 All right, everyone, let's start. We've got a long and important board meeting, so opening the Board of School Directors at 631. We have a heavy decision tonight. I'm just going to say it's been weighing on both communities. It's been weighing on all the board members. The none of the choices are choices that we like. All of the choices are very hard and very difficult. I want to give thanks to all the board members who have put in a lot of thought and a lot of work and probably lost a lot of sleep and neglected loved ones and their day jobs and other things over the last few weeks giving this thought. I know everyone is struggling with a tough decision. And again, no one likes the choices before us. I also want to thank the community for an incredible amount of input, almost all of which has been very thoughtful and respectful, and that's super valuable. It's valuable to us. But I also think it's valuable going forward. I think we're likely going to come out of this meeting with some people feeling that they've suffered some hurt and some sadness. And as we move forward from tonight, I think it's really important that we remember that we're all in this together and that we move forward in a place of open arms and open hearts and welcoming what's next and doing the best to support each other while also acknowledging the hurt and sadness that might come out of this meeting. So I just want to put that out there front and center. Again, we're going to have public comment be cognizant that we have heard an immense amount from the public. And there's been a lot of repeating themes. So I would urge people to be pretty short in their public comment unless you feel you're bringing something really new for I think the purpose of allowing this meeting to move forward. Remember that we have heard you. The emails have been very articulate and very voluminous. And we definitely are hearing a lot of common themes. So I definitely want to open it up for public comment. But given what we've heard in our emails, I'm guessing that a lot of people will be saying similar things here. So if we can try to keep remarks brief, great. And also, if you've sent in an email, we've heard you. There's not necessarily a need to say it again unless you want to. But we have read all the emails. We've responded to many of them. We have not responded to most of them. And I apologize to folks who have not gotten a response yet. But we have read them all. And if you haven't gotten a response yet, you will soon. I think it might make sense to give us a little bit of time to maybe discuss the makeup of the Roxbury committee. It is not on here unless I didn't see it. Yeah, we didn't put it on there. Yeah, let's put it on because we may want to at least give that a few minutes of discussion in this meeting. Yeah, and again, thank you to everyone. And we'll have public comment. Please keep it as brief as possible. I don't think I need to remind people, but also please keep it as respectful as possible. Everyone in here has good intentions, even if hard decisions need to be made. So if people could just, how many people want to speak? Let me just get a sense. If you could raise your hand. I'm not seeing a ton. Why don't people just come up then? I was going to maybe have people line up. And I don't know if we have that much volume. Please come up. Try to keep your comments to 30 seconds to a minute. I'm not going to keep time unless I see that being broken a lot. And then I may just to move things along. But if you could 30 seconds to a minute, roughly. And again, I won't keep time. But if the first several are long, I may start keeping a little check on that. So and again, we will not respond directly to these. But obviously, we are very much listening. So whoever wants to come first, please come up. Announce yourself. Thanks to Mia, there are items of fuel on the desk. You don't have to speak if I have a comment to have one of those. You can just have one. Mike Frenchman from Roxbury, a proud graduate of Roxbury Elementary School. I'll be quick. The select board of Roxbury is sent a letter. I would just request that that be entered into the minutes of this meeting, if it's not already, so that folks can review the feedback from the town representatives. Thank you. You're right. That's Mike. Betsy. Try to be 30 seconds. My name is Jesse Remick. I'm a Montpelier resident, father to a sophomore at Montpelier High School, who she's been fortunate enough to be a part of this school system from the very beginning. First, I thank you all for all you do for our community. I think it's greatly underappreciated, every one of you. So I sent a letter to you all. I'm going to only summarize. I personally am in favor from a fiscally responsible standpoint of closing Roxbury and not cutting educational program. So I'm going to read the last little bit of the letter I sent. I don't pretend this won't come easy for all of us. I certainly don't know the hardships that anyone else faces. Whether it's the distance from Roxbury to Montpelier, increase in property taxes or rent, we all have challenges. But to keep a building open, we're proposing cutting program buses and staff. These cuts will impact all students, those currently at RBS, but also those students at UES and MHS, whom are both Montpelier and Roxbury students alike. We need to be decisive. It will grant us the ability to have time, not time to kick the can down the road by delaying a fiscally responsible decision and using valuable savings in the process, but time to do it right. Time to give the teachers who won't be part of this long-term decision to make changes for themselves. Time for improving busing, to work better for our Roxbury neighbors and younger student population. Even if that means reducing the savings, closing Roxbury gains, it's critical to get the busing right. Time to talk through how to make this transition work as best as possible. Why would you lose valuable time to plan if we delay what feels like the inevitable? Thank you, Jeff. Good evening. My name's Chris Sparant. I'm a Montpelier resident. And I want to thank you just the same. I know this is a difficult decision you have to make. And as I understand it, you're coming down to one of two things. You're either going to vote on a budget tonight, or you preserve Roxbury's operations for a year, or you don't. And for 25 years, I've lived in Montpelier. And for 24 straight years, I voted for the school budget. And this last time, I didn't. And it's because of what it costs to maintain Roxbury. And I think by maintaining it, we are hurting the overall educational quality of our school district, all of us. So let's just think about what we've got here. If we close Roxbury now, we preserve our capital reserves. What, like 900,000? If we preserve, if we close Roxbury now, there will be a place for most, if not all, the Roxbury teachers to land in Montpelier because of people retiring. If we close Roxbury now, there will be a chance to fund a real robust after school program at Roxbury School. And we can focus, as the last speaker just talked about, making sure the school busing is as robust and helpful to those students in Roxbury as it can be. And these are really important considerations. If we don't close Roxbury now, we lose. And this is the most critical thing, I think, of all. We lose that huge amount of capital reserves, close to a million dollars. And in a little town of 8,000 people, that's a lot of money. And so I'm going to say this to you is that as a voter who is very pro-education, I don't want you cutting staff. I don't want you cutting programs. I'm supporting that. But we cannot waste our capital reserves on preserving a school. I don't think that's prudent. So I urge you, some of this is going to be a very tough decision, but I urge you all to consider, let's just close it and make the best we can of it, helping the whole district out in the process. Thank you for the time. Thank you. I'm George Wilson, retired educator and month figure resident. Since its inception, I believe that this union was untenable. And I expressed that in a letter to the Montpere School Board many years ago. Eventually, I would like to see this union dissolved. However, in the interim period, I urge you to close Roxbury School and bring the students and faculty to Montpere, just as the previous speaker said. And I'll amplify that and also parody it. This is the best option that will protect Montpere's educational programs and support the Montpere taxpayers. In economic terms, this choice is about opportunity costs, also known as alternative costs, which is the difference between keeping Roxbury School open and other options that must be foregone because of that choice. Thank you. Here, everyone. Brian Zajac. So let me ask honestly, who'd rather be someplace else right now? Thank you all for being here. I would just like to make out one quick observation, one point. Our agenda for tonight's meeting indicates there's a discussion about busing and transitioning RVS kids to UES. It was not on the agenda to close RVS. There was an agenda item to talk about transitioning one kid from one school to another. I hope our discussion this evening follows that same language and the discussion around closure leaves our board discussion for a while. We're going to talk about transitions rather than closures. So thank you all for your service. And thank you. Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Randy. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. My name is Dan McGuire. I am not a voter here. I'm a Northfield resident, but I am a teacher at the middle school. And I just wanted to put a plug in, which I know you've heard through emails and petitions that students have made, that there's a slim chance, but there is a chance that the after school coordinator at the middle school Drew McNaughton might be cut. And I think that would be a ridiculous disservice to everyone in this district, especially the children. I work with Drew every day. And I don't think anyone at our school is more dedicated or cares more about the kids. Right now, he's at Bolton Valley, and he will be at Bolton Valley or working with kids to get them home until about 10 p.m. when he gets home. And that's only one of the services that will go away if he was no longer with us. So I think, I mean, I know it's a slim chance, but I hope that that becomes a 0% chance, because like I said, he's more dedicated than any other person at our school. The kids love him, and skiing isn't the only thing that will go away. Mountain biking, after school canoe camp, the clubs he does in the summer, a for-profit after school replacement would basically become daycare. And Drew is a lot more than that. So I ask you, please, whatever you need to do, I know that's hard decision, please keep Drew in his current position. Thanks. Hi, my name is Ben Tinkus, and I know I've spoken to you all before. I just really quickly want to mention I was trying to advocate for Roxbury Village School in Montpelier, and I started crying in front of a stranger just explaining what was happening. And she ended up hugging me and saying, you know, I have a place for you, since there's a men's group, my husband's in, and you can join it for, it's a good place to send sensitive men like you. Anyway, so this has been a really emotional thing for me, and I want to say after several years of state subsidized property tax stability, I know Montpelier faces an egregious tax hike of 24%, but there's no parity comparing a one year tax hike to the destruction and devastation of an entire town. I've been researching what happens when a town loses its school. It's no small thing, right? This level of aspirations crushed dreams, right? The tax-based shrinks, when me and my wife 10 years ago, I grew up in Roxbury, we moved away, we moved back to raise our children in Roxbury, and we went to the playgrounds 10 years ago, my younger son was three, my older, maybe six, and we looked in the, we're playing in the playground with our kids, and we looked through the windows at Roxbury Builds School, and we saw the artwork on the walls and how wonderful the place was, and we said, yes, this is where we want to raise our kids. This is where we want to live and die. And I just want to say there's, Roxbury residents also face a painful tax hike. We're in this together, and because we're in a consolidated school district, we are in the same community. Because we're 20 miles apart, doesn't eliminate the fact that we have this connection, that we share a community. Roxbury's about to lose its school. It's worth asking, why aren't more parents and Roxbury kids, Roxbury parents and kids in this room? In fact, one school board member at the last meeting in Roxbury said, how come there aren't more people in this room? I'll tell you why, because it's hard when you're a working parent and you have young children that you have to feed. And equity is, if you just talk about equity, you're not providing equity would actually be the school board making sure there's some ways those people can come and support that meeting. I have just really quickly, this process has been so rapid and ruthless. There's been no time really to include parents and children in Roxbury in a thoughtful process. And I'm not recommending separation from, I don't even know what it's called, the deconsolidation leaving this district. But I know I've spoken to read about it and I know it's a process, the committee has to be formed. You have to appeal to the state board of education, my understanding. And it's a process that requires extensive thought and research. It's a big deal if we ever were to leave the Montpelier community, I'm not saying we should, but how can it be that that process is so carefully thought out, but the existential crisis that town is thrown into by losing its school, its only school, people won't wanna move there. I already speaking to a mom who's decided to educate her children at home, rather not knowing what's gonna happen with RBS. And I wanna quote diversity advocate, Verna Meyer. She said, diversity is getting invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance. We haven't been included. We haven't been invited to the stands because that takes time. It's hard to advocate for your children, for your town when you feel you have no voice. That's other reason why people don't show up and that the system is fundamentally rigged against you. I would also like to really emphasize Act 127 was based on an average number of the cost per pupil, but time and time again, I've heard those numbers separated out as if Roxbury is a separate entity, but we're in the same district. So to discuss, to present it as Richard Shear and a whole bunch of other people have done in Montpelier who've been fighting to close the school and I've even heard school board members do the same thing by separating out the numbers of the cost per pupil basis of Roxbury from Montpelier when the average has affected us all in losing funds through Act 127 is incredibly inequitable. It's beyond inequitable. I would say you cannot make any claim to progressive education. I just don't wanna go there, but I will. But if we were predominantly people of color community and you did that, imagine the cries, the outcries that would come up. So this is, it's classist, it's inequitable, it's unfair. And I should say, I'm appealing to everyone. I'm actually wanna appeal to teachers. I know you guys are really unfair. I'd love to hear teachers speak out. It's definitely inequitable and unfair for the teachers too to be caught in this situation. And our districts certainly merged, but there's been no effort or attempt to create a community between the districts. I don't think anyone in Montpelier who voted against the budget probably has a grandchild or child or family in Roxbury. I would think you would have maybe not voted against the budget if you did have that connection any community relationship. No one made an effort to recognize humanity or our kids. I went to this ridiculous speech at Kala Hubbard Library presentation that Jim Murphy also supported there where this gentleman named Richard Shear said these incredibly unempathetic, incredibly awful things about Roxbury. Claiming that we were subsidized as if that's some kind of code work. We're all subsidized. We all had stabilized what, three, four years of stabilized taxes. So this Montpelier was subsidized by the state of Vermont and Roxbury was also subsidized. So get away from these code words. And then I know I'm going on long. I'm almost done. I just wanna mention that the RVS afterschool director Casey Serro said some really wonderful things about and I know you guys received that letter but just about how wonderful small pound education is and how caring everyone, faculty and staff are at RVS towards their children, towards their children. And in no doubt Union Elementary School is a wonderful school too. But I know it's been said but three hours of transportation time for a five year old traveling from East Roxbury and back round trip a day is unacceptable. There's no equity there if the child is sleep deprived, anxious and stressed in comparison to a Montpelier Union Elementary child walking only five minute walk to the school. No comparison. We need more time. We need more time to plan for a future and investigate how to sustain and save our economy and livelihoods in the event of losing our school. We need more time. I spoke to Jay Hooper today or State Rep and he clearly stated it's possible that the legislators can kind of get us out of this mess unlikely, but that one year of planning will make a big difference and that's determining the future of our school. We need to be invited to the dance. And it's ironic that in order to divorce Roxbury from a Peelier, I don't think this is a good option, but I mentioned this, that this is a complex process that would have to happen but we're rushing in this process in what, two weeks. I know that you have all, you all have to meet the needs of the kids first and foremost, but have you guys reached out with interactive public forums? This isn't an interactive public forum. This feels more like I'm testifying in a court of law. You haven't, right? Have you conducted surveys about, you know, from Roxbury children and parents? You haven't. Have you received feedback from all these parents and children? You have not. You speak about equity for all the children, but have you invited everyone to the dance? No, you have not. We need more time. I should also mention that many people in my Peelier have on some level been complicit in the planned deck of our school. I'm shocked by the patronizing attitudes of so many people and I'd be so angry if I was a teacher because I read when I spoke out meeting at Cala Hubbard, a woman approached me and said, patronizingly, you understand people might not show up, teachers might not show up in September. I said, I know that and their wish is coming true. How does it make your teachers feel knowing that people were trying to weigh the system against you by sowing doubt regarding your job security? Another person approached me after the same guy who ran that meeting said, after I mentioned as editorials, the immediate closure of school reflected no empathy or care in Roxbury children. And this is the guy who said subsidize. He said, you know, RBS can make a great community center. How does that make you feel when someone has no empathy, has no care, no kindness? And again, I understand 25% is tax hike is unacceptable, but we're in this together and that's a nature of school consolidation. Anyway, I've spoken enough, but I would just say that a tremendous amount of hostility and lack of empathy is also counterbalanced by two things. The advocacy of our Roxbury families, which has been wonderful and also some really great supporters in Montpelier. And I know there's a huge diversity of opinion in Montpelier. And I want to thank the spoken Montpelier has actually spoken to us as if we're people, human beings with a loving, vibrant community. We, Roxbury Montpelier are in this together. We need to have empathy and understanding despite the fact that we're separated by 20 miles of pavement. I just want to say one thing, when does your heart really open to express care? And when does it close? Don't make your decision based on fear. Make your decision on the basis of empathy and information listening to the needs and aspirations of Roxbury residents. We need time to plan our future and you need to take the time to invite all of us to the dance. Thank you. Thank you, Beth. Can I just say I totally understand the level of emotion involved tonight, but I think it makes sense if we don't name individuals during public comment just because that could start to heighten the emotion and the tension. Yeah, I totally agree. And yeah, that was like an initial comment to try to keep it respectful. And I think as impersonal as possible. Anyone next? Hello. My name is Katya Sinkova. I used to go to Montpelier. I used to go to Montpelier. I'm sorry. So my name is Katya Sinkova and I used to go to the Montpelier Middle School and I don't go there anymore because I'm from Roxbury and yeah. So have you talked to any of the children after school in our school in Roxbury whether they would like the school to be closed? Did you look at them and look in their eyes and say, I'm gonna close your school. You're not gonna have the school anymore. You're not gonna have these children. You're not gonna have your friends around as much. You'll be an entirely new school. Won't know anyone. We'll have to get to know so many other kids and I don't think there's a spare. That's okay. Because I lived in Roxbury and I used to go to the Montpelier School. I had to spend 45 minutes driving on a bus to get here every day. I had to wake up at six, sometimes five 30 because I have goats. I have to milk them. I have to do farm work and then I had to go to school and that was really just too much for me. So now I'm homeschooled because of that. But my main point is Roxbury Village School means a lot to me and a lot to other people and I hope you will consider that. I'll just say for the fourth time, for the life of me, I don't understand why you can't have microphones. We have them in our town meeting. Seems like Montpelier could provide that. It's not that big a deal. You got a mic here, but it's pretend. Anyway, I wanted to speak basically to the Montpelier residents. There's a lot of misinformation out there and this thing keeps going over in my head. Somebody from Montpelier said, well, when Roxbury kids had school choice, nobody came to Montpelier. So why should we care about them? Well, the truth of the matter is that when most of our kids who did take school choice is a very expensive proposition for a family to take. They went to U32. Now, why did they go to U32? Well, I'll tell you a little anecdote about my son. He came to live with us when he was 13, came from Florida. And my wife took him to, we were in district with Northfield at that time. She took him to register for middle school. And the guidance counselor said, they were trying to figure out how to place him in the school. They didn't look at his grades. They didn't look at his transcript or anything else. They said, who are your friends? So he said, well, you know, so-and-so and so-and-so. All Roxbury kids. Immediately she put him in the lower track. No college prep courses. Of course, my wife jumped right up off the floor and put an end to that really quick. He's now vice president of a structural engineering firm in West Palm Beach. He put himself through college. And the reason that there's been so much animosity between, that is the reason between Roxbury and Northfield and why people didn't want to combine with them. And the other thing is that the people who moved here in the early 70s, like I did, were very politically active and progressive. And that fit U32's mold. It was the high school with no walls, you know? They got walls now, because it didn't work. But that was, you know, that's where our kids fit in. When Ben came, he was the groundbreaking one to U32. His parents moved here from Massachusetts. They lived in, they came from Cambridge. They were Harvard people. His mother is one of the authors of our bodies ourselves. So they were not, they were progressives. And they fit into U32 mold. That's nothing against Montpelier. It's just the way it was, you know? But the fact is that if a kid came to U32, I mean, to Montpelier at the same time, being a consolidated school district, all self-contained, they may have gotten the same treatment that my son got in Northfield, you know? Well, you're from Rocksburg, we'll put you in a shop class, you know? You don't need to take calculus or whatever. You know, that's a very great possibility. There was another issue when the merger committee was active for Swambley, he addressed the committee and said that one of the reasons, the other reasons that they went to U32 was that U32 was a hub school and all the schools that contributed were from small towns. There was no, oh, you're from so-and-so, or you're from so-and-so. That didn't happen, because everybody was from someplace. You know, it's like, oh, you're from Massachusetts. Well, everybody's from someplace, you know, unless you're an Abinacke. But the point is that that's one of the reasons, another reason that people chose U32. And Montpelier's got kind of a, kind of a inferiority complex about that. That people chose U32 over Montpelier. Well, I could go into that, but I won't. Anyway, I think that it's a decision that, one of the reasons I came tonight, the weather's terrible, but I wanted to look into the faces of the people that are gonna kill our town. I wanted to really, really seriously look deep in the eyes of the people that are gonna vote to kill our community. We got into this mess with you guys, driven into it by the state, and you were driven into it by the state because you didn't know that you were protected from merger. Had you known that you were protected from merger by the number of students you had, you never would have emerged with Roxbury, but you needed us much more than actually, we probably needed you. But the point is that now you feel like you don't need us so you can just cast us aside. Well, I just hope that Ben said, one person was thinking about homeschooling. I hope that every Roxbury parent homeschools because all you're using us for is to infill your student deficit and to decrease your student, your per student cost. And at this point, given all the talk that we've had, the difference between a Roxbury student cost and a UES student cost is $5,000 a year. That's all. And how much does it cost? Do you think you could drive somebody back and forth in Montpelier for $5,000? I don't think so. It's just transportation. And you're not gonna get rid of the district, the $500,000 that the district charges off the Roxbury. When I worked for an engineering company years ago, we always had one big account and a lot of little accounts. And if you didn't have it, if you had time and you didn't point nowhere to put it, you put it on that big account. And that's kind of the way Libby has portrayed this thing. She has put this $500,000 of district money against us and then saying that that's all gonna go away when we merge. Well, of course, it's not gonna go away. It's just gonna be redistributed, you know? It's gonna be charged back to that big account. You know, here's the chart she sent me. I showed you this before. Jim says it's bogus, but this one, this one. $5,000 difference between students. And yet everybody thinks that and says in an almost, in such a derogatory manner that, oh, Roxbury kids, we'd better off at UES. Well, you know, I don't believe that. My two girls graduated from UES. They're both very successful. And I'm from not from UES, from RVS. It's an acronym in business. UES is not the be all and all. Everybody thinks it is. And they're only saying that because you need us for infill. You need us to fill your seats. And if you don't get them, then you're gonna have to pay a higher tax rate. Well, the tax rates according to the statistics aren't that much different. It's just that my period of property values are much higher than they are in Roxbury. So if you have a problem with your taxes, move to Roxbury, buy a house, you know, get a lesson. You've got the same tax rate, but you don't pay that extra $800 a year. It's a very simple solution. Sell your house and move. Very simple. Send your kid to the Roxbury school. We need the numbers too. Thank you. That's a good song too, actually. Yeah, there's some folks online. Yeah, let's do Steve. Hey, Julie's here. Oh, Julie? Yeah. Hi, my name is Julie Smart. I'm a special education teacher at Union. I live in Montpelier and I'm the parent of two kids who went all the way from kindergarten through 12th grade. So I have lived this system from the inside and out and seen the benefits in so many ways. I've been teaching in public school in this county for 25 years. I'm clearly an avid supporter of public education and I spend most of my waking hours thinking about what's best for kids, all kids. I'm concerned about all 1,000 students in this district, including the students at Roxbury. There are cuts on the table that impact hundreds of families. For example, to reduce or eliminate busing raises serious equity issues for many families. Families that have one car, families that have no cars. We have spent a lot of work trying to improve our attendance in this district, especially since COVID. I'm worried about hindering that when we talk about things like busing. We're also proposing using almost $1 million from our reserve fund. That's our savings account. And I feel strongly it could better serve all students if we spend it slowly and wisely. When Roxbury didn't have a special education teacher several years ago, my colleagues and I stepped up to support families with special needs and their families, the students and the families at Roxbury. We case managed and we taught over Google Meet because that was what Roxbury needed. We care about Roxbury. We welcome them to UES. We're a school where we have teams of interventionists. We have teams of special educators. Roxbury teachers can move into teaching positions that will be open this fall. It's beautiful when teachers don't lose jobs over transitions like this. I feel like colleagues from Roxbury will have many more colleagues at a larger school in Montpelier and access to a lot of professional development. I think peers, kids have more peers and kids have more friends. It is hard to run a kindergarten with three students. You simply can have more robust education when you have even slightly larger numbers. I propose that we thoughtfully start a transition for these families and students. Now, we don't actually have to wait for the vote to happen. We could start that process and that thinking now and hopefully use it when it's most relevant, whether it's this year or next year. Roxbury students can be well educated at UES without harming the greater system. I feel the reverse is no longer true. $1.5 million in cuts to services and staff will compromise the greater system for all of our students. I asked you to consider that we can best meet the educational needs of all students under one roof and one welcoming community in Montpelier. Thank you. Where we go online, anyone else in the room? Thank you, everyone. We'll go online. This is a group of Steve, Emma, David and Melissa, I think. Steve should be up. Steve, you all set? I'm all set. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. Hi, I'm Steve Cease. I am my wife, live here in Montpelier on North Street. We have been here for enough time to raise two daughters. We went all the way through the Montpelier school system with great results. Their education has provided them with a really, I think, strong foundation for their present lives. I'm here to just try to make two points. Obviously, you're here to try to devise a budget that will pass the voters. But I think as you do that work, you need to remember another goal, which is to do the least damage to educational services in the system. And I really believe that the least damage to be done is unfortunately to close the Roxbury School. But I do think that by doing that, you will preserve educational services at the high school, the middle school and the elementary school. The superintendent has implied or actually said that keeping a Roxbury Village School open for another year may be difficult because of staffing problems and the uncertainty of how many teachers will want to remain there with the belief that the school might close in another year. If you try to keep the Roxbury Village School open, it seems to me that ironically, Roxbury kids will suffer in all three schools from cuts at the high school and middle school and perhaps at the Roxbury School. I really think that the best option for all students and to provide the greatest protection for educational services is to close the Village School and do everything we can to make the transition as painless as possible for the kids. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Steve. And it looks like a familiar name, Emma. I think you can go if you... Emma, if you're talking, you are still muted. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, we got you now. My name is Emma Bay Hansen. I'm a Montpelier resident, parent to two MRPS students and former board member. I deeply appreciate the work of each member on this board, particularly the student representatives. From COVID to flooding to this unimaginable budget dilemma you find yourselves in, each and every one of you has come to the table week after week with the best intention for the students in the district in mind. I know most of you are morally conflicted with the decisions being made tonight and yet you show up, persevere, face your constituents and engage. Thank you for the public service that you've given to this community. In the past few weeks, I've seen my friends, neighbors and family try their best to fully understand Act 127 and the budget decisions and implications that are still underway. Montpelier has a history of supporting equity, being empathetic and putting our money where our values are. That is what Act 127 is supposed to be about, providing more equity in the education for all of Vermont students. However, this situation that we find ourselves in now is a test of our progressive values. We want equity for all of Vermont's children, but we don't want it to be at the cost of a great education for the kids that need it right here in our district or on the backs of people in our town who are already struggling to make ends meet or stay in their homes. We want the best for Roxbury families, but our equity lens shifts when that is pitted against school enrichment and busing for some of Montpelier's most vulnerable kids. I trust people's hearts are in the right place here, but we're being forced to choose between a few terrible options with very little time for consideration. I want to lend my voice of support tonight to Roxbury families. I listened to your public comments from the last meeting. Your ask was so reasonable, humble and clear, just an extra year to lengthen the runway of the closure to allow your community time to process, plan and transition gracefully. It seems only human to allow for a time for a change of this magnitude and to legitimately make space for the people most directly impacted by this decision. We're asking the Roxbury residents to be part of the process. The way that this is playing out is likely that a major majority of the board members, only five people who will likely all be Montpelier residents at the table tonight will make a decision against the will of the people of Roxbury. That can't sit well with anyone in the room tonight or this town. I know Montpelier stands for inclusion, equity, fairness and fidelity. I don't think anyone would have chosen this route if they didn't feel that their back was up against a wall. My heart is with Roxbury tonight. I urge board members to push for any budget item that will ease the transition that Roxbury kids and their families will likely face in the coming years. Do what you can to make this work for them. I sincerely hope that we can pick up the pieces, whatever the outcome of the budget vote is tonight, support each other, bring our communities together and continue to provide high quality education to all students in this district. Thank you. Good to have you. Thanks Emma. And Melissa. Hi, I know you've heard from me quite a few times but I will, I appreciate your thoughts Emma. That was very nice. Sorry, going after her is a little difficult. I just want to echo what many have said and my own thoughts. Putting the, I understand this was created by legislatures and Act 127 and various other forms but it appears to me as a Roxbury resident and a mom of a elementary kid as well as an MSMS that we are putting this entire burden on Roxbury. And I don't think that's fair. These kids, the school is more than just the education they receive when they're sitting in the classroom. It's the opportunities they have outdoors. It's the after school program. It's the person caring that they get an extra helping at lunch because you know they're not being fed at home. It's the community we build. So when they do transition to the middle school and high school, they're also looked after. I myself have witnessed one of our Roxbury kids miss the bus because their teacher let them out late at MSMS and literally be devastated standing on the front lawn of MSMS not knowing what to do. And thankfully I was there picking up my daughter and rang the bell to the school and explained to them that the bus had left without that child and making sure their parent knew because the school did not have an appropriate contact number for that parent and reached out to of all places the RVS after school program to get a contact number for that parent. And I transported that child back to Roxbury. Until my child went to Roxbury I did not go into that town, live basically on the town of Northfield town line. I did not go there except to vote until my children went to that school. If I didn't have RVS and that child did not learn to know me by being at RVS I would not have been a resource for her standing on the front lawn of MSMS with no way to get home. That is what this school provides for our children when they do transition to Montpelier. Our children choose to come back to Roxbury to help with the after school program. One, because they feel the need to give back to the program that gave them so much. And two, because it feels like home. They're comfortable there. That comfort is built kindergarten through fourth grade and to lose that opportunity to our children and to our community to make that transition to middle school a little bit easier. I can't imagine somebody who is sending a kindergartner next year hearing all of this and thinking they were going to send their child to Roxbury and now having to face the fact of sending their child to UES as a brand new kindergartner in a family that has no connection to the school and has no resources to help them. That is what I fear. The rest of us, we know each other we'll figure it out. But those coming years of children especially this incoming kindergarten class they don't have that if you close Roxbury. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. See, Jane. Casey, Jane. Yes, I think you're able, if you take yourself off, you don't think you're able to speak. Can you hear me? Yes. Yep. Well, I live in Montpelier. I've lived here since 1975, raised two kids. I would say a Montpelier school system but U32 worked for one of them. Montpelier worked for the other. I'm really not wanting to comment on schools and the quality of education because I think that's been done and said. What I really don't hear anybody addressing is the fact that we are an older population. Our incomes are fixed. And regardless of where the money is spent it is increasingly 20% more every year. And that's not Roxbury's fault. If anything, it's health insurance premiums that keep coming up. And I think that what has to get acknowledged is that this isn't a statement about values. It's a statement about, can I afford to still live in Vermont without being taxed out of my home? That's all. Babe, can you say your name again please just for the record? I'm sorry. Could you say your name again please? Just for the record. My name is Jane Cast K-A-S-T. Great, thank you so much. Thanks, Sharon. Thank you, Jane. Is that all? Thank you, everyone. We really appreciate the further comments and the thoughtfulness and respectfulness that went into them. We do, before I get to the meat of the discussion, we have a consent agenda. Our consent agenda is effectively kind of pro forma items that the board just has to move to keep things flowing. They're generally non-controversial, things like approval of less minutes, our warrant for payroll, et cetera. And we usually do not discuss them and approve them on mouse unless someone pulls an item out. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move to approve the consent agenda with the addition of the warrant and the co-curriculars. Okay. Because those came later. Those came later. Yeah. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Now to, word discussion. Do we want to show the slides or do you just want to? Do we have to? Let's show the slides just so I'm not sure so everyone in the room and not mine can know what we're talking about. And then we can. I don't know if people are going to be able to see them, but that's all right. Is it possible for Anna to broadcast them or not? To share a screen? Yeah, but yeah, I'm just getting to the right screen. That's all. Is this what you sent? I can remember what day that was. Yeah. Yeah, I think. Feels like three months ago. Yes, it is. Yeah, so if people need to move, feel free to. It's not that long. So here are some revised budget scenarios in the last board meeting the board requested that I bring to them a 16 to 18 percent budget leaving Roxbury Village School in the budget. So we have done that as well as a 14 percent increase, thinking about the feedback that the board has gotten from over 250 emails that have come in since we started this budget process. So the outcomes, just to remind the board of what you need to do tonight, your main role is to approve a general budget for FY 25 that can be warned for the school budget vote on April 30th. So we leave this meeting and we need to have an approved budget number for the town clerks in order to get their process going. Remind, I think Jim talked to John Owens. I think the latest he said was Friday, but the earliest he said the earlier, the better to get that warning to him. Friday of this week. Yes. So your job tonight is to warn a budget number. Yes. Or approve a warning. Just to remind us that the FY 24 general budget was $28,608,500. The failed FY 25 proposed general budget from town meeting was just over 32 million. The 1% decrease in tax rate equals decreasing that failed budget number by $206,000. These are just all reminders. All of these numbers that I'm showing you tonight are assuming a $10,000 dollar yield for a projection, keeping in mind the dollar yield is not set in stone until the legislature does that in late May, sometimes early June, and it is not at 10,000 yet, but I think that's a pretty safe bet for it to go around 10,000 seeing what other school districts are doing in the state and reducing our budget from all the failed budget votes. Outside of staffing and programs, just a reminder to the board that the most wiggle room is in cutting in facilities and fund balance using either one of those options more or less has ramifications with deferred maintenance, if you to look at facilities and with losing our savings account if you use more of a fund balance. So just keeping in mind that both of those options while there is wiggle room in these budgets presented to the board in those, so you could add more from either one, that both have ramifications. So a proposed 15.73% increase to the Montpelier tax rate could look like this. It would be a proposed budget of 31,565,000. We would cut $482,000 from expenses and we would add an additional $600,000 from the fund balance, which would make the total fund balance contribution for this budget alone, 1,075. The cuts would include athletics, piece of equipment for $30,000, technology at $18,000, 1.5 FTE from our Instructional Assistance Corps, 2.0 FTE from the MREA. Those would be the literacy coach position and a social work position. Both of those positions starting next school year will be unfilled or are currently unfilled. No, we looked into all of our healthcare benefits. Christina did some nice digging there and some known employees we know are sticking around. They're budgeted for a family healthcare plan, but they don't take it. So that's an additional savings that we found of $50,000 that doesn't impact anybody. And facilities would be 78,000 from a cut in their budget. So we could get to 15.73, assuming a $10,000 yield doing things like this. Just a reminder for the fund balance, so it's in front of the board to use the fund balance to decrease tax rates further in this scenario. So for instance, to get to a 14% tax rate in this scenario that was presented on slide three, the board would need to use $1,415,000 of fund balance. So a total of 475 that the board has already put towards it, that is already encumbered, and then an additional $940,000 from the fund balance. This would leave the board with 737 plus some change in the fund balance above the policy reserve limit. And we could also talk about other cuts that were presented on March 12th, which is linked there for the board if they want to reference those slides. This would essentially eliminate the opportunity for the board to continue to encumber fund balance money in future budgets, because there wouldn't be enough money to do that. You could probably do it for one more year, and that's it. We could do a proposed 13.84% increase the Montpelier tax rate. That would be a proposed budget of $30,575,415. We would cut $1,470,700 from expenses. The cuts would include busing students who currently intend RVS to union, and the savings that that implies there. It'd be the 2.0 MREA positions that are both unfilled. 1.5 Marisa positions, unused healthcare benefits, the technology, the athletic equipment, and facilities. Remember that's where wiggle room is there. So doing $64,000 in facilities cuts. This proposal assumes the district attempts to run an after school program at RVS and keeps the additional bus. So have the bus that is currently servicing Roxbury Village School keep that in the budget to help with transportation challenges. Potential future use of the fund balance with a 14% budget proposal, because you notice it's not in that. The board would have $1,677,450 for potential PCB mitigation and remediation. The testing for MHS has moved up and it begins over spring break. Continue with a contribution from fund balance to reduce tax rates throughout the next four years. That is currently not encumbered. So the board has been in a position since FY21 where the board has encumbered money ahead of time. So you knew that $400,000 could be used towards that budget year for almost the entirety of my superintendency. Right now that is not planned for FY26. So if you kept your fund balance, you could plan that for future years. Potential building renovation work with the likelihood in future years that we no longer fund a capital plan, which the voters approved on March 5th. Alternatively, the board could decide to add more fund balance to this particular budget to further decrease the tax rate in FY25. And just because I was playing with numbers earlier, another $600,000 to this particular budget scenario brings the Montpelier tax increase down to 11%. The one if you go back one slide. Yes. Yes. Yeah, because 200,000 goals. Right. And can I ask a question about that 50,000 because I'm a little... The 50,000 for what? The 50,000 from benefits not used. I'm a little reluctant to include it because my understanding is it's benefits that could be used. I know it's not planned, but family situations can change. And if they elect to use it in November, we have to give it to them, right? Yes. I know you feel confident of what happened, but... We are pretty confident in that situation. But yes, you are accurate in that. And every year, we have people switch healthcare. I mean, that's a guessing game sometimes. And when we have new employees come in, we budget for a family, but they may have a single or they may have a pair. So every year, healthcare is... Yeah, yeah. That's it. That's all I got. But that is not a huge amount of money. It's not a huge amount, no. It's kind of a hand up. On the 13.84, one, I noticed last week or at our last meeting, there was $400,000 for district services. So does that mean, is that something regarding the building, like keeping... So we put in assuming we don't get the grant for the afterschool because that's what last week was assuming that there was a grant that was going to be gotten with $150. So $150,000. So that's assuming that we don't have a grant and we need to fund an afterschool program. This is assuming that. Yes, yep. And the Boston Roxbury and facilities changes with Andrew looking at facilities a little bit closer. In terms of if we had partial use of the building, how much would the facilities budget that he has at Roxbury be reduced? So we would continue to have that building as part of the district for another year in this plan. Thanks. This is Kristin, can you all hear me? Yes. Sorry if I just interrupted somebody else, but I guess I'll just formally raise my hand. I'm good to go for it. Okay, great. Thanks. Yeah, kind of piggybacking on Jake there. Could you, Libby, give specific numbers to what's been included in this budget in terms of a commitment around an afterschool program and the additional bus in terms of just the dollar amount associated with those two things. And are they coming out of the fund balance or can you tell us any more about the source for those funds? No, they'd be budgeted in our local budget, not in fund balance. So we wrote a grant for $150,000 for the afterschool. The afterschool in reality, Christina can correct me if I'm wrong. It's approximately $200,000 because we didn't budget in healthcare costs and things like that. Yes. So the afterschool program at RVS without the grant and without parental contributions is probably around $200,000. And then the bus is just the bus. It's like 70 to $72,000. So that is not taken out of this budget that is included in this budget, still in the local fund. Yep, nothing in this budget to say, with the exception of the 475 that the board has already encumbered, there is no additional fund balance in this scenario. That's not to say the board can't put more fund balance towards this scenario, but it's not. There is no assumption that any of the services for afterschool or busing for Roxbury would be taken out of a fund balance. Right, thank you. Are we still going to that grant or where are we at the... It's at the AOE. Is that AOE? Yeah. Communication. Like a prospect or... Is there a determination time? Not that I know of. Kristen, do you know when that grant comes back? I know you were close to have the afterschool world. Do you know when there's a new decision? I don't definitively know that, no. Do you know if the... Shannon says mid-April. Sorry, go ahead, Rhett. Does it have to be associated with the Roxbury Village School? Yes. Or does it go with the district? It was written for Roxbury Village School. Specifically, like there's targets and they're specifically for Roxbury Village School. You and others have noted that even if we get the grant, it could be difficult to staff that program. What happens to the money if we get the grant but we can't actually run the program because we don't get to keep it up. We would most likely be able to make a... Typically with a grant, we're able to make amendments. I don't know if we'd be able to do it with that grant because it's so particular to one building, but typically we can make amendments. I just don't know. And if we're unable to amend it, then do we have to... Just give the money back. Yeah. So what you're saying is with this scenario, the after-school program at RVS is included. Yes. And so therefore there's $50,000 somewhere in all of those numbers because that's the difference between what we would expect from the grant and what it actually costs. Without parental contribution. Without parental contribution. And so our sort of plan B, if we don't get the grant and we still wanted to run the program at RVS would be parental contribution. If we wanted to still run it at RVS. We have enough in this budget. We have enough in this budget where we wouldn't need to ask parents at Roxbury for parental contribution. But that would... Without the grant. Right. Okay. However. Yes. That would make a more robust program because they'd have more supply kind of money. Sure. It's the difference of FTE and one less FTE in this budget than last weeks for the after-school. No. That was for a special educator. We realized that we had included the FTE for a special educator. But as part of the RIF, but that was, that's not accurate. We need that for the number of services we have in our district. So we reduced that. So can you just tell us... As I was trying to crosswalk last week with this one, the sort of major difference was that one FTE and then there was 400 district services and 70 RVS bus. And then this week it's 125 for operations. So it's a 345 difference. You said 200 for after-school, 70. Well, 70 was already for the bus. So what's the other 150? Facilities. Facilities. Thank you. Kristen. All right. Thank you. And in terms of, you know, the facilities, the money that would be put aside in this version, what is that amount in terms of maintaining the building and what does maintaining the building mean? Hold on one second, Kristen. Okay. Thank you. So I asked Andrew and Tom. Andrew LaRosa is our director of facilities. And Tom Allen is our custodial supervisor. And we're going to go ahead and do that. Or. See if I can find it quickly. For just what that means, Chris. Kristen. They did that. They did that work. If we were, if we were not using the building at all, what would it look like? And then what, if it would look like, if we were running an after-school program. Mm-hmm. Okay. Great. Thanks. Thanks for letting me know. I know that's super small. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I'm working on it. Hold on. Okay. Yeah, partial. Yeah. For those of them like 25 vision, I'm sure it's crystal clear. You don't get the whole thing. So these are the areas that Andrew was looking into custodial snow clearing, utilities, trash recycling, maintenance repair, supplies, furnishing, lawn care. So he was looking at all the different pieces here. So, and then the red column, column D is. Partial closure of the building. And the, and the blue column, column E is full closure. I see. Hmm. And the, the total numbers. I'm sorry. Our. Savings. Costs, I believe. Yeah. Wait, why would it be more expensive for. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, by the way, sorry. Savings. And they're keeping in mind, these are Andrew and Tom's best guesses at the, you know, because they're pretty detailed in terms of what happens. So these are the best conservative guesses. Yep. And I appreciate that. And I do think these, you know, this does help the Roxbury community. We're not sure where this is going tonight and where this is landing yet. We're not sure. We're not sure where this is landing yet, but we're not sure in terms of the Roxbury community having a firm understanding and grasp on when, you know, the district says we are committed and we are allocating funds to maintaining the building for a year. What does that specifically mean? And wanting an assurance. That adequate funding has put aside to do just so. So that's what I'm trying to. You can see Andrew's notes here. Sorry. I don't want to touch out, Kristen, but can you see Andrew's notes here? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what that is. So it's, you know, looking at, we need to heat the building every day. Right. We need to keep the water system maintained. We need to keep all of that stuff going. So all of that is in this piece. What's not in this piece is like the summer cleaning work and any kind of, you know, facilities work that Andrew was planning over the summer, you know, you know, you know, that's where the extra money comes from in that operations budget. That's not included here. The question I gave to him was like the, when schools in session, what would it look like for our custodial crew and buildings maintenance? Does that make sense? Yep. Yep. I think I understand. Thank you. There's currently planned work for Roxbury in the summer, as there always is in terms of cleaning classrooms and all of that stuff like that. Uh-huh. Thank you. That's very helpful. Uh, well, we're having this discussion about potential after school programs. If there's any possibility of RBS students. Um, attending. Part two. Yep. There's always a possibility. Yeah. Absolutely. Anybody can attend part two. Um, and. Part two works out of union. It's a program that has gotten its stars, stars licensure so it can take state subsidies. Um, our program in Roxbury would not be able to do that because it wouldn't be licensed in that way. Um, but yes, Rox, any student can go to part two. They're not limited seats. Part two works so that they build their staffing around the number of kids who, who attend. There probably is a limit at some point. We have not come close to it. In Montpelier since we started that program. Is it, is it then that there are after school, after school opportunities at the middle school that have the limited? Yes. Yep. Yeah. The programming that was referenced earlier, Drew's program at the middle school is, you know, it's a program that has a number of slots you can take because they're, they're very specific. They're cooking or mountain biking or, you know, they're not, it's not childcare per se. It's enrichment activities. That's about the. Montpelier or the, the ones at the bottom that are in both of these. Um, Scenarios are they sort of. Since they're in both, should we think of them as low hanging fruit? Like, are these things that you think are. Yeah. Yeah. Those are sort of, those are the things I'm cognizant of this is discussion sort of that's unfortunately fallen into. Roxbury versus Montpelier, you know, but I think what I'm seeing here is consensus. Sort of trimming that might be, is that how I should read that? The last five bullets that appear in both of the scenarios for tonight. Yeah. Those are sort of. Can do. Yes. We don't feel like we're harming. But the athletic equipment, we can do that. The technology, certainly we can do that. I feel pretty confident about the health insurance benefits. I think we can do that. The two MRA positions are both unfilled. And earlier in this process, the board was very concerned about. The riff of filled positions that wouldn't affect. People directly. And so these two positions are unfilled or will be unfilled. So they seem like they, that fit the mold of what the board was telling us earlier. And the instructional assistance roles, the leadership team came to the understanding that we could, we could work without the instruction, those particular positions. The reason why it says broadly instructional assistance is because I haven't had a chance to talk to the people who are in those roles. And can you say, certainly there's a consideration of whether or not a position is filled, but there's, I would say even greater consideration or greater importance on what would the riffing of those two MREA positions due to our system. Yeah. So the literacy coach is a professional development position. Obviously we have currently four coaches in our district. Right now union elementary or elementary school teachers, I should say all of our elementary school teachers at K4 are receiving significant professional learnings and a thing called letters that is very intense for them. And so they, and that goes through next year. So they have a lot of support in that work. Additionally, the professional learning community structure, which is team based by grade, particularly at union elementary is incredibly strong. And so they really are getting to the point where they're learning from each other. And a lot of professional learning is coming in that way, which doesn't cost us any money, except trying to figure out a schedule to make it work, which is a time thing more than money thing. So yes, the literacy coach position, it was agreed by the leadership leadership team. And quite honestly from staff input, that that position was one that could be done away with. And it's not students facing really visit. It depends on how you look at it. So the ideal literacy coach would be working intensely with teachers and modeling, modeling things for them with students. So it depends how you look at it, but the social work position. We currently have one, one, two, three, four, five social work workers in our district. That's honestly, while I think needed, that is honestly a very large amount of social workers for a district of our size. So it's a position that is unfilled. And we believe the, the caseload could be picked up by our other social workers. Thank you. We can go back to the side. We're not going to take questions on it though, from the audience. We can certainly put it up and then look at it. Let me have one point. Shortly after the vote on Tom meeting day. You were concerned that if we didn't meet the, I can't remember when it was March 30th deadline, we would have to send rift notices to all the teachers, which was a ridiculously horrible thought. And if I recall you, you sit afterwards, you would work with Joe to figure out a solution that wouldn't involve having to riff or at least notice. And thank you for that. Have any notices gone out between the failed boat. So we had to, we have, that's not accurate to the MREA. We had to be required to contract. Give a proposed riff notice to our AFSCME employees, which are technology custodian because in the, in the former budget, there's a secretary position. That is rift. And potentially because we had to give it to them by March 15th. Yeah. There is a position, an administrative position assistant. So it was clearly stated that this is budget dependent. The second one is budget dependent. And what the board decides to do. Which is what Joe and I came together to decide to, is that I, we were very clear with each other. I think. That I would send out any potential riff. I would send that out to Joe. I would send that out to Joe. Until we get a past budget. Cause it's not just you all decide tonight on a warning. It has to pass. Right? Yeah. So we, so I would send that and it goes to Joe. That's who the letter goes to. And for those who don't know Joe Carroll is our union leader. And I'm putting them on the spot right now. Nice flannel shirt right there. Smiling. So I would send that to Joe Carroll. Yeah. I would send that. So we would send with our colleagues around what does this mean and what it doesn't mean and that kind of thing. It's based on budget votes. And so that will still happen. That will happen. We have to do that. Yeah. Even because our vote won't be until right. Yeah. Right. Right. the public comment periods over it's not fair to the rest of the folks if we let one person interact with the rest of the public's perspective because you know you may not have thought of that we see the numbers we see the numbers talk we see the numbers so I think you have four hundred some four hundred sixty or so thousand in those sort of consensus cuts and then in the last year's or less last year last week's presentation there were a number of additional options I think probably a lot of which most if not all of us would say you know don't even want to go near but if we ask you to kind of stretch maybe one or two more get another hundred hundred fifty thou could you please identify where where they would come from like what you think the next couple are if we thought some stretching on that front was needed in a way that you would feel comfortable with I would ask the board what they would want me to do we've gotten significant feedback from the communities to not touch transportation to not touch enrichment and so I would not recommend those positions we have talked about another MREA position potentially however I probably would go first because of the stress that this is causing on my system I would go first to the fund balance I was looking particularly at facilities where you were targeting 160 and school building budgets of 40 with those the you brought up the you could like I said in the last slide that is where the most wiggle room is is facilities and fund balance we probably have some wiggle room in the school budgets we could do that 40 000 is it was a big cut to go to those school budgets but you probably you know we could do some some work there the 160 I'll remind the board that I said last time if we cut $160 or $60 000 from our facilities that essentially makes facilities just health and safety and that's it and so that's a significant amount of deferred maintenance to our facilities our facilities yep but you but that would be the range between you know zero to 160 within facilities and Andrew would just prioritize with whatever whatever number we come we come to but this whole process of failed vote not having a true past budget with the conversation around Roxbury the instability in our system is tremendous right now the stress level is incredibly high and I would encourage the board to think about getting a number out there that they think can pass but those are I'd say fund balance a little bit in facilities and maybe a little bit in school budgets and possibly one MREA position however I would advise against that so living last week I asked about the the track I know I'm not going to make a lot of friends here but the 400 000 that we have encumbered for track I think last year last week you mentioned that about 50 of it had been spent so this week was 60 okay so so you know we we've gone down to down to 340 000 and and I think I expressed how uneasy I was with the idea of of bringing students to from RBS to UES at the same time of making those improvements to to the track um the so that 340 000 dollar savings could factor into where you were talking about the last slide number six the the fund balance because I think you have still have it as encumbered at 400 000 the board has to unencumber it I can't do that on my own so the board has to take action to do that and if the board took action to unencumber that that would be an additional 340 000 yes and there's still safety things that need to happen on the track which could be covered by the capital no the capital plan no I don't believe track work would would go there when we need a new roof here oh we want to do that we we put a roof on before we use the capital plan to do the track sorry do we have any estimates from Andrew and I know he's been really collaborative with our track coaches and and vested volunteers and trying to determine what's absolutely needed to make the track safe beyond the 60 000 is there an estimated amount at this point that will be needed out of the 400 000 to get the track into a place where it is safe and usable I think that the people who are very committed to this would say they need 400 000 to make the track very safe and usable I think probably they could do a pretty good it just depends on right you know do you want all the track events do you not want all the track we've had the conversation on the track and the people have been very vocal about what the needs are so I'd encourage the board to go back into those public comments and conversations around that for me to pull a number out of my head no because I'm not I'm not in that yeah I think that yeah I would I would think that if the board left 250 300 000 they could make a pretty safe track once again yeah I don't want you to pull a number out of your head for sure I just didn't know you know if kind of the analysis had gone so far as to be able to provide us a solid estimate so we could have a better understanding of what maybe could be unencumbered but but it sounds like don't know for sure but possibly at a price tag of 250k a solid track could be accomplished yeah and there's there's a head not from the track coach at 250 300 uh Jake okay um if if uh if somebody you know steps on the inside of curb of that of the track which has been washed away and they you know tear the ligaments and their knee because of that um is that a legal liability for the school district yeah that's what we have insurance for but it would happen if but you know a soccer player was tripped and and broke his leg during a soccer game there's you know that that we have insurance for that so it'd be like like um hazards I mean try to get out of it if they're like accidents happen but if you if you create hazards I don't think so that's not to say it shouldn't be fixed we have if we are aware of a problem that could hurt a student I think we should fix it yes I agree I know you do I know you do I just feel like that needs to be said yeah it does need to be said can you remind me when um PCB testing is scheduled to happen at rps it just changed so hold on one second let me it's in my calendar I'm not going to show the whole world my calendar simply because I don't want to stress people out well that's not the best part now I believe it's June sometime sorry this year or next year this year June she said June so the no I'm sorry so the the testing begins at at mhs like the pre-work begins over April break and then over July the week of July first is when the testing actually happens here at this building and then continues for the next week and the next week in the next week so this summer yes so July here for this building maybe maybe that's what I was mixing up when I was looking at it is the two rvs might still be next year and remind me we talked about this last week if the state removes the mandate to test this session then we don't test depends on what they rule if we've started in April and they make legislation in beginning of June I don't know how that works with that process if they say anybody who's already started the process continues it so that means that mhs would still be tested but rvs would not be or if they say we're just ending it right now I don't know how they would write that legislation yeah and let's let's be very clear that if this building is tested and there are pcbs at any sort of actionable level this community is going to demand we fix it and they should yeah sorry red I must have been confusing the the second date for mhs thinking that it was rvs just putting it quickly in my calendar because I'm in December and I don't see the rvs dates yet so it must be later on next year for rvs that because the they did it based on the date of the build of the building or work done in the building and because of when rvs was built and then renovated it was not in a significant time of pcbs which is why it was pushed to the back because there's they don't believe that they're they'll find anything there that's an excellent question red that I am not going to answer because I don't know jim can you remind us when the facilities report is due don't we have like a currently underway june correct the they were supposed to do an update in march but I canceled it based on what because we have things going on yeah because we have things going on so it's it's end of May okay and I just found a date it's uh it starts the the pretesting is uh starts uh april 20 2025 for rvs for rvs questions so I guess just kind of getting to the rvs idea have we sought and received a legal opinion on the process that we're undertaking right now and known and unknown legal and financial risks of that course of action we have spoken with the agency of education regarding it so from that piece we have I've not consulted with pho linn our attorney or attorney around this or sometimes it feels like I spend eternity with him um no I haven't I haven't asked him specifically I'm sort of sort of trying to identify what those are I mean that's the one thing that I've been struggling with here I mean one of many things that I'm sure many people are struggling with are the sort of so in the past couple couple weeks you know I've talked to a lot of people learned a lot about thoughts about the merger you know what the agreement says read the agreement um and in some ways you can read it and it seems so simple right like the board can change course with the majority vote um but then I kind of step back and think you know to do that in two weeks sort of soup to nuts um boy there seems like a lot we could be missing um I really do worry about those ideas and you know I've heard a lot of calls for you know being fiscally responsible and and those have resonated with me and um and so like without having a sense of you know where where those risks and landmines that I can't envision because I'm not an expert in this space might reside I do struggle with uh with a two-week turnaround to consummate this idea so I agency of education would have been able to name some for us we asked them to check into things like federal grant money how does that influence our federal grant money it doesn't um the money would just be be transferred um to union essentially union doesn't receive title one dollars right now and the reason why union did receive title one dollars prior to the merger um it lost the title one dollars because of the merger because it is now compared to another elementary school so Roxbury received the title one dollars union did not so if you or Roxbury or flows then the title one dollars would return to to union um so there's that piece in terms of federal dollars title one is title one is for intervention services um primarily we use it for a lot of in our intervention staffing um so we talked to them about that ramification um we talked to them about just any kind we've talked to them about pre-k because we had to for closing a pre-k program and kind of closing that loop with the agency of education around pre-k um because the board had already decided to rip the pre-k position at Roxbury because of low numbers low enrollment so we've talked to them about that piece um other than that it's a matter of where the board decides to educate the children so there there are very few other loopholes there now that their facilities needs and desires and ensuring that our facilities stay up to date and taking care of at a building that the district owns and that will happen um so I did talk to the lawyers around the question you were talking about they did not raise any other questions for me okay have you thought about this um so I'm not as concerned about about things landmines as you said that we might need to know about because every person that we've talked to thus far who have not been our attorney granted um has given us any and I can say that you know Kato's firm if they got a whiff that we were doing something that might trigger something they wouldn't wait for us to ask us a question they would say if you guys looked ahead around the board they're they're very good so Tim I um the the pace at which change has happened is also something that sits uneasy with me um I yeah it is um I spent a lot of time doing work around community engagement the reason why I joined the board was because I felt like we needed to do a better job of engaging the community um and yeah I just I just the thought of making such a consequential decision with basically other than open um forums like this and the 250 emails that we've gotten in the last couple weeks um we haven't had a truly community engaged process um when we had our our audit on our special ed um services I think the lowest grade we got was in community engagement um and so yeah I I just that's the piece that that I'm struggling with the most here is that the decision is essentially being made without um deliberate outreach to the community without voices from students and teachers and taxpayers and administrators and then thoughtfully synthesizing that and then reporting it back to the board like we said we were gonna do um and I understand why the process has moved that quickly and yeah I just I had to to share that that I know a lot of us because I've had a lot of conversations are uneasy with the pace and I think it's worth saying that it's not what we had intended on doing I just I'm sorry I just want to interject and make sure that we're clear that no decision here has been made that we are still in a space of deliberation and a vote nor a budget has been advanced I feel like there's a little postmortem sort of toned discussion and I just want to be clear and I and not to take away Scott because I am very much aligned with you and that I think inherently something that has been lacking or is lacking here we are in a very unfortunate situation but certainly something that has not been able to be built into the process or timeline of two weeks is a really focused intentional thoughtful community engagement process which I think I said last week is also has been articulated as one of our top three goals of the board and at our first opportunity to do so we're not doing so I I I am in sync with you on on that as well and again you know I think we haven't done the analysis on where Roxbury students are to be best educated and I don't think we haven't done the analysis on how best to utilize the rvs building into the future does it remain with the district what potential added value could it could it offer to the district and I don't think we've done an analysis to really truly understand the benefits costs and opportunities of of such a decision and that's deeply concerning for me and it does feel like a a big departure from this board's approach to do diligence and really thorough thoughtful process so it and and I understand that we are we are in unforeseen territory but when I'm also seeing you know a budget you know two budgets presented where there's a two percent difference and I'm certainly scratching my head as to why we would move forward with the closure of the school with such and maybe Montpelier board members feel that you know a two percent difference is the difference between a budget will that will pass in a budget that will not but I am I'm deeply concerned that we haven't done the community engagement or the the bigger analysis process and I also I'm sorry just while I'm on my diet drive I'm going to add I am concerned about the harm to the partnership we are hearing about families that may choose to homeschool should rvs current rvs students be moved to ues next year we're hearing about families that may opt to tuition their students into other neighboring districts which I feel is further fracturing and up to our community it's harmful I think we're better all in this together moving forward into this transition we have a larger support system and I think we can better accomplish that if we if we give ourselves a year to really do the diligence and do the work that I think we should to Kristen's point if the number of students don't from Roxbury don't materialize in Montpelier how does that impact the savings numbers in slide slide five so for example we have there's 42 is that what so 10% 20% I have no idea I haven't done that calculation and I couldn't do that calculation because it's an added it's a it's a computation thing that the state gives us what each student is worth as a per pupil weight it's not one kid this amount of money it's a per pupil weight based on identifying factors and that is given to us by the agency of education that is not something that we compute ourselves you could compute if some weight some number of weights didn't materialize as expected that would clearly have a budgetary impact and I guess what I'm trying to understand is there like a sensitivity analysis that tells us you know of a certain number because we're projecting on this one the closure scenario somewhere north of a million somewhere north of a million I think and I guess I'm just wanting particularly with what Kristen was just talking about wanting to understand what our risk is that we realize that I couldn't tell you because I can't tell you how many people would leave I think even if you had a long drought long drawn out process I think people would consider leaving or threatened to leave I think that could be inevitable so and decide to close the school I don't think that that is indicative of one decision now or later I think that that could happen regardless and I have not done that calculation as if all 42 students at Roxbury did not choose to come to Montpelier and chose to leave the district I think that's an unrealistic reality I just don't think it would happen and so I haven't done that analysis nor could I I don't think don't go for it last I'm slide five Libby in the green box you have to keep an additional bus to help with transportation challenges is that um Kristen brought up the the issue last time of the east Roxbury and west Roxbury bus I'd have to talk to our bus our bus company as to how they would use two buses in Roxbury so right now there's one except there's a Roxbury village school bus that picks up the elementary school students and there's a middle high school bus so that comes to Montpelier okay so this is no change in right improving the busing situation no there's no that's not accurate because it's a village school bus would not be going to the village school or would be they would be doing a different bus run you could use those buses differently in Roxbury so just following up on that kind of built into the budget already is a potential up to 200 000 for an after-school care at at rbs this is the scenario with busing rbs students to us next year the additional bus so those would be transition costs um what if we unencumbered part of the track money and moved like another 150 000 in for potential use by some sort of potential use during the transition for unanticipated costs of the transition it wouldn't influence the budget at all really because you're not you would just encumber it and then we'd use it as we would but you wouldn't be influencing the tax rate in any way okay because you don't know what and and that would still leave adequate money for the track to i believe potential adequate money for the track people say and we do still have some you know if some of that money is unused or we could do some reserve fund money back in the track if say we have to accept yeah um i recall in the mr e ssa but um negotiations there was an attempt to add driving into the i a language of the contract structural assistance already driving so that's so that's in there yes has um has it ever has has the district ever considered purchasing a van we have four vans so then you have yeah we have four of them sorry um because i i just buses are big and unreliable and vans are small and ias are already contractually sort of potentially able to drive or i don't know if it would have to be a different position completely now again we're going down into very big rabbit holes because contractual hours are seven thirty to three for instructional assistance so if that's not what this would be like we're going down a rabbit hole of detail yeah i know that's so hard to not slide into it and i would just be speaking out through conjecture yeah more than anything there are lots of things that would have to be worked out in order for that to happen right i just want to respond to Jim's point about the track real quick i feel that this is not the venue to dig up the track conversation again both myself and my amazing track coach who's here who practice starts next week super excited both of us can give the testimony just like we've done many times before about what could be cut about what the needs are about the real impacts that our track program has but i feel like we've had the conversation and i think that what we decided was that four hundred thousand was the amount needed to make our track functional there wasn't luxury included in that number it's the amount that will allow us to appropriately serve the 80 or 90 and growing student athletes who access that program i think i think libya's presented us with two excellent proposals that we ought to talk about directly the track we've had that conversation yeah this is not intended to be a continued um busting rabbit hole but i do wonder uh you know if if you know if the majority of the board we're going to move forward with the budget that does not include students at rbs next year just in terms of the allocated uh like maintaining the bus at a value of whatever was 772 if if there could be a process inclusion of the community in thinking through um kind of the best use of the bus i know sta is our is our bus company partner i also know that there has been pretty intense frustration and dissatisfaction with the bus service in roxbury um specifically the mr one route um lateness uh i've heard two accounts not totally uh nailed down but i've heard two accounts this week of mr one potentially uh making a pickup in another location and changing the bus route the bus being late for school because of that students uh not getting breakfast so again these could be rumors i've heard two accounts of it but i think it continues to show that there is a fair amount of mayhem happening with uh the with the mr one bus route and i think that the the roxbury community is really really eager to partner with the district in sta to arrive at a at a bus route and and schedule opportunities that really work and work for and serve the community so i would just request that if we get that additional bus that we get community input and that there's community collaboration around that if there was a um if it did need to be a position would that be something that could be added after a budget was passed would there be any sense in including it before the budget is passed or the the the finances for it whether or not it depends out but i don't know you certainly can to me it seems like we have money in that scenario for two buses and it can be the details can be figured out later about how to use that money maybe it's one bus and then some other kind of thing maybe it is the two buses but i think the details the money's there and maybe it's not exactly as much as we would need given there's the potential for a creative scenario nobody's thought of yet but it's pretty close if there's enough for two buses in that scenario i think we've probably got it covered i i'll try to be quick um i just really feel compelled to defend the fact that regardless of where this goes tonight every school board member does not want to be in this position every school board member wants to have more time and every school board member absolutely cares about every staff member and student in this district and i felt like i needed to say that because regardless of how this goes i'm not okay with having two weeks either the community engagement is the voters voted our budget down and we have a timeline that's ticking and it is not of our doing or choice sometimes we have to do the hard work and that stinks because we worked really hard on a really good budget and this is an amazing district and i'm very proud to be here all of us on this board care deeply about our community every single person in it we are committed to providing our students with the best possible outcomes we're holding space for and are being held accountable by you all our constituents in both towns the reality unfortunately is that we are in this position due to many factors that are outside of our control where the cost of educating students in vermont does not align with vermonters ability to pay for it over the years the cost of educating students has continued to climb our student enrollment numbers as a state are drastically down from their peak in the late 90s when the brigham decision passed our housing crisis means people who want to live in vermont must have the financial means to do so or make significant sacrifices in order to move here and stay here the cost of special education healthcare supports for families like food and childcare has only climbed what we are asking of our schools as a society has only increased in these things cost money perversely vermont is very generous with property tax credits and subsidizing keeping people in their homes indefinitely and what this means in addition to making vermont a lovely place to live for some folks also means that the next generation of taxpayers cannot move here buy a home pay full taxes and send their kids to our schools vermont prides itself on policies that preserve our natural landscape but that means we don't build any new houses we hand out exemptions to things that keep vermont looking like vermont and therefore the property tax burden continues to shift even further on to the backs of the shrinking workforce of vermonters who actually pay rent buy homes and pay taxes over the years the legislature has messed with the funding streams for the education fund to continue to try to shore it up they've made property tax adjustments they've added purchase and use which is sales tax to the education fund they've added meals and rooms tax money to the education fund lottery funds and so on also all of those things which are paid by all of us vermonters our city council recently discussed creating a tip tiff which is a tax increment finance district to pay for the country club property infrastructure guess what tips do they increase the grand list and they siphon that money from the education payment back to pay back that loan for the infrastructure so we're out of money and we're out of options and unfortunately i'm sorry to say the legislature is not coming to a rescue they've shaken every mattress they are not finding money anywhere without adding taxes to somebody in vermont um actually frankly they're hearing a lot right now that education spending is too high education spending is too high and that's the problem they're not seeing that they have continued to sort of narrow and narrow and narrow the backs on which this is being paid for so all this to say i think we've reached the inevitable conclusion that was sealed in place the moment act 46 passed and by the way the voters in both districts voted yes to approve the merger i am heartbroken for roxbury i am moved and i am forever impacted by this discussion i have no business telling this community whether they can keep their school or not as jake said last week the legislature and the administration did not have the political will to force small schools to close so they passed act 46 and left the hard work to school boards around the state creating what feels like an incredibly contentious and unfortunate and unnecessary conversation and discussion and discourse that we've had to go through for this and as one of the community members said in our many letters that we've gotten it since act 46 passed it's actually a pretty impressive feat that we were able to keep roxbury open as long as we did so i know my heart i know this community and i love this community and i absolutely care deeply for every single student educator parent taxpayer in this community i don't need anyone to tell me that i need to open my heart more i know sitting here because i do feel like my empathy and my moral compass and that if everybody on this board is intact i have no choice on behalf of all of the residents of montpilder and roxbury to support a budget that buses roxbury students to union elementary school starting this fall thank you it's pretty well said thank you are making a motion yeah i'm not sure what our motion is are we proving a budget number i think we're first vote is yeah i think we're first she is doing a terrible job and brought a dead computer so i have literally i'm not sure if this is really gonna help you but no the the structure of this to entertain a motion to move students who attend roxbury village school in f y 25 or x y 26 it sounds like from the discussion that we'll probably go with f y 25 to union elementary school is motion one and that motion two is the budget and i think we have done that i know that one of the the you know the budget seems to to do that itself but we've done that to to separate the the two questions and i think also perhaps give some room for some members to devote one way on one and one way at the other phase did we make any adjustments to the budget based on the questions folks were asking i didn't know if some of those were unresolved yet about moving around in terms of the number i think that's another reason to have these as two different votes because we need to make a decision on where to educate the rock the elementary school students of roxbury and then we need to make a decision about what the budget looks like because the budget could go even lower than what liby has presented to us in various different ways motion so i'm re-mailing about this but the um sort of the rip you know folks can request a waiver to attend a different school based on you know geographical convenience i'm unclear about this motion is that predetermining those questions that may come to us in a future meeting where someone seeks a waiver or to tuition elsewhere i don't think so i mean i i think that's a way for the yeah i think that's only it could be you know at at any time i think anybody could make that anybody could petition the board for that but we wouldn't come back and say that's been dealt with over here we would entertain that on its merits yes okay so i'm gonna make sure that's clear i mean i do want to say that in the past such waivers have been generally i mean there was there were there's been a few in my post-attenders on the board that they were all they're all denied understood i'm sorry they were all they're all denied denied is is there some criteria for determining what what the reasons for which waivers would be granted there is it most of them most of them came the ones that i had ones that i was on the board for came after the the merger if you recall at the time of the merger the roxbury students that were seven through 12 were tuitioned into you know this as was brought up early mostly you 32 some and then anyone who was still at at roxbury at that date did not what we did was we allowed the people who were already at a different school to finish but people who were at rbs uh at the date of the the date the merger was approved came to m mhs or msms and there were some families that asked for a sibling to follow their older sibling to you 32 were one of the schools that we said and to be tuitioned by the district to do that so that's that's the only experience i've had with it but i don't think we have criteria or i think we could pull out a place so i think i'll just okay i'll go ahead i'll just say for my end and i'm not gonna say it as well as chill um and agree with you know everything you said about the good place that this conversation is coming from from everybody i think i'll have i think i'll have to vote no on that first one just given the fact that we haven't done our due diligence on it and that we can so we're sort of choosing not to because that can i mean you don't have to have a lengthy process to have someone advise uh and run reasonable scenarios on legal and financial risks these are unknowable in totality but one can know them better by going through the process and while you know i will confess at the time of the merger i remember speaking with my neighbor a lot about it and i was i was not for it um but we're in it we're all one team and i can't whether or not there's a legal right to do this that or the other thing i can't imagine that a two-week process i mean i can't imagine that that was ever contemplated as the way we would make such a weighty decision and a two-week process that frankly like i i think these scenarios that were presented today are really helpful i think the ones we had before really kind of you know a lot of feedback i heard was based on this fear of you know really intense cuts to Montpelier and so you know i reflect on on those choices and how we funneled the conversation in that way to get to this place and you know no one's going to do anything perfectly and and libya i give you all the credit in the world for taking stabs at this stuff because it's hard you know like to be the one stuck putting something on a page for us all to react to like that is not an easy or enviable task so i really i really want to credit that but i i do think some of the inadvertent effect channeled this conversation that i'm not sure how helpful it was to the ultimate decision and where i wish we had focused our energy was you know just making sure that if we were going to go down a particular road we were really cognizant of what our legal and financial risks are and that when we go forward we really make a commitment to make space for you know if this vote goes the way i think it might for Roxbury to kind of envision what how it you know experiences education and MRPS and that might mean some things that aren't present now and i hope that we have the budget for it and we we really make a commitment to that so but again appreciate everyone and i also appreciate being the new guy everyone answering all my questions and taking time to meet with me like it was for board members and kind people in the community took time to meet with me as well very much appreciate it can i ask you to the sole board member on the merger committee yes um so i'm going to put you on spot a little messy because i was not here at the time for this that i would imagine because because the roxbury village school closed two grade levels no yeah two grade levels five and six and or and started sending them to main street middle school the year 2018 i would imagine any kind of legal or fiscal conversations were part of that very detailed process i can't think of any that doesn't mean there aren't any but i can't think of any were there any as part of that detailed process that was put forth with a lawyer's contribution because they closed two grade levels right yeah they did i do not recall any and in the merger agreement there is a letter from petro signing off on this process as well and the merger agreement as legal as a legal legally binding document yeah which which had had which had the closure process or the transfer process yeah there's a closure there isn't well there's a process there's a process to yeah the the it's it's board discretion is that it that's it well there was a time for it four years yeah i think i'm talking about more specific issues that are present i mean my my concerns about closure and i i i think it's it's fair to say that we have heard from educators very close to this that that this quote unquote transition year given the staffing situation at that school could very well be to a situation where it would be very hard to stop that school or to stop it in a way that would give the type of education that students would want to have and i think that's part of of my process as well i mean my my biggest regret with moving students at the rapidity that we're we're doing it has to do with you know just the the the quickness of it the you know the seeming quickness of it and and also you know i mean i feel that i wish we had spent the five years six years we've had i wish it started three or four years ago when we had time and money thinking about was there ways we could change the structure of that school to make it a magnet school or something that would be sustainable that would be sustainable and creative i think unfortunately we're we're out of that time and money and if we do move students to rvs or from rvs to ues at the end of this year i think we need we need to deal with that sadness and that hurt and that lost opportunity but i also think we need to see this as a coming together of communities we have to open our arms our hearts to those students when they come to us to those families we have to do all we can between now and august to make sure that when those students arrive at ues they arrive in a way where they're they're going to thrive and they're going to love it and i think that's how we continue to be one district one community you know we we can't change all the factors that jill talked about that really collapsed upon us avalanche style but we can be very we can be as thoughtful and as kind moving forward to make this work with the situation we have as we need to be and i think we all need to you know when we come out of here tonight we all need to come together and come together fast to make this work in the fall so that the kids are getting an awesome experience and they're getting the love and education that all our very short and sweet to say um surrounding like the stress transporting like boxbury students here um there are students here who wake up at five in the morning there are students at this school in the middle school and at the elementary school who show up to school anxious and hungry and sleep deprived and there are so many amazing resources for those students i have used those resources my friends have used those resources and i think i'm i'm confident that they will be available to rocksbury students once they come here too and it it's just it will help them out it will be a great environment for them and those teachers and resources have helped me so i know they will help those students i guess for the purposes of the conversation i'll make a motion that we bust rocksbury students to union elementary for the 2024 2025 school year any further discussion can i make an amendment you can offer one or you can discuss yes i want offer an amendment um in that case the i'm trying to get to the charge document for the rbs committee would make no sense because i believe the language was whether or not we would do but what we would be voting on and so it makes no sense to have a committee that's formed to make a recommendation to the board to do what the board has already decided um and so i think we did put it agenda i don't know the after this to talk about the committee and we can read we can read the charge if we need to okay if your amendment has got to redo the charge we do have an option i got you i missed that can i explain my vote yes yes yes yes yes yes um so i seconded jill's motion to bring rbs students to us this year um and and i agree that it's happening very quickly um and i apologize for that um i think that in my mind um we've heard a lot of good cases a lot of good reasons for why the school should stay why rbs should have an elementary school long term you know the three of you have made great cases for that um and i wished that i knew a way to help make that happen um but i don't know a way to do that i've worked for the state for 10 years um during my first six seven eight years it used to be that um a lot of legislators would say you know oh we need to spend the money on education because it's the children's future this year is different um they are frustrated with spending um i don't see any formula changes coming that are going to be beneficial to our district and i also don't see good news on the horizon for small small schools that cost a lot for people and i'm i'm just want to be honest with you there um so the question in my mind has come to is it better to do it this year or to wait a year i think waiting a year would be really hard it would be a hard year for rocksbury village um i think this year is also going to be hard but there's going to be some um positives um especially with staff um coming into my pillar so um you know i don't um it's it's it's it's super hard um you know everything that jill said is is how i feel basically um but um that's that's where i'm at i'm also going to vote no uh uh vote yes i want to make sure i think i'm going to skip that um because we've got so many proposals out there i'm not sure what i'm voting on anymore but my position is um that i think the kids for moxbury would get a great education here um there have been a lot of problems with the busing out there and i'm hoping that if they come here if that's what vote of the board is that um we can deal with some of those issues and make things better i know you have concerns about the school being the center of your community i think having an after school program there would be helpful i have some serious concerns about staffing um we've had trouble filling positions there trouble keeping positions there we're getting late in the season here teachers you know are out there looking for where they want to be now um and it would be really terrible if the school began couldn't begin because there weren't teachers there um and the last thing is i have concerns about using a ton of the fund balance because it's there to bail us out of emergencies and to kind of keep things functioning that um relate to the buildings and other things so that's right yeah i'm also i'm also going to vote yes um and i do so very reluctantly but i think for a lot of the reasons raised um i think kind of speaking to jake i mean when the the merger came together i was on the merger committee and i was i was a supporter of the merger and i i think it's been beneficial for both towns and i also knew when it happened that this day may come and it was it was my fear that it would come in this way because we knew that the the model there's a reason that vermont had many many schools the size of broxbury village school when i was born a long time ago and now there's really only three or four about the size of broxbury village school uh and it's because it's it's education has changed it's a model that's changing and i think we we knew at the time of the merger again that that you know this this day may come um i mean it was it was my hope and i think my biggest biggest regret over the last four or five years is that we didn't start a conversation sooner to see if if there was a way to to change the model of broxbury village school and and keep it you know keep it something that could be sustained as a a real center of of education with you know students in it you know full day uh and not that it can't still have some sort of of use around students and kids but as a k-4 school um you know i don't think that's sustainable and we haven't come up with that model unfortunately and and now you know as as j kind of said you know because of further changes at the state level we were we're out of time and money um and if there was a path forward that was longer than a year it would be different but i really take the heart i i'm married to an educator i trust this educator next to me i trust a lot of the educate other educators i've talked to uh and the strong consensus of pretty much all of them has been that trying to you know i i don't want to put words well a letter sent to us from an educator very close to the school said schools are about growth and when a school is no longer about growth it becomes very hard to have the type of environment that you want to raise kids in or educate kids in and i think because of that i think it's and i also have concerns about the fund balance and you know what we may need that for you know spending the fund balance and then you need to test back in july that we have the problem at the high school that this community is not going to send kids to a high school with actionable pcb levels um that this is the hard decision to make and that's you know and i think again uh i think the focus after this vote if if the yeses carry is let's make this as as wonderful transition as we can for these kids and let's be kid first and let's make sure that they come into ues with open arms and open hearts and you know within a few weeks they're running around on the playground with new friends and having a wonderful experience and if that happens i think that'll heal a lot of the hurt here i can't vote but i support this motion and i support it for three reasons the first one is to decrease the tax burden on all the taxpayers of this district the second one is to provide the best possible education to roxbury elementary schoolers and the third one is to pass a fiscally responsible budget that allows us to have the fund balance available for its intended purpose which is to be prepared for whatever comes comes next in the past couple years of my life there's been a flood and a pandemic and things keep burning down um i don't know what's going to come next and i want the district to be prepared for it and i really truly regret that we're in this situation and i hope we can make the transition as best as possible for every student in this district here jill i really appreciate you bringing in so much of the bigger picture context here i i last week asked liby to try and come up with a scenario that would maybe help us have that one more year or whatever we needed in order to be able to make a really thoughtful and thorough decision and i feel like i i've looked at could we do that no could we do that no could we do that like i really really wanted to find a way and um i just don't see one i'm really sorry i understand that i can do the math thank you and i i don't think it's possible and while i have a great deal of appreciation for everyone that i serve with on this board and i agree with you jill i think we have an incredible amount of compassion and thoughtfulness i do also feel some frustration with us because this is the second time in my only three and a half years of sitting on this board where we have found ourselves in a position where we have had a very big decision to make and we have not done a deliberative process and i get it i get why we are in this position today because we kept getting walloped for many different directions um people have said them already i don't need to reiterate them but we are meant to be a deliberative body and we are not doing that right now and i fully respect have a great deal of respect for every single person who's shown up meeting after meeting or maybe this is your first meeting thank you for being here thank you for writing to us the people who write to us and show up and give public comment have the so somewhat luxury of feeling settled in the opinion that they have and the decision that they made we are here to receive all of those opinions to sort through them to ask tough questions and we are not doing that and that makes me really disappointed in us and it makes me it makes this decision even harder because we haven't actually thought it through to the level that i think it deserves and yet here we are i'd like to add to that if i can is it okay for me to speak of course um thank all of you um thank you mia thank you it's a really really difficult moment as i'm kind of listening and i'm doing the math and i have a sense of how this is is stacking up and i appreciate what jake said um there is going to be immense and there already is immense pressure on small schools in the state um and i i stand with you um mia and jim in terms of having regret about not having acted sooner uh in a more proactive way i think we do find ourselves in a really reactive situation um i can recall one of my earliest meetings in july of 2021 i think libby did try to center this question for the board um and we did not take the bait uh and um i think that we owe it to ourselves if we are strong and good leaders and we are planning to continue to do this work on behalf of our communities to have a reflection process on this such that you know i think if this is going the way it seems to be and the yeses do prevail um i have a sense that this is going to be a canary in the coal mine situation and we are um an indicator of what may be to come for other districts with small schools and i certainly would put my you know name in the hat uh or sorry name in the ring to um support other districts should they want to reach out to us that we can show kind of our reflection what what do we wish we would we had done differently what do we wish we had seen what flags were up that we maybe did not acknowledge to the extent that we should have um and be prepared to support other districts that may be facing incredibly hard impossible decisions so i'd just like to put that out there that an exercise of like reflection for this board i think is is in order um and i i deeply appreciate the conflict and the the torture that this is felt like for everybody and i appreciate my fellow board members and i want to give a huge shout out to my community to roxbury and the way that community members have organized and the passion and the heart and the strategy and the way that they have come out for their community for their kids who we all love beyond um and i think for our community a silver lining husband that we have discovered who we are and what we are made of and um i am incredibly proud of of roxbury and being a resident of roxbury um and i just my gratitude to to all of you and to all of our beloved teachers at the roxbury village school and um this has just been incredibly hard let's go um so i think libya cited 250 emails we've received over over the last couple of months in this process um i think i looked just over the last week um we had over a hundred emails um i just yeah i was just really struck by the overwhelming majority of of the communication that that we were getting um showed how thoughtful and compassionate um our community members are um that included parents and teachers and students and administrators and local officials both elected and non-elected um and i i'm not positive i think i i want to correct you jim i think we as a board did respond to every single one of them because i know i tried to respond to every one of them um and and i see a lot of the faces in here who who i um recognize from those emails um i even might have cut and pasted a couple of um sentences from some of those emails um for for the sake of um of my own sanity um and i just i i just want to say thank you uh to everybody for for engaging in the process um i regardless of what you think of the outcome the reality is that that this process has has damaged our community because of the uncertainty that that you all have described and so regardless of whether or not you agree we need we need to pass a budget on April 30th um and so i just implore everyone to to um to get anyone who possibly can to vote yes for for the budget because we cannot continue to hurt our community with a with another failed budget vote let the record show i vote no in this motion and i want to speak to miriam isn't here but the idea that the best education available is that ues is a is an assumption and it is a matter of opinion and there are three teachers at rbs who have experience at ues and they do not share in that opinion and i just want to name that because there are a lot of different things that work um but there has been a lot of harm a lot of hurt and there's going to continue to be a lot of hurt there's heartbreak and there's going to have to be time for healing and there's going to have to be empathetic leadership and we're going to have to do a lot of work to make this as successful as we possibly can and in some ways that work starts now there's a lot of work that's been hard to do well there's this small school um sort of out there you know i mean the budget the cost per pupil at ues went from 24 000 to 32 000 from last year to next year that's a huge huge huge increase that i do not believe would be possible without rbs and so not only rbs and the merger has protected the district from not being able to make their own decisions and potentially having the board of education forced montpelier to accept another town i think the cost per pupil at rbs has also allowed a great deal of investment in education that's doesn't look so big because it's in comparison to the cost per pupil at rbs that that that cost per pupil number per building has been used very very um intentional and i don't know what to say about that because getting our kids the best education that we can possibly get is what we're all in this to do um protecting our teachers the administration um i don't have anything more to say this is a really really sad sad position to be in thanks to you and christin probably you've taken on a lot of the house of your community this is a part several months for both of you i know let's pass it by uh i just want to yeah we have um we have yeah let's write down a bunch of other i just want to explain our quirky voting uh because i'm not sure this is going to be unanimous or things are unanimous um each montpelier vote counts as two each roxbury vote roxbury vote counts as one because we are nine you have the possibility of eight and eight i don't think that's going to happen we need nine total weighted votes to pass any measure if all people at least at least not at least not yeah the nine plus um uh it's with all people present so uh let's let's do rolls of the areas of nays because i think we're gonna i think we're trying to have to do that anyways um i'll just go down jake um would you please totally restate the motion is to support a budget that buses roxbury students to union elementary school for the 2024 2025 school year yes yes yes yes no no he was a no 10 uh motion passes 10 to 6 the motion of the budget motion first or every motion first and then talk about any amendments to the motion can i say one more thing yes um there's a little peep behind the curtain uh before all of this well not all of it somewhere in the middle of all of it um christin and i reached out to another district that what had just recently voted to start a process to close the school it was a little confusing but we spoke to the board chair there and their district had been has been merged for 20 years and i think it was three towns and um when they merged the smallest of those towns closed their elementary school um fun fact it was small enough of a school that it was sold to someone to be their residents and they used the town used that money to um invest in uh i think a new community center and the um the takeaway from that that she told us was that 20 years on that little town had more town spirit and community ethos and hard than the other towns in their district that had remained had their elementary schools had remained i don't have a crystal ball but i know that there are people in roxbury and there are people in montpellier who care very much about small towns and i think that there is a path forward where roxbury can have a wonderful bright future even without your elementary school well i just have to say and i know you know what they're doing but this was an additional financial burden on roxbury because eventually we're going to have that building and you might think it's a great place to have a community center but at the cost of a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to run it it's going to come out of my pocket not yours and you know so it's easy to say that you it's an opportunity for roxbury you're building back for a dollar i also want to observe that by voting to send the elementary school students from roxbury to union we're not technically closing the school the school is still a resource for the district as of right now i've heard liby say before it's a resource for the district there hasn't been an intentional effort to try to determine alternative uses um it's hard to do when you've got kids in classrooms there are there are i don't know what the possibilities are but i always remain optimistic in all things and in this case i still have not given up hope that there are educational purposes that can be realized in that space maybe for older kids cvcc is short of space you know now there's opportunities to sort of explore some of those ideas potentially i wish i had some really really great ones for you but um i'm you know to all of our alternative pathways folks to all of the folks that work in this district recognize for a moment that space will be empty essentially at least from eight a.m. to three p.m. and if there's anyone that comes up with any bright ideas to use that space to help enhance our students' educations please please share those ideas with the administration of the montpellier roxbury public schools committee charge any further comments or do you have a budget motion that we have discussion slide up on the screen please thank you it's a dollar amount yeah we would be that's exactly we're not taking a certain public comment um just because we've had we've had we've had a lot so Libby this one up here just to clarify does not include any fund balance it includes four hundred seventy five right it's not any more right it's a fund balance that we passed originally thank you that's that's helpful um but so if so if we're going to make a motion and name that number on the on the screen thirty million five hundred seventy five four hundred fifteen that's what would be warned or that is including the four seventy five from fund balance that's our proposed budget so what's warned is not the education spending it's the general budget right and is that does that represent general budget or a general budget okay okay i wonder before i guess if we're if we're to talk about the number do we want to have the motion first or talk first you could make the motion for the number that's on the screen and then have a discussion to lower it and then amend the motion once the board has had that discussion right yes yeah yeah all right i move that we warn a budget of thirty million five hundred seventy five thousand four hundred fifteen dollars for the f y twenty five school year the calendar so second second okay all right discussion let's talk about it yeah well i'll just give some context for why i made that motion which is that um you know we've we've basically heard the pleas to pass a budget that we think threads a very small eye of a very thin needle that will pass by being fiscally responsible and doesn't impact the educational outcomes that we want for our students and after thirty weeks how long has it been Libby and her team have definitely done the due diligence to find every nook and cranny of our of existing funds that we could do without in order to thread that needle and i don't think at this point it's worth trying to take anything more from fund balance to try to bring down the tax rate and i certainly don't want to go make any deeper cuts than what we see here so that's why i made the motion and i i i'll support this budget as proposed i mean i do want to acknowledge and um you know the issue of of moving roxbury students to ues has been a big and painful one i i do want to acknowledge we are even at fourteen percent we are making a big ask of taxpayers that is that's not a small number and um we we do understand that the people out there are are being squeezed uh that it's groceries are more expensive this town just went through a lot of people lost a lot in the flood uh people are you know this is this is a generous town that says yes to most things and i think we have hit some expense points that are making people feel uncertain about their ability to continue to afford to live here and um i i just want to i just want to acknowledge that and that does not mean that people are heartless or don't support kids or don't support schools but people have budgets and realities about where their money goes and it can be it can be hard to have increases that vastly outstrip inflation and and what people are earning so um i i support this i think for most of the reasons me have said i think it it threads a needle um given the realities we have in terms of um giving as excellent education as possible to all our kids uh while um asking i think the absolute most we really can of our taxpayers uh but i want to acknowledge that even this number is is not an easy one for a lot of family budgets and other budgets deeply concerned that the bus company cannot do much to help with the transfer transportation problems and i wonder if there are alternative solutions that can be part of this budget i don't know what they are but the what funding they might need i would and i would encourage the board to add to the budget at least for some enough small children to fit in a van i don't know jim you had mentioned uh i can't remember what you called it a transition fund or something like that and i know i the the fund balance is in a really good place and i i think i don't know what the right amount is to set aside for transition which could be put towards the busing fixing the busing um challenges or some other need that comes out of a truly engaged community process community engaged process um and so i believe we're eventually going to get to the the committee but having having resources available to that committee to to address the concerns as they're raised i think will be important and so um yeah i i don't know what the right amount is um but i do think some sort of transition fund available should be included i feel that way yeah i'm concerned whether or not that's your ongoing um you know one of the challenges with using fund it's one time in the next year all the reasons folks had about funds that you set something up and and then the money's gone and and so i you know i think it was unanimous around here that there is a deep concern for how this transition goes and i think it's critical that we fund that transition and i also as probably for my comments before i am concerned about whether or not both because it's a tight budget really stripped down and because i think there's some risk um i would wonder if folks would consider adding some measure of conservatism um i i don't know what that right number is whether or not that's a a percent or something but what i'm really concerned is that come back and we have you know we set ourselves up next year like if we want to really kind of embrace this transition so put that out there for thought i'm not and i'm just going to be clear i'm going to support the budget so it's like i just but i think it's a real legitimate question whether or not we focus on fund here or add some conservatism to the um revenue we plan to generate and i'd love to hear what folks think about that i don't know what you mean tim by conservatism to the revenue region or what is what do you mean by conservatism to the amount to the rate right add a little on the assumption that there are going to be costs associated with this change so put some money back into the budget correct okay because conservative could mean cutting this budget i just wanted to make sure i understood what you meant that was not my intent um i mean i think my thought on that is if we if we set the size of the reserve so the committee can can have you know a source to fund ideas you know part of the thing with the transition is you learn things right like some things are going to work some things aren't um i agree with you like a one-time revenue source is going to have to be replaced i think we can think about you know if those costs continue if those costs continue but i think one of the things we could learn is if we you know try some ideas because we don't have the runway we'd like to necessarily for this i think by the time we're starting to put next year's budget together we're going to have a sense of what those costs are and what those costs are so we can we can put some of those costs into more of a continuing revenue stream it's like wow you know this idea really worked this is you know $75,000 extra we're gonna gonna need to make sure the um you know heavy roxbury kits at ues works or we you know we spent $30,000 on this one-time thing and and no one's using it so are you agreeing with him no i'm i'm saying i think we should i think we should should take a pot from the reserve yeah and and use that and then kind of figure out which of those one-time expenditures look like they might need a budget line and which ones don't and then we can we can have that information when we get next year's budget i agree with that i would not add to this tax rate in any way shape or form i would put it i would i think that i would expend or i would ask the board to um put aside some fund balance this budget needs to pass and some and some things we don't have to set money aside for right necessarily right just maybe you have spent money from the fund balance for things like up until $40,000 yeah yeah so yeah we don't have to make a decision tonight i think is another thing i'm saying yes about how much would come from the fund balance into a transition fund it can make decisions about what the transition needs and then come to the board and say we would like to use this much of the fund balance it could be a recommendation from the credit right and i'm fine with that yeah i i really i think what i just wanted to articulate is what i hear as a i think a unanimous commitment to really sort of putting our money where our mouth is on on making this transition work yeah yeah i just want to say thank you tim for for bringing that up and i do agree uh that i think this feels like the work of the committee uh that i think we need to kind of re uh re-imagine and and give a different scope uh to and i think it could be dealt with after the fact and coming from the fund balance would make the most sense versus altering this budget some thoughts about next year um basically and and it's late at night so maybe some other time but i'm interested in is there another salary increase coming next year yes and do we know the percentage when you say next year next year 2025 or 26? FY26 well we'll negotiate with the union next year pardon we'll negotiate with the union with two unions again next year starting negotiations for FY26 for FY26 okay and then health insurance there's nothing changing at the state level so that's likely to be similar yes uh and then earlier we were talking about the different bargaining units and i'm sorry if this is over my head but there were two of them that have late march dates and then one has an early february date dates for what for uh renewing contracts so so renewing contracts is something different okay if notice so renewing contracts that teachers have are mainly the ones that have the date the i a something the apps me i'm not i couldn't name the exact date off the top of my head um do you know that at the top of your head yeah okay or morrises yeah i just don't have that i think that's more later spring but we have to get contracts out to teachers april 15th and then another who who gets their contracts in february administrators so um you know i find it problematic that in the case of a rejected budget that there is a group of employees who are essentially protected i think everyone should be on the same time frame in the interest of equity and i don't know if that's negotiable or how we work that but that's a high priority for me the statute wouldn't allow the board to do that for principals because it's in statute that principals who have sat in their position for two years need to have a need to have a contract renewed to them by or non-renewed by february first our principal is the only people in that group yes okay all right then i need to think about that more there's not much the board could do there is what i'm saying for that particular position board could negotiate with our other administrators the the hiring time frame for administrators is very different than teachers so we have we have a phenomenal leadership team that i like to keep the people in the position we have a phenomenal team i hear what you're saying that that doesn't line up with budget i hear that fact that most definitely so you could try to negotiate a clause into that contract around budget passage or something like that that's something the board could try it's negotiable though also as a as a you know someone my seventh or eighth month um something like that but as i learned more about the how the district operates um you know i would like to be able to understand better which cuts when we do have to talk about cuts impact learning the most um you know we learned at our september 30th meeting way before all of us that um district staff um had increased by 61 percent in the past five years it's not inaccurate i don't know where that number comes from it's on on the bottom of the presentation from that day um but what my point is that um you know and at that time oh sorry that's not administrative staff alone right that would be all the district including teachers ias right which was which was necessitating the need for more space that's the way it was framed yeah i see what you're saying now i thought you were just talking about administrators increasing by 61 percent that's not an accurate statement so you know i'm very hesitant to cut any teachers um but vermont you know has by far the lowest staff to student ratio in the state so if we do need to cut again i'd like to learn more about the possibilities and have more control over it and in the past couple weeks all i've really felt like i had control over is rocksbury yes or no and i'd like to learn more about the district and and have more input on on how we configure our staff and class size might be another thing we might want to revisit state might do that for us we might want to get out of that though we don't like it with the state doesn't this is true this is true the state generally makes good decisions i just want to say i agree with jake no one's coming anymore but i agree um that felt really unfair and arbitrary and so when we are looking at literally individuals it felt like the timing which i realized was out of our control i think i would i agree that i would really want to know all of the things i mean i keep thinking about like the windows at the middle school that i drive by every day they look terrible and i know eventually they're going to get replaced um so there are other places that we really didn't have time to go into but i feel like that timeline felt really unfair when we're talking about individuals and their jobs that there was like a group of folks who are also incredibly valuable just because of timing we're a part of that equation okay great for the discussion let's do Scott no one's going to call the question i don't think this is going to be as split as the last vote but let's do roll anyways because it's a big one uh jake should i re-state the motion yes um i move that we worn a budget of 30 million 575 thousand 415 dollars for fy 25 for a district second that second oh you did that didn't mean you didn't say um i'll vote yes right yes yes yes yes yes yes christin yes we have a second budget we cannot officially tell people to vote for it but i will say that um i i really feel that that this board has stepped up and done a lot of hard work to respond to a very difficult situation um our our district needs stability to educate our kids um and i ask everybody to go to the polls and do what they feel is best for our town and our kids in our communities uh it's well i also was curious whether or not the possib this possibility has been discussed at the level of how to support students right now who are going to rvs liby i'm wondering i don't know how it's gonna i don't know if they're gonna need extra supports around for the rest of the week or i don't know if that's a possibility or if that's too detailed i don't want to be too deep i don't want to be micromanaging or anything i'm just really holding what um is going to be a lot of fear and um thus far what has happened just murray has written scripts for rvs teachers that they have used this week and last um we have a partnership with up for learning that works with student voice and last year did a fantastic job with the transition for our fourth graders that planning process for fourth graders have just started and we are planning on increasing their their capacity to work with all of our kids for transitions and that's as far as we've gotten right now do you have any advice for what i should say to my children um you know your children's best friend so i would what i would say to my children is you have the opportunity to meet even more people who are going to love you that's what i would say to my kids how lucky are you be if you're not freaked out your kids won't be freaked out and the more upset the parents are the more that's going to transfer to the kids and they're going to have more fear about it so i think just make it a normalized step that's going to happen next year and so i want to i want to voice the commitment that i hope that the board shares that are we have a responsibility to not just the students but to the parents and to everyone that's going to be dramatically affected by this transition i hope that the board shares in that commitment what what support we can offer to parents i'm not sure but if we can i am determined to do anything that we can i think this is a perfect segue into the conversation that i started to start um and um so our our committee charge from whenever that was it seems like ages uh make a recommendation to the board by september 18th 2024 um i i think the timeline needs to be cut at least in half um whether to continue to educate elementary age students at rbs that decision has already been made and so i think at the time i was one of the ones advocating that it should be whether to and not how to and so now i've got to correct my misstatement and go back to it being um how to um what transition i don't know what the wording is um but but i think we need we need some work around the how um and then i want to jump down to the committee makeup um i had a long conversation with miriam uh and she disagreed with my rationale for why i didn't think students should be on the committee um i actually think now because the board made the decision that it did um that having students and teachers on the committee um makes more sense and i also wonder whether or not i i i wonder if the board makeup makes sense or not do we need i think we need people to know i think we need a lot of people from roxbury to be able to say what the needs are um and i think we need some people with expertise about how to how to do this i might not say how to educate because that seems to be talking about what we actually do in the classroom i would say how to transition support the transition i'm just using cross-outs so we don't lose anything but once the board decides i'll take those out and lemme i saw you you shot nodding your head when i was talking about the committee makeup um and so i i it sounds like the concern that you had about teachers is no longer concerned as well okay cool yeah of course yeah and i think yeah um do you want to make a recommendation or do you want them to like inform a successful facilitated informed and successful process make recommendations yeah make recommendations during and you need a new sentence um what you just said this committee will inform and what should i not make recommendations facilitate thank you facilitate um process and should we maybe say we'll meet bi-weekly and make recommendations on a rolling basis and i think you know maybe stuff should be coming off before it's potentially yes well i was gonna say like a rolling yeah question is valid right how do you prepare your kids for a big transition i almost feel like eliminating the date entirely and having it at least an ad hoc committee yeah well that's why i said we have to have to meet like every two weeks and make recommendations on a rolling basis so they're well you could say they will make any recommendation um for decisions that need to be made by the school board for instance that opens up funds for or uh using fund balance or something like that it could also i don't know what else the board would need to decide but because i haven't thought i agree i i think it needs to be captured in the charge in in terms of this committee's role um with with fund balance you know identifying you know strategies for transition that may require um fund balance you know to the extent it makes sense for this group to be coming up with um specific dollar amount requests from the fund balance but i want to make sure that it's very clear i think we've all signaled here tonight that there very much could be a monetary um impact that could allow for some really supportive transition plans i don't think we want to be outrageous here but things that just really ensure a high integrity and supportive transition and that this committee um will make recommendations in terms of um access to the uh to the fund balance and i think just in terms of timeline i agree it makes obviously it makes sense to scrap the september date but i do want to um emphasize um kind of pace and experience around um busing and after school this doesn't necessarily you know need to go into the charge but um i think those two pieces are incredibly important for roxbury families to have a very clear understanding of to the to the extent that we can work as hard as we possibly can to make sure that there is clarity around busing and after school before the end of the school year i realize that that is a tight timeline but i think that at the end of the school year families evaporate our lines of communication are more difficult to um to track down and i think that these are two of the biggest most fundamental pieces that are really shaking roxbury families right now in terms of this um transition so i would want to make sure that this committee knows that we need to move immediately quickly and specifically i think focus on the transportation and after school piece yeah no i i agree with that and i think the end of the school year is a great target date to have those pieces worked out because i think you're right christ it's going to be hard to do it's going to be hard to do over the summer and i also think it's going to be good for families to have those answers for themselves and their kids by the end of this school year so they have a little more certainty about going going into next year yes i don't think they want a letter on august 20th telling that absolutely not and that would be unacceptable also yeah jim i think i think i heard you mentioned something along the lines of a bi-weekly meeting schedule um would that then afford the committee to at least make periodic reports back to the board at our meetings since we also meet bi-weekly i don't know if i mean i would imagine in the beginning it might be a little bit slow but those recommendations as we move into may and june might start coming more frequently the board has six more board meetings in this year yeah and that leads to some of our six or seven meetings of that committee i would i would i would think so especially if there's a especially i mean i think we should probably at least a board member on that committee as it lays on uh i mean right now we have four i don't think we need four i think we should probably have a board member or two on that committee to and other other committees report back yeah after each meeting so it would be okay cool thank you and thank you just have an item on the on our chapter until yeah the transition is well underway or well take care of yeah um sorry some things will happen this spring when kids visiting stuff like that right yeah okay is it okay for me sp yeah so far yeah yeah i just can't see what's going on in the room um i have lost track of the charge a little bit but did we retain um deliberating the future role of the rbs building in the mrps district because i think what we've done tonight right is we have initiated a transition of rbs students to us um but a a quote closure of the school or you know mrps no longer having an educational purpose for the building is really kind of the piece that's referenced in the act 46 agreement that also requires a board vote and then you know there are clearly negotiations with the town and i i know that that is going to be weighing heavily on people's minds um tonight starting tonight um and so is that piece included here just did christin thank you that last sentence in the okay okay thank you i will say i think that conversation will take longer yep so i want to give the committee a short deadline for their whole charge if we're also asking them to tasking the tasking the committee with the future use of the building so um anyway i can't remember did we actually we we did end of the school year for a couple of these key questions but not yeah anyway yeah i mean so i as i see it now there is no deadline so this is an ad hoc committee that we've we're creating and so the the charge right includes the sort of more short term needs of the families and also includes the medium to long term concerns about things like after school programming some are potentially future use of the building so it's it's over with no finite deadline it might be that the board can also revise this charge yes committee could revise this charge yeah good for the revised charge should like to hear it read out loud yeah we read it out loud this committee will inform and facilitate the transition process to move students from rvs to us starting the 2024 2025 school year they'll make any recommendation to the board regarding strategies that may need fund balance money or board decision the committee will design and implement a process to engage the communities in both roxbury and montpelier the committee will use the mrps state of priorities as a guide and base its recommendations on the following factors educational including academics and safety belonging and wellness considerations financial considerations and staffing considerations particularly particular strategies that will be considered by the committee include but not limited to transportation after school programming and future use of the building do you want to like grammar or syntax like that no anna will do that at 10 o'clock no i don't i'm so glad you were do we want to put do we want to have two board members christin and i and it says two to three community members from both montpelier and roxbury do you want to do two from montpelier and four from roxbury and maybe two students from each from roxbury and two students from montpelier not necessarily any particular school but something like that if they're willing to join us i honestly think that the students i think it's imperative that we get some older students from roxbury yeah that's that's what that's what i that's what i think it's most imperative kids who have done the transition here yeah yeah i absolutely agree with that so should there be more than two kids i do you think it would be helpful to have two kids from montpelier i think we should ask our what they are not here right now i would nominate our student school board members i mean i think we say two to four and that way it gives us from each from each town each town each town kind of yeah something like that i will tell you quite honestly that our students are so busy in the spring that it's it it will be very hard to get four students who can who can attend regularly yeah for many from either place like it's just the reality of having committees in the spring um yeah i'm i'm uh somewhat confident in the roxbury folks who have had to deal with that yeah and which what i'm more that's more the voice that i think we need to most definitely here i'd be interested still be interested in being in the committee and i i really support having a montpelier board rep on the committee and not just having christin ret carry that support yeah no no i'd be happy to continue serving on it as well but also i don't i don't need to i think lin and and if christin or ret want to do that i don't i don't think they need to carry it but i do think that they have a different connection to the roxbury community and the montpelier voters or the montpelier board members do i'm pretty sure we both want to do it so i'd say both of you want to do it then let's put both of you on it although that creates a quorum do we do we care but they're one meeting they're one yeah we can't yeah it's a committee of the board so yeah i just i have a question um i i could see us certainly wanting to tap into the wisdom of teachers um and as well as potentially other administrators i don't know that they need to serve on the board but i guess i would ask liby or sorry on the committee but i would ask liby you know could you serve as a liaison and kind of helping us to navigate like okay who could we tap into within the district staff that could help like you know just mary's skill set nick connor's skill set and just how we could you know the committee could could tap into them of course yeah great we could put um advising capacity from mrps staff great as needed sorry for ever we're talking about first and fourth grade students being on this committee to help decide the future rocks break building who are the students from roxford high school kids who are in the middle and i do think there is value in and we had it in the old charge but um the advisor i can't remember the wording but but we may find that there's value in speaking with yeah those students and not having them on the committee yes yes and and they're open yeah anyone can and and part of what these committees have done in the past is organize um sort of a forum a forum which would engage the kids in the elementary school just they wouldn't be part of the committee but that's a big part of what we would be doing i think along with the district support for the kids this for right now i think we're good for this right now i i think we should definitely do a ton of quick outreach and get those people yeah lined up i want to acknowledge the current staff at rvs who have communicated their love for that school and their commitment to the community and to those kids and who have really come together i think over the last few years with libyan others leadership um all reports suggest that that flywheel that's happening in the district district was really really churning at rvs and i just want to acknowledge all that hard work and i want to appreciate you all and you know encourage you to um i don't know just to finish the year strong i don't know yeah and thank you for college never it's not that this this was this was a hard decision we did not want to make that it was not any indication of of the education that's occurring there are the the wonderful folks that are are doing fantastic work there i know that that staff right now is really really strong and really excellent policy monitoring policy monitoring i mean we approve the policy monitor reports for policies c 28 and d 5 c 28 being transgender and gender non-conforming students and d 5 being animal dissection do you have a second i'll second any discussion all is in favor i any opposed um motion to adjourn second okay all is in favor i thank you everyone it's uh somber night but i'm really proud of the work that's been put in and i know that all of you have uh earned earned your thousand dollars