 All right, I think we are ready Starts meeting 631 Mopier Roxbury board of school directors start with important business first last update two to one Montpelier Just a few minutes left Hopefully we'll hear ecstatic cheering outside in just a matter Nice Also, we're noting our cross-country team came in two points Behind you 32 for second place in states and our girl soccer So public comment Let's start with anyone in the Room first if you want to come up My name is Lisa Burns. I have had students in the system since 2012 And I am here to urge all the school board members to vote no to track funding I feel There's been a lot of discussion about where the money comes from and and that sort of thing Any way you look at it? We have a large fund balance that can be spent It can be spent one time each dollar can only be spent once and I believe that spending two million dollars and Actually since the time you got your bid Building prices have gone up fourteen percent so we can just add another 300,000 so far Spending that kind of money at this point in time is absolutely tone death to What's happening in our country with regard to education and I think Our students deserve as much Funding and time and materials and effort That anyone else does to make up for this educational loss that happened because of COVID and no one I I assume that there's no one in this room who would deny that we have had horrible educational loss So we have this block of money and it can be spent once so anyone who says this isn't an either or decision You can have both either thinks they are speaking to a fool Or they are a fool themselves Or they just love that branding idea where you say what you want to be I want to be everything And then it doesn't matter so It would be my hope that this money could be spent To help with what we've already very successfully done with Three million or yeah, three million dollars worth of Essar funds. We have used them effectively But they are obviously not even close to enough for what we need to do Miss Bones steel is going to give us a talk about What we've done with it kitchens little gyms Interventionists But it's not even close to enough For what our kids deserve and need Given a choice of a track for two million dollars or two million dollars To fund education. I would ask you to do the right thing That's it. I'm Jacob. Not only I'm a kid at Main Street Middle School and I think the track is really important for The middle schoolers and the high schoolers that compete on it and I think that Overall, it's less maintenance for the people Cuz like last year When I did track and field it took like an entire practice and a half to do it and We didn't really get to practice before the meet and And Also, I think that it prevents injury because last year there was a lot of skin knees and like rocks and knees and it was kind of horrible, but I Think we can fix that Also, I think it's important because Track and field would be more fun and Track cost less money and like you can like You can choose what you want to do and I think not a lot of sports do that except for like these and Also, it's it's I guess like the coaches weren't really hard to keep us like in shape and If you've seen any other track from a school, you would know that ours is nothing compared to any other track And I think we just need to realize that So I'm Catherine Nunnally. I'm Jacob's mom and I've been in education for Over 20 years as a teacher and of course a parent and now as a staff person here And I just want to reiterate what Jacob said and he came up with that pretty much all by himself That what we need now is more than anything is community building and track is one way that that can definitely be done and just from his you know mental health and physical health From all the things that we've lost with COVID track and field and cross-country have been a great way to Improve all of that and I just also want to reiterate that the coaches are excellent and I think our facility should Equal that excellence and it is a sport that Over 20% of the middle school participates in it's a very inclusive sport And I would like for the school board to support the new track. Thank you Hey folks, Jim Mike and Barry You've seen me before, you know, I support the track just gonna hit some highlights real quick then make time because I Appreciate you all making the time after a long workday I was over 200 miles of driving today and most of the Northwest part of the state. So we'll keep a move in here So just reiterating what Jacob said and really here in support of my son Simon and his classmates and I Want to just talk about what I think track actually means and why the infrastructure makes sense the current track has been neglected for You know decades and that's not in keeping with how we maintain our school district I think the report from Andrew last school meeting was really clear that we are proactive We are thoughtful about infrastructure We maintain what we have and we try to make it better and that hasn't happened on the track facilities The the love and care that the athletic fields get is not what the track has received Parents myself included have spent untold hours picking grass out of a high jump and long jump trying to straighten Bars and make lanes not be wet or icy Painting lines, you know for the each track meet measuring that untold hours of Volunteer time because we love our kids and we love the sport We love what it gives them for their mental health and their physical health and their emotional well-being and their community building and I don't think other folks are mowing the lawns as parents are setting up all the goalposts as parents and breaking down afterwards It's you know We've given a lot and we'd like to see some of our tax resources go towards improving the facility so that it is safe and That it is Excellent, and you know just something that can be used. I think it's an inclusive sport I also think that it's not going to just benefit a few I believe that not only will the track team use it across country team I think you're gonna find other teams using it once it's a better safer facility Gym classes, it's not unusual to take a lap around the track stretch then do something So a community members I mean even the current dirt track after we have a meet people show up and start walking around it Which I find shocking because it's it's not a great facility at this point So we're gonna find so many people that are in the school district our community members engage with this safe facility So I think it will be many people benefiting not a few Big picture, I think that the track becomes a catalyst for the behavior that we want to see in our schools and in our community It supports anti-bullying behavior. It supports inclusive behavior. It supports Really just welcoming anyone based, you know regardless of their gender Neurodiversity ability level Track is just a big warm inclusive hug of a sport and that's rare And I'll say again what I shared a quote from somebody the other day Where else will you see an eighth grader cheering on a fifth grader? And that carries on in high school and it's not just folks who can run It's people who want to jump people who want to throw people who just want to be with their friends in a safe location After school doing things that we as parents and community members would be happy them doing instead of other things that they could be doing So it's not just an infrastructure investment. It's a community investment It's a social infrastructure investment that's going to lead to positive things that we want that have Benefits that are beyond just what they're going to get from an educational standpoint but teaching them to be better people better citizens and It's rare when you could make an infrastructure change and have that kind of positive change And I think this is one of those situations And I strongly urge all board members to please vote to take the $400,000 currently available unallocated funds and set them aside to make the track project happen We're most of the way there. Let's get all the way there. Let's make it happen. Thank you Boys one Say can I get a sense of how many people we have both in the room and on the Zoom who want to speak I One two three And how many people could you do one? Is there anyone who can is there anyone else who wants to speak besides? Sorry, my eyes are not as good as used to be Giovanna Okay, more people are coming I if you Could try to limit your comments to one minute just so we can be respectful of time be concise that would be appreciated So continue with the room Good evening school board. My name is Nathan Souter. I am a parent. I am a resident of town Both of my students participated in track and field in middle school And I'm also the head coach of the middle school track and field team This past spring. We had 79 student athletes participating on the track team That's 20% of the entire Enrollment at the middle school, which I'm super proud about I contact the principal of the middle school and other You know school social worker and guidance counselor Every year before the season starts asking them to send students to the track team because it's a great inclusive environment and I think that we get some students that way. We certainly get new faces every year That's one of the things I love about the sport Jim mentioned the positive culture eighth graders cheering on fifth graders and then to Lisa's comment about sort of community and Learning loss my understanding is that one of the greatest deficits and one of the things we most need In the community and in the student body is connection and community and rebuilding those ties that some we weakened During covid by being remote and being away from each other A track and field is multi-gender. It is multi-age As jacob said eloquently you can choose different activities So you can throw something heavy. You can run fast. You can jump high Again super inclusive A couple years ago we because we borrow equipment for our track meets, you know, we borrow 60 hurdles from Spalding high school, which we bring on a trailer. We borrow high jump mats and high jump standards from northfield Which we bring on a trailer We were out of meat and one of the other coaches came up and said I can't let my athletes do the high jump because you don't have a cover over the pits And if they fall through the crack between the two high jump pits, they could be injured and I can't let them do that I hadn't thought this through We I called a parent they ran to ace hardware to aubishon hardware bought a gigantic blue tarp Brought it to the track meet. We covered the pits made it safer and continued with the track meet I was fine to respond to that we're good with duct tape and chewing gum But it would be wonderful to move beyond duct tape and chewing gum And into a modern facility that we can all be proud of for the next 20 years In terms of the idea of opportunity cost, which of course any money spent by the school district is an opportunity cost My understanding is that the administration has been extraordinarily proactive about finding Where to use funds whether they be esser funds or regular taxpayer dollars To meet the needs of students With learning differences or students that I call the sort of the middle who who don't qualify for an IEP or 504 But still need extra services My understanding is that we are advancing in those initiatives as well, which I I would agree those that's the highest priority Um, this to me is different. It's not an annual ongoing operating cost This is a one-time capital improvement Just like getting air conditioners are just like preparing a roof And I would Humbly submit that it's probably past time for the track to be updated given the condition that it's in Uh, I I also understand the wish to continue to do public engagement and get input on this project I hope that we can as a school board and as a district Get to yes on this project and then move on. I know that you have a Annual budget to consider and other significant projects to consider. So I think there's some value to Just Moving on. Yeah, yeah, okay more than a minute. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your work We actually had a timer and I could just set like 90 seconds on my phone and when it goes off You're done. Okay. Okay. Good I'll do that Next please Hi, I'm ezra. I'm one of the uh, I think captains for a cross-country and track and field I've been doing it. Um since middle school since sixth grade Uh, and I've really enjoyed Nathan's track program. Um in seventh grade We got we went to the u32s track. Um, and I was kind of like the first I think Like big school wide sports because I think girls at the time didn't really have a lot of sports. You know, there was baseball and Not a whole lot of inclusion there But track was really like bringing people together school. Um, and again using u32s track is great, but Why can't we have one here? We're not really really capital. It kind of seems like we should have this facility Um, and yeah, I just wanted to say that Thanks Hey, I'll be quick, uh, tim duggin. I'm a parent My son's on the middle school track team cross-country and is very fortunate to work with Nathan and the other folks in that program uh, I just sort of learned about that this was a project that was advancing quickly and I share some of the concerns that um, my friend Lisa mentioned earlier, but what I guess I'm most concerned about is not Seeing a process. Um, that sort of really kind of took a hard look at different options. I um I think the the board and the administration generally does a really good job of being proactive and thoughtful But if there is a two million dollar Pot of money that's unrestricted that could be used for transformational purpose I think it would behoove everyone to just take a quick look at You know a couple of core areas like learning loss like special education needs And other sort of areas that don't have as ready and Sort of uh interest group to advance it but there's a lot of core infrastructure Needs, I think that could be advanced and so I just urged the board to take a really a brief minute to consider those things And have a thumbnail sketch maybe of what does two million buy me in these different areas And present it and then have a vote. I really I spent way too much time trying to figure this out over the past couple weeks Once I learned it was moving so quick And um, so I think it would be a good process. I think you could all be proud of the result But mostly I just want to thank you for your time. Thank you for your work and Appreciate the opportunity to comment Hi, um, my name is Avery. I'm the team captain for the Montpelier boys cross-country team and track team Um, I only started running as a freshman with the team, but I think it's changed me a ton as an individual I think it's changed the path of my life. I'm actually Going to be running in college and that really helped with like admission. Um, so that kind of is a long-term effect of running I found a group of boys who are Super super awesome and uh, they hold me to be a better person every day And I think we hold each other they um a lot of Montpelier boys and even u32 boys And it's part of the beauty of running One because we don't have as good of a track We actually the Montpelier boys went up to u32 and did a workout with them yesterday um on their track because they have one and I think that we're the state capital we could host the state meet we could bring more People here and I think that it'd be a really great opportunity to improve the school and again It's a one-time kind of infrastructure um, and it seems like a really great opportunity to improve just athletics and increased turnout of kids Just so we so the person taking minutes can get it. I know who you are, but you might be very smart. Yeah, there you go Hey guys, my name is no Rivera and unlike Avery and Ezra back there This is my first year at Montpelier high school I actually transferred here from harwood last year and this is a wonderful school But one of the big things that made me transfer was the friendships I built with these guys And I built that over the track season every meet I would go to I would see the Montpelier team And they had such a great energy and they always made me smile and included me like I was one of them and it was great Um, and you just really don't see that anywhere but track. I mean look at this We have the entire u32 team. We're supposed to be our rivals. They're here to support the track from Montpelier And I think that just speaks volumes about the community of the track team And the importance to all of us on the track team so I just it would be really meaningful to Have the appreciation and to be able to have the track And I think that could bring a lot of new people into this wonderful community and I think that would be a great thing Thank you Uh others great. Thank you everyone and um on zoom I know Giovanna wanted to speak Uh, please go ahead We can't hear you can't hear but she's not muted. It doesn't look like you're muted, but it might be something audio on your end Or it could be our rn2. Oh, do we have the sound on? Apologies give us a second. Give us a minute. Giovanna. Sorry about this apologies. Sorry about the Technical difficulties Giovanna, you're not using headphones. Are you? Do you have headphones in? Okay We could test and have the next person on you just to see if their volume is working to make sure that it's on her Heather's Heather's on and she says it's definitely our end because she Heather can hear her just fine Can we get it through a computer it'd have to be his computer Yeah I'm already on it. It's a good suggestion. It's through there to what? Yeah One of them should be able to figure it out I can hear you now. Yes Anacent Um, I think I'm representing a lot of unfamiliar residents who are not here tonight When we're seeing this on our forum a lot of things aren't And a lot of confused it about what the problems are involved I think everyone wants to track But we don't think that process is being supported Uh in expense of this magnitude To go to the entire community We have public vote in march. This will increase our tax rate And uh, I'll just end by spending if it requires a public vote and a lot more community understanding So you don't get a terrible back leg Everyone wants to support our kids and We just want to shoot a video Thank you. Thanks for sticking with us through the technical. Yes apologies for that Um, do we have anyone else on zoom who Wants to speak is there anyone with a hand up? No All right. Well, um Thank you everyone. We appreciate the public comment. Uh, as always um Next order of business is consent agenda I just have a quick question about the agenda. Yes, that's okay I also just want I feel like sometimes when we have a lot of public at a meeting Just nice to like really honor the fact that you all came to speak to us So I don't know what your schedules are like tonight And if you have to leave but I just want to give a heartfelt thank you to everybody who came to speak because Our work as a board Is greatly improved by community input. So, um It's been really helpful for me to hear from the community On on both sides on this topic And I'm wondering if you know We might be able to move the discussion on the agenda up a little bit. I know we have A presentation and committee report But it does seem like there's People that might want to stay for this and it feels Uncomfortable for me to make them wait that long for that part of the discussion Can I just disagree with that because I think it will be really helpful for me to look at this data presentation as back data To inform the way that I'm thinking about the track decision So because I think it's the big picture One of the pieces of the big picture that I'm asking so To move that conversation It feels to me like it's going to miss a piece of info that I need Others have thoughts I'm fine. I think that people need that presentation to make their decision then We should keep it the way Other strong feelings. Let's go the agenda as proposed and again Thank you everyone. I definitely appreciate it. And if you can stick with us, please do And if not, we totally understand. Also, you know, we are on zoom if you Yeah, do you have more seats? Yeah, they go here. They can figure it out Yeah Yeah, and also I think we're while we're not done with those chairs Um, there are a few chairs here and there's a few benches. So if you guys want to I'm your teenager so you can sit on the floor too It doesn't doesn't break you like it does this overfucks And and it is on the agenda for 73. So that's a half an hour from now. Maybe that's that's looking a little aspirational And I do want to just also get quick. We have several policy readings If we are feeling that we are running on fumes at that point I think some or all of those could be pushed to it So consent agenda do I have a motion to approve a consent agenda? Do I have a second second any discussion? I just wanted to This wasn't exactly in your superintendent report liby, but I thought I take advantage of the fact that we have a bigger Audience than we normally do and put in a plug for our district blog and podcast Um, especially the most recent episode with Jess Marie and adriana and kale two of our students Um, the topic is restorative practices in our schools and I will say adriana and kale We're honest In a way that only kids can be and it was an incredibly informative Listen for me. So I just wanted to encourage everybody who's listening to subscribe to the in the schools podcast And definitely listen to episode the most recent episode number 13. I think that's Excellent. Thank you now. And um, that's a great plug because there's a lot of really good information And blog new vlog the next post is coming out soon and I am out in roxbury and danie blesses Yes, of course So you there's definitely a lot to be learned on those Um All is in favor Any opposed Great. Thank you. So we are only 15 hours behind schedule now. Um Paul academic data Amanda, I'm gonna add I know you're on the zoom Can you I just shared the presentation with you every time the only time I share my screen is during a school board meeting And I forget that I have to fix the zoom something's wrong with my computer and zoom and sharing the screen But I just shared it with you. Can you pull it up? I'm sorry I need to um Yeah, Heather if you could share your screen too Or Heather one of the two Thank you. I'm sorry Go over to um slideshow Upper right upper right Yeah, I will okay, so, uh, this is uh from our fall data snapshot mike berry apologizes for not being here today It is his anniversary and so he was Told he had to do that instead Which is understandable. So I am going to step in for mike today um So getting into our academic data, we also have peggy su and jess here who are going to talk about sel and special education data Um academics is up first. He's got some nice color coding mike created these slides for us tonight Just a reminder to the board that when we're talking about academic data, we're talking about four areas of data There's state and national data The state data was up until this school year s back And the new science or the the science exam the state has decided to Go away from s back. So we have something new I cannot answer any questions about it because I've not been getting any information about it except that it's called Cognia and we will be doing it in the spring So that is all I know about it The national data is of course the nape That will still be in place the benchmark screening data is another form that we do we actually do this K through 12 For our screening data and and it's important to keep in mind what screeners do screeners are not necessarily What we want our teachers using to pinpoint instructional moves because that's not the purpose of them It's too broad our screener is done on a computer So it is a computer test. So just thinking about that passages are short They're they're more basic in the level of rigor that's being asked. It is tied to the common core but They're a different type of mentor assessment than our diagnostics, which are next so Diagnostic data does give us information about what we can do with our readers and mathematicians Um immediately like the next day So And oftentimes when the screening data comes in and it shows a kid is scoring lower on the screener Then we'd often go into more robust diagnostics To get more of a sense of what exactly the kid the kiddo needs for skills and strategy work And then we have our local data. That's teacher created. They're created usually in professional learning committees And communities sorry with teacher teams around unit assessments formative assessments That is that is a subjective create created or teacher created measure So just thinking about these forms of data is important when we're talking about data so you can go ahead amanda Sorry interrupting your note taken up there Yeah, click it click it all the way through so When we're thinking about data we collect it From these multiple measures I know that's really small mic has a has a thing for very small text on a screen I'm sorry. I apologize for that then we analyze it both at the district level. We analyze it at the administrative level We analyze it at the teacher level We respond to what it's saying and then we monitor the what's happening And this presentation will of course be part of the board packet So um, so I won't read you all those all those pieces in there and the board has a copy of it But it explains in each of those areas what that looks like in each school So you can keep going amanda So for our state and national data, he's continuing this color coding here as back in terms of We are going to show you some aspect school wide data, but it's technically still embargoed Families will be receiving if they haven't already their individual child's report that we can send out But technically the scores are embargoed for any kind of Disaggregating the data or anything like that But we do have because they're available on the individual child report how the school did Like we thought if that's on the individual child report report, then that must not be embargoed information anymore So we will be showing you that tonight The benchmark screening data is from our renaissance star results You can see from the district wide level the results from the fall scores there the Green is at or above benchmark The blue there is On watch that's that is renaissance star language not mrps language Necessarily the yellow They would be saying is a need of intervention in the in the urgent intervention is the red We have a different definition perhaps of what that means than renaissance star But it's important to note that that's their language And then our diagnostic data you can just see a sample of what's in our data dashboard here for students It's what it looks like at a at the teacher level And at the administration level so we'll look at these scores and see where kids are In our data days and teachers and plcs are looking at all the time and then our local data So we have you know, for instance, this is just a sample from math skills It informs both at the individual student level and the whole class level And in this particular example it was from eighth grade We're able to easily see that the skills of multiplying mixed numbers dividing decimals prime factorizations Multiplying divide by integers. We're all areas of need for the classes Informing our first instruction or instructional strategies Um, so that's just a snapshot of what we're looking at I just have a clarifying question in the yellow rectangle. Is that one student or is that a class? That's a class that's a class a snippet of a class Also in the blue is a class Or one student. No, that's not one student. So each of the rows would be a different student Oh, okay, and that's that's just a snippet. It's just a screenshot of it. It's not a whole entire class But yeah, right. That's a snippet. We just wanted to show you like what it looks like from our end Um, when we're looking at the data. Yeah, that's helpful. So if we move on Um, this is some of our s back information at the elementary school So we have both ues and rvs our s back. They take it at start taking the s back at grade three This is for last year's score reports It's hard to look now at trends from s back because of the pandemic It wasn't it wasn't taken one year Last year was very optional and we had many students who opted out of it last or two years ago. Sorry And uh, this past year students did take it. These are how our scores were slightly above the state average For both of our schools with the exception of fourth grade math and at rvs, which is slightly below it Can you just say a little more about what that number means? It's a scaled score. So um, of course you You'd ask me that it's it's a range. So When we're looking at and you'll see when you get your kiddos individual score When you get my score so, um They're the range of a one is this this range of scaled scores And then there's a scaled scores of two and then there's a range of three like and so students score within those ranges And you'll be able to see like are they a high three or they just barely make it into that three proficiency Um, so it's it's basically how they score it in a very highfalutin mental like scoring mentality, which is really hard to Pinpoint and explain away because it the scale score doesn't stay the same each year It depends on the kids taking the tests and what it it's a it's a very detailed Number for how the state gets that the state assigns that we don't and the most important thing here is where are we Compared to the rest of the state. Is that the way to think about this? How are we doing? The state so it's the state average. So you if you'd like to compare it to the state average you can Um, this is this is saying that we are proficient essentially In these if you looked at the scaled scores, this is what's embargoed still you would see that You know union elementary school for grade three. ELA is proficient has this many kids proficient That's what we can't show you the percentage the actual percentage Does that make sense? It's it's it's the state more than us right now at this part Do we have access to the national Scale score like could we compare ourselves against the national average? Not everybody takes the SBAC not every state, right? Yeah, so there's a consortium And I can't remember how many states actually use the SBAC Um So I imagine we would be able to find that number somewhere like it's got to be out there, right? I would imagine to have that number in here as just a point of reference It is not something that the state gives us we'd have to go search for it. Go and research it. Yep. Yeah But uh, and I think it I'll ask the questions at the end You okay? Yeah, I guess my question is around Like can we compare ourselves like how our girls versus boys doing how that's what's embargoed right now? Yes, okay, we can do it internally, but they haven't told us we can do it publicly yet. Okay Um, amanda if you want to keep going So this is our Sorry, I just slipped my own slide This is our msms information um Less bars of course because we have only one school there So it's just msms compared to the rest of the state We're above the state average in each area Again, I'd love to be able to show you the what the actual proficiency level is and the amount of the percent of kids Who are proficient that's what's embargoed so it's Generalized knowledge, I guess And then here's mhs. They take it in ninth grade ELA and math so pretty much across the board. We scored very similarly Just slightly above the state average In ELA and math This is the renaissance star reading. I think some other for for keep going so When you're looking at this Um, you can see the first bar there. Well, maybe you can't because it's so small The first bar is main street middle school So according to our our screener data So keeping in mind this is the screener data not diagnostic data So this isn't data that the teacher is going to use the next day But this is an overall looking at programmatic And and giving us some idea of who we really need to target immediately um So main street middle school in reading Scored seven in the fall, which was early october for when they took it scored 72 at or above proficiency at Montpelier high school That number is 60 something on my screen. Sorry 62 62 percent at roxbury village school 40 percent and at union elementary school is 68 percent We're at or above benchmark on the on the screener data It's just really important to to keep in mind what assessment we're looking at and what that does for us what it tells us It's this is really broad generalized information is what a screener tells us um the star math in the next slide Uh similar results there main street middle school was 64 Montpelier high school was 64 rock spray village school was 48 and union elementary school was 71 almost 72 at above at above benchmark on the screener in math The fontis and penel um is the diagnostic measure for um our little guys So you see right now first grade because our kindergartners don't actually take the fontis and penel in the fall Um It's with actual text. So the child is reading a text to their teacher and answering comprehension questions about it That and so it's more diagnostic a teacher could use the information immediately with it with a child um So fontis and penel is the company that we use or the the diagnostic that we use And um at union elementary school 79 percent um our proficient are higher in the diagnostic So this gives us much more information about what kids are actually doing as readers And at rocksbury village school 57 percent were proficient or higher on the fontis and penel So and remember we're just talking in the fall first graders through through fourth graders Not kindergartners or certainly pre-case You can Also use the curriculum for fontis and penel No, we don't have Joseph that we use the we have the they have what's called the leveled the lli kits leveled learning Totally blanking on thank you level leveled literacy intervention. Thank you. Thank you sue We do have those pieces. We use it as a resource for kids who are in need of who are kind of tangled in reading We do not use it cover to cover like following every direction in it because we are of the belief that we need to know the kid's targeted skill That the child needs and then match the resource to that skill rather than saying you're going to do this whole program Regardless of what skills you need. So we have a little different mentality than what the program does But we do have that that resource for our teachers The conversation around Some of the racism that are embedded into some of those curriculums. So just to note around our curriculum and racial justice pieces of it In tier three, so if you keep going amanda So the board will remember that we are true focus within our four pillars is the timely systems for remediate Um intervene and enrich and so we've had our first cycle go through so this year We've really changed it up on our interventionists And we've asked them to do very short intentional targeted cycles. This was the first time they've done it They've never done it this way And we're basically like let's see what happens, right? So we had our first cycle and we had a lot of successes and we're having a lot of Places where we've got learning that we were pulling in and feedback from kids results for kids So some of our successes is that we have our universal skills named k through 12 So when a child is in need of remediation means they're pretty tangled That's a universal skill we're talking about. So it's uh, it's almost like a catch-up skill for lack of a better term Usually around two grade levels behind what Um, it typically where it typically is taught. So those universal skills are what we remediate in The first cycle or tier three, um at union we had 56 students who qualified for that rbs had 14 msms had 25 and mhs had 27 All those the first cycle was completed and we have data about what happened during that cycle Um, we're using new data tools to do our actively tracking targeted skills The goals and the progress for each student What's really cool is our kindergarten interventionist Rachel is like jumping like to the moon because She's she used to be a kindergarten teacher a very good one And she's like we've got all our kindergartners another knowing their upper and lowercase letters now like that's never happened We we could never make that statement in in october And it's through her work in the tier three. So it's super excited that we can say those kind of things now We are tracking attendance information for students and as with the intervention, you know, and not surprisingly kids who are showing up at Less time for when they're in need of tier three don't have the same success as kids were there every day so us for instance added almost a 90 percent attendance rate for kids who Who were in this first cycle of tier three? Instruction and they had a lot of success in this tier But that's connected to our learnings Well, the other thing we're learning is that each of our different school buildings have different systems and structures and personnel, right? And so because of the structure here at mhs for instance, we're a student who Went through this first cycle of remediation at ues got 15 sessions with an expert At mhs because of the schedule alone. They got five sessions So it's it's a schedule thing that and then if a child was absent for one of those five sessions, right? Like it multiplies much in a much career way. So that's one of our learnings. Like how do we figure that out? So we're really digging into that level of detail right now I know jason was here or is here. There he is We're having lots of conversations about what could that look like So that kids who need this type of support were not hindered by a schedule like that shouldn't happen, right? So It was really interesting data for us to look at We're continuing to work on making very targeted goals. So I was state. I took a brief glance over Well, this screen right here, which is great But I'm gonna just pull it up and and some of the goals that were written are really targeted and intentional And we want that because each little small wind is going to build that kids confidence And that they can do the next one and the next one in the next one Domino effect, right and some of our goals just aren't targeted enough yet So for instance use illustrations to figure out the meaning of text. That's not targeted enough And it's not going to move a reader forward who's tangled in reading So we've learned that we still need some more work on on forming those targeted goals So the this here are examples of goals that have been set with kids Yep, and so this is an example just a screenshot of a set of how we're collecting data Um, and so you can see what the goal statement was you can see how goal one compared different forms of an expression um, so it's a math goal From us and so that child After, you know, the first kind of formative assessment was at level two proficient at the next formative assessment for that same goal They were proficient so they no longer they've mastered that goal, right? Um, and you can see You know looking at this entire Spreadsheet you can see some pretty big growth with kids So it's cool that we have this Amanda because I know what your question is going to be Um, we our systems because they're new systems with vcat and power school. They're not talking to each other yet We're in process with The guy who makes vcat And so if we right now we have to go in and hand key all demographic Gender all that we'd have to hand key it for every single student And we just simply don't have the time to prioritize that right now We can get the systems. We're working on getting the systems talking So what I said to mike was the next time we present This kind of information to the board will be able to disaggregate it, right? And he said sure we will So that's why you don't have disaggregated information right now and it's another learning We have to get that up and going right hold on one second amanda um So doing this type of work is still um a learning process for our educators And for our system. So we're we're still in this process of Of making sure that we're doing the right work with kids who are really tangled up And I think we've made a lot of inroads already This year Let me think other learnings that we've had. Oh the other thing we've really learned is that students who come in who are new to our district We have to figure out a different an onboarding process for them where we get assessment information right away for students We had a significant increase in students at ues in particular Who were coming in with a different level of knowledge than what our typical second grader has And so we have to figure that out when we get a new child What's that look like for the child in terms of not only building relationships with our classmates and their teachers and all that kind of Of stuff, which is super important and also getting a very specific picture of their learning needs right away Um, so that's something that we've learned this year or we're paying attention to this year Okay, so amanda if you could go to the longitudinal dat screener data, but let it that one. Yeah So this is a kind of cool screen I took a snapshot the link there with literacy is all of the grades. This is Um, essentially the same cohort of kids for the screener data Okay, so we're in the larger broader generalized screener data So this is grade four right here. All of our grade fours. It's grade four at ues and rbs. It's not split up by school um, so in 2019 20 when this group first took the screener They they were at a 66 percent Um proficiency level as first graders You can follow this same cohort of kids up to grade four in literacy And at grade four the they just took this assessment this fall. They're at 71 percent in the screener data um, now keep in mind like in 2019 2020 what year we were in there that was the year of potting Yes potting. No, that's when the It's the end of the year. Yeah 2020 March 20. Oh, yes. That was the year. So we was 21 So we had a really low like they we had 56 kids In that cohort and then and now we have 82 kids in that cohort, right? So there's a significant change in the number of students who took this assessment So it's not technically the exact same kids But it is the cohort of kids following them across so When the national media is talking about learning loss, this is one way we contract Do we have that similar trend here, right? And and so in eighth grade you can see similar results and a similar number of kids We went from 75 kids who took it in 1920 to 81 kids who just took it this past fall And we were at 72 percent were proficient in 2019 20 and we moved to We're at 69 percent, which is statistically Valid within 5 percent, right? And so So our children according to our screener data broad generalized Measures are not showing significant learning loss Here in our literacy data and again, I put this is the same for for all of our grades We'll get the same results. There's one little snippet in one of the grades I can't remember which one it is But that link the literacy where it's linked there. You can see the cohorts in every grade I just gave a screenshot here. Keep going amanda Similar screen in math. So again, I showed the fourth and eighth grade It's interesting 66 kids took it in math in 1920. I'm not sure why less kids took it in reading But you'll see a similar result here in math 88 percent of those 66 kids were proficient in 2019 20 74 percent were proficient in 22 23 a slight decrease not a huge one and a significantly more students took the assessment This past fall and then for eighth grade It was similar results. We had 67 percent were proficient in 1920 and 67 percent were proficient in 22 23 So when we're thinking about longitude and aletta through the pandemic These are the types of things we can look at because s back was interrupted Diagnostics were interrupted but the screeners stayed put So this is a this is one common measurement we can look at In our particular data Which is kind of cool, right Any questions about the academics before we put Jess on the stage I had these two can attest that I had that conversation. I said we're going to be able to do that next time, right? Yeah, sure So this is a lot of data. I mean, I remember last year we were looking at s back scores and and and we were all kind of like Or at least even you we were just like we we're getting it. We're getting it and here it is so We're getting closer. It's not quite here yet, but it we're well, right, right. We're not there because this is this is a learning process um I imagine teachers are in the learning curve process and there's a lot of excitement how Do you think that there are um There's a difference between being excited about the data and really knowing what to do with it. I guess And so that is a second process So how Where how do you see that product like last year sort of getting data this year continuing to get data Learning to read it, but the conversation about what to do with it essentially because you're talking about This child needs these three things out of 50 Maybe things that they should be at And sort of how how is how is the process of getting The team on board with sort of figuring out how to zero in and and You're saying that there's not time in the high school No, there is time But it's harder to find the time in the high school because of schedules which makes sense because older kids have More things going on. It still really means. I mean, I know at at rbs There's wind block And that is a new thing that allows Kids to be sort of grouped in a lot of different ways and there are certain kids that are getting really really great opportunities there and some kids that don't need that high level of of sort of Really specific instruction are actually going and helping younger kids and they're reading to kids and they're doing Other kind of wonderful things too Um, so I guess It's what what I need So it's a it's basically an intervention block that everyone it was a non-negotiable every one of our schools have Something like that rbs calls it wind Uh, msms calls it the sst. I'm not sure. I think ues might call it wind too We call it soul and black here at at the high school What is it all all time So how's the learning curve with the using the data I guess how does that seem and and sort of A couple of levels and it's really fascinating right so So I was talking to katie about this just yesterday And I said well what if you were going to write this slide that tier three slide for the board What would you put in it in terms of successes and learnings right? And one of the things that she said to me was We have more to do work to do on another pillar That I didn't expect so another pillar we have is collective responsibility and collective collective Or collaborative responsibility and collective efficacy And one of the things that we're learning is our ues interventions in particular are very good at targeting intentional skills They they actually could lead this work for the rest of the district. They're they're very good at that for the most part And one of the things that's happening is that Because we've switched how we're providing remedial services and being more intentional about it No longer is a teacher able to say hey, can you just come read with johnny for a little bit? Which we had no evidence was working and that was what was happening in the past And so um, there's a little bit of a rub right now going on between General generalized teachers in the classroom and interventionists in terms of We're collectively working to move children forward, which was interesting. She didn't expect that And it's happening in more grades than the other Another thing we're learning is that how do we use that data? How do we how do we make those groups? How do we decide who's teaching what? During wind blocks or owl time And so at the guiding coalition level, which is the teacher leadership team at ues Which has representation from each of the grade levels K1 K1 and 2 were very successfully looking at common formative assessment diagnostic data As a grade level and saying i'll teach this group. I'll teach this group. I'll teach this group I'll target these kids Three and four weren't doing that yet And so in the guiding coalition they talked about how how k through two were doing that process and three and four Because there's a little peer pressure and competitiveness. Not your wife at all Nathan Not at all We're like wait, hold on. That's what's working right now. I'll go we'll go do that We'll go talk to our team about that So there's some like it's an organic process a little bit and it's it's like It's also a controlled kind of we're going to we're going to move them to the next level as they're working on it Now there is a lot of learning particularly at rvs and ms mhs. I would say Around we have this information What's the teaching move we make in order that's going to bring the biggest bank for our book? And one of the things that teachers are doing right now Is they're making a playbook not only a formative assessment because there's a lot of common universal skills, right? So we're making a playbook of instructional Instructional strategies that really worked and we have evidence that it really worked in a short amount of time And we're also making a playbook of common formative assessments And so then teachers who are maybe not as skilled or are building their capacity still in that kind of intentional teaching We'll have a resource that other colleagues have created and we have evidence that is successful So we're building that kind of skill. There is a lot of development though Particularly at rvs and mhs because it's a brand new thing for mhs. We've never actually had real interventionists here Who are targeted in this way? It's just hasn't we haven't had that human resource here before So we now have that here now we have to figure out how to best use it for our adolescents, which is tricky Is that answer your question? Yeah, I mean I knew it was a challenge just talking more to it as all I wanted to do There's more learning to be done there. It's a process. It's a process. It's a definite process Oh, yeah, so, I mean this is really interesting that our in our district. We haven't seen significant learning loss We don't have evidence of significant learning loss. We have evidence of loss in other areas But not in learn so do you do the sense then how mrps compares to other districts or schools from the state or around the nation in terms of learning loss I only have media reports, right? I'm not and that term popped up pretty quickly Within covid, right? Without a whole lot of evidence to back it up over I can't like I know that my niece wasn't in school for a very long time, right and So she got a different schooling experience than our children who are in school potted with two and k8 two professional teachers That's a very different learning experience than my niece in washington dc who was out of school for two years And doing virtual learning so that it's it's tricky to I don't I can make that statement I'm not sure do you feel that we have the evidence to back that we don't have an early loss or or that we are learning Whether or not We are going to we have Does not suggest significant learning loss for the majority of our students Let's not to say that there isn't some for some students You know I would never make that statement But the evidence that we have and this is a good snapshot and you can click on those links and see That's that's kind of I always Say that we use screeners Incorrectly, this is actually a correct way to use a screener right to look at across time longitudinal data And I will say however that peggy sue will speak to in just a minute We have a large uptick in parents requesting special education evaluations right now this year this school year And so there that might show some evidence of something else, right? Our academic data doesn't show that that we have here I will say that our social emotional learning data shows that there's a loss or there's a need for Significant supports in community building relationship building how we treat each other that kind of thing I love that it just went Sorry Others or I don't want to be real us And I think this is fantastic. I love the longitudinal That's exactly what we've sort of always tried to figure out and don't actually look at so that's really helpful I just didn't know if you had any comment about on the earlier slides And maybe your point was really we those are limited in what they can tell us but the renaissance Star math and star reading the much lower scores for Roxbury like what does that tell us Like it looks pretty dramatic We have our eyes pretty close on the instruction that's happening at Roxbury I think that we have a lot of capacity building to do and instructional strategies at Roxbury college school Particularly in the area of reading No It would with the fmp that that would have a because you know two child two children would skew it more In a diagnostic Yeah, I had a question about the renaissance You had mentioned that kind of the color code that you know This is kind of what renaissance or star produces But that's sort of like goes through an mrps filter And then it looks differently in terms of how it shows up in intervention and services How does so how does it go through the mrps filter? And what does it become a question? So we really feel focused on that red first For immediate diagnostic like what's happening What does renaissance star say the skills are that they're missing and then let's do some more diagnostics to really understand it and triangulate the data Right oftentimes with the yellow oftentimes those are grade level Like they're what the kid child is going to be working on anyway And in perhaps a different way in their grade level. So Yes, we look at what those skills are but we look at it with the lens of what what's the student going to be doing Anyway, during that time during their grade level and what's far If they're in the red then they when they have the potential from this screening data to be to need universal skill work Which we have defined defined as remediation in tier three done by a professional Usually in a one-to-one setting with very targeted skill work Does that make sense? Yeah, there's a lot of educational jargon. I'm sorry. I hear that Yeah, okay So i'm curious too. It's like, you know, we have interventionists that are budgeted through us or Is any of this what's that not just us or okay, so local Okay, so in terms of Is this data that you're seeing? Redistributing reallocating is there anything because right the the interventionists can be fluid between buildings Is that true and so i'm just wondering if this is kind of if there's any they're not Uh-huh, so is any of this data kind of any rethinking happening in terms of how the district Distributes interventionists across the schools No, we are not looking at that right now Not right now that because there's a lot of Feelings and culture involved in that as well So when we hire them as the of course teachers are district employees, right? They work for Montpelier Roxbury public schools and if we're if we reassign them based on their licensure We can't we have that right to do that It it can be a climate killer so We do that sparingly In emergency situations And when I think about Roxbury in particular they're so Thinking about the number of children who took this assessment and the number of adults available to service them Is a very good ratio Do you know what I mean? Yeah, so the adults in the room supporting while yeah, yeah There is a very good ratio already at Roxbury village school. There is a worry I have That i'm sure Peggy so you can speak to as well The more adults that are in a classroom the more enabled the kids kids have become Of the adults so imagine three or four adults in a classroom A teacher sends kids off to do independent work three or four adults immediately come over and instead of that child thinking for themselves And starting up the work by themselves They'll wait until an adult sits with them and you know what I mean? Does the work and we are very helpful creatures and we do the work for them, right? So there's we don't want to create that kind of environment either Okay, thanks I remember do you think we have enough interventionists to support the reds and the yellows? The board may see some interventionists coming in the budget In s EL and at main street middle school. We have two math interventionists and one ELA interventionists currently Well, we have two math interventionists budgeted. We have one hired one open position And I would argue just by ratio as school of 400 students Needs more there, especially when we know how tricky it is at the high school level to To fill those universal skill needs. We want to get them before they go there So the board may see that in the budget process as part of what we're prioritizing But we also have spent As jim can attest being here the longest Considerable resources since I've started a superintendent to build the human capacity in this field So we you know when I first started I think we had two across the district Um and now our team is much larger. So We have we have spent a considerable resource moving in this direction I didn't want to put tons in at one point as jim can talk to Because I didn't want to put people in without the system in place And now we're getting the system in place and we have the human resources to move forward Yeah, I know these are systems that are built over time and there's been huge advancement, but more is needed Um ready for Jess is up first. Thanks for having me back everyone. Um, so Yes, um, so just as they'll be with talking about academics. We really work to collect data Analyze it and then use that to respond and monitor in the sl world as well So we've had some really exciting process as far as sl data. We're certainly still building the systems But a lot of the sl data that you're going to see tonight has been brand new for this year Um, so some of the systems we have are the behavioral dashboard And that is three out of the four schools. So rbs mhs and msms all use the behavior dashboard and that is really tracking incidents for school per kid and Ues is using swiss. Um, simply because they were used to it and it was really embedded in our culture But they do very similar things as far as being able to track data And then our attendance dashboard is thanks to nick connor He has really developed that from the ground up so that we can look at chronic absenteeism And we of course have a lot of individual student data for students who have really intensive sl needs We have individual ways that we track data to really ensure that we're catching all the data for those students So these systems have allowed us to really think about how teachers are responding to data both at the individual Level and at the class level at the district level So we have a lot of different levels within so we can see how teachers are responding in the impact of their response Which can then inform future responses It also talks about location In the day we talk about a lot of school and district themes within the data and we can break down Student demographics. So, you know, I'll talk a little bit about who's over over represented in our data Both in the attendance and the behavioral Thank you. So again, these are have really big growth in their first two months of school We are using this data on a very regular basis For grade level teams for grinding coalitions, which are really our teacher teams that are moving this work forward And our resiliency teams which are essentially our sl education support teams who are looking at this data And really thinking about how to match student needs with sl services So some of the examples of the work that we've done here is we've started asking questions about themes So when jason was presenting to us A few weeks ago for day to day we happened to notice and he pointed out that like tuesdays seemed to be A really big day for whatever reason around student behavior and just that's an example of Something that we wouldn't have been able to catch before and was really surprising and unexpected for us Yeah, yeah, it's not like near the weekend. It's not transition day Yeah, so um and then the us pbs team has been really wonderfully using this data They reflect on this every other week And they recently just put together a Like a full school assembly because they were looking at the data and seeing that playground behaviors Were the highest and that was some learning that needed to happen. So they put together this really Adorable assembly about how to keep your body safe and make good decisions on the playground And they're tracking the impact of that over time and have seen a decrease in playground behaviors So teams that are really leveraging this data to make Our schools just really respond to s al needs for kids We're also using this data to look at what are critical needs for teachers in s al work and in behavior work and In engagement work. Um, so we have used this data I've used this data regularly working um with restorative practices with john kidda without for learning And with joel and thinking about what did teachers need right now? um Based on some of the learning loss in s al that we're seeing because of covet What do we need to focus on as far as wellness and community? um As I said, we're also using this data as es t teams to really look out. Sorry. Thank you. Um, Oh, no, can you go back one back? Thank you um To really look at individual students. So when we're hearing kids pop up Both we're thinking about students who just are popping up Both from teachers bringing them forward to particular teams And then we're also able to identify students who may have gone through and not been identified from teachers Um, and so we're making sure that we're catching kids earlier and more proactive through this data use And then we're really able to Connect them with really particular and targeted s al instruction to work on the needs that we're seeing based on the data And then the uas special teachers another example of them just leveraging the data. They've actually Decided to track Changes in their responses. So every single week the uas special teachers are looking at this data Looking at swiss data and thinking about okay. What is this data showing us? So what's the common language we're going to use for this week? What is the particular s al skill that we're going to teach these folks? And they're keeping that consistent So every specials teacher is using that same language and it's really they're seeing really amazing positive impacts for behaviors in their spaces and to the point where grade level teams are also starting to leverage that same system So good progress so far. So again, we're only two months in so we're really thinking about a lot of this data as an early warning system And trying to show predictive factors particularly when we're looking at attendance, which I'll speak to in a bit So we're really trying to grow this system We know that there's still a few missing links. So we're really able to see sort of externalizing behaviors And we really need to think about how are we catching those students who are disengaging and being more internalizers So some of the behavior data Um What we're seeing by and large is a lot of defiance wandering and technology use At three of our schools and then rvs. I'll just put in a caveat as I was talking to Beth Kellogg They're using the behavioral dashboard slightly differently over there So she's only using it for when there are major behaviors versus at our other schools. We're documenting Real teachers are using it on a regular basis. So I just feel like there's a really big discrepancy And that's certainly not accurate to what is happening in the behaviors that we're seeing rvs That is simply a reflection of the different ways the tool is being used But again when looking at this data, we're really seeing just engagement being The main thing that we're concerned about right now with our students and how they're engaging in some avoidance behaviors And so that's one of the focuses actually of a lot of the admin work And the work that we're doing to move that forward is how do we get kids engaged? How do we welcome them back into our community? And how do we ensure they have the scl skills to be engaged and stay engaged in our communities? In the data free and students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch and students with disabilities are over represented In the students who have incidents in our systems I think some of that for students with disabilities is that there are some students who are on plans Because we know that they have scl needs and they have specific plans around scl challenges And often they're monitored a little bit more So and I also want to just really reflect on that as a district because that's something that certainly we need to pay attention to Just some of the examples again at the district level We're really using this data to think about professional development needs for teachers What are some of the skills and tools that we can support teachers in? Developing as we think about embedding scl more and more into our world here at mrps School-wide we're using this data and regularly reflecting on it to set expectations Use common language and thinking about sort of school-wide responses to behaviors that we're seeing And then the individual levels. We're using it to connect individual students with tier two and tier three interventions based on the needs that they're seeing So that's the percent of the total incidents that we're seeing so out of a hundred percent of the incidents Yeah, yeah, it's been recorded in the dashboard So out of like all of the incidents that have been reported in the behavioral dashboard 72.5 percent at mhs are because of like defiance or wandering or technology use Um that I would frame as sort of avoidance behaviors Incidents or is that? Um not off of the top of my head. I did not but yeah We For future. Yeah. Yeah, I have that so I know at ues. It's About 500. I I'm not sure The other one's off of the top of my head and I think that speaks to more of just teachers using this and it becoming a really regular part of their tools Which is right Like I think I'm excited that we're seeing that many incidents because that means that teachers are actually using this to log behavior And we're able to have more accurate data to reflect on I don't think it's just a measure of it being that we're having more behaviors Difference of behavioral patterns with the vast majority being physical contact That's what just was saying that beth is only logging only okay the major behaviors They weren't the teachers aren't logging minor behaviors. So it was so it it looks different It's just a different way to use it. Yeah, no, that's helpful. Sorry The plan then because if I heard you write that it's not Being used consistently whether it's rvs or whether it's even ues how they report and work all right So is that the plan going forward that at some point will use it consistently? Yeah, that's the whole sort of yeah, sorry, I mean to cut you off But yeah, I think this is part of the learning that we're doing right? We're only Two months in this is a brand new tool to a lot of these schools So thinking about how they're currently using it and how to get it So folks are using it consistency so that we can more have more meaningful Comparisons across schools and our across our district is going to be really helpful And that's just part of our work moving forward So in that in that I'm thinking I'm remembering some of the things you've shown us and I'm seeing like A series of columns with different types of behaviors labeled and then they're sort of ones and zeros or type of thing Are there are those in Minor moderate and major behavioral also and can this be broken out in that way? Yeah, yeah, so I think um UES with swiss has decided to only track major behaviors this year Because they wanted to be really clear with what they were tracking However, how different schools define major versus minor Is something that we're still norming and creating consistency with right so What are vs they're tracking majors and it's the majors that are going to best because they're physical contact the principal Whereas ues is only tracking majors, but they're majors that teachers are dealing with in the classroom It's not just the physical contact that's going to the principal for example And then msms and mhs both Yes, so they're tracking both majors and minors But we think we have a lot of work to do around Clarifying and norming what the difference is and how we define that as a district So it just didn't why have that data. It didn't feel particularly helpful if I'm being honest All right attendance. Um So nick connor and I spent a lot of time together. So hopefully I do him proud Um, so just to sort of set context Um chronically absent is 10 more of total membership days. So that includes excused to unexcused covet related and out of school Suspensions so because we're only two months in to the year where that means it's only four days right now So if you are absent from more than four day four days or more You are automatically considered chronically absent. So again, we're using that as a predictive and hopefully preventative Measure as we're thinking about attendance on November 2nd of the school year. Um, so if we This graph is really just for show. I have bigger numbers on the next slide because those are hard to read So currently 27.4 percent of students in our district are chronically absent So remember that is four days or more right now That encompasses 13 students which is just under the size of msms just as a metric And is about 4 000 days that have been missed already for students this school year And we're again seeing free and reduced lunch as the highest Rates of chronic absenteeism. So while only 27.4 percent of students are chronically absent 40.3 percent of students who are free and reduced are chronically absent So it's a pretty big spike based on class and again, free and reduced lunch is a class economic factor So some of the ways that we're supporting and trying to be Preventive and the future is really partnering with students and caregivers Nick as I am sure you all know does a fantastic job of partnering with families And encouraging teachers and other folks in our community to reach out to Both students and caregivers when we're not seeing them in school There's been a lot of collaboration and referrals to scl teams now that we're building scl est teams That are really getting skilled at Meeting kids and their scl skills and matching them with the appropriate professional to support them We've been leveraging those teams to really think about some of the reasons behind Chronic absenteeism and how to prevent that And nick and I are working on an attendance campaign to help shift our sort of cultural knowledge and understanding of absenteeism coming out of covid right because that Needs to shift again because there are some murky boundaries that needed to be murky and loose that we need to Really think about why coming to school every day really matters and it's important to our community now that we're Trying to heal from covid Can you see also like breaking down? Just free and reduced when you're putting the data in are you also You know like many of the art students also have intersectionalities around race and class and disability and ability so Are you able to see that data now or is that part of that? same Yeah, so some of that stuff I looked at like for behavior. For example when I looked at it, there was a pretty strong correlation between Students with disabilities and students who were eligible for free and reduced lunch so One of the hypothesis that I had was that they were both over represented because they were the same students essentially Um that hasn't been as true when we looked at the attendance data And that is something that nick and I spent some time actually today talking about like can we see the percent of Students who are free and reduced lunch and by pock. Um, and we just haven't gotten there yet, but it's possible Thank you. Are there any or is there any data or trends between Like chronic absenteeism and grades Like grade level Yes, so it tends to If you look on the all the fancy slides Oh, yeah, go back to the I don't have to make it up. There you go So yes, so this very tiny graph With the bars on it shows you the trends over time So there's a little bit more chronic absenteeism when we're thinking about the lower grades at kindergarten and first grade and then it sort of goes up and then it dips a little bit again in high school And the one after that is students with IEPs Yes Yes, so students with IEPs are about 28 percent Which comparative to 27.4 percent is sort of right on track That's on agenda materials or board packet materials on on our website and Our presentation that presentation doesn't match this one. So just a note to like update it Um, also Wondering about do we know how the so the absentee data do we know how? The chronically absent percentage compares to other school districts or the state Do you have any sense of that? I do not know that information school year Okay And then do you know in years past if the trend is that that number drops or rises over the course of the year It's a good question. We've never tracked it before This is the first year. We've tracked it. So we would be speaking off of assumptions. Yeah And It looked a lot differently last year when we're like, you gotta sniffle you stay home, right? Well, and even this year Yeah, and we're still very close in. I mean my daughter had COVID She was out for five days like she would be considered chronically absent. She's not missed any other time at school You know, so it's still a little bit unique Yeah, okay. Thank you What's where does the four come from Sorry, what where is the what is the four number four comes from what like why is it four considered? Oh, uh, it's 10 percent of the total days. You could have gotten to school this year so far Okay, and it looks like on average it's Three days Like we have 1,100 student 3,900 days absent overall. That's three per kid, right? So it's just close to the four days. So And nick would I don't know Jason, you do you know exactly how he figured out how to do it? Yeah You know just I do. So he explained to me today in preparation for the school board. Oh, sorry. Just go Um, so it he attracts it by class and not necessarily by day. So that way we get a more accurate Um perception of total like instructional time. So I think there are four or five classes Six Yes, so nick has done a math so that for high school students He looks at total block smiths and then divides that by the to get like the full day So that way it's trapped by class and then he Makes that division so that he can convert it into day. So it may be a student who You know missed one block every single day for six days and not necessarily a full day of school But that still counts as one day of chronic absenteeism Hopefully that clarifies I'm just trying to think that still Even though it's not a direct correlation three Absentees per kid on average. Um, that's very close to four is what I was thinking District white. Yeah, district white If four is chronic absentee Yeah, and remember it's really early in the school year. So we just don't have that many total membership days yet From our day-to-day conversation last week or like they're looking at Students are most the chronically absent for certain periods at mhs each day Why like and then the logical questions. Why is it right? So They're they're keeping a really close eye on that here, which we've never been able to do before So like that's the important thing to put out like we're not we're not only putting our eye on it But we're talking about why and what we can do about it Yeah, so again, I think one of our big successes so far is creating and really developing an sel data system A lot of the stuff is brand new a lot teachers are tracking using brand new databases and forms and they've bought in and It's been really really helpful as far as looking at the data from a district school and individual Level so we're able because of that data really able to match Student needs with the professionals to move them forward in the sel world and to really thinking about those lagging skills that individual students Have and how to move them forward and then also how to do that on a class school basis as well We started reflecting And again using data to really move our professional development work forward and thinking about next year What do we need later this month? What do we need? And the big term picture some of our learnings It's pretty clear that free and reduced Folks who are eligible for free and reduced lunch are at a pretty high risk for being chronically absent And for showing up on our behavioral dashboards So I think that's something that we really need to think about it something that we're attending to As Libby said like Jason's working on that Nick is supporting us and thinking through and really thinking about how to Be preventative and how to make sure that kids are able to get to school and families are able to support students and getting to school Um, we talked about this But we really need to refine and norm our data use and how we use it and make it a lot more Consistent across the district because it is being used so differently in different schools Which makes sense based on the fact that this is a brand new system Um, I'm really excited about increasing sel across the tiers. There's been some really intentional focus on tier three Moving into this year and I'm really excited to think about how to Push sel based on the data into all of the tiers and thinking about how to embed that more fully And then of course continuing to develop our sel est process and that has been brand new We've done great work really strong work. Um, and there's certainly some more work that we can do to make sure that We're really pushing kids forward and moving them forward and supporting them and developing the sel skills that We know they need to be successful Questions before we Turn over to Pegasus. Mia Just do you have any information from families when you know, you or nick or someone is talking to them about what it is That's keeping kids from coming to school Yes, and I Feel like I want to let nick answer that question on his own right Because I want to protect him and all of the work that he's done and working with families so What percentage of the kids in the district are on free and reduced lunch? Uh, approximately 18 Thanks 18 to 22 it's higher at Roxbury than it is in the monthly at your schools, but it averages out to around Somewhere in there. Okay. Thanks some families who might qualify for free and reduced lunch lunch. I understand don't fill out the paperwork Is that addressed as nick have opportunities to sort of help people with that or are there numbers out there that are missed? Oh, there's certainly numbers that are missed. Absolutely. The older the students are the more it's missed Yeah, I think with the free meals that are happening, right people aren't as likely to have Yeah You're on thank you. I feel like I am between you and the track conversation Okay, so um the data that I have is a little different Because right now we don't necessarily have Data about students with disability as a whole and their progress because When we look at things like the longitudinal data the reason that they have an ip is because they're below grade level so One of the things that we have to think about Is how to start collecting data around how students are Progress looking at individual progress and figuring out how to do that into group data I don't know if that i'm saying that right, but anyway, here's what I got. All right. So as of today We have 143 Students in the district pre k-12 that have individual education plans. I separated out k-12 From pre-k because pre-k is its own beast and with all our partner programs and stuff. It really skews the numbers So this is right now what we have And we have 102 students currently K-12 that have section 504 plans so Looking percentage wise that means 11 percent of our k-12 students are have an IEP The national average 14.5 percent That's based on last year and the vermont average is 18.4 So we are below average as far as students on That have IEPs However, when we look at these two things together So we're talking about students that are identified as having a disability We're looking at 20 percent of our k-12 students Um Sure, so um an IEP special education services is they're under an entitlement law and they are about Students who are entitled to specialized instruction and um generally they have some kind of modified curriculum They have accommodations, but it really is an entitlement law section 504 is an access law That is an it's a non-discrimination law that started After the vietnam war and started as a workplace law that moved it has moved into schools and so Students with section 504 plans have a disability and they have accommodation plans to provide them equal access So it's about looking at what is it that's a barrier to them accessing the curriculum at their grade level and Removing those barriers through accommodations so One of the things I thought about like a half an hour before this meeting So it's not on the slide But I do have it is to look at what are the numbers that we've had in the last few years for IEP So just kind of look at where that trend is at So 2018 there were 130 and this is pre-k to 12 2019 124 2020 was 128 and then we went up in 2021 to 138 And these are this is a child count that is done every year in December December 1st So currently we are above that at 143 And we will have I'm sure more than that by the time we get to December 1 So we are definitely trending upwards right now as far as students that we are identifying as in need of special education Oh, oops. I'm not the one that's changing. I can change it on me. That's not gonna change it there This is just a graph that shows you by grade span Where our IEPs and 504 plans are as you can see as particularly in the high school area There's a much higher number of students with 504 plans than students with IEPs So that's just information for you to know This is looking at the facility Where the students With IEPs are k to 12 and again, I pulled out preschool because of all the partner programs That's tricky Looking at this you can see the number of Students with IEPs are at UES and at the middle school are those where the higher percentages are Looking at where our professional staff are I would say that is we have not Dispursed our professional staff to equal those percentages. So Part of the challenge is the current team teaching plan at UES so there's a special educator at every grade level and At the middle school. We actually are down. We are down Three special educator positions right now in the district And so we have a hole at the middle school And so those special educators are doing a great job of picking things up and we moved An interventionist actually from the intervention Group to provide Instruction for students in reading this year to try to cover some of the gap that we have in our professional staff right now We have those positions available. They're just not filled right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we just can't find them So if anyone's a special educator for some reason you don't have a job right now Send me an email So I guess I would expect the number to be fairly consistent moving through the grade levels Is there a reason why it's like roughly half when you get to the high school level? Do people lose eligibility for IEPs? So there is a there is a requirement that you are reevaluated for an IEP every three years and so That potentially could be I mean that the goal of an IEP right is to Reduce that gap and get to a point where a student is able to access access their grade level curriculum with Accommodation so so if we are doing our job well, then we would want to see that happen There are some students that you know with the more significant disabilities who are likely going to stay with an IEP throughout their education career But that could be part of it. I think I haven't been here long enough to figure out what if there's another reason for sure around that Many of the there's a lot of students with 504 plans right at the high school And I would say a lot of those are around mental health Challenges more than learning challenges I saw hands My same question as always is this can this data be You know looked at in terms of race class and all of that to look at Some of that representation It can yes. Yeah That that's going to be part of hopefully a system that we get the systems that we have For special education paperwork and that kind of stuff don't do that So it will be a lot of a lot of doing stuff by hand. But yes, we can do that some Right For race What's the outside MRPS? Yes, so that is so we have Some students that are placed by their IEP teams in independent schools if most of those independent schools are focused on students with significant social emotional behavioral needs and so that is that Those students as well as students that go to U32 So we have some students that have IEPs that are part of the exchange program So they're still considered Our there's still our students. Yeah, we remain the lea. We're still responsible for their education. Okay. Yeah Okay, um, this is looking just at the primary disability category for students with IEPs And this is k to 12 developmental delay is just a universal disability category for students that are three to six years old so that Once you get to six years old, then you have to look at the more specific disability categories As you can see looking at this Specific learning disability is where we have the most students with IEPs other health impairment is Students with medical needs But I would say the majority of those are likely students that are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and then emotional disturbance is looking at anxiety depression and challenges with relationships and those kind of things and then We have autism and then we have two categories intellectual disability and speech language impairment that those were too small to report In size This was interesting when I was looking at this so As of yesterday and I actually got more today We had 21 new referrals for special education since the start of this school year By comparison last year at this time there were only seven So, um, that's an interesting trend to pay attention to Most of those referrals are coming from parents The when I was trying to look today to see whether what are the Reasons for those I would say it's a combination of concerns about academic learning and then also the social-emotional and behavioral challenges that people are concerned about their children experiencing so That is that was just like that interesting information to share Uh, next slide Oh, wait, did I miss one? No, I didn't Okay, um, one of the things that is new this year under the changes in the special education Laws or regulations Is that there is a more formal opportunity to Get parent input. So obviously parent input is a crucial part of any education plan and it's something we've always done now that The new regs require there to be actually a section in an IEP where we are identifying very clearly what parent input Is towards the plan and there is this there are these Questions that the AOE has given us that we are to ask students Or parents following IEP meetings to get their feedback about the process We decided In our district that we are actually giving these to all parents of students with disabilities after meetings also for 504 So that we can start to generate feedback around what's going well. What's working for families. What's not working for families So far we've had under 10 responses. So when you look at these percentages, it's a small number But these are the questions that we are asking parents to reflect on After they're having meetings about their children so that we can look for are there trends that we need to address As far as families feeling like they are being Asked to participate in a meaningful way with their children's and their plan So that was just a little fyi for you the next slide We have contracted with the ability challenge, which is an organization Who has worked some in vermonte actually helped the vermont AOE write this very large document about Eligibility changes they've worked with the burlington school district And they are going to be completing an audit and needs assessment for us around the experience of Children with disabilities in our district So they will Be doing surveys and there they'll be wanting to meet with administrators teachers families and students They're going to be doing interviews and focus groups Classroom observations. They want to observe our team meetings They are going to want to look at all our documents and then they'll be here for two days and they've Kept a third open just in case they need to be here for three days But we're really excited about having them come and have someone kind of look at our district One of the things that is a goal of mine is to increase the consistency Of what special education looks like between our buildings There's there is a lot a big difference and a lot of what happens between our schools right now, which is I'm sure Confusing for parents when you're used to one thing and then something totally changes It might not feel like you can trust what's changing because it just feels different. And so We're really excited about or at least I'm really excited about the opportunity to have Someone come in and just kind of look at our system and give us some ideas about What they think we need to move forward and make sure that we are doing the best we can For students with disabilities and their families So I'm sure that I'll be reaching out to some of you to fill out some surveys and be interviewed So they're coming in January, I believe that report I think March or april is when the on their timeline that we would get all that awesome. Yes so that is it for special education and then I wanted to I also work with our multilingual learners and Just wanted to share if you go to the next slide just some Statistics around the number of students we have and I want to just point out the Trying to change to a strength strength based approach and thinking about these learners As emergent bilinguals multilingual learners because boy, I wish I could speak more than one language and so Some of the What we see is really deficit focused and I think we need to change the narrative around these students that Are able to speak more than one language and learn in a language. That's not their first language. It's pretty awesome. So 53 students right now total in our district that are Identifying in this group we have 43 of them getting direct services from our teachers And then another 10 that are being monitored have family supports are on watch So and then I just thought it was really cool to see what the languages are that aren't these Children are speaking natively and their families. So Not going to read it because I would probably butcher saying some of these words, but I thought that was just interesting And that is it Questions for facing Yeah, what a great presentation. Thank you. No, this is a fantastic collection of data. It really helps us get a good snapshot of what's going on I wish it had its own meeting It was planned to have some meeting Well, it's uh, it has had its own meeting. I get to go in overtime. Yeah I just want to thank you not only for the presentation, but it's just so Comforting I guess might be the right word to Know that we have your brains behind all of this and the brains of other people who are not in this room But just hearing the three of you speak to this is Says a lot about what good hands our district is in. So thank you I also want to give props to like how new so much of this is that You know, it's surprising to know that we did not do this kind of work prior to The last four years. So I think we're just on such a great path towards improvement. Thank you It's been dedicated to this for a while. It's awesome. I like very work right here. Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate it It's super informative The Track presentation discussion Don't we have Oh, you know, we're going financial report. Do we have a quarter? Oh, we do a quarter one I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna share that with you. Yeah Maybe we can push that out until after the truck conversation. I mean, I know it only it's only budgeted for five minutes Let's push that out until after the Let's push that out to the track conversation because we have people who are extremely patient and I'm sure Um Have places they want to go and get to and I think Yeah, um And let's and unless people have objections, let's push the readings of a 20 through a 24 to the next meeting Because I think people ain't want to discuss those and get some context and we may Be stapling our eyelids of them by the time we get to that. Yeah, and um Let's aspirationally leave the non-discriminatory mascots and school branding on because it's a mandatory policy and I think it's relatively Straightforward and if for some reason we don't feel up to it we can push that So at the risk of derailing us I wanted to offer an idea Given the Feedback we've gotten so far um It's clear that, you know reasonable people can disagree about how to spend the surplus money that we have and Thanks to the quarter one financial report. We actually know we have three million dollars in surplus not two million dollars and One of the struggles that I've had with this conversation is the framing of now or never Essentially, if we don't vote tonight, we won't have a track And another is that when it comes to this surplus that we're incredibly fortunate to have We've really only considered the one option and I I don't think that that's the case for our administration I think I believe that they have looked at this from many different angles and I really do trust their work and their analysis But as a board we by narrowing this conversation to If not now never and simply only considering the one option I do believe that we have shirked our duty in one of our main roles of community engagement and that has led to not having a thorough consideration and The result is that we have unintentionally privileged the perspectives and opinions of those who have had been a little bit more in the know over the course of the last year and a half And left the rest of our community sort of scrambling to catch up And In the past two or three weeks I believe we as a board have also sort of scrambled to catch up with ourselves and do some version of community engagement I think what libby and others in the administration have put together for tonight's presentation is fantastic And I really appreciate it I also appreciate jim the work that you did to put together the front porch forum post and The time that you've taken to discuss this in depth with certain community members And amanda's post in which she Summarized the issue and then directly asked for feedback in a way that could be shared with the rest of us board members Um, but I'm sure other members of the board have done other things that haven't been quite as You know public That I don't even know about but I still think that that Is been a scramble and it has been ad hoc and kind of piecemeal and You know, we've said that as a district and as a board. We really value equity and inclusion and that doesn't only live in writing a policy about it or instructional materials or considerations for students living with disabilities it also lives in how we conduct our business as a board and It is not easy And it does ask of us that we slow down and provide the space that we need for thorough consideration and openness to perspectives and Making sure that we're hearing and sitting with perspectives from people who don't have the same viewpoint like literal vantage point that we have on this issue and I certainly take my own responsibility for for this. This is something that we could have put into place and started A year and a half ago, and we we didn't really put that into place um after we received two um those two student very compelling student presentations one was on the track and one was advocating for net zero improvements And I think we should also give ourselves a little bit of grace in this because We're not really very well practiced and making big decisions like this other that side of the Very specific process we go through in establishing the annual budget um So it's understandable that we would fumble our way through this And I also think it's not too late. I still think we could do A process that doesn't have to take a very long period of time We could definitely utilize the great work that the administration has put into um that the presentation that we were going that we are planning on seeing tonight But take that big step back start from the beginning and communicate that we actually have these unrestricted funds $3 million is a lot of money And we could be spending it in many many different ways. We could offer those options of the different ways we could do it and have that more robust conversation over the next I don't know Four weeks six weeks. I don't think it has to take very long And then and and really Have that as like a listening sessions You know put out a real survey that that we have time to digest the information of and and then deliberate after getting that and and And make a vote on how to spend this money I definitely realize that this would be frustrating for Everybody who's been advocating for this for a year and a half and probably for some of my fellow board members, but I think that it is of I think it's a Valuable to conduct our business in a way that is thorough and thoughtful and And allows the space for for that full consideration Um rather than Trying to meet a deadline That we might not even absolutely have to meet for the sake of that deadline Um, so what I wanted to offer was that we Rather than having a you know a vote tonight. We um direct that one of our committees Designs and conducts that process for determining how to spend these excess funds And ask of it be completed by the end of the calendar year So I could make a motion to do that so that we can have discussion about that or We could I don't I don't know That is the process we're going to go through to have the discussion I definitely expected this in this order in fact Maybe actually after the presentation, but it makes sense um I have seen a tremendous amount of misinformation out in the community And people here Suggesting that this is going to raise their tax rate couldn't be further from the truth There's a lot of information in the presentation that's here um I don't see There's no perfect process Um, I don't see how extending of a process that has gotten to be sort of contaminated with bad information Is going to make it better. I think it's actually going to make it worse um and I just think that There's you know, I think that it's it's it's I think I would like to see I just Just take a vote. I mean like You know, it's I if people are uncomfortable moving forward or then then Don't I just I just don't see how Extending the process further is going to make it better. I see it making it more convoluted giving more opportunity for misinformation and just falsity and and and rudeness and Harm essentially that's coming towards us from certain members of the community. I don't want to Be subjected to that. I know it's going to happen if we make a vote one way or the other But I'd like to move past it And I'd like to get on with work that I know we need to do. Um, that's that's how I feel about it. I really And I can be in in the minority, but that's that's Quickly but I would like us to actually take the time because we can't speak out at both sides of our mouths where we ask for information We have a whole bunch of information. It's been prepared for us And then we're not even going to consider it I'd also like to remind us that we already voted on using our fund balance the 1.5 million back in april after a very compelling Presentation from a lot of these same people and I am not willing to go back on the agreement that we made I'm not unvoting on that So from my perspective what we are trying to consider is and we do actually if anyone actually wants to bother to read it Anna has put together a fantastic Multi-page list of all the times we as a board have talked about it made actions on it I'm really disappointed and upset by the amount of information and how personal and unhelpful it has become because It really allowed the conversation to get clouded I don't need to go any further But I just want to remind us that on in april and june We heard from our community and we actually voted unanimously to support using this very small piece of a very helpful little savings account That we happen to have for a very dire need in our community If nothing else has compelled folks to this the gentlemen saying the parents are out there painting the pieces and the students Are having to work on their own track I mean come on It's it's a track for our students and you do any day of the week you come here and you see students on that track There's girls on the run for elementary and middle school This is a major investment 20 of the entire middle school population does track So I'm so I feel very strongly. I do feel like we've taken the time I we have definitely learned some lessons about better community engagement absolutely But I do think we have done our due diligence There has been a subcommittee of the board that has had multiple communications that are open to the public about the track We should also be allowed to ask questions about well while we're digging up the track What if we fix these things and unfortunately that opened up a floodgate of a lot of misinformation lesson learned But that being said I want the community to understand we as a board need to be able to ask these questions That is very different than making a decision We can ask the question how much is it going to cost to replace the lighting? How much would it cost to fix the turf? How much would it fix to fix the parking lot or the auditorium? We need to be able to ask those questions and not being attacked for asking the questions That is very different than taking a vote and we take using the community's money incredibly seriously We are missing time with our families. We've been cleaning the school during covid We have dedicated hours and hours and hours because we absolutely care about and take seriously our responsibility to use the community's money I think I'm done. Thank you I mean, I just want to say a few things one I mean I do think the process on this has been perfect. I also think that we we don't have a prescribed process for this I mean, we don't have a prescribed reference for for doing something like this My inclination is to follow the lead of the administration the administration knows their needs or knows the priorities They know what the investments have been made. They've been educating us on the revenue streams They've been educating us on how things have been funded And if the administration feels our competing Needs for this money I want the administration to explain it to us and I want us to go through the process of making decision I am very reluctant to have a choose your own adventure on how to spend three million dollars with the community I think that is a recipe For a community food fight and for misinformation. I think if we put up straw proposals I mean, here's here's the denizens. We have spent a lot of money on putting Props behind our our academics in light of coveted with the esser money You've gone through a very public process on that if we Create the impression that this money can be spent on, you know, quote unquote learning loss Which which definitely exists, but we've also addressed to the esser funds um I think the community debate will be if we pull back on that and don't do it that we don't care about Learning loss because we haven't spent that money if we put up You know certain proposals and then take them down for the purpose of putting up the straw proposal You know in a theoretical situation I just think that's a huge recipe for more and for more misinformation. I think we saw it with our consideration of the turf field um I think there was an honest consideration It was brought actually through the process that we had Because community members came to us and they said, you know, here's something we want you to consider. We considered it um And it created a lot of misinformation and not that it's a bad thing But I think if we're going to have a process like that It should come from the administration saying we have three or four different ways We want to spend this money and we want community input on that We're not getting that from the administration. The administration is is instead telling us Here's the funding streams. Here's our priorities. These are being taken care of So it's been an imperfect process. I apologize for that, but I think I think creating a process for process sakes and in a manner that could create a lot of misinformation and false promises to the community I don't think that services us well And I think we should have a discussion about how we go through a process like this again because this is a unique situation It's you know, it's not a bond. I'm kind of comparing it to the bond where you know The administration came to us, you know, several years ago With a whole bunch of needs, we didn't ask community if They agreed to those needs or not, but we obviously, you know, went to the community with a bond But then explained why the five million dollars was there We didn't have a process of if we went with a five million dollar bond What we wanted to spend it on the administration told us what those needs And I think we should take the cues here the administration to tell us what the needs are For this money, we should listen if we feel it's a justified need Um, I think we should move ahead and if we feel that there are questions about whether the need is justified Let's ask those questions and have the administration explain it and if it Presents a situation where we need more community input to make a decision Let's do that But I I want to hear from the administration about what their priorities are and how they feel the money should be spent And I think we should make a decision about whether or not make that makes sense and justified to the community And I also want to make very clear This is a real gift expenditure the tax implications here are essentially Essentially nothing And I also want to put it out there Just practically is there anyone on this board who feels that the current track is in a satisfactory condition And we're not we're going to do nothing and just let it deteriorate I mean the track's an embarrassment Um, and I know that I might be seen as as a track fan. I I'm not I mean I'm a runner Nathan do I run on the track ever? I avoid the track like the plague it's boring as hell But I I know what I know the benefit that it brings to you know, the great kids that are in this room The kids that are coming up the the 80 kids at middle school I also know and you know, there's there's been this this Thing of the community about you know, let's spend on wellness and mental health There's really no better way than than increasing extracurricular activities for You know to deal with wellness and mental health and to build community to build confidence to build all those things um I spent the last couple summers in iceland and iceland has done this amazing thing. They had a huge Substance abuse and other problems and teenagers driven You know oftentimes by the stress and anxiety they were they were dealing with they made a huge country-wide investment in In active in extracurriculars and facilities There are 1000 people towns in iceland that have nothing around them that have much better facilities than we do Over an 18 year period. They've seen a drop in an extreme alcohol use and alcohol abuse, you know From in 15 to 16 year olds from 40 percent to 5 percent They've seen a drop in cannabis use from 17 percent to 7 percent in daily smoking from 20 percent to 3 percent I mean granted it was with some other measures. They've also seen a participation in sports increased from 23 percent to 46 percent. So these investments in extracurricular activities Are some of the best investments in mental health and well being we can make And we oftentimes skip the preventative side of these investments and look at the treatment side But this is an investment in community. It's an investment in In our kids health both physically and mentally. It's an investment in Um The great efforts of of nathan and dylan and Dan vosin and i'm forgetting a bunch of other people who who've spent time with these kids and built this program basically for free Um And it's also an investment increasing our tax base. I mean we have people who are coming to central vermont Looking for a place to live looking where their kids where they want to bring their kids to school and we all know That each student we bring to our district Our taxes go down when we increase our our perpetual Numbers our taxes go down And when we have a mud pit that's supposed to be a track and people are looking at facilities And they look at you know u32 or south burlington or s6 Or cvu or mmu or all of our competitive schools And they've invested in their facilities It tells them something and that brings tax dollars and the needed families that we want moving into our district out of our district If you have someone who cares about facilities and wants that high school that looks like it belongs in the 21st century They're going to go to middle sex not Montpelier and we have to be cognizant of that This is this is this is on its merits a very easy decision and there's been a lot of confusion and there's been a lot of community pushback and i you know and Unfortunately, you know some of it came from you know From grant exaggerating the the claud back risk. I apologize for that But that still does not take away from the merits of this project So I really want to hear for the administration if there are computing competing resources for this funds that we really have to be worried about Let's hear about them. If not, this is this is a great one-time investment in our community and our kids It's going to have a 20 to 30 year payback And like frankly, I mean I hate to use words a no-brainer, but this is a no-brainer investment of funds I was looking at all the months and months ahead and how this the came out and I stumbled upon a training We got around white supremacy culture um in Mara one of her Little quote said cowardice as a question is a safe experience as the question is a politic Vanity as a question is a popular but conscious as the question is a right And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular but that feels right and This is not against the track. I want to be very clear I have not slept in weeks. I have thought about this left and right. I love running I love the benefits, but I have a lot of questions one is the process And we need to be humble and say we messed up the process was not right We had plenty of opportunity to say to the public. This is what we're doing and we said We've heard enough we had enough from 31 people There's a danger of that single story that you all know a lot that We've been talking about this for a year and a half That's not my story because I didn't I'm not in this facilities committee. I'm not in the financial committee I've seen two reports in the infrastructure And so the story that I have is very different of the story that Jill might have Who is talking to the kids in the track in the soccer field that is not my experience Right, like the community that I talked is very different and that's what makes this work great You're an athletic. That's great. I stumble to run one mile once a three months And feel proud of myself for it You know, like that's not the community that I talked to our Community of parents who have come here to to say hey our kids are struggling on special ed Hey, our kids are struggling on bullying and harassment. Hey, that's the community that I am mostly in touch with all the time So I think for me this danger of we didn't know if we listen We you know, here's all the people that came I wanted to hear from the people that didn't come that didn't know that this happened And I it's an anxiety that it creates for you. Maybe the process Is enough for me wasn't enough for me. This process is enough I wish I could have spent time with the students and say, hey, let's look at the big picture Let's look at these needs these needs these needs Yes, we want to do a track is this a decision we have to make today You know, I was also there's a little bit like this vote of this one million it was misleading right like And if you look at the recording I said I am voting with The full understanding that I can change my mind once we look at this big picture that this is for auditing purposes I would vote no because I still think that the process that we have an opportunity as a board to think Cohesive about the big picture I was in that same training that maybe it was at the report one of the things that I see is Our job is to be looking from the top down to the whole picture I don't like to be the top I like to be in the bottom look up That's just my way Looking at the big picture and I don't feel like don't have all the information we have a special Ed report or audit that's going to come up Looking at all of this like the presentation today was great We still got a lot to learn to be able to see again This is not against the track is saying let's build the system You've been here seven years. You know the track. Why do we have three million dollars? We could have planned this This is going to be a need. We need to plan this ahead This is the way that collectively we need to start looking at the way that we manage The school funds is like the big plan of the great report that the facilities Committee has done the fact that we need some ADA accessibility at Roxbury That that should be one of the things that we need to look at. It's like yes, I want to hear It was the first time and and then when I read I have never heard the administration say this is a must We must do it as part of like here all the things we could do and so Was it a lack of the process for the infrastructure committee that I heard these 15 times and didn't Come here to report Only once that this was going to happen and it was going to have to move that is An important I'm going to end by saying I do believe this white supremacy culture Sense of urgency we need to decide you need to decide on this vote of two million And then you need to decide the construction needs to happen We need to rethink the way we work together. There's the way that we can think about so The antidote for Working on this realistic work plans based on the lived experience of the people okay Leadership will understand that everything takes longer that anyone expects A committee to equity including commitment to this cause and plan for what it means to embed equity in this one of the things that I am strike by Thinking about this ability and then I was looking at our website. We have this great program of unified sports There's also and then I brought these questions before when we're looking at the track. Are we thinking about how to include Students with disabilities in our track and field not as a unified sport, but as an adaptive sport And there's all kinds of information out there and I asked the question when we're putting out the track Are we thinking of as students? In a wheelchair We're you know, all these decisions is not for today or for your kids, but seven years from now How are we thinking about about this inclusion in there? and those are you know questions that maybe you guys already have in there, but I'm not taking this lightly and I'm not saying no to the track. I'm saying let's think through this And if we decide here, this is the plan. This is how we're going to allocate this track Nathan talk about Borrowing equipment like do we need to add equipment to this thing? Like what what is that? You know, we're doing this 2 million is also Verbon, right? It's just that is that track is You're buying equipment with the 2 million too so I think I The fact that you're saying The community is going is fighting. It's okay. That's our job to listen to this comfort Being uncomfortable. It's okay. I am okay For people that don't agree with me. I am okay. This is part of the process. We have to be okay The students have to be okay To for us to be here disagreeing in something so important um At the risk of not being as articulate as the rest of my board members who seem to have come very prepared with lots of notes I did want to just weigh in You know I agree with everything that has been said from everybody and so it's and Mostly that I really welcome a robust public input process So the fact that you know, whatever misinformation or Ideas that were sort of spread or sparked from the question of adding the turf to the project You know that's for me was a welcome part of the process because at least it got people Involved and before that people weren't really involved We weren't hearing from a lot of people that are were outside of the track community So now as board members, we've been able to see a public debate unfold online. We've been able to receive Maybe a hundred emails wasn't counting But um, if anyone didn't read through the policies that are on the agenda tonight It's because they were reading email and input from all of our constituents So to me like any democratic process is improved with public input And it has definitely helped me, you know, understand where the community is at on this issue And if it one of the first questions I asked when we talked about this a long time ago was You know, I'm super supportive of improving our facilities But I was wondering if it really aligned with the community's values And you know, I think it does but I also Saw that there was a lot of misinformation and a lot of Fractions of our community that that didn't feel like they were involved in the process And I don't see why we can't make space for those conversations to happen And that was the question I asked at the last board meeting was I was trying to get to the bottom of what is the urgency Of a vote one way or the other today At the last meeting or today at this meeting And we spent some time discussing that at tonight's facility and energies committee meeting with andrew Really trying to get at the heart of you know, we've already sort of earmarked this 1.5 million So why is it so urgent that we make the vote on the additional 400 000 dollars? tonight and after a little bit of Question and answer session with andrew and I don't want to Um misrepresent what you said, but it sounds to me like there may be sort of a middle road diplomatic path forward that will Both allow for potential ground breaking of the track in spring of 2023 And time for us to engage our community a little bit more on At least the misinformation at least giving our community enough time to Ask the questions that they feel haven't been answered and then for us to respond to A lot of the obvious misinformation that has occurred in the public dialogue And that would be to approve funding to move forward With the engineering process and the design process of the track to create What andrew described as shovel ready plans For a track and that would be an investment that if we never Fixed the track, which I don't think We want to do I don't think we never want to fix the track ever in the next five years or 10 years I think there will be a time when we want to put a new track in It will allow us to have those plans in place For a shovel ready project and if we're able to over the next few months engage the public In a dialogue that everybody feels comfortable with and that the community can get on board with and that My fellow board members, you know Feel has answered their questions and concerns about the process, which I agree with them on Then we could potentially break ground in spring of 2023 And it's sort of a yes and solution So I think that that's something that we should have in the back of our minds as a potential solution for tonight's vote That it feels to me like we would only need another couple of months To really engage the community around this conversation And just like on on my very gut level like riding my bike in tonight and listening to all of the cheers From the crowd I have never heard such loud cheering from any crowd Unless I was in like a full professional sports arena So, you know, I think what When we think about our students and you talked about it tonight You know, we're here to educate the whole student. We're here to encourage students to Grow on every level in their life and not just What happens in the classroom? Although I find that to be very important and I was a public school high school teacher And so I really value that but I also Really value things that build community and engage our learners In all aspects of their life, you know, things like prom is very important to children and things like being involved in sports or You know, my daughter's doing a theater thing and we've invested in the theater in the auditorium here at the high school And I've seen the immediate benefits of those investments in the program that kiana has built here and And it's really beautiful to see And we've done huge improvements with the basketball court You know, and when you go in there as a spectator now, it feels really different You know, that space feels really different and it's exciting And it gives the students a sense of pride and a few times it was mentioned like the capital city thing And it does you can't help but compare yourself to the surrounding schools a little bit And as a mom of a I mean, I never played sports So I'm very unbiased when it comes to that stuff, but Um, and I never would have imagined myself, you know In my school that I graduated from you know rooting for sports And trying to spend money on sports, but here I am. I mean, um Yeah, I'm not sure where I was going with that exactly, but But it's it's um Our job isn't just to Teach kids it's to support kids on a very holistic level And I felt that tonight as I drove in and I want to continue to Improve the sports facilities of this town. I think where I was going with that is my son plays sports now And I've had the opportunity to travel all around the state and even into neighboring neighboring states and it is embarrassing like it just is Um, it's not embarrassing anymore. You know, our basketball courts aren't embarrassing our bathrooms aren't embarrassing anymore So there's there's things where we've improved our facilities, but You can't help but walk into these surrounding schools and be like wow This is sort of an embarrassment of riches compared to our district Thank you. That was actually quite articulate Others before libya gives her presentation mark Yeah, so if it's not already clear, I think I speak for most students including those who are not in track when I say that further delays of this vote aren't helpful and I mean, even if we go through another listening process another feedback process I think it's very likely that This the feedback we would receive would be from the same types of people That we we received in the last processes I I don't think the people who haven't come forward so far are going to in another engagement session So that's just why I don't think it's really helpful. I think that We've we've had a very robust Um engagement with the community. We've had a lot of voices shared and I think Is I think it was time to have the vote. I don't think another Delay is helpful I do agree with them on that. I feel like like we should continually look to improve our processes Um, but at the same time, I don't feel like that should get in the way of progress and stop projects altogether um And also like we're a small community We had a newspaper article about a five million dollar plastic field If, you know, you were concerned about money or the environment. You definitely heard about that. So I feel like more time Like marix said might not get additional valuable feedback Committee meeting tonight something that I was talking about and I know we heard a lot of public comment on that This felt like merely a facility's investment and I do not agree with that and I feel that Our facilities really become our student experiences And what we choose to invest in in terms of our facilities are the kids are who our kids become So I just want to I want to broaden kind of, you know, the the public thinking too just around it's it's not just You know, it just it feels like very, um One-dimensional thinking when we just say a facility. This is this is much much more than that This is an opportunity. I know our kids are coming out of a incredibly unique and difficult time And I think that our district has worked very hard so far And I think it can be seen here tonight in the capable hands like we've talked about that our district is in in terms of our academics And I think that We've also talked about that there is a real significant need for us to invest in the community and the wellness the physical wellness Mental and emotional wellness of our students and I feel that this project absolutely represents an investment in that I do wonder so if we're talking about kind of dispelling myth. We're talking about making sure that we are Fact over fiction if the upcoming presentation is going to help to highlight some of that And moving into that and and I would agree. I think that we do need to have a process We have an additional one and a half almost two million dollars beyond this 1.5 million dollars in the fund balance If my numbers are correct and that we do need to define a process for how we are going to to attend to that But I personally don't make sense. I don't think it makes sense to kind of undo all the work that we have done so far We have heard from a small number of roxbury families, but what we have heard from people is A resounding support to go ahead with this project. I think specifically for roxbury students having a positive landing In in montpelier. It's it's these kinds of Experiences and opportunities to really do the relationship building that happens in our extracurriculars is really really important for our community And to see the numbers of participation and to see that going up up and up and up And to know that we have you know at least this year we have an opportunity for transportation for our students who want to participate Feels really positive for the community that I am here representing So I would like to see you know have the opportunity to hear the presentation Let's like you know discern fact from fiction And I would like to see us, you know develop a process in moving ahead with the remainder of the fund balance and not Not just kind of put all this work by by the wayside and to move forward with with um a signaling or a vote or what it needs to be this evening I'm sorry. I said I didn't mean to give you There's nothing here I can say that that's going to add to the conversation, but um the only thing I I agreed that we should Hear from the administration that put a presentation. I don't I don't see a reason why we shouldn't And we represent the community and you know, we've heard from the community and we've heard different opinions I personally think that if we do vote, which I think we should that's going to represent that right? So I I don't understand the the reason let's not vote Because that's where the community is so Community is not 100 behind this I get it. So we might not be 100 behind this, but you know, what's what's what's the point of not voting Especially if if this is the first time we're talking about it, I I get it. This is not the first time we're talking about it We have talked about it and I understand and understand the concerns that we may not have we may not have gotten all the information Or not everybody would have had chance to look at it and all that stuff. I do get it, but Yeah, again, there's nothing I consider hasn't been said before so I'm trying to say before we go out. I apologize to those at home We lost our internet for a little while in the district the network went down at a very Inopportune time because that was an excellent discussion But I apologize to the people at home And I believe you were you were still videoing that conversation So it will be available to the public, but that was miserable timing on our internet's part For the impromptu tech support. Yeah Rather embarrassed that that happened Anyway, should we go move on with the presentation? You can't control Yeah, so When I was putting this together, I wanted to put because of the misinformation that was Just discussed in the public. I wanted to put infrastructure spending in a funding context For everybody so not that you can keep moving forward there. Thank you for being my vana So in general, there are three different funding sources when we're talking about infrastructure This is every year. This is not covid specific. This is not s or specific This is every single year when the school board decides on a budget the and the communities vote on it There's the local budget this local money. It's a tax dollars that we collect from our community It's a basically our yearly budget process, right? So in f y 23 infrastructure spending within our local budget was Approximately 10 of that budget costs. So the year we're in currently And what do we use that for? We use it for general upkeep Classroom renovations general buildings and grounds updates just the general things that we know happen every single year their routine They're expected. We know we plan for them As just general upkeep of our facilities. That's what primarily the community's taxpayers dollars pay for Andrew. Yeah Yeah, then we have our capital plan Which is also something the community votes for in a separate article in our in on town meeting day And in that capital plan, this is a relatively new piece to the community It's I believe the first year that we did a capital plan was my first year's superintendent five years ago and Andrew's first years But uh buildings and grounds This is also local money. It's voted on on town meeting day It is considered part of our local budget Although it's a separate vote from the community and that last year represented 1 of our budget And in the capital plan this is to avoid big bonds of the going in the future We because we're currently christina. We have three bonds that we're paying back currently So the idea of a capital plan was to to try to decrease our reliance on bonds This is for larger infrastructure needs that are planned. So for example, we did all the bathroom replacements that somebody referenced earlier Roofing here at mhs. We have plans for the next For four fiscal years five fiscal years for window replacement at ues and ms ms We've done gym renovations Over at msn last msn s last year with our capital plan We have a plan that's part of our budget presentation that you can see from last year's budget presentation And you'll see again this year budget presentation a plan in place that goes through f y 28 For that money after f y 28. We do not have plans for that money So when we get into the future that angers referencing the last budget or the last board meeting around What our potential future needs keep in mind that in five years, we're going to have $260,000 Not planned for and that we have time in the next five years to plan for what we use for that Capital plan also rolls over if we don't spend it it stays in that account for us So a capital plan can grow if we don't spend it we have plans to spend it Right, so we budget for that amount of money and then state and federal grants So this happens to be where esser comes in. There's a supply chain assistant this year this year Efficiency vermont had a state grant. We're not sure if that is actually from federal money or if that was state money Um, and what we did with that is a lot of air quality work infrastructure around air quality needs Getting needed ppe for our staff and our and our students Um and some larger renovations that we'll go into Essar does have requirements for expenditure expenditures outside of infrastructure. That is well detailed in our essar plan on the website It's also linked in this presentation And we went through a lengthy process around how that is is funded So when i'm speaking of essar funds here, i'm speaking of just what's in the infrastructure piece of the essar funding But there that is a much larger pot of money that we're spending a lot of other We're doing a lot of other things from for instance our talk space commitment for a pilot for the next two years The virtual mental health services. That's also coming out of essar. We have interventionist positions in essars We have a lot of professional development for high quality teaching in essar Those kind of like a lot of things are in there and I encourage people if they haven't looked at our public plan For the essar money to go look at that plan because you'll get more information than just what you're going to get tonight on that Go ahead So what are some of completed or planned projects within these three funding sources within our local budget? We have recently completed yearly classroom renovations and just talked to the board a lot about that We do approximately four classrooms a year In terms of renovations doing the paint the flooring major clean msms ues and rvs all got updated bathrooms The ceiling and lighting at msms was done through the local budget stairwells at mhs msms and ues We're done at the with the local budget What's planned that's part of our budget conversation that we're having right now As an administrative team so using local budget funds that that's part of our conversation We're having right now the board will see what we plan for the next local budget when we present the budget the first meeting in december In terms of our capital plan the roof the mhs roof was completed in 2019 msms bathrooms was completed in 220 msms basketball court um, or i'm Yeah, basketball court Was completed in 2021 the ues sensory room was done in 2021 I guess we have the gym. Oh the basketball court for outside. Sorry with all the drainage problems That was done. Uh, the gym was also done 21 22 and the ues multi-purpose room in 2021 With the capital plan dollars the future plan against in the budget presentation from last year will also be in the budget Presentation for this year is the ues auditorium Which of course is has desperate need for a facelift and will be a tremendous community resource For a small theater for both our students and community members In the arts once that's completed because it is a beautiful space The msms ues windows will be done Which is a very needed infrastructure project that we've talked about at length at board meetings that will be done through 2028 is that wrong? Well, I just want to make sure you had it. It wasn't just next year 2028 because it's a longer term project. We're doing we're doing some windows at a time And then at msms we have plans in the capital plan for the sustainability program Which is probably one of the most innovative programs in the state right now To really redo that classroom. So it's even more innovative for our students at msms And also the steam programming that is in its first year at msms to produce student leadership voices and choice In a different way than what we've traditionally done at msms. That will be happening 2023-24 As planned in the capital plan The state and federal grants We've already completed a whole bunch of hvac improvements and direct digital controls to bring us into the 21st century there um And air we've had air purifiers for every classroom that kind of thing for ppe and also ppe and that kind of stuff What's planned for future federal grants in us? We have the little gym renovation, which is in desperately the facelift as well We're working with uh max and emmanual down there around little gym renovations The special education suite at us is right now an adult space and we want to move it into an instructional space So that is in plans to use with us serve three money as well um For our students with special needs at union elementary school At mainstream elementary, um, we desperately need a playground that fits the adolescent need to give our adolescents something more to do At msms during recess We all know the cafeteria and kitchen needs a needs a good renovation at msms. That is also within the esser plan um To provide more room and also more usable space for our chefs there and the thrive space is Already received a renovation that should have already been completed. Sorry. That's in the wrong spot thrive. Thrive is our Program that we're building right now for students who have significant skill building needs and social emotional learning So that space has been completely renovated. That's in the wrong spot And I apologize there it should have been in the recently completed because it was done this past summer At mh mhs, um, we have a need for a special education life skills transition classroom So this is a classroom that's upstairs and need a sink so we can teach kids how to cook We can teach kids those life skills that they're going to need once they graduate from us So they can have more independent living For students with significant special needs So that's all within our esser plan in terms of infrastructure We went through a long process of what our needs were around that piece And I think that's an excellent use of those funds that are going to benefit not only our students, but also our community Go ahead Amanda In terms of federal grants the esser infrastructure This is just pulling it out a little bit more with it. We've gotten three esser grants one two and three One was primarily spent on classroom multi cultural classroom libraries For main street middle school. We spent a hundred thousand dollars on new texts for kids At main street middle school for classroom libraries We also at that point in the in the pandemic needed more one-to-one laptops for kids because they're breaking They're using them. They're at home and stuff. So we brought a lot of one-to-one laptops with with esser one That's why it's not on here. It didn't really have to do with infrastructure Although it was a long time ago. So I just wanted to remind people of what we did with that Essar two that's where we brought the hydronic valves outdoor air damper control units These are words. I've never truly said before outside of foreign meetings control modules and control wiring which Andrew has gone through An in-depth plan with our engineers as to how to get our hVAC systems working to their max capacity So we have the best air flowing through our systems, which of course is important during covet Then our best or that's the link to the full plan. We've already I've already gone through those pieces But just so we can see which esser grants paid for what? That's important So let's talk about that fund balance that we have and this is going back really to basics Just what is a fund balance and in the most basic sense it's our savings account for surplus money So it's money that's been budgeted for in our local budget We've received that money from the tax base and it wasn't spent for a variety of reasons This and the fund balance can accumulate across several years Okay, so it really is a rainy day savings account for whatever reason if we come out with With money that's a surplus at the end of our year Our auditors help us figure out what that is and they put it in the fund balance It is a well documented thing in every one of our doc our auditing reports I know this because christine and I spent about four hours yesterday digging into the past six years of auditing reports to try to determine exactly what The reason why we have such a large fund balance at the most basic level You know, it's just there's a variety of reasons and the pandemic has thrown us for a loop on what we budget for versus what we spend for the past three years And in while it could be papua substitute teachers We literally didn't use substitute teachers for a full school year Like not once but we had them in the budget, right? So that is a significant expense that if we did we budgeted for that money We thought we were going to need it the pandemic told us differently We potted people up with two adults in every classroom. There was no need for substitute teachers So that pot of money doesn't we don't lose that that goes into the fund balance But for a more specific amount of keep going For more specific, this is what our our auditors say in 2017 Which was pre-merger and pre libya superintendent. We our fund balance amount was 1,795 $5,000 essentially And f y 18 it dropped a little bit. We were we spent in a deficit that year, right? So what was the reason why it dropped 394 thousand dollars was In our auditing reports said buildings and grounds expended more than budgeted Andrew christine and i had a good conversation about that because it was pre all three of us And we Would are going to make the fear the assumption that it was because of soil testing at ues for the playground It was right before the bond was taking place a lot of soil testing had to happen that we didn't account for And the best we can say is that that probably was the increase in the And the or the decrease in the fund balance that year the best we can tell Um in f y Yeah, i asked him to you know f y 19 We had over two million dollars. So we had a significant increase to our fund balance in f y 19 What happened according to our auditing report is that we had lower health care costs than budgeted When we budget for health care costs for new employees say we always budget for a family health care plan Sometimes we hire where it's a single health care plan or the person doesn't take health care That's a savings of approximately 20 000 when that happens So you have three or four people who do that, which is possible And you get significant You get significant health savings in what we've budgeted for health care costs At that point we had merged with Roxbury Montpelier had merged with Roxbury We had expected that in the beginning of the merger Roxbury students could We're going they had school choice in high school And so part of the merger agreement was an agreement that the students who were in their present high school Did not have to come to Montpelier high school that we would pay their tuition Um and they'd kind of be grandfathered in that way And so that year we had less Roxbury students tuition to other districts and my memory serves me correctly A lot of that had to do that with if a Roxbury student was going to northfield and decided to go to the tech center That's technically they could do that under our realm Too right so they go to the same tech center So it wouldn't be a tuitioned experience for that student that rather it'd be one of our students who went to a tech school Does that make sense? So um, that's one of the reasons why there were less Roxbury students who were tuition We had to pay the tuition for other schools and then special education costs came in lower than expected There can be lots of reasons for that we build our plan for Our special education costs for the budget in october the year before So when we do that we're making assumptions based on the service plans that we have in october the year before Those service plans could change kids can move we could get Kids could Learn a lot of skills in one school year, you know and may not need that one to one eight anymore So there's a lot of differences a year makes and we do the best we can with our service plans The year before the budgeting process. So Special education costs came in much lower that year And f y 20 that was the year that we closed Covid closure and our fund balance grew during that fiscal year from to 2,975 thousand dollars Special education staffing needs came in much lower than expected. We had lower health care costs than budgeted We had less Roxbury and private pre-k students tuition to other districts and programs Remember we pay tuition for pre-k students who go to private pre-k's and when schools closed Parents didn't send their kids to pre-k and so when you have 20 kids, you know, that equals up to a lot of money um Transportation was obviously significantly less than budgeted because we weren't using our buses when we closed in march Um after march, we had no substitutes. We had no custodial over time Literally the only people in the building was myself jim burmingham Angela rosa and the principal who was also helping us serve lunch and one custodian That was it and they were only in this building. We were in no other buildings during that closure time So therefore our electricity bill was significantly less um So and then we had savings from new hires when when a person Retires obviously at the end of the pay scale and we hire somebody at the The beginning of the pay scale. That's a significant cost savings And then in fy 22 or 21 remember it was the year of potting And a virtual instruction so approximately A third quarter to a third of our student body was in virtual instruction not on campus The rest of our kids were potted k8 and here at the high school They were here for a significantly different schedule than what they were used to um And so that year our fund balance did grow significantly to 3783 ish dollars We had a savings from new hires Our professional development what we budgeted for professional development that year was essentially not used So every teacher every professional in our district including our administrators Have the you the equivalent of six credits at uvm the monetary equivalent is six credits at uvm Which equals what about 6 000 christina? 3 000 So when we have 200 people not using that money, that's a significant savings Um transportation was significantly less than budgeted because there was a lack of field trips There was a lack of co-curriculars Sports didn't start up until later on in the year and they were not necessarily going to all the events that they typically go to We didn't use substitutes that year Literally everybody remembers only board members were allowed to clean our Clean the buildings at ues into the buildings No other person was allowed into our buildings unless you worked here or went to school here And we had no custodial overtime Several positions that year were not filled custodians our board members know So when you have a full year of non-filled positions, that's a significant budget Savings also in our instructional assistance class Situation we had a lot of openings We also in the beginning of fy 21 offered the board offered an early retirement buyout For and four teachers took us up on that early retirement. We didn't fill those positions So those were four teachers at the end of the salary scale that we didn't have We didn't have to pay for the entire year because of the buyout So those are the reasons why our fund balance got to be the size that it got They're all very legitimate reasons most of which are out of our control because of the situation that we found ourselves in Any questions from the board about that piece? Okay, so how does the district determine how to spend fund balance? This is in the fiscal management policy I just cut and pasted it squarely from there. There is some question Mia asked a good question around the number three the committed piece and amanda if you keep going As approved by voters when the voters vote on articles in town meeting one of the articles every single year is this one Um, and this is talking to that committed funds They're essentially the voters when they vote yes on this They're voting to say that the school board has through the ability and responsibility to decide how to spend fund balance dollars Um And the legal references are down on that slide For anybody who's interested in that go ahead a month Um, so what have we recently used the fund balance for COVID PPE was beautiful when we had that situation where It was just us. We knew what was coming down the pike We were being told that we were going to have to take the temperature of every child who walked through our doors I didn't hesitate when I said go buy me a thousand thermometers now and get good ones, right? And we didn't have to hesitate on that kind of thing We were able to find mass ventilation in ways that other school districts were not able to find because I said I don't care what it costs get them for our staff and faculty And our people responded and did Angela rosa did an amazing job at making sure our ventilation systems were up to date Tom tom allen was on every single piece that we asked him to do who's our head custodian And our custodial supervisor so We were able to do these things because of our fund balance rvs heat pumps three are in place three more will go in soon and we have plans for four more after that That was some discussion at the finance committee three more So rvs heat pumps are coming out of the fund balance, which the board approved that cost We have an out a confidential outside placement for a special education piece that happened before our time here My time here that were that's in the final year of finishing now We have the board has reserved money for a net zero study, which I understand the facilities Committee discussed maybe today or it's in discussion around right now what we're going to do with that We have a revenue source in our local budget So we use our our fund balance to offset The decreasing merger incentives that we had received with the rocksbury merger because that we got a big merger incentive But it decreased each year and so that kind of is like a tax increase when that incentive decreased We used our fund balance to offset that We also have fund balance planned going forward as a revenue source in our local budget should we need it Now if we come into a local budget and christine has done a really nice job at helping me understand this If we go and have our local budget set and we have planned say 300 thousand dollars as a revenue source in our local budget And we spend less than what we planned to We don't use that 300 thousand dollars. It goes into the fund balance. It goes back into the fund balance We just don't use it And so that's happened what we saw twice maybe in the last five or six years that we were looking at And we've done increases to salary lines, particularly our food service at unplanned times Particularly in the last couple years. So we've used fund balance to be able to do that piece Um, and I think that's Oh, I can't move it. Sorry. I'm like that's not it. I didn't understand the tax piece around like The local budget Can you explain that to me? Yeah, so we have used in the past of the fund balance as a revenue source in our budget To decrease the tax impact on our taxpayers Um, are you talking specifically about the merger piece? So yeah, not that one. So we could So you use that money to say, okay, here's our local budget Um, and instead of One million is going to be 700,000 that you're voting for because we're using 300 out of the fund balance Which means that the tax base is is only getting taxed on the 700 We've done it in every budget since I've been here. Okay. Yeah I'm not making keep going So what's in the fund balance now the finance committee just had a A presentation about this. It's directly out of the first quarter report Our auditor has been in our offices For the past several weeks where and Christina asked her to look at this specifically for the board So this is from the auditor. It's while it's not a hard number It's as close to a hard number as it possibly can be Right now without having the audit report in our hands Unaudited fund balance is three million eight hundred ninety four thousand three hundred eleven The assigned fund balance so things we're already we've looked at so assigned is for the budget revenue What I was just talking about Is 700,000 for this year's budget that we're in currently and through 26 by 26 We've assigned that so we're already planning on putting some of this fund balance Towards our local budget to decrease that tax base what we were just talking about amanda The board has committed 1.5 million for the track So we're decreasing that from the 38 And then the unreserved set of sides for the outside placement the net zero the heat pumps that kind of thing That equals 105. So we want to de we want to subtract those three numbers seven 1.5 100 And the current unreserved fund balance that means there is no attachment to it Is 1,593,811 our policy dictates that we want to have our rainy day fund should be 2 of our overall budget Right now. We're at 5.86 of our overall budget and so With the Additional 400 that the board could or could not be voting on tonight That would leave 1,049,834 and it's still over the over the 2% limit Okay, on a kid did some good math today. I'm totally putting him on the spot right here But he figured out what the 2% was it wasn't on the slide. It should have been on a kid. Do you remember that? $550,000 is the 2% Okay, so we're we're way over the the board policy for the 2% Amanda you can keep going Sorry to make you do that So future infrastructure needs Andrew put together the facilities report. It's linked here. It's on our web page under facilities It's on the board page. It's also here And I sat Andrew down. I said, okay, look at these projects that we presented last week and tell me when Tell me when you're thinking And so he said about when because we're talking We're not we're not sure right so about when projects already plan for with local capital And grant fundings are happening in the next four years Nice to have like hey, if you were thinking about something Re-colocate the central and business offices to some other space renting in town perhaps so that we can increase the capacity for academic spaces here at mhs Jason put your arm down In five to ten years Needed projects are going to be the fire alarm panels the elevator machine room upgrade here at mhs flooring at mhs Potentially pcb's that's testing dependent And the main street middle school where they're not adding on a roof But where the addition was that's worded strangely where the addition was put in in the 80s a new roof there Keep in mind in five to ten years the capital plan does not have An assigned cost to it right at that point in time If we go by our plan the windows will be done And there's nothing for something there So the capital plan will be available for any needed projects then And ones that we haven't thought about because it's five to ten years down the road Nice to have projects at more athletic facilities upgrades the mhs gym could use a facelift Storage for outside the concession stand water dugouts more athletic kind of pieces For our students 11 plus years then we're talking about maybe the roof But that's like a lot of like 20 years down the road. Andrew said last week 15 to 20 years For potentially here at the mhs at mhs and that's a long time to think of nice to have projects So I'm not I didn't even kind of go there as to what might be nice to have in 11 plus years And the the roof the 11 years is you explained this last time It's that it's to take this one all out and put a new one, right? And the what you have Do you have something like that in the Five to ten years or no like to fix some of these What the roof what we did a couple years ago during the bond project is a is a perfectly viable reasonable solution Is it a brand new roof? No So It's probably got a shorter window than a than a normal than a regular brand new roof But it's not deteriorating. It's not Falling apart it's it's viable, but we will want to replace it Probably the next two years just to get it off the plate If we have the ability to do it you get it off the plate and that's one more thing We don't have to worry about Like I say main street in or like this Libby was saying main street in union Most of those roofs are are new as is five six years ago. So those those have a good long life still ahead of them track I feel like I don't know go back picture speaks a thousand words there go ahead This is what our current track looks like as of last week Um And the picture in the up left it's you can't tell where the track starts and the wooded piece ends For the all the pine needles that are on it. I Try to take a walk often when it's nice out in the afternoon And that is not just that day for the fall because pine needles have fallen That is how it is all the time including during track season Um, you can see the tire marks that people have driven on Of That is also common. It's also used as a parking lot for the community of Montpelier during bigger events Can I clarify that it used to be before before answer that is that that is from the soil testing That is from the drill rig for the soil testing, but Your point you we still we're the only ones that drive on the track Now with Andrew there. Um, the building is a our beautiful concession stand that um Is I'm being a little facetious and sarcastic when I say the word beautiful We don't use it currently. It's just not used matt. Is it ever used right now? You used you started it just recently i've been in there it's a little sketchy We used it The bottom left is a picture of what our current facility our outdoor storages for matt are those your storage units for athletics under there and the bleachers Matt is our athletic director Those are recent those are prior prior to A year ago we had nothing that we could even contain things in so those are those are containers that we bought during coveted that were We've moved over here and put under the bleachers the idea being we can lock a baseball program up or a lacrosse program But they are a temporary solution. That's probably well past their Cell by date There's the garage matt has one room here at mhs We can debate that But it's not a place where you could put big equipment because it's upstairs and it's not accessible Um and then there's just a another picture of the dirt So why that's okay keep going So why a track i'm going to ask jason to help me out here as well Jason gingold who of course is our principal at mhs I'll start just by saying i've been here now for five years The mhs campus is used by our entire community 360 days a year a new track will add another aspect for that community benefit I arrive at school at 6 30 in the morning and there are people on our campus using our facilities at that time even in the dark It's used until I leave at night, which is typically between Five and six 30. So it's still being used By not just our athletes but by our community All the time every day The this project will have no impact on taxes zero impact on taxes It is money that is in the savings account It will not increase the taxes in any way shape or form And should the board decide to move forward with the with the 400 in addition tonight We will still be significantly over the 2 threshold for the fund balance that is written impossibly Or in in a policy. Sorry our month that money is available now We can get started. Um, we have gotten started on some on some project things. We can do that And all of our other infrastructure needs that that are incredible facilities manager and administrative staff over the last few years We it's been accounted for in all the other things that we spoke about earlier Um, could we do perhaps some more innovative things? Maybe um, if we put our brains together We'd have to really think about what that means. It also means staffing It also means so like when you make some decisions that are completely different in programs It means a lot of other things as well. So We need time for that um I'm the kids have done such a great job at talking about how it's a low cost Uh sport for families and it's fostering community and team which our presentation earlier One significant thing that we have is community loss and anything we can do to increase community is a positive thing for our kids Um, and it also builds lifelong mentalities. I did skip a bullet because I want Jason to talk about that more Um, I think quality facilities really demonstrates what jim spoke about earlier to our community and our students that they matter And that future students that we care and invest in our schools Um, and we have a laser like focus on learning and social emotional learning we do And we're learning a lot and we have a lot of room to grow there and we have systems in place We have human resources in place right now that we haven't had before and we're moving in the right direction As evidence by the data that the board was presented with tonight And I'll let jason finish this up here With the research that is quite clear on what co-curriculars do for students for kids Let's see so some of this we've heard but let's echo some of these thoughts students who engage in extracurricular activities graduate at a higher rate Uh, decrease in incarceration rates build structures for mental health support decrease addition Addiction as jim spoke to earlier promote leadership and community. And I think no way back there. I know spoke of that earlier tonight Uh, in the school year 21 22 montpellier high school served 125 students in the spring outside on that track field 87 in the winter And this fall we have 155 students using that area And that's just the high school not to mention nathan's program in the middle school Replacing the track is we're learning about is a potential one-time cost, right? There might be summer maintenance fees But comparably it's a one-time cost compared to we heard a lot about From peggy sue and jest today about social emotional learning and increasing our staff But as we know every time we increase our staff that also has a budget effect and could also increase the budget in years to come Which then could also have a riffing effect Or a budget challenge effect, right? So maybe a one-time cost now To increase social emotional wellness versus a staffing increase, which may not be manageable later Um, we also know that there is a hiring shortage that you heard about not only here in the district But also in the state of vermont I happen to take a quick look at school spring and there are 31 open Therapist positions in schools across the state and over 50 ia positions Open across the state and I didn't look at special educators. Sorry So overall, uh, the track can help alleviate some of those concerns and would just benefit our whole community Not just the high school community as well Thank you questions for jason or For any of us, yeah any of us Yeah Thanks for still being here And thank you very much for that presentation. That was um very helpful and once again just underscores what How great the great hands that our district is in Um, I asked these during the facilities committee and I wanted to just ask them again tonight for the benefit of everybody else who's here the Numbers that we saw about a month ago The construction cost is 1.4 alone Um, can you break down what goes into that construction cost a little bit more for us? Yeah, it was a comprehensive cost estimate that took into account the stripping of the of the stripping of the track and soils and storing it and storm water Um mitigations you have to do during construction um The sub base it was a full It was a full cost estimate as well as Including in there matt helped me out with some information on Equipment for the track and there was a question about that It was just include the mats and the hurdles and things like that. We put that number in there. Um It also includes a 10 contingency design contingency Uh, there's also fees in there for the uh engineer as well as permitting and uh any sort of Permitting costs the the cost of the engineers preparing permits and then permitting costs that we would have on top of that And then if the board were to vote Yes, what's the process from there and at what point other points would the board and then but that Also the community have a chance to be engaged in the process At this point what we would do is if there was a go ahead today I would I would contact our engineers and tell them that we've got to go We would redefine the scope because we talked about lights and concessions and things like that So we'd redefine the scope a little bit with them to work out the fee They would get working on a design bring it to a schematic design level that would sit down with matt Link the athletic director as well as anyone he he thinks that would be worth bringing in to talk about You know what event's going to go where and what are we going to do and we would Flesh that plan out. We would then bring it that would let the engineers work on that again We bring it to the next higher level. We would present it to the board just so everybody can nod their heads and say Yep, we we understand what you're doing We would probably then get that drawing cost estimated So that we knew before going into bidding whether we were on track or not Depending on what happened with that cost estimate. We would make some decisions They would be as this is going along they would be working with the state agencies with regarding permitting and Early on they would send it over there to get a little initial conversation going making sure there's no red flags We would shoot to probably Try to go out to bid The bid environment is a little different right now. We won't waste too much time talking about that But it's a little bit different, but we would shoot for I would hope sort of a march Bid, you know put it out to bid and sometime in march In having not talked too much with matt link about this But I think construction wise we would wait until school got out Bids because we can't really have trucks in and the parking going on They would build the road essentially doing as little Touching as little of the actual field as possible, you know, we'd have to do a little grading around it but Getting the construction done before the start of school So that soccer season would not be interfered with The track would basically the road would cure over the winter because they need 30 days between paving and putting on the the coding the track surface And then we would work with With regards to this the laying on of the surface That really we would have to that would be dependent on weather And where we are with the regards to you know, how much how much how long does it have to set up before someone can walk across it? You know, do we try to sneak it in so we can get one event? In the school year or we say all right, we'll just We'll work with what we got and then we will We'll pay it will do the surfacing in the summer year During the summer when we don't have to worry about the lacrosse team running across it or anything like that while it's still green So it's going to be it. Well, I I think you will learn from u32 u32 had a vision of when they redid their tract of getting it and they ran out of summer And that's why they had to redo it in this or they had to do it in the spring Do they're actually coding in the spring if I understand that story correctly? So that's the general layout of it And the going into bid part is what we would put out the rfp that The board would approve and the community would see Is that what happens? No, it would be it would be a bid package It would be a set of drawings and a set of specifications. We would On a project this size we would pre-qualify bidders I would I would work with I would put out a A pre-qualification statement that says we're we're going to be having this project And if you want to be considered for it show past projects so that you're bondable all those sorts of things from there We would say these companies can do it. We're comfortable We're if they win the bid we will be happy to work with them these other ones. They're not bondable They haven't done something similar. They've never worked on a school project They're not done a track. Maybe we don't want to work with them. We'll have We'll have that definition of whose we're going to allow work on As part of that pre-qualification process So we'll have a group of pre-qualified bidders come march and this is all tentative Because it used to be you wanted to Be the first one on people's construction List, you know, you right after the new year you want to get your be the first project people say, okay I got my summer work lined up Road construction stuff like this. No one's going to bid six months out. No, just no one's going to commit to the costs With the economy now in three months. Is that going to change? I don't think in three months. That's going to change much. I think just think I would anecdotally If wall was bidding on a project at uvm They got a one-day guarantee on their stainless steel for their headers So the supplier said this this quote was good for one day. It's not like that anymore That was height of covet, but we're still it used to be 30 days or 60 days. It's it's much shorter now This information to be said you use the word bondable What does that mean because we're not talking about going out and getting a bond? No that that means that we and we don't have to We can request it. We will pay for it But basically we say to a contractor We're going to award this contract You will give us a bond that says I've got this is a million dollar project if for some reason I don't start I don't complete I don't do whatever. There's a million dollars. It's an insurance policy It's an agreement. It's it's it's an insurance. It's it's an insurance policy Generally if you've pre qualified You look at these You know who they are, you know, they can go because if they are bondable that means There's a company that says yeah, you're not going to go out of business. You're not going to have default on this project So almost the fact that you can get a bond is almost as good as getting a bond And again, we'll pay for it if we want a bond we'll pay a percent and a half of the project cost to get it So that was very helpful what I was trying to figure out was where the other points in the process moving forward The board and the community would be engaged in the process. Well, again, I think that that really if We know what it is. We know what the it's a track project Now it's really working with the athletic director and the facilities people to see what that looks like typically there's not The community hasn't trusted you to To represent them right and so You're we've hired an engineering firm either Where we don't want your input on where the hurdles are going to be stores You know, but we do want to we will present you when we get a plan that we're all pretty comfortable with and matt link Is comfortable with we will show it to you so someone says hey, where are they storing the hurdles? You can say I saw that and they're going to store them in this shed And they say how many you say I don't know how many but I've been calm I've been sure that there's going to be an appropriate amount of storage for those sorts of things So I think Just as a matter of course, we would show you the plans as you'd like to see it. It's a big project. We'd like to see it but feedback and interest I think that would be relatively relatively minimal I think that's what the building in and we would certainly present to the building in an energy group a little more often Just out of sight. This is where we're at. Keep you in update again that that sort of seems like the role of that committee Conversation is when you get the bits We will go through again. We will go through and Questions like that we will we will reach out. We're not going to do this behind closed doors But we're not going to do it here You know, so if there is questions about that things people would like to see I feel free to contact me and we'll talk about those things. So in terms of that equity piece of it around like the having it Adaptability be included in that conversation. It's like is that I'm just trying to make sure that happens I think that It's not like that is not we're not allowed to That line is a paid ADA sidewalk from the parking lot To the track and the concession and and the bleachers Adaptability to students with disabilities who Are in a wheelchair who are amputees who are Yeah Who have different texture around the way the tracks are built. I was doing a little research about that So I please share any thoughts you have We do not have an accessible track now But that that is not accessible or safe for a student with any or a person with any kind of physical disability So The question around the tax benefit, you know, just just want to go back because we're saying it's not a tax increase But we could choose that we're going to put this in the general budget We could choose. I'm just I just want to make sure that we are clear that is a choice too that we could say People are hurting because people are hurting and as you want people to come people are leaving because they can't afford our towns Um, so just like that is another like thought right like we could say hey We're going to put 1.2 million as part of the general budget Which is going to decrease taxes. So it's not doesn't have a tax benefit just for transparency purposes That's not what i'm offering But I just want to be clear that that is what i'm understanding that we could take this money and put it as It as part of the general budget that is coming up But the cost of the track will not cost taxpayers money Exactly. I just want to be clear and transparent with that We could also pair down our budget for a tax benefit as well And I think those are my questions Oh the other one is around the hiring shortages and The thought that we could use this money to grow our own right like there is some school districts thinking about growing our own Paras growing our own, you know paras to become special educators or teachers and Putting some funds around that idea that yes, we don't have staff And we have some interventions that we could Can't see myself That you know we could grow our own program and grow our own initiatives that are about teaching and that Could be also part of that so that just brings me to that conversation around like the different Purposes we could do that so that was like just that comment that I had around thinking of Teaching shortages and also thinking about our assets that we have Here in our district It's It's not really a question I guess But that conversation did come up in the finance committee and the structures are already here To build paras and ias It's happened and it can and it this there are there are already structures to do that I don't think it needs Two million dollars to do that at all Why not but yes Do you have conversations after tonight whether we vote on it or not? I mean from the perspective of Of rocksbury. I I think It's hard for kids to It's it's it's a challenge to make and build and sustain friendships Once kids get to msms You know working on connecting the elementary schools early and often is something that I think we're all thinking about I'm certainly working on that pen pals between families Whatever we can do to build relationships And a large track program is it would be a huge benefit to rocksbury kids to stay after school And and be with their friends and be part of the program to take advantage of the late bus that we have And There's a I've heard nothing but support from rocksbury I mean what we see from the presentation our academics are doing pretty well what we're missing is community and social emotional loss All of this stuff is about social emotional social emotional community. I have avery telling me that or all of us that You know, he found a group of boys that make them a better human being every day. That's like I'm like I was having a hard time listening to that that was really powerful You know another kid saying that they they transferred here to be part of the track team because of the community that that track team Has established. I mean when you talk about community We talked about how loud the cheers were for the soccer team out there. It's not just the players and the athletes It's the friends that come and support them that get together for events to support their their friends and their and That's where community gets built. That's what that's what being in middle school and being in high school is all about I mean it's not necessarily that you're the star It's that you can cheer for you know, you and your crew can can cheer for whoever it is. That's the star I don't know. I just I just think this is the sort the benefits of this is so great And the damage that could be done if we prolong this process it could ruin it I think we we we we we walk into a very very sort of dangerous place if we prolong this process further Um, I'd like to make a motion to have a vote If I can I don't know I felt like there was sort of another motion that had been made but just not formally I just want to make sure that me if you want to proceed with that motion Okay Can I I'd like to make a motion to Commit the additional four hundred thousand dollars So that the process can begin um Did I just do it? Discussion I'm gonna say that I would have liked to hear from Libby and all of them about as specifically more priorities of how you would use this like um And give us a chance to think through the holistic picture around all the pieces Uh, I think again like I uh reread the infrastructure report Um, I reread some of the recommendations that Andrew has in that report including I am you know today today come with disability in mind for A lot of reasons, but I'm thinking a lot about accessibility and people in wheelchairs and That's what I'm bringing in today with me So bear with me that I really just want to Make this good When I make this decision seven years from now who's coming to be Everywhere in our school system. So like thinking about of Roxbury and we're reading the piece around Having a wheelchair access for people in the town hall and for people who are having community events there and Just rereading that I was like, oh, we should really prioritize having an accessibility piece around the Roxbury town hall where community events happen and that and so I would have love for this process to be conversations around the actuality versus this binary You are for the track or not and um That is sad. It's sad to me that that is what happened, right? Like that it was a binary between Am I voting for the track or am I not? So that is the discussion I am having right now accessible for people in wheelchairs in the town hall just not directly through the front door It has access to the ceremonial front through the historic ceremony Which does that get open often? Yeah, and I want to I want to say I mean I definitely acknowledge that this process could have been far better And I think it should have been far better. I think we should learn from it. I also feel that The strong consensus on the board is that this is a project that we're going to approve And I think further process is likely to confuse it and also put up. I think a false choice I also do not think this is a binary choice I think that a lot of the priorities that have been spoken to tonight and spoke to the community Are things that we are working on and we want to work on and we want to continue to have those conversations This is not the track or all these other things that amanda and mia And emma and everyone else here has brought in as as priorities and you know christin and you know the needs in rocksberry That that you know red has talked about These are all continuing conversations We can have and things that we need to continue to work on and things that can be funded from other sources and things that As liby has stated are being Addressed and thought of now. This is not a binary choice and I think that has been kind of falsely teed up in the community and I really Feel that that is one of the things we need to do it and and while we may not have Yeah, this is you know, we're always a constant process I think we definitely need to educate the community on you know If the board does vote affirmatively as to why we did it and why this makes sense and why those other priorities are Continuing to get our attention or continue to be things that we care about and things that we have You know resources and and we'll have continuing resources To fund because you know a school is an organic system We keep fixing things. We keep making it better. We keep making investments. We keep doing things for our kids Um, and I feel tonight is an opportunity to do one wonderful thing for our kids A needed thing for our kids. I think a thing that needs to get done Um, but we need to do lots of other things too. And this is this is this is A step along the way. It's not the Not the end of anything. It's not taking anything off the table It's it's a great thing. We're doing and we're going to continue to do great things As the parliamentarian, I think if we have a motion that was seconded we have to withdraw it Otherwise, it's like an open Questions, right? I didn't really make a decision. Okay. I didn't Okay But thank you I mean, I I think that we have a real opportunity I'm excited to see that we have another million dollars in the fund balance That we have an opportunity there to Engage the community that is already now paying attention and engaged on this topic And we can bring them in for a for a really solid process moving forward that can be like a model of best practice of how we How we allocate fund balances in the future And and I think it's a good amount of money to address Some of the major concerns that I heard in emails That haven't already been addressed with other funding sources Because most of the things that I heard people in the community asking us to use the fund balances for instead of the track Were things that were already being addressed Um, but there were a couple of things that were really good Suggestions that now we have this other million dollars to Create a process around I just want to thank everybody that did send your comments. I think 50% it was very close I got about 96 97 folks that Responded to a survey put up in front porch forum It's really 50 50 some some of the responders already have sent had sent emails over here present Others were new And I feel like a lot of the concerns were around process transparency, which is also one of the You know top points in the visionary process that we did There was a lot of misinformation around the track field. So some of that are around the yeah the Turf there was a lot of you know, don't vote on it because of the turf. So I think that one thing we could do is I'm going to respond to the 97 people that Email me in that survey about my decision and in this meeting But I think that it that we should learn from that process that To see from porch forum as a way to engage Um, it's the only way I can engage because I'm not on facebook or social media And I try to not be in email so much So I think that it's important that we do not take for granted our elderly And that we don't take for granted Those who don't have kids in our districts and that we do engage with them And I think not necessarily so much for the process. We've had plenty opportunities to We are the source of the information and if we don't put that information outwards somebody else will And we need to be very clear concise and we need to all be on the same page about what that information is Um, again the danger of the single story piece. So I think there is still a lot of misinformation and it wouldn't hurt to do a public session about like here's all the misinformation We hear here's all of it in addition to this people are busy They don't have time to sit in school board meetings or listen to the videos for three hours And I don't expect them to So I won't say anything All those in favor Hi Hi Any opposed? Thank you everyone. This was a Quarter process I'm in perfect one Had a lot of Uh should we We should really do the fourth quarter financial work What do you think? Um, first quarter First quarter financial work First quarter financial work Yes Christina Christina Take the hot seat. Yeah, we're going to do the first quarter report. Thank you all for coming Yes, thank you everyone Yeah Robert's right here Okay, um, I will also be learn Thank you Doors and stuff like that Hopefully it'll be quick. I'll check in with them. I'll see I can set the alarm. It's fine Thank you Andrew Thank you Thank you so much Christina. I don't spend Good night Um, do I Committee has kind of taken the lead of like what were the or finance sorry finance committee has taken the lead as to what? were the highlights and Christina is here to ask answer any questions from the rest of the board who did not have the In-depth overview of the finance committee So i'm going to nominate aniquette to give You have a good finance committee meeting um a few highlights we are um overall we are um I don't know over budget site work, but we are over our average spending for The first quarter a few things that were highlighted The we have five or four out of district placements, uh, unexpected high number of those and that's that's contributing to a Major portion of it We have The the Buildings and grounds. There's a there's a big concern about fuel costs Is in general the cost of fuel is going up so 15 to 70 thousand dollars over there That may be over the budgeted amount We have a couple of other things which are The vacancies that libyan others talked about So that may bring down But you know, we might fill them but that's something that that Will continue to monitor as far as the budgets and spending is concerned That we we talked at length about the fund balance or liby dead about fund balance and how it's allocated So I don't think we need to go into that Again unless there are specific questions As far as revenues um, we have Pretty much everything on the as expected and there's There isn't anything that jumped out to me that was out of alignment. Uh, as far as the revenue sources are concerned No concerns Or nothing that that out of ordinary for me um A few highlights that are usual the the food service information are We you know, we want to run that as a business, but there are challenges in in doing that So we every year we we allocate 110 thousand dollars or about hundred thousand dollars that we will Transfer to to make up for the deficit and we've done that this year as well The other funding sources Everything is just As per expectations and same goes for long-term debt There's nothing really on that page that that jumped out to me unless I'm missing something That's pretty much it what did I miss Jill? Well, I think it just it reflects some of the same things we saw in the presentation from From about special education and and social emotional learning right like the out of placement is higher than expected And we would probably expect to see that and then there's other places where the budget is also seeing sort of the impacts of that so Okay, I think you covered it and and a lot of the Expenditures are front loaded a lot of the trainings and purchases and things do happen in the first quarter So that can also account for it being a little higher this quarter We'll continue to calibrate and watch it as the quarters come by. Yeah, and there was a comment or a question I had that the the I think Christina made that comment that the As Jill mentioned a lot of things in here are high because they're front loaded But one of the comment I made was then the two-year Average shouldn't that reflect if it's the front loaded if it's a common thing that we're front loading it every year Shouldn't the two-year average catch that but the The reasoning behind that is last two years haven't been normal They haven't been you know that we were affected by covid And so a lot of things didn't get front loaded because a lot a lot of things didn't happen So that's why the two-year average is a little skewed over there those out of district placements there are a handful of of kiddos that Really really had some serious behavioral challenges and so sort of agreed upon with the families and the district that They would get better services in a different site And part of liby's response to that is investing in the thrive space, correct? Rise rise shine thrive because if we can create better spaces Which we're working on then we'll be better able to serve kids that have more sort of Impactful behavioral just you know disturbing this behavioral disturbances or I don't know how you how I want to say that but kids that are struggling and in a way that Distrupts everything around them. They'll have a better spaces to be better To provide those services in a in a way that maintains somebody's dignity. Yeah, and in my experience if somebody's in crisis The best thing to do is give them a safe space to go through that process and not try to Stop it just allow it to happen in a safe way A settlement agreement in there in the financial report Four years It's the last year So that's not like a new lawsuit right I'm sorry. It's not like a new lawsuit or oh no. No. No. No. No. It's the last year. We wouldn't know that right If it were a lawsuit like settlements or no, um In a confidential manner. Yes So the um the higher the higher number of Out of district placements for 504 that is that that wedge of the pie we were seeing from Peggy sue that's the not not at mrps. That's those it could be It could be But it's not that that pie when or that wedge wouldn't be just totally 504 It's necessarily either, you know the in the exchange program There are students who are on IEPs who are in the exchange program with u32 got it right right? That's right. Okay, and there's kids with 504s who are in the the exchange program and they're you know, like so It could be yes And then I also noted the Anticipation that fuel costs will be higher by a significant amount Do we is that the kind of thing that you know, we have in the fund balance? We have that $400,000 sitting there ready to go as a transfer Is that the kind of thing that we would use that for? We haven't put it as a set aside yet because we haven't locked into any contract by Andrew and I are meeting weekly to keep on top of this. So once we know what we're going to end up spending Um, it also comes down to you know, springtime our tanks empty. Can we get by do we need to fill them up? You know in march april So it will actually be a third quarter decision to to see what we end up spending My oil and I was like It just filled my tank and it was triple that what I actually pay I think that the part of the sort of feeling of the problem with the process that we had is that We're all so new Because the more I see stuff the more I remember how it connects to this and that and this and and all these things Are very much connected and it doesn't necessarily feel that way in the moment and it's taking A lot of time to sort of think about how all these things string together I I don't think I know that the process didn't Go as we might have hoped but I think that We're doing a really good job. I mean, I hope that other people feel that way Um, it's just it's it's so much information. It's really hard to wrap My head around it and and I'm in it now for more than a year and All the time it's like I'm spending this time. It's like that I saw that over there But it looked different because it wasn't presented in the same presentation or under the same facility name or committee name or whatever. It's like I don't know. I mean, it's hard to wrap your head around it. So it obviously so it's always going to feel clunky and Imperfect Streams and tributaries coming together to kind of form the river that's this district. It's it is complicated and confusing I think the December vsda is offering a Like reflective process workshop So it's worth checking out their website, but essentially kind of framing What a process would look like okay? This happened It's now behind us and now we have the opportunity to look in the rear view and really do some reflective thinking about how We can improve and refine process. So I feel like we did that, but we didn't do anything with it We had two processes in front of us, which we dissected and then we They didn't do anything with it. So We need to be better at that at doing something and continuing with it Facilities or sorry the finance report Any discussion I wasn't better I say we fund all of the readings to next time Yeah, I feel that I would I don't think anyone Rightfully should have had any time to read through any of those with any fidelity So I'm gonna I think that we should allow you time to do that The question regarding the process for the first readings. Do we have to say like In more advance or no Did you remember we had this and we're like, oh, yeah, we're supposed to do that We were tough. That was about the final warning of like when we're going to be voting on it. I think Yeah, adopting it. Yeah I think when you at first were used to want to discuss it So we vote the opportunity to say, you know, I saw this it didn't make sense. You explained that so And we've been working on those that group of policies for a long time in the policy committee So it would be great to like have some fresh eyes on it Um, and then we're totally willing. It's on our next agenda to look at notes. It's so If you have notes, let's see Yeah, thank you You're gonna do it, aren't you? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So second that was a favor Thanks, everyone. Thanks for putting in a lot of work on this