In October, School Boards in FWSU will debut a new format called a “carousel” meeting. This collaborative meeting model is used throughout Supervisory Unions in Vermont to bring local school boards together. In FWSU, local boards will hold carousel meetings twice per year in October and April to jointly discuss matters pertaining to all our students. The location of the Carousel meetings will rotate by school starting with BFA Fairfax.
The first hour of the initial meeting will focus on the work of our schools to develop Proficiency-Based Graduation Requirements (PBGR’s). PBGR’s are the locally delineated set of content knowledge and skills connected to state Common Core State Standards. Our Vermont Education Quality Standards (EQS) require that schools’ graduation requirements be rooted in the demonstration of student proficiency as opposed to time spent in classrooms. Teachers and administrators have been working to adopt this change for over a year. Director of Curriculum Linda Keating will update all of our boards and communities, in a common time and place, to show how we are meeting this state requirement.
After the main presentation, school boards will break-out into their groups for the second half of the meeting to conduct regular board business. Having all boards in a single location will allow administrators to rotate among the three boards and efficiently engage in important dialogue on important issues such as the upcoming school budget season and more.
Meetings will be widely publicized in all towns to support community engagement. As always, Carousel meetings must comply with State law which requires board business to be conducted in accordance with Vermont Open Meeting Law and Robert’s Rules of Order for Small Boards.
The first Carousel School Board Meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 4 from 6-8pm at BFA Fairfax (in the HS Multipurpose Room). Both Georgia and Fairfax sessions will be taped and televised by LCATV for broadcast into our communities as usual. We encourage the public to join us for this important community discussion! A second Carousel Board meeting is slated for April 4, 2017 in Georgia.
The FWSU Story 