Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And we are live.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: All right, this is the Senate Education Committee, December 5. We're resuming our visit to the Rutland High School and the Rutland School System, really. So And we're just here for the next portion of the day, which is a dialogue with staff.

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Thank you.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I've already said at the first visit, I mean, the first time we went on the air, all the places we've been, but we just visited a couple of small off campus programs to help kids who needed to move to a different environment in different So

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: to pick up where we left off before we went on our worldwide tour, Terry's going to talk a bit about the different programs that we have within our buildings that we didn't get to visit today our main campuses. So our primary buildings of Northeast Northwest Intermediate School and the Middle School. Then afterwards Megan Martin who is a coordinator support services for pre k through grade two is going to talk a bit about more specifically about those programs in pre k six

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: and

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: then we'll wrap up the afternoon talking about

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: our after school programs with our executive director Marie Gillen. Alright, great. So we have in Mountain City, we have two primary buildings, Northeast and Northwest. They house our K-two students and each of the hold on a sec.

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Are you able to project it so you can see yourself? I'll give

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: them a

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: give them a hard copy.

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Am I talking? Let me take it with you.

[Unidentified District Administrator (possibly High School leadership)]: Thank you.

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: So both of those buildings have a student enrollment of about 150 students. At the primary school, we have something called our multi age classroom, which is a classroom that is for students that have some behavioral challenges. And it can be from anyone from kindergarten or first and second grade. We have at the primary schools, we do intervention that helps to support and address the learning gaps that students have. Again, if you remember earlier, we talked about when that is identified, then students will get some progress monitoring and try to close the gap that they are exhibiting. Students have something called our social emotional learning is around community blocks. So it's where they start each day with a community feel where they work together to build that classroom community. It really speaks to the fact that they are one, and they're all there to support one another. They are functioning under what is known as Positive Behavior Intervention and Support. So they look at really rewarding the positive behavior that is seen. And then, when necessary, they do supply instruction and

[Unidentified District Administrator (possibly High School leadership)]: support around restorative practices.

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Have Megan Martin is going to talk later about our RIGHT classroom, and that is reaching independence through education. And it centers our students that have significant sensory needs. It could be students that are on the autism spectrum, and they are serviced in their room by a special educator and a speech pathologist. We visited Pear Point. That is one of our resources for our primary building. Then we also, as you saw in some of our buildings, we have outdoor learning spaces. They have lifetime sports, and they have outdoor adventure. So it really helps speak to the kids that need to get help and they need to have movement. They have movement labs. So it helps to support all of their needs. The intermediate school is those two primary schools funnel into our intermediate school, which services the students in grades three through six in Rutland City. Currently, we have around 500 students at that school. We have things also, have the outdoor adventure. We have adaptive PE for students. We have a movement lab. We have motor groups. They have that same right classroom for sensory and office of needs. They have multi age classroom. As we talked about earlier, they access both Pierpoint and Allen Street from the intermediate school, depending on the grade level. We have continued to support the intervention model so that students can really target the skills that they need. And again, all of the same social emotional where they have the start of the day for the community block, restorative practices. There is something that we call POD, which is Positive Opportunity for Development, and it is utilized for students that really need those scheduled breaks or check ins during their day. And so students, some of them are non contingent and some are contingent. So we have pretty solid council staff that work in full groups. They go into every classroom. They work with small groups of students and individuals, again, based on what the plan and the need is. And then we do offer, for students that need it, tutorials, and it could be in the class, in the building. And sometimes that, when we think about that continuum, sometimes that tutorial is outside of the building, typically at our law and fellow office, our central office. Again, that's part of that

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: piece of work. And if we get to a point where a student needs a tutorial, which is more of a one to one setting outside of any any of our other programs there's immediately a plan to get the student back into a more traditional or alternative program it's meant to be a very short term adventure.

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Within forty five days we need to have a meeting and really look at two things: what's the rationale for having somebody in tutoring, and then what that plan is to get them back. That, again, is always our ultimate goal. And then our middle school, as Pam said, did you talk about that?

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: We don't find narrows next to the intermediate school.

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: The middle school houses grade seven and eight. There are about two fifty students in that building. And let's see, I'm just going to highlight some of the

[Unidentified District Administrator (possibly High School leadership)]: different

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: things. They have something called their Bridges program, which looks at and integrates academics and community based. So students are out in the community. They help support Wheel Drawn Meals. They help support making lunches or meals for the community and various things like that. Allen Street, they have something new they're doing this year. It's called their Far Out program. And it looks at rotations of students that really is looking at student need paired with their choice in an enrichment kind of. So based on where a student falls on that continuum, are they really needing a targeted skill or are they looking at something of their own interest? So that is their FAR Out program. If they have credit or grade recovery, they don't do credits, but they do grade recovery. If someone is receiving a grade of 1.5 or below, that choice is made for them. At the

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: high school, very similarly, if a student is at risk of failing a class, we do something called credit recovery. So it's very similar, grade recovery between seveneight and not, as Terry said, not acquiring credits towards credit.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So middle school is kind of a chance to, I think, I just want to start the discussion about this, kids who are not up to where the level which they're going need to be to be successful in high school. Get them there as kind of the last opportunity to really get them ready for high school. And I am guessing that your programming there is, number one, really focused on getting them ready for high school. And what are I think you're talking about all this in a way, but just really getting what are you doing? How's the whole psychology of that school set up as it relates to making sure the kids are really ready when they walk in the door here at night.

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: So we do two things that I would answer on that one. One is that they have something called a house structure. This actually came out of COVID where kids are divided into three houses and so within that house they have the same teachers you know so this group has one they're Birch maple and hickory house and so in each of those areas they all have the same teachers the teachers get to be able to know those students really well and be able to speak to their strengths challenges and interests. So that's one thing that it really helps to build a sense of community they also have a community block and advisory periods. One thing that we are trying to refocus our efforts or focus them more deeply than we ever had is on academic intervention for a long time. We have provided intervention to fill those gaps like Terry said in our K-six program more often than our seven twelve and what we have found is for whatever reason students may not have acquired those skills when they were younger and we're getting older students that don't have the same level of academics reading and math that you would have experienced years from. So especially through this budget cycle we're identifying the need for additional intervention at our middle and high school so that those can be provided.

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: I think also to that point, we have, you know, a concern with the middle school is that they only have them for two years. So we're really making concerted effort to work on transition. One of the things is the year end study. We include our sixth grade in that so that they get to know them towards the end of the year a little more. So they really and communication between the grades, same for eighth through ninth grade, because we want, like you said, we really want to target their needs, and knowing them in only a short time, it's really important that we can do that.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Actually I thought about this earlier middle school is traditionally more six, seven, eight isn't it?

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: There's so many different models but I would say that typically it's longer than two grades.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So why are you doing it the way you're doing it here?

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Honestly it's the way it has been done. It's a bad answer. We have started to explore. We've had conversation about conducting a study to see what it would look like and what are the benefits of including six in that middle school model but we're in a very very beginning stages. I was thinking for somebody to

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: watch this and say very beginning stages of thought. And then our high school, which you were able to explore today, houses our students in grades nine through 12. We have about 700. And as I see, you have the TACE program, which has your little basket of treats to take home, and that is really looking at a trauma focused environment for kids. So that small learning environment really has a trauma lens when they're interacting with students. They have the tutorial, Grove Street, we've got 50 today, so that's pretty exciting. That is contract based, and students really work towards fulfilling their graduation requirements based on their weekly contracts. There is an independent living skills classroom that works on students that have some more significant challenges, and the focus is really on independent living. So with that, we have Stafford that you also were able to visit. We have a school to work program that is it's an offering. It's not necessarily like special education, but I think it's important for students to be able to learn those work skills or job skills that can help them in the future. And the same would be true for LASE program, which is looking at community based learning opportunities, some of our internships. My own son has benefited from that. It's very spectacular. Can I ask

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: a question about, so I'm kind of adopting career technical education, being on both economic development and education that David needs this too, but I've been leading a work group? And some of what comes up is just by seventh grade, a lot of kids, if they don't have the beginnings of a plan for their future, they don't feel hopeful about their future, that's really the age where they might start to shut down and, you know, not build a plan to be successful. So we're, you know, we're looking at how to make sure if you guys have a really rich kind of career readiness, make a plan system, I wouldn't want to interfere with that. But I've heard from a lot of students in, you know, in Rutland and Addison Counties that they feel kind of shut out from Stafford because they didn't, they had middle school behavioral problems, or they didn't realize how selective it was. I talked to your counterpart over at Stafford about this, but that's something that I think may need to change, you know, just that kids have a place in CTE if they want it, not they have to earn it and it's a very selective thing. I know you've talked a lot today about the theme of kids feeling like they need to earn something, but I worry about a gap for kids who don't get into Stafford but want to be on a more technical path to the workforce.

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: I think it's a valid concern and a valid worry. I think the standards by which our CTE programs have to meet a certain percentage of accomplishment then they also have to be incredibly selective with the students that have the capacity or ability to get to that point because they have standards that they have to meet in criteria they have to meet as set forth by by their education.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: It's funny we dug into that yesterday because the big concern is that was leading the whole discussion and it's mostly from Perkins which is $5,000,000 So if I mean, I think we're going to have to completely reimagine career technical education, and not and right now you have to have a college placement or, you know, like, the metrics are, are came from a federal government of twenty years ago when college was it. So anyway, I just think we're,

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: I would, I would you all

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: are doing great hands on work, but there's a gap here in, in what students need out of technical and career education.

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: I would agree with you that we're not meeting the needs of all of our students in that way. Okay. Not all of there isn't enough space in our programs. Right. And again that criteria that CTEs must live by also can be a barrier. Right.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And there are four different models and the one that looks the most successful right now is the comprehensive,

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: where

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: a student could go take one class at the CTE and decide, you know, if that is for them or even if it's not that they build a life skill that still helps them academically.

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Did Melissa have the chance to talk to you about her pre check the pre check program at the Stafford? Yes. Yeah, it's an opening it's a

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: beginning right but some student might just want to know how to fix their car sure you know and still be an AP English

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Do you have questions for Carrie before Megan comes up and talks a little bit more about our phase six interventions that are provided at the building?

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah why don't you do that I'm too conscious of

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: time okay all

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: right but you can either stay there so

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: you can stay real good that's

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: right one

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: or both of you all of you can just whatever however you want to do it all right

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: For

[Megan Martin, Coordinator of Support Services (Early Childhood Special Education/Northeast Primary)]: the record, good afternoon. I'm Megan Martin. I am the coordinator of support services currently for early childhood special education in Northeast Primary School. But I've had the pleasure of working for the district for almost a decade now as a school counselor before pursuing special ed administration. I also was an assistant principal that oversaw special education at the intermediate school. So I have a pretty good perspective of pre k through sixth grade continuum of services.

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: So we'll start with pre k.

[Megan Martin, Coordinator of Support Services (Early Childhood Special Education/Northeast Primary)]: Right now the district is operating using the ten hour per week through community supports, meaning the district will pay for the students to access those communities for ten hour per week. And then operating early childhood interspecial education services through either an outreach model whereas some of my special education team will push into community locations to provide services students will come in to our schools or our current early ed location to receive services and we do operate one classroom for students on an IEP so it is a specialized program but it is for students that need just a little bit more support with their daily services to have a more traditional pre k setting. In within that role preschool, we've worked on developing partnerships with Head Start, Child Integrative Services, and the Parent Child Center. I meet monthly with both Child Integrative Services and Head Start. In our current numbers within Rutland City for children experiencing some portion of special education services is about sixty eight percent. So I have noticed a pretty significant increase in the need for special ed within our primary, our pre K population that has doubled in the last year alone. And in collaboration with Child Integrated Services, that's something that we are trying to establish how is that happening what supports can we continue to offer you know within the community to offset offset that pre startling number so sixty eight percent currently of Rutland City students that get UPK funds qualify for some sort of specialized instruction. As students transition into kindergarten from special education services, the teams meet and collaborate on goals. So we look at, you know, what supports and services my child needs to access kindergarten compared to how they were accessing in preschool. And that feeds nicely into when we talk about our reaching independence through education classrooms. The RIGHT program is a program designed for students with sensory needs, mostly autism spectrum disorder students tend to be in, you know, in need of that classroom. And what we would do in preparation for kindergarten is discuss how often can they be included with their peers in a general education environment and what times of a general education environment may be more difficult for them that they would need that more sensory based environment to learn. In the RIGHT program, again we have two of those as Carrie mentioned, we have one at Northeast and one at the Rutland Intermediate School. We have really worked hard to increase inclusion for those students both at Northeast and at the Intermediate School. One thing that we have added in the last year is a full time speech language pathologist to both programs with the goal of increasing communication for our nonverbal students. So I would really hope that by the end of second grade within a couple of years from now, students are fully able to utilize an AAC device to make basic questions about themselves. So if I had a student that was

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: out in the community and

[Megan Martin, Coordinator of Support Services (Early Childhood Special Education/Northeast Primary)]: they got separated from their parent, I would love for them to identify on their AAC device. My name is so and so, my mom is so and so, like know how to push those buttons on their AAC device. So the hope of increasing communication was really important to me, just basic safety need. The speech and language pathologist spends full day integrated into the right classrooms and students still receive pull out services for communication. Again, that's at both the intermediate school and at Northeast Primary. We also had looked at what students we could decrease paraeducator support in those programs so that we're increasing their independence. Sometimes when you have a paraeducator, you can become as an adult, we want to help our students, right? So those students become over reliant on the adult support versus looking for opportunities to be independent within themselves. The other program that we offer, K through six

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That's, by the way, interesting insights. I just find that in advance. That's insightful. Thank you.

[Megan Martin, Coordinator of Support Services (Early Childhood Special Education/Northeast Primary)]: No problem. I get on a roll. So if you have a question, you just stop and ask me. Our other program that we have, K through six, is the multi age classroom that's designed for students with social emotional or behavioral challenges. And students, we have worked very hard, would say, as a district over the past few years to ensure that that can be more of a hybrid model versus sort of being inflexible. Like you're struggling in this setting, so we're moving you to this setting. We use a lot of data now to determine what areas of a child's day they might have the most struggles in. So for example, a lot of our students have behavior tracking data that an adult takes, they're not necessarily aware that they're being tracked all day long. And we'll color code that green for great, red for dysregulated, yellow for like, no, you're doing alright, but you have some reminders throughout your day. And then as a team, we look at that across multiple days and we'll highlight areas that are students are most struggling. So for some students it's an academic block of time, for other students it's unstructured times such as lunch, recess, specials. And then as a team we'll target an intervention to be put into place for those dysregulated times, as opposed to just fully implementing a change of day or a change of placement for a child. In the event that a child really is struggling and they will move to a full day in the multi age classroom, we do that same scaffolded approach for, you know, moving to a more restrictive environment to get you out of a restricted environment. So as soon as the child starts to become successful, which we determine two weeks, 80% green data in one area, we get together back as a team again and we look at, okay, what is that child's most successful time of the day? And we start to incorporate them back with support in the general education environment. I don't have the numbers currently on how that's working at the intermediate school just because I'm not there as often anymore. But I can say at Northeast Primary School last school year, we had five kindergartners accessing the multi age program. Three of those five are now fully integrated back in a general education classroom with only small group paraeducators support. So you know, when we're done with fidelity, we've really seen that that has made a huge impact on those kiddos as opposed to completely segregating them out

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: in a specialized program. That would be the same. Are working on a similar ratio. Most kids are integrated into the regular classroom, at least part of their goal.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And what about, do you find backsliding two years later?

[Megan Martin, Coordinator of Support Services (Early Childhood Special Education/Northeast Primary)]: Two years? I think it depends. It's all very individualized, you know, such as the world of sped, but I think it depends on where a kiddo is at. So I anticipate this this year, for example, we had a student that was in the multi age classroom and as a kindergartner, the work is a little bit more challenging in first grade. So they had started the school year transitioning back into a first grade classroom. And then as soon as it hit those academic times, we saw a significant increase in behavior just because they didn't have the stamina to sustain that first grade level so looking at options to help facilitate that transition

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: question

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah,

[Megan Martin, Coordinator of Support Services (Early Childhood Special Education/Northeast Primary)]: you're reading my mind. I would like to say, so as a fierce advocate, for our students in my community, taking on the role of early child special education has really been insightful. I know that our district currently operates a ten hour model in compliance with Act 166. We're committed as a district to looking at opportunities to expand our preschool offerings and our universal preschool offerings. It is difficult to expand to a full day UPK model for a district of our size. I live in a very small town, Timmith, where they can easily add one classroom to have a preschool. But as you know, a Rutland City Administrator balancing this amount of state funding with a local budget, it becomes a challenge to implement, you know, high quality early education. So I have you all here. I'm just using the opportunity to advocate for my community. I'll underscore Megan's thoughts.

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Ability to add not only the financial piece, but the staffing piece. We don't have in Vermont a strong feeder program if you will for early educators and so both from staff development and ability to staff programs that we talked there a little bit in the van it came up about the strict requirements of early care and having to meet all of those needs in a school setting it becomes a little bit more cumbersome and we're talking about we need to add seven classrooms seven educators it's a big undertaking financially so I'll underscore her advocacy that some helps and fund expanded programs for children would be helpful.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So when you say expand them what you really mean is I think or am I right bringing them to the school?

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Yeah so a challenge that we face especially with such a high special education number 68% is the efficiency of service delivery if you're going from Head Start to the Vermont Parent Child Center and then okay Head Start takes naps from noon to two which is something you

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: don't typically think about in a school because you know kids don't

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: nap anymore but they they do so there's a chunk of a teacher's contract at time that's totally used up because kids are sleeping or have to lay down for the daycare regulations you know

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: you

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: in my role I'm constantly balancing the CPD with the AOE and that's happening. And then we were talking about it in a few years ago it was proposed that we move to universal pre k throughout that is what kept coming up was the rub between the agency of education requirements and the early childhood development child licensing requirements

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Anything else?

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Thank you for your time.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. You.

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: All right

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: and we're gonna have Marie Gilman our executive director of our tapestry and EPIC programs which are our after school programs.

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Come on back.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So actually before we do move on entirely where are you with that effort to try to bring some of that in house?

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: So in the coming year budget we have few different models that we're going have to see what the impact would be so we have kind of like okay model A what would be impact of

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: the budget be if we did this to the three and do you have the space is

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: it we don't more of an educator issue or more of a space issue

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: I would say it's both we can add a few classrooms to our building but it would be hard for us to find them

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Hi.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Hi. Hello.

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Thank you for coming to Rutland. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me.

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: So, I'm Marie Gilman, excuse me, and I joined Rutland City School District five and a half years ago in COVID to help oversee and manage the after school programs. We are very fortunate in this school district to have really strong support from administration for the after school programs that we have. They've been in existence for over twenty five years and we serve the whole continuum kindergarten through twelfth grade which is pretty remarkable so we have the opportunity to interact with kids from the beginning until they graduate if they want. We offer a wide variety of programming at all levels, 80 program of course. And one of the things that's been interesting to sit in the room and listen to y'all talk about is a few years ago the school board and the administrative team had the opportunity in thinking about the course of the graduate work to go out and visit with larger major employers in the area and learn what skills students need to be successful to obtain those types of jobs. And it was really really insightful so we have taken that in our programs we went back and we did a lot of professional development with our staff around student led programming, really helping cultivate them as leaders, helping them identify skills they want to learn, but also recognizing things that they may need to learn that they may not know they need to and working that through from, again, kindergarten right through twelfth grade. So we are supported largely by child care benefits, formerly known as subsidy, in our K-six programs. We have three programs and some of this information is outlined for you. Just thought that would be helpful to have in your pocket. Northeast Primary, Northwest Primary, and Rutland Intermediate School. So kindergarten through sixth grade is what child care licensing licenses. All three of our programs serving those grades are licensed child care programs, so we are able to their regulations as well. In addition, our K-six program Tapestry and our seventh through twelfth program EPIC each have a 21C grant supporting the work that we do. So we have a lot of expectations and rules that we follow and adhere to very closely. Some of the things that we have done in response to some of the questions you were just talking about is thinking about you know the kind of standard issue things that you want to see in an after school program during the school year during the summer tutoring homework help physical activity having healthy food all those types of things but then expanding on that and what are the other kinds of things that we can do which are largely focused around life skills whether that's financial literacy or you know again leadership and we spend a lot of time in our programs of course in the afternoon working with kids on their social and emotional interactions and confidence building and we see great success with that. We do serve any child that wants to come to our programs and what we have seen historically is in the afternoon with the slightly less structured not to say we are unstructured at all but slightly less structured than the school day slightly different expectations kids don't necessarily need as much support as maybe they do during the school day so we try to take advantage of that opportunity and work with them and offer them opportunities to explore and learn in different ways. One quote you'll see in here from a parent is they sneak in the education while the kids are having fun. That's exactly what we try to do and make sure that it's nurturing and educational skill building but fun and not to say that doesn't happen during the day but we have a little bit more opportunity to do that and play with that. We also work very closely with kids and families on the transitions between the schools. Kindergarten through second grade, come third grade, now you're going to move to the intermediate school. Two years ago, to make sure we were aligning better with our 21 seed funding, we moved the kids as they left second grade in our summer program to come over to the intermediate school during the summer. And last year, last summer, we had a handful of teachers in the intermediate school that designed kind of an onboarding for the third graders for the first couple weeks of summer camp so that they could get used to the facility, understand what the expectations and rules are of the new building they'll be attending in September, that kind of thing and that went really really well. Middle school and high school level as you were talking about for two years now we blended our summer program so that middle school and high school are together and they move between your two buildings and have different opportunities at different buildings and that has proven to be really beneficial for kids because they're not just leaving a middle school where they got acclimated but they're getting comfortable with the high school so when they're coming whether it's a year or two, they have some basic knowledge of what to expect when they get here. So we're always building on those types of things and expanding that type of programming as we go. But it's been really helpful and we have a lot of family engagement. Some of the things that you'll see and we're trying to build out is really working with families even on skills even just providing them an opportunity to have some time. Northeast, they are very clever over at our Northeast program and decided in a couple weeks they're going to offer an extended afternoon so that parents can leave their kids a little bit longer to run some errands, maybe go on a date night, run some gifts, whatever they want to do. Kids will be fed and cared for until six or 06:30 that night instead of the traditional five, 05:30. So thinking beyond the child standing in front of us, what is their overall environment and thinking of it more holistically. You

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: have very I'll say this, we can talk about it a little later or not. You have very different approaches, or different rating levels. The needs are different, what kids want are different. How the percentages are together of kids involved with those different age groups?

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: So our goal is to serve at least 50% of the school population at each location. We're very strong in that category, particularly K-eight. The high school is a little bit different beast, as you can imagine, because kids have so many other things pulling on their time, whether it's athletics jobs, I need to go home and babysit my younger siblings or whatever. But we do we've been moving in the right direction even here at the high school. We want to serve 50% of kids at each school in a twelve month period. So it could be school, it could be summer, it could be a combination of both. It often is. And then we want to make sure that at least 50 of the kids that are engaged with us are engaged for ninety hours or more in a yearly because that's the research based number that says it has an effect. If you have a quality program, it will have an effect on their attendance, engagement during the school day, and their participation in their learning during the day and in the afternoon. So we try to make sure that we're hitting that number with as many kids as possible. When I looked at the numbers so far for this year last week for a different purpose at the high school we're at about 20% but at the intermediate school we're at 67% of the kids that we're serving are already at ninety hours.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And what about that socioeconomic stratification? Are you getting those lower grades, let's say, K-eight? You getting what demographics? Are

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: So the demographics in the schools are generally pretty even between the primaries and the intermediate school. It starts to couple a little bit at the intermediate school. What we have found in our programs and I've reported on in the last couple years is our percent of population that's struggling financially is higher than the school day rate. So we're serving kids primarily that have those struggles at home, those families that have those struggles at home. And what we hear is that they're very grateful for our programs. Not just because we're available in the afternoon so that they can work or they can do whatever they need, know, care for another family member, whatever it is they're doing, but because they know their kids are having those opportunities, having those experiences.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: How do those kids get home at 05:30? What I'm trying to do is.

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: So we have parent pickup or the school district provides transportation home from the after school programs.

[Unidentified District Administrator (possibly High School leadership)]: How far out will we

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: know I'm sorry how far out will we know just within Rutland City

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: or seven and half months yeah

[Unidentified District Administrator (possibly High School leadership)]: makes it very

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: doable yeah right

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah I had one principal say to me elementary school if they were up to me the buses wouldn't even go on until five in a way you're doing that

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: yeah yes

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: so and we run school year from the end of the school day until five 05:30 and then in the summertime we run seven weeks of full day 08:00 in

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: the morning until o'clock thirty. At two campuses too?

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: At four campuses Northeast, Northwest, RIF, and Queen, the middle school and high school shared. So we in this year so far we have served six forty two kids across the district in our programs yes

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: so I was just looking at the agenda and I don't want to I didn't know the staff conversation was like one big one and we're over it right now. So before we we break or I don't know exactly if public comment is going to start right at 02:30, I have a, like, broader question because I think what you all are doing is really amazing with, as I understand it, a relatively low per people amount. Some of us, some of us really believe in the foundation formula, I would say, I mean, that's why I voted for Act 73. The idea that a community's political will to fund their budget wouldn't determine the amount of money per pupil that a school receives. So you're doing quite a bit with less. If the foundation formula is instituted in full, you will be getting more money per pupil. I mean, that seems to maybe like, I'm excited for you. Because I think you're doing great things and that, you know, you should be able to access more money per student. And that would help with universal pre K and other things. I don't know who would be in a position to react to that. But I just didn't want to end today without saying, you know, Rutland Town spends more, Rutland City spends less. This is, in essence, why we're doing Act 73, as far as I'm concerned. And that, you know, you are also demonstrating what you can do with economies of scale that you can't do in smaller districts.

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: No one

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: has to respond. You're set, yeah. Okay. Welcome. I will add you to my list like Berry and other communities that I think those kids deserve more dollars. I would

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: be curious if the foundation formula if that is going to take into account prepay or if that is going to stay or is or is it pay control I

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: think it's per student and we

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: have a is the cap it's a point five

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: yeah something we

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: have a weight we have a weight for the students wow I feel like I'm like ready for school again in January but yeah there's a weight for all three to five

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: if if you were to do that for pre k would the for people rate be a full kindergarten rate because right now they're funded at a lot different than kindergarten fees I

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: don't know yeah that's a good question

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'm gonna write that

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: and if you could

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I told so many of your staff, like, please email me. So please, I don't know, I don't want speak for everybody else, but I'd love for my email address to be sent around because I think this is a really great community to keep learning from. Please email me with that so we can add it to our list.

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Thank you. We're very proud of our students, our staff that really make it all happen. Yeah. And our community support has been phenomenal.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Good thing

[Unidentified District Administrator (possibly High School leadership)]: going keeping it affordable because it is a past that we all just we said we all need more money and there is no I

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: mean so that's where Rutland Town is spending more and Rutland City is spending less like that

[Unidentified District Administrator (possibly High School leadership)]: yeah

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: that's the equalization of what the quality would look like.

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Thank you again

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: thank you yeah

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: anybody else have anything you want to add we've got

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: no I think we know you're transitioning into public comment

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: well everybody's comes

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: yeah okay Maybe there's some novel.

[Unidentified District Administrator (possibly High School leadership)]: Well, I think we're going have

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: well, anyway, let's see, because I think because Bluffland already is kind of at the scale in the act would look to, particularly not there that much within the city, whether people show up or not.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, Are we ad libbing? Like, we on, we I I'll say this live, you know, I think what is most likely to survive the redistricting task force process is a look at regional high schools. And I continue to be curious now everywhere we go, What would that look like? I mean, you're, you're, you're pretty regional, but at the same time, you know, you could have more capacity.

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: Well, Stafford is regional. We are not I mean, the high

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: school Oh, you're not called like a regional high school I guess we're you're at a good scale yeah right we're

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: at a good scale so we are just Rutland high we're just Rutland City with school choice or you know tuitioning towns or if you're the state you know school choice agreements but we're not a region at this time it's just from we

[Terry (last name unknown), District Administrator]: do yes and you

[Pam (last name unknown), District Administrator]: know I think as far as a community or a section of Vermont goes the Rutland region is very collaborative in nature we try to work with each other at the same time I know that schools hold tight to their traditions and their communities hold tight to their schools.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So actually, used to a question of the students in your high school, for instance, how many of them are from Rockland City and how many of them are from outside pushing in from like Bennington?

[Marie Gilman, Executive Director of Tapestry (K–6) and EPIC (7–12) After-School Programs]: The enrollment report you can remember.

[Unidentified District Administrator (possibly High School leadership)]: Yeah, mean roughly speaking in grades nine through 12, the teach grade is about 175 the about 175 are coming from outside of Rolling City for the whole school so it's the way I think it's sort

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: of an additional grade level. Yeah okay. And many of those other kids are going where the ones with choice are going?

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well I can tell you that I was the principal at Barstow for two years, is past high school choice, and at the time between 8090% of their students were choosing to come to Rutland High School, and then they were going all kinds of different things, know, had one or two going to Woodstock, to Burr and Burton, to at that time out of state I think there may be one you know international but the majority in Rutland Town and Rutland and Muerto tend to come to revenue.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, yep. Well I guess we can take a quick break.