School Board Committees

School Board Committees are useful when a specific issue or project requires more time than what can be accomplished during regular school board meetings. Committees can also leverage individual board member expertise in more depth.

Committees have no power to commit the board or the school district to any decision or course of action unless formally given such authority by the board. The full board is responsible for decisions, but rely on the knowledge and diligence of committee members for sound recommendations.

Committee meetings of the board are open to the public and minutes are kept as part of the official board record.

Currently, our board is represented on two standing (permanent) committees. Past committees are also listed. 

Standing Committees

OSSU Executive Committee

Current Representative: Patrick Flood
The role of the OSSU Executive Committee is to act on behalf of the full Supervisory Union Board in between Carousel meetings when the full OSSU Board convenes, generally four times a year. It also helps each school board remain informed of SU-wide issues, promotes information sharing,  and encourages collaboration across school districts.

Negotiations Committee

Current Representative: Kim Silk
The role of the Negotiations Committee is to oversee contract negotiations between the school board and all employee bargaining units -- professional staff and support staff. The Superintendent and Human Resources Director  assist in the coordination of this committee. A representative from each school board serves on this committee.

---

Past Committees

Act 46 Exploratory Committee

Data Working Group

Representative: Brett Stanciu, Suzy Graves (shared)
The role of the Act 46 Study Commitee was to help each school board and member town within OSSU understand Act 46 and what it means for students, families, and community since each town must ultimately decide how it wishes to meet Act 46’s requirements. View more on Act 46.

Voluntary Merger Committee

Representative: None 
The role of the Voluntary Merger Committee was to study a potential merger of school districts within Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union and make a recommendation based on that work. The committee carefully considered benefits of the merger for improving program options for students, increased school choice opportunities, cost containment, reducing tax rate volatility and improving the viability of the very small schools in the district. After three years of study and deliberation, the committee determined it was not advisable to form a Regional Education District (RED). The final report was delivered to the Executive Committee in July 2014 and the committee was dissolved.

Representative: Brett Stanciu
The role of the Data Working Group was to assist school boards in determining the degree to which each school district is making reasonable progress in achieving its desired student outcomes. The goal of the project was to develop a set of meaningful and robust progress monitoring indicators aligned to the Ends that could be reported on a regular basis.  Over a period of 18 months, the group met to build a common understanding of the Ends, outcomes, and indicators, review research,  develop resources and samples. and draft indicators. The OSSU curriculum council, comprised of teacher members from all schools, were invited to participate in the fall of 2014.

With the introduction of proficiency-based graduation requirements by the State of Vermont in the spring of 2015, it was collectively decided to place the data group on hold until the two projects could be aligned since they are closely related.