So I'm going to go ahead and call the meetings in order at 431. Thanks, everyone, for coming on short notice. Welcome. I'm sorry. I'm Mary Lynn. I'm from Mary Lynn. Awesome. Thanks for coming. I think Chris is coming. Welcome to the Executive Committee. Are there any revisions to the agenda? Everyone received the revised agenda that Chris has sent out this afternoon with adding an action item to accept a resolution. Are there any public comments and correspondence in the Executive Committee comments? So basically, I think everyone knows we're here primarily to have some preliminary discussion about the superintendent transition process. It's with some regret that we acknowledge that Bill has submitted his resignation, but also some realism. So we have to kind of get started grappling with that. I had a thought that there are probably some things that the Executive Committee should discuss in executive session before we get to the open session part of our meeting where we would talk about superintendent search and decisions that we have to make. So since I'm the one with that thought, I think I'll just go ahead and make the motion that we move into the executive session for the purposes of discussing a personnel issue and inviting anyone who is a member of the Executive Committee or an alternate to participate in that executive session. Is there a second? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Preliminary questions that we need to figure out. And again, we don't need to make decisions on them tonight. We'll meet again tomorrow. But one in particular is, are we interested in trying to recruit an outside consultant to work with us on the search process? That's a fairly standard thing that districts and SQs all over the state will do. Dorothy and I spoke to a person who does that today. And it was actually very informative and illuminating. So we could talk a little bit about that. And then the second question is about, given where we are somewhat late in the school year recruiting calendar, and given that we are in a state of flux a little bit, do we think we're looking for an interim person, possibly for a term of a year? Or are we looking for someone who is longer term and is going to step into this period of change and help to bring us together and through it at the same time? So I guess to me it seems like those are the two main questions at the moment. What if other people have other? So should we speak into one or another? Let's speak to the consultant issue, I guess. Is it consultant, facilitator, both the same person? Or is it consultant, different from facilitator? It's the same person. It's going to be the same person. Usually, that's why I think. Yeah, I forward Matt four or five different possibilities. I forwarded somewhere with organizations that do this, one being Snelling, one being NASDAQ New England staff development council that we're members of. And I'm part of the board there. They do executive searches. So I forwarded. We worked with them during the last search process. That's where Brian came from. And I've already, sorry to. Yeah, no. I just was saying, I didn't mind naming any individuals. I sent you some individuals, too, and VSBA. So I wanted to say three organizations. I already talked to NASDAQ briefly on the phone. And they sent me a sheet that lists, and I can circulate that, lists like different levels of support and what that costs. Dorothy and I met with a person this morning who happens to live nearby and was willing to give an hour of his time just to talk about his impressions and thoughts. And to answer our questions that are like, where are we going to run off the tracks? And are we and things like that? It was helpful. And then I also reached out to a person through VSBA who does work for them that this is one of their areas of specialty is sort of farming out people to help. I got in touch with another consultant in Hinesburg who is not currently doing this work but recommended another person who is. So yeah, that's as far as I've gotten so far. So we should also establish something at the time table. What will it be? It'll be the third thing, I think. OK. So is there like a preliminary consensus on the idea of identifying a third party person? Yeah. Sounds like nobody's really disagreeing with that. Yeah, so OK. I think we just don't have the time. And I think it's better. Yeah. Again, I'm not looking for a decision. I just want things that we can say at the SU board meeting that we preliminary. So in terms of the issue of interim versus, I guess, permanent is the contrasting word, right? I can share again what I said before. I feel pretty strongly that we need an interim, at least, for a year. And after that, that would give us time to put our act together, get our values straight, and just start a function again and feel some relationships. And then we would have been out of the papers for every week.  You know, we would know better where our destiny is to. Right now we're in the interim of delay, delay, the board, the lawsuit. So it's pretty complicated. So I think that's my personal feeling. And that would give us more time to work with the consultant to what we want, whether the board would be in a better place. It would be a stronger board for such an important decision. And the interim would allow the work that is going on in the schools right now to continue. I feel strongly that Chen and Kelly should remain in a position so that they can continue to support that work that has been doing. So it's all two-me-all together. So that interim should be somebody that could heal relationships. Yeah, Dorothy. I'm thinking that it may be people, well, they'll all know what our circumstances are that this board is this board. But by June 30th, there'll be 10 or 15 other people that they'll have to be working with. So I think that's going to color how whether we get interim or permanent anyway. Well, I really put my name in for permanent. I don't even really know at this point what I'll be working with. So I think we're more likely to get some candidates who are, well, I can handle this for a year anyway, and then see what happens. I also support interim. But with the, and I think Dorothy raised this before, with the potential for that person, they could apply for the permanent position. But at least the outset knowing that it is an interim and it's not a permanent spot. I mean, also who we hire into that may determine whether it grows in. Someone may say, I just want it here. As a transition, shepherd the transition. But I think interim would be a good idea. I think Chris, I agree with you. I used to think it's an advantage to go for interim because it lets, I mean, there is so much flux out there. And so anyone coming in, they might be, especially if they know they have the ability to apply for the full-time position later. It's kind of a way of sizing up the situation and then if you don't like it, you know, you've got it easy out. And it's, I don't know, that's my instinct on it. But I mean, there's gonna be a lot of change coming in. I mean, we're a good school district. We always have, I mean, we're a seriously good school district. We always have been. This has been a hard time, but it's been a hard time across the state. So it's like, I don't know, it seems to me that people would see through it pretty easily. But I don't think the next, I don't think this year is gonna be anything like we've had for the past few years. But, I also support an interim actually person. But I just would say that, you know, we may, if we go out with the search that way, we may get people who are retired who are willing to do something for a year. We may, people are only looking for a year-long engagement of sort of clearly defined scope. You know, so, I'm not telling that because it may not be possible for us to hire someone as an interim with the idea that possibly later on they would, you know, be willing to consider, you know, a sort of longer term role. But I don't think that's an argument for not looking for an interim person. You know, we had an interim principal at Remney and it was tremendous. He was very open with the amount of time he wanted to put in. But he gave us great procedures in place that we hadn't had before. He was really strong in some feedback of things that we were doing well and places we were really lacking. And our current principal was able to come in and put those things in place. And our academics is stronger because of that. So there was some real value to having that interim principal. So we're at 524. I'm sorry, Steven, yeah, go ahead. The only thing I would say is to me, part of the risk of declaring interim up front is you're assuming you can get an interim candidate who you would like. So you're narrowing what's already a small pool. Go out for a search, realizing that you might have to settle for an interim. You get to hear from a larger pool of candidates and as Bill alluded to, you might luck out and get a couple great candidates that want the job. They don't want it in interim. The risk, if you just say you want interim, that's what you get. And you gotta pick someone from that pool. And if you don't like that pool, you're in trouble. So I just think there's some advantage, disadvantage, whichever way you go. I think what kind of swayed me a little bit this morning talking to this guy was his comments about the timing. Which is that most people are looking end of the calendar year. You don't need to defend, I'm not voting. No, it's just for so everyone can hear it. His thinking was that something conducted more along the typical timeline might attract 20 to 30 applications. Whereas if we were to put it out now, his expectation for whatever it's worth would be that we get half a dozen for a permanent position. So it would be a much smaller pool of people. Not to say that it might not have good people in it, but just a much smaller pool to work with. Can you wordsmith that so that it's kind of both worlds?  You don't know who you could lock into. Always, yeah. Anyway, for any of you who sees it, you don't know. Maybe that they don't like us. I mean, maybe the way you do it is just offer a one-year contract. I can't call it interim. But say your job is open and we're offering a one-year contract. See if you like us and we like you. Okay, we have a lot more to discuss. One last thing that we mentioned is that, and I don't love the interim. My ideal would be to hire someone because we're gonna have to duplicate the effort. But we're not the group that's gonna be supervising this new superintendent. Have it really strengthens the relationship with the new board to hire the person that they want. So that supports an interim. It does, right, okay. And I think in terms of the timeline, we can take that up tomorrow. But I think the first order of business is probably gonna be identifying who can work with us as soon as humanly possible. In terms of facilitators as well. Yeah, yeah, bringing in options and then discussing it. So unless there, oh, we have to accept a resignation. Yes, we have a resignation from Jessica Jones as the program director for Zena's program. Zena's program, as you may have remembered when we put it in place from all the alternative program. The name is changed this year for the Zena's program. And so she's tender to her resignation. Okay. Is there a comment that we accept? Jessica Jones. Jessica Jones resignation, effective June 30th, 2019. Just a second. Jessica Johnson. Johnson, sorry, Johnson. Don't worry about my package. We don't be out of the job until you know it. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about that. Second. Four seconds. Any discussion? All in favor? You say aye. Aye. Let's have it. Thank you. And without objection, we are adjourned at 528. Thanks. You can do a slate. I mean, that's, we've done slays before. I just, we have it each one. So if you'd like to do a slate, I know we can present that as well. Is there a second for that, Charlie? Charlie, are you seconding that or are you having a discussion?  It was a discussion.  We'll go right there. Thank you. Charlie. I just was curious about voting membership on this board. So every board has reorganized for their members, except for Berlin. So there are three voting members coming forward and they're the ones that vote for this board. We see different one ups from trying to keep the tradition. So there's three members from each board that were elected to the Washington Central Supervisory Union and their reorganization like we did you three too. Got it. Great question. Thank you, thank you, Charlie. So Phil. Yeah? I'm still a voting member until we have a reorganization. No, you are not a voting member of your board. That's not reorganized. So there are Berlin, yeah. Any other questions about voting or nominations? Okay. All those in favor are Matthew DeGroote, chair of the Washington Central Supervisory Union Board. They signify by saying aye. Any nays? Abstentions? Okay, I'm not going to ask for a count. It looks like we have your news. Congratulations, Matthew. Thanks, Bill. So we'll proceed to 1.1 reception of the guests. There's a number of people here. The leadership team is here. We have some folks I know that are here for 4.1 presenting on the leader's favorite. So I'm going to register a day, which I appreciate it. Is there anyone else that's here that wants to be acknowledged and wants to speak with you for their issues? It's down in the agenda. Thanks for coming. Are there any agenda revisions or board comments? Hearing none, I'll just note that I must, someone on the board objects after 1.3 will probably move immediately to 4.1 because we have students who are invited here tonight to give a presentation. They wouldn't mind going there all their time. And then also, we just note that it may be appropriate for the executive committee to get part of its report prior to discussion items 4.5 and 4.6. Any other agenda revisions? Hearing none, are there any public comments and correspondence? Hearing none, then we'll come back to the rest of the reorganization. In a few moments, but at this point I'd like to invite, I'm sorry, I'm sure we can share the good things that I remember about. Social worker here at U32, and he's been working with a group of students to look at and analyze data from the statewide and also the U32 risk behavior. Thank you, thank you for having us. As you guys heard, I'm Sherri Luton. I'm a school social worker here at U32 Middle and High School. And I have a couple of students from the high school here, counts a group of junior, Lydia Rice, a senior. We have, we did have a total of 12 kids involved with like the planning of this, but it was spring sports, firing and everything, so we don't get two tonight to come out, but there's been a lot of other kids involved in this. I also have Ginny Burley here from Central Vermont New Directions Coalition. Ginny's been very, very working pretty closely with us throughout this whole process. And I also want to acknowledge Pete Arsenault, he is a PE and health teacher here at U32, and he's been working through this whole process as well that you couldn't be here tonight. So basically, how we got involved, basically every two years, Bob takes the youth risk behavior survey. So we, that's something that's been going on for a long time. We received a grant, Ginny and I were working together quite a bit last year, and we were talking about the need maybe to have a prevention program at the high school. So New Directions wrote a grant on behalf of U32 to try to work with us, give us some technical assistance and stuff to develop. Basically, a youth prevention program here. So when school started, we were trying to figure out what's the best way to get going with this? We got to recruit kids, what are we gonna focus on, just trying to get ourselves organized. So through that process, I got some information about this conference that was coming up called Get It To Why. It was through, it's a Montpelio agency called Up for Learning, and basically the purpose of this conference was to take a team of kids. There's a middle school for middle school one and a high school one. Recruit a team of kids to come, attend this conference, learn how to analyze data, then come back to the school and do these data analysis retreats. So basically taking a look at this youth risk behavior survey that I mentioned. So the kids went to this in October, and then we came back in November, December, and we held a data retreat for the middle school kids and for the high school kids. We had over 20 kids in each group. And basically what they did was they went through this whole report and they decided what were, they were trying to come up with three of the biggest strengths here at U-30 Hills for the middle school and for the high school in three weaknesses. Then the idea was to take a look at root causes of these things and then brainstorm some solutions, some plans for action, things we can do with the kids' kids and do with their communities to try to improve some of the problems that were happening. So we basically did that. And then the next step of that was basically having a community dialogue night. So we held one of them on March 12th. We invited community members, parents, social service agencies, staff, staff and administration to come and brainstorm the same process the kids went. The kids went through basically conflict solutions and root causes of some of these problems.  So from that, we came up with the executive summary. The stock in bold face is basically some of the information that came out of the community dialogue night. The stock in the regular form was some of the ideas the kids had, things that came out of the kids retreats.  We wanted to share some of the stuff with you. Thank you. Like Sherry mentioned, my name is Towns DeGroote. And I want to talk a bit about some strengths here at E32. See, because throughout this entire process it has been very, very concern-oriented and what can be improved. But we also really want to make sure that we recognize the great programs that we have here at our school and in the supervisor reunion that can be very, very helpful for kids and students here. So an organization called the Search Institute has done a lot of research on things they call assets. And these are, you know, one of the things that show, they've done this research that shows that when kids have these things, they do very well and they do much better than when they didn't have these assets. The assets include things like having good role models or being involved in extracurricular activities, you know, high expectations and, you know, parental involvement in their lives in their school. We have a few sheets of you who are interested in more information. So we looked at these assets and they all fall under eight categories. And at our student retreat, we brainstorm things that our school does that supports these assets. So if you look behind you, we have all this of these down onto these pieces of paper to put them together. On the left is the middle school, on the right is the high school. These are all programs at our school that we think are helpful and represent specific assets. You know, programs like BLAM and BLAM, which are a racial and LGBT inclusive groups, respectively, things like a middle school mentoring program that we have here, or things math, various school and education support systems. If you're any time, if you want to take closer look, be our guest, we have markers on a table over there if you want to include programs that we might have missed. So, yes, this is just to recognize that, well, there are things that we need to work on at our school. We do have a lot of amazing programs that deserve recognition. And now Lydia is going to talk about some more strengths of ours, so why not? Hi, my name is Leah Rice. And so, like Tom said, we held two data retreats that identified following strengths and weaknesses. So for the U32 middle school strengths, we had 98% of middle schoolers that would be wrong to smoke at their age. 73% of students ate dinner with their parents seven days a week. And 60% of students engaged in through the BLAM timby daily for at least 60 minutes. And then along with our strengths, we also had concerns for the middle schoolers. So, first one was 9% overall didn't go to school because they felt unsafe at school on their way to and from school in the past 30 days. 10% of kids made plans to kill themselves. And 20% of students have been electronically bullied. Moving on to the high schoolers, our three strengths were 85% of U32 students reported they had one adult in the building they could talk to. 88% of U32 students believe their parents can get some wrong to smoke. And two of you students reported smoking every day to take data from compared to the Vermont average of 25%. And then along with our strengths, we also had some concerns. So, 70% of U32 students reported it was easy to access alcohol and 38% reported being given alcohol. 22% of U32 10th graders now seniors reported experiencing sexual violence double the state average of 11% for that grade. Overall, U32 18% of students reported experiencing sexual violence compared to the state average of 10%. And as many of you know, Jooling and vaping has exploded within our 32 community. And this past year there was no data available for the youth risk behavior survey, but it has become a well-known issue. And the administration has reported to this group that the number of school disciplinary infractions due to the use of eight cigarettes has more than tripled from the previous years. And now some towns and I are gonna go over the possible solutions. So, for the electronic bullying that happened in the middle school, a few solutions we had were restorative practices, opportunities for parent education, and also some more up-stander training embedded in the curriculum, and also some more assemblies. For the middle school concern that many students had planned suicides, we brainstormed ideas around increasing mental health services in our school, also providing better parent education, more pure mentoring opportunities, and more education for students without mental health and depression, and the resources they can find in order to help them. And for the concern of students feeling unsafe at school, we have a mentor-budgeting system, which is currently a system where high schools partner with a middle schooler to give them extra support and meet once a week during callback. Professional development for staff of standard training for students. Bouncing out to the high school, the concern of too many students having access to drugs and alcohol. Some solutions we brainstormed are parents and guardians, teaching, educating parents and guardians about being able to model healthy moderation and how to create better restrictions on access to alcohol in the home. And also teaching kids how to enjoy activities and do things that don't require alcohol or don't require any drugs or any kind. For the dating and sexual violence, we thought that educating, having more education surrounding that does mean no was important, increasing self-confidence and building a non-med work. And finally for the issue of leaving in June in our school, we really wanna, you know, address this very significantly younger ages. So we thought that it would be good to start providing education in elementary school, also to educate teachers on how to identify usage and harmful effects of leaving in June. And finally to educate teachers as well on the effects of how to prevent kids from leaving in June. And now Sherry is going to speak about what we've done so far and what we'll do soon. Thanks guys. Actually, I'm gonna turn it over to Jimmy Burley for a couple minutes because she has spent a whole time going through the survey and just wanted to, you know, share a little bit more information with you guys. Thanks Sherry and thanks to the students in the 20 some years that New Directions has been monitoring the YRBS working with the area of schools. This is the first time that students go to getting to YR. So it's pretty exciting to have this level of involvement. One of the frustrating things about the YRBS is that 20 years ago, we used to take it in the spring and get the results of the fall and fall. Now we get them the fall after that. So this is 2017 stuff we're looking at. And it's outdated. They didn't even know what a jewel was when they wrote this survey. So it's frustrating to not have really current information. So I just went through the data and pulled out some data points about U32, both middle and high school, but mostly high school, where U32 had, because I'm a problem solver and not much of a booster, I was looking through where we works than other these places in the state. So I'm just gonna call out a few places where our data's not so much to be proud of.  Ever misused prescriptions stimulants? We have high numbers. Misused a prescription drug within the past 30 days. Were offered, sold, or given in a legal drug in the past year at school. Let's see. I think it is very wrong or very wrong to smoke marijuana. We have a low number, so students don't think it's wrong. Easy to get marijuana. That's 66%, but it's easy to get. Easy to get alcohol, 70%, say that. We have pretty high screen time rates. Students using a lot of TV, computers, video games, et cetera. On the other hand, we have outstanding eating fruits and vegetables and not drinking sweet beverages. And a couple other good news, and this is not always typical of teenagers. They have at least one adult that they can talk to at the school. And they feel that they matter to the community. And that's 70%. And we first started looking at this. It was more like in Vermont to be down around 40 something percent. So that's really good progress. And I think those are, yeah. So those perceptions of harm, thinking it's wrong or very wrong to do these things. Those are important risk factors that can be addressed before students actually take action on that. And parental input on those issues is really important.  So it's really worth mentioning it to them. Thank you. So I just want to spend just a few minutes talking about what our next steps are gonna be. Basically, we thought it was important to obviously get through this process and see sort of what we're dealing with here. We were gonna have a group of middle school and high school school staff. We're gonna meet weekly through the rest of the school year and start sort of tackling some of these issues. So some of the couple of things that we're already working on I just wanted to share was in terms of the vaping, I attended a conference on Monday along with school nurse about this is basically to get trained in that program, cessation program for tobacco. So we're hoping to start that within the next week or two to offer kids that are addicted to nicotine. The opportunity to get some help or that to be able to stop. We took some middle school kids a couple of weeks ago to a middle school bullying conference up at Burlington and they attended some different individual trainings, one of which was around cyberbullying. So they have some ideas. So that's one thing. We're trying to educate the kids of what they can do a little bit more. We hope to take some high school kids to a dismantling rape conference up at UVM in April to hopefully get some ideas around some things we can do here to provide some education around raping violence and healthy relationships. We also have a circle that's gonna do a program for the kids which is like a social media program where the kids that have all the details you have to take pictures of like adults that they can talk to about these kinds of issues and they share it on social media and there's hashtag and all that stuff which we know is what the teenagers like. So this is a program that we're gonna be doing hopefully soon around some of that. Also the middle school is gonna be participating a ghost out at some point this spring where we provide some, the kids are basically the kids are going to take a look at how many deaths are caused by opiates and then we're gonna follow it up with like an assembly where the kids, we're gonna spend some time talking about what do we do, where can we take medications and stuff and dispose of them and where can they go and get help and just provide some education around that. So those are a few of the things we kind of hope to do between now and the end of the school year. We'll be sort of see these efforts continuing probably at least through the middle of next year that once we get our next set of data we'll kind of take a little look at that and see how it's changed and kind of go from there. So I just want to thank you for hearing us tonight. Thank you, Sherry and Jackie and Leah in town. I want to give more members a chance to offer any comments or ask any questions that they have but I just want to point out a couple of things that really struck me the first time that I saw this presentation. And so Stephen, I'm not sure we're putting on the spot but an approximate number of people in our current graduating class have seen this. So the current senior class is about 120? 120, yes, okay. So this survey was taken when the seniors were sophomores. Correct. So the data relates to that high school data. Right. So that's staff at 22% of students had experienced a sexual assault by the time, essentially they were 16, seemed remarkable to me. Well, the survey would have included the juniors and seniors out here at the time too. Okay, that's just, yeah. So 22% overall, that is. So we're talking about 25 kids basically out of the 120 had experienced that by 16 and then of course the statistic that 10% of our seventh and eighth graders had made plans to die by suicide. This is at the age of 12 or 13, I think also really, really jumped out at me. And that's not to discount many of the things you've said about the wonderful assets that this school has had and the positive things that are happening and I appreciate the solutions that you have worked to identify and are pursuing. But other than those are things that really hit me, I think I wasn't really aware of those issues. Very other board members have brought to you. I'm Johnny Watter, that's from the dirty board. I just want to thank you so much to those of you who helped bring getting to the Y2032. I think this is such a great program and really great work that you all are doing. And one of the things about YRDS data that I think is really helpful is that it really shows often disproportionality for students of color and LGBTQ students who often on some of these questions, the data shows that the experiences of harm and support are disproportionately disadvantageing students of color and LGBTQ students. And then I think that probably also impacts the types of solutions that a school and me is gonna need to really invest in in order to try to correct some of that inequity. I'm just curious how that looked in your data. Yeah, I was asking about how race and sexuality and gender can affect, how that affected the data. Yeah, I've seen some YRDS data that just shows that on many of the questions, for example, sexual harm, that students of color and LGBTQ students report much higher rates and are less likely to, more likely to feel unsafe at school and less likely to have someone at school that they feel like they can talk to. So just all of these different places where you see that disproportionality and then the solutions have to, I'm just curious about how that came up in your conversations. When we were at the Getting to Y conference, we talked a lot about how different things can affect the data and how the app. And it is very, very clear how race and sexuality and gender can affect the data. The rates of bullying against LGBTQ kids are just astounding. It was significantly higher than the rates of bullying against non-alternative kids. And there was a significant problem with kids of color being afraid of coming to school. So I think that we are out, know if we're doing enough to recognize that right now, but it is a very, very important thing. And it's very good that you talked about that. Thank you. I wanted to thank you too. In this, I have a question on the bigger picture. How does it, why is that we found out, integrated the work and trauma that we're doing as a, how does this solve, does this information inform step process too? Or are both groups working at the same time? I'm sorry to repeat the question. So as a supervisory union, we have been doing a lot of work, teachers and through Kelly Bogey on trauma. And I don't know if this is, this information relates to how we service those kids or how we put things in, acknowledging how we treat kids. You know what I'm trying to say. So the support systems that we're trying to create are, does this, are you guys talking? Sorry to put you in a spot. So are you talking just about like, our support systems will be in the school to deliver it about making those connections ever yet. But an assumption that I would make is that you know our data based on some of the new learning and then you've not made a deliberate connection. I just had a quick question. And this might seem to sound like a silly question, but do students consider baby smoking? And does your data reflect that? So it's actually a really interesting question. We talked about this at our community night and specifically about the jewel. And we talked about the fact that if you walked up to a high school student and you asked them, is it cool to smoke cigarettes? And they would say, no, that's disgusting. That's gross. You would never do that. But then you ask them, would you like to do you jewel? And they're like, oh yeah, that's fine. And there is not that clear distinction between the fact that the stuff you're putting in your body may not smell like cigarettes, but it is similar stuff. And there's stuff in there that no one knows about. So it's just trying to educate kids on the fact that it is not a healthy alternative. You know what the knot training I went to was interesting because that originally was about smoking. And they're trying to kind of revive that to include vaping.  We've done a really nice job in Vermont and I think across the country with that. But now we have this whole other thing of the vaping that's emerged. And you know, one thing we said to the kids that this data retreat was, there's something you know that's going on in your school that they did the data, because there was some questions about e-cigarettes on this current 2017 survey. There's a lot more than one that kids took a couple weeks ago. A lot more questions around that. But I said to the kids, is there other problems you know of in the school that we all know that maybe the data is telling, you know, it's, like the data wasn't showing that in 2017, but it wasn't a lot of questions. You know, so the kids were like, we know this is, you know, this is a huge problem. You know, so they kind of, you know, went with that, identified that problem based on what they're seeing here at school and their experiences, what we know from administration and stuff. We have time for one more question. So I guess my question is around this information, these statistics are startling, you know, alarming. And I guess there's something there's some proactive work being done here at U32 to address this.  And I'm just curious to know how we, there may be thoughts or plans to appropriately address this. So students at the younger grades coming up aren't, you know, this isn't the culture of the environment that they're going into. Yeah, so part of our solutions did involve building emotional supports into our curriculum. And then Tans and I are also going to the rate conference about rate and culture and trying to build a healthy relationship environment within U32. But you're right, it definitely does start within the elementary schools. And that was one of our solutions is that we think that this needs, we are seeing issues obviously in the high school, but it needs to start earlier. And so just building that is important. So two weeks ago, I went with the team of 10 other Vermonters to Ice One to see how they managed to change their culture and go from the worst underage drinking rates in Europe to the lowest in 20 years. And I would be happy to come in and show you and share with you how they did it. But it really is about, it's not a curriculum. It is a culture change where families step up and say, this is how we're going to do it.  The state would put in, they actually put in place a youth curfew. And family groups went around their neighborhoods and enforced it. So if you really do want to tackle this, it takes a cultural change and the values of the community. So I just really wanna thank you again. I probably spend a lot more time talking about this. Unfortunately, we have a very full agenda, but I just wanna encourage you. I know you're working with many other students here at U32 on this. And I thank you too for coming. Also I just wanna suggest that if you do have ideas or thoughts or even just want to discuss what might possibly move the needle on these issues or change things for the better, please think of the school board as a place to bring that information or those questions or those suggestions. I'm sitting next to the chair of the U32 board. It's a pretty good guy. You probably work with him on that. Trying to get something on their agenda as well. So again, just really appreciate your being here and sharing this data and your analysis of it. It's great. It's a treat for us. But at this point, we'll jump back up to section two and meet the rest of the organization. We can move each of these positions or we can move them as a slave. Is there anybody who would like to make a nomination for this position? Vice Chair Clark. I will say that people are interested in knowing the executive committee did vote to recommend to the SU board that Carly, again, elected the vice chair or nominated the vice chair, should say that Kristen Bay be nominated for Clark and that Mary Ormsby be nominated for chair. So we have Carl moving that slave to the candidates and toward the seconding, are there other nominations? Is there any discussion of that nomination? Hearing no discussion, I was in favor of electing the state of Carly Bradley, vice chair, Kristen Bay for Clark and Mary Ormsby for treasurer. Say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? As have. Thank you. 2.5 is to establish the time and day of regular monthly meetings. So I would recommend, Matthew, that it's been a tradition of Washington Central to usually have it on the 4th Wednesday for either the executive committee or the Supervisory Union Board and we pass the leaders of bound success and move it to 5.30. Dorothy Samood for the 4th Wednesday at 30 Kristen Bay seconds. Is there any discussion about that? Hearing no, I was in favor of establishing the 4th Wednesday of each month of 5.30 and the regular meeting of the ESU Board. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? As have. 2.6, we were asked to appoint a statewide representative behind the ESVA a little bit earlier this year. So do you want to see my talk to about the board? The wording is a little confusing there but the delegate's role is to vote or write a final agreement negotiated by the commission. So it's not, we're not, the members to that board to do the actual negotiating have been appointed. So we are just a delegate that ratifies the negotiations that have been taken place. Did I make, did I clarify it? No. Not quite for me, so it's a little background. So as most of you are aware, state statute changed and required that healthcare meeting negotiated on a statewide basis. ESVA is looking for a representative from every Supervisory Union Center Supervisory District to ratify the agreement once it's done for the healthcare piece. They have the negotiation team already. And so Washington Central needs to appoint a person to do that and to be your representative at that board of ratifying the healthcare negotiations once they're done. And another thing is that that delegate will be able to cast their vote electronically. So it's a little different. So whoever that person is, don't feel like you're gonna have to go to a lot of meetings. There will be a webinar and then you can cast your vote electronically. In the past, we had used, it was a different system, but it's a burden and has been appointed person to be hired. But in this case, it has to be a board member and it doesn't have to be anybody that is negotiations could be, but the negotiations are taking fire at this stage, like Bill said. So it's like, similar to what we were doing today, we've been boarded ratifying the negotiations that our energy team. There any reason why you as our rep to the VSBA could not also serve as our rep for healthcare negotiations? No, there's no reason. Yes. Would you be willing to be nominated? I would nominate Floor to serve as our rep for the high VSBA healthcare negotiations also. Okay, we have a motion and a second for Floor to serve as our representative in these negotiations. Any discussion? So my question is, when would be the first time that this representative would be required to meet? Well, negotiations are starting in April and I don't know when they're gonna get done. So it's at the end of the process, it's not at the beginning of the process, it's not the way we use the negotiations here. It's more a ratifying piece than it is anything else. They are, as Floor said, they already have their negotiation team that's negotiating. I ask the question, because with the uncertainty of who's gonna be board members in June, can we even elect a board member at this time? We have to. Yeah, I think you need to right now and I think that if that were to change, you could change it at that point. Otherwise we'd be giving away our one vote. So I think we have to. And then part of the process right now is keeping everybody informal of the process because nobody really knows exactly how it's gonna go as the first year. So who appointed the negotiators and where did they come from? I can go back to the whole thing because I don't wanna lie to you, I'll just open it. So I'll tell you. I like that too. Yeah, no, so it was just statewide and there was that. So B-high, BSBA, the state, that's about everybody got to appoint. A lot of people that were appointed to this position have been doing negotiations for years. So there's no, I'll tell you exactly what, who they are. Just have to, if you can move on to something else. One round, I'll just pull that out. We do have a motion on the table, so this pretty much is our topic of discussion until we discuss it. Okay, so to pull that one, we might just write it on the slide. While floor is moving on, are there any other questions? So for, is there one representative from each supervisory unit in the state that votes to ratify? No. Oh, votes to ratify? Yeah, ratify. Every supervisory unit or district gets one vote. Okay, and then is, who, I'm assuming the teachers kind of. So Vermont, Vermont, well, Vermont, any represents every educational person, every educator in the state. So not only people that are in their membership, but the administrative team that you see here, the ESP, if they're covered by a different association. So they represent everyone and that's why the superintendents and the principal's association cannot be part of the negotiation for the board side. Okay. Is there any reporting to the board during the negotiation process? Because it sounds like you're not the one negotiating, but they're, I'm assuming they'll report to you. Or is the process kind of closed process and we find out at the end what the result is and then you vote yeah or nay on the result? So, I can send you the whole thing that was sent an email back. This was something that happened in the fall. So it was in the names letter in the fall for the SBA. But basically they have to start negotiations and I'm just gonna read you a little. As the commission must select a person to serve as the backliner to assist in resolving any matters remaining to dispute if the commission is unable to reach an agreement. So we really don't have a say if you're giving our negotiation to these people that have been appointed. That we did had a say in who they were at the regional meeting, but they were appointed, like I just said, by the NEA, the SBA, and the high. So the commission is required to enter into a written agreement incorporated in all the matters agreed in the negotiation. And they're gonna start work on April 5th. That's as much information that we have. And I'll tell you exactly the representative of schools and school employees, most each developer seers by which members will ratify the agreement into the commission. If the agreement is determined by arbitration, it's not subject to ratification. So yes, there's gonna be more information through the process. I can send you the polls. I just don't wanna take the entire knowing that's important. One last question in terms of how long a period of time will we be talking about? Is it annual or is it multi-year? So the way that they have it right now is that the Act 11, which is what this is, they'll pull up the bargaining agreement, not just health insurance commissions between SU and SD and school employees shall expire between July 2020 and September 2020. So it's just that one year. Well, no, I think this was a different question. You're asking how long the health care negotiation? Yeah, something that depends on the negotiations. How far they go? I don't think there's a time. So they just go cap on that? No, I mean, what Act 11 did was put the negotiating of health care at the state level. And really it put it right into state government and VI and BSVI had been asked to come in as part of it, I think. I have to go back to both the exact if they remained under the Act or not as partners. And I can send to everybody who is in this commission for the entire state. And the other thing is that the arbitrator that's gonna guide this for us, that it has to put out something by November 15. So that could give you a little bit of a timeline. Is there any other discussion on the motion? I was ready for that question. On the motion of pointing for Diaz-Smith to vote on behalf of the SU and state-wide healthcare negotiations. All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Guys have it? Thank you. Move to 3.1. Is there a motion to approve the minutes of November 13th? Chris, is there a second? Steven? Discussion. In the minutes which I believe you hear on page three. We have one correction in item 3.3 in the first sentence where it says to narrow the scope of work. It should say having narrowed the scope of work. Any other comments? Hearing none, all those in favor approving the minutes of February 13th, 2019, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? So we'll go to 4.2, which is reviewing our supervisor and union board norms. These are on page six of the packet. Those of you who have served on the board in past years, at least the past couple of years, these will look familiar to you. We have adopted these norms each year. We sometimes struggle to follow them, to be honest. But I think the ones that are needed to involve it, I think the aspiration at least to start and end on time is the one that all voices get heard, three people speaking before or usually again, and all these kinds of things that are good, but if you want to discuss or talk about these, we can or if someone wants to move them, we may adopt them. I would move that we adopt the current board norms. Stephen has moved that we adopt these board norms. Is there a second? Forward? Is there a discussion on this? Mary, issue that I have with these raised at the U32, the role of the board, the end of the board meeting, we'll talk about the role of the board, state of the highway, throughout the meeting, to the shoreline of the rules, it's not spending too much time on the weeds. That's fine, the role of the board is greater than that. It's contained in the rules and it's contained in the concept that we set policy and broad policy goals for the union as a whole. So I just want to make note of the fact that I think referring to this as the role of the board is what it was leading to, maybe to say, the function, the activity of the board, that particular meeting, the role of the board is greater than that. If all of you are generally, you're not so generally changing, do you just sort of notice what the situation is? Yeah. Any other comments? Any other questions? All those in favor of adopting the norms of the supervisor and union board to be certified by the AI? No, no, no, no. Opposed, intentions, nice habit? 4.3, the 2019-20 school year calendar. Sorry, Paul. Sorry, Stephen's asking a question about that. So one of the things that we must do by statute is be in alignment with the Central Vermont Career Center. And one of the things that we've all been experiencing this year with, when we experienced one on Friday, is the number of snow days that we've had. We're currently up to seven at U-32. And that's putting us into the last week of June for school. So if we had followed the traditional pattern that we've had every other year, we would stop our last day of school on June 16th for students and June 17th for teachers. Seeing that, I worked with the associations in our Labor Management Council to say, how can we move two days out of that third week so that we could end school on Friday without any snow days? End school on Friday, June 12th. And ask them for their best suggestions. And they came back to reducing a day in October so that we're actually in school on Columbus Day. And that in January, that we move in service back on to Martin Luther King Day. We had a lot of discussion on that because two years before we had a lot of discussion about we really want to honor Dr. King's great ideals. And where we came on is that for the half-day of in-services that we acquired by contract, the half-day of grading that day, but for that half-day that the in-serves would be focused on justice, bias, anti-bias work, youth empowerment, something along the ideals of Dr. King. So we are proposing, and the leadership agreed with that, leadership team. So I'm bringing in this calendar. I know that will be a change for some families from what they normally have been used to in the past couple of years. There's been some extra long weekends there and they won't be quite as long, but, and I think that I'll be talking to most of you as board members about this year's calendar at a later date. But as I tell everybody, I plan on snow days could still happen in the first couple weeks of April. I've experienced them within the past couple of years. So we're hoping not. It's the combination of the mud and the snow. So this is the count. That was the real objective of this calendar is get us back to where the last student day is the Friday and the second weekend. And we must be in alignment across the central, central Vermont Career Center for 175 days. This calendar does it. They're in the calendar that you have in front of you. Do you say that this year's school calendar will be will be discussed or determined later? It may be, it may be Katie. It's one of those things of, one of my values is that we keep kids in school as much as possible. So I've been a hard one to, we have 180 days required to have 175. We may have that discussion later on because right now we're ending on Monday. You third year is making up a day next week because they have an in-service with a pair of conferences in the office. Your question is on the calendar for the 20th school of the year. Chris Samoud, is there a second? Sorry. Not the choice is there. We'll move to Carl. So any further discussion? You're not all as in favor of adopting the calendar as drafted for the 2019 year of the 20th school of the year. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Distensions? The ayes have it. So we'll go to 4.4, which is teacher and conversations. So I have a process question. Teacher and conversations is on the discussion agenda and also 5.6 on the reports to the board. And I wondered if that was intentional. And if so. But I think our intent, and I wanna make sure this is correct, is for the full, everybody to get to hear efficiently what the results of the negotiations were and have a chance to ask questions before going back into their local boards to ratify. Yeah, I'll ask more if you can discuss it. Okay, okay. So as you all know, we worked with the association using consensus-based decision-making process called interest-based bargaining to get to this agreement. I just wanted to name the negotiating team on the board side was Carl from U32, Stephen from East Montpelier, Vera from Berlin, Chris from Middlesex and Susana from Calis and myself. And also really acknowledge Bill and Lori and their team who just put in a huge amount of work to help us understand the issues that we were looking at and get to an agreement that everyone could live with. And so the main features of this agreement are that we worked to address some of the association's concerns around how the health insurance package was impacting association members and how to make it work better for their association members overall while keeping it essentially cost neutral. And the way that we did that was with an agreement where employees are paying a higher percentage of the premiums in exchange for no pocket. So the employer is covering out of pocket expenses and paying less of the premiums. And again, this was what we heard from the association was that overall this would work better for their members and that was a really important issue for them. So it was a place where we were able to come to agreement and then there's also the salary increase represents 3.1% increase in new money which then gets put into the salary scale. So depending on where you are in the grid you're the faculty and staff experience a different increase. And then the last thing I just wanna say about this as a report is that the negotiations process I think gives us board members the chance to hear directly from faculty and staff about their experience of working for these institutions that we oversee. And one of the things that helped clarify for me is how essential it is for us as board members to be thinking about all the ways that we reflect back to the people that are employed in these institutions that we are really grateful for their service and we really admire their professionalism and all the ways that they contribute to the educational mission that we set out. And then the benefit salary and benefits package and other elements of the agreement are one of the ways that the faculty and staff kind of experienced communications from the board but that there are many other ways that we could be proactively communicating that gratitude and admiration for them and their professionalism and their skill. So I think it's a great reminder for all of us to be taking advantage of those opportunities. Did you wanna say anything else, Bill? Thank you, thank you, Johnny. And Johnny and Suzanne are great partners to work with. They do a great job leading that for all of you. I just wanted to give a process piece, Matthew, if you don't mind, just a bit.  Our goal is to be able to put contracts in teacher's hands so they don't have letters and intent. So one of the reasons we're doing this tonight, I think most of the boards, except for U32, you have a one agenda item because it's ratified by the local boards that you can all just stay in this room and we've done it some other times. Huddles have your clerk take some minutes. You really just need to approve it, vote on it and be done. I think that's everyone's agenda pretty much. Doesn't mean you can't, you could do something else if you'd like to. Not saying that, but that's the process that would happen right at the close of this meeting. I know U32 needs to go for another issue to your regular room. If there's any questions. I thought if you started to say you wanna put the contracts in the teacher's hand by date, but you're, oh, I'm sorry, yeah. April 15th, we have to do it by April 15th and if we miss that, we have to give them letters of intent and I don't wanna go through a two cycle piece. That's why we're trying to get this room date ratified in a couple of schools already and they're gonna be done by Friday, ratifying. Okay. There's no action to be taken here but this is just a briefing for the meeting for what to happen. We're trying to do the discussion in the Hall of Wine. I understand that. Are there any questions for China or Bill or other members of the Michigan? Yeah, so just to say that the mic is appreciation and noting just the amazing number of hours that go into serving in the negotiations and then it is, okay, let's move on to Act 46 update, which is a bit vague over the topic, it's somewhat complicated. Bill and Jack's, I'll try to do my best to just give an overview, I guess, of the developments since our last SEM game. In the knowledge that everyone here will be honest to the Michigan State or say something that's being interpreted differently than they would interpret it. I believe our last meeting was on the 13th of February and there was an organizational meeting for the Washington Central Unified Union School District on the 19th, at which shortly after adopting rules of constitutional order and meeting there was a motion to adjourn until an event certain, event the ruling of the judge and the pending suit contesting some aspects of Act 46 and 49 as well as the process by which it's been carried out by the agency of education and the state school board. That ruling was issued on March 4th. The judge denied the motion for preliminary injunction or stay and also issued a sort of non-vibing, I guess I would call it a series of comments on the merits of the suit, but has not yet ruled on the suit formally or formally. There has been another organizational meeting scheduled for April 8th, at which there'll be another attempt to take up a business that's warned for that meeting. I guess I would also note that I can also make people aware that there's been some activity in the legislature over the last several weeks. So the house had already passed a bill that permitted delays of the effective operation of dates of districts that had been ordered to merge under different circumstances. The Senate has now also passed a bill which would allow for delays to take place under different circumstances of those listed in the House bill as well as dealt with some issues around budget and so on. So my understanding is that now those that would be taken to conference committee and the differences in the bill would be hired out by a group of representatives from the House and the Senate to see if they could arrive at a compromise or a consensus on that. So those are the facts more or less, I guess I would offer one editorial comment. It is my impression that the organizational meeting on April 8th probably is our last opportunity to put in motion a chain of events that will allow us to have a voter-approved budget for Unified Media District to be forwarded to the operation on July 1st. So I just wanted to note that that seems to be the case. I think that that being doesn't happen or that meeting happens and is adjourned before business is an opportunity for us to put a budget in front of voters. House wants to, so that's where we are at. If anyone wants to speak to the issue or say other things about it, I guess try to. Since I am one of the people who have been fighting at quarter six and just wanted to note that I agree with what you said. Gordon? We need to have a conversation about the organizational meeting and anything that we have to have on the plate or are we gonna have legal counsel or I think there are a couple of things that we talked, I can pull out my notes but we think that there's a meeting met and we had a couple of questions. Yeah, you reminded me about a couple of things that I appreciate that. Thank you, I did forget. Executive Committee met last week and we passed a couple of motions specifically asking Bill to reach out to the attorney with some questions that he had. So one question related to, I can look at the minutes, but essentially the question we had was we wanted to know, the lawyers written the opinion about the circumstances under which, if there are any, that the agency of education or the state board of education can take over a school district for school districts. The reason we put that question out was because there were some quotes in the paper a couple of weeks ago, approximately, by Secretary French, the effect that if districts and voters did not move to put the newly ordered districts onto a track of being successfully operational by the date set of the law, that he would consider something like all possible legal means for making sure the law is carried out. That seemed to some of us like implicit threat to, or explicit, general review of assuming control of the school system if they are capable of doing that. So we asked one of the lawyers opinion on whether that can be done under what circumstances. The second question that we wanted to put to the lawyer was simply what are the implications who were the new union district if there is no voter group budget by July 1st? The answer to that question is somewhat a moving target because as I mentioned, there is a bill that's been passed by the Senate and it's still under consideration which would actually lay out exactly what the new union district would have to be. So that may be superseded by the legislation from some point during this session. That question is still seems working. There was a question that came up in the executive committee about whether we wanted to ask Washington Central as you legal counsel to be present for the meeting. I think that caused some controversy last time. So that was something that we had talked about bringing up here. By the way, I should say that we, the executive committee met last Wednesday requesting on out to the attorney on Thursday. He hasn't had time to write a formal written opinion on those questions as yet. We did receive an email from him about five minutes before this meeting with some bulleted thoughts so I haven't had a chance to read it or digest it or you know, look at it. Let's see, would we prevail? Just to, yeah, I have my agreement. I think that I hope we'll just, just gotta wait for me to put up my computer. I had a question, Matthew. Perhaps everyone knows the answer, but is the budget for the new merged unified district something that would be determined by the new merged board sometimes between, I think they're elected before backwards? Is that the assumption or is there a process for developing that budget? The voters of the new union district would have to approve that budget. The new board would have to warn that vote. That's how that works essentially. So the organizational meeting, one of the items of business I believe is to set a date for the election of new board members. And then once the new board members are elected they would have to warn about the electorate to adopt or reject a budget, a grant budget. What was the second part of the question? Oh, yes. So there is a process defined in Act 49 specifically, I believe, where there is this transitional board. It's in the article, sorry, the default is also in the article. That basically two members from each of the existing six district boards get to this transitional board. It literally has no authority or power, but it's charged with trying to work on drafting a budget for the new board once elected to consider. So I sent the questions off to Chris Leopold on Thursday and right at the beginning he said, he had told me on Thursday he wasn't sure if he'd get a written opinion back here by today, but the other work we had on this desk. Leopold provides some very preliminary assessments. So was the method or process that either the state board or secretary of education to take over control of the school district? The authorization in Title 16 appears to be limited to the school quality standards. 16 BSA section 165B authorizes the secretary to assume administrative control only to the extent necessary to correct deficiencies. There are notice and related provisions prior to such an assumption. In my opinion, this statutory authorization is incapable to a newly established school district. He also says I'm also reviewing other potential attitudes for the secretary of the board to take over control of the school district. The second question, if a new school district does not have a budget by July 1st, 2019, what are the implications for a district to pay obligations? 16 BSA section 566 authorizes the school board to borrow funds in the absence of a voter approved budget by June 30th. Under the statute, the board has authorized to borrow funds necessary to operate schools in an interim budget, interim budget, up to 87% of the most recently approved school budget. Given the wording of the statute, there are questions as to whether the statute is word, worded applies to new school districts. If so, what is the spending threshold? The Vermont legislature is presently considering this issue. The House passed H39, which authorizes borrowing and spending at 87% of the cumulative total of the forming districts in the prior year. The Senate has passed a version of H39, authorized an interim budget, and borrow at 100% of the cumulative total of the funding forming school districts in the prior year, plus an adjustment to the average statewide spending increase from the prior year. The agency establishes the budget and the school board determines borrowing needs and spending decision. The bill will most probably go to a conference committee to resolve the difference. In the event the legislature does not pass H39, or the issue is not resolved, the 16 BSA section 5632 authorizes the school board to take any action for the sound administration of the school district. The secretary of education with the advice of the attorney general shall decide whether any action contemplated or taken is required for the sound administration. The decision of the secretary shall be final. This may be an alternate vehicle for addressing the issue of budget and borrowing. Lastly, if a new school district does not have a board by July 1st, 2019 for the implications for a district, sorry, I have a little techie problem right now, for a district to access and review to pay obligations and run operations for a school district. Under the articles of agreement for Washington Central Unified Union School District, the transitional school board serves until there is an elected school board is seated. Under the provisions of article nine, C1, the transition board has the same authority as a WCUSD school board. Under the articles and otherwise by law, is my opinion that in the absence of a newly school, of a newly school board by July 1st, 2019, the transition board may exercise those responsibilities. And then Chris says, okay, if you want, if you'd like more or just written up, it would be more than willing to send a written opinion. Thanks, Stephen. I know. In terms of the floor, I don't know if you want to, I'm sorry, just returning to the issue of the attorney being president. No, it was just supposed to question to everybody because we're gonna, if there's a process by which we can just allow him to vote once, to allow him to speak and be there as a consultant, even if it's necessary, it sounds like they're giving us all the information right now, so I'm just trying to be prepared one way or another. If there's a process in their initial meeting by why we can vote once to let him speak when needed, or we don't need you to have a list more specific this time when we don't need him there, I really don't know. So I'm asking that, I don't, I don't want to be the one making the decision. I'm just speaking out loud what would be the best approach for the day of the meeting. If we wanted to specifically ask the attorney to be there, we would need a motion, and then we would have to approve that motion and we could ask him to be there. It would be up to the voters whether or not the attorney would be able to speak or not, if he's not in our, I'm sorry, if he has to be there by the end of the street. Last meeting, if I were with him, I wouldn't come back the way it was treated, and if we have to pay him to be there, I feel like it's a waste of money if people refer to him as him, that man. I just think he was treated so poorly that in my opinion it's not worth paying somebody to come and not be able to talk. I guess I personally feel the legal waters we're creating are so subpoenaed these days that the advice of any one lawyer at a given moment is pretty transient, and I guess I would argue that to my mind it's probably not worth his time driving over here, and I'm very satisfied with that. I'd like it so the lawyer would be asked to fail for this meeting to have it be instructed to fail to hold this facility day here at the organizational meeting, so if you guys have any information out for your community to make sure that you've mentioned that, so we're hoping that more families can attend. I just know that we're moving the meeting to the gym for lighting and more space. I guess I would also, sorry, go ahead. I see you down. Sorry, I only have a question. Okay, my question was so we can confirm that Susan or Suzanne Clark is coming, because I assume she's still used to it. Yes, I've been working with Susan, Susan and I have been writing one of the locations, just coming over a couple of things. I guess just for the purpose of naming things out loud, I think that obviously there are members of this board who would probably really prefer that voters be encouraged to come out and conduct the business of the meeting that's warned. I think there are probably other members of the board, I don't know for sure, but my guess is that there are other members of the board who would encourage voters to come out and again, vote to adjourn the meeting before that business can take place. So I guess I just wanted to acknowledge that we're basically not talking about that. Okay, is there anything else, anything else related to, oh sorry, I forgot again. I just note that the decision of the community to adjourn is the business of that meeting as well. Okay, so we'll move on to 4.6, which is a super intended transition. There's a couple of things that we need to, or actually we need to take under this. The first I think would be acknowledging and at the board discretion accepting a resignation that Bill finished last Friday. That resignation letter is in your packet, I guess without too much of it, is there a motion to accept that? Is there a second to that motion? Is there a discussion? Yeah, I guess what I will say is that there are many things I could say, words of appreciation and acknowledgement, an admiration for Bill and for the things that he's accomplished in Washington Central over the last seven years. And really it's quite a remarkable way to think about it. However, I haven't had time to be honest to really collect my thoughts properly and how to express that well. So my lack of doing that now is not due to lack of praise or lack of deservedness, which is due to lack of time and preparation to pull that together. So it's my intent to, you know, to make that recognition and give Bill's service and accomplishments there due at a future meeting before you do that. But for the moment I'll just say how much of your work is appreciated. He has done good things for kids and that's what's most important to you. So, in that sense of it. So if there's no further discussion and we're ready for the question, all those in favor of accepting the resignation please say hi. Hi. Opposed? So next would be, I apologize for speaking so much. I really should have delegated some of this to other executive committee members. I will just note that the executive committee didn't meet for this meeting to discuss in general terms some of the questions that we'll have to answer about if we go out to conduct a search for a superintendent. Some of those questions involve would we want to hire a third party consultant to put expertise in that area, to assist us in that search. Consensus, preliminary consensus at the moment is that we would want to do that. A second question involves whether we would be looking to hire an interim superintendent or go out and search for a long-distance permanent superintendent, I would say at the moment although there's further discussion, the committee is leaning in the direction of an interim superintendent is probably more appropriate to our current circumstances and to sort of state of flux that the system is in. And the executive committee, I think, wanted to offer to the ESU Board to not ask that this work might be delegated to the executive committee, which seems like a more expedient way of handling the process than to try to ask the ESU Board to meet as much as I think would be necessary. That's kind of where we got to, so at some point we got into motion to that effect. I just want to recognize that Charlie has certainly had a memo about this, specifically about some of the information I sent out that I got from the agency of education and from the Broad School Board Association. So I just want to ask if you want to speak to that at this time. The purpose of the memo is just to elucidate that the question of whether this union will have a superintendent by squarely move the board, not the AOE, and maybe that's what the AOE meant when it provided, or divided the board with citations. Yeah, I don't think it's public. Yeah, my conclusion though is kind of aligned with what you already said, it seems to me that we're moving into a different place where we likely have a different board, won't be as we're all named ducks, and that the idea of hiring a superintendent, or not hiring a superintendent, shifting the functions to, for instance, the principles, is something that I would say ought to be made by the new board, and I would expect possibly that the issue of the control over the direction that the school is taking, whether it be heavily directed by administration, whether the board takes a more active role, will probably be a subject of consideration for the electorate. So for all those reasons, I would agree with what the executive committee is thinking about right now, which is that maybe we go with an interim superintendent. I think the committee also ought to consider whether instead of that, we just do what the law allows and shift the functions to the principles with a concomitant increase in salaries for them pertaining to those functions. A lot of, there's a lot, that's 30,000 feet, but that would be in the details. I guess I would ask if it's the board's decision to delegate this work to the executive committee, would you be comfortable without adding this to an agenda for the teacher's negative opinion? That's an hypothetical. Adding what? Adding the discussion of this amount of and considering it. I guess I would ask if there are ways to make it. I'd go ahead. So we'd like to, I think get a sense of the board as a whole, thinking about interim versus going for permanent right now, just because that should not be exclusively in the executive committee decision. I don't think we should delegate that if our I think it's a broader discussion that we should be having, especially as we're moving into, probably moving into a different phase of our existence and what that means and whether or not we really do want to see significant change in how we operate. To me, that would argue for an interim so that we can have a year long conversations or at least half a year long conversations among ourselves and with our communities. But I also think we should get a sense of what is a whole, that's what direction you'd like the executive committee to move in in regard to superintendent's search. I for one, Chris would agree. I think that an interim supervisor would give us a year, year and a half to have that conversations. Another argument in favor of an interim is that when an institutional organization is experiencing, isn't the terms of a lot of conflict, I think an interim can help move the process forward in a different way that a permanent leader can. But again, I would be, if the executive committee through its research or engaging with a consulting firm to help with this started to shift in a different direction based on what you all were learning, I hope that we could reopen that conversation, but at this point, I would favor the interim as well. I heard enough to speak at the executive committee, but I favor the interim too, and I've had about six reasons for that. I think it would give us a year to gather, like they've been saying, gather ourselves, reassure our values as a board. Second, we won't have it on the paper every week. And so we would be more attractive and have a bigger pool of candidates, hopefully. And I think we're a great group of schools and leaders and educators, so I think we would be, and I would say, was a way to heal as community, think of your work. And also, maybe, and I don't know this for a fact, we would be able to continue the work that we're doing right now at our schools and support our leadership team and this interim person to be somebody that has no state in the community right now that could help us really heal so that we can pass that on to any superintendent. As far as, excuse me, an interim that makes sense at this late date as well, and there aren't very many people out there right now in our state, and we have been in the news quite a bit, so I doubt there's people knocking on our doors, but I also feel that the idea of delegating the responsibilities to the principals, if I was a principal, I'd be writing my resignation right now, and I am an educator, I work in schools, the principals' jobs are already over the top and they're there late, and I think that would just scare me off but we don't wanna lose our administrators, so I think an interim shows that we value leadership, we value keeping our schools together and having a systematic approach to leadership, so I think an interim is a normal way at this date when you're hiring somebody in this type of position, it doesn't mean the person couldn't prove themselves and stay on, so that would be my vote. It's a good moment to jump in and say that we talked at a considerable length at our executive committee meeting, possibly more than any other topic, how to engage the leadership team in a constructive way, so I just wanted to note that that decision was taken. What I'd like to do is make a motion that the superintendent transition and search process be delegated to the executive committee with specific guidance from the Washington Central Supervisory Board that we want that to be an interim, a search for an interim superintendent and that we authorize the hiring of a consultant to facilitate that process. Lisa, did you get that? Is there a second? Is there a further discussion of that motion? I'd just like some clarification on what the function of consultant would be. I wonder the scope of what the consultant would be hired to do, you know, I think the consultant ought to go do a deep dive and look into whether the paradigm of a superintendent is really the best paradigm of this community. I think that's more of a task for the next board, but I hate to see us necessarily moving back into the exact same structure that we've had all these years, unless and until the electric, in the electric indicates that that's the direction it wants to go, so I think it's a really good time for us all to objectively analyze what our needs are and how they align with the culture of our community, or the project of our community. I think in part, the consultant facilitator is just that. It's really to advise on what the process looks like. But I understand your point that there's a question here raising about whether that's in the direction we want to go. I guess what I'm going to say is that in the initial research that I've done, just looking around that either people are firms that do this, the costs that range from $3,000 to $30,000. The $30,000 bubble generally is if you want to require the consultant to engage with you in doing a strategic planning process, which I think is one of the lines of what I understood you'd be saying. So there's a cost factor. There is another motion that's going to be coming up in a minute after this one, which I think may be more directly on point to your concerns or a chance to voice it. So is there further discussion about, please say aye. Opposed, abstention? Okay, one opposed. Ayes have it. The next item under this is that my understanding, reading both the state board of education rule and the chair bill that we received from the agency of education is that it's the responsibility of the chair of the SD board to notify the secretary of education when there is a pending vacancy and of the intent to conduct a search, probably including details, preliminary details that we've discussed here that at least preliminarily we're considering an interim superintendent for a shorter period of time. I have not yet sent that letter. I would greatly appreciate and even request a motion and vote from the board asking me to do that. So moved by floor and seconded by Chris. Lisa, did you get that? I was sort of, so the motion would need to essentially direct the chair to send the letter to the secretary of education about the pending superintendency vacancy in Washington Central of our intent to initiate a search. Is there any discussion? I wonder if it could be broken into two parts. I wonder if it could be broken into two parts. I wonder if the motion could be broken into two parts. I support the notion of you sending the official letter to the secretary that our superintendent was designed to be losing the position. But I'm not so certain about it, but I don't think I would support the idea that we're indicating to him that... I would accept that as a friendly amendment. So for this motion, then Lisa, the wording would be up through superintendency vacancy, but then remove the language of that initiating a search. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. Would you mind reading that back just so that everyone is clear about that? I think that's fine. Is there any further discussion of that motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? Abstentions? And then there's a question of whether the board's pleasure to make another motion directing me to inform the secretary that we intend to initiate a search. Is there any discussion of that motion? Yes, sir. I understand that right now, but we should probably modify that. It wouldn't just be a search for a superintendent, it would be a search for our path forward. I mean, if a day we're discussing something beyond, there's either the outside possibility that we would have a superintendent. I mean, this is obviously an organizational, it's almost an organizational search. Do you understand that? The motion, when I just repeat what you said in the motion, I've understood that this was you're informing the secretary that we're undertaking a superintendent's search, but are we actually doing that at this point? We're going with it in or possibly and then if we're looking at possible alternative paths, correct, then that may or may not include a superintendent. I think I will surprise no one when I say that I know it's important not having a superintendent. Superintendent, I'm surprised, but you know, I'm happy to have the discussion and talk about it and see where it goes. And I think that initiating a search is not synonymous with completing a search. So we're gonna start doing it and we'll take the steps and go down the road. And if there are compelling arguments or the board's desire is to stop that search or take it on their approach. I would offer a friendly amendment. Brian, it's your motion. Oh, sorry. So speaking to the new motion, I feel like we're already in a very difficult situation where if we're gonna have to get an interim superintendent, we're already facing a limited pool and uncertainty to go with the language that the friendly motion is just added is gonna make that even more difficult and even less likely that we're gonna get viable candidates for an interim superintendent. I mean, I don't think there's a convenient way around it. Either we're gonna do a search for an interim superintendent or we're not gonna do a search for an interim superintendent. And I don't favor words smithing around it. We either are or we aren't. So to address the current motion, I would oppose it. Grace, are you able to help us out by repeating the current motion? Brian made the initial motion. Chris offered a friendly amendment. Formally offered a friendly, but Rick was saying he was offered an amendment. So I think Steve has this exactly like, I think we're looking at a very small pool. I think he constructed over the next year while we have an interim superintendent to have a discussion about whether we want to have a superintendent in the long term. But I think trying to make that decision tonight not be in anybody's best interest and particularly it would be readily against the best interests of the students of the next year. I'd like to second that. I have a feeling that the task of what we were charging you with was initiating a search for an interim superintendent with the purpose of during that interim period discussing whether we were going forward with the superintendent's future. What I would suggest is that motion has been made. Friendly motions, friendly amendments suggested and accepted. So at this point, not to make it laborious, but if you wanted to amend, I would say to change the word may result into, I would make a motion to amend it to strike the friendly amendment. Or we could simply vote this motion down to start afresh, right? And I made a motion, I said, I didn't make a motion. Is there a second for that motion? Four of a second, okay. So we have a motion on the floor to strike the friendly amendment. So Lisa, I'm gonna ask you again. I apologize. If you could read the motion up to the point where the friendly amendment was inserted. So I'm gonna start with 110. Yeah, we need to read at least seven pages from it. So Brian moved to direct the board chair to direct a letter to the secretary of education expressing our intent to initiate a search for an interim superintendent. That was the agreement. Let's take that was even out, you know what I'm saying? Just 2.7. Okay, so we're unclear in the wording of the, well let's take a, I think the first thing we have to defeat Ruben's motion to amend or accept it as an end to board's vote. So, or you can withdraw your motion. I will cheerfully withdraw. Cheerfully noted. Back to the main motion and we don't know what that is. You had an interim essay to notify the secretary of education of our intent to initiate a search for a superintendent. Is that correct? So what is the, and then Chris made a friendly amendment to accept it. Back to the main motion then. Chris will withdraw his friendly amendment. Any other discussion? Citing to the regulations of the board of state board of education, 3230, the agency of superintendency, 3231 says the chair shall notify the commissioner of education, the secretary. As soon as the board becomes aware of any vacancy and superintendency, it will supervise your unitistic. Not even that section or any other section obligates or even arguably permits us to give the secretary an indication of what our intent is. So for me, I will vote against sending the secretary the information about our intent. I guess I should say that the sort of rationale behind asking for this or suggesting it is that I don't have that rule right in front of me or maybe I do. I believe it's the last section of that rule that seems to permit, yeah, it's 3232.2. It seems to offer the secretary rather broad latitude in how he can respond to the notification. Even to the extent of possibly recommending the state board changes in supervisory unit districts or possibly redrawing boundaries. This is how I interpret the language. You have felt that by specifying to the secretary that we intend to conduct a search for an interim superintendent for one year that it seemed to be that he would be more likely to accept that proposition without trying to change it or add it or lump it around. I guess that was the rationale for that. There's a rule of three, so I don't want to add that. I've been talking to you for this. No, me, I'm not doing it. I would concur with that concur. I hear you loving clearly. And if the rules were only in place, I would agree with you. But the purpose of my memo is to articulate that the rules adopted by the state board of education do not align with the law. And clearly the law takes precedence over the rules and just a matter of statutory interpretation of the rules you gotta try to make them conform with the statutes I think the statute is conforming with the law and the rules. So I don't know what it means to say that the superintendent and the commissioner will advise the chair that either the following two applies process would include new superintendent or going to the state board to consider whether the structure will change. I do know that it's the commission will advise. So I guess the way I would reconcile the rules to the more important statute is the commissioner's function is merely advisory. And I, at this point, especially given the issues around what I would consider the fairly high-handed activities of the agency of education, I just see no reason to keep them apprised of what we're doing unless we are obligated by law or rule. Because if the rule does indicate that you're supposed to notify the... And actually get approval is what three... I don't think that you got three, two, three, two. And if, you know, I understand your point that the rules can see the statutory authority given to the agency, the commissioner, but if you wanna say by the rules, doesn't make the rules. Well, it has that kind of interaction between the two. So I'd like to weigh in. It doesn't, there's nothing that forecloses from informing the secretary of education what we're doing. We've taken a vote in an open meeting and it'll be in our minutes. There's nothing secret about what we're doing. So I see no disadvantage. I see no downside of just acknowledging the secretary of education what we're doing. Can we just call the question, is that okay? We can call the question unless there's somebody that wants to be tuned to debate, in which case it requires a two-thirds vote of the body to... The question is called? Yep. Okay, then. So the question can be called and there's an interesting continuing debate, so we must vote on the question. Okay. Well, four-two-thirds do not. Two-thirds must approve the motion to call the question. Call the question. It's essentially a motion to end debate and vote immediately. Yes, you can hold up your cards. We need to account on this one because we need two-thirds of the vote on the question. This is your favor of calling the question and stopping the debate. It's about nine.  Those voted in A, so the vote is 11 to one and the motion to call the question passes. At this point, we'll move to voting on the main motion. So those in favor of moving, directing the chair to send a letter to the Secretary of Education indicating our intent to commission superintendent's search is signified by sending I. Point of order. Yes. The motion is for an interim superintendent. For an interim superintendent, thank you. Is it in favor of that motion that we signify? I don't think it is. I don't think it is. The main motion is not in favor of that. Okay. I stand for it. But is that... But what are we voting on? All right, Lisa, I'm gonna ask you to read the motion one more time with the terminologies and thanks. Okay. I thought the last time around, we agreed that having interim in there was not part of the original one. So this motion was not in favor of that. Okay, so it is to direct the chair, to direct the letter to the Secretary of Education indicating our intent to initiate the search for superintendent. All those in favor of being signified by sending I. I. Opposed? Okay, aye. The ayes is here, they have it. The ayes do have it. The motion carries. Unless we have a burning question for issues to share in the reports, I think we're going to skip over those. Again, action agenda of 6.2. We need to, is there a motion to authorize the supervisor that you need to accept all federal and state grants and to administer and to act as a representative of all member school districts of WCSU? Is there a discussion? Unless, motion? Hearing none, all those in favor can say aye. Aye. Opposed? Future agenda items. Mr. Chairman Mad, you might have a great question to you. The U32 board has a student hearing and our parents are waiting their way for 30 minutes. Is there a way that they can be instituted this time? Yes, absolutely, sure. With thanks. Under board comments, I wanted to welcome our new board members. Unfortunately, I don't know all of you by name. Charlie, Kate, Mary Lynn. I don't know if I missed anybody. If there are no other board communication and without my consent, we are adjourned at 7.36. Can I ask the other local boards if these aren't just leading? But just if you could just do your work here in the cafeteria, that'd be great. You can just take a quick either on a napkin or at least pay for some minutes and then we'll take it from there.