. So welcome, everyone. I'm also excited to kick off and start sharing some more detail about this process. And I'm, in a second, going to introduce Jeannie Phillips, our coach through the process. But I wanted to start by sharing a little bit about how we landed with working with great schools partnership. So in the kind of November, December time frame, we pulled together a group of people to say, what is it we're looking for in an organization that will help us through this process? Because as Flor said, this is about understanding what it is our communities want for our kids. And then how do we get there? And we had really specific thoughts about what we were looking for, put out a request for proposals, got several back. And great schools, even through that process, was excellent at kind of shifting. And hey, can you think about this? And so we're really excited to be working with them. Jeannie's going to share a little bit more about them as an organization. We're going to share some things. We have some members of our steering committee here, although not all. So we'll share that with you. And then there will be time at the end to answer questions. Jeannie. Hi, everyone. Thank you. Thank you for having me. My name is Jeannie Phillips. I've lived in Vermont. Am I speaking loud enough for you? Great. I've lived in Vermont for 23 years now. I moved first to Southern Vermont, London Dairy, Vermont, when my son was a newborn and became a school librarian at Chester Andover Elementary School and then moved up to Green Mountain Middle and High School, grade 7 to 12, also in Chester, Vermont. Before leaving that role to work at the University of Vermont for five years at the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education, working largely with middle schools to better meet the needs of middle-level learners. And then more recently, I've joined a grade schools partnership as a senior associate. And I want to talk a little bit about what they do. They're based out of Portland, Maine. I still live in Vermont. I still get to live here in this beautiful state. So grade schools is a nonprofit organization that supports schools and works to redesign public education in order to improve learning for all students. And we have some core tenants that are aligned with the work that you're doing. We work towards anti-racist, inclusive, and equitable practices, policies, and cultures. We are focused, often, on proficiency-based teaching and learning. We advocate for multiple and flexible pathways that promote deep learning, as well as student voice and choice in their education. We believe in shared data-informed decision making amongst educators, students, families, and community members. And building trusting relationships between students, families, and educators. And finally, we are advocates for professional learning groups for educators. A central part of the work we do is our definition. Oops, sorry, I'm jumping ahead. Our vision is about thriving schools and communities where every student is getting what they need in order to move towards a more equitable society. And our mission is to support, challenge, and collaborate with educators and communities to achieve educational excellence and equity. Equity is a word we hear a lot. And one of the reasons, oops, I'm stuck, sir. I'm sorry. That's OK. Oh, there we go. One of the reasons I decided to work for grade schools is because of their definition of equity. It's the toothiest, most meaningful definition of equity I've seen in an organization like this. So at grade schools, we believe that educational equity means ensuring just outcomes for each student, raising historically marginalized voices, and challenging imbalances of power and privilege. Are there any questions about grade schools before I move on? So Megan alluded to your work here. And this language comes straight from the request for proposals, which is the purpose of this work is to engage in a multi-year visioning and strategic planning process with an emphasis on equity engagement in order to unify the school district around a common understanding of what our community believes all students should experience as they go through the educational system here. These are your words. And so we began this work in March. And our first step was to select steering committee members. And some of them are here. So I wondered if the steering committee members that are here want to briefly introduce themselves. Do you want to get us started for it? Sure. I'll get us to M. Flore Diaz-Muth that had part of the committee and chair of the board. And I'll pass it on to Harry. I'm Kari Bradley from Calis, I'm a board member. Eric Anderson, from East Malpere, I'm a board member. I'm Julie Moore. I'm a community member from Middlesex. I'm a majoring in Edith, a community member from Middlesex also. Cat Fair, a community member from Calis and Calis School Principal. I'm Jan Miller, so I'm the curriculum director. And I'm also a Middlesex resident. I'm Chani Waterhouse. I'm a community member from Worcester. I'm Stephen Dellinger, I'm the principal here at U32. Thank you all for that. You can see there are other community members representing. We have a student and possibly a second student joining our committee. We have community partners, educators, teachers from different buildings. There may be, I'm sorry to interrupt, but there may be on Zoom some additional members. I don't know if you wanted to, because I did see Arlyn. Oh, thanks. Thank you. Diane, I appreciate you chewing up to do that. Hi, I'm Arlyn Brooksley. I'm a community member from Calis and I'm also a librarian and technology teacher at East Montpeilier Elementary School. Is Arlyn the only one? Great, thank you for that. Our steering committee met for the first time last week and had our introductory meeting, and we're just getting started. And one of the things we talked about was the role of the steering committee. And their primary role is listening. At great schools, we believe in equitable community engagement and really reaching out, not just to the people who just show up anyway. You know those, there are those people, some of you are in the room right now, and your voices are super important, but also making sure to hear from voices that maybe meetings like this are less convenient for. Voices that we want to go out and hear them where they are. We want to give them an extra special invite because maybe they don't always feel included. And so it's important that we listen to those voices. And honestly, that listening, that process is also a product. It's a product of building trust and relationships with your community. And so that's an important part of the steering committee's job. Once they do this listening, they're gonna have a lot of data. Another thing they're gonna do is synthesize that data and information and make some drafts.  How are we doing? Did we hear you well? Have we heard everything? What might we have missed? And revising after they solicit that feedback? And then continuing to be in connection, communicating with the community back and forth. And that communication is a two-way street. This is what we've heard so far, what else? This is what we've heard. We've revised it again, what else? And so that's their role through this process. It's gonna be a lot of work and I'm really grateful for all the ways they showed up already and will continue to do so. I'll always leave it a little space for you, but you seem to have covered it. This is our timeline. And so we started in March with just seeing who was interested in being on the steering committee and thinking about representation on the steering committee. And then we're gonna, I'm gonna walk you through each of the phases. We'll end in January of 2024. And so phase one, we're just laying the groundwork. And the next job of the steering committee is to design for community engagement. So we're gonna start designing community conversations where we take what we already know, your vision, the visioning work you've already done and we take that out to the community and say, how does this land? What else is important? What else do you need us to know that it's important for the young people in your community for this school, for all the schools in this district and the things we want so that our young people can realize their hopes and dreams? And so once they've designed, we'll start facilitating those community conversations and collecting that feedback, listening, note-taking, gathering that data and drafting a vision and core beliefs. It might be revising the vision you already have and getting to what's important in this community and then making sure we heard them well by soliciting for feedback. So that's where we are right now. There's gonna be other data besides, you're gonna hear me say data and data because every time I say it, it sounds wrong to me. So just apologies for me switching it up. I never know which way I say it. And so the other data we're gonna use is your students right now are taking the youth risk behavior survey. That data is gonna be really important. The local common assessment data, how your students are doing on a variety of assessments is gonna be data we look at. And then in the coming weeks, myself and my colleague, Kate Cardoke, are gonna be doing equity pulse checks in each of your buildings. And just a little explainer about what an equity pulse check is and what that process looks like. That definition of educational equity that I shared earlier, grade schools has developed a bunch of indicators for what does that look like in schools when we're doing that well. And we have a tool that I'm gonna bring to each of your schools and sit down with the staff, the educators in your building, and they're gonna do a little personal reflection, then they're gonna get in small groups and build some consensus, and we're just gonna get a sense of where are the strengths for each school? And where are there opportunities for growth and set some priorities? Doing that will help us gather some data. We'll have a sense of strengths and opportunities for growth challenges at each of the buildings. It also is an opportunity for the administrators in that building to think about professional learning for next year, continuous improvement plans, and to use that data in that way too. So that'll, it's a seed that feeds many birds. It's funny, the piece that I was gonna add is what you said at the end. I think one of the things that people have asked quite a bit along the way is how do you combine data and information about who we are with community perspective? And so I think this is a really important piece, and then I would just echo that we will receive this in real time. We meaning schools and administration and be able to do something with it and react to it, which is a really nice thing. And this is a good conversation on the heels of our end quality meeting where we're also talking about how does the board look at data about our schools? So it's just nice to have these processes mesh. In phase two, we'll be sort of getting to this more final version of what the vision and core beliefs are. And so things will start to gel a little bit at that top most level. And then we'll start getting into smaller focus groups to draft some goals based on those beliefs and that vision. So what are our goals gonna be? Now that we have all this data, what are we working towards? And again, we'll be soliciting feedback on those goals. So again, there will be this transparent process of we think these are our goals, what do you think? Okay, now we think these are our goals, what do you think? By the end of summer, moving into the fall, we'll be moving towards action. And so as those goals start to gel up and get kind of more solid, we'll be starting to think about what are the action steps that go with those goals? How do we get really concrete about what these goals mean we're gonna do in our buildings? And so we're gonna be facilitating work groups. Again, these will be smaller groups, not huge community forums, but smaller groups, but they're gonna differ than focus groups in that they're gonna be a little targeted. So for example, a goal that has emerged in another district that I'm working with is student well-being and wellness. And if that is a goal that emerges here, we might think strategically as a committee about who's got really good information and knowledge and expertise about young people and wellness. And so we might target your health educators, your PE educators, counselors, both school counselors and counselors out in the community, other people in the community who do work on young people's well-being, physical, mental well-being. And those folks will come and help us get really into those action steps. This is what this looks like. And again, we'll solicit feedback. It'll be an iterative process of saying, okay, what did we miss? Okay, give us some feedback on this every step of the way. The one thing I would add in both phase two and three, you know, we've heard the question quite a bit around how does this process dovetail and inform conversations that we have to have as a system about how do we make all of these goals and visions happen for kids and what does that mean about our structure? And it's in these two phases that we start to understand where it is that we're headed, which is the time that we then will also have those conversations. And I think that's important for two reasons. One, and this part you've probably heard me say before, we need to know where we're headed in order to know how to structure ourselves. That's really important. But the other reason, and this came up at our steering committee meeting, and I think it's really important, is that in this process, we hope we're also building trust in how we approach this work with our communities. And as we build that trust, we will hopefully have, that trust will extend to how we're gonna have to make some difficult decisions. And we're also gonna learn about how we need to engage in our community. What worked, what didn't work? What were ways that solicited a lot of those voices we don't hear, what didn't work? And then how can we use those methods to communicate and engage about other things moving forward? So lots of folks have asked kind of where that work sits, and it is both parallel and integrated. And this starts to inform it in a more concrete way. If phase four is really where we start to finalize those action steps and thus the whole plan, engaging in feedback too. So that by January 2024, you have a really solid strategic plan that has sort of a trail of transparency with the data from community conversations, from focus groups, from work groups all along the way, and those feedback sessions where we're soliciting feedback. And that plan informs your work going forward. So we know that there's a lot of questions, and there may be questions on the screen. Before we jump to that, is there anything that anyone from the steering committee wants to add or something we missed? Or we didn't tell you we were gonna ask you that, so it's okay if you don't have anything, but. I did recall a conversation that we had in the steering committee, the first meeting about vision. We already have a vision in place, and what does that mean? As we engage in this process to just throw it away, and then we read, what does it mean? I think that would be a good question. Yeah, thank you for that. And we talked a lot about how it's frustrating to go through a process that feels like you're just doing it for the sake of doing it, like if we already have a mission, isn't that? And so I'm appreciative of this process that's designed to A, test that. Is that still what we want and believe for our kids? And maybe we're hearing from more people to inform that. But we are building off of it because we are doing good work in the system, and both things are true. I would just add that I think that the design committee that starts designing those first community conversations is gonna grapple with how do we use this vision and other work that we've done to engage folks in the conversation about, okay, here's where we've been going, is this still where we're going, and what else can we add? And so that'll be the work of the section of the steering committee that wants to really design the agenda and those early convenings. Sorry, sorry to interrupt, but I just got an email from someone who says that they're having a hard time accessing Zoom, they're trying to link from the agenda and are waiting for the host to start the meeting message. Oh, no, because we have a lot of people out here. There's a lot of people on. There's a lot of people on. And I know I lost on front of the agenda. Do you see the link on the calendar that we're using? I don't know if there's one. Maybe it's that we have our wrong link on the agenda. Arlene? Yeah, I was gonna say I was using the one from the agenda and I could just check. It's hard to tell because it's a tiny URL, but I did just check by copying it again and it is an incorrect meeting. I got it because Alicia sent me the correct one, so. Okay, sorry about that. So, Mark, what's the meeting ID number? Coming right up. And you can send them from your calendar, Jonas. That's what I'm gonna do. Just wanna confirm that. 880-6786-4540 in the passcode 699253. That's it. In the passcode 699253. It's just possible to go back to the steps or the phases. Yeah. Are they gonna play at the same time? Yeah, Diane, before we move into questions, I was wondering because we have several of the, like, Ginny was saying, if you guys wanted to share your word at the end, how would you, I thought that was a great exercise of how are you feeling about this of the people that are in the steering committee? If you don't mind sharing, if you remember, but. Of course. That was last week. That was last week. Just to be clear, I think what Claire's saying is, at the end of a two-hour meeting, we said in three words or less, how are you feeling now about the work ahead? I have more than one word. I always do it hopeful and excited. Okay, there you go. Yeah, and I think it's helpful for people to, you know, to know that I'm at it and that you don't have to, but if you feel like, I don't know, I'm sorry. My word was ready. Ready, yeah. Complexity. I can't remember, but I'm sure it was something like excited and hopeful also. Just hearing this again is, I mean, really. Sean, my word was open-hearted. Yeah. Steve, two words. Two words. Dude, you can. I have slapses then. I don't know. I don't know. Come on. Adrienne, do you remember? I'm sure you shared your complex. Oh, complex. Do you see that, Adrienne? Oh, well, tonight, the first two words came to my head and I was hopeful and excited as well. I do remember a couple of people that I think, mine, I was one of them, overwhelmed. So I think it's fair to say it's a big process. It's in it, I'm equally excited. And like, you know, it's hard work making sure we do this well. And that's part of, again, why I appreciate that it'll be iterative. We won't get it right the first time. We won't get the engagement right the first time, but we will learn a lot. I would add that there's some, you have, hiring great schools means that, yes, I'm the coach. That's what I mean is being recorded. I'm the coach on this. So I'm going to be present a lot, a lot of. Thank you for buting me. But we also have other folks we can leverage at great schools, partnership, including our director of research, Bryn Whitmer, who's going to be doing a lot of synthesizing of data. And we've already leveraged my colleague, Gwen Beric, who's done some of the graphic design of the phases. And we'll be a part of the process going forward too. As well as other folks, Kate Gardo, he is joining us for some work. She's super excited to be back in this district. She's done a little work with Steven in the past and doing some of those equity pulse checks. Okay, so we can release the questions. You have Arlen too. Yeah, oh, Arlen, do you want to share your work? So I don't really remember my work. I remember feeling excited and optimistic and also overwhelmed. But I did also want to say that one thing that I really appreciated about our first meeting was an acknowledgement of the work that we're taking on and the various ways that the members of the committee will be asked to engage with members of our community, like we're looking at and recognizing that we all have different strengths and that we have a large group of people that we really need to involve in this because everyone in that room, and I'm sure everyone in this room, either physical or virtually from Canvas, are here because we absolutely want the best educational system and opportunities for our kids and there was a real focus on our students and what needs to happen to also balance the needs of a changing community. And I just felt that was really clear and I'm grateful to the facilitator. I felt like we really have the right person in the room and I just wanted to say that. But thank you for proving me enough and Paul, it's apes, I'm here for you. Thank you, Arlene. Is that kind of a question? Yes. So how do you know that you're getting enough community input through this process so that you can then represent that this is what the community wants towards students? Yeah, I agree. What's the criteria for that? I really appreciate that question. I think the steering committee itself will grapple with what those criteria are. I think we've already started to think about who's on the steering committee and where are they from? And then one of the roles, Arlene just spoke of roles. Not everybody's a facilitator. Not everybody's a writer. So there are a couple roles we sort of delineated as facilitator, designer, drafter, writer, but we also delineated our community liaisons. The people who are in touch, who are culture brokers really with their communities who can reach out and make sure that we're getting at those voices. I think the other way we're thinking about this, and this doesn't answer the question of criteria, but it answers the question of how we're gonna engage in the work is to not only do the work at schools, but to get out into communities and hold some of these meetings where people are and at times where it's convenient for them and not just convenient for us as a committee. And then the final thing is we've already, as a committee, been leaning on so really well researched and well developed work through great schools on equitable community engagement. And what do we mean when we say equitable community engagement which is different than sending an out an email and listening to whoever shows up, but being really strategic about that. And so for my colleague Jose is one of those people whose work, whose expertise is in equitable community engagement. And so I'll lean on him too to help us think about what are the criteria? How do we know we're hearing from a broad enough cross-section of your community? And then our definition of educational equity says raising historically marginalized voices. And I think that's another thing we'll be thinking about is who do we typically not hear from and how do we get to hear from them? Yeah, and I would add part of, to me it's a lot like universally designing something and that's all I think actually, for me the word is less criteria and more all of the different access and entry points to the process. And then we are gonna have to go back and look at that. What did we get from the survey version of feedback? What did we get from the focus group? How can we build up? One of the things the committee will do in this next phase is build off of the community mapping we did which picking that up again, that was good work. And we'll continue it. So it is a little bit like, here are the things research tells us about how we reached and then how did we do? That's that recursive part. Is there one or more methods that didn't work? Jeannie also hinted and I think actually, well actually I don't remember who suggested it. Someone added a role of the committee which is sort of a network or communicator type role to say what did we miss? So I think it's recursive. I think we'll have to double back probably. Yeah. Do I have to, oh, sorry. No, I just wanted them to talk a little bit about the flood exchange platform that came up too. Can I just add to that discussion, Chris? Cause that question did come up and we said we would return to it at our next meeting in terms of how are we gonna know if we're successful both in terms of the process, do we get enough engagement that it'll be widely supported by the community and the content of the plan itself as it kind of provided enough clarity to help us do what we need to do. And I would say we're gonna think about it but if anybody has input into that, we love your help because it's not clear, right? No, no, no. It's hard. Yeah, Flo reminded me, I'm not sure if people are familiar with the thought exchange platform that also came up as an idea. It's a survey and it's more, way more than a survey actually, but it's an online platform that's pretty accessible to use that creates affinity from comments so a really broad question can be asked and then the answers that come out of it, the program, merges them, takes themes and then it will like kind of put back out here the top five things that came out of that question and then those become additional questions and it's, so it's another, again, universal design that's still not gonna work for everyone. So there's that, there's in person, there's not in person but virtual, there's small group, like, you know, people that aren't gonna want to, all the things. Okay, thanks. And then I'm assuming that, you know, we're five very different communities so the community representation on the steering committee as well as then making sure that we're gathering information and trusting that's part of the process. I would say the steering committee's job is to say how, what are the groups that we have to go out and figure out and absolutely, who is a focus group in and of themselves? Who is a, things like that, so for sure. I'm curious about channels of communication and it feels like the innovation and sort of the guerrilla approach to community engagement is like the right tactic but is there also sort of like a consistent channel of communication that people will be able to check in on progress? I think for some they'll have availability before summer and for some availability during summer, how can we check in on the progress? Yeah, so we've had a couple of thoughts, I actually kind of imagine that it'll be a subgroup of our group who focuses on communication by itself but some of the things initially we've talked about, some are simple, we will have a section on our website that will be our strategic planning section that's just a clearing house, it's a place to put everything, so the notes from our steering committee meetings, the video from this session that probably a frequently asked questions document, probably an open all the time survey that is just, and maybe it's a thought exchange, it's a clearing house, we will use some of our typical methods that we're improving every day to be able to push that out more regularly. The board itself can expect that it'll be an agenda item at every single one of our meetings so that you will get probably updates from myself and the board reps, same with the district newsletter going out, so those are little pieces and communication is its own identified role that I would imagine a group of people will add to that for sure. Looks like it had a lot of damage. I do have another question. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was unrelated and I was gonna be patient for others to ask. But it was more related to the board's responsibility in this process and what it looks like to be an active participant in this process if you're not on the steering committee, but you are on board. I will start and then I don't know if our board reps, I envision that part of our, when we design, we have to think about the board as a group. That's actually, that's the entity that I had in my head when I said some groups are focus groups in and of themselves. The board is one of them. And what does that need to look like? And so, man, I don't know if others would add to that. I would agree with that. I would see the board as a target group and this information that I had written, something about that. So these conversations are gonna inform other areas of board work, right? So we're gonna be a target group because the information, we're gonna have to synthesize that information in some different ways too, right now. We're not gonna be the ones trying to do the strategic planning, but it might inform other areas that we do need to work on. Steven? Yeah? I would just add too, is we start designing things that are in the community. So the focus groups that we design or the community pieces that we would want board members to attend those as well. So that you're hearing what we're hearing on this committee. And I mean, I think that would be just one of the best things, just the visibility of it. Just a follow-up, I'm seeing. Our minutes can be taken at the community. So that's gonna be accessible information. Yeah, exactly. And to follow up on that is the information that the steering committee is considering like the youth risk behavior survey, local comment assessment and the equity pulse check-in. Is that information to be available to the community to respond to as well? What to incorporate in their thinking and prioritization of what they want The answer is yes. And then I will ask Gina to expand a little bit on the equity pulse check in terms of what of that and how exactly what that data looks like and where it goes. And I'm sure she's in there, it's one of the sources of data it sounds like, but it's part of the sources of data that you're interested in. Exactly. Okay. The equity pulse check data ends up looking like a spreadsheet with three colors really, like green, we're doing great, yellow, we're doing okay and red, not so great, right? And then so that data will be available and then the other piece is that it doesn't end there. The staff in your buildings are gonna look at that data and process that data and identify strengths and areas for growth and then prioritize those areas for growth. And it's important to me, it's important to my organization that we start with strengths because you do have strengths and because we know that people grow best when we identify and build on their strengths just like our students grow best when we identify and build on their strengths. And so what the data will look like for each school is here are strengths, here are areas for growth, here are the way we prioritize them and you'll have access to all that data when it's completed. Chris, that question also reminds me of another question that was brought up or discussion that the steering committee had and it's related to data, it's not directly related to that question, but it's about accountability in general. So once the strategic plan is there and there are action steps, those action steps will have measurements associated with them and the board moving forward would be receiving reports from me frankly and obviously through lots of different methods, you'll receive reports on the strategic planning goals. So that's more of a like after process but it's related to the data. And the reason I bring it up is because the person who asked the question, it was a good question. It was how do you make sure that this isn't just a shelf document that sits somewhere until the next five years when you have to do one? Like how do you actually know it's being implemented? And that's pretty important and connected to work that we're trying to do anyway which is be more fluid at using data. So your question made me think about that and that's part of it. It is later but it's baked into those action steps. What are the goals? What are the action steps and how will we measure them moving forward? I'm wondering if there's members of the community that are here to maybe have questions? Or Zoom. And we can see you. So if you want to raise your hand. Or administrators. I see a few of our principals here too. Just a process question. I know that initially you'd envisioned this as a multi-year process and now you're looking at wrapping up by January. Is there a vision to sort of additional phase after that or were there things that changed in terms of the challenges you were looking at and made you decide to speed things up? That's a great question and I would say a couple things. One, the reason for the accelerated timeline is to give us information as quickly as possible to be able to enter into budget conversations and where do we go in structural conversations? And so that's the abbreviated timeline. But I would also say at the same time that this ends like the development of the plan ends at the end of January. The measurement of it, the coming back to it, the how are we doing on it? That's the part that continues. So it's both accelerated and it's also launching us into a different phase. The other thing that I would say that is multi-year is if any system that's contemplating changes whether it's implementation of strategic planning goals or bigger changes, they take multiple years. We want the information so that we can start making decisions that get us there but these things take time. So I appreciate that question though because it's true. This is tight. We also know that and so some of what we might learn is there's more engagement that has to happen even after this is over because of the compressed timeline. Yeah, I'm glad that the process is gonna will inform and answer part of that question too. At least we'll know more. Hard to hear you floor. That the process will answer that question too, right? Like it will give us information and do we need to do more after? We don't know because we haven't started. How often is the group meeting? We'll decide on Friday we put out at the end and we gave our steering committee a week to give us some feedback on dates and times that work along. I suspect that we'll meet as a steering committee at least once a month, maybe more at the beginning and then there will be subgroups that do various work like designing convenings or synthesizing data and drafting and so then those subgroups will be in addition to that at least monthly meeting. And the subgroups are only members of the steering committee that are taking different tasks. Yes, and they'll attend different convenings and gatherings, focus groups, et cetera, in order to gather that data and start using it and so it'll be both one, probably one large group meeting a month and then additional meetings for different teams to work on different aspects. We're a large group at 16 so is that what you would have thought? Yes. Absolutely. We just came to see. Yeah, just asking so if there's any questions but I don't see any hands or... If there, so a couple things just to kind of wrap us up, this isn't the only opportunity to have questions, I'm sure that you will think of them later. When we put this out, we will be sort of capturing just this presentation part and putting it into a link so that it's viewable repeatedly. So with that, we'll have that on the website. We will again open up whether it's just a Google form for now or whether it's a different platform, just an ongoing place to collect questions. So if you think of something later, if the people listening think of something later there will be a place to be able to capture that. I just want to thank Jeannie and also let her get on her way because she has to drive to me tonight. Oh. So you're on my way though. So I just want to thank you for the opportunity to work with this really great steering committee and in your district. I'm really looking forward to it, so thank you. Thanks, Jeannie. Thank you, Jeannie. Thank you for being here. Have a great evening everyone. Thanks. So there's not all the questions the board has some business after this so there's no other questions. I just want to thank the members of the public from being here in person and the ones that are remote too. Thank you for joining us and we're looking forward to continue to engage with you. And I forget something. No you did not but I'm realizing that we do have one action item on personnel that we should take for when we go into the next action. Oh, okay. Yeah, we could do that after. Yeah. So thank you everybody. Thank you Julie for coming. Thank you. Oh thank you steering committee members for coming. So you have a great suggestion. Yes. Where will we send that? Will we send that to the general email list from the apology for the loss of George also like to see the reporting of the state because Joe just got an email, I got an email and I'm sure there are probably a lot of people. What do you have in my list there? So whatever I got, like I guess. I think what happened is the link, I don't think there's a list. The updated link will go out in the newsletter but the, and it can go out on Facebook and things like that. It's not available anymore. Because I think what happened is it's in the report today on the website so it's keeping that in mind. Yeah. Probably take action while we're still doing this. Yeah, so. Yes, okay. Yeah, I was scanning too. How was everybody, what's the makeups thing? Right. I'm with you. So then when you're ready. Yeah, you can keep, you can, okay. Okay, please sit. It wasn't okay. So let me take this. I'm just gonna take on your agenda, sorry. So. I'll do the option. Hold that. Okay, so we're gonna move into personnel and approve. So Lisa's not online? Nope, she's not. She's taking minutes afterwards. Yeah, yeah, she's just gonna, she just couldn't join us so that's why we're recording. I'll watch it after. Okay, everybody ready? Okay, so we had in page three there was a personnel action to extend a leave but you're gonna read the motion because it's a little different than what's in the packet. So I'm just gonna read it. If I could have someone make a motion to extend the request to include additional time from May 22nd to June 30th, 2023 with a return to work of August 2023. So moved. Thank you. Second. Okay, so Chris moves and Eric seconds. All those in favor, please signify. But is there any discussion? So not, but yeah. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. With that, I'm gonna be looking at a motion to go into the executive session. That was the only one that we had. I'll move we go into the executive session for negotiations. That is to include May and right. And Suzanne who's on the screen. As a public comment before that, we just wanted to make sure we shared. Oh, please. Thank you. Oh, sorry, sorry. So let's hold on to that. Yeah. So we just wanted to also share that tomorrow we'll be hosting Bernie standards here at the school for a student town hall. So we're pretty excited about that. The sad part is we can't accommodate every kid for it. So we're only gonna be able to accommodate about 200 of the kids in the auditorium for his town hall. He'll also be meeting with our teachers, some of our teachers that are available to talk about mental health and substance abuse and what we're doing in schools and the issues that we're facing. And so we just wanna make sure that the board was aware that he would be here tomorrow. And how is it, how are you figuring out which students? So we wanted to make sure that we had all grade levels and we just pretty much randomly picked for the classes that we're meeting there in that time period to make sure that we got that. And unfortunately it won't be everybody and that's the hard part. Maya. Do you have a space for one more? No. I was not in the classes. I don't mind if we squeeze in a board member. No. Oh, dear. See how it works. Yeah, so Maya can be our board member. She can be our representative. But I was just wanting to make sure. So I'm sorry to interrupt. Thank you for doing that. Is there a recording of that? There is not going to be a recording of the vet but there will be a press release after because he's visiting two schools today and he'll be visiting, I understand it's falling in us tomorrow. I'm actually glad you did that. I didn't know if it was public or not. So we would appreciate it. I appreciate it. It went out today. Good, awesome. I got it like a two as a parent. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of an isolated question. I was just curious to what degree you have all school gatherings here. Not often for all school gatherings because we have to use the gym for that, not the best space for everybody. And the auditorium will only accommodate three grade levels at a time if we max it out. And so it's a little difficult, but we do have some. We open it in the year definitely with whole school events. But we'll do grade level meetings and sometimes full middle school or nine and 10, those kinds of things. It's just difficult to do. Manny, did you have a question? Yeah, I guess I said to Maya, like your student groups are going, right? And she said no, but she wasn't aware of that. So I'm just surprised that there wasn't priority for like Glam and Glam and other groups that are. So we did priority for making sure that we had a mix of students as opposed to individual clubs that might be more specific. So we wanted a very big cross section of the students by doing the classrooms we were able to give because most of our classrooms are heterogeneous anyway. We were able to get a wider variety of kids. And that includes like intervention classes. Like when we put, like we wanted to make sure that as many different kids as possible were there. And I know that that won't include all the kids from a particular club or organization where we felt it was more important to have it a bigger cross section. Thank you. Thank you so much. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you, Steven. See if he wants to dye his hair too. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. Bye Maya. Bye Maya. See you later. Bye Maya. No, we can go. See you for hope, right? Yeah, yeah. Those in favor of joining the executive session for the purposes of negotiations piece, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries.


The President of the United States. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Governor Alexander, our Senators, our congressmen, members of the Cabinet, Joe Rogers, and a very special greeting not only to you all, but to this remarkable young man here who is on the platform. Mac, I hope you won't be wrong if I tell something about, Mac stands up here as a man and a Cabinet member now handling that great department of commerce, but one of my fondest memories after I was elected was when I called to ask him to take that position and his wife answered the phone and told me he couldn't come to the phone because he was out in a calf roping contest. And I said, he's in, he belongs. Well, Omar, we thank you just up here where no one could hear, but Nancy and I are honored that you would work so hard so that we could visit your hometown and this magnificent world's fair. You know, that book that we were handed contains the names of the 12,000 people who contributed each a penny. Now, it must have taken a long time to collect so many and I understand that Omar said a couple of times it kind of got up hill going because he also asked for those signatures at the same time. Well, it must have taken a long time and 12,000 people is a lot to have contributed to any effort. I'm glad that so many people wanted us here in Knoxville. I hope they weren't just trying to get us out of Washington. But I'm proud that America is still bringing up young children like Omar.  Omar, when I think of what you did and the extent of that job we might call on you pretty soon there's a fellow in Washington that we have to negotiate with with regard to the budget but isn't it wonderful to see young people still understand that growing up America by accomplices much and go as far as their talent and effort will take them. This beautiful pavilion is proof that other generations of Americans believed in dreams. It's wonderful to see that these young people believe they can see their dreams come true. Earlier today, awestruck by just the glimpses that I've been able to get of some of the technology here, I referred to Gulliver's Travels. That's a book that Omar may be familiar with. There's a character in that book who's trying to find a way to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. And I remarked that not long ago the technology exhibited here seemed every bit as fanciful as cucumber power. Now I'm not suggesting that America devote much time or money to researching cucumbers, but we are a people known for dreaming with our eyes open. We live our dreams. We make them come true. Our ideas and energies combine in a dynamic force, the kind of force that made the developments and breakthroughs and discoveries in this building possible. And that force has always enabled America to overcome great odds and it always will. We just refer to it as the American spirit. That's the spirit Omar has and that spirit is why I'm sure this country is going to do just fine. There are other patriotic speeches being made in other parts of the world today. This is May Day. May Day and the Soviet Union whose citizens are being forced into an unnatural observance. We'll see as we always do every May Day the rockets on their carriages go by and the troops and the bayonets and so forth. They celebrate a government that promises freedom it systematically denies that proclaims justice while practicing tyranny and that uses what it calls law as little more than a thin veneer for the edicts of a totalitarian edict. I think the greatest description of the difference between the two countries is simply that one has to put up fences and walls to keep its people in and there's nothing like that that has to keep anyone in America. And thanks be to God we're free just as we have been. Omar and his generation are free to dream and then turn those dreams into reality.  Our task is to ensure that children and their children's children have their same chance to grow up in liberty. So Omar once again bless you and thank you for your gift thank you for the inspiration and I can assure you that every time we'll look at this we'll be more and more sure that the impossible can be done it just takes a little longer. But I wish all of you I wish all of you a good time and hope that as you stroll around these grounds I'm grateful and proud to be an American as I am Nazi is. God bless you and thank you all again I just have to say one other thing maybe some of you haven't looked up in the balcony here there are some young men in uniform and I think all of us can be very very proud of them young men and women


If you have followed this channel for a reasonable time though you may not know who I am in real life you do know something about me and that is I study a lot. Though today my studies are diversified between videos, audios and reading, when I was growing up the easiest way for me to learn anything is to read books because I didn't have access to the internet connection. So it happened that around the year 2007 I borrowed a book from one of my friends the name of that book is What the Reach Know and desperately want to keep secret. Brian Share in this book taught me a whole lot of simple things about how to build a successful business but one of those lessons stood out and changed the way I see business forever. In this video I am going to be sharing with you that very secret that I learned from Brian Share and I hope it will change your life the way it changed mine. The Man in Green Clothes Imagine a stadium of 50,000 people, everybody in the stadium wears red clothes but you were given a task and that task is going to the stadium and make sure the camera notices you above everyone else. Now let's imagine the scenario from another perspective. Three individuals are to go into that stadium and they were given the same assignment, get to the stadium and get noticed above everyone. When two of these people think to themselves if everyone wears red clothes and we want to be noticed can we simply go to some cloth makers and ask them to make us more reddish clothes? They both thought that's a great idea and they did just that. The third guy thought to himself if everyone wears red what color can I wear to make me the most visible person in the stadium? He got an idea. There's nothing more attractive in an environment that the contrast of the domineering color of the environment. Since everyone wears red, wearing green should do the magic for me and that is it. The third guy wears green and he became the most visible person in the entire stadium. This analogy is simple to understand but not when people are starting businesses. When people are starting businesses oftentimes they are like those two individuals who wear more reddish clothes. I'll confess to you I was like that too until 2007 when I learned the secret of the green clothes from Brian Share. Some people call it unique selling proposition while Brian Share calls it unique selling promise. It simply means that you can't become successful as an entrepreneur by wearing more reddish clothes. You can't become successful by trying to outdo everyone. You can't become successful by competing. You can only become successful by creating. I'll explain how the mind works. By now you have understood that an entrepreneur what you're trying to get is the attention of the people, a whole lot of people. You're like that guy who's going to a stadium filled with 50,000 people and needs the attention of as many people as possible then let's think for a moment about how our mind works. Try to look around and see things that caught your attention. What are they? Are they the things that are better or things that are different? The answer is simple. While we may love better things, we always devote our attention to things that are different. What the buyer is thinking? Whenever people want to buy something, the question that comes to their mind is where should I buy it and why? In other words, every business must answer this question. Why should people buy from you? If I can get what you're selling from another person, why should I come to you? If you can't answer this question in one single statement, you don't have a business yet. If 10 other people sell what you sell, why should I buy from you? You have to understand that I am selfish and as a customer I don't care about your business. What I care about is my comfort. If that is the case, why should I buy from you? Then why is the difference? How are you different from other people who are doing the business you are doing? The War of Price Whenever you ask people to tell you why they expect customers to come to them rather than their competitors, the usual answer is, we sell at cheaper prices. One other thing I learned from Brian Shear is never compete with price except your Rockefeller. I'll explain this. You see, when Rockefeller had become a billionaire, his next goal was to dominate the oil industry and to do that, he often sells at losing to send his competitors away from the market. When he sells at the ridiculously low price that his competitors can never match, the business is failed and he took over the entire market. This way he could then make all the money he has lost back. Rockefeller and other multi-billion dollar companies can do that because they have too much money. You cannot afford to waste a million dollars before you make a profit so you can't fight your competitors with prices. Another problem with competing with prices is that, well, you won't have profit and when you run a business that doesn't make you profit, many evils happen. First, a business that doesn't make good money cannot afford to hire quality people. A company that doesn't make a good profit cannot afford to invest in research and training of its staff. A company that doesn't make a good profit will die very soon. And that is why you can tell me that the reason why you expect customers to come to you is that you are selling at cheaper prices. The root of the difference Remember the smart guy in my previous story? How did that guy know that the green color is the best color to wear against red? He studied and reasoned When I think about smart companies who can differentiate themselves from the crowd, one thing I come to understand is that the management of these companies studied and reasoned. Think about Google. Before Google, there were different search engines but they were mostly clumsy and boring. Google was going to differentiate itself from the stadium of 50,000 spectators and that would never have happened if not because of Larry Page and his co-founder, Sergey Brin knew what their competitors didn't know. Jeff Bezos started Amazon in the year 1994 long before 99% of the world knew that the internet is anything to take seriously. This is the reason why Amazon is different and this is the reason why it is very successful. But how did Bezos get to know about the potential of the internet? He studied, he read books others didn't read and sought knowledge most people didn't care about. Bill Gates discovered the idea that led him to build Microsoft from a magazine his friend brought to him and Steve Jobs wouldn't have been anything if not because he read what most people don't. It's very simple. If I can study what you don't, I will know what you don't and if I know what you don't about business I can do things you cannot do and this will make me different from you and that's the secret of any business success. When better becomes different. So far in this video I've spoken against better and in favor of difference. Now I want you to get me right. While being different from everyone else is the fastest way to build a successful business being better can sometimes mean being different. Think about Facebook. There have been social media before 2004 but when Zuckerberg started the Facebook he did a better job of keeping people on his platform than every other social media site. Because this platform is extremely better the better became the difference and Facebook won the market. The lesson here is that your better can sometimes become a difference if it is far superior to that of the competitor. But again this has to do with a lot of learning because if you don't know what nobody else knows about your market, product or people you can't be superior to your competitors enough to win the market. Whether you set out to be different or your better is so great that it becomes the difference the key is to be different. Why should I buy from you if I can buy what you sell from someone else? How are you different from the other 50 people in the stadium? How are you different from your competitors? If you're not different you've got no business and you can't make good money as an entrepreneur. Thank you for watching our videos. 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