School board fills one seat, hears request to change district restraint policy
April 16, 2022 | By Lisa Scagliotti The Harwood Unified Union School Board got one step closer to having a full roster this week with the addition of a new member to represent Fayston until next Town Meeting Day.
The board approved adding Kim Laidlaw to fill a vacant position for which there were no candidates in the March 1 election. Laidlaw replaces former Vice Chair Tim Jones whose term ended this year. Laidlaw was the only candidate to volunteer for the position. She came with a recommendation from the Fayston Selectboard as well.
Laidlaw addressed the board briefly saying she has lived in Fayston since 2001 and is the parent of three children ages 12, 14 and 17. She has worked as a teacher at People’s Academy and during the pandemic shifted to remote teaching with the Vermont Virtual Learning Cooperative.
Initially, she said she made the switch to teach while her own children were doing remote learning. “I did it out of necessity,” she said, adding that she discovered she preferred it. “I really like teaching online … it’s a great option for some students.”
Of the 11 board members present, eight voted in favor of Laidlaw’s nomination. Waterbury member Marlena Tucker-Fishman and Waitsfield member Christine Sullivan abstained; board Chair Kristen Rodgers abstained as is customary on most votes.
Laidlaw’s appointment runs until the 2023 Town Meeting Day election when her seat with two years remaining in the term will be on the ballot.
That brings the 14-position board to 12 members. There are still open seats to represent Duxbury and Waterbury. The Duxbury seat is open after former Chair Torrey Smith’s term ended March 1 and she did not seek re-election. No candidate was on the March ballot for that position.
Also open is a Waterbury seat that was filled briefly last month. Jacqueline Kelleher ran as a write-in candidate in the March election but resigned two weeks later. She requested the district assist her with a computer to use for board business and stepped down when her request was denied.
The board on Wednesday heard from one individual interested in the Waterbury position. Iana Gabriela Fraser spoke briefly saying she has applied. In following the board process to fill vacancies by appointment, Rodgers said Fraser’s application would be forwarded to the Waterbury Select Board to review and make a recommendation.
Anyone interested in either open seat should send a letter of interest to Rodgers and Superintendent Brigid Nease. Both positions would be filled until March 2023. The remainder of those terms would be on the Town Meeting Day election ballot – two years for the Duxbury seat and one year for the Waterbury spot.
Restraint and seclusion tactics challenged
During public comment, the board heard from Brookside Primary School special education teacher Brian Dalla Mura who asked the board to review and change the school district’s policies around restraint and seclusion of students. Dalla Mura, who lives in Duxbury, served on the school board briefly in 2021 before beginning his position at Brookside this school year.
“Currently there's a bill in Congress, the Keeping All Students Safe Act, that would ban actions that are allowable and currently in practice in our district. Those are prone restraints and seclusion,” Dalla Mura told the board. He noted that several states already have laws banning these tactics from use in schools. (Vermont’s Congressman, Rep. Peter Welch, is a co-sponsor of the federal legislation.)
When school staff turn to using restraint and seclusion for students, Dalla Mura said it means other strategies have failed. He said the tactics also have “no educational or therapeutic value.”
He described what they entail, first explaining the use of “prone restraint” that’s used with students even in elementary grades. “When students are placed in prone restraint, they are held face down on the floor with their hands and arms behind their back by two adults,” he said.
Policy outlines that the measures are used only when students’ size and severity of behavior make lesser retraining measures ineffective.
Still, Dalla Mura noted that prone restraint poses dangers such as restricting breathing. He quoted from a U.S. Department of Education document that says restraint techniques that restrict breathing “should never be used because they could cause serious injury or death.”
Dalla Mura then brought up seclusion which involves confining a student alone in a room. He said educators debate the differences between seclusion and “time out” and he directed the board to a state memo on the topic. He said it notes how seclusion may seem less dangerous than physical restraint, but it carries with it “the hidden dangers of psychological trauma.”
He concluded by asking several questions: “Why would a time out take place in a tiny 5-by-10 room void of any furniture, sensory items, or de-escalation tools? Shouldn't we be teaching students to take time and space, take a break, or talk through their difficulties with a trusted adult through proven co-regulation strategies?”
Using restraints or seclusion means other strategies including verbal interactions have failed, he said. “So my question is, why are less-restrictive measures failing so often?”
As is its practice, the board did not discuss the topic which was presented separate from an item on the meeting agenda. On Friday, board Chair Rodgers in an email said a request has been made to put the topic on a future board meeting agenda and the board at its next meeting would decide when to schedule further discussion.
School safety discussion
The board spent time discussing a response by Superintendent Nease in her report to the board regarding the district’s handling of a recent assault case at Harwood Union High School and issues of behavior and discipline.
In an incident on Feb.1 involved a student being assaulted in a bathroom. Since then, student-led discussion groups that had been planned earlier this school year were launched with student safety as their focus. Feedback from those sessions is part of the ongoing process to evaluate and improve school safety.
Board member Lisa Mason of Moretown asked Nease to explain steps in progress and what might be needed next “so every student is feeling safe at school.”
Nease said an additional hall monitor has been hired and several staff members have been redirected to pay closer attention to bathrooms. The building entrance near the student parking lot now has a monitor particularly during lunchtime to keep track of students leaving and entering the building, she said.
Nease praised the process to involve students in addressing behavior issues as “students are already addressing culture and peer culture.”
Some concerns remain, she said, around students using cell phones and administrators are considering changes to phone policy without calling for banning phones at school.
Student representatives on the board spoke in favor of clearer consequences for those who break rules rather than more restrictive policies that affect the entire student body.
Nease acknowledged that the high school has “challenges around safety” noting that incidents of vandalism this year, for example, have been particularly challenging. She said other issues such as vaping and behavior are “not unusual behaviors that other high schools are not also grappling with.”
Nease said the majority of students are “exceptional, bright, vocal, clear and doing what they should be doing and they are proud to be black and gold…. We can’t let those challenges cloud over the wonderful student body that shows up every day. And that does not constitute an unsafe school in my mind,” she said.
Student board member Maisie Franke emphasized the value in the student-led discussions that took place recently.
“The conversations were student-driven at their core and that's what made them so powerful,” she said. “At the root purpose of the dialogue was authentic partnership and that is the goal we are continuing to strive for as we reflect on this experience … partnership between students, staff, administrators and members of the community to communicate clearly effectively on the needs of students and how we can improve our school culture and climate.”
Central Vermont Career Center appointment
The school board unanimously approved appointing board member Jonathan Young from Warren as its representative to the newly created Central Vermont Career Center School Board. Voters in 18 communities in the region in the March election approved creating a new independent school district to run the vocational and technology school in Barre that serves six school districts including Harwood. Its board will be comprised of representatives from its member districts' school boards and four members elected at large.
Young, who works as a carpenter, said he is familiar with the trades and looks forward to being involved with the career center. The new board has its first meeting to organize at 6 p.m. on May 9 at Spaulding High School in Barre.
Multiple building improvements approved
The board’s consent agenda was lengthy with a number of expenditures for school building improvements totaling just over $425,000 from the district’s Maintenance Reserve Fund. The approved list was:
$189,476 to Robert Lord Company for new gym bleachers at the high school.
$139,800 for new flooring from Future Floors to be installed this summer in a number of school buildings including the high school, Crossett Brook, Moretown and Warren schools.
$37,700 for asbestos abatement by Mansfield Environmental related to flooring replacement at Moretown, Warren and Harwood.
$30,080 for new flooring from New England Floor to be installed this summer at Brookside and Fayston schools.
$15,000 to Tri-State Folding Partitions for classroom partitions to be used at Harwood Middle School and another $13,750 to LaJuenese Interiors for partitions for Crossett Brook classroom partitions.
Trips approved for Six Flags, Rwanda, France
For the first time in several years, the school board reviewed and approved requests for school trips which had been curtailed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The earliest trip is for eighth graders at Crossett Brook Middle School to travel to Six Flags New England in Agawam, Massachusetts, on June 13 for the day. The school’s graduating students typically take a day trip to an amusement park at the end of the school year but classes in 2020 and 2021 did not. The Crossett Brook PTO will cover the cost of the trip which is estimated at just under $10,000.
The board also approved initial applications to resume two trips abroad for the 2022-23 school year, both of which will need final review to proceed. Both would be open to 10th through 12th graders.
A three-week trip to Rwanda is planned over February break and an additional eight school days for approximately 20 students and three chaperones. Teacher Steve Rand who has led numerous school trips to Rwanda said the group would partner with Stowe High School next year.
A trip to France over April break and an additional three school days is being planned for 18 students and three chaperones. French teacher Marcus Grace noted that it is being planned along with a group from U-32 High School.
The international trips estimate individual costs between $3,000-$4,000. The green light for the trips abroad allows for planning and fundraising to move ahead in the coming months.
Flag, vacancy and communications policies
The board spent time discussing several policies but did not vote to make any changes to them yet. It reviewed the district’s new flag policy adopted in February to consider the procedures it will outline for people to request flying a flag different from the U.S. or Vermont state flag at schools. The board in March received its first request to fly the Ukrainian flag at Moretown Elementary School. The request was from a preschooler submitted by a parent and the board did not approve it saying it needed additional information. That discussion also concluded that steps for making a request needed further clarification. The board Wednesday discussed some of those points and revisions were proposed to be reviewed at the board’s next meeting.
The board also reviewed several proposed updates to its policy on filling vacancies including recording when a board member resigns. It also took up its communications policy that addresses how it communicates with the school administration and the public.
The policies and revised edits will be on an upcoming meeting agenda for approval.
Copies of background materials including the superintendent’s report, policy documents, the district’s three-year maintenance plan, field trip applications, etc. are contained in the packet for the April 13 board meeting that is online at HUUSD.org under the Board heading. Also in that spot are links to meeting videos on YouTube and Mad River TV.