 Good evening, it is Monday, February 8th and we're going to call the RTC technical career center board to me meeting to oh my gosh meeting to order our first order of business is to welcome any guest in here petitions and I don't see any guest but I do see a new member of the team Felicia if you would like to introduce absolutely. One of us today is Robin Denneken who is the new administrative assistant at RTC and we're really happy to have her on board she's been awesome so far and her very short amount of time here. Great, thank you Felicia and welcome Robin I am going to just continue to pull this turn this right over to you Felicia to continue on with the program changes. Sure, I don't have anything terribly new to report since our last meeting although things are moving forward with some of our new initiatives. Most notably our pre-tech program for the freshman and sophomores that started this semester has 10 students in it which is amazing considering you know how quickly we kind of pulled that together and it's looking really positive for next year as well. It will remain a semester program where students can come either fall or spring semester for the full day and I've been working with the different schools around academics and trying to ensure that they're comfortable with the embedded credits or if not like how we might work our schedules around that. And once that last piece is kind of feathered out I anticipate that everything will be fine with the state of Vermont I'm already well into the process of being approved for the program I just have to write a little something around academics and we should be good on that. So that's exciting all of the area freshmen sophomores and juniors received brochures at home in the last week so those brochures you know with COVID we're trying to really think about how we're recruiting for next year so that was an integral part of getting the information out into the hands of students and parents. We have been recruiting to the different program or excuse me to the different partner schools over the last two weeks. We have next week students coming to visit us virtually in the program so their top two choices they'll be able to see. Speaking of programs and continuing kind of on that vein we are into the process of planning for our dental assisting program. I have reached out to Chris Wilson who is I think a willing partner who will advise us on what we need to make that a successful program. We've acquired the curriculum for the Career Center in Essex for their dental assisting program they are amazingly willing to share with us their resources and curriculum so that's been really helpful. And just a reminder that that is a grant funded program so it is contingent on us getting the time grant this spring. And then the last program change which I believe everybody here is aware of is that we will be merging the digital film program and the graphic arts program into a new program called digital filmmaking and media arts and it will have a variety of the most sought after curriculum from each program and the hope is that with a more diverse program we will be able to reach a greater student body and enrollment. So I think the caveat is that you know if that should prove not to be the case then it would be a program that we would consider cutting down the road. So it's kind of a transition year to see if that is the right approach for us and we're going to have to see where that goes with enrollment. So that's it in terms of new programming but right now you know along that line our enrollments with the pre-tech program we have 125 excuse me 124 students in our building right now which is amazing. We have moved would you like me to just kind of go through the agenda. We have moved into full in-person instruction as of January 25th and so far so good. I think the kids are extremely excited to be able to be in school for four days a week. Everybody looked really tired the first week. So I think it's an adjustment for all not only the staff but I think also the students as we remember what school was like a year ago but it's been good. With it have been you know sort of the more normal student things that come up when you have a larger student body on campus. So by that just you know I feel like I'm more dealing with some more student discipline issues and things like that that will happen as there are more kids in the building. So but the transition has been good. The academics in particular has been a really important move for us. The fact that kids were working remotely on all of their academics for a full semester was really challenging not only for the students in the sense of making sure that they attended their remote classes but also in terms of the strategies for teaching and I think that our academic staff is extremely excited about this and to be able to have kids in their classroom is important. So you know as we move forward the goal still for the Tech Center is to increase enrollment. And I think we're heading in the right direction. Next year I would anticipate that the electrical program is going to increase enrollment as it becomes you know it starts to take off. With that comes challenges right now the space that that program is in is a little too small. So we will have some facilities things that we need to do this summer in order to accommodate a larger student body in some of these programs. So I think that's probably it for this moment. What's your goal for enrollment? You know we really need to get it up to about 140 I think to be really self-sustaining. With the dental assisting program if it were at full capacity which being that the medical field are pretty sought after and they're not everybody gets into the health careers program I would anticipate that that program will take off maybe a bit more quickly but each program can have 15 students in it. So that's an additional 15 right there and if we also are successful in how we implement our digital film that's another 15 which currently it just has four. So I think we're close right there. So I have two questions. I read in your overview that for the pre-tech program it looks like there are students from Northfield, Williamstown and White River. Are there no Randolph kids attending that? There are no Randolph kids this spring. We are in the process of negotiating kind of those academic pieces that that was kind of a hang-up for this spring I think as well as the fact that with COVID there was concern about sending them to our end of the building although they would be with us all day so I think you know I'm not sure that that concern is one that we needed to have but the academic piece given the strategic plan for the district Randolph Union High School felt strongly that they wanted to keep hold of the academic pieces for the kids entering the pre-tech program so the the negotiation that we have made is that for next year the students that come to us from Randolph Union High School would be in an academic class here at the high school in the first block of the day they come down to us which wouldn't be a significant change in time from the start day you know the start of the day for us and then they would also have an academic class in the afternoon and the nice piece about that is it would be year-long so they would still continue to have a foot in Randolph Union High School even though they'd only be at the tech center for half a year so it kind of keeps some consistency for them. Okay before I ask my second question I'm just gonna ask other board members here if you have any questions for Felicia about RTCC? Are there no questions? Well I guess I was wondering Felicia whether you mentioned that you needed this grant to launch the new program what are the likelihoods that you get that grant? To be honest that's a grant that is pretty readily given to technical schools I think that Jason had applied for each year probably in the foreseeable past so I'm very confident that that grant will come through and the state AOE has been awesome about working with me on on the grant writing process and making sure that I dot my i's and cross my t's so I'm I'm optimistic. And for a student who goes through the dental assisting program what will they have what sort of credentials will they exit that program with? Sure I believe it's called the CDA and I'm not entirely sure the acronym and what that stands for but it is the licensure for a dental assistant in the state of Vermont it also is transferable you know in the nation but I think it's called different things in different states so currently what's happening in our area is Chris Wilson for example will take folks in and he will do all of the training with them and then they may have to do some pieces up at the Center for Technology Essex for like the x-ray and imaging and those kinds of things I'm hopeful that we'll be able to have that on site so that we will not have to you know send students up to Essex anymore for that and it also maybe that it feeds into an adult program so you know we'll kind of have to see how this all plays out but it is a licensed program it's like getting our health careers program those students will get an L&A when they're done so there's a test and all of that but it's an industry recognized credential. So staying on that Felicia would you like a board do you need any sort of board official vote to move forward anything we could do to a yeah so the process for the agency of education requires that we have board support to pursue this new program and so I would ask for a motion to to go ahead and approve my pursuit of this program. So could I get a motion? All right so it's been motion made by Brian seconded by Cacha with a show of hands for those who are not here are you in favor of the motion? I don't know if you can hear me but I'm in favor. Felicia do you have anything else you want to share with us? Well I think I shared most things other than you know I did make kind of quick mention of some facilities work that needs to be done we are you know we've got a variety of projects that we're looking at and trying to prioritize right now as we move forward my goal is to develop a five-year plan to make that happen but the reality is we can't grow the center a whole lot without looking at our spaces and some of the spaces in particular in the mechanical core are have not been sufficiently maintained up until this point so we need to do a little work to get those spaces so that they're kind of up to up to par with what's an industry and making sure that they're inviting for students things like in the construction trades and management program there are suspended ceilings that really don't need to be there is back in the day when the roofing I don't I don't even know if I can talk in construction terms but it was a different process on the roof and they've since changed that so we can take those ceiling tiles out it was something to accommodate heat loss a lot of those tiles are just you know dingy dirty old need to be taken out you know so cleaning up the space and it's not major stuff but it's just things that need to happen the other you know long term goal is is looking at where these different programs are and the spaces whether they're appropriate for their program for example construction trades and management is currently right next to the greenhouse so diversified ag has to actually come through the classroom to go out to the greenhouse if they go through the building otherwise they would have to go outside in around so it's just thinking about you know like logical sort of changes that make programs more efficient well before we move on to the consent agenda I want to give you a huge kudos I received the that the catalog that you sent which I thought was very well done really a great piece so kudos to you for that it was great thank you so we do have the consent agenda and I would look for an overall motion to accept the pieces there I have a second second okay on favor please raise your hand okay I'm in favor so the consent agenda is approved now is there reason for executive session Lane or Felicia okay so anything else I just appreciate your support thank you so much everybody all right so you guys are closing out the meeting at 616 which is good and then 630 folks will be switching over to the other link for the OSSD board meeting so we'll see you there