so it's a bit of a work in progress but i think we're getting there why this is now at the plate x seven seven which was passed in two thousand and thirteen i believe component of it was that all students grades seven through twelve need to have a seven through eleventh graders needed and then twelfth grader who wants to take at the c c and by nineteen every student seven through seven through twelve need to have a personalized learning so this is coming down down the pike other certainly  information from the state the schools have been working together by schools i mean both of the middle schools and the high school of well as the area ching county schools to try to come up with the way to do this what is  is probably the first question we need to answer a few of the document but it outlines a student's play and to use the knowledge and skills acquired in school after they leave school it speaks to a surveys through reflections with their advisor with their parents the student begins to adana five their strengths and their weaknesses and then they develop some skills to work around that they look at career choice they begin to narrow that career field maybe you don't know from a don't find exactly the career field they want to go into but they might cross them off the list and they also look at personal values and life  goals the hope is the work completed appeal the process will help to motivate students to persevered through challenge give meaning to their studies in lead to a more college and career ready graduate and i'm sort of put that sort of that we hear c ready a lot but that's really the point of this is to the idea of the p l p came out because we some students are going to college and already in their leaving high school and they don't have a clue what they're going to do so it's for me it's a very exciting thing because i have a there's a fair amount of tenth and eleventh grade students who don't really know and it's without the structure of the p l p is going to give us it's hard for us to force those discussions they can that's that's the team the team needs to meet once a year prior to november thirtieth to reflect upon in review the current p l p and to discuss the creation of the new  contributions to ever changing local and global communities so that's that's where we started when we were looking at this how do we help our students get there and we've had a group  typo there should be at the nih just a group of us have been working together since january of two thousand and thirteen and we've created a progression of activities and tasks to allow the structure for the students to work through this exploring personal and academic strengths and career interest and this whole progression is directed by a teacher and by visor a new life is a reflection loop that this is my simple graphic i'm sorry  career interest inventory or they're going to review their their credit plan or in eighth grade one of the things they have to do is make a transition a transition plan to high school they're going to complete a pass through the systems as needed and then the advisor the student in the parent guardian are going to reflect upon this task from that becomes the next steps which leads to another perhaps some of the focus points that we've identified so far that we're to be working on in seventh grade it's identifying learning styles community and family streets and values you know the beginning of exploration of career fields eighth grade we begin to look at personality traits academic strengths and needs in career fields that match personality traits and academic shrink from this is where they begin to look at that transition plan to a school now understand we have a lot of students that have a career field in the seventh grade a different one an eighth grade a different one of ninth grade and that's ok they're thinking about they're looking at that what they might want to do when they're thinking about the academics they're doing now and what they're going to need to do and they're thinking about what do i need to do now to do that big difference for us what we're looking at is in one three trying to have the student start working on doing it more independently tenth grade the big focus the tenth grade of core values what are those touchstones we consider when we're making a big decision you know what are those what are those things that are that are crucial to us now you know and it's at fifteen but you're going to revisit the whole point of this process is to get you to take those steps to to create to create of core values now and then you're going to be asked to revisit it when you're junior you're going to be asked to revisit it when you're a senior and hopefully can you you  carry this on into life after you you leave high school in eleventh grade is really an exploration of the rection for life after high school we sort of look at everything they've done since seventh grade all the personality work all the learning style work all the different career work and we try to say well what are the next steps what are some things you need to investigate yes they're working with or their guidance counselor here on the college search but we're we're having you know in between the reflections that come from the parents reflection that come from the advisor a lot of it is question have you considered a different kind of college have you looked at the internship you know we have this internship program now and then you so trying to get students to go out and take looks at what they think they want to do and it doesn't it could be a job shadow could just be a couple days so there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of things that could be arts for those of you who have been involved in the high school lately is a computer program it's a web based program i should have written here you could be it's a it's a web based program that has been basically use apply online the transcripts travel lek tronic leap that's where that's where it's been it also has a really good library of surveys in tools to look at  look at who you are the learner who you are or what your personality i have a bunch of different career interests in victoria in different ways to look at it so what the state of vermont kids are going to do after after high school but the big thing we hope is that it leads to more engagement and i think some of the people who put it into the law are hoping it leads to students who leave high school better able or with more of a better thought process about where they're going and i think part of the thread titled how expensive colleges are so  yeah the questions where in this process of this is take into account economic stresses social stresses you know like there's a part of the program those intended to have the teachers become counselors such as that i think you know when you're when you're talking about families and you're talking about a background part of this wonderful people and i know they don't really know what they're going to do right now and i worry about what that means for the next three four years you know you know they're going to go to college they're going to stay they're going to they're going to drop out but then they find themselves given economics what's their debt and the hope is to help those students a little bit it's going to difficult you know i'm not worried about twenty twenty five percent of our parents to everything that the state certainly is not going to be i don't think the state's go do a thing too and we're coming up with an electronic means of doing this so in theory you could do a meeting like tronic we you know we are very successful and i think these middle school you are more successful  getting more students and we're pretty successful at night graders and so the hope is to to to get more of them in india to create the habit of doing it that will be the the the part in even for a student with no parent by the conversation that goes on with the advisor is better than not having that conversation at least i  so i guess i'm a little tricky but take shifts in this whole thing and my reasons are that a couple of years ago we were told that we're supposed to be preparing students for jobs that haven't been created yet and now all of a sudden we're asking eighth ninth tenth graders to sort of a minute career play pen when if the job now out there you can't actually aim them at it yet and i understand there's there's interest i also know that some of those eighth grade tests that are kind of what you would be get good at told my eighth grader who is allergic to every grass in the state of vermont that he should be a golf course designer so this ok so let me give you that example ok what they're really told him is easy as from spatial design abilities so it's a career you know i want to work with people you know so there's a lot of jobs that work with people there's everything from sentiment to teachers to counselors so there's lots of stops along the way so i understand we're saying there's two parts mantra one we have to do it so that's that's part of it but two is i do think there's value there and in what i don't want this to become a just a check box that we i think i think knowing more about yourself always helps so maybe your son doesn't become your daughter doesn't become a golf course architect but they are they and they they really think i was seeing something that made design important to idea i would also like to just say that this sounds like there's an awful lot of time being asked of our teachers and our advisors  just to i don't disagree with that in that each kid having an advisor i just worry that we're spreading our teachers and administrators so thin that we sort of  just i mean along that line two things one what is the student advisor ratio and second is i don't think that it's writing the  willing gauge students but i think it's having a significant for the adult working with that student so long with the thought about time is what types of training said been offered to teachers so that they can actually do what they're being asked to do we're worried about well one you guys are kind of want this is about the advisor ratio  trying to do is to create scripts and schedules and timelines for the teachers so that they're not necessarily planning whole is that all three buildings that the p o p responsibilities are done during the school day that that is the model that we have chosen  seen anybody saying people are going to be coming around checking that they're going to be asking do you have a personal learning playing for you and does it have these components and if you don't i'm not sure what the effort no one actually from the state is actually checking the you know we can say we have it in place it will eventually just take a over a period of some time i think you're right the only difference is i think th that ministers think this is can be something they can support students and i'm not saying it's going to be my job but this is my interest these are the things i want to do how my going to get there newly built and where every student will have an hour and a half to work on these projects throughout the week half an hour on three different days and also i think it would be a i'm kind of bummed that i've not  be a part of this as like as it is roll out but i think it's a really good idea especially since students are going to be with their advisor for all four years especially at the high school i've got really close my advisor i feel like i'd be able to talk to opportunity because it encourages them to open up to an adult and makes them realize that there's an adult at least one and all at our school that cares about what they're doing and i think that's really important for a lot of the kids  advantages of this might be that with the parent being invited to be more involved with the students planning and directly in association with someone at the school that it's a chance to build a relationship with parents that i think doesn't presently exist or hasn't been existing in every case it's like you are saying a lot of the parents will do everything that you ask but i think that there are a lot of children who would benefit from their parent being more invited into the process and i think historically as i remember is this started to come down the pike of oh maybe fifteen or twenty years ago that that people were concerned that children with special needs had a plan a learning plan but what about the rest of them what isn't everybody special and and so i i really philosophically like the idea like so many things that it's got it's a time commitment and administrate of problems but i think i think in my work with students at the swimming pool for example i always invite the parents to be there i want them to be there and i find that i spend as much or more time with them than i do the children themselves sometimes are that doesn't mean i just throw the kids  it i i i have a staff of young people that assist as well and a lot of the times they are they're very good at just working one on one or a small group of children and if i'm talking a lot with the parents and explaining what we're doing and you know things like the oh this is the phenomena and of the four year old male child who simply knows that if you have a vested interest in doing something he doesn't want to do it even if he likes it it's a developmental thing so it you know just helps them to get beyond what might be frustrating them every day they start to laugh and i think in a lot of cases parents could benefit a lot from this and so basically i think it's a great idea and i'm glad that i don't have to manage it but i i think this this allows a lot of times you when students head down those those different routes they get discouraged sometimes because it stalls out it's hard to get completed there's no sort of helping them or know that's going on i think the thought is with this there are more people that will there's a person who's there to to help them figure this out discuss it  can assuming it's fully implemented how do you see this affecting down the road things like curricula and in teaching styles and i'm thinking all the students are valid a lot of self awareness around learning styles and i've got three kids and they have three very significantly different ways of learning you're going to get that on a much greater scale who's not a good effect the interaction between teacher student and what will it require i'm just looking a little further down the great question and one of the things that i think well it is going to do with a lot of teachers to really recognize that maybe then you do need to teach differently a little bit and i'm going to use just a little example that happened here we have these new period now of pos period where students can go see a teacher or students can go to a student led individual group or they can stay in the off on every monday with books that happen is the teacher goes through the family which is our school program that the grades reported on and i've had more teachers down here talking to the rear michel about ways to fix their family like to look at someone on and i think that that signal alone gives me a lot of hope and we talk about state resources think you know he was probably going to get called to kind of talk about the process that you went through and i think it's  it's a it's a process that staff and teachers went through i think students are going to do this more process looking out what it is looking what they're doing how they're doing it where to be done well what could be done differently and i think that that's a great model for for both students to see and for us to see students doing dalal but your point i think one of the things that i am excited by about this process is that advisor connection to really this is really about bringing up those that are really most at risk it's giving them that connection to somebody in the building throughout their whole process so that there may be signs that we don't even see as educators we don't know that they're struggling because they're not a great fright and it's a disaster home for all the different things that you said hopefully having that contact person that's meeting regularly will regulation and i think that's the expectation of schools is to do it as it makes sense for the school and to take that responsibility i just i'm really excited to hear  about all the exciting things that can happen and i think that the model of all these surveys and all these activities that students kind of do throughout the process is going to be really meaningful as long as they're meaningful i think it's going to be successful the one concern that i have and it really centers around not is i know that the state and the sacristy are subsidizing that cost a dollar per student per year i wonder how  long that will last and if we need to be proactive in thinking about what is the system and how do we manage that cost of keeping because while i appreciate no paperwork the state is not saying that it has to be some of that information that was shared i mean we have the lowest student teacher ratio and then when we look at star after student ratio it's really really low so i think there's a capacity for teachers my biggest concern is  is every teacher quipped to be able to do this i think are going to find some that are really going to jump into it love it and others are going to need a lot of support so you know for those students that you know struggle is there an opportunity for them to advocate for a change so that they can get a different advisor what that might look like section heinsberg population of fifty one eighth graders sixty three percent of those eighth graders met proficient or above and i included their free and reduced lunch free which is twenty three percent and then their overall scaled score so as a forty eight hundred forty would be needing proficiency so as a bill as a school their average of that fifty one young people is eight forty one point five now and i'll talk about that a little bit more so if you look down that list browns river at fifty percent proficiency across all kids you know eight thirty nine and camel's hump would be seventh in the state if you look at all the comparable size middle schools in the state of vermont if you look below that there are a few schools that perform very well folsom elementary school with a population in middle school the population of fourteen eighth graders had seventy nine percent of their young people but if you look at that you know the way i look at it if you look at folsom montgomery ludden bergin newton their student population is below zero population  or the below the population a browser you can put them in the comparison i struggle with that but either way browns are in camel's hump would be in a you know ten eleven twelve range within the state of vermont terms of how our kids performed on at the middle school level six thousand one hundred ninety three eighth graders were assessed twenty six percent of eighth graders in the state of  almost doubling state average which is pretty darn good if you look over at the high school population mansfield would then come in fourth in the state of vermont in terms of  with a population of fifty eight and sixty nine percent south burlington in colchester again you can look at the scaled score the eleven is eleventh grade in the thirty eight or the forty two for  want that forty would be the indicator that all young if you had an average of eleven forty would be that all young people were meeting  schools are really disparate sizes right school where the point bill law now is that a significant difference or not that's where you got to look at the skill score and that's why she says look at the scale scores rather than percentage b you can see what a difference one of two points makes when you look at that proficiency percentage so that's why she really wants people focus on skills or if you look at the high school the only school in the state that has a scale grade in eighth grade mathematics if you looked at their statistical analysis nape scores would be five forty seven which would put us seventh in the world in he's not so for me i look at this and say so you have this international assessment that or be slinking study between these two large scale assessments that puts them out at the very top of performance you also have the kneecap which is a regional assessment and again nice mansfield comes on rounds over performs at the top of vermont so you have a state that performs at the top internationally based on the study and you have  regional susman between three states four states and also puts us at the top of the you know my my takeaway is that performance wise our young people are doing relatively well first of all do we know that the task is given broadly across the population in the foreign countries study you know there was a standard error of measurement and someone asked before for each nation that was given it ranges from you know point eight to three point nine but you know throughout all the nations that we are listed here there was a you know i think it's like two point six to three point two is the standard measure so that it would not change that in the linking study they do do take into account for people people  with disability people on a five before planned economic disparities so in the linking study they addressed all those factors or some of the factors i'm sure they couldn't address all of them but they tried to address some of the major that's good that's an i didn't make my question clear i want to know was the test given to all children in that grid or is that only in private  couldn't answer with certainty is are all children in singapore given the chance yeah not i don't know that ok but what i can say is that that's an assessment that they give pretty widespread thing because they compared countries that tape with him so in this linking study to to the united states which takes the name what they did is they tried to benchmark some of the questions and then compare that to other countries how many they got right and how many were correct for folks in the united states does it get taken in russia i believe it does i think they're on the list the terms of the drops or whatever or now we have it we have it have we you know i'm curious about staying stable you know all of these schools we looked at the test and our students were really struggling with questions about strong strong and strong with the current high school and i'm not sure if it was covered in the middle school we put it we're going to group since then we've  to the next generation science standards which we quote which which are asking you to apply science so we're all we're building more of these opportunities problems lapse into all our science classes right now analysis and taking a problem or a question and then analyzing it and being able to prove it in a clear and succinct way so we're working on that a lot more fifth and sixth grade content area this idea of critical thinking problem solving skills knightly with the p l p process getting kids to start thinking in that way as opposed to answering questions on a test a b c or whatever they're actually  solving and they can apply hopefully some of that learning in the classroom learning with their visor experiences and really take that next step that we're hoping that they'll do what we want to because we just see this percentage on the screen you like it doesn't mean anything so you have to really compare it to look at the scales for which i think is the most important part of it and then break that down  that's just a definition there's no action or anything like that there's no consequence for not reaching well not in science but a friend don't reach it in math or reading to a school in need of improvement so  it strictly cut out is that list by point zero something know this identified business yeah yeah yeah yeah because that i know i'm very encouraged that rebecca holcomb has really kind of tackled washington on that issue  happen to form a new union school district we're going to need to adopt policies there's going to need to be a lot of communication with a wide range of snake holders we're going to need to establish a new committee structure that i'm not sure that what that will look like but we will need some sort of a committee structure transferring that and assets restructuring the way we do business and in the business three hundred thousand because if we did if we didn't have a unified state and i don't know the answer to this but if we had a unified system that would mean that the supervisory union would be  and so if everybody voted yes and then that's another transitional grantley the law so that might open up some more funds to do things like move central office and it would pay for that and pay for we're going to need some next school began it's a pretty significant piece of work we're going to be looking at this year and that's negotiations we've both of our teacher and support staff contracts the term will be ending and th so as far as my project goals those are the my two goals for the year obviously have a lot of other goals that are these are the major initiatives and some major projects that i'll be looking at the school year find it interesting persistent inequities in educational opportunities and happens among our students this presentation brings into focus some relevant data with respect to these issues we leave conclusions to the viewer with respect to the best ways to address concerns about fiscal sustainability and student achievement but in the interest of the forward conversation we carefully gathered and data in order to provide state and local policymakers with an accurate situational analysis of public education in the state of vermont and twenty fourteen let's begin with the first pressing issue rising per pupil costs vermont our current expenditure per for time equivalent student has more than doubled in the last fourteen years part of this increase was due to more resources flowing into the system as a result of x sixteen and x sixteen but another significant driver of these dramatically rising young people costs and are declining student population from out school system has been steadily declining in population since the late one nine hundred ninety s looking at average daily membership totals for a t m of k through twelve students between f y one nine hundred ninety seven and f y two thousand and fourteen we see that after peaking at one hundred three thousand students seventeen years ago the latest figures indicate vermont public schools and roll about eighty two thousand students average daily membership is the full time equivalent of a publicly funded student's during a specific census period a t m include students t uproot independent schools and out of state schools this downward trend for our student population is expected to continue projections for f y two thousand and fourteen through f y two thousand and seventeen show a two percent decrease in k twelve average daily membership frequently in this presentation we will be comparing vermont to our new england neighbors and the nation as a whole this comparison chart shows current expenditures current role people in f y two thousand and four two thousand and ten the most recent year for which accurate data are available current expenditure includes most school spending that excludes expenditures that are not necessarily future obligations districts primarily building construction costs and payments to other state institutions for special needs students and the one nine hundred ninety nine two thousand school year amounts current expenditure per roll student was third highest in new england and twenty seven percent greater than the national average in the two thousand and nine two thousand and ten school year for mom had the highest expenditure per people in new england and spent forty eight percent more than the national average the only other states spent more per student in f y two thousand and ten were new york new jersey and alaska in the eleven year period depicted in this chart for months annual per student spending increase averaged eight point four percent this big year is a reflection both of actual dark reeses and decreasing student population education is a labor intensive and over eighty percent of robots current expenditures are attributable to the salaries and benefits of school choice yet despite or declining student population between f one two thousand and four and f y two thousand and fourteen the number of working teachers in paris cantors and vermont help relatively steady measured full time positions or empty at nine point nine students for every teacher  has the lowest student teacher ratio in the country i ratio has been declining over the past several years from ten point nine two students per teacher in f y eleven to nine point nine students per teacher in f y twenty fourteen that state wide vermont school districts have not made progress right sizing their staff in response to continuing declines in student  while we employ a relatively large number of teaching professionals we do not pay the relatively well for months ever teacher salaries are lower than in any new england state except me they are also less than the national average for generous health benefit packages to their choice according to a recent analysis by the high school districts currently offer health plans that are more generous than any offered around for my health connect the state's health insurance exchange on the left side of this chart of the basic health insurance plans offered through vermont health connect plans are designated as platinum gold silver or bronze the difference in the levels is due to cost share not differences in coverage on the right side of the chart are the highs most popular health plans that the high end p h c plan designs are very similar that is they cover the same services however  had plans create significantly less out of pocket cost obligations for floyd's then most b h c plans the most popular view high plans ninety five percent of health care costs are covered by the premium making those plans platinum plus compare that to the sooner plan where the premium covers seventy percent of the costs most for monitors and rolled in for my health connect have a silver plan these generous health benefits are expensive in f y two thousand and fourteen he has the most popular single plan cost seven thousand six hundred sixty five dollars the cost of a family plan was over twenty thousand dollars school districts pay on average eighty six percent of the premium cost less ninety five percent of health care costs covered by the premium and more than eighty five percent of the cost of the premium paid by the employer school district employees are very insulated from out of pocket health care costs school districts are serving an increasingly complex student population this line examines the percent of vermont students who have been rolled in free or reduced price lunch abbreviated as the f r l population this is an important measure of family income because it does not consider a state or city as a whole that measures only those families who have students actively enroll in public school there are very strong and enduring correlations between a student's socioeconomic status and his or her educational achievement we will examine some of those figures later in the presentation these data show that the f r i violation in iran has increased significantly during the last ten years from twenty six percent to greater than forty percent some of the increase can be attributed to changes to the eligibility formula that need more families eligible for the program as well as increased outreach by school districts to enroll students in the program this slide looks at special education costs as a percentage of total expenditures over a ten year period and two thousand and four special education costs for twenty percent of total expenditures by two thousand and thirteen they constituted roughly twenty three percent slide examined some additional cost drivers in education new laws are passed every year that while generally well intentioned have a consequence of incurring costs and utilizing resources at the district level this list of recent actions is only a sampling of new requirements and does not consider the impact of federal school legislation which similarly can impose upward pressure on costs given the expanded services that school districts are being asked to provide to students and their families the size and scale of our small districts has been identified as you have another factor driving increasing cost per student this chart shows the distribution of pupils by school districts size in all their new england states less than ten percent of the student population is served by school districts with fewer than five hundred pupils and vermont thirty five percent of our students are s these very small districts in connecticut massachusetts and rhode island half the students are served by districts with more than five thousand pupils from one has no such districts even our rural sister states maine new hampshire are organized very differently eighty percent of their students are served by districts with at least one thousand pupils in iran just thirty percent of our students are served by thousand plus district column to the far right compares vermont supervisory unions with new england school districts seventy two percent of vermont students belong to an su with between one thousand and three thousand students only two percent of our s smaller than five hundred students and at the other end of the spectrum our two largest su's have about four thousand students each now let's turn to an analysis of for bonds increasing property tax rates and outside education funding expert who the legislature hired to examine for months education finance system found that the rogers education tax effort is the highest in the nation primarily to increased education spending per pupil every news already well for months base education tax rates have been increasing over the past five years this trend is expected to continue for the next several years one other factor contributing to increasing property tax rates is a decrease in the overall proportion of the education costs being paid by the general fund revenues and other dedicated taxes these are the revenues are primarily income taxes that support the general fund and one third of their wants sales tax in two thousand five hundred new from these sources accounted for thirty nine percent of total education funding by half or two thousand and eighteen that share had dropped to thirty two percent beginning in fiscal year twenty twelve at the recommendation of her charlotte the legislature reduced the annual general fund contribution to the education fund by twenty three million dollars that same here it shifted the cost of robots corrections high school from the general fund to the education fund and an annual cost of greater than four million dollars one cent on the property tax rate raises roughly eleven million dollars so if the governor and legislature had not taken steps property tax rates would be approximately two and a half cents less each year  ability to afford these rising taxes this comparison chart shows that for months median household income is a few thousand dollars above the national average and a few thousand dollars less than we were in the average new hampshire connecticut and massachusetts residents have significantly more income per family than vermonters around its current education expenditure as a percent of personal income is the highest in new england this figure reflects our relatively high spending levels and our average income in comparison to the other states spending levels and while inflated annually using the new england economic project and x for local government goods and services many observers consider this threshold to be the most effective budget control mechanism funding formula the legislature also strongly considered an array of other adjustments to our minds education funding formula including the elimination of small schools cram all designed to more clearly connect actual school spending with tax levels paid for local communities this crap looks at the a fact of the excess spending your threshold changes have a new threshold been in place over the past five years under current law that threshold the seven hundred twenty three percent of the previous year's statewide education spending per equalize people any amount a district spends per pupil over that threshold is double taxed that is it is counted twice in determining the homestead income tax rate and chart the blue line is actual statewide education spending per equalize people between employed two thousand and eleven and employed two thousand and fifteen the red line is education spending per equalised people inflated by the need government goods and services index during this time period the average annual rate of increase was three point five five percent that's the blue line where is the average annual rate of increase under the need and tax was two point one four percent the changes made this year will almost certainly result in a lower threshold as districts continue to struggle with personnel costs and declining rowland's the excess spending penalty will hit more and more districts increasing tax rates in those towns for mine has a strong commitment to educational equity yet despite this commitment and significant resources devoted to education we continue to see persistent inequities in educational opportunities and outcomes and the final section of this presentation we will look at some measures of educational outcomes among them are students one area where vermont excels and then graduating our students after four years of high school recent figures indicate that ninety two percent of students graduate in four years the best in the country but despite this sas students eligible for free or reduced lunch are significantly less likely to graduate on time with their peers the national assessment of educational progress or name is the only educational assessment currently administered nationwide when they visit mr earning rates for eight and twelve and is used to compare student performance across states and among several groups looking at eighth grade math scores between the years two thousand and two thousand and thirteen we can see that while a significant gap exists between students eligible for free or reduced lunch and those w not nationwide the gap between the two groups appears to be narrowing my students have a stork we performed at the top of the nation on the nape however we do not seem to be making gains in narrowing the gap in performance between low income students and their wealthier peers since two thousand and seven the gap between the two subgroups appears to be widening an unsettling trend the state is committed to equity as  compared to seventy seven percent of female students whose parents went to college these inequities in fact all of the rising earnings disparities between those west and those without a college degree means that an individual with just a high school diploma all earn on average sixty four percent less on the annual basis  someone with a bachelor's degree that lack of income translates into lower tax revenue for our state and constitutes a drag on our overall economy in vermont we face a significant leadership challenge we spend more per student than almost any other state in the nation our property tax rates are increasing at an unsustainable pace perhaps most importantly we know our systems are not designed to engage all learners and as a result we continue to see persistent inequities in student opportunities and outcomes we know we need to address these challenges without the benefit of additional resources we also know cannot wait to act task is not an easy one but for my children our future we cannot be satisfied until we have a sustainable and equitable system public education this concludes the presentation throughout  excite to bring new information relevant to your work and superintendents school board leaders recognizing your consideration of the content may lead to additional questions are associations look forward to supporting your work as you strive to create high quality educational opportunities for students in the most cost effective manner possible thank you and and only a small part of it looked at how mom is doing in terms of public kids have scored you know in terms of national testing as compared to other states yes the cost is more you know they're talking about this super rosary and you do things without looking at yes maine is you know very rural but the topography in vermont makes need school districts a little more difficult because of the mountains and whatever and the transportation issues if you're trying to consolidate a fairly large area so i just it really struck me as something you know i know it wasn't put forth by the sherman ministration but it really felt like it was coming from the shumlin administration actually what i took is funny that you had that impression because that i took that away that we spend a lot of money we spend more per student there and any other state but our students actually do comparatively well and they  talked about where our students end up after they graduate and the relative income that they can expect to make terms of what that brings to the overall economy armont  that's the part that concerns me is that because as we even if we consider ok we want we're fine with spending more percentage of our income but if our incomes are not growing or if the state's economy is not growing because the students that are graduating are staying are not able to make more money the kind of multiplies itself over time in terms of our affor says are we talking about comparing apples to apples in other words this is the kindergarten to twelfth grade in all of those states vermont now is responsible for pre k to  correction center to adult education to the special education to the age of twenty one is that the same number that's being compared with the other states so are we miss that comparison for the you're right we're not comparing apples to apples when we look at our rising costs we're not even comparing what we have to support now as against what we had to support a few years ago there it's so  what's quite appalling is is the expectation of being able to reduce costs and increase responsibilities the fall show is very much in full swing right now the show is as i hope i wrote it down correctly titled tons of money and it is a british farce with a lot of mistaken identity that will be nov taking on wednesday next week we also and you heard stressing talk about it a little bit with the new pas period pas stands for a plan advisory work session and is a part ever devised reprogram advisory in the past has been tuesday friday for half an hour in the between the third and fourth box of the day we have added to our schedule a monday wednesday thursday block on monday and i told my advisor mr feist i have no idea what's going on in physics right now so mr feist when he went to the program he scheduled me for wednesday pass that i would go to my physics teacher and spend that time in have just met for our second meeting on tuesday and we identified our three main goals for the year which will be working towards a fun and exciting spring fling for the students really organizing or reformatting senior parking and pickups at the end of the day and working either on our own or in tandem with student council on student led lectures and classes for next school  year and kind of all i know a really cool thing that's being offered in pas that you can like students can offer things like to teach during pas period so if i'm really really good at shuffleboard i could offer like a shuffle boarding class and students could sign up and learn how to shuffle board and so that's been happening with a lot of dance classes and other fun kind of clubs that are forming student council just took our exchange students out for a fund modern day going apple picking and to the shelburne farms they will also be hosting make a difference day on october twenty fourth on friday that friday and they will be encouraging students to write down their core values and kind of share and think about that and the twenty fifth the actual make a difference day our leo club will be sponsoring an organizing community service opportunities around school in our community the student seventh period if a student has that period they'll be able to go to the weight room upon proposal receiving and initiation approval they're also getting a waffle maker into the cafeteria which is evidence and that presentation during thursday in service will take into account considerations that students brought out ok or what what the student body wants to see changes ok all right the teachers so they are actually working with some of the authors of this particular curriculum and bringing that to the classroom the math programs we  discussions with their student representatives this really wonderful that they're coming to their meetings is awesome so it's great insight into what's actually happening in the classroom for them and it choices you raise taxes or you're cut it's simple you got two choices that's it you don't have anywhere else to go so  it's going down because the population is going down or are many students going to private schools i haven't seen the numbers but i have not heard anything that shows that budget defeated last year we're in negotiations here all unlike last year in the year before we knew what that number salary number was going to be we're guessing this year  there's some capital expenditure in there this year there's cost in health care those are the knowns things we know going in  there a way i mean it's maybe too early but do you have any ideas to predict yeah well that would impact our once once we get a number to work with or a couple of numbers to work with bob to figure that out parallels and that clyde is much more significant in other parts of the states or i think it's important look at those numbers and be right it's not as drastic necessarily as it might be in the northeast  shark i'd love to hear the sort of the ship or certainly not we met prior to the finance committee meeting on the twenty third we did have a couple of community members from richmond who are supposed to be bringing us more information they are interested in setting up tennis courts on the lower fields it camel's hump middle school and they needed to get some more numbers together for us before we could come up with any information we do have a community forum on the fourteenth of october at the underhill id school regarding the parking lot configuration at browns river and his comment about capital expenditures were that we do have the browns river parking lot project which we hope to be able to fund and then putting in the funding for redoing the parking lots here at m m u in that those are seems like big numbers but in the grand scheme of construction probably not as bad as they might be  we are looking at those and trying to get our capital plans caught up and everything where it needs to be pm on tuesday will be at the richmond elementary school at six pm on wednesday and on thursday will be at ground river middle school at six so all are welcome  poll that we probably had about ten to fifteen people who were not stakeholders or members of the committee probably a similar number at the underhill central school maybe only you think that you know what i think about six o'clock but do you think that that has something to do with it i mean are there lot of parents who have to choose between going to that meeting and feeding their children you know i don't think we've had different times  you everybody they do appreciate everybody's years of service and many people here have been putting in a lot of long hours and long thought so there really i just want to do were quickly recap what other people haven't said about the regional meeting  again it was very well attended the one that was that chittenden grand isle and franklin counties combined and we're hoping i think john and i are hoping to get a little bit of the information from rebecca  presentation and see if there are any other good nuggets that would flesh out like what you heard from the situational analysis those of us who got to go ethan and i and you can heard a little bit more about equity opportunity affordability and there were a lot of really good slides that showed all the towns in vermont and overlaid scores on top of free and reduced lunch and changes over time things that just kind of flesh out the story about what's happening in vermont and you know you're absolutely right all of the the green or the put more positive colors are all over in the chittenden side and then there's like one other pocket but the rest of the state is got increasing or very low student to teacher ratios lowering the scores overall on their assessments difficult they have more adults  student just a number of things that are just showing that the rest of the state is struggling and when you take into account that we have a statewide system so that we're all paying for each other but yet our control over the kind of education that's being given in some of these other areas we don't we can't affect any change so it's an interesting state wide problem it's not just local and so those pieces i'm hoping we can bring some of that information to you at a later time  it was a worthwhile for presentation are there any other questions get it the full video we think on the v s p a web site so we might be able to get it like you had situational analysis we might be able to get it in its entirety so you can have her talking and presenting her information on her slides  and she has a really good ones about the opportunities that are afforded to students based on the just the population of the school that they're in so the two different middle schools that feed into a high school they both have the same per pupil expenditure but what has two hundred or three hundred students and what has ninety and what they can offer those students and then how does that she posed the question she didn't say the answer she said how do you think this translates into their ability to do well in high school and then in college and to get into the college they want one was school offers all of these opportunities and the other one is combining classes and offering combined math and you never get to calculus kind of thing so a big get the cost of this thing and part of that's because of our funding formula so it was it was interesting opportunity to do small group discussion and so you could be answering questions and throwing out ideas with people from all over from different regions and i really like that free form discussion we had state legislators there present as well  so that was a great opportunity and then again if anybody is interested see the s v a b s a conference at the end of the month and like maury is still probably open for either a day or overnight for the two days so if anybody wanted to sign up for that would be another opportunity for just more in service and professional development around what we do with students and our job t