 Board of Directors, to order. Mr. Hinchin. I had an agenda item I'd like to add. I'd like to have a discussion about maybe a short term, a short contract to help review bids for the playground. I'm gonna add that to the agenda after number five so that we can have the parents to it off the stage. I've also added a item to the consent agenda for a new food service structure. The first item on the agenda is public comment. There are some folks here. If you're here for item five, you don't need to be part of public comment now but if anyone has public comment on something else, no. All right, moving on to the consent agenda. They're figuring out what they really are at number five. You are number five? Okay. Okay. A motion to approve the consent agenda. I move that we approve the consent agenda. All second. I should have said that on the consent agenda is approval of the minutes for May 16th, approval of new teacher contracts, approval and signing of bond documents, approval of NHS roof bid, approval of tax anticipation notes, approval of the AFSCME side letter agreement and adoption of the tobacco prohibition, education records, student alcohol and drugs and limited English proficiency students policies. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda? Hi. Any opposed? Thanks for all the explanations of that material. Brian in the memo and I understand we all need to sign the things. Yes. Okay, so. Actually we're down to just two more that needs to sign and so if Lisa and Brian take care of that I will just go back to my room. Fantastic. Jim, Tina and I may already sign. Okay. Great. I'll check there. I have it. And the consent agenda also included the teaching positions and the service director as Brian indicated in the beginning. The next action item is the warrant process and approval process number four. Grant, do you want to come and speak about that? Since you're doing two things at once. I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you were over there. Sure. I think Superintendent Wickey gave some brief description of what this is related to. In the law book 16VSA 563 on the powers of the board it basically in a nutshell says the board is responsible to approve the bills that we pay and who we're paying them to and how much we're having to pay and then provides that approval to the treasurer who is then responsible to make sure the bills get paid. And so we just wanted to have a documented process in place where we can tell our auditors this is what we do. This is how we handle it. So as outlined in Superintendent Rica's memo we plan to continue to have warrants run every other week. We are asking that you approve or authorize the chair or vice chair to sign the warrants on behalf of the board. We will keep track of every warrant that gets approved. So for example, during the summer if you're not meeting we will keep track of the warrants that the chair or vice chair have signed and we will make sure that those get on your next board meeting. And then we will have documentation that shows the board approved the warrants. We will have somebody signature on those warrants and we will use those warrants to provide to your district treasurer and then she can make sure the bills get paid meaning her signature will be on the checks that go out. So it's just kind of a simple housekeeping thing so that I can document that you have agreed to this process. So I believe there was a suggested motion to approve the warrant process as outlined and to authorize the chair or vice chair to sign warrants on behalf of the board. And I would like to address any. It's really just documenting what both prior districts probably have already done but just something that I can show that we did actually talk about it and have the process and then we'll follow it. Any questions for Grant or the superintendent? That's the way we've been doing it for everybody who hasn't been doing it. And we may have missed a couple of warrants that got signed off cycle whenever meetings got canceled and that's something we want to make sure that we clean up and if the auditors come in we want to be able to show here's where this warrant was approved here's where this one was and be able to have all of them and maybe a number sequence that we can make sure so it's very clear. So we can't have had that many warrants when we were just hoping it is for a campaign? You have had none. We don't have any one yet. This is the one that would be doing it. So very soon we will start having them and it'll be during the summer when you're not meeting on a regular basis. So it's something I needed to get documented before that happens. I wouldn't say that too quickly that we're not meeting on a regular basis this summer. Yeah. I think we probably are. Okay. There's a suggested motion in the memo. Can someone propose it? It's on page two. I will. I move that we approve the warrant process as outlined and authorized to board chair or vice chair to sign warrants on behalf of the board. Second. I'll second that. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you, Graham. Thank you, Graham. The next item on the agenda number five is a parent request, which you have in your packet from, and please let me know if I'm saying this correctly, Dwayne and Rachel Natvig, and Dwayne and Rachel Natvig are here and you are welcome to come up and speak with us if you'd like to. We have your request and we've read it if you were happy to hear from you if you'd like to speak to us about it. You can either sit or stand at the microphone as long as you're at one of the microphones. It's fine. Well, I think the board's decision has to be based upon what's best for our son, and that really will sound accountability because he's already a seventh grader and will be forced to change to a different school between seventh and eighth grade, and as his name is Mr. Dale pointed out, to your previous meetings in April of last year, smooth transition has always been the goal of the years that Graham's father in has been the way that has happened. Our son was already in a different school. He was mentioned in the minutes of before students went and learned his part of having another school, but he did as he started in the beginning of sixth grade, and he was actually enrolled in seventh grade in March 27th, 2017, which is the defining time mentioned in Article 40 of the merger. And we ask that you see that as a literal interpretation. It's kind of like fundamentalism, I suppose, but the intent might have been to say, attending, but it didn't say attending. It said he was enrolled well in the Kansas State deadline who implored you to allow him to continue at the school. He was a very good friend, and he learned all kinds to me through those. Thank you. And I would just like to add maybe with a little bit more clarification that I think our request is based on looking at the agreement as it was accepted in the merger, and the wording does say that your child be enrolled by the certain deadline. So I think it's that wording of enrolled, where we're having possibly the debate is centering on that. He was attending the sixth grade, but he was enrolled to be in the seventh grade by that date. So the letter of the agreement, he meets the letter of the agreement. He was in fact enrolled to be in the seventh grade prior to your deadline. He was not attending seventh grade, but he was in fact enrolled in a different school district. Thank you for coming tonight and for your comments. We're gonna open it up now for the board to discuss your request. And Murray, welcome, you're welcome to sit down. You can stay there at the table, it's fine. Yes. I'd like to begin by saying that in reference to what the first statement was, the merger committee truly understood the difficulty of children going from one school to another at any point. And it was a rough conversation, but we had to make a decision about when that would be. So we appreciate that, but we didn't make a decision. I understand that you're asking for us for the district, and therefore the taxpayers to be paying for tuition to Waldorf for not one year, but all remaining years of the student's career. It takes you to be grandfathered in for the letter of the agreement. I mean, it really was, as you had mentioned, when the board went through, excuse me, the study committee went through this discussion and we spent a lot of time in a lot of meetings talking about what the cutoff point would be. And it really felt like the most tenable to both existing districts was that cutoff period for students who were gonna be in seventh grade already. So when those students graduated sixth grade last year, which would have included your son, I know he wasn't in the middle of school, but with a graduate in sixth grade last year, it's those students were essentially encouraged by the way that the articles were drafted to move to mainstream middle school this year, so that there wouldn't be a forced transition that's coming in. So we felt like between all the study committee members that the best route was moving those kids at that point in time, because there was no technical forcing uprooting somebody from an existing situation. So I think the hope had been by the study committees to have that in situations like yours with students who were gonna be entering eighth grade next year, that they would have already been in mainstream middle school so that there wasn't this potential disruption. So that was a lot of the intent of both existing districts and the study committee to be able to come up with a solution or a situation that would be tenable to most people. We really do, I know it's tough talking about an individual student, we really do have the best interests of all students in our district, including your sons at heart in our discussions and decisions. I guess a lot of them talking about one specific kid, but I don't think that's a good one. And I don't believe that we're asking you to revisit the discussion, because obviously we did read the minutes of the notes and we understand that you have looked at this and you've considered what the cutoff needed to be. Again, I think what we're asking you to do is as per the agreement when it says that your child needs to be enrolled by this day. And then in fact, we do have documentation that our son was enrolled for the seventh grade by the date this listed. So we are following the letter of the agreement. So we're not asking you to make a different decision, we're asking you to honor the agreement that you made. That is written down. I think you're trying to force the creation of a loophole that was never intended to exist and isn't consistent with the intent of the committee. I think the fact that there is, I know some people have more legal expertise than I do, but I feel like the fact that we're talking about private school instead of a public school changes the situation a little bit. So in my mind, as every student gets near the end of their current grade level in a public school that's expected that they would be continuing on to the higher grade level the following year. The families don't sign a contract in May that my fourth grader is gonna be a fifth grader next year, it's kind of assumed. So it's a little bit different I think in this case, since it's a private school versus a public school on the fact that those families in a private, excuse me, a public school situation don't sign a formal contract. Yes, my kid is committing to grade X next year. I couldn't be maybe wrong in that argument, but I feel like the private school. I'm confident that the committee meant enrolled meaning in that grade. So and as the board knows we've had, I'm sorry. No, it's okay. We have had two other requests now for tuition waivers. One basically the same type of request and the other for someone who wanted to attend the Northfield schools and the board has denied those requests just in recent weeks. Peter, go ahead. This isn't specific to this case, it's more of a general thing. I have a lot of problems with using public dollars to send kids to private schools. I really do. I think it creates a big problem for us, not the least of which is that the private school in question will set the rate for their student and we pay that no matter what that rate is. So if our poor people costs are less, that means we're using taxpayer dollars to further subsidize private schools who have less regulations, less things they have to teach, less special needs kids regulations. I mean, it's a big problem. It's a big drain on the state's education fund of public dollars, he's going to private schools and if you're talking about doing this for seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, six years, that's a serious ask of taxpayers in this district. I'm not saying private schools are bad. If people want to send their kid to a private school, that's their right, but to ask the rest of the taxpayers to pay for it, potentially depriving the rest of the district of additional funds is a big problem for me and one we should take very seriously if we were to consider this. All of these multi-year cases of tuition requests, I just feel like it's too much to take that level of resources from the district. It's a very, go ahead. I just would say, I hear your argument, Peter. I don't think it matters whether it goes to a public school somewhere else or a private school. Either way, it's still, you know, though it's that money leaving the district. I mean, it's different because when we, there's less, there's, yeah, I hear it. I would say, if I could just hear one at a time. I would say whether it might be different, it's probably not a basis on which we can make a decision. Fair enough. The impact on our district is the same. That's good. Regardless, and that's it. I think as we make this decision, it's important to frame it not in terms of the best interests of one child, but in the interest of the best interests of all the children in our district and the best interests of the owners of our district who are the people who live in these towns and who contribute both civically in terms of volunteers but also in terms of financially, in terms of taxes. It's a balancing act that the board is charged with making. We take that role very seriously and we are not able to favor one person over another in that process. I also think that one of the problems with these is that they're such expensive asks. I think that we're talking about, every time we consider this, we're talking about about $100,000 for one person. And it's not something we can do, like say waves in books or something like that. So it's a very extensive request. The other thing is, I think it's very clear from the board deliberation or from the committee deliberations that consider this merger that what the intent was. And then it was very clear what we were trying to achieve and it was that it was to not to give, as you say, force that conversation within the family early so that they would have an opportunity to make a decision to not disrupt their child any more than necessary. And some parents did not exercise that option. And some may have, I don't even know how many did. And so I think that we did do a really deliberative job on this, trying to find that balance. And then we took this document to the voters of both districts asking them whether they agreed with this. And they overwhelmingly in both towns said they agreed with this, frankly, compromise between the towns about how this was gonna operate. And so if you look at it from that perspective, high stakes, many constituents that has an interest in this, a good deliberative process, ratification by the taxpayers and the voters, I think we have pretty solid grounds to say that we have really taken the best interest of not just this child, but everyone when we do this and that we are not and that we're being very consistent in what we're doing. Great. Can I ask a terrifying question of you, Steve? Yeah. Or I guess the whole board. Do you think the public, when they were voting, thought, do you think people were informed as far as that it would mean enrollment seventh grade means currently in seventh grade? Was that something that? I think there was a lot of controversy here. There was a lot of conversation in Roxbury about that. And I think people were clear and people who had concerns came at that time to voice it when we were having the discussion. So I think it was clear. And I would say people in Montpelier were concerned about it too because the issue of Montpelier voters paying for the tuition was an issue. And there were a lot of conversations clarifying why some students were grandfathered and who would be grandfathered and when that would stop. We had all those color coded step-wise charts. We did. Thank you. Did you want to add something? I just wanted to make a small correction to something Peter said. And that is the grandfathering tuition payment from my public districts is not complete to independent schools. It is true for other public schools that the sending district would pay full tuition so it isn't true at all for independent schools. There's a significant difference. It's subsidization for sure. And I also wanted to say, Steve sort of implied that people who send their children to independent schools haven't supported their community. Well, this isn't true at all. I mean, I've been paying taxes and supporting Roxbury School for 35 plus years. And I don't know, it just seems like we're asking you to consider the disruption of an educational path that denial would bring to one student, yes. And yes, he wasn't in the Roxbury School system when discussions possibly were made clear to other sixth grade families that you'd better transition quick. But like we said, he was enrolled. If you wanted to say attending, you should have said attending. That's just pretty simple in English. And the meaning of an enrollment is pretty simple too and from Webster's anyway. And I just wanted you to think about his welfare and not just about dollars. And I would ask for clarification. You said it's $100,000 per student and I'm not sure where that number comes from. Is it 15 or 16,000 per student per year? 16 times. Not to an independent school. His tuition subsidy last year or this current year was like 11,000. It's lower for 11,000. It's a little bit different. So the way, Lori correct me if I get this incorrect, but so the state has a dollar amount for education for the students. If a student in the Roxbury district, when the Roxbury district was operating as a choice district would pay that amount up to the state dollar amount, right. And then anything above that, the parents or the families would be responsible for pay. So if. Independent schools, not for the private. Right, independent private schools. But, isn't it. Despite the regardless of what the district that's paying the tuition would have charged for its own tuition, you're saying that it's the state average? Yes. But isn't that a decision. Is it the yield, something? Isn't that a decision, Lori, by district? Because when I was principal of Washington, it was a decision Washington made how much they would pay to a school. It was the average. It would have been Roxbury to pay the state average. Right, so the district makes a decision. And isn't that figure higher at the high school level than at the elementary level? Yes, for sure. I do just want to say that we, I think I probably speak for the board on this, that these have been very difficult conversations for all of us every time. One of them comes to us and I suspect this is not the last one. So we understand that when parents like you come, you have the best interests of your child at heart. Absolutely. And we have to balance that with our responsibility as fiduciaries for the district and our responsibility for all the students in the district. And it's not easy. And we understand that it's not easy for you too. Is there further discussion? Is there a proposal for a resolution? Do we have a motion? There's no motion. So these are difficult to claim the motion. So I just asked for a moment of clarification. You want us to accept the spirit of your intention. And the legality of honoring the letter of the intention is not something that you feel compelled to honor. So now I'll switch to speaking for myself. I feel comfortable that both the spirit and the letter of the agreement were addressed to students that were attending seventh grade. So that's where I land on this. I don't think we're dishonoring either of the way the agreement was written or what was intended. And I do think it's very, very clear what was intended by the committee and what was communicated to the voters about how this would work. There's also just significant fairness concerns given that there are many families in your situation and there are some that would prefer to go to other schools. The voters made a choice that the Montpelier Roxbury district is not a choice district. It's a district where students attend the public schools. And what do you need in motion? We seem to request. In the past, we've addressed these by with a motion to direct the superintendent to respond. That's my recollection of how we've done it on the others. Is that, is that, am I right Ryan? Ryan's the parliamentary. That's a lot of for. It's a discussion, it's not listed as an action item. So right, we shouldn't need to take it away. It would be the recommendation to be done. I'm sorry. Don't we have to act on it? Right, we would take it. I thought that we had voted to deny the request in the other case. Is that what we didn't expect? I'd have to look back at the minutes. I thought we'd have to. I am wrote. I made a motion to deny the request for the voters. And all of us, I wrote the letter to the Solignes explaining the board's decision and briefly summarizing the board's deliberation. And the decision had been made by the board at that point. Exactly. I'm going to get back to you for a decision. All right. Apologize if I misspoke. Is there a motion on the table now? No. Does anyone want to make one? Ryan just made one. That's what I thought, but he said no. I'm not making a motion. So I'll make a motion to deny the request presented by the NAPIC family. And I'll second that motion. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you for coming in tonight. We're moving on to policy discussions. And we have four policies for first reading. Title I, Comparability, Animal Dissection, which I'm very much looking forward to the discussion. Title I, Parental Involvement Compacts, and the Board Member Conflict of Interest. Since it's the first reading, my proposals that we go through them one by one and see if people want to raise questions, issues, things that we can talk about or get more information on in the second reading. So starting with Title I, Comparability. And Tina has a pen out, so I strongly suspect. What's up with Tindako through... We adopted those on the consent agenda. We adopted those, please. I'm not fast. I'm fast. Comparability. Here we go. Here we go. So I'm ready with this one because I really don't understand it. It appears, and I'm really scoring the idea of required at the time, it appears to me that this policy counters the intent of the Title I law. So, for example, I think Montpelier's done school-wide use of whatever little Title I they've gotten. I'll readily say if you targeted and ranked everything we got would go to Roxbury. That's just how targeted and ranked would go. But the point is, the point of Title I money is to give extra money to schools that are, do not have as much, that have a higher population of low socioeconomic. And it appears that this policy undermines that or counters it. It's not, it's supplanting is what I guess I'd say. So I don't understand it. So I'm up for explanation. Because it's saying, can we go back to before you ask your question one second and just make sure that I understand. So if, for example, Union Elementary School has enough low-income children to receive a Title I grant, then we have to provide, and that allows us to say have a free before school program for those students. Then we also have to provide a free before school program at all three other facilities. Is that what this policy is saying? I'm not sure that it's that specific. It's saying, if Title I gave $500 to Union School, then we as a local would have to give $500 to each of the other schools to make it fair. And the whole reason they gave $500 to Union School is because of the pre-existing unfairness. Right. So you're undoing that. The way this policy reads to me. So I was, I kept reading it thinking I don't understand it. Do Title I funds in theory make up for a lack of funding in a particular school because of the lower socioeconomics of that town? It's not actually a lack of funding. It's the idea that a population of more so low socioeconomic kids might need more things. More support. More support, and that was the intent of the original Title I law. Does it make sense to take a pause and ask the superintendent to give us some more? Sure. Entirely. Entirely. Entirely. Entirely. Entirely. Entirely. Entirely. Entirely. Entirely. Entirely. Entirely. Is working with Makayla, the two curriculum directors, to ensure that our continuous improvement plan does include Roxbury. And now that we have a fourth school, we do have to do targeting and ranking going forward. So, perhaps what we should do is pause on this one. Let me go back with Mike and Makayla and Laurie and re-evaluate because previously MPs with only three schools did not have to do targeting and ranking, and now that we have four, we do. And we set these policies up before we were informed through the CIP that we were doing targeting and ranking, so. Well, can you explain that it says it's required? It implies that it's required to do it, and it really is. And that's gonna give me a chance to follow up on that one as well. Okay. Thank you. Excellent. All right. Thanks. Also a required policy, the animal dissection policy. So the gist of this is that students can't be required to dissect things. That's really all it is. And that we should provide an altered method for them to learn whatever was supposed to be learned by the dissection. Correct. Great policy. All right. Now, can I ask for the shell to wheel change in this policy? Yes. Thanks. Can I ask a good question? Yes, you may. This is just about animal dissection. Not to embarrass one of my children in front of her, one of her peers, but she had to leave biology because they were taking their own blood. And in class, I don't remember what it was. I'm not an AP bio. Okay. That sounds cool. So they had an AP bio lab in which the kids took their own blood and she had to leave. And the teacher was great, but a different teacher might not have been. I don't know if we have a way to fit that into the animal dissection policy. Animal dissection or human experimentation. I think we'll have animal dissection because the legislature requires us to have a policy that lets students out of dissecting animals. Like I don't think there's been a broader discussion of what should we and should we not. Can we also let one out of other pro-secting? That's a fact. Well, I don't know that we have a policy about it, but it has always been the custom, for example, if there is a discussion, a sex education discussion, and your child wish, and you wish them not to attend that, you can opt out with and get that information in another manner. Is that a policy or a procedure? Well, that's what I was just gonna ask Brian. I don't know what that falls under, Brian, but I know there are other instances in which that happens. I would say it's a parent, though. Yeah, I mean, I would say. I'm not sure I've been asked that, really. I don't know the answer to that question, whether we have reached out to parents in that way or not, but I would say it would be a procedure. You're certainly welcome to make it a policy, but it isn't currently mandated as a policy. But this one has to be a policy. This one does have to be a policy. I think the key to this is not so much a topic as the notification of the rights, which comes at the end of the procedure, as I believe, is that this is a unique situation in which there's a proactive notification. And an alternative education method, I don't know. But I think that that would follow. We often see where, at least at the younger grades, you see that parents will warn families that something's coming up like a movie or something that they like. If you don't want your child to be subjected to this or whatever, just let us know. And I think what follows from that is, and we'll come up with something else that's equally educationally valuable. And I think what's unique here is that there's a requirement that they're gonna be notified of the rights. And I think that with a blood draw, it's interesting because you might argue that it's in this category, at least tangentially. And so maybe it would be ideal if the teacher would warn everyone, hey, if you don't want to do this, it's okay. It will come up with another way to do it. I don't know. But I think ultimately for families, that's the issue is, I didn't know I could say no. And I don't know that I'd want to extend that to just generally controversial topics. But I think that, I might not even put this in here if I was working, if I wasn't in the legislature. If the legislature didn't make us, but it does. So it's about the warning, I think, is the focus on this is what I'm saying. And it doesn't seem to be harmful to warn people of their rights. Perhaps we could say this policy is all right and we will take under consideration blood draws and various human things for another time. Any further discussion on animal dissection? It was surprising to me that it was part of the class. Moving on to Title I, Part A, parental involvement policy, which again is a required policy involving our obligations to make sure that parents are involved for parents, parents of students receiving services and programs under Title I. Are there any questions about? My only question, comments, questions about this, it includes the sample compact as well. That would be part of the policy as adopted. Yeah, you know, and as again, as I'm looking through this, it has references to no child left behind, which has been amended to ESSA. So I'm gonna suggest we pause on this as well, simply because it's out of date. So we're gonna have to go back and look at this one as well. Fix the type when the first sentence please. Thank you. And I was gonna say that as an editing thing, there are all those numbers, it didn't make any sense to me. Your footnotes, it's because the footnotes are not superscripts. That's what the name in it too, but I think that's what's going on. It's a strange format. There is no six though. Oh yes, there is. Oh, I got it. Thank you, I'm sorry. Board member conflict of interest policy. This was in the packet once, well actually I think this has been in the packet a few times. It was discussed by the board. At one point as part of a much broader discussion and just for some background, I think there was a point in which the policy committee was thinking of trying to get a code of conduct policy that included the conflict of interest provisions potentially and have a discussion about that, which might yet be a good idea, but that broader policy discussion keeps getting postponed and this is a required policy under state law. So we began to get concerned that it has to be in place for the district. So this is the standalone standard conflict of interest policy. I have one question about on the back under complaints of conflict of interest number one, upon a majority vote of the remaining board members or upon order of the chair, the board will hold an informal hearing, why would we give the chair the opportunity to, let's say presumably the majority of the board members don't want to have this hearing, but then we let the chair just say unilaterally, well too bad I want this to happen. It's not what we're saying. That is what it says. So I'm not just, what's the rationale for giving essentially the board chair, the unilateral authority to decide if there's a hearing? Why would we just stick with the majority of the board? I will say that we should be careful, and that's why we're doing this on a first reading. We should be careful because there are required provisions under the law for this. We have to make sure before we reject anything that it's not something in the statute. I don't have an answer for you, Ryan. It would just seem like it potentially would open something up if the board chair had potentially an act to grind against this one person they could start dragging this thing through. I'm not saying it would happen. I'm not saying that Jim's going to do this. I'm really not saying Jim is going to do this. Oh, what Michelle might have. Let me tell you the previous chair, boy, I'll go. No, but in seriousness, the majority sounds like a reasonable position. If it's not required by law, it seems like the majority would be the way to go. It may be in the interest of the time. It could be that. It could also be right. It could also be, and this is, these provisions where the rest of the board brings one board member up on charges kind of thing, and then everybody becomes the judge and jury for that. It gets really squirrely in a highly dysfunctional board where the majority can be acting unethically. And the chair may say, you know what? We need a hearing here. And you know who the judge and jury is? The people who aren't being accused according to this policy. Which is also getting a little squirrely, right? So now you've got, so now this is not. I think I would read this, that if a board member is making the complaint, they are also not. They're also excused or recused. It says of the remaining board members. So I think remaining would be the person who's accused and the person bringing it or asked. So it's just a mess, right? And I think we have to just hope that the odds are low that it would become a mess and just. Okay. The other thing is remember, the chair does serve at the leisure of the rest of the board. So it could be at any point replaced if the board chair did something that was. It's true the majority can ask the chair. I say we should get rid of Jim. When he says on the board chair, I'm definitely not saying. I said it's okay. If it's even close to being required by statute, don't mess with us. Yeah, I agree. Even if it isn't, I don't know if it's going to really matter, but. Okay, fair enough. I see how it now goes both ways. Thank you for that. I would like to know what an informal hearing looks like. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I don't know the answer to that. You don't have to wear a tie. Is that the calling job? To me, informal applies, you're not going to make a decision or you're not going to decide. So why would you have it? After, then you go to ABC. You're going to make a decision. It may mean that it's not a formal, like. Like a tie. Administrative Procedures Act hearing. Maybe that's why it says informal, but I don't know. You just get rid of the word informal. You should ask the question. Or it may be. I'm happy. I mean, I'll definitely take responsibility for figuring out what in this policy is required by the statute. That's fine. I have anything else that's great. You're definitely just moving in the right direction. I mean, I also love the end of it, which is the board members should be formally centered or subject to such other actions. Maybe allow the law. Yes, by the law. Maybe allow the law. It's on the table. If it's not illegal, we might do it. Pulling out fingernails. Is that allowed? I don't know. It's a strange, strange policy. In fact, I mean, isn't it circular a little bit, too? Is that what could you possibly do that would be allowed? I don't know. And does it actually, where it says the member should disqualify him or herself from voting? Does that actually mean they have to? Or is it just the board saying? That's an old one. It would be good. It's morally true if you should. But for instance, if they said we're going to remove you from the board, is that allowed by law? Or you're going to skip them. We're not going to let you attend the next meeting. That's not really going to get you that's not allowed by law. There's nothing you can do that's allowed by law. You're an elected official. Well, there could be criminal prosecution if it was something truly crazy, but we can't. We don't do that. We don't do that. Sorry. Yes, Michelle? Even formally censured, does that just mean we hereby censure you? Yes, that is what that means. We have put the word censure on paper in association with your name. It's under your name tag if you get a censure. That's scary stuff. I guess by law, you could from then on list them on the website with a censure of this date. That would probably be allowed by law. So there are ways to publicly shame people officially. All right. So can we just move to excited? OK, there's three for second reading. So the goal here, I think, is to see if we've resolved any questions that these could come back for adoption, student attendance. There was a question that had been raised about this policy I think by Ryan about why it said legal pupils. And Brian gave us an answer in the memo, which means that some people attend your school who are not legally obligated to attend school. And the attendance policy may be different in that situation. Did anyone have any more questions about that? No, but when I read the first paragraph again, it says legal pupils between the ages of 6 and 16. OK, got that. Then when you go down, it says further, it says students who are over the age of 16 are required to attend school continually. So what are we saying? Are we saying that between when I read the first sentence, I thought, OK, after 16, this doesn't apply. But then down below it says, when you're over 16, it applies. Why does it say it twice? Well, it's a different sentence because in the criteria for 6 to 16 is excused from attendance as provided in state law. And the criteria for over is different mentally or physically unable to continue or excused by the superintendent in writing, which I guess could be for any reason. So the superintendent named reasonable. The supers can excuse somebody if they're over 16, but not if they're under. Is that what it's saying? I think it's giving the superintendent much more authority to excuse an older student. Is that not necessarily Kevin? Right. I know I wasn't here when this was first read, so I'm going to ask about the shall and will thing. I'll have this one too. And then another semantics is that we use pupils and students in this one. And I believe more current policy is just students across the board. So getting some consistency on that. Is that because of the legal pupils thing? I think that might be. I can check. Well, it says, yeah. There's also pupils below. It's a pupil used again somewhere besides that sentence. I mean, it's the title of the next one, Pupil Privacy. I know in the next one. Is it a proposal that we should change legal pupil to students or? Well, maybe we should clarify if pupils and students mean the same thing. There's a difference. And because I'm looking at pupil privacy rights and some of this language uses students also and some of it uses people, which maybe it doesn't really matter, but. It's interesting. And I don't know if it's up to date, but I do wonder if part of in the next one, it's driven by the fact that the federal law has people in the name of it. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Sometimes I love consistency. Sometimes you get thrown a wrench because other sources are not consistent. My thought would be, could we be consistent and not be illegal? So for example, in the pupil privacy rights, could we just use all pupil? Or is there a reason to use students? That's just a question. The student is just a better word. Yeah, I like it. In terms of common sense. That's what I mean. Makes more sense. 16, but they also talk about students. Students. They do it. They do it, right? I would not, yeah. On that one, it's the definition of legal pupil. So we have to use it in that one. It certainly sounds like we probably should. It seems as though they're mixing it up just as much as we are. I have one more question for you. Yes? We're turning our own back up. That's on student attendance. Where it says legal pupils, you could say students between the ages of 6 and 16 who are legal pupils and who are residents of the school district and make it clear that you're referring to the definition in the statute. Doesn't that suggest that there might be students between the ages of 6 and 16 who aren't legal pupils? Yeah, I thought that was the whole reason you were using that. Oh, that is true? Yeah. Oh, I thought the definition of legal pupil was between 6 and 16. No. The whole reason we're using legal pupils is because there are students who do not make the definition of legal pupil, but this applies only to legal pupils. So you can be between 6 and 16. And that's true. I like your edit, and that makes sense. Legal pupil means an individual who is at the age of five years, honored before January 1, next following the beginning of the next school year. However, a school district may establish and enforce a regulation which requires a student submitted to kindergarten have attained the age of five, honored before any date between August 31 and January 1. So that's the definition of legal pupil, 16, VSA, 10, 73. That didn't. Once you're admitted to kindergarten, you become legal. I know that we have people here who are not legal pupils. There were sprints. Who would that be? That's your PTA, same as before. Oh, I thought. It says we may have. I don't know if we necessarily have them. That statute contains exceptions for school attendants, for students not legally. Is that like four year olds? I thought it was the people over 16. Wait, can I get help finding where in the memo this is? Page two in the middle. Can there be student attendance? Oh, yes, OK. I mean, the definitions that they go through are teen parent education program, non-residential teen parent education program. Well, we also have an individual who is not a legal pupil may be enrolled in a public school in a pre-kindergarten program offered by or through a public school pursuant under the adoption of, and it references, other. Also, lots of kindergartners are five. Right. But does that mean if for some reason we took a four-year-old in kindergarten, they wouldn't be a legal student? If you made an exception to the. Yeah. Laura, are you going to complicate this or are you going to make this better? 16 is always twisted tail. So this legal pupil is, there's a definition that I'm trying to spread of legal pupil. But when it comes to the attendance of children, that's under 11, 21, about 16, and students by children of school age required a person having to control the child between the ages of six and 16 years shall cause the child to attend a public school to approve the recognized independent school. So that first sentence is combining two things. And I don't think that is really what it was intended to do. I almost said you should point that out to BSPA. What if the policy said that, reference the statute and said students who are required to attend school under section 11, 21, blah, blah, blah. Then speaking and using the term child to that student or pupil. So it's really children between the ages of six and 16 who are residents of the school district and not resident pupils who enroll in school that are required to attend school. So the other thing I'd like to point out is these are required policies, not necessarily required wording. The BSPA gives you a model, but you are not required to word it exactly. You're just required to put up a policy. Right. That is true. It's usually vetted by a legal counsel and such. And that's why everybody's worried about it. But it's vetted as the guiding policy. But maybe they miss something. I would use children in both of these. For both legal pupils and students who are over the age of 16, I would say children between these ages and children who are over the age of 16. I get hammered all the time to saying that you shouldn't refer to people in high school as children. Essentially all it means is that anyone who's enrolled in the school needs to follow the minimum number of days. Right. It doesn't even matter if you're a resident or not or what age you are unless you're under six, I guess. The kids, they've got to go to school. They've got to go to school. We just put that in the first sentence. I think we're not ready to adopt this one because we're hearing a lot of questions. So Brian, are you able to take this one back under advisement and look at some of these ways to get consistency, figure out the application of 1121? In under six, you're not. And so you require it to be in school by the age of six. So you can be a legal pupil at the age of five. And all schools have to offer kindergarten. And so that's when you become a legal pupil. But I'm thinking required to attend. I'm thinking a town required to go. Yeah. Right. Those are the details. Devil in the details. Devil in the details, man. OK. So are we putting a hold both on student attendance and pupil privacy rights? No, we haven't even discussed pupil privacy rights. Oh, sorry. Trying to go too fast. My recollection is that this one is largely required. Mm-hmm. Lots of federal. Lots of federal references on this one. And we'd like to comply with federal law. I always love these opening statements that we intend to comply with the provisions of the pupil privacy rights. I operate on the understanding that we like to intend to comply generally with the governing law. If we want to put it in policy, that's good. It's interesting that it's an intent and not a will. It is. It might it is, right? Again, this requires the development of administrative procedures. And the Montpelier District already has these. Roxbury already has them. So the new district will need the procedures as well. Are there any other questions about this policy? OK, are folks comfortable with this one being on for adoption next time? Any objection to that? OK, none heard. This one will be on for adoption next time. Responsible computer internet network use. Ryan, I know that you had some questions that you wanted to raise about this. So unlikely. Was this the right one? It was, yeah. Mike and I had something to do with what I'm talking about when we talked about when this was up in our last meeting, the policy that was presented to us was a good bit urgent than the VSBA policy. And I don't know if it's had any chance to get any feedback from Mike's team on why it was different. So we did have some time talking about that. So I had some background to fill in. And there was one question about one of the changes I had that I wanted to raise. So ultimately, the theme of some of the changes are presented to us. The tech team, let's see. Did everybody see the email that Mike Martin sent out a couple of weeks ago that come across to everybody? I saw it come by. Right. So he filled in a little bit of the background of where the policy came from. They spent more than a year working on this. Even before the merger had happened, Monciliar's existing policy was pretty weak. And I think they approached Ryan about working on it anyway. So the tech team, which involved himself, a couple of the principals, a couple of teachers, and some of the IT staff all sat down regularly and worked on this. So they had spent a good bit of time going through it. The only thing that would be somewhat different from a structural standpoint is they added the stakeholder responsibilities. There's a full table that involves board superintendent, administrators, et cetera. That's really the largest change overall from the existing BSBA model policy. His, let me see if I can quickly summarize what they were talking about and why they decided to do this. So a lot of this stuff is what we kind of expect to see the Indian handbooks going out to the parents every year. The team felt that everything in here was important enough that they were hoping that the board would be willing to consider putting in policies so it was in one central location so that it's constantly followed back to as a reference. So their hope was that it would be included in policy just for that fact that it's not gonna get lost within years and say the mainstream middle school handbook going out to parents. So that's really why this is in here. There's nothing that is a problem. I was surprised. The one thing that did throw me off about the table was they had community members listed the very last stakeholder group. And that would kind of surprise me because it felt like that was a bit of an overreach for the board to be writing policy that's gonna influence random community members. But Mike did have good justification for that. I didn't realize that not having a student did any of these buildings in Montpelier yet. How often community members do use the networks here? Between, he mentioned a lot the flexible pathways program and how students are interacting more with the community members here and there and that people will come specifically before accessing the Wi-Fi network. So in my mind it kind of changed the rationale for having that in there instead of us randomly making policy that we want the rest of the community to follow. It's the community is coming to us in using this resource. So they should be aware of some of the things that they should be paying attention to. So you have the overall theme, everything was very similar with VSBA. They updated some of the tech terms. The VSBA policy was not in alignment with what's actually happening on the ground in these buildings with tech itself. The only thing, Mike, I did talk about it a little bit that caught my attention that I did want to raise to the board was 0.5 in the procedures. They have presented us a statement that reads, a process whereby authorized persons may obtain specific permissions in order to access online resources necessary for educational purposes. The BSBA policy has that worded a little bit differently. They presented a process whereby authorized persons may temporarily disable the district's internet filtering measures for a new spine adult to enable access for bona fide research or other lawful purpose. So there were two theme changes that the tech team presented. First, again, was just a tech update. VSBA's internet filtering measures, removal, that that's just not up to date with how things have been done. So they updated the language there to be more consistent with what's actually happening. But then changing the end from the research or the lawful purpose to educational purposes. When I read the BSBA language, I had really felt like they were talking about outside individuals coming in for whatever reason. I use example of maybe like a researcher at UBM coming in to do research on maybe what high school seniors are accessing for their research project or something as an example. And Mike's interpretation was what they presented to us was it's specifically focused on, it would be Merb staff. So it's gonna be teachers in the building being able to change some of the permissions to access different things specifically for a classroom like a teacher or a staff person making those changes. It has nothing at all to do with any outside individuals coming in. So all the changes they presented, like I said, I would sign off and everything they presented to us is good work, good improvements from the existing policies. It's just that change in five that I'm not totally sure the intent is the same across the two. Well, if I've says obtain specific permissions, which I don't remember you reading from the other policy and that implies to me, there's some process by which if I want to override your rules, I might be able to do it, but I need to get permission. And I'm assuming that in the procedure, there would be some way that I would get permission. You know, I'm thinking of, you might make a regulation in elementary school of some specific word you're putting up that you can't search and then somebody wants to do some research and that prevents them from doing the research they need to do. So I think that what he would do would be YouTube. So I think YouTube must be blocked by a filtering program in most of the classrooms. But if a teacher needs to show a YouTube video for a educational classroom experience, that individual teacher can get access from the IT team to use YouTube in her classroom computers or whatever during the day for that one time. So it is giving one specific person permission to do one specific thing. Steve had a question. Yeah, Steve. Couple thoughts. Ryan, the other thing on that procedures five was the dropping of the word temporary. And I guess the word specific may cover that, but I think the word temporary is kind of an interesting one when we start giving permissions. And I think I would be more comfortable if the word temporary was back in there. Just the idea that whatever permission we get it's going to also specify the data which it aspires. The other thing is I had originally read that as sort of like the internet service provider or Google or whomever might, they be the persons or whatever the word is. But now I see in procedures two, there's also a provision for that. And it's kind of an interesting reference here. And I don't really understand it. And it might be because I didn't read this thoroughly. But provisions necessary to ensure the internet service providers and other contracts comply with, with emphasis, applicable restrictions on the collection and disclosure of student data and other confidential information, what are the applicable restrictions? If they encounter any student data they're certainly not privy to do anything with it, but continue to move along. If they're in the course of our giving access to Wild Branch as they upgrade our servers, they encounter student data, they have to treat it as hands off. I mean, they would not be able to take that data and do anything with it except take it from server A and move it over to server B. And that's what applicable restrictions means? I think applicable restrictions that people practice. OK. So then I guess I wonder what is our policy on the sharing of student information with Google? That's the people practice here. It is. OK, great. Number six, number six. OK, thank you. And then the last thing is the stakeholder responsibilities that Ryan drew attention to. Although I totally understand why a committee might want this thing codified forever and ever and ever and ever in school policy, I'm still not quite sure that it belongs there. And I need for any good work to be lost to the bookshelf. But it also does, I don't know, just in other words, I'm just kind of seeing it as weird too, that's all. And I think if I could vote for Mike, but again, I think their hope was that we would be able to, by including some of this language and policy, set a goal or a vision for the district in terms of striving to reach these things. So again, it really was, I mean, I'd ask them that specifically. We didn't feel like this felt fit in policy perfectly. But that is what that tech team had put forward is mostly just trying to, again, make sure some of this stuff doesn't get lost, but also to be able to create something that's essentially just striving for their goal to be obtained. That might be the way to do it. I would agree on that as well. And I think I would encourage the board after this good work on policy that you set up a process by which you review what you have on the books. And at some point, you may get to a place where you say, this was great at its inception and we needed this stakeholder responsibility chart. And now we feel like we don't anymore. But I would agree, I think it's something, since it's not the boilerplate that we typically use, I think it gives a little room to reach for and to grow. And I like the way that was stated about that it's an aspirational thing. And maybe that's all I needed to understand why it needs to be in here. And perhaps that could just be added, a little line about it's not, this isn't stakeholder law. This is stakeholder, what you call it, strife. Aspirations. Aspectations. Yeah, it's almost, it's expectations, right? But it really is, it's what we all expect from folks. But for some of these groups, because they are a little more partway under our auspices, it's more aspirational. But expectations is probably reasonable. But some kind of reason why it's in there, just along with the heading, that would be all of the answer. Do others agree with that change of responsibility to expectations? Or me? I'm fine with it. Or have a different suggestion. That's fine. I think it's fine. I'm sure I have a better attitude. OK. This is a much more minor point, but most of our policies say Montpelier-Rossberg public schools. Done. And I don't think we need here and after, because I hate that word. And then also, we talked about this last time, the mission being left off, because technically, we don't have a mission yet. Got it. Just leaving it as an actual mission. So what was discussed last time? So it's just going to end at educational mission? So it's going to end at educational mission? Yeah. Until such time as we have a mission. But below, they've written educational mission at the bottom of that page. That's why we'd be removing the italics. And would we be removing the heading of educational mission, too? Does that make sense? I think it does. Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Because then we have purpose policy procedure. That's just the policy. So I was just thinking in the legislature, there's this process at the end of the session by which there's a review process where every piece of junk law that got passed goes into a group. It might be under judiciary. It used to be under much counsel. And it basically gets reviewed for consistency and formatting and renumbering and making sure everything fits into the statutes and looks consistent. Wouldn't that be great if we did that with the district? And that's, anything that's even remotely substantial, they don't touch, right? That's what gets in that. That kind of an authority, somehow, I'm guessing. It's not substantial. They hired Jessica to do that in alleged counsel. So we'd have to. But several people look at it. It's not just one. Everybody has to pour over the stuff and make sure it all works, and that there's no one to mess with it. I don't know if we have authority. I don't know if we can actually say it would just be changed without the board voting. But it would be a very simple process to just have them all come back at one meeting with the little red lines. And we en masse just say, now we're revising them also. They all say, here's our style guide, please. They all say, my billiard public school is, and they all say, must or will. They're the same font. They're the same font. Maybe nine months from now, we need to go do that, right? Yeah. And we're done with that. Right. That's a good idea. OK. I'm going to count. Yeah, Steve, you wanted to work on the style guide? Am I? I mean, one of the frustrations I will just add is that the VSBA model policies do not follow any style guides. So we're working with wrong material that's not consistent. But Heather puts them all into the right style and font consistently. Once they're adopted, they're in the right style. Is this ready for adoption with the changes that we just spoke of? I'm done. Again. You're good? We'd be happy with that. All right. Thank you, Ryan, for doing the follow-up on that. That was very helpful. All right. Firearms is on a third reading, so we're not proposing to adopt this tonight. You bet. Go for it. In the first paragraph, off first sentence is the last two words are at school. So does that imply that it's also on school grounds? So at school, is it like in this building? It's in this definitions. Firearms school are defined consistent with the definitions required by state and federal law. So I don't know what the state and federal law is. So is that on school grounds? I feel like we talked about that when we were at Roxbury. We were at Roxbury, but what did like a shooting club or whatever it was called. That's another question. I think we talked about the school. In the right for the pickup, it's all covered by statute. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. That's it. We tried to mess with it. Any school sponsored event? The club issue is a different question, which I'm not sure we have an answer tonight. Whether recreational activities can function consistent with this policy. I guess what I'd suggest is that we put it on for possible adoption next time. But contingent, and if we have an answer, the people are happy with will adopt it if we don't. We won't. OK. That good? OK. OK. We talked a lot about changing these. But we decided we can't. Oh, we can't. Those are in the statute. Those are in the statute. Those are in the statute. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have that title we were talking about even with Montpil, Roxbury, what do you want to? Where do you think it says Montpiler, Roxbury, Saltis School? Yeah. OK. And look. Oh, man. We're on time and everything. Oh, Bridget, yeah. Number nine. Yeah, an on-agenda item. Oh, I missed it. I'm sorry. OK. Why don't we do that now? Steve, has it added an agenda item? OK. My intention is to perhaps make a motion. But I wanted to have a quick discussion about it. I was approached by Sarah Kiernan, one of the members of the committee, is that her last name? Kiernan. Kiernan, yeah, OK. And she just said that they've been talking about this weird timing where June is the time everything's going to happen. But the new facilities person doesn't start till July 1. And what they're feeling is that there's going to be a discontinuity in this. And they would like to see if we might be able to support bringing Andrew, the new facilities person, in for a very short, very limited sort of engagement to be part of the review and selection process of the contractors. She said that she had talked to you, Brian, and that I don't know if you advised against it or just didn't. I don't know what. So I didn't get the details. So I want to make sure. I haven't had any conversations with Sarah. None. None. OK. I'd be happy to. Right, exactly. So she just said she knew that we were going to be in a position where we had to make where this is going to move fast, and it's going to fall in our laps very quickly. So she was hoping that we would authorize some sort of an expenditure. Jay, who's, I don't know what his exact title is, but playground guy, he's talked it over with the committee, with Andrew. It seems like it's a really easy arrangement to make. The idea would be that Andrew would come in. He'd have a seat at the table while they're reviewing bids, reaching a decision on which contractor to choose, assisting with the negotiations over the contract to get the numbers right, and then that would be it. And so that not that he would be making decisions, but he would be sitting in the group that did and help with that. They thought that they thought something like if we set a maximum of 20 hours at the number they came up with $50 an hour would be ample, and that that would be a $1,000 expenditure, and that that kind of thing would really kind of bridge it and make sure that the new person knew everything going in. It was part of it. I don't know how to proceed at this point. I think I'd like to make sure something like this happens. It doesn't have to be precisely that, but that somehow we authorize that we can get Andrew before his actual contract starts, maybe as a consultant for us, if he's up for it, which I think he is. Anyone have any thoughts, Brian, you first. You could advise or authorize me to pay. Andrew LaRosa up to a not exceed amount of X for work to be done to ensure a smooth transition specifically around informing decisions about the playground contracts. Could you trade days? In other words, could you say we'd like him to work three days worth in June for three days off sometime during the year? I wouldn't do that, because this is pre-fiscal year of work. Yeah. I think if you could. It's just a separate type of relationship. Right. Contrational. Yeah. And it has nothing to do with his redeem at that point. It'll be on $10.99 or whatever. It's going to be a whole different thing. Is it an MPS decision then, or not? Yes. Oh! Oh, shoot. As a matter of fact, it is. It totally is. Of course. Yeah, we're not. You can't have a camp. OK. Without a direction. Purely within the super agenda. I can make this happen. I can make this happen. OK. OK. This can get done. Thanks. Great. OK. Awesome. Good job, Lisa. Good job, Lisa. I'm just sitting here listening to all of this. Like, I don't even need to think about this. And then it's just fine. And then it's just fine. It appears that everyone, I don't know if there are all in cahoots on this, but they all have, at least at some level, discussed it and feel like it's a very workable range, including Andrew and Jay. OK. And what is day ahead of schedule? I think we're going to try to get Andrew to come to the special meeting next week as well. Well, so the eighth is the deadline for all these things to come back in. And then we're meeting on the 17th, right? 14th. 14th. So this is going to move so fast. And we have to sign off on the 14th, right? So like, he's got to be on board by the 9th or 11th. He can give us the recommendation ahead of the point. He's meeting. He needs to tell him what already regularly. OK. And this is on both of their radars that this meeting has been scheduled for next week. So we can make this happen. I think it's at 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th kind of thing is what they're worried about. OK. All right. The next item on the agenda is an update on the superintendent evaluation committee. I'm thinking that's you. You might think that, but, well, the people on the evaluation committee actually aren't here. I might be on that, maybe. But I'll give you a quick update to say that they're meeting tomorrow. OK. That would be the update. Thank you. And update on the superintendent's search. Well, the update is that the search is over. I guess as was announced in the press release and to the school community, the Montpelier-Roxbury Public Schools have engaged Elizabeth Bone-Steel to be the superintendent of the Montpelier-Roxbury Public School District starting July 1st. And we're all very excited to be working with her. That is the update. Unless someone has something else, I would entertain them. I'm going to adjourn. Thank you. I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. All right. All right. We're done. Thanks, everybody.