These are only nine minutes long. I do want to keep to time in honor of all of your time, and we have a ton to cover. We may not get through everything tonight. This is a public meeting. If there were members of the public here, which in this case would include David Delcourt and Orca Media, and anybody wants to raise a virtual hand or a real hand, I'm scanning and we'll take public comment. I don't see any public comment, so I'm going to keep moving. If you have opened the agenda that I sent via email, that's great. If not, don't worry about it. I'll just read through and tell you what we're doing next. The next step is a consent agenda. This is following a pattern that is used by the school board, among others, and that is in future meetings. If we all feel as though we agree with whatever minutes I have taken and distributed, we can simply say we approve the consent agenda and then move on from there, because this is our first meeting. We do not have minutes from the previous meeting. The next 20 minutes or so, I'd like to spend with introductions and getting to know one another a little bit. Again, we're going to be in constant tension in this group between spending quality time and building trust and community with each other and also getting down to business. What we'll try to do is do chunks of getting to know each other each time and build on that. If we were physically in person, we would probably be sitting around a room or in a circle. What I'm going to do is to paste into the chat the Nathan's arbitrary virtual circle order, which tonight is going to be reverse alphabetical order by last name. As soon as I can find chat, that should work. Can you guys see that in the chat? Excellent. What I'd like to do starting with Tina Muncie is to ask you each to introduce yourself by name, name your pronouns, and then respond to the prompt, which is toggling between screens here. Tonight's prompt is please describe a moment when you connected meaningfully to your education. For those of us who are not in high school, high school or earlier. For some of us, we're going to have to think back kind of far. Again, describe a moment when you connected meaningfully to your education. In the get through the agenda culture that we live in, see if you can keep name, pronouns, and the prompts to about a minute. Tina, go ahead. Hi, I'm Tina Muncie. It's she, her. I'm going to say Nathan, but I'm going to answer this question, but I don't know anything about who these people are or what they're about. When did I connect meaningful to my education? Probably, to be honest with you, when I started teaching. It made sense to me what I had learned and clearly made sense what nobody had taught me and I should have learned. One of the things I did was teach for 10 years at Main Street Middle School and checking in with middle schoolers certainly taught me a lot about my education, what I should have learned or had learned. How's that? Thank you. When Susie joins us, we'll go to Susie Sigrid, you're up. Hi, I'm Sigrid Olson. She, her, my pronouns, and my freshman year in college, I took a geology class that was really, really hard and I totally hated it and didn't get it, and you had to memorize like 150 rocks, just putting the rocks out on the tables and anyway, I didn't connect with that class then in that class, but years later when I was doing a cross-country camping trip and I got to go to all these really cool places out in nature where you could actually see what that professor was actually talking about with how, with things like glaciation and how rocks form different things, then I connected with it. Thank you. Rhett. Hi, I'm Rhett Williams. He, him. I connected with my education. I'm not sure exactly how this works, but I read a lot of, I started reading The Hobbit and, I read The Hobbit and White Fang in third grade and I thought I was really cool because I read these big books that I probably didn't fully understand and somehow I think there was something growing there, I guess, but I just thought it was cool. Dorky. So Nick Connor's name is on this list and that's a mistake on my part. Nick has expressed interest in the committee and will be considered by the board at the, at their next meeting, which is this Wednesday, because I am an N. I will take Nick's place in the order. My name is Nathan Souter. I use he, him pronouns and I'm going to just remind the adults that I'm asking for us to reach back to high school or earlier about when we connected with, with education. And the way I tell this is that I, when I tell people these days about my history with education, I describe my experience of high school as having had three or four really amazing teachers and that, you know, one of them, I remember handing him handing me an English paper that I had written and I can't remember if I think it had something like a C plus on it and it said C plus and it said gift. So he was one of the first people to truly hold me accountable to being serious intellectually into not just sort of phoning it in and it was so I'm forever grateful to him for not, not pretending that I was doing better than I was. Uh, Merrick, you are up. Alrighty. Hi everyone. My name is Merrick Moden and my pronouns are he, him and I connected meaningfully to my education actually today when I met with a local state representative on behalf of a CBL program at our school. And if you don't know a CBL is basically a really great opportunity offered by our high school to like engage and connect with members of the community and it's really, it's really great. Thank you. Thank you, Kale. Or Merrick, my apologies. Mel, do you go by Mel or Melissa? Yeah, yeah, go by Mel. But I mean I'll answer to Melissa, but Mel and I use she, her pronouns. I really struggled. Like I really couldn't think of anything. And then Nathan, when you thought it, when you mentioned your teacher, that reminded me that yeah, I had those. It was those relationships because it's not really about what you learn. It's about feeling safe and connected with other people. So yeah, I had that. And when I thought about that, and that's when I like lit up with DopaSparkle and like woke up, is that I remember the first time in seventh grade literature, like I guess it was like English language or something. I don't know what they called it. They had it. Anyway, I had a teacher who taught that everything's connected to everything and that like you could zoom way out. And just because people didn't tell you that things were connected, that they were and that they are. And I still do that. I like do that for a living. And I would have never kind of picked that up if not for the safety and connection of that relationship. I love the words you were using safety and connection relationship. Thank you. Libby. And DopaSparkle. Come on, Nathan. You already covered that. I'm Libby. I'm the superintendent. I use she her pronouns. I the immediate story that came to mind. So my dad was my was a sixth grade teacher in the elementary school that I went to and he was everybody's sixth grade teacher and everybody's coach. So everybody kind of referred to him as dad. So I was in a very safe environment around my elementary school because I was there all the time. I would just go to my dad's classroom and all the teachers knew me and I was actually named Libby after my fourth grade teacher who was whose name was Libby Vandewalker, who was a good friend of my my parents. And I had Libby Vandewalker as a fourth grade teacher. And things kind of came pretty easy for me. Mrs. Vandewalker used to give out homework passes for to get you know to get out out of homework for a night. And so I had earned a homework pass and I went to to give it to her, but it had ripped in half somehow. I can't remember how it ripped in half, but it ripped in half. And Mrs. Vandewalker, my namesake would not take it would not accept it because it was ripped in half. And so she said, if you can figure out a way to give me a full certificate certificate back in full without using tape, then I will accept it. And so that night I thought long and hard about how to how to I couldn't use tape or glue and I couldn't so it was ripped right in half. And so I went home and I used dental floss to sew the two pieces the pieces together and walked in the next day with my dental floss sewn homework pass to Mrs. Vandewalker feeling very proud of myself. And she just laughed hysterically and she actually kept it for years and gave it back to me when I when I graduated from high school. Excellent. Joe. Good evening, everyone. My name is Joe. I teach at the high school. He, him pronouns. Nice to see familiar faces and to meet some new folks. For me, it was my high school history and Latin teacher. They just made me feel super empowered and really feel good about learning. And I remember like a specific moment in the spring of my ninth grade year where I was like, I want to be a teacher. And I've never looked back. Excellent. Emery. Hi, I'm Emery Richardson. I use she her pronouns. And I also did a community based learning sort of thing this past fall where I got to look into medical professions because I'm interested in going to medicine and learn about healthcare policy. And I I just really appreciated that. And I enjoyed earning credit and learning about something that I'm interested in. Thank you. Elliot. Hi, I'm Elliot. I use he hammered they them pronouns. The moment or like the time that came to mind was when I was in sixth grade, I took Spanish class for the first time. And like my teacher, I had always like not wanted to raise my hand or talk or anything in class. And she respected that.  And the way that she slowly like, like, made it so I could talk in class was like, like, crazy helpful. And now I can do that. And it's like, thanks to the way that she was able to integrate me into doing that. That's fantastic. Dottie. Yes. Hi, I'm Dottie Guifre. I use she her. And the first time that I can remember, I was very early in my life that I'm one of my grandfathers worked in a school that was in a small town and was closing. And he was able to get a big slate chalkboard to give to me. And one of the old school desks that was bolted to the floor after the school closed. And my cousins and I used to play school from the time I was probably four or five. And so that was one piece of being excited about education. And then when I was in seventh grade, I had a remarkable English teacher who focused totally on poetry. And that really rang true for me. And when I got to college, I had two outstanding professors. One was Roland Barth. And some of you may have read some of his work. And he had every week of his course, which is two semesters long, everyone had to write what he called a two pager, which meant you had to compress everything you needed to say and everything you wanted to say in exactly two pages, double spaced and not one word more. So you got to be very good with writing that way. And then when I lived in North Carolina for a couple years, there was a professor there called Mary Lois Staten. And she was sort of the mentor for all the students who wanted to be teachers. And she singled me out and said, how would you like to teach in one of our local rural schools? And we didn't live there long enough for me to do that. However, she remained someone who wrote to me and conversed over the years afterwards. And she was what I would call an excellent teacher. And so I've had more than my share of role models. And by meeting all those people, in the end, I started an early childhood program of my own and ran it for 18 years and started some programs for other individuals in schools for an early childhood. So that's sort of my love right now. And now it has been as working with the youngest children to help them learn how to use their senses and use their language and get along with each other socially. So, you know, I'm really into that. Tati, thank you. And it's no fair giving me goosebumps. I can't believe you got to study under Roland Barth. I did. And it was the best learning experience of my life. Very cool. Thank you. Carmen, you're up. Hi. I'm Carmen. I use she, her pronouns. And I couldn't really decide on one. But I think one recent one was last year during the pandemic. I did a lot of online classes. And one of those was through CCV. And it was like a comparative religion class. So at the end of the semester, we had to go sit in on three services. And then like do this whole project that was like kind of connecting that to texts that we'd read to them like current events. And I don't know, it was a really interesting and like grounding sort of thing in the pandemic to see this part of the community. I guess I hadn't seen before, which I really liked. So thank you. Kailin. My name is Kail. I use he, him pronouns. And I have to, it may, maybe it wasn't like a learning experience, but it was like a bonding experience that I had in school. But our seventh grade, the end of our seventh grade year, we have to something like Crafter's Edge, if you may know, in the middle school, which is like your own company, in a sense. Yeah.  And something about that just kind of like felt good for a change. Like everyone was like trying to get the same position.  And I think it was just one of those things that a lot of kids probably don't have in like other schools that I really like how it was implemented in MSS. Thank you, Kail. And I apologize I read the wrong name there. Now you're up, Kailin. Kail, thank you for paying more attention to the alphabet than I was. Hi, everyone. My name is Kailin. I use she, her. Can you hear me? I never know if these headphones work. So like a lot of you, I immediately think of connections that I made in school and teachers that I made those connections with. And I thought of a few of them. But my first memory of like school is so fun. And I love my teacher so much was in second grade. I remember that we were all being like really loud and rowdy and wouldn't settle down. And my teacher was like this really tall, fun guy. And he like went under his desk and he came back up with those glasses that are like black plastic with the nose and the mustache. And he was like, no kids, let's get cereal. And it was like the funnest, funniest moment ever. And I still remember it. Like when I think of elementary school, that's the moment I think of and just how much I loved my teacher. So that's what came to my mind. Thanks, Kailin. Amira? She, her pronouns. There's a few moments. But I guess most recently, the best experience I've had was CBL this past fall. And kind of this year, because I kind of have always known what I wanted to do, which is be a nurse, but it really gave me the plan and the stepping stones to how I wanted to become a nurse. And I also created a lot of really good connections with not only like my advisor, but the people around me in my community that led me to get some really great opportunities that I'm really grateful for. Other than that, just connections with teachers that made me feel comfortable and safe and allowed to be myself and just knowing that they're there for me to help with whatever I need help with. So yeah. Amira, you're going to be able to get me back on this at some point. But for anybody who's uninitiated, can you unpack what CBL means, please? CBL stands for Community-Based Learning, which is basically you pick a topic or whatever like an area that you're interested in and you want to explore further. And there's a really endless options that you can do. I personally did informational interviewing and I did a resume or Google Meet or whatever it was. But you can just like meet if you interview people or you can, some people did like volunteering. Some people just did exploring like through their computer or just opportunities at like schools or whatever they were interested in. It's really a big wide range of things. Thank you. And the reason I said you might be able to get me back in the future is that I guarantee that either I or some professional educator on this call or who knows, will use jargon or an acronym. And if any of you are ever stuck, just say, what are you talking about? So I thank you, Amira, for unpacking that. All right. Amelia Woodard, bring us home. I'm Amelia. I use she or pronouns. And I think one moment where I really connected with my education was in ninth grade during COVID. We were doing this project in our dip class or social studies class where we would have to pick a country and we would kind of track what was going on during that like in that country during that period of time. And I think that really helped me connect with the world outside of what was happening just in my life. It was really fun. And we would have to do presentations to the class. So it also helped me gain a little bit of confidence with that. Because I remember being really nervous about it at first. But then the more we would start to do it, the more confident I get, the more I would just get into the research and like be excited about what I was presenting. That was really fun. Thank you, Amelia. Susie, can you hear us over there? So Susie just joined us under the name of Emmanuel. And when Susie comes on, I will see if we can coax her into jumping in. Okay. I'm just going to give it a minute. Hey. Susie, can you hear me? You're muted. Okay. Hi. Yes, I can hear you. Thank you so much for coming. I'm sorry that we stuck with the original, the six o'clock schedule and made you join late, but thank you for joining. I'm sorry to be late, but I'm glad to be here. This is, we all have real life, real lives. So Susie, we've just gone around and asked everyone to state their name, share their pronouns and then share a moment or describe a moment when they connected meaningfully with or when you connected meaningfully with your education. And for those of us who are beyond high school, I'm asking us to reach back to high school or before for that moment. Okay. I'm Susie Ford. She, her, she and a connection with my education. Well, there are some positive, but there are also some negative moments of my education. But we'll stick with positive for now. I had a really great, two really great art teachers in high school. And I took every art class that was available to take. And that was my happy place. And those two teachers really made me want to go to school and made me want to be part of what was going on. And I, that was my area of that's where I excelled in the classes. And I think a lot of it had to do with those two teachers. Excellent. Thank you. Okay, so I, we are doing perfectly on time so far. Let's see how long that lasts. Next up on the agenda is to describe to discuss the visioning project itself. I'm touching on purpose process and outcomes. And then I added another point for questions and discussion. The, I'm going to read, I'm going to open this up by reading aloud from the RFP, which I think I've got over here. Just so that you all hear what the district wrote as it was seeking to launch this process. In 2018, Montpelier Public Schools and Roxbury Village School combined to form Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools. The board and administration have worked for cohesion through policies and procedures and are now embarking on a process to bring our communities together to discuss and determine what our vision for a high quality education looks like for students. MRPS School Board seeks a consultant to support a broad community engagement process that effectively captures the voices of students and community members often underrepresented. This process will serve to engage the community to gather qualitative data to capture what an exceptional education within MRPS looks like. This includes questions such as how to ensure all students from Roxbury Village School and Union Elementary School elementary through Montpelier High School have equitable access to resources, a diverse and a culturally responsive curriculum with the district maintaining financial sustainability. MRPS Board will establish committee to hold this process led by a facilitator or facilitators. All right, so that's the charge. I'm lucky enough to have been selected by the board to be that facilitator. You all raised your hands and jumped in to become part of this committee and I'm thrilled to have you here. I'm also quite frankly stunned to have as many of us on the call at once and hope we can continue this record because it's really good to be all in one space together. So that's what the charge is and I'm going to give a little bit more of a back story from my perspective and let me feel free to jump in or Tina especially. Previous to merging Montpelier and Roxbury together, the Montpelier district had within its school board a series of ENDS that the school board and the administration schools were seeking to achieve and so that might have been, I don't remember them specifically, but it might have been 100% graduation rate from high school or it might have been foreign language exposure for every student or something like that. So those ENDS helped shape the board's behavior in terms of decisions that they made and how they prioritized everything from finances to the facilities to how to choose a superintendent and then how to direct that superintendent to go about the process of educating students. Since the merger, that hasn't existed in the same way. We have a very capable group of administrators and educators but the school and the school board has been doing lots of other things in building policy but the school board is looking for and the district is looking for a cohesive vision from the community that will be used to guide the behavior of the board and decisions the board makes and help people like Libby make decisions about how to go about delivering education in excellence and then that trickles down. We can use different structure language but that affects how education happens in every part of the school district from community-based learning that Amira was talking about to all the other experiences that we have in our schools and I see Libby listening carefully. What would you add Libby or Tina? Just for the overall purpose of this group, from my perspective there's a couple things. When I win the powerball I'm gone. I'm leaving and you need to find a new superintendent because I will be living in the Caribbean somewhere or Europe maybe. I haven't decided yet. When that happens you want to hire a superintendent based on what this district needs not just based on the candidates who apply so the district wants to go out and find a superintendent because there's tons of fantastic superintendents in the nation and in the state of Vermont. However we all do our job very differently so you want to be thinking about what do you value from that sense and then the second thing is that one of the things that I get told a lot in my position and the board does as well is that goes with our values or that isn't part of our values and the values depend on whatever topic that person is trying to persuade myself or the board to agree with so it could be when I I'll just give a couple examples when my first year we were talking about introducing busing to Main Street Middle School. Tina you'll remember this because you were a board member then. You know we had some people that say as a community we value walking and healthy living and so therefore we should not have any busing whatsoever. Well as a community we value easy access to school so we should have busing you know it dependent on whichever position so value becomes very charged in our district when people want to prove their point. So what one of the things I've said to the board is we've never defined that we've never defined what our values truly are and so this this committee is to help reach out to community to truly define what those are so when people come to the board or to me or to our principals or anybody and say well that's not what we value we can say well this is what we value we have this document that could change over time. However I think having that that large community conversation is so very important that has never happened when we merged and I'm not sure if it happened prior to murder either for either rocks very or Montpelier so that would be my two cents. Fantastic so I think it's important to note that our role as this my role as a facilitator and our role as this committee we will certainly have input on those things especially you all hi Caitlin I'll get to you in just a second. We will certainly have input on that or you will I'm the facilitator so my voice is going to be really just in support of you all but our job is to go engage the community engage you know the people around us and listen really carefully to as Libby said what are their values what is excellence in education mean to our community and that will shape the future of of education in Montpelier Rocksbury for years to come hopefully. Caitlin go ahead. I don't know if you've already done this I apologize but I'm a visual learner and I'm wondering if we can have a copy of the charge. You absolutely can I have let me just take that opportunity to say two things first I love what you just said Caitlin about I'm a visual learner I'm conscious that all of us learn in different ways or learn better in certain ways and one of the things that I'm doing at this moment is not putting anything written in front of us because the way I behave is that if you put something written in front of me I immediately start engaging with what's written and I'm trying to stay engaged in this conversation in support of that I will follow this meeting with an email with a number of links in it and or actual text that is in support of or either follows what we've covered or is in support of what we've what we've covered is that helpful. Perfect thank you. Yep and then oh so the if at any point any of you is saying I'm really having trouble following this could you please can you post the agenda in the chat or could you repeat that or could you find a different way to present that please advocate and be assertive about that and I will try to be conscious of as as much as possible incorporating different ways of accessing what we're doing in these meetings or in the materials around them and so I was going to say this later but I'll say it now I don't I'm not all knowing I'm not perfect I'm going to do the best that I can to work with this group in a way that is inclusive of all voices and conscious of the way people engage if I'm missing something especially for your own way of learning you can either approach me individually or just say it out loud in the meeting and I will adapt and incorporate so thank you for that. So vision and values and listening in the community um this is about students and it's about students who will become adults and I was thrilled that we had eight students who are interested and that the board chose to expand the number of seats on the committee so that we have eight seats we are tonight we're missing esterlene so I reached out via text but have not heard back but those of you who are in school with ester if you have their contact and want to send them a quick text that would be super helpful and I'm hoping that thank you Amelia I'm hoping that we will see esterlene next time and I'll come back to sort of representation on the committee a little bit later one of the one of the pieces of this process is or one of the ways that I've approached this is to think about what's our scope of inquiry right so uh let me tell a couple of of what I think are powerful stories about the way that the community interacts with the just with the school board or administrators and why the the district wants to have this tool this vision and values tool to apply to its work so as I was thinking about that I was thinking about okay what's our what's our scope of inquiry and in this case Caitlyn and others I am going to share my screen for a minute uh is that going to where I see uh kale you you may be on a phone is that true are you going to be able to read okay on the phone screen all right fantastic uh so can you see give me a thumbs up if you can see a document in front of you yay all right um so the scope of inquiry district by visioning the results of this process should see serve all stakeholders in practice for the board and the administration the vision values priorities interests etc I think should guide the work of each body that is the board and the administration serve as a tool for decision making offer structure to discussions about competing interests budgeting capital planning curriculum etc and then my question to myself and now to this group is what areas are central questions shall we pursue in this process here's an example it seems evident that when we're talking about education we'd be talking about academics what are the outcomes that the community values most highly relative to academics is it graduation rate is it admissions to college is it proficiency at grade level learning standards is it workforce preparation etc so I um one of the ways that I think is trying to think about how will this be expressed in you know our final report to the board or how will this be useful to the board and the administration and within academics we can have with the community as we engage with the community meaningful discussions and learning about what the community cares about in terms of academic outcomes so then I made a draft list of areas of inquiry that I thought were relevant to this process and I've the administration has had a little bit of a whack at this the board has had a little bit of a swipe at this as well um this I don't think we might have we might have time to discuss this tonight um this is an example where I'm presenting a list that's that's had that's that I drafted that's had some input from other folks and you're probably seeing it for the first time and I'm conscious that when we do that expecting you to be able to to respond to it in a way that's meaningful on short notice is is a high expectation so what I this will be one of the documents or one of the lists that I'll share virtually with the group after this meeting my ask to you all is to look this over and think about both what is there and whether it seems appropriate and appropriately represented and much harder task think about what's absent is there anything absent from this list that you think is important for us to investigate as we engage with our community so I'm going to stop talking and just leave it for two minutes and what you read and think so I'm watching body language and it seems like we might be have a good enough chance to read through that okay great I'm going to stop screen sharing for the moment and again I will share that with you all after the meeting back to my agenda here so then even if we were fine that list some more how are we going to go about this and the process that I've proposed includes drafting a survey that we will distribute to the community and get input that's through the survey that may include actually calling people on the phone and we fill out the survey as we're having a conversation with them to make sure that we are getting engagement and input from whomever it is it could be you know a certain age group could be a certain demographic it could be we're not hearing enough from Roxbury residents so we're gonna I want us to be as proactive as we can be to ensure that we get input from as broadly as we can imagine it what our community is it's also going to include public gatherings or in a format that I'm using from architecture which is called a charrette and a charrette is I can tell you the story of that later but a charrette is a public gathering where people are doing active hands-on sort of designing and thinking together in a way that's collaborative and that points towards an outcome those are my ideas those are things I with which I have experience and I'm also happy for us to co-design or collaboratively design other ways to engage the community for example to engage with students at the high school we can go into the high school and schedule times during Solon block and invite students to come join with us at those moments we can try to meet in other spaces in the community where where folks gather so this is an example that both the scope of inquiry and the public engagement sort of design and follow-through are two examples where I have some firm ideas I've done some outlining and I've done some pre-work to set that up I'm also open to input and adjustment and especially creative ideas about expansive and deeper engagement with the public another piece of this is that I'm hoping that this committee is going to be involved in participatory engagement meaning that you all will help make phone calls and will help distribute surveys and will appear at public gatherings and listen to what's being said there and then bring all that back to this committee and to our findings and report it back to the board but to me that has a secondary and almost equally important effect which is that you all then become recognized within your community as people who are engaged in this process and that you can become an ambassador and a a messenger and a communicator between the school board this committee and the community network to whom you're connected and in my ideal world even after this process is concluded you all have now had that will have had that engagement with the visioning process with leadership and with your community and that you can persist in sort of leadership or service leadership roles within the district okay so that I'm going to pause talking and open up the floor are there questions is there is there discussion I guess a question I have is um how detailed do we go like once I start thinking about things I feel like my list is getting very detailed and um yeah I guess that's my question katelyn one of the ways that I asked a similar question of the administration was inevitably I think in our in this process we're going to hear from folks who are asking about how the district goes about accomplishing these outcomes as opposed to what the outcomes what outcomes the district wishes to see for example um amira mentioned community based learning that's a to me that's a how right that's a method that the district uses to engage students with real world real world learning there's pbl proficiency based learning um there's the tech center there are student teacher ratios there are questions about which foreign language and I think both from the charge and for what from what's reasonable that's probably not our territory however I don't want to deny that those concerns and interests are out there in the community and so one of the things that I I'll be working with us on is how do we receive input in those areas in a way that honors that impulse somebody says you know I don't like community based learning or I love community based learning um which is a commentary on how the district is delivering on on these goals so how do we take that and make sure that we record it and honor that voice but that we also do a little bit of real time sorting where we say thank you for that input uh that is a that's an example of how the district delivers on this vision um and then we do a little bit of redirection so that's that's one response so my response to your inquiry there but I think we are going to encounter your question a lot in terms of how much depth do we go into? A lot of depth we go into kind of depend on our values as a community like how much detail we want to go into certain topics and certain details depend on what we value most and what is really a good thing for our community and have a good outcome for us. I agree and I think one of the things I like about this committee is that we've got a lot of different folks on it and a lot of different voices represented and it'll be interesting to see where you know as we as each of you sort of advocates for hey I want to pay attention to this um and I don't think it's uh I don't think it's a sort of contentious zero-sum scenario I just think it's something to pay attention to thank you I've got Sigrid then Tina then Kayle. Yeah I have a question about the um the list and the idea of giving people a list uh and I don't know if that is has already been decided or not um part of me is not sure that giving people a list is going to really elicit their natural or first responses or responses that really rise to the top for them versus something that you know it becomes you know so if you are in in a in a you know as genuine a ways you can in different you know and that would depend on the different settings the different groups that you're speaking to whatever trying to really at the very beginning just elicit sort of from people what do you what do you think you know what do you what would your vision be for for our schools that is going to to me get a much different answers than giving them a list and I know that might be a little too too in the weeds right now but it's I'm having a little bit of a of a problem understanding the process that we're going to do because of the list I love that comment can I can I just hold that and come back to it in a minute after I hear from anyone yeah yeah so my um question is a process question also I've had actually several people since I've mentioned I was on this committee ask me how I ever found out about this committee and how one applied and how were people chosen and so I know the problem with having five million people on a committee so I just need to know what the answer is to that question was this advertised um Merrick I see you I see your hand there uh Tina the so I posted it on front porch forum I put it into friends of Montpelier schools I reached out I probably paid put more energy into recruiting students and reaching out into the Roxbury community because those are those are high priorities than I did to a broader community outreach to recruit members I think if we had had too few folks interested for community seats for example I think we would have extended that window and reached out even more and I think that if we have and I guess the other thing yeah so I'll stop there so am I well that tells me you advertise electronically and um so the the next question is I'm assuming you have all the people you need on the committee at this time and any given group or what is what's my answer to that that's a great question um I would encourage folks who are interested to be in touch with me or be in touch with me and you and I think for me there's a balance between a committee that's too big to be functional but also a committee that's representative and so I think that um I'm feeling so let me share another comment I I got another comment about you know there don't seem to be enough teacher voices teachers are a really critical part of education absolutely a true point um and one of the ways that I approached this was this is about a community vision for and community values for education and so it's a we are the conduit for that and I guess the other piece that I'll say is that even if we stay with this committee as it's formed our job then is to ensure that the people we connect with are representative of our community so I'm not to me I'm not closing the door on that discussion I think it's a good question are you okay to leave it a little bit in limbo yeah that that helps me with what the answer is I mean I know oftentimes the board forms a committee and says we'd like three of these four of those five of these kind of thing and I wasn't sure how that began and then to do in the interest of full transparency in my proposal to the board I named I named a proposed shape of the committee we did a little bit of reshaping in the process but I'm responsible for what you see here not that I chose the people in the committee but it's my design and so criticism criticism to me if there's criticism you can point it at me I've got Kale, Merrick and Joe I didn't know if it's everything my turn to yes okay I had two questions one was like cigarettes the whole idea of you know giving a list out almost it forces people into box it is not in like sense of like they're like I feel like you know giving it more like what do you think is like you know the biggest priority it gives more of a slowier answer that's probably more you know it's not as rigid so it's probably more to their own opinion and then my other question was more you know let's say it comes back in it's it's March and it's our second meeting and we've we've done you know something some way to learn from the community and it comes back with like uh we want to focus on academics and you know culture between you know kids and outside adults like you know outside the school um with separate groups within this group tackle individual things or would we almost you know you know tackle one thing separately as a whole you know cohesive unit uh that's a great question Kale um I'm gonna address that first then I want to circle back to the one that you and cigarette have both both brought up this committee is not responsible for interpreting or for um for thinking about how the district will change its behavior or respond to vision and values right so we are we're gathering that information we we are responsible for doing so in an organized and uh I you know inclusive aggressively engage you know aggressive public engagement fashion and then presenting that to the board uh so that they can then work with that this myself as a facilitator and possibly this committee may work with the board in May June and July about okay what what next from there um and I guess my other response is let's let's see what we hear um so I really appreciate both your and cigarette's comment about you know if we give some if we give folks a list that constrains their thinking and I completely agree I maybe I maybe I should be clear my approach to that one of my approaches to this process is to ask myself okay what do we want to learn about what are the big questions facing this district or any of any other district and so I tried to name for myself what those buckets are and I tried to be I tried to name enough buckets on that list to be inclusive of things that I could imagine people saying that does not mean that we have to present that list as the as the only you know the only boxes within which people can respond um it does mean if we only hear about academics and we don't hear about you know transportation food service and athletics then we need to do some work to hear what people's vision is that includes or that addresses those things um we also have we don't have to distribute a uniform survey right we can distribute one version of the survey that is somewhat structured to one cohort and then we could ask another cohort to respond to um you know free response questions and then we can literally code you know I saw the I saw we saw 22 instances of this word being used or this phrase you know we can do that work of sort of the work the social scientists do of sorting the way people have expressed their vision or their values into useful categories the risk there is that we we just we just need to be careful that we are interpreting what's being said with as much integrity to its intent as possible as opposed to filtering it then through our own lens oh I think I think what sacred meant when she said this was I'm going to put it in this bucket uh so I think those are great questions and I think that um we will um I will try to have some more draft work done by the next meeting so that we can both respond to a draft survey and also think about how else we might go about this is that helpful for the moment on that topic all right Joe and then I see so let's see um sorry Merrick was after kale and I skipped yeah so Merrick then Joe and then Mel all righty so this question I think was kind of just answered but is this committee just meant to defile the district or also propose solutions to those goals primarily the first and again this is the the weeds here and the and the weeds are very alluring the weeds are to start to design how how the district falls through or delivers on vision and values and if you want to see Libby breakout and hives we can go deep into that and start doing the job of Libby and the curriculum director and the education leaders in the schools and the teachers for them and um I don't I'm not an education professional professional right and we could argue that the students on this call are not yet education professionals despite being consumers of education and so then there's a any there's some valuable guardrails in public education in terms of who holds what role but Merrick let's let's let's acknowledge that that's going to that question or versions of that are going to come up a lot and if you if you're okay to hold it in that kind of limbo that works for me Joe your last few answers Nathan got at what I was wondering about which is just like how like are we more revealing if there are competing visions so I think you've covered it so thank you and thanks to the people who asked so things I'm going to be excited and things are going to get interesting on this committee if there are competing visions and competing values and I think some of the interesting work might be this group trying to figure out okay we we initially see these two values as competing but in fact is there some Venn diagram where there's there's meaningful overlap and can we find um can we find the language or can we find yeah can we find the language that honors what we're hearing over here and what we're hearing over there um so you know we'll see it's going to be fun now you're up you're muted um I find myself also wondering if there's the opportunity to zoom out a little bit about you know so so the shared premise of we're going to work together to build this survey and then I find myself wondering well there are going to be some brains that can't access a survey or can't access a survey in certain contexts or even the language that we use in in a survey in a focus group um it sort of depends you know so if um and and you know as a as a as a professional and as a parent I have like so much that I unlearn on a daily basis that I have to think again about um but I was taught as a doctor that you interview in a particular way you ask these open-ended questions because that's what you get all the information this way you're not leading but guess what there's some brains who cannot respond to open-ended questions their limbic system does not allow them to do it and so thinking about how do we ask the same question in multiple different ways and give people freedom and choice on how to pick to participate including you know within our district you know perhaps we have community members students who participate um you know it you know by by by drawing by building by you know gesturing using AAC devices just thinking about really being inclusive of that all forms of communication are okay and that's that's so hard but if we don't do it that way we're gonna leave out leave out some people including that it matters when you ask like for me so I'm a person with auditory processing differences and there's no close captioning in this meeting I can do the thing but I'm tired and so if you gave me a survey after this meeting I would kind of rush through it I'd check the box I'd be kind of done and I participated but I didn't really um so so like during the school day after the work day what time is the meeting like really kind of matters thank you um this is one of the one of the times that I learned this in my life or a version of this was in um in intense discussions with my partner and she and I process at different speeds we have you know different orientations to such things and I've learned that if my interest is in a coherent caring relationship then you know I have to do some work to make sure that I'm meeting her halfway and so that's that's part of my model to encounter what you just introduced and I really appreciate it um Mel the again I'm open to lots of ways to go about this process and I recognize that you know an agenda in outline form written on a page displayed on a screen is not everybody's best access point and so if you will collaborate with me and and help keep us open and creative about how we go about this I think that's a terrific idea are there other hands on this or can we move on a little bit and and with the understanding that that no no discussion is completely closed all right I've got some cameras turned off I've got a few thumbs up all right um next up on my so time check is seven ten or seven eleven we've got about 20 minutes left my neck I'm just going to read through the agenda as I see that see it next we've got next steps and that includes a draft calendar COVID question future agendas and how we create those some housekeeping items and the next meeting and then an important piece that I want to hold space for every time which is asking for reflections and closing meeting and the reflections piece is how are we doing as a group in this meeting uh am I talking too much are we you know I I didn't hear um you know I didn't hear much from uh so I didn't hear much from rat tonight you know so one of the things I'm going to be paying attention to is who's contributing and do I need to hold space for folks but I want you all as well to be reflecting on how did this meeting go how's the process going broadly speaking and I'm going to make sure that there's space for input on that sound okay okay um so meeting wise uh so the draft calendar I sent out the in one of the emails and that is uh and again this will be in writing sent to you again after this meeting so you don't need to take notes if you don't wish to February 14th February 28th so two weeks from today tonight uh the times are going to we're going to try to be consistent with 6 to 7 30 um then March 14th and 28th April 11 and 25 May 9 and 23 and June 6 and 20th if necessary um one of the things I like about those dates is that they seem to avoid um school breaks or other obvious conflicts of schedule that's not the only thing to discuss in terms of a draft calendar as soon as we start getting some more shape to this process we'll be calendaring public engagement and public gatherings not that every single member of this committee is going to attend every public gathering but that'll become a little bit more complex organic calendar exercise for this meeting and next we are meeting virtually unless you wish to show up the high school and I will be here physically present if you want to come but that's I think gathering virtually is the most accessible thing for us to do at the moment and we are still at a sort of waning omicron COVID surge so I'm putting a pin in discussing COVID protocols next meeting and I will try to do some thinking and maybe put my head together with anybody else who's interested about how we might sort of set some triggers ahead of time for when we're comfortable meeting in person or if uh future agendas so as a as a facilitator I will prepare a draft agenda in advance based on business in front of us in the stage of the project that draft is only a draft and I wish to keep the doors open for your suggestions my intent is to be organized enough that you have a chance to look at that ahead of time and give me input on other things if topics arise during a meeting that we cannot attend to during that meeting I will also be tracking those and try to place them into future agendas so that's a if you're a if you are if you've thought about or worked with folks to talk about white supremacy culture one of the characteristics of white supremacy culture is that we will get through the agenda and we will not bend and we will stay on time and we will not make space for discussions that are not on the agenda that's not that's not my style but it the temptation to have in-depth discussions about meaningful topics that we didn't anticipate is something that I'm open to it is intention with getting through the agenda and keeping this process on track and so I'm just going to acknowledge that tension and and I will name it if there are times when when I say as a facilitator I think we should table this and move back to the agenda and keep moving and of course that's an opportunity for you to say listen white man we need to talk about this a little bit more so hold off in out of respect for one another and for the limited time that we have together please come prepared having read material ahead of time so that our discussions are productive I'll try to keep that sort of concise and organized so that this isn't taking massive amounts of your time outside of the meeting I'm going to reiterate that your input is valuable please email me text me or call me if there are topics you wish to see on the agenda or that you want to revisit or talk about I am I'm here for that and we'll try to make space to talk with you as we potentially have members of the public joining our meetings I think the opportunity for public comment and participation is important we'll just sort of monitor that and see where we can make space for that while still getting through our business that's a lot of talking any strong reactions okay housekeeping items I've created a shared google documents folder into which I will put resources for this committee I need to check with Libby I'm watching her face right now this is we're not the school board but we are a committee of the board do documents that exist in a shared folder for this committee are those public documents okay yeah and you can't use google docs oh you can use google docs but you can't comment okay so so maybe they will be pdfs that are not writable but they're static resources and anybody can see them yeah okay great thank you Libby and please keep me honest on that stuff for those of you who are not staff or teachers of the district you will be earning a stipend for every meeting that you attend and I will need a w9 form from you that I will send to you in an email attached it'll also be linked in the email and it'll be part of that shared folder and the sooner you get that to me the sooner I can write you guys checks those checks will be coming from build my consulting practice not directly from the district so if you see an envelope from me then that's what that's hopefully that's what that is on my mind for the next meeting covid protocols and if and when we gather discussing quorums and sub quorums as we make decisions I see you Tina hang on a second um the sub quorums idea I just want to speak out loud for example we have eight student members of this committee it feels quite important to me that student voices are represented throughout this process so we may choose to say we will only make significant decisions with three or more students present or something like that so that's what I mean by a sub quorum and then quorum is enough people to make a decision and right now we might go with 50 plus one we can we can discuss that next time um I mentioned a survey draft and I appreciated the sort of comments about okay if we if we write a survey that's based on this list are we constraining people's thinking and then outline with more depth what public gatherings might look like and then possibly get down to the granular detail of planning some phone parties where we are all sort of virtually together and making phone calls to engage with the public because I think that's a ineffective way especially in covid times okay I'm going to pause uh Tina you're up and then we've got a little bit of in kale and then we've got a little bit of time to reflect on meeting in process um from your discussion about the documents uh let Libby uh tell me if I'm right on this since this is a public committee communication to you or to Libby uh could also be public and since we're meeting with the public it's a good for people to know that something they write could turn up in the Times Argus as Libby rules um she don't want to be in front of a headliner in the Times Argus don't write it um and generally because it is a board committee what I would recommend is um if you're writing uh Nathan and the committee members like the whole committee so it would be uh Nathan is the person you're writing to and then bcc the rest of the committee um and the board just says dear Nathan committee bcc and what that means is if somebody replies then it's not a whole conversation on an email thread that other people don't have access to that you're applying just to Nathan um you could write to Nathan and cc me or cc the board members and then bcc the other people um but it's just kind of the rules of them for uh public records requests and that kind of thing and just thank you for that Tina and Libby and just to expand on that the implication is that we should be making significant decisions in committee in a public forum not privately the email away from the public eye and so that you know if if those kind of discussions are happening via email what I will do is aggregate them bring them to the committee and we will have that discussion publicly okay I'll go ahead um what was I gonna say oh yes time frame for everything so our next meeting I mean maybe this is what you're getting at in a little bit but next meeting is the 28th I think is what I remember looking at um is there a date we are almost setting like proverbially like you know is it may or March or whatever that we want to you know hit as a deadline to have something proposed to the board or is that kind of still up in the air uh the board would like to have a report of our findings by early May if possible that means that March and April are going to be heavy months for us in terms of public engagement and we're going to see how it goes you know it could be that we get really tremendous response and we we you know it goes really well it could be that we're you know we're we're trying to squeeze blood from a stone and we've got to work really hard so we'll see how it goes but but March and April I think are the months where we will be doing heavy good question thank you go ahead Mel um and and I this is not intended to go deep I'm just throwing it out here because I will forget um I I found that the many of the themes from the initial offerings about relationships and connection and safety were really meaningful and that stuff starts in our earliest learners and I wonder if we can also build into our agenda next time about how do we include the values of those learners I know it might sound ridiculous that like a preschooler could have values that weigh on the system but guess what they can um and when I asked young kids about like what is it you know what makes you feel safe what makes you feel like you belong they literally had answers they literally have things to say like I asked an eight year old the other day and the eight year old without any latency at all was like you just let the people do what makes them happy what yeah you just let the people do what makes them happy and you oh and then he's like and you don't take away their freedom and choice genius so like that's a kid who's not on this committee because he's too young to be on a committee so like how do we how do we get that wisdom and capture that because there's a lot of really incredibly young brains out there I look confessed to mostly recruiting in the high school in the middle school but there are no hard age limits on this committee we'd have to think about like maybe some other opportunities for this vision besides coming to a 90 minute meeting for sure thank you sacred yeah I'm okay I'm curious about the the time frame and if that's a typical time frame for community wide processes like these it seems a little short to me and the the worry with that is looking like it was rushed or having people left out just because of the time frame in that time frame we also have you know April break and so I'm just you know I don't know is there leeway with that or is that a short time period for something like this I don't really know it just seems seems short to me I think it is short and I don't know Rhett is is your comment addressing this or something else not that it is short there's no question and sacred there may be leeway you know we have a there's an open discussion I think we can have an open discussion with the board on the other hand the board asked for time to work with our findings with support from me and that is also valuable to for them to to commit time to this so it's it's intention but also valuable yeah another thing to think about is that's just when stuff is warming up and then you know if you think about what gatherings of humans look like in Vermont and if there is in fact you know going to gatherings to interact and talk with people that you know it's not really going to happen too much yeah especially during covid in the summer with people or yeah yeah I hear you Rhett I just I know I from my perspective I think most likely from the board as well the work of this committee is to reach out to as many groups of people that are otherwise difficult to engage or to hear from including I really appreciate Mel you're mentioning sort of thinking about the way that we approach people with neurodiverse circumstances or language diverse circumstances I mean there are a lot of people who communicate in a lot of different ways I know I've been on the board a very short time I've seen you a couple times Tina so there are certainly some people that have no problem sort of stepping forward and making their voices heard I think our work is to is to is to find everyone else if we can as much as we possibly can and I like you know I think it's really important to think of to approach people that have brought as way as we can but I do wonder how we then start to filter some of that information and what that process looks like essentially how we sort of dilute what we're getting and I'm also curious about I know the thought exchange was out there and it did a lot of it gathered a lot of data and I don't know if that information can get folded in well also I want to recognize that the people that responded to those tools are a very sort of specific group and that might inform us to try to get some of that information to other people that didn't respond to those thought exchange I don't know if those are a resource for us or if there's any way that any of that work can inform the way we approach the community from here on out. Just to KL, I see you there and Rhett I appreciate all those things that you just said and that there's been work that points to vision and values by the school safety committee by the thought exchange so there there are other there have been other inputs and part of my job is to just to try to bring those in and I think that your your central question is sort of how do we I think you meant distill how do we distill the the different inputs and maybe even sort of weight them right or or okay we've heard a lot from this group what about from this group and I think that that's part of our part of our job as a committee KL and then we've got one minute to go. Final thing was I heard something called a thought exchange was that like a survey sent is that a what I guess what is that was it a yeah so kale do you remember we sent out a couple thought exchange to students one was about the next mhs principal what would be your hopes for that oh yeah and then another round the grant money that we sent to the mhs so it's just a it's like google it's like google surveys on on steroids a little bit like it's a it's a little better access than google surveys because everybody can see what other people are saying we haven't sent out I don't read I wasn't sure what you're referring to because we haven't sent out a thought exchange on this particular topic just yet we've sent out a bunch the community but not particularly to this one but it's certainly a tool that we can use I was just thinking that there are themes that are weighted in there and I wonder if that can inform the way that we ask questions yeah absolutely good it's 730 I've lost my window for reflection on our process now I saw your text comment in the in the chat folks thank you for coming tonight I will be sending you a follow-up email with information in it please feel free to reach out especially individually and note again these are public meetings they're being recorded by orca media they may be covered by the press and documents that we share are also publicly accessible so that's to me that's a great thing but it's also something to be mindful of thank you all very much happy valentine's day if you care about such things and I look forward to seeing you on the 28th thank you


Hi, welcome to Seymour's World on Think Tech Hawaii. What a pleasure to meet all of you guys again. We had a great show two weeks ago and all of your comments were appreciated. Even those of you who said I talked too much and there wasn't enough music. Well today is going to be another fantastic show. We're going to talk about food. Now we all have heard about all these diets. You've heard about vegetarian, pescatarian, vegan, lactose intolerant, all this. Are you one of those? Well guess what? We are going to talk about the most important food, not for you, not for me, but for Fido, for your dog, for your pet. Now in my house, if you ask Sue, who is the most important member of our family, it ain't me, it's our dog, Leila, and our two cats. And she goes and buys this most expensive food. She goes to the veterinarian for one kind of dog food and another place for, and I'm not going to mention the name, for the cat food. And I kept saying, why, why, why? And what we found with Leila was that she was getting heavy.  She ended up being about 21 pounds. And Sue took her to the vet and he said, well, you know, she should only be 15 pounds. And we said, well, what do you suggest? And again, he suggested do this, do that, go by this kind of food and that kind of food. But I have a friend, Irma Baptiste, who has been on our show. And Irma and I have been talking about her latest venture, which is Raw Dog Hawaii. And I said, oh, I'm not so sure about all this. And she said, Seymour, I want you to meet Gary. Gary is the president of the company, the owner of the company. He's passionate about what he has done with raw dog food. And I said, but raw dog food. She said, Seymour, just listen, well, today Leila is 15 pounds. She's lost 25% of her body weight. She jumps up on the sofa, maybe good, maybe not so good. She, as Sue says, has a bikini body. And little Leila is absolutely adorable. And I have to tell you, we started her on our DH Raw Dog Food. And Gary and Irma gave us this talk about why it's so important. And I've decided, instead of talking about you and me and our food habits and what we have to do, because let's face it, I, for one, am useless. I eat what I think is right for me. And so far, at 70 plus years old, I'm happy with where I am. And more important is, what are we feeding our pets? And why should we change our habits and what we do for our dogs and our cats? So without further ado, may I introduce you to Irma and to Gary. Hi, guys. Good. Hi. Good morning. Irma, you've been on this show more than I have. I think I have. I think we've... I think you've clothed me and you haven't told me about it. Well, we've been here with your daughter, with Skylar. And then we were here for... Thanksgiving. For Thanksgiving, right? And we, that was a very emotional show. That was a good show. Yeah. That was a great, great show. You introduced me to RDH, to Raw Dog, Hawaii. And I felt really skeptical about the whole thing. Really did.  But it's sure you proved me right. And I'm so glad that you made this introduction because it has worked amazingly for my dog. And Gary, you are the guy behind all this, right? Yep. That's me. You're the guy who put it together. You're the guy who thought about it. Tell us. What prompted you to go into a business that's so difficult? Well, I started this journey a long time ago with a dog that had severe allergies.  And I had no idea what she meant. She gave me a list, went to the grocery store, started feeding my dog raw. And within a few days, hair started growing back. And allergies started going away. And within a month, he looked like a supermodel.  And so that event years ago started me buying raw dog food. And when I moved to Hawaii, nobody here was making it here and sourcing the animals that are from here. So that's what led me to start it for my own dog. And seeing his friends and family, you saw my dog, it kind of took off from there. So what is behind it? I mean, the health issues you mentioned, growing hair, losing weight, et cetera, there's got to be a scientific theory behind why raw dog food is good for dogs. There is. And it really has to do with the physiology of dogs. Dogs lack two enzymes that humans have. And one of those enzymes converts starch into sugars. We have it, dogs don't. So the majority of dried dog foods. They have protein, they have fat, but they also have a lot of unnecessary carbohydrates. So the dog doesn't digest it, it ferments it. And that's what leads to all the allergies sometimes in dogs. If you take those cheap fillers away and replace it with quality proteins and fats, that fixes the dog problem. What do the veterinarians say about all this? You know, most veterinarians are against it. And I wondered for the longest reason why. So that's a great question, I get asked that a lot. I'll answer it with a rhetorical question, and I don't need you to answer it, but do you believe in a higher power or God? And if the answer to that is yes, then there's nothing that I can do, say, show or tell you that is going to convince you otherwise. Likewise, if you don't, there's nothing I can do, say, show or tell that is going to make you believe. So veterinarians in their first year of vet school get taught about nutrition one semester an hour, and it covers seven animal species. And in their textbook is a Hill Science Diet label from one of their prescription cats. They're surrounded by peers who believe the same thing. The American Medical Veterinary Association has taken a formal stance against raw. So trying to change their belief system is the same as trying to get somebody to believe or not to believe in a higher power. It's even difficult. So even when they're faced with improved blood results, they see the animal, they come in on how great the animal is doing, and they ask the owner, what did you change? And the owner said, I've started feeding my dog raw, well, no, that can't be it. What else did you change? So they will summarily dismiss the evidence because they're taught not to believe in it. But it just goes back to what did they eat before kibble existed, and they hunted, or they ate table scraps. So the idea that raw dog food is healthy, I know for a fact it's true because it worked on mine. Now, are you the only player in this game, or are there other people with raw dog food? Oh, there are several companies that make raw dog food or freeze dried raw dog food. We happen to be different because we use organic chicken. We use grass fed, grass finished beef. We use wild venison. So we use products that are either organic, or they're grass fed and finished, or in the case of deer or wild animal. So it's the same proteins that you would get if you went to a premium supermarket and you paid a premium price. That's what makes us different is most other pet food companies don't go to that level of assurity and the quality of their products. And of course we've seen it for a fact, and we're going to show the audience actually a lot of before and after pictures of what happened. Irma, how did you get involved? Well, I have three dogs, and my middle dog actually has chronic, just horrible mange, and the vet kept altering his diet. And you know, $600 a month later in medication, it was like, wow, it's like I should claim you as a dependent. And so we started with Raw Dog Hawaii when actually the blocks, the food were in cubes. And I vividly remember the way they were put in the freezer. And this was three years ago, I want to say, about three years ago. And finally, when our middle dog decided to switch his food, it wasn't just the fur growing in, it was the skippiness step. It was the energy. It was like the happy puppy came back. That's exactly what we were finding out. And just it's like seeing someone cured from a disease. And so the vet visit started to wane, yes, and no need for regular medication, and just the happiness in the dog, the first days in, the poop is small, which is always a bonus. And so we put all three dogs on them. And they're like puppies, one's 10, one's now four, and one is two. And you can't tell which ones would change. Yeah, the energy is amazing. You're right. The difference is amazing. When we see Layla jumping and running and doing, yes, she's lost weight. You know, there's going to be, and the reason I wanted to bring up the veterinarian aspect was because people are going to want to know, you know, why isn't this all over the place? Yet I see, Gary, that your sales are increasing. You're in more stores. I believe, can I mention the contract you have or I cannot? Yes. OK, you have a contract with Safeway stores. And that is huge, you know, and that's only here in Hawaii to be expanded to work to the mainland. That is amazing that the recognition of this kind of food for dogs is growing every single year, just as you are growing. And I know you're moving to a new facility very soon. We are. Right? Well, you know what I want to do? If we can, I want to show some before and after pictures of dogs. OK. All right? So let's see if we can bring that up. Go ahead and tell us about... Oh, my God. So this is one of the worst cases of mange that I've ever seen in a dog. And the dog is named Stitch. He was dumped up on the North Shore and had lived outside for quite a while, developed a severe case of mange, and literally with small amounts of medication, switching to a raw diet and a bath or two, these pictures are a month apart. One month? Yep. Oh, my God. You literally couldn't tell it was the same dog by looking at it. And you see the brightness in the eyes, the upstanding ears, the posture changes. It's a very dramatic effect in a dog. Wow. And that's only in 30 days. That's 30 days. Incredible. Let's see the next one. So this is Ruby. She's owned by a restaurateur here on Oahu. And Ruby had lost, you know, her step. She's only nine years old, so the sarong was her mom's idea. But you see the loss of hair on the ears, a little spot on her nose, just her body posture, and she was big boned as we call in the pet food industry. So she was carrying a little bit of poundage on the back. And these pictures are also a month apart, so you see a difference again, posture, beautiful coat, the brown on the ears has filled in, the spot on her nose you can't see. It's healed itself, and that brown that ran up to just about her eyes is now filled in with fur. And we know, Gary, for a fact, before we get to the next one, I get excited about this because I'm very involved in medical science and different things and food is obviously a very important part of this, of our life. And animals have been subjected to companies who want to feed them all sorts of stuff, grains and cereals and mixtures of all different things when actually dogs come from the wild. And what do they eat in the wild? And to me, that's what they have to come back to. And that's what I think your company is all about. And I'm very, very happy to see that the public, as well as the retail stores, are starting to understand this is a mainstream product. It's getting there. Let's see the next picture. Oh, so this was Neptune. And Neptune was one of our animals in our animal feeding trials at the Oahu SPCA. So the first picture is her intake photo. On the left. On the upper left. And again, severe mange, not as bad as the first dog, but you see the hair loss, the skin condition. And the second picture is after about a year's worth of treatment, receiving antibiotics and special shampoos and prescription foods. And from that photo to the third photo on the bottom left, that's five weeks. So she's an air dail mix. All her fur came in. Mange went away. Ear infection's gone. This is one of the first transformations that I saw.  And I know what a raw diet can do. But here's a dog that had been at the Oahu SPCA for a year and a half. Literally, nobody wanted to adopt her. And from the time we met her, until the time she was adopted, was seven weeks. So I mean, I started losing animals out of my feeding trial because they started getting adopted. Wow. And that is a good sign, obviously. That's a great sign. That's a good thing. Amazing. Now, we have one more photo before the break. Let's see. Oh, OK. This is Helen. And Helen is deaf. And she has little to no fur. But that's the nature of her breed. And you can see the bumps on her neck. And you can't quite see the ones under her nose. Some on her ears. But mainly around her chest and that redness. So this is how we met Helen. And then a month later, after being fed the raw food, the rashes went away, the severe itching and scratching that had caused injury to her skin on her chest had healed. And she literally filled back in, bumps went away, and started running around the park like a stallion.  You'd never know it. Well, we have to take a short break. But we're going to show a picture of Helen after the break. And this will be, of course, what happened after how much time? 30 days. After 30 days. And you will be amazed when you see that photo, because I was just shocked. The changes we saw in our dog, Layla, that made me want to do this show is exactly what you will see with Helen. See you in a minute. I'm Seymour Kazimurski on Seymour's World at ThinkTech Hawaii. I'm Ethan Allen, host of Eligible Science on ThinkTech Hawaii. Every Friday afternoon at 2 PM, I hope you'll join me for likable science. We'll dig into science, dig into the meat of science, dig into the joy and delight of science. We'll discover why science is indeed fun, why science is interesting, why people should care about science, and care about the research that's being done out there. It's all great. It's all entertaining. It's all educational. So I hope you'll join me for likable science. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of ThinkTech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea comes on every other Monday at 11 AM. Please join us. I like to bring in guests that talk about all types of things that come across the sea to Hawaii. Not just law. Love, people, ideas, history. Please join us for Law Across the Sea. Aloha. Hi, welcome back to Seymour's World on ThinkTech Hawaii. We are here talking about food, digestion, good health, what we need to do to make our lives better. Not for me, not for you, but for our dogs, because they are the most important member in my family. I don't know about your family, but definitely in my family. My guests are Erma Baptiste and Gary Novasel from Raw Dog Hawaii. I am a convert. I am actually helping you with your business just for everybody to know. My feeling is this is the way to go for dogs. This is absolutely how we have to make sure that our dogs are as healthy as possible for the rest of their lives, and that's to bring them back to the diet that they were supposed to get. Instead of what the manufacturers of pet foods are talking about, that they should be eating all sorts of different things when, in reality, they've survived for hundreds and hundreds of years on raw dog food, right, raw food. Absolutely. OK, so let's go back. We want to show a picture of Helen before. Now that's Helen before, and now let's show Helen after only 30 days. So you can see a pretty dramatic difference here. Her bumps are gone. Her ears are filled in. And actually, I don't even think that's the 30-day picture. I think that's two weeks. Wow.  And I know we don't want to go into the science of it, but you're absolutely right. Leda smells differently. She really does. I would say to Sue, we should give her a bath every three, four, or five days because of the smell. Now, two weeks goes by before she needs another bath. That is amazing. And again, it has to do with what we know is the most important, besides water and air, obviously, it's food. What do we feed our animals? It's amazing. Let's talk about a little bit about your competition, Gary, and what you're doing here in Hawaii, and what your plans are. I have a lot of viewers all over the US mainland and Europe, et cetera. So tell me, how do you sell this product? Well, we sell it here in Hawaii now, frozen. We also have shelf-stable treats. But our foods do come frozen. We receive product frozen. We process it frozen. And we manufacture it into the shapes that you see here, patties, chubs, and nuggets, while it's still below freezing. So we help eliminate the possibility of pathogens in the food. And using human quality ingredients, we make it as safe as we possibly could. So this is fully tested. I mean, there's no bacteria issues with any of this food. I don't know if we could. Oh, there it is. If we could show what each of them are, but in essence, they're all frozen, pure raw meat, correct? It's meat, the organ meat of the animal, and bone content. So we literally use the entire animal when we're processing our food. And how long have you been in business? We've been in business just a little over five years. Wow. And I know from your financials that it's going gangbusters. People are adopting this type of diet for their animals more and more. Tell us about the mainland. Because everybody's screaming for this in the mainland. Right. So we haven't told any of our customers about this yet. But at the Global Pet Expo in Orlando on March 21st, we're going to be unveiling a freeze-dried raw product line. And we'll also be carrying that in Hawaii. The only reason we're not making it here is because the technology is so expensive and power is very expensive. So we're having it made to our specifications exactly the way that we process it here in a freeze-dried form. And we'll be selling that online as well as through our retailers. So when it's freeze-dried, what do you do with it? You buy it off a shelf? Yep, it's shelf-stable. The moisture has been removed over a 48-hour period, so very slow by comparison, freeze-dry process. And all the vitamins and nutrients, the micronutrients, are still in the food. But it's now a shelf-stable product. So you add warm water to it to rehydrate it or feed it, as is the dogs getting the same nutrition. Well, and Irma, tell us about the marketing plan. How are you going to do this? Well, we're really excited to use our current relationships that we have here in Hawaii to grow our Hawaii operations. But on the mainland, Gary's taken this incredible leap of sourcing different venues that are already in existence to grow the company. Now, what's exciting is that we have people in Hawaii who move. And so when they move, they would love our product. So now we already have an established clientele on the mainland, just really literally chomping at the bit for the freeze-dried component. Whether they are friends who see our dogs thriving or hear about it on social media, it's really taken off. It's nudged, I think, the company into a completely different trajectory, a real positive trajectory. It's strange because we had some visitors here just a few weeks ago that stayed with us, and we talked to them about your product, and they looked at Layla, and they said, wow, what a difference in your dog. And we told them about you, and he happens to be a former senior vice president for Frito-Lay. And he saw this, and he said, well, why doesn't he do it on the mainland? And you guys are talking to him right now about doing, not just the processing, the marketing, the management of it all. There's huge opportunities for us. There is. There is huge. I'm very excited to try to help you guys do it, because I know it's not just a money-making thing, Gary. You're so passionate about this, that it is really something that you want to be sure that animals live the best way that they can for the lives that they have, which is just wonderful. So tell me also about the regulations. We have so many regulations in food safety and FDA rules. What is the issue with this? Is there a regulation that you have to make sure that there's no pathogens or bacterias or anything associated with it? So President Obama passed, thankfully, the Food Safety Modernization Act. And it's been slowly starting to trickle down to smaller businesses. But it's to make sure that food is pathogen-free. There's always that risk in any food we eat, whether and for dogs, whether it's kibble, or whether it's raw dog food, the risk is literally the same. But we see those type of outbreaks more in dry dog food simply because they occupy a bigger marketplace. That's really one of the things that's driving that change. So in our new facility, we'll operate it just as if we would manufacturing food for humans, for human consumption. But we happen to be selling it for dogs. So tell us where people could. We only have a couple of minutes left. Where people can buy it? They can buy it online at rawdoghoy.com. They can order and have it shipped to their house. We have 11 retailers on Oahu. We sell at two farmers markets. And they can find the locations of all those retailers as well at the menu on our website. And when will you be in Safeway? I understand that's the first major retailer that's going with you. We're getting ready to build out a production kitchen. And once that kitchen is built out and we can meet the capacity of all their stores, that's when we'll start selling in Safeway. And you'll be able to put that on your website as well so people will know where to be able to find it. That's a ton of stores. It's 22 stores. Well, it's exciting because it's what I call a brick and mortar business. In my business, in the consulting business, all I see are new apps coming. Everybody's a new app. And they're all looking for money for a new app. And I'm still old school. I like the idea that you have a product to sell. People can touch it and feel it. Then if they like it, they buy more and the business grows. So for me, this is my kind of tea. And your dog can have a bikini body. Yes, exactly, which he does. Selling point. I love it. From you, I understand that because you do have a bikini body. So let's do it. Let's look at a couple more pictures before we go. So this is my dog, Kua. And you can, he was also adopted at Pihuahua SBCA. He was literally an unwanted dog. They said he was stubborn.  And in the second picture, you see a 30-day difference in what that can make again in a dog. So he's pretty stoic, but he loves women and children. So he's not nearly as brutal as he was in the skin. Oh. It's absolutely amazing. Wow. He's not stoic. Did he lose weight as well? He did. When we got him, the SPCA said it's likely he's not going to be able to walk more than three or four steps. And they actually offered me a little ramp for my truck. He runs around the yard like a race horse. If there are birds in the yard. That is wonderful. Absolutely. Isn't that terrific? Do we have any other pictures? Oh, wow. This is Helen again. And this is a much better shot of the rashes that were on her head and today.  Dispensation. And just the rash being gone after the other struggling for a very long time to fix it. That just made my day. Well, that is the greatest picture to end on. Because when you say it made your day, we know it's not just about money. It's actually about doing something good for our community. And that's our dogs are part of our community. I want to thank you both very much, Irma and Gary, for coming on the show. I'm not here to sell your product, but I'm here to make people aware that changing the diet of their animal is definitely going to make a happier animal and a happier family. So thank you for joining me on This World. I appreciate it. And to you all out there, wherever you are, you can get Raw Dog Hawaii Food. Look on their website, rawdoghawaii.com, is that it?  I look forward to seeing you again in a couple of weeks. I will be talking to you from China in a couple of weeks. Aloha from Seymour's World on Think Tech Hawaii.