I opened up the board of school director's meeting on May 31st for the monthly Roxbury School Board. A couple quick announcements at the beginning. One Libby is juggling some family stuff so she's unable to be here although she did say she's on call but I think we can hopefully avoid having to call her. Anna unfortunately was not able to get into the C-13 document on homeless students so I don't think any board member has that so we can kick the reading on that back another meeting. That's the policy monitoring? Or is it a new policy? I mean we can have the reading if you want to send it around right now to everyone. Yeah I made it accessible to all to view so I don't know if they'll let me just check the link on the oh it wasn't put on to the yeah and Anna just sent me an email before this saying she was not able to get a copy. Okay yeah let me I'll send it. The thing I want to state is that this is American Zach's last meeting as student representatives. They will be graduates of Montpelier High School by the time we meet next so I just want to congratulate them on that and thank them for their service. It was great to have both of them serve they they serve very thoughtfully and really contributed to a lot of important discussions over the year and brought some great perspectives to the board and and really helped connect us I think with student concerns and it was also just great to after COVID to get students back on the board we a little high hate us and American Zach I think brought it brought it back robustly and again thank you very much and there will be and it will get in touch with you with some small parting gifts as a thank you but again thanks for all you've done really really appreciate it and of course you are you are always always invited to come to board meetings whenever you want to and I'm sure that Miriam and the Laura who we're excited to have on for next time will appreciate your offer to be able to reach out to them with questions. So public comment is next public comment is an opportunity for the public to give feedback to the board it's a listening session only for the board but it's very important even though we don't respond in real time we certainly take into consideration we try to do research and find out about problems and issues that are brought to us and certainly you know if there are direct problems we try to that we can't address we try to address them and they certainly inform our thinking about priorities and needs in the district so it's very important even if we are not actively engaging with you at the time and we also acknowledge that you know that the issues to come to us before are very important and that speaking before a board can feel intimidating even though we're we're not a terribly important bunch so appreciate appreciate all of all of the public discussions we have a few people in the audience I don't know if anyone is here for public comment if so please go ahead and and come up to the desk and introduce yourself otherwise we'll see if there's anyone on the virtual screen who is interested in public comment no in the room anyone online and please you can either raise your hand with a raise hand function in reactions or you can come off camera and and wave at us and we'll we'll see you all right no public comment thank you um so next onto the consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so move got a second second any discussion about any other concepts agenda yeah I just wanted to note that the two board retreats the one on the 14th of July and the one on the 10th of August I believe they're not at 6 30 to 8 30 so Anna could you make a note that those are from 8 a.m to noon um when we finalize it or you know once it's like up on the website um and then just a reminder for board members and then also members of the public that our next meeting the one on June 14th is the last evening board meeting until we meet again in the evenings on August 16th so we'll have those two retreats in between there but no other evening meetings as a whole board yeah yeah thank you for that I think for noticing the the times um any other comments um need to well I'm wondering do we need to to amend the thing to approve the consent agenda with the changes to the times I don't think so all right all those in favor hi any opposed nice um board learning focus uh so student presentation on msms sustainability it looks like we've got some students here so uh take please come up and take it away we're really excited and if you need any any technology assistance um i'm eric um where we're what's the best we have a presentation that we're whatever is best for you if you guys want to sit down and do it you want to um do it standing up uh what's best what do you i'm going to log into the meeting now yeah and i think i think anna looks like she's audits in terms of giving the presentation i'm doing that okay where are we going we'll just sit around here so good evening everybody um thanks for having us my name is don taylor and i teach uh sustainability at main street middle school and our program is called uh msms sustain and one of our missions is to communicate what we're doing on a regular basis so this is our first time at the school board and we appreciate your listening we do have some students we also have our program assistant drew mcnaughton and i'm just going to let each of them uh introduce themselves before we get going okay oh drew mcnaughton i'm the enrichment coordinator here at monterey roxbury program schools and um over the last couple of years i've been watching the growth of uh the sustainability program and wanted to find a way to um get my hands into it and luckily last year i was able to get take on a role within the program and this year embed myself further into the program uh during the school day while maintaining the after-school programming that i do as well and um it's been a pretty amazing experience hi my name is aborji i'm an aker at msms my name is audrey childs i'm also an atheguder at msms my name is adel pritchard i am also an a3 msms so again thank you very much for having us um so this story kind of started three years ago uh in the january i think of 2021 when we were in our pod year uh our eighth graders and merit have all been deeply impacted by the pandemic and uh they were looking for a hands-on learning opportunity i had done some environmental work in my humanities class and that led to the creation of this program so uh if you look up on the slide our mission statement this was created by our youth partners is to work together to create youth adult partnerships educating the community within a diverse and positive learning space we strive to result social economic and environmental issues next please good so in year one uh what we did is i signed up with shelburn farms uh they have a program called cultivated pathways to sustainability and i also started working with up for learning up for learning emphasizes um the growth of youth partnerships where you're building partnerships and relationships with students and they're accepting more responsibility and they're transitioning into leaders not only in your classroom but in the school community so our mission was to create an engaging sustainability program at school for students to learn educate others about sustainability related issues and to make a difference in our community by using voice skills and vision and one of the impetuses behind this program was that students were coming out of these pods they were coming out of the pandemic and they really wanted some engaging hands-on learning next please so uh that was year one that was from january to june i think of 2021 2021 2022 was our first full year as a program next slide please uh so we had a steering committee in 2021-22 so we had six to ten kids who were interested in the program we met once a week and uh they had gone through the cultivating pathways to sustainability program with me they were giving us input and advice about the direction of the program and out of that came our we have a leadership group all three of these students are on that leadership group and now that leadership and the leadership group have taken on a more important role in driving and helping build our programming and giving us a youth partner voice and input throughout the year next slide please so this is our first our sorry second full year next slide please and just really appreciating the alligator oh yeah so what we did is we created a framework for learning and the framework is pretty simple it's to educate kids about sustainability issues in the school in the classroom it's to act on what we learn by connecting with local and community organizations and then as i mentioned at the outset it's to communicate what we're doing both to the community to the school and to our partners to show what we're doing in the hopes of creating a sustainability movement which we hope will confront social justice issues issues of climate change and issues of equity that occurred throughout our communities our state and our nation next slide please so to do that this is kind of teacher speak the education piece the foundations that we teach kids about we teach them about sustainability we use the un sdgs as a framework for learning we talk about expectations we review concepts definitions we're using a lot of personalized learning and personal learning plans so that kids can capture their growth we look at climate change issues and down in the bottom right corner you see the three spheres of sustainability which is a key component of our program those spheres are economics environment and equity and so we try and look at our projects through those lenses so that we can ensure that we're hitting all of those and making sure our students understand how those relate to the key concepts next slide please so again working together really to solve climate change when i first started teaching the sustainability we were looking at climate change and it's really a doom and bloom story it's hard to get around the data it's hard to get kids enthusiastic when you're really overwhelmed by the data which you know the facts are there and it's really unsettling and so what we're trying to do is take a more positive outlook see what we can do how we can take action and you see these are just some examples create less waste by local seasonal foods volunteer and make our voices heard those things we can do next please and really what we're doing is trying to create a sustainability movement so we're not fighting climate change we're not you know i don't like that aggressive language what we're trying to do is come together and build a sustainability movement in our classroom that will give these kids the leadership skills and the understanding so that they can move out into their life and their world and make a difference next slide please sustainability program uses our project-based learning to make the sustainability class more engaging and to enhance our students learning some of the projects that we do are cooking for the community we bake a lot of bread through King Arthur's baking company and we make a lot of different foods some of which we get our food from like food that's going to be composted from the kitchens that wasn't used or food that we got from local farms or local orchards and we take it in our sustainability classes the kids learn how to make different kinds of foods and learn different skills in the kitchens and we also donate a lot of that food to just basics the local food pantry and to other food shelters and food pantries and we have also in the bottom left corner there's a picture of students tapping trees on the edge of Hubbard Park and we also have started a community garden at our school and with another community partner has let us use some of their land to start a garden that we also use in some of our cooking next slide please so yeah cooking for the community our students in the class do a lot of cooking and we get food through cleaning and through different farms and orchards and we prepare it into different kinds of meals and we package it up and take it to just basics or to other like food pantries or food trumps next slide this helps us trying to reduce food insecurities this is some of our donation and volunteer work we we volunteer at just basics and at other places in our town that our community buildings and we as Adele was talking about we donate most of the food we make to to our volunteering places and at just basics there is other like personal care items and things that someone might need we have had a fiber arts unit throughout our grades and we work with a community partner Kate Camilletti to who has helped us learn about these like darning and mending wool and out of favor clothing items that was that were donated through the community to our school and we used a wool drive that I and one of my fellow peers put on to give back and and to repair items for the community and this is all to help with fast fashion and reduce the waste from clothing so we have a maple sugaring program at the middle school so sometimes in your classes when it's your turn to have the sustainability class um through a community partner we have some maple trees that are adjacent upward park so we'll hike up there and we'll tap the cheese and so using that maple syrup and sap we gathered about 15 gallons total of syrup this year not sap and we boil all the sap down and then we package it up and so our labeling committee made these really fun labels and so we'll label all the bottles and then we have this online store where we'll sell maple syrup and so um a third of the proceeds go to the food pantry just basics that I was talking about earlier a third goes into mrps pie to help support um our community here at mrps and then another third goes back into our program to make sure that we can keep on doing things like this in the future next slide please yeah and so this helps with climate because we are using natural and local resources to make our place better and sell things locally rather than get them imported from far away and it helps with folk life because we are using community partners and accessing places in our community next slide please um the community gardens piece we put in six raised beds at the middle school um out behind the school kind of behind the cafeteria so there's six raised beds right in a row and those we planted last year we put in pollinators on one end we put in herbs we put in veggies and this year we're focusing on differentiating the beds down and in future years what we want to do is thematic bed setups so there'll be herbs and savouries and then indigenous plants and like so teaching gardens um and they've been really successful and and untrammeled which is incredible at the middle school and um and I think that's because student buy-in because we try all the kids are rotating through and um and have been incredible workhorses in that garden we just put in potatoes today there's a bunch of onions and garlic and last year we actually had community partners parents in the community we made a little video about how to water the garden and we said oh I hope we get signups for this to happen and within like an hour all the slots were filled for the whole summer um of parents signing up to to volunteer which is really great and and that led to another community partner um volunteering some land that was mentioned earlier for us to go out and garden so they're they're these this triangle of backyard that's as big as the opening in these tables is now planted and weeded and mulched um and it's going to be growing you know squash corn beans um and a bunch of other things for our program and if it gets used in the kitchen to to donate that's great um if kids get their hands dirty and learn how food grows and get connected to it um great and um and the fact they're going out and interfacing with the public in these ways pretty daily is is pretty incredible so next one so yeah so pollinators local agriculture as I said like we're we've made some mason beehives in the wood shop last year when there was a wood shop at the middle school and um and we're going to you know continue pushing pollinator species in all of our garden setups around the school and and kind of increasing uh community awareness around pollinators one idea was a pollinator pathway along the bike path and some other things have been mentioned so um go ahead I don't know if this next one's mine or not yeah yeah oh the other thing we do is phenology so phenology is a study of seasonal change and and seasonal change seems to be changing um so seasons seem to be coming at different times um then we're used to so instead of just saying back when I was a kid um we're walking with students we do community walks and we we take notes on what's happening in the environment around us so we have a touchstone uh species that we look at a certain tree a certain patch of ground a certain you know section of the river and and we say what are the changes that are happening here what are the changes that are happening here and kids get enculturated to it so that weekly kids start to notice oh the lilacs are really like they really start to leaf out or there's there's a bud burst or um I saw a flying insect for the first time um this march so so those types of things and we're and we notate that with students so we'll have longitudinal data that they'll be part of and they'll have like visceral response to um that will indicate um different seasonal changes and and to just note that that's how information is gathered it's by people looking and seeing and understanding and touching and knowing so um that's that's been good and and the sugaring operation also does that mapping the mapping all the sugar bush we have all the trees marked and mapped up in uh chris hammers land um on course street and um and in the future we're going to get the aspect of where we tapped are we tapping the southwest side of the set tapping the northwest side of the tree and how much yield every time we go up um is going to is going to give real data and it'll give you know quixotic data because sugar operations at our large scale don't quite understand it yet so what are you know um but i think just being a part of that process is is going to be important so yeah climate data as as i was indicating um just the kids being connected to that data and not not having it come from some nationalized source that they that they're just connected um uh leadership group has partnered with up for learning and specifically with uh katie ingraham i think i can that's the last name right and um we have gone to i think three retreats so far this year with um mostly the entire group of uh like sst group and we got to learn about different leadership skills and um we got to reflect on what work we do in our group and make plans like learn how to make plans for future and um our most recent one was with some newer students who we want to recruit in to our group for next year once most of our eighth graders leave because eighth graders are the majority of our group and they got to look at all the different um committees we have inside of our group that they could work on or they could come up with a completely new idea to work on because in our group we do a lot of like personalized learning so that if like there's something that you're really passionate about and you really want to work on you can work on that and there's like a ton of different groups that you can work on i think we're gonna talk about this a bit later and so we have some kids who are working on developing a leadership whole like leadership curriculum for next year and like different activities that we can do to give kids leadership planning which helps with public speaking and confidence when talking to big groups and lots of different skills in life that they will definitely use even if they don't actually know that they're using them next slide so some of the things that we've done this here as a leadership group is that so if you all were here in December and you remember going to the Unitarian Church around December 10th there was the solidarity craft fair we helped support that and so we made a bunch of food that could be brought there and then sold for lunch which was awesome we also have done staff lunches luncheons at the middle school so if it was a professional development day you could come down to the sustainable room and get a nice homemade lunch and all teachers really seemed to like it like Adele just said we have done some leadership training and planning and developed a curriculum so that next year students can learn more about our skills we have also done a personal items drive and there was a food drive that ended yesterday so hopefully we got some stuff for that we can then go donate it to the Good Samaritan Haven or just SpaceX to make sure that people in our community can get help that they need we have also done as part of outreach is quarterly newsletters so every quarter students write articles and then we format them into an online newsletter and so we should be saying our new one out here probably about a week if not less and so you can scroll through and click the articles and learn and read about what's happening in our classes next slide please this is our seed to tree sort of metaphor for for youth adult partnerships and you can see the the growth between how much adults are helping our youth and our students in their community and through growth with the student I guess they can get to be full partners you can see in this in this large tree it's the youth and adult as full partners instead of youth adult as emerging partners or youth as consultants and youth as recipients so with this it's sort of like your younger years or honestly us as well the adults sometimes talk at us and not with us so this is where we're reaching for in our community and in our sustainability and leadership group to bring a community together as partners instead of adults talking at us and not getting our opinions so the msms sustained 201 class started out as a course class and then our teacher had to leave probably through the year um and we were going to just be put into a study hall but um Mr. Taylor and you thought that we had like more potential for a study hall than just kids sitting around doing basically nothing and talking to their friends and they were right and so they took our class and converted it into our sustained 201 class and we're kind of like an extension sustained class so we meet just during our regular course times and we have worked on a ton of different projects like opal touched on earlier we had this uh food drive that ended yesterday and we've done a bit of cooking and people have done separate projects some people organized a field day I believe for the end of the year we organized a um meeting with um the with at the senior center in Montpelio where like good what seven kids maybe more than seven I think it was around 10 um and we had a coffee and conversation with them so we joined them during their usual meeting time and with the help of um Sara Lipton we um we got to share our knowledge and they got to share their knowledge and um we talked about sustainability and how we could give back more to the community and do better even though we've tried to go so far and um and they really gave us some been lightened us on their perspective of the community and what could be improved yeah it was definitely very interesting to see how things were then how things will now and how we hope them how we hope for things to be in the future it was interesting to see like the change between all of those things and like to talk about the different opportunities that we have as um like different ages living in different generations it was very interesting and I really enjoyed it and we're going to try and continue it maybe do one more this year and then continue it next year as well because it was a really fun program a lot of what you've heard about is the action where we've had kids doing and with project-based learning and none of this would be possible without our community partners and so Central Vermont Solid Waste Management they've been instrumental in helping us with a reuse recycle reduce reuse and recycle program for fifth graders up for learning as you just heard about has coached us and coached me on developing a leadership curriculum program where we're building youth partners and I'll thank them repeatedly but our students here are our most important asset and to hear them be able to carry off these kind of presentations is fantastic and they're sort of our most important voice we've also partnered with King Arthur they have a bake learn and share program and then we've partnered with Vermont evaporator and all these organizations share our passion for for a good community work and we also link the we're not just baking bread we're baking bread and we're donating just basics because there's a food insecurity issue in Vermont that's about to get a lot worse in the next couple of months just basics saw a doubling in the number of people visiting their food pantry in 2022 inflation job insecurity housing issues those are all contributing to what we're seeing at the local level and when we take kids over there to either volunteer or to drop off what we're what we're making those are all teaching moments and we're reading we're researching we're writing about and reflecting on these things so that we understand how our actions are addressing issues that are happening in the real world next slide please so as you've probably heard just basics has been instrumental if you go to their website and read their mission statement they're a social justice organization and they've been absolutely fantastic and they've allowed us to bring our students over there they're looking at our products they're giving us ideas and we're taking those ideas and putting them into our curriculum so one idea that I go back to a lot is you know we're saying oh we're going to make you know this or that and they said you know what we really need is single serving meals that can be microwavable because there's a ton of folks out there who don't have access to a kitchen and need something grab and go so we decided hey let's start making burritos so we have we got 170 pounds of butternut squash from the feast farm we started making butternut black bean burritos we have lots of carrots that we're getting from community harvest of central Vermont so we're making carrot bean and rice burritos we're packaging that up we just delivered 105 burritos over the last two weeks to the Good Samaritan Haven they're a new partner for us and I drive that food right over there and they've been very gracious about accepting that and again they have some serious issues with people who are struggling with big big challenges one of those obviously is getting enough to eat and we're there to kind of to help them and the kids know that they learn about it we've been to all these websites we've learned all about their missions and and then the kids are able to kind of take it with the leadership and really make a difference so I just also want to say about community harvest of central Vermont they're another fantastic organization they focus on gleaning recapturing food they have a ton of resources they took us on a gleaning field trip where we made I think we captured 2,100 pounds of apples and they store it for us and then if we need some of that we can get it otherwise they'll donate it and use that so again our kids were out there after the orchards at Vermont Technical College had closed down for the picking season we went out there we got a ton of apples we took a tour of Vermont Technical College we learned about their sustainability programs so it's all connected right it's that environment equity and economics the other thing we've had we've worked with teens reaching youth and the Vermont UVM 4-H extension program for more than 10 years and we've again brought those into our program where we have kids learning about a specific climate or science issue and then going over to Union Elementary School and teaching that another way of developing leadership skills another way of seeing how kids their own actions can make a huge difference in our in our very local community. We gotta just say something about that program that teens reaching youth program like when I when we talk about that being a leadership module students come back from that and they say okay so what was going on in that back corner why weren't we engaging those students they're talking about differentiated instruction they're talking about such high-level educational processes and tactics and new ideas that teachers don't think of because they're not close to their students of age the same way that these kids are and it's 98% self-directed curriculum so these students are getting a packaged curriculum taking it and saying oh how are we going to do this modify this and then they just have to go and do it and and they're getting over there if they're doing it they're following a schedule they're turning in documentation they're turning in you know data on this on on what they've been teaching and we're doing reflection on it it's it's that's it's a really amazing program I think it creates a lot of empathy for us too right because they go teach like man that class went sideways yeah and then we can say see what I mean and you can see them in the classroom you know I get it now so it also creates empathy next slide please so part of our outreach and communication we have as I talked about earlier our quarterly newsletter which you all can read our first three newsletters which is up on our website I think the fourth one got published today it did yes that's okay okay well we're not there tomorrow so it might happen um you can also check us out on Instagram we have a whole page where we post videos of us cooking um us zoning and like things that might be happening in the class or like updates on one you can be our newsletter or check out our new podcast episode where you can find us on YouTube don't forget to like and subscribe and so we post videos about our mission statement some of our programs and like where you can find us and hopefully next year there will be more about some issues in our community that people can help address and things that they can do at home to help spread awareness or be more of a help to the community next slide please so the um yeah so by the numbers like when you look at like what what are you really done um so every student in the school goes through um a quarter of sustainability um through our program grades five through eight um and it's it's it's a tough schedule a little bit because you know you just get rolling with these kids and they just get you know um in the rhythm of things and then you get a whole new group but you get to see all of them which is great um so we've done almost 600 meals um and and we we packeted that number out based on it's over that now um actually but um but based on like what would be a centerpiece aside um and then some bread would be a meal right um and um we've made again like Opal said we did 15 gals maple syrup um we've had four leadership retreats and those leadership retreats are um up for learning comes in and partners with our students and it's mostly student directed leadership retreats for their peers um so it's leadership training from within that like Don and I sit on the outside of or or sit in as participants as equal members it's really cool um tons of athletes like we said um that was one morning uh and then they've done those those drives um and the the difference with our program is that when we do drives they're not going to be a one-off they're not going to be a oh I did a I look winter clothing great next thing and we're going to it's uh it's going to be ritualized so that they're they're yearly activities they become cultural touch points um they've created those newsletters so we we meet every single day with these with these students during their sst time um and for half an hour and they walk in the room and the amount they accomplish in half an hour blows my mind every day um and they sit right down and they get to work um and and they come in with a mission they come in with purpose um and so when the newsletters coming out um they're editing their peer reviewing they're sending things around they're prompting each other to to get on top of it um and they're embedding photographs making these really beautiful um you know informational pieces the tri teams again they meet during that sst time as well and kids are coming and popping out of class so that they can go teach a union and they have to make up that work that they missed in that class so they're doing it at this cost and I think that the benefit that they're you know gleaning from it is is just so intrinsic that it motivates um you know them to continue so um the the new group that we have coming in the new prospective leadership committee uh crew is really excited about that tri program they I mean I think just from what they've heard other students talk about and so just in closing I think it's really important you look at these numbers and what they're really doing is helping us set goals for next year so that you heard we have 21 new recruits coming in for our leadership group for next year and that's in addition to the four classes that we run fifth sixth seventh and eighth grade and when we have numbers like this thanks to these are our original members our original leadership team members and our youth partners who have been with us from the start we can say this is where our program started this is what we did last year what are we going to accomplish this year and that ability to set goals to reflect on those goals allows us to sort of build out our program and as we're building out our program I'm starting to level up on what we're doing in terms of reading in the communication skills in all the sort of academic areas that kids are going to need to make sure that when they're going out to teach other kids they they have the tools and that those tools will then transfer into leadership positions connecting with the community and eventually you'll see them here at the high school such as Merrick who's actually a former student of mine again congratulations on your upcoming graduation that's awesome so we just want to thank you very much we wanted to let you know what's happening in the classroom in our program if you have any questions let us know but thanks for all the work that you're doing and thanks for having us this evening and especially I'd like to thank our students for showing up tonight that's a big a big deal to me thank you very much so thank you that was awesome this is really exciting work you're doing and the presentation was fantastic uh questions for uh the students or Don or Drew? I just like that. That's a silly question for the students. Is this your favorite class? Yeah. The unity that we've built in that class is just so amazing. We get the most freedom and creative freedom which I love because you can really work on what you want within boundaries of course but you can choose your interests and and create a project out of that and really help your community and do something incredible. It's not just the projects it's also the people we've built such like an amazing community everybody is not necessarily best friends with each other but everybody's friendly with each other everybody is always helping each other out you always know that like if everybody's working on something there's always somebody who can pause what they're doing to help you with whatever you need there's always like somebody there and there's always like people to talk to it's always fun it's always super light but you're still getting a ton done so definitely our favorite. And it's not all just work you're still you get to socialize and and of course there's like sometimes after after a class has came in and they've cooked we go back and we clean and then we get the food they made so that's a plus but yeah yeah and i would agree with all that like today i was having like a kind of off day i was like ooh and i came in and i was just like okay i'm safe it's all good and then i walked out and i held the rest of the great like this these are my people like it's a home there gives you a reboot during the day because it's right in the middle like full lunch too so everybody's always a bit angry thank you if i don't see you enjoy your summer thanks for all your work thank you thank you so much for the presentation thanks for sharing your work with us all right excellent um good night so jess hey jess youth adult partnerships yeah i get to follow that yeah um i did try to have students here i got a few takers but then i had more exciting events come up so i apologize i don't have students to talk about student um adult partnerships that certainly feels a little weird but i'm excited for all the wonderful events that those folks are doing tonight and also i'm jess murray hi everyone i'm the director of social martial learning wellness here at mrps so yeah i'm going to talk about youth adult partnerships um i'll just put the caveat that this is sort of the more formal version of youth adult partnerships that are happening at mrps there as we just seen so many different examples that are happening both informally and formally so i just want to recognize that i'm certainly not hitting all of them next place um so just some goals for tonight tonight's presentation i really want to share some actions of youth adult partnerships um the ones that i'll focus on really focused on positive and safe climate for each and every student those partnerships were really excited and really dove into that lens of youth adult partnerships so that'll be the primary focus for tonight um and then of course previewing next steps around what this will look like in the future and how we continue to grow these partnerships next place so as we were talking about one of the main pillars is up for learning they have been fantastic and starting and hoping to grow youth adult partnerships jackie is the person that this group works really hard with and so what that looks like at msms is folks meet with her on a regular basis with an adult partner and what they've done this year is they did a climate survey in october they really wanted to focus on climate and what that looks like and how students were experiencing the middle school and they collected a bunch of quantitative data and then really wanted to dig in a little bit more around like what's the story behind that data what students actually experienced so they went into ta and held discussions with kids and focus groups and really like dug into what is the student perspective and the experience coming here every day to the building and being a gator i also love the gators when they reviewed the data there were really like three things that stood out of interest to them around student connections and how students feel connected to adults in the building the second one feelings of respect and they found some themes around student to student respect and teacher to student respect and want to dive in a little bit further to those and then how students feel like they have a voice in sms and what input they feel like they have into their school community based on those three areas that they really wanted to dive into they started recently making an action plan and a brainstorm for next year so we can just get started at the beginning of the year so one of the things that they really want to focus on is highlighting student strategies they feel like you know there are so many teachers who as we know right are creating safe positive learning environments in that space so how can we amplify the strategies that they're using that are really working well for students in that building so how can we share teacher strategies that are working with other teachers to help them for their leverage and also which i thought was really insightful figuring out what is the administrator role in youth adult partnerships right i think that there needs to be this balance of respecting student space and student voice and as an administrator as an authority figure coming into space and how can you facilitate that work make it easier for them and also not dominate that space so doing some work around that next year i think is going to be really important and powerful this year they also work to recruit a wider representation of the students in the building so they have done a great job of recruiting some sixth graders and are really working to make sure that they can have fifth graders next year as well next place thank you at mhs they have worked pretty hard developing a mission statement so really digging into the why behind their work really what is the purpose of their sort of practice up for learning group at the high school they have really solidified around practicing conflict resolution and how to create a system of peer mediation and harm repair circles and thinking really deliberately about how do we infuse or sort of practices into the discipline system at mhs they visited another school like just last week to look at what this looks like at another school and they've continued to develop some community building circles for ta and additionally they really started to build up the work to push into ms ms unfortunately we just like ran out of time at the end of the school year they created some great structures to visit ms ms at the end of you know the eighth graders years to help think about how do we welcome eighth graders into the mhs community in a way that feels like really intentional and good and so that they know what to expect when they get here um some up for learning next steps is really thinking about how do we get started earlier in the year especially at ms ms um when i was talking to jackie and some folks about their experiences this year they felt like they spent a lot of time collecting data um and would really like to think about of course data collection is important and what do you do with that data collection and how you get into like action mode a little bit earlier as you're you know helping to figure out what you want to do with that year and again clarifying the administrator role how do we have that balance between adult facilitation and authentic student voice and authentic student partnership um they're at mhs they're really interested in leveraging some community involvement um the community justice center is a spot that they are really interested in working with to again think about how do we develop those restorative systems in mhs and how do we work on peer mediated resolutions um again thinking about fifth graders and actually i happen to be there during this beautiful conversation with the mhs students about you know how they want to work through peer mediation and how they want to think about more about conflict resolution what that looks like and then them realizing well we don't actually have a lot of experience ourselves with this so how do we tap into perspectives of people who are impacted who are vulnerable to the discipline system um and how do we get their voices so that we're not just like folks who haven't had that experience making decisions for other people um and then of course thinking about how do we align those two groups they're doing very similar work um and thinking about how do we create a pipeline of student leadership um so that way we constantly have folks who are ready and want to engage in this work oh next sorry thank you um so something i am really excited to talk more about and i'm sure some of you have heard about this um one of the other ways that up for learning help facilitate some adult student partnerships was creating three half day retreats um to welcome some ues and all of the rvs fourth graders to transition into ms ms um so we had one in march when it was still very very wintery and cold and we were like huddled outside on a very icy playground one in april and then one in may where it was beautiful and kids were yelling and having a great time and um really just getting to know each other really well it was co-facilitated and co-designed by ms ms students um and we had all six roxbury students come and we had six ues who were paired together and each of those paired had a ms ms ambassador so it was a triad um so that way we could form like an 18 person community and also they can create more personalized individual bonds um with other folks next place oh sorry just before we get this picture sorry do you mind going back this picture on the right here is actually the last day we had at ms ms and the fourth graders decided to make a tunnel um so it was a bunch of fourth graders making a tunnel for julie conrad who if you know her she's pretty tall individual so it was really just fun to watch her trying to navigate through this tunnel very skillfully i might add um but it was a really a wonderful way to end or retreat time together thank you for going back for that um so during these three half days we did a lot of community at building um we saw each other's schools we had ues students and ms ms students actually go visit roxbury it was the first time i think all but one of them have been there so that in itself was really powerful they were able to see roxbury what it looks like the town um we also toured ms ms we had student led tours of ms ms so middle schoolers toured with ues students while the roxbury folks were meeting with julie and the counselors and then the ues folks helped to guide the roxbury students so sort of this tiered system where they could teach each other about the building and find all the gators that exist they're plentiful there um they also got to meet each other's principles and got to meet julie um they had some beautiful conversations around what is this transition going to look like what are we excited about what are we worried about um and it was just really wonderful to see the ms ms folks um really lean into those conversations and help to you know knock away some of those unknowns and answer a lot of the questions that folks had um and we ate lunch together we ate snacks together we had some fantastic chocolate chip muffins um so that was really wonderful in this work we really dove into some of these questions around what values do we have as individuals um based on those values what type of community are we trying to build at ms ms um and how do we want to feel every day when we're at ms ms like when we walk into that building when we walk into our classroom how do we want to feel on a day-to-day basis and based on that did a really nice job and they did a beautiful job you know as fourth graders doing this work thinking about so based on our values what community we want um how we want to feel what do we actually have to do on a day-to-day basis as individuals to build that community and seeing that connection was just so powerful um so that was our retreat oh next please thank you oh yeah so this was one quote that we were lucky enough to have a caregiver share with us just you know that difference between the first day at Roxbury when it was cold and icy and it's a little awkward and kids weren't really knowing each other and they were doing like the awkward get to know you phase versus the last day on the playground when kids were dancing and giggling and it was just really wonderful to have that experience with folks next place thank you um the other um main or more formal youth adult partnership that we had this year is some student-led professional development opportunity so during our half days students facilitated five professional development sessions really based around community and our sort of practice and how we leverage rp to create more community the first two were really focused on building a really strong sense of community wellness and digging into how does communication with teachers between teachers with students between students um and what kind of communication we need to create a community that is well and the second one was really around collaborative decision making and why that's important for a solid community um and what that looks like um in a setting then our third one was digging into how do we create about a beloved community we had a little bit bigger chunk of time for this one because it was on one of our in-service days um and just really thinking about the overarching view of restorative practices what does that look like and really digging into this idea of doing with rather than four or two and what that looks like on um a classroom level practice and then one of the ones I was most excited about personally I thought they did a great job designing this was they created six um micro labs for one of our half day releases um where teachers got to choose how they wanted to engage that day the first one is interrupting bias and microaggressions um second one is increasing engagement by understanding brain science building a classroom community um they had one about restorative communication um really getting back and diving a little bit deeper into communication and wellness and how those two are inherently linked um one about um exploring restorative mindset so rather than thinking about restorative practices it's like um specific strategies that you leverage really think about how that becomes an innately who you are as an educator and how that guides your practice again beautiful job talking about this um and then the last one on that day was deepening understanding of the benefits of doing with rather than four or two then our last one we just had this friday um was thinking about giving teachers a time and space to um intentionally plan out um how to close learning communities right and having students really think about a parent partner with folks around what that looks like and how to support some students through a pretty big time of transition and excitement and nerves and more excitement um you know this time of year can be up and down for a lot of folks so how do we actually support students through that and intentionally say goodbye at the end of the year we just had this great quote by a teacher talking about how amazing they were doing um which was really wonderful right the first time the first pd you know folks were standing up in front of the theater in front of 70 odd of their own educators um which was just really wonderful to see next place um this was additional training i threw this in not because it was student led or student partnership but i think it's really foundational work that we have to do as um a community of educators to really increase our ability to form partnerships so forgive me i hope this is okay but you know i really come from the lens as the scl person that strong scl skills lead to a really strong community and that leverages our ability to create authentic partnerships with students um so joelle came in five times also during those early release days talked about teacher wellness building community um talked about how do we teach scl skills how do we embed that in our instruction um and also talked um about asset based language and really talked specifically about how we talk about kids and how we talk about other people impacts our sense of belonging impacts our identity and who we are um and how do we you know talk about students in a way that's beneficial to adults and also very respectful uh and really asset based um then collaborative problem solving you may have seen on libya's blog if you've been looking um i'm really excited about this work our scl professionals um are doing this work we did the tier one training um and this collaborative problem solving um it's really like ross greens brainchild some of you may be familiar with it but it essentially gives teachers um the framework and the tools to go into a hard conversation with a student who is having some sort of behavior challenge behavior response um and get really at the root of the problem and really frame this as a problem that we're up against together so how do we work on this together to move forward um and i just think it fits so smoothly into this idea of doing with and not forward to um so you know i think for us to move forward in youth adult partnerships these just felt really foundational pieces for the adults in the building to do so i want to include those next place yeah um mr ps pie and some community partners um have offered to do bystander intervention last friday they came in for a full day of training and we had 18 students who worked with them all day um and learned how to be a bystander what that means and also develop curriculum so that next year they'll be going into the elementary schools and actually teaching how do we um be a bystander how do we safely interrupt um things and incidents when what happened um and really what does that look like so i'm really excited about that work for next year we're also gonna of course continue our partnership without for learning because they've been really foundational um to us both with the retreats the rbs msms ues retreat and just that like really weekly leveraging of student voice and how do we embed that into our system next place um and then last but not least this is a very preview of panorama we'll talk about panorama in much more depth in the future um but one of the things that i'm really excited about with panorama is it's a tool and a platform that we can use to survey students and get their um you know their view and perspective of belonging climate and how they're doing an stl skills so my hope and real excitement about this is it's going to give us the data rather than folks and groups have to spend their time coming up with surveys and analyzing the data we'll just have that data in the future um and we'll be able to make really concrete database goals um and see how our work is impacting student perspective based on how students are reporting to us so excited about that that's all i have for you jess um questions for jess i i just want to observe i've heard from muni members with respect to the combining the fourth graders and including the middle school kids and there was a pen pal aspect of that and parents were thrilled they thought it was excellent so i'm really grateful that's been a big sort of concern i think for all of us it's come up a number of times how to sort of bring those communities together and it sounds like that's a really great structure that you have for for combining and bringing in the middle school kids too it's pretty awesome yeah thank you i'm really excited about it certainly was a group of administrators not just me that made it happen um but yeah we've gotten great feedback but thank you for showing that and it's continuing just so everyone knows oh sorry i just had a quick thank you so much and it like this presentation in the last presentation it's just like really a nice way to sort of end out the school year and get some really positive feedback from you know boots on the ground what's happening in the school so i really appreciate it's great great work that you're up to um i'm wondering about sort of the uh the partnership with up for learning and where that stands from budgetary standpoint like was it funded through esser funding and excuse my ignorance but no no that's okay and will it can how many more years will it continue or is it something that needs to be like put into the budget again yeah so it was funded through the MAC grant which is sort of a wellness grant and creating safety and belonging and increasing health of students um and um yeah so i i think that it is something that we have to reapply for every year i think that there are a lot of competing priorities for that money as well do you know how much the grant is for um not off the top of my head but i did know a few weeks ago any other questions yeah i also just wanted to say thank you first of all because this is like really incredible progress i think um when we had the school safety committee that we did a few years ago a lot of these things were things that people were asking for and things that in the research that we did indicated that they make a huge difference in the school community for the things that the interrupting the the things that are become take become real challenges for students like punitive discipline or even to the extent of like the school to prison pipeline this is the kind of work that that keeps up keeps us as a community and keeps individual kids who are struggling from going down past like that and so i just think that this is like amazing that we have such a foundation happening now and so thank you to you and then for everyone else who's doing this so yeah it's not really a team yes yes thank you though um i really i just wanted to say that and then i also wanted to ask from your perspective like this is a big effort this is a lot of work what tells us when it's like making the impact that we wanted to make yeah i mean i don't want to talk too much in detail about panorama but that is something that'll be a pretty strong tool it does have surveys that are research based that go out to students on a regular basis that talk about their perspectives in climate in belonging and can help track their scl skills and how they change over time so i am i think that that is going to really help us figure out what is the impact that this is happening because while anecdotes and wonderful emails from parents and feedback is fantastic and keep it coming love it thank you also right we want to know that this is doing the real work and that we're interrupting the school to prison pipeline and keeping kids in our district and wrapping them even when they're having a hard time yeah so we would be looking at information from students to know what difference this is making that's very helpful and then this also has a big impact on someone's ability to learn right the how connected they feel to their classmates and to their school community and we heard it from these three students who were here presenting earlier today just like how important it is for them to have that class where they all feel like it's a almost like a home base for them is there anything in the academic measurement that would help us that we should that we could look at to see this this work that we're doing on the social emotional learning side is having some sort of impact on academics or is there not a way to connect those two through the data yeah i mean i think that would be a great thing for mike and i to continue to talk about um and we know the research says that when students have higher level of scl skills they can perform higher academically right so i think the assumption would be that we would see an academic data too okay but that's my answer for now yeah thank you that's a great question yeah any questions for jess i'll just uh the resounding appreciation for this work it's very dynamic and it's very complex just listening to the sustainability program and like what a teacher has to you know all the plates that are spinning and then to be managing all these outside partnerships and really empowering students in these really meaningful ways that they're getting skills that will actually translate into real world you know workplace experiences community kinds of experiences is just so inspiring and it certainly makes me think about how it's changing students perceptions about what school should be and what school should feel like for them and um and teachers too absolutely and i think you know like the teacher was saying it's pretty scary up there sometimes it can be really isolating and to feel that you are now partnering you know with students in the work of learning just feels like this is where we should be going in education and so I just really appreciate all of the time and energy and passion going in it's very collaborative work it's very dynamic it's not it's not me and clean canned you know curriculum so thank you to all of you um and yeah that was just like a question that I had uh for our students is you know is this changing your perception of your role as a as a learner as a student you know is this changing your expectations of what school should be and should look like is it changing you know what you expect your relationship with your with your teachers to be so um be interesting to hear you know candid student responses to those things but it's yeah it's just really really really exciting for so thank you for getting our kids out into the community and having real experiences it makes them want to come to school so yeah that's the important thing yeah I will extend that thank you to a lot of people as well oh and then sorry just one last thing just to echo what Rhett was saying too about um the rvs ues msms trifecta and folks coming together you know I know that was actually like a part of the merger agreement that I think you know the original writers of the merger doctrine you know had written in specifically about you know that there was kind of this missing piece around transition both for ues students you know now we have this new rvs component coming in and it just feels like that's really happening now in a very real way and it's being really leveraged so thank you for getting that train on the track too thanks thank you do you have a question yeah quickly um yeah I continue to shower praise um it's amazing the work that you and others are doing um but I'm curious for my own personal um learning um I do a lot of this type of work that you're describing but with college um age children about students adults whatever you want to call them um sometimes they're all three um the the student-led trainings um it that's absolutely amazing and I love it I'm curious the how you select how you engage the students in that um is it the same students repeatedly um yeah I'm curious of that that component and then it seems at least based on the quotes that you presented um that it's valued by the teachers but I'm also I'm curious to get a little deeper understanding of of how that how that you feel the teachers are um are um yeah valuing that yeah I think for your first question there's been some variation around who's presenting and who's helping to facilitate and design those PD sessions um I will say they tend to be students who are already involved in the up for learning um groups that happen so that is certainly as we were talking about just getting a wider representation that it's certainly a grow area I would say you know there has been variety and I think that we have worked to do around that um I think teachers are really appreciative of the student-led stuff um and I think that there's always this tug between wanting to invite students in and doing that work with students and like being able to like be a human you know and be a teacher and be a human um and so I think that there's always going to be that tension when we have youth adult partnerships and I think that's okay yeah it's a great question I also want to echo this sentiment it's just you know it's been great to uh you see this work and get multiple presentations and see what good systems in place and I know that you know the whole district is benefiting so it's been a it's been a great year and it's it's been a great position it's great to have you on board and I really appreciate all the all the work and the progress and the trajectory of the progress thank you um can I go now is that okay I was just looking to see if Beth will do this for the um so I believe Beth contacted me and said she is ready so um I'll just let her know that we're ready I think we'll just go to breakout room right yeah we do it on a computer or is that probably the best and we should go to room 126 yeah I need her to be in the meeting I think no before I create the breakout room or maybe Anna has to create it and send me and Beth I might be able to go oh she Beth is here okay cool hi Beth welcome oh here we go she already went she went to the break so no bless you thank you um now oh she can't see me yeah all right so we can go to room 126 hold please we're all gonna move to another room yes be right back yeah and we are so we're going oh we need a motion to go into executive session and just we're we do have some business after the executive session so we will be coming back yeah we'll try to make it um not too long and I know that Beth is under the weather so um I can all vote for her too um I'm happy joining us in this executive session absolutely uh so we enter executive session for reasons of personnel oh for the purpose of conducting an exit interview with Roxbury Village school principal Beth Kellogg have a second any discussion awesome ever all right great we will be back soon so sick we are all here um policy monitored we have two policy monitoring reports to approve um policy c3 transportation and policy d5 animal dissection do I have a motion to approve the policy monitoring reports I move to approve the two policy monitor reports uh any discussion all's better I you pose Nick and then we have the uh first reading of two policies one of which you just got um but again we can keep reading these until we're comfortable so let's just keep that as a first read um I don't know if mr scott or right you had one of these two want to give any context yeah um so first of all as a as the policy in the policy committee we decided to move these two policies forward for a first read a little bit earlier than we normally would have in the past we've sort of waited until we feel pretty solid in our first draft um to move it forward to a first read but what we noticed is happening with the timing of the meetings so the timing of when our policies go for first read and then when we meet as a policy committee to um address the comments that were made in this meeting and then put those into action and and revise the policy and then bring it back for a second read the timing is just so it takes so long to move through that process that we felt like it might be better just to like move it into first read get initial feedback and then it's still still the process will take a while but we but instead of waiting until we felt like super confident in the first draft of these policies so we're sending you a couple of drafts um I'll let I'll give Rhett the floor on title the e1 um policy these are both newly required or relatively new required policies but by the vermont school boards association so we don't have a choice we need to adopt adopt them and typically when we have a required policy from the bsba we don't do a lot of editing as per advisement from our legal staff so um you know we don't usually change much of them the thing that's interesting about this e1 is that there were lots of sections that were highlighted by the bsba for us to fill in the blanks and so and and the concept being that we hold a process by which families that interact with title one in our district are able to provide feedback on what those filled in blank spaces look like so we know that we need to do something there with um which probably might not even happen until fall I'm not sure exactly part of this first read was supposed to get Libby's feedback but she's not here so um so I'll hand it over to Rhett for e1 he was the one that worked on the drafting do we I mean this is a lot to literally read I don't think we should I think we should kind of give an overview of yes what we did so yeah so um you know down to page seven um it be it turns into policy adoption that's where we stopped making edits so it seemed like um that would be where it become procedure which would be where it's on the administrative teams at the different schools who are title one schools um rbs msms and mhs are all title one schools ues is not um so but I don't know if the um the school board association I mean I don't know that you it seems like good practice right all of this community reach out seems like a like positive stuff so I don't know that we would want to not include ues or whether we even have the capacity to include a school that's not a title one school um but um that's kind of why we wanted to bring it to the greater board because this is a what this is about is a lot of community outreach um which I think we do it provides a framework that will potentially allow us to sort of consolidate our efforts under this framework um if that's sort of a good way to go um and then at at the school level I don't know what authority the board has to dictate what strategies the schools are going to take on an individual basis that's the main reason we wanted to bring it forward because we have come to a stop and we need we need to communicate with administrative administrators um because at this point below page seven you're talking about getting more and more focused uh and that in terms of like this school is going to do this thing um and that felt like further than certainly we wanted to go as a policy committee without greater input. I will also add that um the the text that's in bold starting on page three any section that's sort of bullet pointed and in bold we borrowed language from another school district that had already adopted this policy to give us an idea of the types of things that schools are are putting into these bills to fill in the blank sections. One other piece for context um we currently have this policy this is this would be an update so if we're not creating a new policy we're we're updating it based on the guidelines from the school board's association. Yeah like new laws have been enacted that have made different requirements and so the our old policy is really different from this one. It's two pages. What kind of feedback would be helpful to you all? I mean I think it's around how do we uh how do we gather community input on this? On the policy? Yeah what should be written in this policy? Like what do you imagine it would be how you know and I think um you know we probably need Libby to weigh in on that too but if anyone has any ideas of like how would we capture feedback and um create a process by which title one you know families can be involved in creating the language of this policy. I think that's the main feedback. Right Brett what do you? Yeah I mean um the on page two it's highlighted MRPS will develop with with parents and family members of participating students a written in parent family engagement policy. So that was sort of one of our questions. How many readings can you have before we start to bring in to have intentional meetings with families so that they can contribute their input to what this policy looks like and then at that point do you adopt the policy or do you do it in reverse and sort of create a policy that's supposed to have parent and family engagement and then have it just revise it? I don't I just don't quite understand what comes first there. Yeah it's kind of the question that I understood it's chicken or the egg. So it the policy which we already have is outdated so we need to update the policy and the guide the the model policy has language in it that says that it's a participatory process so do we like engage in that participatory process in the process of updating it with a currently outdated policy on the books or do we get a better but still not quite perfect policy on the books that says we're going to be participatory when we haven't been and then with the hopes that we are participatory going forward that's the dilemma that we find ourselves in. And I think we have been you know I mean I think we've done all we and I think the schools that's the other piece is like what is what what what sticks with us and how will that come out of our retreats this summer when we're talking about our engagement strategies and formalizing them so that we can repeat them and then what is not in our hands that's really up to administrators that need to establish relationships with families of children in most schools students in those schools. Have you checked in with Pietro yet on this question? No. I can understand the confusion because as I was reading this I was also confused I couldn't tell if in some places perhaps the word policy actually should have been plan like a community engagement plan at the school level like it's kind of what you were just saying red is this anyway I'm I'm just agreeing with you so I'm not going to really repeat what you all said. That said to answer the question you've put before us my vote but we're not really voting but my two cents would be I think it would make sense to conduct a short but meaningful process to get input from families that would inform this policy rather than put this policy in place and then start engaging families so that's how I would that's how I would resolve the chicken and conundrum that we find ourselves in but I also understand it's confusing I agree with that I mean I think the way that the policy is written it would be sort of a violation of the spirit of the policy if we just move forward and adopted it without having a process yeah how many reads does a policy need to as many as we want but at least three at least three but we can go so could it not be that in the process of going through those reads we have the engagement with the community so it's not a one before the other rather we're building and updating this outdated policy with the engagement of those families yeah and the policy effects I think we're going to try to invite them in because I mean like theoretically it's out there for anyone to come in and talk about it but I don't think we would need to be more explicit there's a little pain in tension I think to like our knowledge as individual board members of title one and how it is implemented in the schools and how families interact with it is so limited that it does feel like it would be more appropriate for administrators or somebody else to be running that process or at least be a part of the process so I think we need to probably so I think reaching out to pHRO is a good idea just to answer the initial question of you know the timing of engagement and then also reaching out to Libby and others on the admin team to see what type of process they would envision and what sort of like lead and we don't necessarily have to have this go to a second read at the very next board meeting you could say wait until you've gotten some family engagement before it comes for a second read yeah or we could just go because I mean the thing is I mean like technically if it's on there for read it's it keeps it on the agenda and people come and speak to it I think we can just say there are no updates or I guess as I was envisioning it in my head and maybe didn't articulate it is is the read and the engagement are at the same time so is that possible to have yeah definitely because we can each with read we can take we can take input and revise it and get to the point where you feel we've had enough community engagement as a process of the reads and again we can yeah we need three but we can have more than three so Scott are you imagining then that that would that the family engagement would happen at a board meeting which is where the reads where the reading happens I imagine that some engagement can occur at the time of a board meeting but that not every family is going to be able to right engage at that time and so there may be multiple modes of engaging yeah one of which being during a board meeting during a read another might be you know a 12 o'clock on a Tuesday and you also had to think about timing I mean people are we have a few weeks left of school then people are going to switch into summer mode is this yeah is this the best time to engage the community or will people be a little more focused come late August or early September yeah I mean I'm wondering if we can have a plan for you know have a plan to engage the community end of August and you know put the plan in motion through September and sometime end of September you know October or whatever a couple of community engagement efforts that are really focused on this policy essentially before budget season I'll just offer that part of the equity audit is going to be intentional focus groups with different sectors of our community perhaps they and those are going to happen in starting in August into the fall so perhaps we could like integrate these two things which would be I think better for the families than asking them to come to two different meetings to talk about things that are going on broadly in the district around engagement so anyway certainly could dovetail I think it would just be a matter of asking the firm that's doing the equity audit to incorporate a couple more questions probably into their focus groups yep I don't know it's worth asking it's worth finding out necessarily unrelated either right exactly how we're capturing like the voice and opinions of our community largest yeah I think figuring out yeah I don't think yeah I think that's a great idea and then also you know maybe doing some sort of survey that we can have all the the principles send out and creating like a little spot on our website for survey and feedback too like the you know either send out like a district wide survey and then just have it be a kind of permanent link on the website at least for a few weeks where people can go to and is that copacetic for you all in terms of like timing with the sba if it's a required policy like does that or is there any time okay I don't think they're usually these required policies I don't think there's like a date attached to like when you have to yeah but it's just sort of best and I don't think it's like an emergency emergency required policy like if we don't have it yeah and we're working in France so we do have it yeah we do have it this is the update exactly yeah okay I want to move on to the next one I just have one other overall piece of feedback which is that it's very hard to read and it feels repetitive in places and especially if we're thinking about non-board members and non-administrators reading this and wrapping their heads around it i.e caregivers and other members of our community it seems like either we need some sort of like explainer or summary or something or we have to it's there's got to be some way to streamline what it is we're trying to communicate. There was an idea that exploded in the policy committee about a year ago that is kind of on the future work list that was like on our policy page where we have all of our policies listed there could be like a layman sort of like explanation of what the policy is we've been trying to do that with the statements of intent yeah yeah we're including a statement of intent in each policy with with these required policies especially ones that are so bound to law we've sort of been advised to not do a lot so i think in that case it could be a separate document that lives but it can be linked even at the bottom of the policy to sort of explain the policy in a little bit more approachable terms. Yeah one more quick thing to to address what you were just saying yeah there are there are sections in here where it specifically spells out the parent engagement piece but it's not the entire policy itself should be drafted it's these these different components it starts on like page three basically and so and so yeah i don't see it as a here's the policy let's let's build it together more more along the lines of the the details in those bullet points that we borrowed from wherever missus quay valley that's the piece where i think getting um true engagement is going to be important like starting with part one general requirements and expectations is that which is that the part is those bullet points that are throughout the document that start on page three uh huh yeah i think part of it's piece specific but it does yeah but i think for a lot different engagement points we want a lot of the same things to ready to move on to the the next one yes i am just um taking c-13 so c-13 i apologize that you didn't have access to that um i changed the permissions for the whole folder so that in the future i hope that it won't be a problem um so again this is a required policy uh it's tied to law we did uh actually um another iteration of the policy committee when ryan and bridgett were part of it we had been working on this before they left and so this statement of intent was written in connection with those two board members um and so we didn't have to do a lot of work on that we didn't end up changing i think maybe anything once it says policy and then below that all of that is the required correct and so the statement of intent is that effort to make the policy of language a little more approachable and for people you know maybe students who are reading it or families or caregivers who are reading it or community members um that they have that sort of introduction piece and and make the make the rest of the policy a little more approachable um we also want to center it in the values of the district and to make sure that we we lead with the values like why are we adopting a policy like this and so we had we did change some of the language according to that and um and we also have asked the equity to take a look at this policy and see if they might have a sentence or two to add um to frame this policy questions on the question about was but i guess you already answered it because it was already it was cut and based um is the definition for homelessness um section b it listed trailer park which i feel like the common use of that is like a mobile home maybe they mean like a trailer like like you pull in behind a car but just seemed weird to see a trailer park in there right so that was the question that arose um back when we had the legal mind of Bridget on on the policy committee and we were able to sort of uh we we ended up talking to the sba about it um and and then we did a little bit of work in the last policy committee too to do to look up um definitions and stuff and so that was a question that arose like we didn't want you know basically the the short answer is that that term is more about an rv type of park where it's very temporary living and not somebody who's living you know in a in a module at home yeah or or something that has a foundation that's where i see they're planning to live here around and it's insulated and has to be but we decided to keep the language as they wrote it because of phro suggestion not to change language on these legally bound policies would it be possible to put an asterix and then at the bottom say for these purposes this is the definition of trailer park yeah i mean so the definitions are change the words um i don't know if you guys can see the comments can you see uh i can see your comments okay yeah so i mean the definitions are linked but we could you know they're they're in the law yep the other thing is if you at the top number one homeless student means lacking fixed regular inadequate nighttime residents which could include so if you're living in a modular home with foundation and that is your fixed regular inadequate nighttime residents then you're not under this policy considered homeless so i feel like with there's so many definitions in here that i'm not sure we need to pull that one out since they're all they all can be found all the definitions can be found if you click out to the to the statute yeah and also there's kind of a i mean in some ways you want to be the flexibility to be a little over broad right we don't want to you know stigmatize anything but we also don't want someone who is in an inadequate living situation yeah to be excluded from this because we have a cramped up addition in return any further questions on c-13 i think in particular if you wanted to give a closer read to the statement of intent and then at the next reading if you have feedback on how that could be revised and we're hoping to have a couple sentences from that committee depending on these controls thank you for doing the policy yeah um yes no thank you thank you i'm a scott and red giving the overviews uh the motion to adjourn is next the motion um second second i was in favor hi and again do this thank you Zach and Garrett for your fearless service uh and good luck with graduation we will be seeing you in just a


Hey friends today, I am at Universal Studios Orlando to preview two of the houses They decided to open up for the year 2020. I'm so excited. Let's go do this It is just so amazing to be able to see these signs, you know We've been staring at the metal frame for so long and now it's actually filled in Right now It's just team members that are able to preview the event later on about one o'clock is when all the Passholders get to go in and this one is the bride of Frankenstein lives house It looks like they're actually preparing for a packed house because they have all of the actual gates that they normally would have Actually for a full open season of Halloween Horror Nights and they should expect it because I feel like people will still travel the Universal just to come for these two houses. I mean, I literally would I would come and visit Universal Studios just so I can do two houses and you don't have to pay an extra-day ticket The houses aren't a separate a ticketed event. So it's just open during park hours that you can walk through them That's amazing. The second house is gonna be the revenge of the Tooth Fairy house I'm probably most excited for that one before we actually get to our houses. We have a little time Let's celebrate with some festive Halloween drinks here at Cafe Levamba Here is the skeleton bar. I'm excited to check this place out It looks really awesome, especially with all the pumpkins and it makes me miss my favorite part of Halloween Horror Nights Well, one of my favorite parts was the pumpkin forest. That was always my favorite Another new thing they added this year is a scarecrow stock You can actually stalk around Universal Studios and try to find 13 scarecrow and skeletons And they're all separately themed and when you find them you have to get them stamped On the map just like this Very fancy. What do you say? And we're about to go inside and I'm with Jackie Super enthused. I got a drinking buddy You know gonna miss Halloween Horror Nights drinking for some reason. It just was different Like having a beer walking around with your blinky cup with like the lights and the scare zone Different. Yeah Look at the inside here. I love it already This is some good stuff Yes, oh yes food and beverage, please. Oh wow guys. I'm excited Thank you This is what we're looking at and we've got bloody charred Tendori skewers and then of course the screaming for s'more fries. I'm excited I'm gonna get the chicken skewers and then also a fancy drink Here's a look at almost all the food they have Those skewers look so good and then down here we can see the little shrimps The shrimps. Oh Yeah, look at those bad boys right there. I like it Very fancy. These look so delicious Now that we have our food we're actually waiting to walk through this is a walk-through experience We're gonna be able to go to the bar the Skeleton bar and then to the left is the actual walk-through experience I'm so excited. Look how cool it looks in there. Oh Boy, I'm excited. This is great Looks like we're about to approach the bar itself and look at this little shrine there here I'm so excited. This is really cool. It's really put together well-themed All right now it's time for some drinks the circus peanut the mango inferno The lucaroo the lucaroo. I think is the one where it's like you're turning into a werewolf. I Definitely decided to go with the circus peanut. That just sounds so unique and cool The circus peanut is screwball peanut butter whiskey with banana and orange juice And take a look at this guy right here. This is awesome It would be really cool if he can actually just hang out in here, but it's just a walk-through attraction So we're gonna have to keep moving. But wow, this would be an amazing bar. I would love it Kind of like cocktails and screams Cheers to you my good friend I'll enjoy these chicken skewers Here's a look at the drink when we got outside looking. It's got even little candy peanut in it I'm excited to try this. This seems like one of the most unique drinks peanut butter and banana a peanut butter banana Alcoholic drink and here's the skewers to they got a little messy as I was navigating through but those look delicious as well I'm so excited to try these I really couldn't take my time with those chicken skewers because I was so delicious But now I'm gonna try the peanut butter banana Halloween horror night special drink It's okay. Oh Yeah, the banana you can taste really strong and the peanut butter is kind of like a Kind of like a kick kind of I don't know. It's a hard drink You wouldn't be able to drink a lot of those but it's definitely worth a try You know who would love this drink Elvis Elvis love pin peanut butter and banana. Did you know that? Yeah, so this is like the Elvis horror night drink Elvis may have liked the drink, but you know who doesn't like it Jackie I'm gonna drink the rest of this and then we're going to get another drink Brave man You need the peanut I'm gonna get the peanut So the line to get back in right now is only a couple people but earlier when we heard it was lined up pretty far back so Know that when you come here, it's a very rushed thing because you don't want to hold people up and It's like they only let a certain amount of people in so you might have to wait round to here we go While we wait, I decided to just set the camera up so you can hear the creepiness in here Not that creepiness Hopefully this drink is gonna go down a little bit easier This one is the one where you turn into a werewolf supposedly This is the werewolf drink the werewolf. That's my speech impediment shining through right there for you Much better Yeah, much better than the circus peanut the circus peanuts more of a novelty drink like I said You get it just to try it We're gonna take our drinks on the road because it's almost our window time one o'clock here. We come. Oh, we're here guys It's time. It's so amazing to see the queue so empty like this We've been in here many and many and times before Rick looks excited Looks like we're officially moving a little bit There's only about 25 people in front of us and nobody is lined up so far and it's one o'clock on the dot We were in here a little bit early lucky us We're not sure when we're not gonna be able to film anymore But we're gonna keep going until it's apparent that we have to stop filming I know they will not let us film in the house, but we'll see how far we get Once we get out of the house, I'll let you know everything that I think of the house and that just give you the whole scoop I'm very excited. No spoilers out So these little glow sticks they give you They're giving out to the bravest of the party me and Jackie decided to separate because we wanted to be Our own parties and brave it ourselves. I'm excited to see what that does What color did you get you got pink? nice Jackie it's almost happening. We're like two minutes away shake it shake it like a salt shaker So amazing because like I said we split up We're gonna be actually going through this quite by ourselves because of the social distancing It's gonna be even scarier of what you're doing it by yourself. Wow There's the door I'm so excited It's happening It also looks like they have TMs out there sanitizing your hands I'm sure as soon as we hit that doorway Cameras off, but I'm gonna get up to that point and let you see like the sanitizing process Good. Yes You do have to put the camera on Absolutely. Thank you. That was actually really entertaining we got tangled up for a while like it was a slow start and You can always see a person in front of you But then at the last like couple of like scenes there was nobody and then I realized I was walking real fast and the jump scares Were actually happening with the plexiglass in place like they were jumping out and like pressing up against the plexigas And it was catching you off guard I really really liked it. I'm excited to see what two varies like I'm gonna sit down and we're gonna talk all about it once we get both houses done now It's time. We're gonna get in line for revenge of the tooth fairy We didn't wait at all for a bride of Frankenstein We actually just literally got in line and walked right through but we grabbed ourselves a beer cuz I think we're gonna have a wait here Yeah, there's not much weight at all actually. They said maybe 20 minutes. So I Guess we're gonna have to finish this drink pretty quick looks like we're going into stage 24 Or maybe not I'm not sure which one. I can't see where it's going For some reason this big gigantic sense of joy just came over me because I realized I went through my first haunted house of the year just now I need to think that I wasn't gonna be able to do that. That's crazy, right? I don't know. It just hit me Maybe it's standing in line chatting with other people in line. Yeah, that is like so for a night crazy Yeah, for some reason like I said, this is really feeling like we're at Halloween Horror Nights I'm really liking it. We should have gotten more beer before we did the Frankenstein. Oh Yeah stage 24, that's the one I didn't know if we were gonna turn here and then go into 25 or not But it's 24 and it also seems like there's no glow sticks needed for this one But they are doing the sanitizing I have to wait Sanitize Thank you So I don't want to spoil anything but Tooth Fairy was definitely my favorite I mean, it's hard to say a favorite house out of two, but Tooth Fairy was the best. I loved it I mean nothing to knock Frankenstein's wife, but I love that house. I love Tooth Fairy. It was amazing Looks like we got in line at the right time because now the line's all the way back out to here Actually, it's going back to Jimmy Fallon.  Oh, yes, we got such a good spot Oh, and this is where we're staying right here. Hello. Hello. Hello, I like it. I like it It's very cool and relaxed While we're sitting here and since the live music should cut off for a second Might as well tell you some of the best things about the houses Obviously, I've already said it. The Tooth Fairy house was my favorite hands down favorite Jackie What do you think? So Tooth Fairy was great, but I still think Friday Frankenstein was great It's probably because I watched Friday Frankenstein last night I have an affinity for classic Universal Monsters. I love the films. I love those like old 1930s black and white films I think that it depends on your walkthrough because we talk to other people Yeah, and it depends on the timing of your walkthrough.  One thing I wanted to talk about was the social distancing and in the Frankenstein's Bridehouse they actually were held up a lot more in the beginning of the house And then at the end it opened up more But you had time to actually sink in and enjoy What was happening in front of you you won't rush or anything like that They had the CMs with like a little red lightsaber and they were basically like telling people to stop here Enjoy where you're at Sometimes you would see the same thing over and over again But it's only better that way because then you can point out the things that you would normally miss from just looking at it once Yep, yep. You get to like soak in the soup. Yeah Now with Tooth Fairy, I feel like that was more of a Like very like advanced like you just kind of like went scene, scene, scene, scene. Yeah, yeah It didn't develop on the scene as much as that. No, but overall both of the houses were amazing And I didn't feel rushed and I didn't feel like there was a bunch of people surrounding me I wish Honestly that all Horror Nights lines can go like that I would wait probably an hour outside of a house Just so I can walk through it more by myself. They're so cool Yeah, I think it makes the house better You get to like enjoy it without having to like rush along and everything like that And nobody likes people breathing up the back of their neck and it sets up Like it sets them up for the scare actors to actually do what they do better They get to like reset.  Totally. Yeah All that Halloween Horror Night talk now. I'm hungry. I decided to get the bangers and mash. Look at that That looks amazing doesn't it? And then you have a pop pot Because I love pop pot and look at that presentation. Like what is this even? Wow fancy finnegan's And finnegan's was a great place to just chill out and relax After enjoying the houses have a little food have a little drink.  They better be prepared This is just for the premier pass holders. This is insane Easily two-hour waits to get into the bride of Frankenstein Anyhoo's that's gonna do it for me today. I had to swap out my mask the other one just got too wet And I always suggest bringing a backup mask because it actually comes very handy So I hope you guys enjoyed the video. I enjoyed making it. We'll see you next time. Bye