School board adds Waterbury rep; commits to discuss restraints, PCBs, and more
May 14, 2022 | By Lisa ScagliottiWaterbury once again has four members serving on the Harwood Unified Union School District School Board after the board made an appointment at its meeting on May 11.
Iana Gabriela Fraser was appointed to fill a Waterbury seat on the HUUSD School Board this week. Courtesy photo
Iana Gabriela Fraser was appointed to serve until Town Meeting Day 2023. Fraser is the fourth individual to hold the position – one of four representing Waterbury – since March 2021. The final year for that seat would be on the ballot next March.
Fraser, who works as a school nurse at Christ the King School in Burlington, said she is interested in participating on the board and looks forward to her youngest child, now an infant, attending school in the district in several years.
“My ability to listen and get to the heart of people's concerns is of great value when serving on a board. I understand that the decisions the board makes may not please everyone all the time, but when possible the decisions of the board must benefit the students, the parents, the faculty and staff, and the taxpayers,” she wrote in her letter of interest for the position.
Although appointments to the school board in between elections usually are done with input from the select board in town with the vacancy, the Waterbury Select Board did not make a recommendation as Fraser missed attending the board’s meeting last week prior to the school board considering the appointment.
The vacancy opened in mid-March soon after the Town Meeting Day election when newly elected member Jacqueline Kelleher resigned. She had requested the district’s assistance in getting a computer device to use for board business and school district officials said they could not grant that request. Kelleher then stepped down. In 2021, Michael Frank was elected to the seat and he resigned mid-year. Scott Culver was appointed to the position last summer and did not seek election this year to continue serving.
Waterbury’s other members on the school board are Kelley Hackett who was recently named board vice chair, Marlena Tucker-Fishman, and Victoria Taravella.
The 14-member school board still has two vacancies to fill until March 2023 – one seat each representing Duxbury and Fayston. Anyone interested in those spots should email board Chair Kristen Rodgers and Superintendent Brigid Nease at krodgers@huusd.org and bnease@huusd.org.
On deck: Restraint policy, PCBs, attrition, playground funding
The board spent most of the meeting discussing requests from various members regarding topics to be discussed at future meetings.
No dates were attached to any of the items which all were approved to appear on agendas yet to be determined.
The first topic the board considered was the district’s Restraint and Seclusion Policy. This matter pertains to methods of restraint school staff or contracted behavioral interventionists use with students. Former school board member Brian Dalla Mura, now a special education teacher at Brookside Primary School, last month called attention to the practice of using prone restraints with children and the potential for it to be dangerous and traumatizing to young children. The district also allows for students to be isolated in small windowless rooms.
At the start of the board meeting, Duxbury resident Life LeGeros spoke during public comment to review a letter sent to the board by the Waterbury Area Anti-Racism Coalition calling for an end to using restraints that restrict breathing. It also asks the district to evaluate how the practices impact different demographics and to update discipline policies with equity in mind.
“We call on the School Board and administrators to disrupt inequity and harm in our discipline policies in order to move our schools toward the WAARC vision of a community where every person can experience freedom, belonging, and love,” the letter states.
Board member Jonathan Young from Warren several times suggested the board consider asking district staff to end the practice immediately with policy review to follow. Nease advised the board against taking such a step without consultation with the district’s lawyer and a more thorough review of the legal issues involved.
The board ultimately unanimously agreed to put the matter on a future unspecified agenda. Board Chair Kristen Rodgers has indicated a desire to take up the matter in September after incoming Superintendent Mike Leichliter is on staff. Leichliter joins the district in July after Nease steps down June 30.
Next was a request from board member Christine Sullivan of Waitsfield to discuss PCB testing of district buildings. The state of Vermont this summer will begin an air-testing program in schools built before the 1990s where materials containing polychlorinated biphenyls likely were used. The materials are now banned from use.
Except for Crossett Brook Middle School, which was constructed in the late 1990s, all of the Harwood Union district schools are scheduled for testing.
The state schedule is generally beginning with elementary schools with high school facilities later in the schedule. Harwood Union Middle/High School is listed for testing in early 2024.
School board and administrators discussed PCB testing last fall as it related to proposed renovations for Harwood that were planned as part of a nearly $60 million bond proposal. Testing would be needed before renovations begin and the results could mean mitigation as part of any construction effort.
Voters rejected the bond and school leaders have not revisited any large-scale construction planning since then. One item that would have been included in the bond recently was approved to be done using the district’s Maintenance Reserve Fund. At its the board’s April 27 meeting, the board without discussion approved a bid from the contractor A.C.Hawthorne in Williston for $295,933 to replace the Harwood Middle School roof this summer.
Should the school district take up the issue of Harwood renovations again in the near future, it may need to ask the state PCB-testing project managers to move Harwood up in the schedule.
The board did not set a date to discuss this with district administrators.
The school board also agreed that a future agenda should include discussion of student attrition and retention.
A final topic the board committed to take up at a future meeting first was raised nearly a year ago by Moretown parents who asked about funding playground maintenance and improvements. Moretown board member Lisa Mason asked to add this to the to-do list because the board failed to take it up since. Board members agreed that the district has no policy about playground facilities to ensure the offerings are equitable at the various schools.
Other business
The board approved several items without discussion:
An overnight field trip request for the Waitsfield Elementary School sixth grade to go to the Common Ground Center in Starksboro on June 1-2.
A day trip for the Moretown Elementary School’s sixth grade to travel to the Great Escape amusement park in Queensbury, New York, on June 10.
Two executive sessions
The board at the end of its meeting had two executive sessions.
The first included the superintendent and Finance Manager Michelle Baker to discuss a labor relations matter. That lasted about 30 minutes and when it ended, the board in public session voted unanimously to authorize Nease and Baker to negotiate “a side letter regarding support staff wages outlined in the executive session presentation.”
The board then spent an hour in a second closed session held to discuss “confidential attorney-client communication made for the purpose of providing professional legal services.” That involved the board and Nease and the board took no action when it ended. Earlier in the meeting, Nease suggested that the restraint and seclusion policy would be discussed in closed session.
Video recordings of the school board meetings are available online on the district’s YouTube channel and on Mad River TV. The board meets next on May 25.