Harwood Unified Union School District Board of Directors March 21, 2018 6:00 to 9:00 PM Harwood Union School Library Unapproved Minutes Board: Christine Sullivan, Alex Thomsen, Alycia Biondo, Jill Ellis, Lorraine Wargo, Rosemarie White, Peter Langella, Gabe Gilman, Garett MacCurtain, Torrey Smith, Maureen McCracken, Caitlin Hollister, Melissa Phillips, Rob Williams Administration: Brigid Nease, Michelle Baker Call to Order: meeting called to order by Christine at 6:04. Additions and Deletions: Michelle: add HRA administration to Action Item Public Comment: Heidi Spear, Fayston. Read letter pertaining to a comment by Brigid about redesign and Kaiya’s position of moving children around. Reflections: Peter sorry not at the Q & A – school conflict. Approve minutes from 3/7/18. Change Caityn elected chair, instead of Vice Chair. Board orders 1206, 1207, 1208. Alycia moved to approve, seconded by Rosemarie. Approved with editions. Action Items: Annual Assignment of Committees: Confirm membership in work groups, meeting schedules and norm policies. 1. Communications: Peter, Rob and Maureen. Review annual plan and update. Next meeting next Friday morning 7 am (KC’s Bagels or the café in Waitsfield). Meet twice monthly. 2. Policy: Gabe, Christine, Garett, Alex and Jill. Meet 2 times a month - one at the central office and one offsite. (1st Monday of month at Central Office.) 3. Facilities: Alicia, Rosemarie and Alex. 2nd Wednesday of month. 4. Personnel and Superintendent Evaluation: Caitlyn, Christine and Melissa. Next April 6 at noon at Harwood. 5. Community Engagement: Alycia, Maureen, Lorraine, Torrey and Jill. 1st and 3rd Monday evenings of month. Meet next Monday, 26th. Job description revision. Regular collaboration with other boards, administration, etc. Maintain a reference how to can get into the community and connect. 6. Norms for work groups: no more than 2 meetings per month, if a snow day, meetings are cancelled; staying within warned time frame. Alex moved to approve work group plan, seconded by Melissa, Motion approved unanimously. Approve transportation contract: Allowable terms increase no more than 2.8%. Contract to be renewed for FY19 and 20. Reimbursed by 43% through transportation contract. Maureen moved to accept transportation contract, seconded by Torrey. Motion approved unanimously. Approve Central Office lease: Current lease was 3-year agreement. Asked building owner for 2year lease renewal at same rate. $12.75 per square foot includes everything. May extend with written notice. Alex made motion to approve lease, seconded by Garett. Approved, Peter no, Game abstaining.

HRA administrator – problems with transition and issues and Future Plan Associates who will no longer will be available to do this. All working with VHI – made recommendation to go with the company Data Path, to continue (everything is transferable). Feel smoothest transition for the remainder of this year. Melissa moved to approve this contract put forth by Data Path, seconded by Alex. Motion approved, Alycia abstained. Michelle has posted a time line around the process of a bond vote, requested by board last time. First Reading F-34 Food Service Meals Policy - Move for Final Adoption: result of audit, School district has to have this policy. State of Vermont food service gave a model policy to follow. (What to do if someone doesn’t pay – child gets lunch – no questions asked. At end of year can send to collection agency.) Move to have final adoption at April 11 meeting, pending changes. Alex moved to approve for final adoption at the April 11, Torrey seconded. Motion approved unanimously. Approve requests for international travel: Board has final approval – Two sixth grade trips –one to Ontario and one to Montreal. Alycia moved to approve request, seconded by Jill. Motion approved. At a future time, ask principals for any recommendations for best practices around these events. Receive report on Harwood bond from facilities committee and approve funds to update Harwood Union High School (only) facility study from Truex-Cullins: Memo went out - 2015 report came up with cost of 17 million dollars to bring building up to current standards. Updated cost to 19 million in 2021. Things safer but still not functional for learning. Want to make sure that what gets done is sustainable for Harwood in the 21st century and includes innovative spaces. Nothing in contract that enhances student learning. Can put entire packet from TruexCollins on the web site for all to see. Can we make a list of 5-10 other things to cost out. Someone from Truex will come to a meeting to discuss things with the board. Peter thinks community would pay for a more innovative plan, and kids and programs are primary in their minds. Faculty and staff might give another level of what’s important to them. When process first started, 17M was for only necessary things and the whole cost for everything wanted was 30K. 7. Truex-Collins request could give costs for other issues at a flat rate – all within the $28,600 cost. 8. Only thing that can be done now is to get Harwood up to speed, with a plan for future innovation. Get building up to code now to provide safety for students. 9. Have Dave from Truex come to meeting in April. 10. Heard that middle school was a lost child in last night’s meeting. Need public engagement to find out what to do with 7th and 8th grades. 11. Caitlyn moved to have Rosemarie ask Dave to come to April meeting, seconded by Jill. Motion approved. First “reading” Burlington School Board resolution on gun violence - Move for endorsement at 3/28 meeting: Caitlyn discussed what students are doing to push for bold moves and calling on adults to do their part. Small thing but move to adopt this endorsement at next meeting. Ask board to endorse and send. Caitlyn to update the paragraphs in resolution regarding legislative issues and send to board. Can be approved at next meeting. Maureen moved that Caitlyn circulate an updated version for Harwood to be adopted at next meeting, Rosemarie seconded. Motion approved. Alex abstaining.

Motion to consider rotating meeting sites to other schools: Caitlyn asked board to consider community engagement meetings to be at other schools. Have a board meeting at Crossett Brook in consideration of what to do here. Put this in the calendar piece. Alex suggests that this be opened up to public, and bring Mad River TV along. Also suggest that this is done at Harwood and other schools. Ask for some students to lead part of the tour. PTO group? Caitlyn moved to meet at Harwood for official HUUSD meetings, Maureen seconded. Motion approved. Timeline Q&A debrief/follow up: Alycia – how did folks feel about the introduction. Unanimously appreciated, great way to set tone. Hoping to kick off questions sooner, Brigid put together a great piece of introduction. Maureen and Alycia got a work out moving the mics. Alycia drafted a document to make sentences about what everyone said. Can use this when we start working on metrics. 12. Caitlyn thanked Brigid and was happy to have folks get a chance to ask questions. Have 7 scheduled board meetings between now and the end of June. Have 3 big tasks before us: Harwood Bond, Superintendent Evaluation, and redesign Would like to be able to make plan to work on all of these, what kind of decisions have to be made. These are the questions we’ll be asking between now and June. Christine – talk about white paper and discuss this and get out on table first. Maureen – hope to talk about projects instead of time lines – such as class size, busing, etc. A whole information and feedback gathering stage. From there what are general goals and decision criteria. What’s the data we’re gathering. Jill – board needs to take ownership of this project. Need a lead – propose an individual from board to be a lead person about the things Maureen talked discussed – like a project manager. Nominate Caitlyn to take lead on this – need a process plan and a process. Rosemarie – hire an outside consultant to help with process and community engagement. When just us, get off track. Good use of money – emotional cost. We need to do it right, not screw up again. Maureen – concern with Val – she is a great consultant for discussion and processing and don’t see her facilitating getting work done. Need to get work done. Maybe smaller committee to draft plan. Alycia – Sue McCormick has put together a proposal, but think need to reach out to a few other people – community engagement. Val might be great for project engagement. Alex – one of the places we got into trouble, when discussions are happening in small groups and not with whole board. Can use committees in this process, but need consultant to help us move the ship forward. Torrey – like having committee figure out how it can be done, but bring to whole board. Think it’s worthwhile to make everyone feel they are part of the process. Gabe – Move away from consultants: how to frame our thoughts going forward, maybe most constructive way to think about is the equation that drives everything - equalized pupils. Top half is our spending. Bottom half is attracting and retaining more students. Need to talk with select boards. Learn what people want – talk with relators. Get actively and aggressively into is what to make community eligible to attract more people. Connect with select boards. Jill – think community engagement is primary – difficult to ask anyone to do work. Need coordination. Christine - Trying to put together a work plan with Caitlyn. Need to determine our needs first. What happens if we decide to do nothing. Think we are capable for most of the work. Melissa – disappointed that there weren’t more people from Waterbury or Duxbury with lots of new people moving to our town. Wish to have cross community meetings more. Have 6 towns

that have different factors going on. Need to find out what Waterbury/Duxbury people are thinking. Need to think about how to foster these conversations. Rosemarie – don’t think one consultant would be able to handle the different work we need to do. Need to be as transparent as possible and to do this, need to have help with the process and a different consultant on Community Engagement. Garett: still think we need to charge admin to bring more options. Want to save money – no one has said to stop. Owe it to our community to being something forward and very brave for Brigid to have done this, Maureen: feel like engagement piece has to include questions. Think we need to have engagement and have information to put forward. Need to start to gather data. What we want to know and gathering data is the same. Understand cost drivers, plus other things. Alex – seems like getting admin work on more modeling – continue to develop different models and board can see as important –cost drivers, etc. Continue what is needed and how to access. Jill – admin done so much work – for the next meeting I hesitate to ask them to do any more modeling. Look at what various schools offer. Have to get more community engagement. Peter – need to go back to the beginning. There is a whole country and world of research about people who have done these things. Any option would have a wealth of data behind it. Garett – not more work for admin and not putting things on hold anymore. Would Brigid, Michelle and Ray discuss what was already done – board never got a change to discuss this. Melissa – like idea of gathering ideas, think if ask everyone what they want, will gets tons of information. Need to get people into open brainstorming. What would make you happy about Harwood? Want best thinking about everyone in our 6 towns. Quick pole survey. Bond vote date of November urgent. Torrey – when think about going forward, we need to frame conversation in a way to move forward. Let conversations happen. Think scenario bundles too many things together. Alycia: want to be clear about what hearing, not getting the message that anyone is saying stop and do nothing, everyone at the center of it all, high school needs help and that will affect change for everyone. Christine – thinking through the Act 46 study process not a good experience. Talked it to death and did nothing. When had date certain on the table, backed out and got work done. There’s value in slogging right now, and not much process, need to be very clear about what we want. Alex – how to reach out to other community members, not just the few who are loud. Rosemarie moved to ask Alycia to draft a RFP to bring to next meeting about getting a consultant for community engagement, seconded by Caitlyn. Need to include school administrators (already done), what do taxpayers and parents want to see, and what does the credible serious research say about where to get the most bang for our buck. Motion carried unanimously. Alycia: Is it appropriate to advocate for a particular board member for want people to vote in that direction? Yes, as an individual, not as the board member Peter shout out: Thank you shout out to leadership report that gives a total of 4 Rowland Fellows at Harwood. Newest one to do this is Tara. Board Warrants – Rosemarie moved to accept board warrants 1218 and 1217, totaling $324,154.37, second by Melissa. Motion approved unanimously. One late arriving public comment: Suggest board get information about bus issues from the Bus Barn – could be one metric.

Shout out to Maureen for bringing food. Thanks. Other business/future agenda planning; Alycia: need to have summer meetings – once a month. Have Christine and Caitlyn take turns facilitating meetings. Executive Session (if needed) None Rosemarie moved to adjourn, seconded by Maureen. Motion approved. Submitted by Freya Chaffee