so with that said i'm going to call the church needs to provide the union governing board meeting in the mountains feel modified new school district school board meeting for june first twenty fifteen the order before we get started is there any questions or adjustments anything regarding the agenda everybody clear on what's going on david dave dave police i just have one quick thing i want to do under other the sole person here who is just as c e s u board member and not triple i'm board member i have to be careful how i negotiate this agenda i'm not quite sure how that works  i believe makes unless you see that it's specific which the graduation policy is you're more than welcome to chime in that at any point all right hearing and seeing none will leave and the second night in which our policy governing discussion joining us tonight i'm very grateful they're going to be able to be with us is david young who's the superintendent is that correct correct so john thanks for inviting us you know we often go get a reach out from other superintendents but i think it's really from our perspective it's really important that we work collaboratively and advocate for what we think is right so have called a modified policy governance process i wasn't really sure where where you are and it sounds like you've had really just some general discussions is that true and you know it might be helpful you know just you know for us to give you a little bit of some quick oversight what's in your packet and then pause for you to ask us questions i think that probably would be the most appropriate thing for us to do so in your governance and kind of walk you through kind of some comparables to what that is the next is and i didn't know john how much you actually reached out to the monks who would associate with the policy governors want to one we certainly think is a good document that kind of answers a lot of questions around the policy governance process the key questions again and i'm some of these are great reminders for me to talk about this it's for me it's like i should be having these more aside because as we get comfortable with policy go sometimes we get away with we get away from whose work is this business superintendent is this porth work and so there's some good guiding questions here and then there's some examples of what we call monitoring and what i've given you is one that we have done quite well and that's a monitoring we port which we call two point six which is succession planning and that's one that we've actually had good success with and nothing modifications and we've given you an example two point one that's actually even created some challenges for us and then the last is the evaluation of the meeting which is on the back side one side is the supervisor superintendent meeting and information provided in the timely manner and then how did the board meeting run from the perspective of  so in general so that's the package and you may say i already have this you know it's but again this is kind of what we thought would be helpful for you in general policy governess i think for us places the responsibility soley on the superintendent with the board being provided information and in the form of monitoring reports about each one of those important guiding pillars around the management of the  district or school in this case they then have the opportunity through a monitor report that i put together based on the policy my interpretation of the policy and the evidence and they then go through that and say is the interpretation appropriate is there adequate and appropriate evidence is it compliant and again that's the way in which the work of under policy governance really happened so i'm getting some ice there is a little bit so let me just pox on off with you want to add anything before we just open up some questions for you know i think it probably better if i respond to questions because from a practical standpoint i've been living with this for ten years now and we have a lot of growing pains implementing policy governance and the reason the board and david refers to what we have in south burlington this modified policy governance is that we did find it didn't work for us in all cases so we needed to have work arounds the truth the traditional and pure form of policy governance so i think what david's given you is that is an example of sort of the the calendar mo examples of a policy that was easy to implement and a monitoring point that was pretty clean an example of one that we're actually in the throes of evaluating it it's on our board meeting agenda again tomorrow so or wednesday so it is it's almost a chronic chronic issue but i'd also say when we kind of lose focus where we go back to is the key questions and david a superintendent will often hold born accountable and say is this really the work of the poor and we have to ask ourselves an individual board members can sort of ask the group is this the work of the board or is this the work of the superintendent so the guardrails that policy governance  allowed us to put on framing really the work of the big word versus the operational work that david oversees within the district has been the most helpful and then as we find in his real life and impedes with policy governance that's where we find opportunities to discuss and modify our policies where we feel like we've identified gaps and that was so i'll stop there but i think i'm happy to respond any questions kind superintendent before me again what i would say through advocacy with him on school boards association and looking at a more effective ways i would say around focusing the work focusing the work and holding the right people responsible was really the driving driving reason john everett obviously felt that it was important for the boards to stay grounded the board stay grounded in that work and felt that this was would be a very helpful next step for for governing the work that we do so it came out of a what i would say many several years of conversation couple years of conversation and then the adoption of it in a modified sense as elizabeth and really working to define what it is that you want with great clarity and that's where the ends are are brought out and those are the driving was really the driving components for the work of the district are what are you what is it that you want specific to student outcomes and we say also we had a fairly i don't want to call it a high turnover on the board but when you get new board members in place a lot of folks run for a board position with a specific agenda based on perhaps their own experience as a parent within the just director supervisor union and we've had board members come through with agendas on information technology with agendas on financing with agendas on special lead and a variety of topics that are that are critical to every school district and what we found with policy governance is a kind it's kind of a way to  bring everyone to the same level and be talking about higher level issues that are important and moving the ends of the district forward versus what might be hot topics for an individual and then if there are topics which all of us get approached  grocery store and at the gas station and so forth when we bring those issues to the superintendent or to a board meeting we also are challenged to frame those around where do they fit within policy so it just doesn't big you know i'm really upset with the social studies teacher at the middle school and you know they did something and it isn't it it's it frames the work of the board in a way that's productive and and really reinforces the board role could you you said there were some things that don't didn't work for you in terms of policy governance could you give us an example of maybe why it didn't work i think you know timing is one of the things that if you look at the calendar here that's actually  but what you'll also see is a variety of other business or administrative reports at the bottom of this calendar and what we found is our agenda is have ended up with a parking lot of issues that we felt weren't getting discussed that range from everything from an evaluation of our own performance evaluation system even evaluating whether we were compliant with our own system and then was the current system even the most effective system we were looking at things like fundraising within the district and the policy around fundraise and so there was a host of issues that came up that ended up in a parking lot on our agenda item and over  time i asked david if he brought a sample of each end of that we started a system where we put a check mark if we didn't move it out of the parking lot so after you had to pay for the check mark check marks that went off the page we actually started looking at the parking lot of issues and saying you know what if these are really important they should fit somewhere in policy so over time what we say modified it was a lot of significant issues that came up that didn't necessarily fit with policy but now we've taken at the next step and we're actually saying you know what the should be fitting in policy somewhere so the first question we're asking is where do these issues fit with and policy first and and then moving them out of the parking lot so those are examples impractical you know meeting to meeting where we've had to modify what otherwise would have been a pretty high level process that didn't didn't address an issue that might to come up until it's on the calendar in march and here in process of school work is important not different i think that the biggest pieces that are most significant is that you're focused work and when you look at you know the in the middle of the pages  monitoring report there's a there's a lot of focus around appropriately modern monitoring and asking the right questions and we look at ones like financial conditions and activities and when you look at asset protection there's an awful lot of detail that goes into that to a firm with evidence that we're doing the right thing and i think that's a that's a really really important thing takes time once you get that done the first time and obviously the evidence has to change you know as time goes on but that's a really really important component for i think board members that may come and go but the condition of a school or district and as you is really important that those things are done right and i'm proud of that i'm not always as litmus sometimes it's i have more members are going to interpret and they're going like i don't understand that you really explain your interpretation of you know that particular area so it may take some time to get that straight now to get that  you know clarified but i think it's a really important piece and that when you look at the monitoring that goes on it's pretty clear i think that you'll see we're talking about monitoring of our curriculum you know we're monitoring the treatment of community do we have the right ways in which we're connecting back with people to really good i think process that's out there yeah and i'll use this two point one the treatment of students and parents and guardians when this one policy was initially introduced i think we had five or six categories on the the lower level of detail on the policy so over time we've added to this because we felt that we needed more more guardrails the way this is framed up i've never liked the language of this and it's framed around the superintendent shall not allow so it does take a little while to get in the mindset of it sets up a fence post for the superintendent outside which he or she can operate and that way it allows the board to kind of create the biggest playing field for the leadership within the district operate without limiting his responsibilit public detail policy to i believe was added somewhere in the past probably five or six years and that was on using methods of collecting reviewing transmitting or storing student family information that fail to protect against improper elicited so we had a lot of discussion on that detail policy and if you look at if you look at it further on i believe we were reporting that were not compliant with that one he has to he had to report a violation and then he introduces a compliance plan and the board either agrees with it or disagrees with it has adequate time so this is an example of on where we did we did not have a definition of privacy related to facilities or an audit or issues of privacy and this is the level of discussion that happens at the board level and if again it keeps i've noticed that over the years this has been turnover on the board here really keeps the discussion at a pretty high level around truly policy issues which is within the board purview and you don't get into the on the tactical detail of really how the superintendent is organizing and being profitable you were clearly we were just talking about you know monitoring certainly ends which are the driving execution around what you want for your for your students i think the advocacy this is something that we you know we're continuing to work on that actually you know notice one of you have the legislative you know you're getting a summary from this past year but you know we've put some things in there that we think are really important for our work  won't be surprised if we reach we get a little bit more as a result of this past year work and then more development you see a lot of that and then those the other business from parked a lot of things down there so we don't forget about them and there may be things that come up and i think this is where the modified version is there something going on you know for you folks obviously i can think of you know the work that you've recently done you know if you want a policy governance you have these other these others that would be pretty filled with types of things that you can work from that are unique to your community so you sit do you do all of the monitoring reports no i'm responsible path and so when it is presented it's from the superintendent but then again this is all this is work in progress you know we gave it to other staff right so other asset protection in financial conditions the business manager along with myself and some of his staff will pull that information together and provide the evidence the socially that our h r person helps a significant amount with you know for instance which one point one so again part of that is you  know making sure that it is it is shared i will tell you though that it's once you once you go out in a few times there's clarity around the expectation and the evidence is generally where the work is around i've got to get the the evidence for this this year to support what we do again it's i'm going because it does then change the way in which we operate we need to be mindful of how we're you know doing some things along the way it's not just get to the end do the moderate port and find it we want to put systems in place that make the corrections along the way and that's why that's a really important part of policy governance as opposed to the way traditional can be because the question asked for more depth and clarity it puts the onus of responsibility on them strangers and school staff as opposed to the board i know again in the past traditional fifteen years i was under the kind of the traditional model some boards may have just pick on finance a little bit they have a huge you know forte and financial acuity others other boards less so and more on facilities and as time as those transition happened i would see we spent a lot more time in the financial review and then i had a chair and other board members that were more in facility maintenance and have grade and they were more into worrying about you know kind how we're keeping our buildings up to today good conversations and important work but we really didn't spend the time where where we really should have been around looking at student outcomes and how we're making sure that you know those things are happening in our schools and i had one other question we're talking about the parking lot you're saying that there aren't current policies under policy governance that cover those items is that why they're kind of stuck and not being reviewed we didn't know we're and we didn't we were thinking in terms of where would they fit i'm so it's been an interesting process where we started with the parking lot concept and now we're moving them into policies where they would  reside and if if there are gaps still we just keep them in the parking lot and i'm sorry but this oh isn't that the kind of thing that would be the superintendent's responsibility if there isn't a policy for where is that that's right and so then we would need to come up with an again i think you need to know that there are required policies and then there are the is the work of policy governance and then you have those peripheral others in your in may not know where they go and that may be that we just need to write a policy on ok or because again we're kind of in there now where are these going to fit not every issue that we have or need for clarity is going to fit there and so we may that shows that we come from raising or you need you know we need a fundraising policy because it doesn't really fit there well and i use that wasn't and that's a good example because what we ended up doing there is we did need a fundraising policy we need a procedure around fund raising but fund raising actually fell within the financial for the financial conditions of the of the district because we were finding there was you know a lot of sorcery income coming in at the various facilities and not a lot of oversight there i'd say from another practical standpoint one of the things that we've done in reviewing the miner reports we've tried it two ways one is we reviewed it as a whole board which is really time consuming but has had a pretty good outcome we've also gone the subcommittee route where we've assigned to board members to pre review a monitoring report and then report to the whole board and that is a little more expeditious but doesn't always generate the full conversation that you might want to have so over time you may find the policy governors would be appropriate to adopt a good school district do you think it might not fit and why would that be in a similar question to elizabeth which is if you served on school boards without political or is it always been number back then how it differs from what it is now and how effective you feel is more effective and i feel like the work is is a higher level of work appropriate for the board level and like i said that had been my because you didn't have a framework to discuss issues and you didn't have the same a shared vision of the ends or the student outcomes so when every board member comes in now everybody is calibrated on the end so that's where all the work is focused is is what we're doing delivering our direction improving our progress toward the end so i i would say that's been very helpful but it's certainly had growing pains and and it's been an interesting process getting where we're at today but you you can see how even the tools these change pretty routinely but they're just getting better we're building on a foundation so to your question around  might work or when it might not work it really is all up to the consensus of the board there's got to be a want to need to do it if there is a want to need to do it and you know i'll say continue continuously improve weatherstrip traditional or this way that i think is the driving that's what makes it right it's got to be right for you i guess i would probably sum it up in that policy governance is the most proactive model versus i would say traditional tends to be more reactive where you're dealing with issues still important ones but they are generally ones that come to you as a result of some things going on either just prior to budgeting or after or certain things tends to be reactive to the community wants and needs and not so much proactive towards student related outcomes and when you look at just the monitoring the it's mapped out for you doesn't mean you can't read your readjust those but it does in the course of that here walk through from how you're taking care of your staff and community to asset protection and financial planning and it does allow you and we've tweaked you know you can see where we plug budget in in december and in and we don't have any monitor report there because we're just we're tapped out we have it's not always been that way we've tried to do a monitor for the first meeting in january and it's like you know we're not able to get to it and so there's there's a it's a very proactive model so if we have subcommittees that review monitoring reports they are always the same two board members for instance will be at least two board well actually it's only two because we don't want to have quorum there so we don't have any standing committees that i'm aware of the board members we have a citizen's finance group we have committees like that so these groups rotate through and it's really almost on a volunteer basis if somebody has an aptitude and interest the time and hasn't done it before and wants to get educated on a certain policy on on bargaining we have to plea bargain is a complete bore so that's that's we've done it different ways in my ten year period i think i've been in five achievement or activity that you're most proud of that you feel only policy governance could have supported  i mean not the one that comes to mind for me is is the ends which is we have a number of student outcomes in four areas academic proficiency in citizenship personal development in  to be able to speak consistently with the community with administration with students with staff and in our legislators just about those ends policies and kind of the how we intend to deliver that through twelve or pre k through twelve i would say that's been the biggest accomplishment is a consistent story on outcomes i don't i would i would agree i think the ends the clarification of the ends and and those requirements that we're looking to make sure are there has been big i think that then the systems that also support it whether it's data systems where we are or not and again i want i want to play don't you know walk away thing or they've got it all figured out we know we're struggling right now with data right we're struggling with you know what what data system and in the board's going to give me feedback right away here that we're not feeling that you've got enough you know evidence that supports the growth of our ads and so it's back to me and this is where we are we're at looking at you know a system that can do a better job of tracking our data and our human resource needs and putting that together that supplies the board with evidence that says we put x amount of resources and we're getting this on our return next year we put a little bit more last what are we getting need contracts right what do we have these ends expectations and a longer range plan what do we need to be doing and year to so that we can really get when you say that you're able to talk about these co these goals is for students effectively to the community to the teachers faculty and staff all the board members who are will convert you know we're able to converse on these how do you mean exactly i mean that's a cultural shift within the district that when a good example is you have a student present a relative student group come in today we try to have student groups come in and demonstrate or do a presentation on it i think sample would be if this group came in they might speak to which of the ends this particular assignment had delivered on so it might be anything from the i don't have all hands in front of me but it might be the research that was done to look at the various explorers and the deliberation that might have gone on in a team setting to determine who was the best explore would be some competencies they were identified that were linked to that specific exercise for instance and the rubric associated with that but that those are examples of some of the way that get translated even down speaks i think for themselves that it's critical work for administration and the school board to be in touch with it is a lot of work it's a lot of work out of the gate but once you get him once you get that established again it becomes a reevaluation of your interpretation the evidence that goes along with it it begins to become easier as you move forward unless things are less people are not doing the right things and we're out of compliance and we have to come up with  it's plans but it is time consuming delegation is important and abetted systems are important but i think it's absolutely appropriate that where the focus is the focus is squarely on the people that are in charge and it's appropriate for me to provide the board with the level of assurance that you are in the building every day you're not you're we're providing you the affirmation that we do have systems in place to manage you know our finances or student progress and you're going to get that along the way and i think that's i think it's time well spent so and then and important to say that we drift we drift off week we are going to respond to people that come in and you know have to have questions and i think myself and the board we want to hear that we don't want to be some no no that's policy governs we don't talk about that but if it keeps coming up holistically looking at the students me ultimately the goal is to have the students learn to go to their highest capacity in a diverse you know everything so do you feel that this sort of policy governance has any effect at all and if so why on how well the teachers are able to perform and create an environment for their students and for the principals to help the teachers do what they're doing in other words you're looking at it from the ground up rather from the top down how does policy governance affect that all you know i think it has a has has had a strong bearing on the progress for self for a long time the definition of the outcomes of the ends have been ongoing and clearly stated it's allowed us to do but i'll just say the crosswalks to transferable skills p o p s p b g r's those all of those things that are upon us and it's done it we've the board to date has done a good job and established in the ends which have great linkage to those to those those particular things that i just mentioned so it has been a very very important step for us where we are able to not have to redefine ourselves every time around what we want or where we're going we've been able to ground ourselves with to the ems and how those relate to us and there are some shortcomings which we recognise need to be made up in different ways but for us in our in that movement it's been very helpful and i think that one of the policies we've had the biggest challenges on is an incorrect and there been a lot of extra variables that more recently are impacting that like common core and efficiency base graduation education all of the standards and so forth but we we had educators administrators community members at the table when ends were developed and students and as those have transferred what we're seeing now is that measuring that's happening is really allowing that ground level support because we've gone through think the knowing pains have been consistent with what you'd expect when just any changes coming which is kind of summer holding on to the old and some are kind of moving forward on the new and what we're seeing is again i do call it kind of a great recalibration within the district and the focus being on how do we know what we want students to to have when they walk across the stage at graduation high school graduation and how we're going to get there so it builds from the if if at elementary school we're measuring best in a students here you know here's how we have to adapt that for that student in middle school and here's how we you know move that student along  continuum so it's you know it'll be a long time in progress that curriculum is the one area where the biggest thing we're missing here is the metrics on the monitoring of curriculum and that's where we're spending a lot of energy across the whole oh so traditional you have a strategic plan that really is the work of boredom and the ministration on a policy governance that strategic plan so important but it becomes the becomes the administration's plan not the board's plan and so what we have is we do have a plan i actually use the multi tiered systems of support and we have a three year delineated plan for the district and each school within them has kind of their plan on how to how to continue to advance so the strategic plan not as big of a driving execution community event it's for the it's the road map developed by the administration  to meet the traditional and our charter we have a what we call a steering committee which is made up of the city council and the school board and they have their frequencies frequent i forget four times three times a year come together we're bound to come together wednesday night and  there there are non voting groups but they do come together to talk about things that are related to both school and city and we have been working hard around that advocacy in that collaboration so that's an example of comm might be different with more of those three times the size of your board in terms of operating here governments i know i know i thought about that in coming here because when someone asked the question about you know what what districts or supervisory unions might be better suited for policy governance on one hand i think knowing what a discrete five member board in five facility one community structure went through transition in policy governance it was challenging but on the other hand i thought you know policy governance can become the common denominator across diverse communities and schools as well so  i think it could go either way and i mean it it will be a challenge there absolutely will be some struggles as you sort of focus on varying you know data systems and things like that discussions of how things are in policies are interpreted but i actually think that could be kind of a rallying cry because at the end of the day the common denominator is what do your collective communities want your students to know and be able to do when they graduate from your system and i think that's a helpful conversation to have his then it can drive how it gets administered below that i would agree i think i commend you for having the conversation we are we are not here to wear the v s b a hat we're for giving you an honest feedback thirst their struggles along the way in all the work that you do it's challenging and really important work i do think a district your side this size having those clearly defined where you can always come back to particularly with different communities where do we stand in relationship and that's the allocation of resources how we're making sure all kids are being prepared is a real is a really important backdrop to the to the work that policy been a great help to you they they're they're resource to us what i would tell you is that we have been doing it for a good long time but we have still a lot to learn and we are kind of manipulating and working through it ourselves as we go the s b a of course are advocates of policy governance would say you need to do all in or or not and actually i think i would say the majority of the time where i am very sensitive you know to our community and the community needs which would it's worked well for us and i would say probably it could be totally different if you went in but you might be all in and the work to be most appropriate but again each of your communities may have a bit of a different different need that you need to be sensitive to and so this and this might be a next level kind of a question but my understanding is policy governance you set your policies you monitor those and that's what you're focusing on but you're talking about this parking lot these other things that come up that aren't in the policies that are still important that still have to be paid attention to with the board level right so how are you balancing that and how do these items come up i guess is my first question how do you find out about them and how do you make sure that you don't just say well that's not something we need to talk about it's important enough for the board to not overlook this part of for instance the fundraising and i'm not totally sure right that it doesn't belong in the end in one of the embedded policies like asset protection because you know a lot of money can come in through fundraising and if it's not accounted for collected unmonitored that can put a district or a school in some in some trouble so that said we do recognize that those are that's takes time and i bit limited to those check marks on the bottom of our parking lot and that's how we just kind of kept track of it how did it get there in the well it got there and in one way because maybe versity was the sum of our sports programs were selling these gold cards and somebody saw money you know just going to somebody else you know and so who's collecting that who's keeping track of that might have come from a community member to a board and i was like good question what are rules around you know around fundraising so that's kind of how it came there and then kind of under the traditional way and now we're we're as you see in those others we're struggling and but not losing track of where does that fit ok and that could be you know any time anywhere thing any board member can bring up a parking lot issue in any one of our meetings and we meet twice a month so if it comes up it typically unless you have a response to it right away it typically goes to the parking lot with the intent to get it off the parking lot sooner versus later and then if you start seeing the check marks it's an indicator that it's staying too long we have to do something about it but just order of magnitude i think we have at least eight to ten items in the park right now and i'd say about half of those are related to the curriculum policy but just that's an order of magnitude kind of off and what we see it's not an insignificant amount and part of that there is some level of just still getting used to policy governance where i could say where it is at rest and one of our model is that is that in one of our policies and should be in the monitoring report and i will tell you that in some cases i have not been able to quickly say that's where that should be so and there's still work in progress pretty successful year and we have we're hoping to have some of our parking lot changes happening over the summer with some of the reviewing that's going on which is very exciting student council is going to be they are having section we're also currently as i speak recognizing students for their academic achievement this year from the academic boosters students who have been on the honor roll for i believe either two or eighth grade day where the rising freshman will be coming up in kind of getting charm school learning about what's what the extracurriculars are meeting their teachers for the first time which is always a very exciting thing and in the morning of that day we also have the underclassman reckon where underclassmen are recognized for academic excellence in front of their peers as well as some students are awarded scholarships from various universities and awards civic excellence i think that's everything and oh and sports sports playoffs are happening this week and i think a couple of them might have started over the weekend  most if not all of our sports teams made it into the playoffs and they're looking to advance hopefully past the second or third round our teams had a lot of trouble getting a season but they really picked up steam by the end which is pretty  boards well that's the elementary throughout the district i just want to say thank you what you provide here is very very beneficial for the board members to hear students perspective on what's going on  like getting a degree from the worst as well as they say so and that's why we're very grateful for the two years that you've been here and that and our best wishes as you go forward and if you ever are inclined to send situations where students and school would be so much better educated and involved in their education if they had students on the board and so please when you reach out to other boards when you i know  so thank you thank you i do ask if anybody have anything at their particular school anything they want to report out on that's been happening or they're proud of for whatever is going on so with their student i will yeah it was an effort to put this together and it just went off with really without a hitch due to brian's hard work but the other peak teachers and what was great is many of the track and that that tied into the testing that spec and that i'm not sure how it came about and what happened i was going to ask him to speak to it and that but it was quite interesting to come back and have the parking lot here closed off well you see kids on big wheels racing not it but they had stops pit stops in which they had to stop and do stuff and all this so it was pretty interesting to see it was going on so that's the type of stuff that throughout the district and that i was up at to reply the way to judging a tree house project i don't know if anybody students or anybody heard about this with the blog so what it's called up there so i got the judge the treehouse and with their presentation and it's stored about what he david young was talking about it you know the kids put together this treehouse but they had to explain to the judges you know  what they did why they did it what their goal was and they had like a financial goal might mount of money they could spend but they were trying to achieve and sell the judges on their particular treehouse why it was the best so so it was interesting when they were talking earlier about sort of a student level last week so you ever get a chance yourselves to get immersed in that way i encourage you to do so so  we kind of rushed through this at one meeting because we needed to move forward but the in the past nominations would come through individual schools and go to the superintendent the executive committee use to review and approve those and i think there was a year where there was a huge volume and we decided it was not a good use of board time and susan and i and a member of the administration for a couple of years have gone through the nominees and made recommendations to the full board so that the full boards time is a little better used so i have a couple of questions and i guess my recommendation would be to keep at least that piece of the process similar assuming the board wants to keep that going but since i don't think we're going to have as big of a c s u annual meeting as we did in the past we might need to discuss when and how we classroom participating in the care and i never think of crossover like that so i see just in a whole range of things so it's nice to see i think the greater community might like to know some just the two of you on the on a with that it's taking a look at this yourself or maybe tweaking or making any recommendations you have and then coming back to the to the board  that because where we have the public we have the t v access here as well as you know them the minutes and everything reflects the publicly so there's the benefit of that in that so maybe we're recommendations isn't it just report out to us where it is we get close to that point in the calendar so does that clarify it better for you peter ok diane i just want to make sure  it's we heard from three people and then made an assumption but i just wanted there isn't anyone who thinks we should discontinue the process and if there isn't an everyone really is on board with continuing it then let that let the process begin and let's continue to find a great way to do this all right so thank you for everyone i do think that it was a nice reception we did have the last one and i know the recipients  calendar committee is making the thought has made the following recommendation i don't think it needs action but to choose to do so if the recommendation is is that the administration will continue to report to the calendar committee concerning the implementation of the new calendar and whether if there are any particular issues that require attention to history she will do that that the administration and the goal is to report back to this word in december of this coming school year so that we can get at least our initial evaluation of how the calendar of the station is going and whether there's any more action  bad so i just want to clarify that we have approved the calendar and there's no recommendations that so that action has taken place and that ok just want to make sure they clarify that serve on that be there are serving on that calendar committee for the forum piece in your meeting tonight and getting back to the board any other thoughts anything on it ok three phases over the next five years john i just saw the agenda for the t s p a retreat and looks like we do have a segment of time with rebecca holcomb devoted to this topic so if anybody has questions about how this affects our district so i can bring to that meeting and certainly hoping to get the time off to go to that retreat next wednesday i can advance those questions to her at the time and and get feedback for you guys so please throw them towards me bipartisan bill that i think has some solid it is a solid piece of legislation in large part at least in my opinion it was a lot of people but i don't want to go off topic so stop me if i am but as the chair of the huntington board i want to just let you folks know that we are raising it to the community again things to consider one is the updated law and the updated law it definitely has timing issues involved but as john pointed out there's three phases and that the phases have to do with how much time before a vote is taken and when it's implemented and how much incentives that are that you actually want to affect huntington but what will affect huntington is  huntington feels they need to vote by november in order to meet the requirements of the articles to join the triple i am without getting formal approval from tripoli are you following me there then my concern is that since huntington was not convinced by incentives to vote in favor of it before it may be premature to have a full community conversation where people might think beyond what they were thinking before so one thought that is hovering over our decision is whether or not to postpone the vote until perhaps march twenty six teen so that there's a more full opportunity for full discussion and full understanding of what the import of the law is so that the community ends up feeling they have full knowledge about their decision as opposed to just feeling like they're revolting what they voted before and but the downside of that is that we would then have to come to this board and  get approval and then this board would have to take that to your communities our communities and have a vote and so that's sort of the discussion we're having and it occurs to me that if in fact this body is interested in her aging hunting to to join at some point when they feel ready with this board consider making an amendment of so or where they would extend that period of time beyond november to perhaps march this is not a formal request i'm just saying this is some of the thinking that's going on the hunting comes to us normally and formally and ask for whatever i want to fall back on that discussion and that and i'm going to let them first go ahead with what they're doing and when and if they need  and of course assuming that the district legally read it that as a practical matter i believe that merger could not be back until july first we forgo any meetings in july and we can reconvene in august this is my thoughts on our meeting schedule and i don't know what the first monday  on board we were going to talk about meeting at other places other than campbell some middle school so let's think about that probably starting up in september i'd recommend we continue here for probably august and then book working out meeting schedule said other schools throughout the next year and then that's the other thing i just want to point out is that we want to get together for a retreat or something and during the summer in august or something so ok we've got everything down here the retreat idea has to do more with our government communication a lot of those things so somewhat you know communications things are rolling in a certain sense said you know i said i thought that that was really the thrust of what we were talking about is what would be our governance style working out those pieces and parts and policy governance that we would have to be doing it for you know for quality standards and based on the article on love and from our own article supreme and i sent you all information on that so hopefully everyone received the e mail about some of the sources  the we are required to meet the education policy standards which talk about a different set of education earth graduation requirements based proficiency and this is a departure from what we have been using which is the student time kearney community and specific courses that need to be completed for graduation twenty students will meet or exceed proficiency based requirements as outlined by them on state board of education education quality standards of two thousand dollars to five two thousand and fourteen in addition students will meet the requirements of the school advisory program requirements will be developed and communicated to students family and community so by way of background when we were discussing this policy with the c e o s you group the natural piece that needed to be answered was what our proficiency base requirements tell us about the difference between where ever growing and where we are now how about look who does it a fact and is this a good thing so that was a natural question and i assumed we were going to need some explanation about but before i go into that do you have any questions about why we're changing our graduation policy from the information that i sat everybody's you're with this from the you know individual pathways to graduation and all that information the way we've been sort of changing education in the state everybody's also i don't know ok so i think i would like for the s state did provide us with some possible proficiency so the teachers went through their own curriculum to look at the state's guidelines and state recommendations  my little bit talk some more and we realized that we had a lot of cross walking going on a lot of proficiency sever saying the same thing we had some provisions of the four measurable so what we are what we have right is just about ready to be approved by our our faculty is thirty water to the one department left to me to morrow proficiency bit graduation requirements that a their junior and senior year so that's where we are right now so we sort of have what we look at the proficiency for the class of twenty twenty kind of pencil in  but there's a lot of work moving forward michel so you can to tell you what we're going through the summer into next year to take these the proficiency students students with we will be able to have critical discourse one of our more of our you you needed five elective credits in one credits of advice so little twenty two credits and there's this plan that's divided up by the four years and sort of checked off you i'm sure you see it many times what will occur now is we will have the same proficiency i think we're going to remember we're a year out so this is all in the playing stage i think you actually see them come up twice as introduced in it's it's it's looking at the at the courses it's identifying what really is important so it's forcing teachers to have a different mindset  it's forcing all of us have different mindset and we're sort of phasing into it we're not jumping into this pool whole hog we're not necessarily changing our grading we're only running two systems for the forseeable future that would mean twenty twenty twenty twenty one twenty twenty two maybe we'll eventually get to just proficiency but in the for the for that class of twenty twenty those freshman do we start meeting with their parents next year in the probably the late fall and winter they're going to have their normal grades and they're going to also reporting on how they're doing these proficiency and they're in they're going to have to demonstrate proficiency so gradually but they will have these grades that they're comfortable seeing they were caught for working with let's be honest we're nice that's not like we're the experts to make a switch just like that many of our teachers have been using this carnegie system since they were students so it's a mind ship but it's one that i think forces us as educators to look at what's important in the takeaways are much more to me about are much more great for us and i think it will lead to a better system to also go along with what  julia was saying it also can give us a system where if you are ready to graduate early you can do so because you've demonstrated you can do it now but i mean you can demonstrate your competencies i mean it may things a little bit more have to go and show your professors and that is something that we're going to have to be examining as a group and we're taking in there already are some criticism that we've been accepting that will not meet some of our proficiency so when students are taking these courses career you expect to sit down and look at those for how student student doing in terms of meeting those proficiency is to me about doesn't seem like that would be enough i reported out ok so for example freshman year for me of the many to do and one to do with software you will look at the other three and will now we're continuing to hit upon the others but when you're talking about teaching it giving small form of assessment giving corrective feedback giving students a chance to demonstrate they know how to do it demonstrate a provision are they doing that repeatedly over the year it takes time to do that when you're looking at three that three proficiency so when we say reported our what we're what is it time for parents and students to actually see it on paper that yes they're on track to demonstrate that now where you are the freshman sophomore is different than probably where you're expected to be working your junior scene so i may be on track  so that helps us will continue to be there those proficiency is will for the most students live in ninth grade so these are kind of the things we're trying to figure out  on how that reporting system is going to work for us the school one of the things the south burlington folks mention conway are sitting here and one thing that they said is they really focus on thinking about what their students are able to go on to be able to do and i think know much better what those graduates will be doing as teachers what we have to figure out is how to make sure our kids are getting that's in teaching part that's what happens in the classroom and the other big piece you have to figure out is how and when this is exactly  one kid see but those in many respects are those some of the pieces so what we have to figure out this summer is which courses the learning is going to happen which of course is the reporting is going to happen and how that's going to look over three or four year time when a kid is in the high school and in many ways that's the challenge for can think setting where the bar is in many ways the easy part we know we want kids to be when they walk across the stage the question for us as educators is how do we get them there and that's the challenge  done is looked at these people in charge and created them it's reinforced some of those things that we know we do really really well and it's also helped us to examine some of the things we know we need to work on so in many respects it's going to help guide your workers to go forth against the power of the p g a ours is to hope and you know this year seven graders move forward we're going to have things ready for them so a lot of work is going to start looking at what's going to happen when those seven players hit us and here are a half or so hot things ready so that they no you know what information reporting out to students and parents and columns and all those things when you think about what a name means or what he means and some of those things there's a lot of variation among schools across the country on different courses here in the view and in what the skin hope to do is to give a better snapshot of where everyone is as they move in sequence through high school and so in many respects this discussion for a lot of us is as much about reporting out about where our students are as it is about what goes on the classroom it's really about both those things so i know the reporting question is a big thing for so used to seeing a b c d and what that means and we know that's what college is the for all the different things so we're well aware o depend upon the pens when they come to us if they come later in their career i think we're going to have to do and we sometimes have to do this we have to do some transcript analysis you know we've between chat with the family we look at the transcript we look at their  their program of studies and we make our best guess at this course it was senior show up at your door they're not going to demonstrate a professional thirty five proficiency from that one year to make a best guess hopefully some of the course of the other schools ha and i think they'll want to one of the things that this e q s talks about is multiple pathways in different ways students can show proficiency and i think as a student is building their appeal in working through the years of high school it is that we would be able to recognize where the trouble is when occur and find ways that kids can demonstrate proficiency not all of those maybe in the classroom some may be through other pathways and i think part of our job as educators and invited years of the students coming through is to make sure that they're on track to do those things if a five year plan is warranted hopefully that comes up well before the fourth year and then that would be what's best for that kid so that they're ready for college or ready for work or whatever that may be so the answer that is to start with the start of my fear that if you look at some of the u s documents they do mention starting in seventh and eighth grade we're not there yet and i don't know anyone that is but so now that everybody knows about e q s p o p p v g r which i still think is peanut butter and something the goal today was to introduce you to the policy for discussion and questions and we  have a deadline of july first to have this policy on our books according to our articles so we're going to be voting for approval with the next meeting so this was the time to ask questions and to be clear on this  if there was going to be any concerns about it and we vote we have to warn it in advance like a ten day warning that it has to be that we will be voting so now we have to do it for the next meeting proficiency based requirements and that schools can add their own requirements as well so there is always the possibility that from discussion on the proficiency based requirements like i said the advisory was part of it but the exact wording of it and whether or not they'll be anything that would be above and beyond proficiencies is still a possibility based on the e q s that was my reading of it that the requirements will be written they will be established and they are not yet established as you heard there's a process going on to establish exactly what they and the other thing to remember is that we will be reviewing our policies every five years we'll need to review this one right around twenty twenty provided information anybody have anything they want to i did read something about the field days and i thought that sounded really awesome and i was really i thought that was really amazing and so we hadn't done it  will be great to hear what the feedback is and if we continue slash expand that opportunity to have a question said that there are support staff contracts that you offer does that mean we have a contractor is that something separate from possibly if you could send something along to the family on behalf of this board clerk will be happy to do that she lives right on packard road lived on packard road i would see her frequently on my walks so i'm happy to do that with that and you know in the future john whatever you  now that the joint finance rules met for the first time under the new charter last week we got minutes for that meeting will be distributed later this week so probably include as part of the board package for the july fifteenth so  have a chance to talk to talk more specifics about all the items that we cover at the meeting at our next next board meeting i will be more time there so i'd just like to focus on the one item that i did share with the board yesterday apologize for the  short term short cycle there to read ahead but it's about the vermont community solar program and as i wanted the question is really whether or not to enter into this twenty year contract home based on what was proposed and and what i would like the board entertain is how we should go about making that decision not necessarily the decision itself i tried to share not too much but a fair amount of information in a short period of time to get people somewhat familiar with what the opportunity is we could make a decision i believe to delegate the approval to the finance committee which would be meeting again later this month or we could decide to make that decision at a board level or we could decide to not make a decision at all which would essentially be making a no decision because this this particular opportunity does have a somewhat of a  short term suspense on it and that we're not the only person or the only organization eligible to buy into these projects and they're looking to do these projects you know when they can build during the summer  maybe another opportunity would come along next fall and probably that opportunity would not really manifest itself until the next you know we do layout so yes so we're really just looking for what the board's recommendation is and how we should go about deciding whether to engage so the question is whether it's the board want to be the one making this decision or are we ok big deal in my spirit to something the full board would want to take a look at and my question is what is the agenda look like for the fifteenth we have time to give you enough time in the agenda to really get into this at whatever level we need to get it it's a tony i mean the twenty years kind of implies that it's a long term commitment specifically on our electricity which how that ties to student outcomes i don't know how big of a deal it is right the administration with legal counsel you know fully supports this this contract if it weren't for such a long term period it wouldn't probably rise to the  level of of this conversation and budget but based on how the contract is laid out and we have essentially guaranteed savings there is a lot of risk attached to it there is some level of lost opportunity because we are kind of agreeing to how we're going to buy our electricity for the next twenty years so i wouldn't i wouldn't just say yeah it's a big deal but it's not a nominal i mean there are other factors involved for example this would only be for the high school and the schools covered by the aaa would not include booster piers but by the same token i don't want people feel pressured to make a decision quickly obviously this is a longterm decision that's one reason because it's the other is i think we really need to be really good on process so that you know we give people members of the public members of the board opportunity to get  so it was presented to us as yes you know this opportunities open up to us because someone who was involved in one of the arrays the community arrays backed out so we have the opportunity to get in and it may not be there for very long you know because some other community may decide to be involved but that's not a reason to jump  on the ship so again the question is whether we want to the board want to make that decision on june fifteenth for a week ok tonight with authorizing the the finance committee to go ahead to be making this with the finance committee making decisions as long as you have a couple open meetings where people come and say here's my question this is what i want to know in order to do so and then and then i could see  think that overall i'm i'm really fine with the finance committee handling most of our situations that are fourteen this feels really novel and it feels like it's an investment that just  sounds great but is novel enough that i'm a little concerned that it doesn't come to the full board that was just my take on it i like the idea of reminding us that we can all come to the finance meetings to discuss and get more information about it there it just seems really it's like it's out of the ordinary and so therefore the ordinary should be that the finance committee handles the finance stuff but when something is out of the ordinary then perhaps it should go out of the ordinary which would be the full part that's what i'm leaning towards that will put this is there anybody else who wants or talks about this michael just real quickly minor things that we were policy governance  questions please direct your you know questions to me and i'll try to find the answers out so we can answer them at the next meeting or a comment on the on the next committee oh the next finance committee regardless of we asked for more information to help us on almost all of them some of them we think we came to easy agreement on we will be meeting again conveniently on june twenty second at four thirty at central office so of the first that students try again on follow up and now we're down to the final three and i met with two of the three students one of the students was ill but i was there last week but it's been a real positive experience  two things john but the first one is i'd like to get from the agenda for the next meeting i think we could sit down think we have time any more to talk about a communication from the board separate from communication from the administration i think john did a really great job of putting together how the administration is going to do communication but i feel like we do a lot here that we can be presenting to the community before meetings after meetings from the board from some kind of  talk about that as groups are because i don't think we always have to have the exact same voice that's a piece that we may disagree on but i feel like that should be a board discussion that the other thing is there's been a lot of staff appreciations at a lot of the different schools over the last month and this month and i was wondering if and i would be happy to courtenay to not just putting out a but in the board wants to do something maybe before the next school year starts if we're not meeting so much over the summer because you have an all staff meeting at some point before school starts or not whereas in all of the different oh teachers do ok so i would i would find it and we can talk about that later but or i can talk about it offline with people but i would feel like we should do something as a board for