Note: These minutes should be considered preliminary until they are approved at the next Policy
and Amendments Committee meeting
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Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) Policy and Amendment Committee
Tuesday, July 11, 2023
Regular meeting 2:30 pm
Hybrid meeting: WSESU Central Office, 53 Green St., Brattleboro, VT and
Remotely via Zoom
DRAFT MINUTES
Policy and Amendment Committee members present: Deborah Stanford (DS, Chair), Tim Maciel
(TM), Anne Beekman (AB, via Zoom), Eva Nolan (EN, via Zoom)
WSESD/U Staff and Administrators present: Superintendent Mark Speno (MS), Mo Hart (MH),
Kerry Amidon (KA), Michael Kelliher (MK), Keith Lyman (KL)
Guests attending: Liz Adams (LA, via Zoom), Ruby McAdoo (RM, via Zoom)
Call to Order
Chair DS convened the meeting at 2:32 pm and read the hybrid statement.
I. Approval of Minutes and confirmation of next meeting date
The minutes of 06/20/23 meeting approved by assent.
The next meetings for the Policy and Amendments Committee are scheduled for:
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
Tuesday, Sept 5, 2023
Tuesday, Sept 19, 2023
II. Announcements and Updates
DS requested that the group send her agenda items for the Board retreat. DS received notice that LSP-1, the current student dress code policy, needs to be rescinded, as the new dress code policy, F42, will come up for adoption at the next Board meeting on 7/25/23. Rescinding LSP-1 to go on the agenda for the Board meeting.
DS raised the question of whether F42 would be considered an adoption or re-adoption, and it was agreed that it would be an adoption since the policy was changed so massively.
DS noted that nothing has been heard from the community about F42 or H7 (Leadership Councils). F42 will come up for adoption and H7 for a second reading at the next Board meeting.
MS wondered if the time of year has contributed to the lack of response and DS wondered if the committee would receive criticism for that timing.
MH brought up the question of these policies being reviewed every year.
DS: It is written into F42 that it be reviewed every year, and there have been discussions about that for H7.
III. Planning Session –
The goal of this meeting was to set priorities and plan a calendar for policies to be reviewed in the next academic year.
DS brought up two possible high priority policies:
D1 (Personnel Recruitment), which was on hold until MK arrived. MK started as new HR director July 10. DS wants to send an invitation to the Social Justice Committee to join P&A Committee and MK in the discussion of D1. The two committees will come together at future date.
F21 (Use of Restraint and Seclusion). This one came up at a conference in Burlington, and in the state legislature.
Also: DS wants to schedule time for new policy presentations from community members (Michelle Green and others) and not put them on hold too much longer.
DS opened the discussion to the group. How do we proceed?
TM suggested two ways to select high priority policies:
1) policies that need to be reviewed due to compliance concerns
2) policies that reflect the values of the Board: quality education / student learning; student health and safety; informed decision-making by the Board; student/parent engagement; equity.
With this view, high priority policies would be:
Board Member Education (B1) and Board Goal-Setting and Self-Evaluation (B2); Personnel Recruitment (D1);
Student Conduct and Discipline (F1) — the student advisory committee could weigh in on this one;
Local Action Plan (G8) — started at retreat, critically important;
Parental Involvement Policy (H2) — students do better when parents and guardians are involved;
School-Community Relations (H1);
Environmental Awareness and Responsibility (E14).
TM also suggested that new policies may need to be developed, including a transgender athlete policy. A discussion ensued on transgender policy and transgender athlete policy. We do have a current policy, F34, Transgender and Gender Creative Students, which was adopted in 2019. The VPA, Vermont Principal Association, guides what schools do in sports, and transgender students can choose the team they want to play on. Use of changing rooms and bathrooms are covered in the current policy. The new locker rooms at BAMS will include several private changing areas/showers, but students will still have
to decide between “boys” and “girls”— no third option. Suggestion made to look at what happened at Randolph High School, and learn from what can go wrong.
KA suggested that fundamental policies be read and reviewed in a cycle, and to choose a half dozen top priorities (narrow it down at a retreat) to spend more time with.
RM has shared a few documents that can be used as tools, including a calendar. What needs to happen annually? We can also start to group policies by what is mandatory and recommended. She emphasized that the committee’s work to meet its goals in reviewing policy is different than the work of the Board to meet its strategic goals. Strategic goals may not always be clearly tied to a policy.
5 minute break, reconvened at 3:26 pm
The next portion of the meeting focused on possible ways to decide what the policy priorities would be.
TM reviewed the criteria he used for listing the policies he thought would be high priority: equity; learning loss; engagement; transparency; informed decision-making; health and safety.
RM noted that the things TM listed were fantastic priorities, but that they were Board priorities, to discuss at the Board level. The priority for the Policy and Amendments Committee needs to be to get clear on a cycle for policy review, to get a good system in place. Important not to conflate the work of the Board with the work of this committee.
KA suggested structuring meetings so there is one big priority policy to look at that might take 45 minutes and other small ones that can be gotten through quickly.
MS suggested that one approach would be to look at the policy categories on website (A, B, C…). Look at each section and prioritize by date of last review and the topic. Some can be looked at quickly, others will require more thought.
KL noted that some of the policies from 2019 weren’t heavily reviewed at the time the districts merged.
DS noted that there is some duplication, as in the mandatory policy last meeting, and time will be needed at some point to clean those up.
The next portion of the meeting focused on coming to agreement on specific policies that would be the heavy duty, high-priority documents to review in the near future. The consensus was:
D1 Personnel Selection and Recruitment
Engage MK and the Social Justice Committee.
B2 Board Goal-Setting and Self-Evaluation
Long overdue. The boards are still not doing self-evaluation.
LA noted that the districts merged and then the pandemic hit, so it’s been a wild three years; there are reasons that things haven’t happened.
G8 Local Action / Continuous Improvement Plan
RM noted that G8 has been removed as a model policy.
DS: VSBA does not consider it necessary anymore, but we are holding on to it.
F22 Student Assessment
Series on Student Safety
Hearing the Board review student safety policies, especially at the beginning of the school year, sends a message to the community that these are important.
F9 (Student Alcohol and Drugs), F24 (Firearms or Dangerous or Deadly Weapons), and F23 (Policy on the Prevention of Harassment, Hazing, and Bullying of Students) were mentioned in particular but the list will be expanded to initially include the range of policies related to safety.
Further discussion ensued on additional considerations and policies, and schedule for review.
Gender Freedom Policy
RM: a staff member has a gender freedom policy they would like to present. How are we capturing and protecting gender freedom?
DS: This is a priority, linked to students, marginalized students, and safety. Asked RM to get in touch with with the staff member and suggest they look at F34 as they write theirs.
Have them get it to the committee. The Policy and Amendments Committee wants to see what is coming from the community.
Need to review language of policies
RM: The committee needs to review policies to make sure the language is solid. Some were written for a small district and use language such as ”principal” rather than “superintendent,” others have unclear writing.
F1 Student Conduct and Discipline
TM: the timing might be good on this one, with the restorative justice position being hired.
DS: And F2 (Bus Discipline) at the same time?
Consistency on website
Some mandatory policies have the word “mandatory” in bold after the link, others have the word as part of the hyperlink in green. Should be consistent.
Policy priorities in other districts
TM offered to contact Susan to see if VSBA has information on which policies other districts are prioritizing.
Timing for series on safety
If Board is going to make a statement at the beginning of the school year, we would be aiming to review student safety policies in August and then present them in September.
F21 Policy on the Use of Restraint and Seclusion
There may be a legislative ruling coming on this one. Agreed to leave it alone until then. G4, G5, G6 (Selection of Library Materials, Selection of Instructional Materials, Complaints about Instructional Materials)
These are topics that can explode at any time and it helps if G6 is strong.
A final conversation on scheduling ensued:
For the next meeting, August 22, the Policy and Amendments Committee will invite MK and the Social Justice Committee to join the discussion of D1 (Personnel Recruitment). August 22 will also include a review of the safety policies, if possible, though that may need to be pushed to September 5.
TM will make a list of all the safety policies, and DS and TM will select the best ones to look at during the meeting.
KL suggested including G13 (Internet use) to the safety list
DS suggested that a meeting like this, to prioritize and plan, may be good to have more than once a year.RM suggested, moving forward, to use a spreadsheet to track when the P&A Committee looks at each policy.
DS agreed that is vital and that we need to look at what we’ve done since April 2022 when the committee started meeting.
DS noted that the committee hasn’t tackled the annual reports that will be coming up. A list of policies that require an annual report is needed.
RM noted that this information is in the policy analysis spreadsheet. She will resend the link. MS reiterated that in planning agendas for future policy meetings, it will be good to balance policies that will take a lot of discussion with ones that won’t take much time.
August 22, 2023 Agenda:
D1
Every single safety policy
Meeting adjourned at 4:37.
Notes taken by Anna Monders (recorder)
Submitted by Tim Maciel (vice chair)
