 Let's get started. Let's call the meeting to order. 601. It's nice to see everybody. Hopefully your week is going well. Sunny sun is this now is melting. Unfortunately, because we the month season is a full start. But I'm going to try to keep this meeting to two and a half hours. I think we have good potential and with everybody's help, I think we can get this done. So first I want to welcome our guests. Let's see if we have any cast. With us. I see a lot of central office people. Thank you for being here. And I don't. I don't see any other casts. So. Yeah. Hi, Danielle. Hi, Danielle and David Lawrence. I see them now at the bottom. Welcome. Are there any public comments? Nope. Okay. Danielle. No. Okay. Any agenda revisions from, from the board. Okay. So seeing none, we're going to move ahead. And move right into students report. Anna and Maya, welcome. Hey, happy to be here. How is everyone? I'm doing pretty good. So nice. I love it. I'll start off the student report by saying that spring sports of very briefly started preseason. I personally start ultimate frisbee next week. Which is very, very exciting that COVID has calmed down enough for me to be able to start and play sports. That's very, very exciting when we're outside and hopefully I'm very hopeful we'll be able to know our masks all the play. And then also today. There was a teacher in service at 32. And it was run by three seniors this year. And then also with some work from a task force and 32 students on sexual assault and harassment and you 32. And it was a big presentation for all the staff and admin. We went over a lot of stuff. And I'm sure you guys might be hearing about it soon. I'm not exactly sure. But that was a really important thing that happened this week. Chronicle is getting running again. Our journalism classes doing a lot of really good work and one particular project they're starting to do is a series called people that keep you 32 running. And we're going to publish an article about Lisa will plant. Because she's a very essential person to our school. So chronicles going really, really well so far. And then last Friday. You might have heard about on the radio scene on the news, there was a queer youth walk out. That I led along with. Abby and Jasmine. And it was basically a protest. We got over 200 students to come out and walk out during the protest. And we had a lot of people in protest of the anti trans and anti LGBTQ legislation happening around the country. There was a bunch of speakers there. And a lot of people got up to talk and it was just amazing to see everyone get together to do that. And there's a lot of stuff in the works as well in groups such as like lamb and seeking social justice. That you might be hearing from as well soon. So that's exciting. Is AP exams are coming up in May. So with that for me and potentially my or starting to do AP study sessions after school, which is very, very helpful and productive and we're having teachers that are being very willing to put aside their time to help us. So that's very nice. And then finally, I think we all, most likely heard him, the mask mandate ended starting this Monday. And just like an update on that for how it's going. I would say 32. It seems to be greeted quite well by everyone. A lot of people aren't wearing masks. I'd say it's like 6040 ish. Roughly 60% not wearing masks, but everyone's super respectful. I'm still wearing my mask and if I'm near someone and I just ask them to say the way they do, everyone's super nice about that. I haven't really seen much conflict related to it, so that's good. And on that same line, the teachers have been very, very respectful. A lot of the teachers have taken off their masks and there's environments where I will take mine off and it's a very safe environment, but if there's like one-on-one work or anything like that, the teachers are very respectful of the court and on or make clear their expectations in the class. Can I ask a quick question, Flora? Yeah, are you guys done? Yes, okay, yes, go ahead. Thanks so much. I just want to introduce myself too. My name is Dennis Hill, I live in Middlesex and so the first time on the board is when I say welcome and thank you for stepping up and being here tonight or every night, I'm assuming. I just have two quick questions for you. One is for Anna around the, is Anna or Anna? It's Anna. Anna, around the sexual harassment professional development that took place. So I'm just curious if that was a student-generated idea to do that and if it was based on anything specific or it was just an awareness opportunity for students to share with faculty and staff, concerns and ideas and issues around sexual assault and harassment. Yeah, Maya can probably speak a little bit more on this because I believe Maya's on the task force and I'm well involved in the school community and all of that. A quick little thing I can say about it and then Maya you can probably add on is it was, it's run, presentation was done by three seniors who last year after a conflict with our health future leaving and our school starting to have conflicts of sexual harassment and us, the students feeling like it wasn't being coped with well enough or our just community started feeling a little bit toxic within all of that and how the faculty was dealing with it. So three of our students began to cooperate with Co-operate with Mosaic which is a nonprofit program and one for the community justice and they have been working and we have a club at our school called The Conversation we have the task force and they're working to just create recommendations and ideas to make our school a more respectful place and make Title IX a little bit more clear and help us try to have a safer environment. Great. Yeah and today's meeting was basically going over our plan and our recommendations because there's something called the Title IX which is about like how the school deals with like allegations of sexual assault and harassment and it was more going over with the teachers and admin of what us the students were recommending to add to it to make it a more comfortable place for people coming out with that sort of information and then also to talk to the teachers about what they thought and to like provide support and offer our ideas of educating the staff and students of our school about that as well. Great. That's really wonderful. Thanks so much. And then my second question is a quick one but it's actually more of a statement I just want to, well I never support the early disruption of the school day I appreciate folks taking the time to get outside and protest for what you believe in and I just want to thank you for that. Thank you. Any other questions from board members? I don't see any hands up. Thank you Anna and Maya and Maya I heard you under radio and you were very eloquent. So thank you for your leadership. Let's move on into superintendent report. All right. Good evening everybody. I have quite a few things to talk about today. Some of them COVID related and some of them not. So we're going to start with the COVID update as Maya and Anna said this was a big week for us in Washington Central. This was the week that we went mask optional and I would corroborate what Anna and Maya reported in terms of overall our students and our staff demonstrating lots of empathy and understanding and respect for the choices that folks are making that has been lovely to see and hear. We did a fair amount of preparation and conversation at developmentally appropriate levels both with our kids last week and with staff within staff members to articulate some of what they were excited about some of what they were worried about and things that people wanted to share about how they were feeling and I think that it paved the way for a good transition. Some of our kids as I wrote last week in the community letter had never seen adults without masks and had never come to school without masks. So seeing full faces and smiles has been a delight and I would say that one of our principals recorded some kids who really, really operate with very concrete and strict guidelines are struggling when it's their choice and they're not being told exactly what to do. So that's something that we're navigating as well. So mostly really quite wonderful and also challenging in ways that I don't know that we had anticipated that aspect of the practice. We also, you know, the Vermont Department of Health guidelines have changed and Maria is much better versed in those overall than I am. And so I know she's here and I wanted to invite her to share a couple of the highlights with you and then answer any questions that you have. Sorry, I had a little technological challenge there. Hi, I lost my page. We had a lot of changes this week. They ripped the Band-Aid right off. I also agree. I've been in and out of a couple of schools this week. Everybody seems pretty comfortable. Everybody is modeling wonderful tolerance and kindness for all for the choices being made. I think that's excellent. So as we've mentioned, we're following the CDC community level in terms of deciding our mitigation strategies in the district currently we are at medium. What the Department of Health changed to be in alignment with the agency of education is rapid antigen tests are no longer being recommended to end in isolation after positive test. You may leave isolation on day six if your symptoms are resolved. We are no longer requiring masking from day six to 10 because as you can imagine, it would be extremely difficult without violating HIPAA to ensure that those kids that had been positive wore their masks the entire time. Staying home if you are sick is still one of the number one mitigation strategies that we're still using in school as well as testing and testing when you have symptoms. The guidance is different for vaccinated and unvaccinated folks as well as people who don't have their booster. But if you are fully vaccinated and up to date, even with an exposure, you are not expected to test on a regular basis. You're supposed to test when you're symptomatic. So we're slowly moving into a little more acceptance of the fact that COVID is going to be with us. The other really big one is that the AOE has asked us to stop notifying staff and families of positive cases in school. This one created a whole lot of feelings, not in the least amongst Jen and I. We really felt like that was a whole lot. But as we talked our way through it, the truth is we don't notify families when of how many flu cases we've had and how many cases of strep we've had every week. And as we start to move towards COVID being more a part of our normal, ooh, I hate that word, lives, it does sort of make sense that we don't need to continue to throw COVID in people's faces constantly and continue to create a daily sense of anxiety around it. So currently we're at a 4.2% positivity rate in the state. It is still continuing to go down. We're hoping that will continue. We do reserve the right, of course, to pivot as needed should our rates go back up in the state and in the district. So before we go on to the next part of the COVID MOU, if there are any questions or comments while Maria is here, we welcome them. Chris has his hand up. Hi, Maria. Thanks a bit for you too. Hi, how are you? Thanks to you and Jen for explaining things. Does COVID present more of a contagion hazard than strep throat or the flu? So I just want you to know that between this meeting and the last one, I have learned that you're an attorney and you're questioning is, every time I'm like, oh, he's back in me in a corner. Yes, I am. You're good at your job, but it feels like it. I'm like, oh, he's set me up. I went time head of principal at a school meeting saying, stop cross-examining me. Which was funny. I agree that it occasionally feels that way, but that's great. You do your thing. So the truth is, is that currently? And the reason I'm asking that is because it almost sounds like you're trying to convince yourself that the AOE is correct in terms of not notifying about COVID. Jen wants me to think real carefully before I answer right now. I am gonna tell you that I tread a very fine line between my professional responsibilities and my personal feelings. I don't always know that my personal feelings as a healthcare provider really need to come into play in my professional experience. So I have to be very careful about who are you asking? Are you asking the COVID coordinator? Are you asking Maria? And I can't say that it's the same person. Well, but your line is blurred because of your profession, right? Like you carry, just like I do, you carry certain opinions based on your life experience and your, and even though a court may say, well, this is the rule, you're like, well, that's not a great rule because of all these other things. And they may have a different reason for doing it. Like the AOE may have a political reason for doing things, whereas as a nurse in the COVID coordinator, I think you're looking for not a political reason for making the decisions that you do. So I understand your dilemma, but it just sounded like you're trying to convince yourself that the AOE was correct. And that's the reason for my question. I do believe that the AOE practices politically. One of my concerns has been that the AOE in this specific instance has acted prior to the DOH and the DOH had to scramble to make their policies match the AOE. And in my mind, that's putting the chicken before the egg. And I believe in my own professional opinion and personal opinion, that I would have liked the medical guidance to come before the agency of education guidance. At the same time, we have positioned ourselves to follow the CDC over the AOE, right? We're following using the community levels of the CDC which sit well with me. I think it's an excellent metric that utilizes several different metrics before. It's not just following transmission level. It's not just following the strain on the hospital. It's following everything altogether. And if that goes back to high, we have positioned ourselves to be able to say, we're gonna put the rest of our mitigation strategies back into place. So while you are correct, you read me well, I'm not 100% thrilled that the AOE ripped the Band-Aid off as quickly as they did. At the same time, at 4.2%, I feel a lot better about it than I would have at 13%. And I think that as long as we keep a close eye on things and we have an open line of communication and we don't fool ourselves about what's happening in the community and in the country and in the district, that we should be able to still, we have enough time to make the changes we need to make to keep people safe. And the administration has flexibility just to take a different step if they see things going backward. That's correct. We have been very clear in our communication that if should we leave medium community level and go back to high that we will pivot back into being far more restrictive with our mitigation measures. And that includes universal masking. And currently we're working on a new illness protocol that's not quite as zero tolerance as we've had for the rest of the year, but something that can enable us to move forward without having to write a new illness protocol every 14 days, which is kind of what we've done all year. And it will give us the flexibility and our nurses the freedom to use their clinical judgment, which we really haven't had the ability to do this year because we've been a little bit hamstrung by the fact that the mildest of symptoms have been COVID. Okay, thank you. Thank you for the assurance. I appreciate it. Yes, counselor. Dennis. Hi, Maria. I have one very quick question. I thought that we were still recommending the presumptive contact notification as of today. Or as of Monday, has that changed since then? We got a letter from the Vermont State Student Nurses Association that they had met with Dan French, and the AOE was recommending no longer notifying families and schools of presumptive contacts. Now, I am continuing despite the guidance of the AOE to track. We're not supposed to be contact tracing. We're not supposed to continue to track. Personally, I'm interested in the data of what happens when we go mask optional. And I'm interested to see what kind of viral activity spikes after this, I suspect we'll see things like strep and regular colds and perhaps the flu because these kids have really not been allowed to breathe on each other for a couple of years. And we do anticipate there being a little bit of a spike. I would like to keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening. And so while we are following the AOE and the DOH in terms of our overall policies, I'm breaking the law just a little bit to make sure that we know what's happening on a reasonable amount of time. Thank you, Maria. I don't see any other hands, Jen, back to you. Great. So I think related to all of the changes has been a need to update our COVID memorandum of understanding. And so if you go to page four in your board packet, we're gonna ask for some support from you tonight. I wanna just give you a little bit of background. The labor management committee has been meeting pretty much every other week all year to do a lot of work. And a lot of it has been related to COVID. I think we all want the same things, which is making sure that our school community is safe and healthy in the midst of a pandemic. And we're recognizing that as the guidance has changed and the pandemic has changed, that there was an aspect of the memorandum of understanding in particular that needed to be adjusted. So on page four of your board packet, you can see that the language that was proposed was to replace that one bullet around requiring masks of all employees, students and visitors to replace it with following the CDC guidelines on masking. And so the association took that to a vote of its membership last week. 97% of the folks who voted voted in favor of making that change in the MOU. And we're looking for board support. And then talking further with labor management this past Monday after I wrote this memo, I would request action that the board approve that language change that's in there. And then with that approval, hopefully tonight, then we'll update that language of the MOU and put it on the website, let our members know and you can authorize floor on your behalf as board chair to sign that amendment. And I would say one other thing before I ask for, give it back to floor for any kind of action. And that is that, you know, things continue to more can grow and change. And I just want to express some gratitude to the labor management committee. We really have been committed to doing this in good faith. And I feel like this is an example of that process. So I would love your support in making this change. Thank you, Jen. And just for other board members that were not part of the board before, we originally, we have put this responsibility both in Jen through the pandemic and on Maria and we have supported and they will continue to be our guiding light through any future. But we felt like this was important. And since the union ratified, it would be good for us to do it too. So I'm looking for a motion to approve a replacement bullet under protective equipment that states all employees, students and visitors will follow CDC Gailen on masking and to authorize the board chair to sign the newly ratified MOU. I'll move that. I'll second that. Thank you. So Chris and Jonas and Lisa, did you get that? So we didn't have this formulated beforehand because we didn't know which way we were gonna go. You got, do you have it? I can't hear you, sorry. Sorry, I forgot to unmute. So the motion that was made to accept it or was there a change to it? No, to accept it. So it was made by Chris and I think by Jonas. Yes. Thank you. Okay, great. Any discussion? I would just wonder if it would be beneficial to central office administration to have a clause in there as well that with both of the fact that you reserve the right to make determinations, the fall outside of the CDC guidelines in the event of a sudden spike in cases in the schools or whatever, right? I just think that throwing that out for discussion. That make sense? Yeah. Earlier this fall, Dennis, the board did authorize me to make decisions in response to the pandemic and that support has been perfect and appreciated. So I think this motion with the one bullet and continue, and that support from you is fine. I don't, there should not be any other changes to the MOU. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. And I reminded everybody this MOU expires in January 31st, just in case you didn't have it in front of you. All right. So all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you, Jen. And I'm gonna get it back to you for this calendar. Great. So each year, the superintendents regionally gather to work on the school calendar. We are required by statute to have 175 student days in common with all of the districts that sent to the central Vermont Career Center. So the calendar that you have in front of you is the one that does indeed have that 175 days in common of central Vermont and all of the surrounding towns that send there. There are a couple of other things that I would point out. As you know, we contractually, we're offering 180 days for our students, even though 175 is the state minimum and our contract costs for 190 teacher days. I would add that just the way the dates fall in next year's calendar, February break and April break are late just because of the way the dates fall and that the Winooski Valley superintendents also worked in tandem with the Chittenden County superintendents because we've got so many folks who live or work in those different areas that it presents a big hardship for our employees when those calendars are out of sync. So the Feb and April vacations coincide with what the Chittenden County superintendents are recommending as well. The other thing that's important to know is that we've gone through, this was at least the third draft that we've been reviewing with the leadership team. And also we brought it to the labor management committee for their feedback because we need to bring that to the association for feedback. So there is support across the board for this calendar and I would love for you all to approve it. I've already started to get questions about next year's calendar from some members of the public. Thank you, Jen. So I'll be looking for a motion to accept the calendar. I'll do that one. I'll make a move to accept the calendar as presented. Second. Lindy and second by Dennis. Any discussion? Chris. Jen, can you speak to the Wednesdays? There is still some early dismissal Wednesdays for the staff to collaborate. So in this calendar every Wednesday is dismisses early as we've been doing in the past few years. So when you see that they're gray, typically the student dismissal day at U32 this year has been 255 and the elementary day has been 330. Every Wednesday we're proposing the 205 dismissal for U32 and a three o'clock for elementary students. That has allowed us to engage in some deep professional learning together and extended meeting time. The meeting that Maya and Anna were talking about today that happens during the faculty meeting time at U32 and we had, I attended that meeting as well and we had a lovely big chunk of time to engage in that work. The half days that were in the calendar this year we are not putting in for next year right now. And again, that was in consultation with the leadership team and the LMC. We might bring a proposal back in the future for that but we felt like because hopefully we won't be in pandemic times that we didn't need those. And we were still working Act 156 which is Vermont's Universal Pre-K Law requires us to have 35 weeks of 10 hour per week pre-K and we've been running into some issues with how we're running pre-Ks and our school calendar and we can't intentionally set up a calendar that wasn't gonna make that happen. So that's a long way of saying yes, it still is in there but the three half days you saw this year are not in next year's proposed calendar. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Thank you Chris and Natasha. Yeah, I was just looking at the month of June and the contingency days go through June 20th which includes Juneteenth, which is a Monday and that has been recognized as a holiday. So I'm just wondering if there's been any conversation about what will happen if our contingency days go through the 19th. Yeah, Natasha, thank you so much for bringing that to our attention. That we did not talk about that and that needs some attention. So thank you. No problem. Yeah. No. Thank you, Natasha. I don't see any other hands up. So with that, all in favor of the motion to approve the calendar for school year 2022, 2023, moved by Lindy and second by Dennis, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Floor, would that include the potential for correction? Yeah. Of 2019. Yes. Yes. Then aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you. Back to you, Jen. Thank you. Okay, so the next one, there's no paper backup for this one. It's a little complex, but I just really wanna let you know where we stand right now in terms of student attendance days for this year. So I submitted a student attendance waiver for this year. And we don't yet know if the extent to which we're gonna need it. So let me tell you where we stand. The state requires 175 student attendance days. Our calendar fills in 180 days. We, as an entire district, have had four days so far this year that our students have not been in attendance. One of those days was absolutely COVID related in terms of staffing shortages and sickness and fridge and temperatures and masking. A second day, sort of. We were, it was, whether we were on the fence, we were hearing from our road commissioners that they thought they could do it. One town was a little nervous, but then all the neighboring districts went down. And because we have teachers that live in all of our neighboring, and we don't have enough subs, we weren't gonna be able to staff school. Two of those days, the days that were back to back in February, the third and the fourth, that's just pure weather. Additionally, U32s had two days that they haven't been in session. And again, in addition to those four, one was a water main break that caused a repair. And so U32 did not have any source of water and needed to be closed. The second was COVID related, staff shortage early in January. If you'll recall, in the very beginning of the year, East Mount Pilger students were what we ended up pulling learning from home for four days in the very beginning of the school year. Before there was guidance and testing at school or any of that. And then a few weeks later, Berlin was in a similar position with students learning from home for three days. I, we collected during those days, we collected attendance data. We made sure that meals would be available and we met the minimum contact time for students back when remote learning was an option. We compiled all of this information and I have shared it with the AOE. And I just want you to know where we stand right now. The AOE has received a lot of waiver requests and they're still processing them. So I haven't heard back yet, but I know that question is on people's minds. Also, I cannot even tell you how happy I was that the big storm was Saturday this weekend instead of a school day. Because I was sweating that it's not, the weather, you know, isn't over yet. And historically we don't determine the last student day until about April break. So we're gonna hang tight for this month. We'll figure it all out once we get through the spring and the changing weather. And then I'll come to you with much more information and a report and we can figure out where we stand and what that means for the last day of school. In the meantime, we have lots of families already asking about end of year celebrations for sixth grade and eighth grade and for graduation. And so we've decided that we're gonna stand firm on those dates regardless. So already in the calendar, you've got Friday, June 17th marked as U32's graduation date. So that's gonna be U32's graduation date. Sixth grade ceremonies will take place the day before on that Thursday, which is the 16th. And then an eighth grade ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday, the 15th. And so the principals are gonna start getting those dates out. And again, I can come to you with more concrete information, what I heard from the state, all of those things in the weeks to come closer to April break. Okay, any questions about that? Okay, the next topic is our Besser and CIPs. And so I'm gonna do a little jargon busting here. So our Besser is the source of relief money. It's the third phase of the money and we are required to engage the public and to do some revision. I did some meaningful consultation in the fall. And again, I attempted some more outreach right in December. We have that money, that is the money that is associated with our recovery plan or what we've called here in Washington Central our moving forward plan. That is gonna be the topic of conversation and the topic of the forum for you all in April so that we can do some meaningful engagement. I'm also working with the principals to just try to figure out the timing and how to roll everything out. CIP stands for Continuous Improvement Plan. And that is a state activity, a required activity we'll look at the current data or as current as we have it and we'll do some planning around student performance. And same thing, I'm working with the principals to just try to get our heads around how to do this work in a meaningful way that doesn't seem confusing that leverages the data that we have as of right now, last year statewide assessment scores are still embargoed. So we can't do anything with them at the school or district level quite yet. And so we have local sources of data that we can look at and bring to folks but I just wanted you to know that that is all in the works and we will at the next Ed Quality Committee meeting for those of you who are serving on that committee do a little bit more learning about what continuous improvement planning is so that you're feeling well-prepared at least a crew of you to engage in that work in May. Questions about that? Okay, the final thing is if you go to page six in your packets, we typed up an update about the Humanity and Justice Coalition. You heard about this work around the vision statement that the group had written and you saw the invitation and read things in the community letter in the fall. That group is up and running. Two of our three facilitators are in this space with us. So I would just let you know that as somebody serving on that committee, the work is vital. I would say that in my experience, we're working really hard to be in community with each other, to deepen some relationship, to engage in some vital conversations and to move forward the work of the grant itself and those bullet points around looking at policies and practices, looking at our curriculum framework and looking at strategies to diversify the workplace. But I really would love to invite Natasha and Jen, two of our co-facilitators to just augment what I said and then answer any questions that you all have. So Jen or Natasha, what would you like to add? Natasha, I just wanted to, I know that you're serving on the board. I'm also just happy if you wanted to check in about what work your committee is going through doing and I'd be happy to fill in for the curriculum committee. Sure. I am serving on the policy committee and we really started doing work on looking at the current policies that are in place and also language that's in the student handbook. So we gave ourselves some homework to do before the next meeting, which is looking at those. I provided a tool that allows people to ask specific questions that are from an equity and inclusion lens. So as they're reading through the policies and the handbook kind of making sure that the language that's in there follow that and we're just looking for what might be missing and then are there any things that might be changed based on how it's currently written and we will also be looking at some equity policies from other school systems to see if they have something that we might wanna add or vice versa. And then the other thing I just wanted to add before Jen Hopson is it took us a little while to get going on the actual work. Reason we did that is we realized that it was really, really important for us as a coalition to create a safe space to do the work and we can't have the conversations we need to have about the curriculum and the policies and hiring practices and strategies unless we as coalition members feel safe being able to have really honest and sometimes very difficult conversations. So we really did take the time, our first couple meetings to establish that culture and community within the coalition. So now we can really kind of move forward in doing the work that we've stated from the grant. Thanks Natasha. I would add that we are, I have a little bit of a barking dog downstairs so hopefully that won't be too intrusive. We additionally, there is a committee that is focused on curriculum and that committee in the last couple of meetings we've really started to identify areas where we feel strongly that, you know, areas where we need to focus and we've done some affinity work where we've essentially looked to, you know, take a look at some of the initiatives and some of the deep work that's happening within the district anyway and how can we put a culturally responsive lens on that that's been, you know, I think at the focal at the center of this and a focal point of the work specifically what we're doing is looking at a few different things. One is we're looking to collaborate with the Washington Central Curriculum Council which actually met today and being able to work in partnership. We're also in the process of putting a plan in place to develop sort of a checklist of effective culturally responsive and inclusive practices. We would be doing that, you know, pre-K through 12 we're also looking at further developing work that Jen Miller-Arsenault did last year that has been already received while reviewing and further developing what is a template that includes lenses of universal design for learning, trauma informed approaches and culturally responsive and inclusive approaches to curriculum in the classroom and identifying opportunities where we can actually continue to strengthen that document and work with faculty to have them, you know, be consulting and using that as they're developing their own work within their classrooms, which is often and, you know and should be rather nimble in response to their students' needs. And oh, there is one other thing we're doing and that is identifying practices that may be actually causing harm to kids right now, curricularly. And so that work, I also just want to acknowledge that Danielle LaFleur Brooks is with us as well and she is also serving in this group and has been working right alongside with all of us with this and has been also an actively engaged parent in the community around these issues. So it's been very gratifying to do this work. It's, you know, I think there's a great deal of humility that I certainly am feeling and learning so much from the cohort. Thank you for the opportunity to share. Really appreciate that. Thank you both so much. So we would welcome any questions or comments from the board about the Humanity and Justice Coalition work. Any questions for board members? Jonas. Yeah, thank you guys. It's great to hear from you. I, you know, I understand that the work to get started was really deliberative, but I hope that we will hear from you guys from this coalition a lot more frequently. The thing, what stands out to me from the memo that's in the board packet is the second bullet on page two of that memo. And I wonder if you will also be looking at policies around student behavior in addition to staff, the sort of, you know, that bullet is sort of a staff posture. I wonder if you will also be taking a look at student behavior. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we went through, well, I went through the policies and pulled out, I think like five or six to initially look at, and most of them were under the student behavior kind of section. And then also the language in the student handbook that talks about the process and procedures that are put in place to address student behavior. So I kind of pulled those out for the committee to look at first. I'm sure I missed some. One of the things that we're talking about as a committee is how cumbersome the handbook is to access and also the policies on the website and within that, you know, you have to go through several clicks to even get there. And then the way that it is indexed is very difficult to kind of find the information we're looking for. So that's also one of the things that we're looking at is how do we make it accessible to the public, but the student piece is definitely a big part of the work. Thank you, Diane. Excuse me, this is kind of a part two of that question too. And, you know, as a board, if concerns come to us or around situations where there isn't, that would fit in here, where there's a need for some change of attitude, change of perspective, is the coalition able to provide resources for the board to consider how we create, you know, those kind of learning opportunities or expectations of all staff around that, you know, not that you all have to figure out what the consequence or action is, but what we as a resources for us as a board to consider around that. I'll jump in again, Jen. Feel free to jump in if you want. Yes, I think that that definitely is part of the work, is providing those resources, you know, part of doing that also is kind of vetting them to make sure that whatever we're bringing to you are the right resources, which is time consuming, but I've already started compiling resources for our coalition members themselves to access. And so I think that that's another good perspective and lens for us to have on the work is what can we bring forward to the board to also be doing some of that. Thank you, Natasha. Dan, I just want to respond to that a little bit too. I think that we had made a commitment when we stood behind the coalition statement of purpose that we would get involved. So yes, that's a very good question I guess right now and we would like to get involved in acknowledging and learning more ourselves so that we can be part of the work. Lindy? This may be asking too specific, but Jen, you mentioned reviewing curriculum that's causing harm to students. Do you have an example of something that you'd be looking for? I think, you know, I think that we haven't identified, I think one, here's an example. There has been historically, and I can't say now that I could speak to this happening in the, you know, just now or within this year for curriculum to include role playing, for instance, let's say that there is a United Nations, I'm just throwing something out there, you know, let's just say for example, there is, you know, students are being asked to represent countries and in war. And that is something I know historically happened, I can say and I don't know if there was pushback about that. I think from a faculty standpoint, there are a few people who had concerns about that, but I don't feel equipped to really speak to it directly. I think the harms, something that's come up this year and is being reviewed by the Department of English is looking at how are we to, and I'm part of that department, how are we as teachers to engage students? How and if and in what ways do we engage students with text wherein there are racial slurs that are intended to harm student, you know, people who are identified within variety of groups. And so for instance, there's a lot of canonical texts from has historically been taught and looking at the lens of, you know, are for instance, representations of people of color, stereotypical, do they reinforce stereotypes? Do they, for instance, show people of color, various groups as being marginalized always, every time a student reads about a group, you know, I'll say African American, typically that has happened a great deal in the curriculum. And to what extent, you know, that is impacting students. And so we've had a lot of parents, a number of parents reach out with their concerns. And so we know that this is something that needs to be addressed. And the Department of English, I know just specifically, I'm sure there's other departments working on this too, are looking at curriculum and reading. And, you know, for instance, is a book written, I'll give an example of Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, is that a book that's appropriate, you know, for children of color? Should it be a choice? I'm not answering those questions, I'm just, these are questions we're asking. Who needs to read that book? Do kids do, you know, and is it gonna be part of a menu of books? It's a phenomenal book. It is also a very deeply distressing book. And do all students need to be reading it? And typically a lot of books are done as whole class texts, not all, there's more and more book clubs and selections and so forth. But I use that as an example because it came up recently as problematic and as a whole class text. And I know that Danielle is also someone who has spoken to this. So it's, you know, I just feel that I'm not equipped to share all of the reasons, but I think that I hopefully that would give you an understanding, Lindy, that was your question, right? Okay, sorry if I was verbose. No, that's fine. I just, I was curious for an example when you shared. Thank you, Jen. Danielle, do you wanna share as part of the committee? Well, I would share as a parent whose child got to the point of being unable to attend class, a child of color because of how a book was being taught. The situation was handled. I felt like there was appropriate response, but it does, I would certainly like the district, the teachers to be proactive in considering students of color, considering the audience and how it might affect and be proactive in their teaching methods. And I could go on about this, but thank you, Jen. And it doesn't matter. Thank you, Danielle. Natasha, do you have one comment? Yeah, just, I mean, one last thing to say about that. You know, part of the curriculum is, as Jen said and Danielle said, is not just about what books to pick, but I think it's also about what is the conversation with the students leading up to reading that book? What are the protocols put in place around, if you're doing read alouds, what words will be said and which words would not be said, what are the parameters around the conversations that are happening in regards to those books, the historical context, all of those things need to be a part of teaching that book. And so that's one of the things that we're gonna be looking at. And I was just thinking of another example because I had a conversation with a teacher about the Civil Rights Union. And thinking about taking the curriculum that we're currently teaching, obviously we wanna teach about the Civil Rights Movement. Can we think about that from the context of like, how is this being mirrored in 2020? What are similar, what if anything has changed as a result of this? What are similarities between Emmett Till's mother and the George Floyd video? Like those sort of having those sort of more, I think conversations about, you know, how has the past impacted the present? What have we learned from it? But I think kind of rethinking some of the curriculum that is currently being taught from a more social justice DEI lens. And also obviously being thoughtful of the students that are in the classroom because I do think in our school system but across the state during Black History Month, there was so much harm being done to kids of color from teachers who had the best of intentions of having thoughtful conversations but just not really understanding how to go about creating a safe space. And so instead of it being a learning opportunity, it turned into, you know, really traumatic experiences for some of our Black students. And so that's one of the things that we wanna be mindful of when we're looking at the curriculum that's being taught in the classes. Thank you, Natasha. And I think the last part is you saw in the report, there's also a hiring and a workforce committee. And I've been participating on that sort of remotely because it coincides with my BSV8 meeting but I'm gonna be able to be on at the next meeting. And so far what I get the exciting part is that Shelly has invited, at least it's Shen, to come and, you know, share her knowledge with us in hiring and returning marginalized staff in our district. And we're talking about taking the implicit bias test and there's some measures that we are already doing before hiring asking people to take the implicit bias test. And also we had been very purposely posting in a more diverse way so that we're making sure that we access not just our typical ways of posting just through school spring but really making that part of what we do. So I don't see any other hands up on that. I really wanna thank Natasha and Jen for being here and for all your work on this. And please send our best regards to Shelly too and the rest of the coalition. And Jen, thank you too. And let's move on to our next part. So board operations. And I'm gonna start with welcoming both Eva and Olivia. Well, Eva, I think I'm ready to go. Olivia, I'll let you introduce yourself. Welcome, Olivia is here from the Central Vermont Prevention Coalition. And I'm gonna let her introduce herself and give us a little short description of what they're gonna be doing. Hi, I'm Olivia Leclerc and I'm serving as World Community Organizer for Central Vermont Prevention Coalition. And I'm here with Eva Zera, she is on the call and she's gonna start us off tonight and we'll keep it quick. Yes, I saw your agenda. So we're gonna fly through this and have a little, we can answer any questions but we'll try to get out of here as fast as we can for you. So like Olivia said, my name is Eva Zera. I'm a public health specialist at the Central Vermont Medical Center. I'm also the project coordinator for the Central Vermont Prevention Coalition which is backed by the hospital. The coalition is an interdisciplinary collaboration of professional organizations and state agencies that work in the fields of substance use prevention, harm reduction and disease prevention, treatment, recovery and restorative justice. We also have representation from a wider variety of sectors including law enforcement and youth services and housing and so on that are all touched by substance use in some way. The coalition was founded back about seven years ago and like I said, the hospital serves as a foundational backbone member of the coalition. So our mission is to create a harmonized and stigma-free system of care in Central Vermont where there's no wrong door, no wrong time to get help and support for substance use and to prevent the initiation of substance use and the support and participation of people and families who have experiences with harms. The harms of substance use is really vital to our work. In 2019, we received a three-year grant from the federal government to address the opioid crisis in rural Central Vermont in all towns in Central Vermont, not just very Montpelier, but all, especially the small rural towns. And one of the initiatives that has come out of this grant is the coalition hosting a series of drug and alcohol community forums throughout Washington County. We've decided to organize these community forums by Supervisory Union because this allows us to dive into the YRBS data that's available to us by Supervisory Union and the community forums are leaning heavily on the topic of youth prevention and that's why we're here tonight speaking to the school board. So we open it up to the entire community based on Supervisory Union. A lot of parents tend to attend. We've held two so far and we have a panel of experts who come and can ask questions. We also explore ways that the community could get involved in supporting youth prevention, but also any areas that they may be interested in. Any way that we can help bring an idea to light is what we're really there to do. And so let me just say that we feel that these forums are coming at a really critical time as drug and alcohol use and overdose death rates have increased dramatically during the pandemic and every part of Vermont. And alarmingly, youth substance use rates have really increased over the past few years and these forums are a really good chance for parents to ask some really critical questions and for us to come together as a community and be working together on this issue. So let me turn it over to Olivia. I was gonna tell you about the forum that's coming up for your region and then we can answer any quick questions that anyone might have. Yeah, so hi, everyone. We're here tonight to invite you all to the Community Forum for Washington County Supervisory Union, which is happening on Tuesday, April 5th from six to seven 30 p.m. via Zoom. And we're currently working on a hybrid option for this event. So if there is going to be an in-person option, we're gonna update that on our Facebook page and we'll send out some reminders to you all. But we're here to answer any questions. If there are any questions that we can either answer now or you think that we should address in the forum, we'd be really happy to hear them or ways that we can additionally promote this event, but also be really helpful. We'll open it up to you all. Thank you, Olivia and Eva for being here. Board members, do you have any questions? And there was a little, in the packet, you had a couple of pages on the description too, so I know that you've been, you've read a lot about it, but any questions or any, I'd see none. Oh, Maggie. In terms of promotion, I'm not a Facebook user, but I know a lot of parents are and guardians is that are you gonna be doing a piece of Facebook advertisements? Yeah, so we have our event actually published on the Facebook page and we boost that when the event gets closer, and I've shared that link, I believe with the floor and a couple of people on board and I can continue to do that. And I can go ahead and actually put that link in the chat if that's helpful. So I'll go ahead and do that. Thank you, Olivia. And I know Steven has shared even the one that you did in Montpelier through the newsletter, so we will make sure that they are on the newsletters and everybody received the package. Lindy? The newsletters, I think, is real important. Also, is it possible through Front Porch Forum? Because as individuals, we can do it, or as the district, I'm not sure, but... Yeah, that's a good idea, Lindy. They're gonna be doing, they are running. It's the, you know, the coalition is running on itself and we can also post for them. Diane? Just, and please don't take this critically, because this is great work and it's really important to get out there. The poster of the flyer is very busy and so I almost don't read it all. And so I just wondered if there's another poster also that kind of hits the critical parts, although it's hard to know what are the critical parts, but, you know, I just wonder because I got kind of lost in it. And so I'm just wondering if there are others that might. That's really good feedback. I really appreciate that. We can definitely make one that's more sort of bare bones and just has the bullet points of the important points. Absolutely, thank you. Danielle? Danielle? Yeah, I'm just curious if there are any specific outcomes you're looking for from the forum and also or corollary, like what the next steps would be for your project after the forum? That's a really great question. So part of our intention is bringing the community together to have a conversation, which is not really a measurable outcome, but I think it is really important to start a dialogue around these things and help parents feel supported who are often feeling like they don't know what to do or where to turn with the questions that they have. We analyze the YRBS data for your school district or the supervisory union. And so we come in with a couple of ideas that we think would be helpful for your region, which is really nice because it's tailored to the students that you have and the young people in your community. And we can help facilitate those things happening. We also open it up to the community and say what ideas do you have that you think would be good for your district or your area? And we see how we can help. So an example of that is in losing track of the supervisory union names because they feel like they're always changing, but the one that sort of Northfield, Orange, Williamstown, Washington, we were able to connect with a local business down there that has been interested for a long time in creating an after-school program for youth that connects them to land and the natural world. And so we were able to help them get connected to funding, write them a letter of support. So we can sort of help make those sorts of things happen. Also, so it's not substance use prevention exactly, but it's feeling kids that third space with positive activity. We do measure two things. We measure whether people leave feeling like they know where to turn in case they need help. Like if somebody close to them was struggling, we ask, would you know where to direct them to for help? So we measure that in a pre-post survey before and after the meetings and we've see that go up to strongly agree consistently. We also measure, I feel like I can do something to help youth in my community and we measure that pre and post and that also goes up. So hopefully that answers your question. Yeah, and just really briefly, the YRBS data, can you just tell me what that is? Yes, I'm so sorry. It looks like Maggie Mead has a similar question. The YRBS data is the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. It's conducted every two years by the Vermont Department of Health in all middle and high schools in Vermont. So your students take it every two years. It asks them, it's many pages long. It asks them a series of questions that the Department of Health that come from the federal government and are supplemented by questions that are relevant to the state that we're in. So Vermont has some about like ski helmets and that kind of thing. Ask questions about risky behaviors related to substance use, but also sexual health and practices, some questions about mental health and so on. And then it also asks a series of questions about protective factors. How often do you eat dinner at home with your family? Do you feel you matter to the community? Like, does your school have clear consequences for behavior, those sorts of questions? And it's really helpful for organizations like ours to know what's sort of going on in the community. So we're using 2019 data. So the next round should be coming out fairly soon. So it's a little outdated. We're really interested to see what happens during the pandemic. We have a feeling that the data is not going to suggest that anything got better, but it will really help us know what we're up against. And those are all available on the Vermont Department of Health website. It's public data and knowledge. Thank you. Thank you. Maggie, do you have another question? Yeah, I'm just curious how that survey is distinct from and if you're using the data from the UVM survey that kids have participated in by individual choice. So my teenager as a preteen participated in that over several years, now a teen. We don't use a UVM survey. No, I actually don't really know anything about it. So good to know that there is one out there. Yeah, it's entirely about substance use. And when did you, have you done this? Have you been exposed to this? Have you been offered this, et cetera? Sounds really similar. They were awarded with to incentivize they received gift cards. So it was a self registration thing. Okay, interesting. So there may be some self selection bias in there, but got it. Thank you, Eva and Olivia for joining us today. We really appreciate you coming here and we'll do our best to support your event and we'll be in attendance too. So thank you so much and thank you for all of your thoughtful questions. We really appreciate your time. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. So moving right on into the budget process reflection. We reflected a little bit at the last meeting and then the finance committee had a chance to meet and really talk a little bit about it, but I wanna open it up to you guys first and then we'll share some bullet points from our finance committee in the budget. How did you feel about the budget process? If you had any ideas, any thoughts after our last meeting? And if there's none, I can move right into the bullets from our finance committee. See any hands up? So please speak up. I saw that Carrie was with us too. We both, I don't know if it's just this month earlier, but we are having a little bit of internet problems and that's why I keep going off-camera and off-camera so I can hear everybody and Carrie was having the same problem. But let me- I'm here for Laura. Oh good, okay. So let me fill you in a little bit on what they, and this might be, might help us frame the conversation and I'll lean into Jan Suzanne and Carrie and Ursula who were at this meeting and Natasha too. So what we discussed at the meeting is that everybody felt really good about the process, the transparency and the collaboration was clear. We wanted to find a way to sort of not earmark but memorize all of the different steps that we did. We all agree that, we really liked having given ownership of the budget to the staff and the leadership team at the beginning and then us taking it on after we owned it, right? When we had really understood the student needs and they had used our parameters plus the student needs and then we all agree on the budget. So it felt like the presentation and the flow of information back and forth, we all felt really good about it and we wanna make sure that we keep doing it that way unless we hear otherwise from you guys. The second part that we talked about was that we really wanna make this a year long process, right? So instead of just so trying to move it as close as possible to September and as we move along, it would be having the conversations right now, sometimes the hiring doesn't really, it doesn't match when we're putting the money in the budget is not at the same time that we really have a complete understanding of the positions that are gonna be needed at the next year. So there's a little bit of if we could start this conversation sooner, it would be better. Then the next thing was the parameters. The staff and the leadership team really appreciated the parameters and Carrie shared with us also that, it would be nice if we could do this, but this year we felt really proud that we put them out in October, but it would be even more helpful to put them out sooner. So one of the ideas that we floated and I'm gonna let Carrie speak about this parameter to not steal his thunder. Do you have it in front of you, Carrie? Or do you want me to read it? I do. So, yeah. Okay, and then I'm... Floor's got it. Basically the idea is one of the ways to make it the budget a year round conversation would be to adopt a parameter earlier in the year, like say now, and that would give direction to the leadership team to be thinking about how to make that parameter part of next year's budget. So many of these things take a while to develop. And so the one that I proposed and we discussed a little bit was, we're going to something like this, to include an initiative in next year's budget that will achieve significant improvement in literacy and or math proficiency for students on an independent education plan and or free and reduced lunch. And the board wants the leadership team to identify an appropriate scope given the current circumstances and consider what resources will be needed for achievement. So the idea here is that we wanna make some progress on one of the areas where we struggled the most, which is the gap in student learning between students that are on IEPs or FRL, especially in literacy and math, something we've identified for a while now. And I think it might be time for us to put that in writing and expect some progress or ask for some progress. And the budget is a really a good way to make that happen. And then you notice that the language that's used talks about significant improvement. And it's hard for us to dictate exactly what that is when we don't have a strategic plan. We're coming out of a pandemic, hopefully, our new superintendent is starting in a few months. So we thought that it might be appropriate to let the leadership team kind of define what we think is appropriate scope given everything that's going on or reflect that back to us and then we get a chance to say, well, that makes sense or it doesn't. But and then that sets us up in part for the budgeting process next year. So that's the idea. And the last part that we talked about, and then I'll open it up to everybody was that this is something that we could also do a retreat with the leadership team once the new superintendent joins us too as just talking about budgets. So having a meeting, it doesn't have to be a retreat on a separate day. It could be our first Wednesday or part we reserved a chunk of the time in our meeting to just talk about the budget and setting the parameter and having that collaborative conversation with the leadership team and just talking about the budget and working on that calendar that was part of the packet and the finance. Not diving into that tonight, but working on that in collaboration with them and one last thing is that we, again, in this meeting, I would like to thank again, you know, Suzanne and Jen and the entire leadership team and staff for all their work because it really made it possible for us to have a really, you know, it felt like a really easy and open budget process. So yeah, we just want to say thank you again. And also Suzanne is always really good about highlighting everybody's work and we just want to make a big announcement and she deserves that round of applause that she has been certified just this week, right? Suzanne, so she is now a business administrator. It's a certification, right? Suzanne, is it good? So Vermont Association of School Business Officials gives us certification, yes. Thank you. So everybody should congratulate her too. Thank you. So now with all of that, it thumbs up, comments, whatever, it's open to board members too. Okay, Diane. So I just, I want to clarify because I just want to make sure I understood. So we are identifying some steps to working toward the goal that, you know, trying to put some meat behind our expectation of an outcome around free and reduced lunch as well as children on IEPs. I guess I want to be sure that we're clear when we set up the parameters of how that connects to our budget work because I also, I mean, there is, we need bang for our buck, I completely get that. But until we identify how we get that bang for our buck, I want to be sure that we're not just jumping in and making connections that aren't connections. So I just am curious as to how we'll do that. And I just want to be sure that we're out in front of that narrative saying, we want to actualize this, but we also are going to be clear on how we do this and that people aren't, we're not cutting things because we don't feel we're getting the results. And I'm not saying that's what you said, but I worry that that might be how it was heard and what it might be saying. So I think some, and again, it's not in front of me. So it might not have been, that might not have been the intent at all. You know what I mean? So I think that whatever we begin, when we begin this discussion and this work that we're very clear and intentional as to what steps we're taking, how it relates to our budget process and where we go from there. Totally agreed, Diane. I'm going to let people ask questions and then we'll dive in. But by all means, I don't believe that that's what Carrie meant is more of a measurable goal but also tying that measurable goal into the budget. But that's why I think that we need to have this discussion, like really dive in as a group into just this discussion to see what do we really mean? Is it a measurable goal for quality? Is it a measurable goal that ties both? But we didn't get that deep into the conversation so that, you know, it was next is Maggie. Sorry for the delay. So I think these are great goal but multiple goals and one. And I wonder, I understand that we have some work to do around students on IEPs and students on free and reduced lunch meeting standards. But I'm perplexed as to why this is being clumped into one. It strikes me as potentially like over generalizing not necessarily the same population. It isn't the same population. There might be some crossover but seems like two distinct populations that should have the same goal. Thank you, Maggie. Jonas? Yeah, I'm really pleased to hear this. It's been a couple of years that we've been talking about this. I think Stephen's sort of clarity on this as a necessary goal for the board sounds like that was really heard. I, you know, I don't think that the board is the appropriate body to be making those decisions and doing that work of laying out that plan. So I'm really, really glad to see this. Thank you, Jonas. Chris? Yeah, I also think this is a really wonderful step forward to have a very specific goal and trying to identify measurable results. And I agree with the notion of letting the administration take the first stab at defining or measuring what would measure significant improvement within the board coming back as a follow-up. I think what I'd like to also hopefully hear is the how and the why's. The how we're proposed to do it and why we propose this how. So and have pretty in-depth conversation with the administration on those various points. And walk into it with ours wide open that it may require significant money, financial resources in order to achieve and be willing to adjust the budget in other places if we have to to achieve it. But be very blunt about what we're doing if that's what we need to do to try and achieve this goal. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Any other board members have comments? And as you can see, this is something that, so this is gonna be a future agenda item. This is not the end of this conversation. This is just getting the conversation started and this is about the level that the finance committee had to. We did not dive in really deeply. Jen or Suzanne, anything else to add? Jen? I think that the early planning is a great thing. Excellent. Thanks Suzanne. I do too. I think the other thing that we had talked about at finance was we talk about our resources and time as a resource in addition to money being a resource and that that also can be part of the conversation. You're right. Yeah, I missed that one. Thank you, Jen. Okay, let's move into the board meeting calendar. Chris, is that an old hand or a new hand? Old hand. Okay, I didn't wanna miss another question. So, okay, let's move into the board calendar. It's on page 11 and the purpose of this board calendar is just to help you get organized. You get the, you get all the calendar invitations. We just wanna make sure with Chris and Jen that we have everything checked. I'm grateful for all the board members that basically everybody now is using the school email which is what is best for cybersecurity. I know a couple of you had received some emails that look like they are generated for me but they are, it's not my email address soliciting information and we're not sure but it's related, I've shared that with Mark. So, what Mark suggested is that just remind everybody to really check the actual email that is coming from and if you get an email from any of our board members that doesn't sound right, please report it. So, let's talk a little bit about the calendar. Is there any questions on the calendar that Melissa so Chris actually did for us? I think we have our meeting starting control, Jonas. Yeah, just to be clear that on the first Wednesday of each month, we've got the three lines which that looks like a flag of the country I would like to visit. Each, there should be yellow, right? Overlaying the green, there should be yellow, right? In each first Wednesday. They should be. For the steering committee. For the steering committee, yes. Is there just a difference in tone between August the 3rd and September the 7th? I see that, yeah. Yeah, I think we got an all day invite thread and this is just the first draft, but you're right and we'll try to get this in PDF too. So it's not just color, but that's good. Thank you, Jonas. Any other questions or comments on the calendar? Danielle? Yeah, I was just curious, is there a place I can go to see times on those committees? Any meetings? Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, so yeah, right now you can see it in our calendar, but you can't see it in this document, but that's, yeah. Thanks. We'll add that. Any other additions? Okay. So moving right on to 4.4 days, the East Montpelier board member vacancy. We checked in with Rosie today. She sent a letter to the town clerk in East Montpelier and the select board in East Montpelier. She's also the town clerk at East Montpelier to remind them of the vacancy. We are gonna go ahead and post today. Our hope is to select, interview somebody by May. We're gonna try to combine any need for a special meeting or anything with interviewing board members similar to what we did last year. Our hope is to have somebody by the beginning of May. So it's just for your information. Then I had added, we had added appoint student representatives. That is not gonna happen until the fall, even though we thank in our last meeting, because it's until graduation. And then once the school starts again in the fall, Steven would send us a couple of candidates and Maya will be staying with us and we would have a new junior join us. Questions on that? Okay. And now I'm gonna give it to Diane for staff appreciation. Sure. Lindy, did you wanna share your couple of pieces and then I'll just dive into a couple of business things. I had just contacted a company about little token type gifts that in case people don't remember the last couple of years, the first year of COVID, we did the signs in the yard that I work at WCSU. I teach the future, I believe it, something to that effect. And last year, would that be, yes, was goodies in the staff rooms, chocolates and cheese. And so we were looking at something to show, it's a token, it is a token, but it is to help us recognize the hard work that the staff puts in all year long. And there is a staff appreciation day or week identified the first, it's about the first week of May. So we were here to just say that we're still thinking in that direction and letting staff know that there's an appreciation and there may need to be some budget money for that. Thank you. So that was one part of it. So, in order to really make sure that if we're going to order things, that if we wait till the April meeting, that will be too late to get things in place. And so part of it is on that actual date, what is the board's preference about our committee exploring things and would there be potentially a budget? So that's kind of that special item time that happens. The other ongoing appreciation that we've been doing is going to staff meetings. And so I'm putting out the word that it's time to be signing up again for one more staff meeting. The focus, and I'll create a Google Doc for people to sign up. I will first send it to principals to have them give us a sense of what dates to potentially stay away from. Cause if we look at between now and the end of the year, what are dates to stay away from? And then what are the timings of them? And then people can go in and sign up more than likely. I would be surprised if they aren't in person. So people when you sign up should be prepared to be in person, which is why it's challenging for some of us to make it from work. And so be looking for that Google Doc. And before we were saying thank you, and this one is we wanna get on a regular rotation of doing it and asking staff to share celebrations with us, asking staff to share concerns with us, and then any other information they wanna be sure the board knows about them as a community and a school. And those questions I'll have at the top of the Google Doc. So as a reminder for people. So that's one part that will be out there. The other thing, and these are optional ways of us showing ongoing support of our staff is we doing a weekly email. So if each one of us will choose a week, create an email to go out to the staff. And Melissa is very good about, we can send it to her and she will send it out for us. So I will put, I'll create another Google Calendar Doc that if you're interested able to do it, you would sign up for one of the weeks and then you choose to do it whenever during that week that you would do it. And so those are just kind of three of those ideas. Maggie and then Micaelyn, you're on deck. I was just curious if you're prioritizing Vermont businesses for wherever the little tokens might be. Last year it was Cabot Cheese and Lake Champlain Chocolates. The crackers were not local. The firm I'd reached out to is not local. Micaelyn? So first of all, I'm here. I turned my screen off so I could eat my dinner without you guys watching me. But I wanted to just ask Diane, when you send that email to principals, can you give them those three questions? There was some uncertainty as to why we were going to the board meeting, I remember the staff meeting, sorry. I think it seemed like we made some people nervous. So it'd be nice if they had a clear expectation of why we want to come. And yeah, I think that's all I had. Okay. I think Diane, we should coordinate. This is the first that I'm hearing about. I participated in the going to schools in person and we usually have come to thank them and for appreciation. I think we should coordinate any, let's sit down and coordinate with Jen. There's been usually, the last few years we had that small subcommittee when we did the masks with the signs too. So let's coordinate and make sure that we'll touch base with Jen and we can sit with you and Lindy for- Yeah, so it's Chris, Lindy, Micaelyn and myself. There was that subcommittee that is originally and has been talking about staff appreciation. So, I mean, so that exists in terms of connecting with Jen around things and that. So again, trying to get ahead of it because it always seems to be boom, it's suddenly here and that. So that's what we're doing. And the questions are not meant to be of pressure or anything. It was really a sense of what we were getting at the time when this subcommittee originally talked about it was we don't wanna just be, we want our schools to feel as though they can communicate and not only just share the celebrations but that we want to be, again, not just lip service or being token attendance. We also have no intention of going there and surveying the whole staff and expecting and that's not the role either. So, we can definitely do that. Ursula? I think the understanding, because I went to Romney, way back at the beginning of the school year, I think, I thought my understanding was sort of, I know that one was a thank you and that the general idea was that we are trying to appreciate their time and this is a time that they are in a staff meeting and then having a board member present where they might be able to bring up concerns that we can then bring back to the board to save them being at a staff meeting and then coming to a board meeting as well. That was my understanding. I could have it wrong. Chris? Diane, do you think we need an allocation of money for tonight? Because as you said before, I thought that April would be too late. So is that something we should talk about tonight? I mean, it would be helpful to walk away like if there wasn't a sum of up to a certain amount of money for the committee to consider that we would then, you know, could potentially bring back a recommendation. Does anybody recall what we spent last year? So the first year, I was part of this committee, the first day, I think if we stay under 5,000, we don't need to make an allocation. We have never spent 5,000. So in both years, we have never spent more than $1,200, really, except when we have done the, not certificates, the bonuses, which was completely different and separate. So I think the committee has flexibility in working within, you know, within recent. So... So the committee should be able to rely upon up to at least 1,200, given our past history of funding for to consider for what they might wanna do, what they might wanna recommend. Yeah, yeah. And in the past, we have come to the board with the ideas and the budget of what was gonna happen. And I know we're a lot of pressure for time, but if we stay under that, and I think I would really as, would like to participate in at least the question part and make sure that we stay in our role. We obviously don't wanna be a lip service, but we also don't wanna confuse anything. So we, you know, we just wanna be mindful of our role. So it'd be great to collaborate with Jen and myself with you guys. So thank you for taking this on. Natasha, do you have a comment? That's a question. The idea of the weekly email and somebody sending, what is the, I guess, the intent for the sort of the content of the email? What are we supposed to be sending to them? A weekly email? Yeah, so the idea was just to send an appreciation, you know, an email of appreciation, right before vacation. I sent one out just saying, I wish them to have a relaxing break and that looking forward to coming back together and working within our communities. So it's just, it's another way for them to hear from other people on the board, except, you know, other than the typical, but nothing, nothing major, nothing. It's just some words of appreciation. Okay, and then the other question I just had, and forgive me if this sounds unappreciative, but have there been conversations with the staff about what they would want for appreciation? Cause as a former teacher, I mean, it's always nice to get chocolate, but like that, you know, I don't know. I mean, sometimes whatever the best of intentions is, those sort of things can almost seem, I can't think of the word, not disingenuine, but it just, I don't know. I'm not, I'm not expressing myself very well. But I mean, like I think like, you know, last, when I was teaching, like what I would have loved for staff appreciation would have been time to do whatever it was I needed to do as a teacher. Like I didn't need chocolate or snacks in the staff lounge. Like I needed time to be able to do my tasks as a teacher. I know that we can't like provide subs for all our teachers. Like I get that, but is there a way that we've communicated with our educators about what are things that really would be meaningful to them? And again, that is not to, in any way, you know, diminish what has been done in the past. I'm just sure. I mean, there hasn't been a full-out survey, but we've had conversations and you get the gamut of, you know, this makes sense, but this would be better. You know, so it is really hard. And again, like you said, the time opportunities to do those things and those aren't within it. So it's almost as though, but it also doesn't feel right to not do something, which is why we've tried to be very mindful of what it is and, you know, and so it's always that tricky. And it isn't just, you know, it's teachers, parrots, cooks, maintenance, bus drivers, you know, we try to make sure that we acknowledge all in this hard work. Fantastic, I'm glad to hear that. Thank you, everybody. Let's move into, I want to try to keep the meeting to the two and a half hours. Let's move into finance. I don't see any other hands up. I think I covered all of our, yeah, preparations. So in finance, we had the monthly reflection from Suzanne and those two informational reports and the fund balance. Were there, is there any questions for Suzanne? Chris. I have a question, but not based on the reports. We called it, we were supposed to get back some bid responses on the work that compilation of work. Are those bids back yet, Suzanne, or they do yet? I believe tomorrow, right, Chris? I don't know, yeah, Chris, okay. Chris O'Brien, sorry. Thank you. Quick talking about the bundled projects. I am. Yeah, that's, I think one or one 30 tomorrow is the bid opening. Okay, have we gotten bids back? No, that's tomorrow. We'll find out tomorrow. We had a bid walk through, but we haven't received any bids that'll happen tomorrow. Hopefully, hopefully we get some. Okay, great. Thank you both. Any other questions? That part, otherwise I'm going to move on into our action items. In none, let's move in. In page 16, you had the softball dugout bid award. We have Chris with us today and he can walk us through and give us any questions on this. Could I have a motion on the table and then we'll move into discussion and I'll let Chris, Natasha or Ursula, I'm looking at. Okay, Ursula. I move that we approve the award. I move that we approve awarding the U32 softball dugout construction project contract to lodge an S construction in an amount not to exceed $45,100. Thank you. Thank you. Chris. All right. And now Chris and Brian, thank you for being with us today. When I just give a brief description now, don't feel like you have to read the entire thing. Yeah. Yeah, so the total amount budgeted for this was 33,000. We received two bids. The lower bid was 41,000. And the recommended action would be to approve the $45,100. That includes the 10% contingency. And that was to lodge an S construction. Thank you, Chris. Any questions? Any discussion? Seeing none, all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Hearing none, the motion carries. Oops, sorry. The motion carries. Sorry, I was muted. Let's move into the stormwater project bid award. Again, looking for a motion. Go ahead. We do do both at the same time. Yes, let's do both. And then I'll let Chris talk about it. I move that the board approve awarding the U32 stormwater project contract to the Hebert excavation in an amount not to exceed $274,626. I also move that the board authorized the use of $92,395 of the stormwater project budget plus additional capital reserve funds not to exceed $21,682 to proceed with the refurbishment of the U32 field hockey field this summer. Seconded. Impressive. Thank you, Ursuline. Thank you, Jonas. All right, now this one, I'm gonna let Chris give you a little more description because there's a lot in that little one and I wanna make sure that everybody understands it and members of the public too. Chris, go ahead. Okay, thank you. So yeah, the reason for the additional funds needed is because of the work being done on the stormwater project is gonna damage the field hockey field. And so we're gonna need to repair that on next year's plan. We were to do the field hockey refurbishment. So we'd like to do that all in one so that we don't have to keep that field hockey field out of use for two consecutive seasons and for only one. Any questions from board members on that? Or is that clear? Okay, I don't see any questions. So all those in favor of approving the bid award to Huber Construction, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you, everybody. And last but not least, the parking lot and sidewalk feasibility study. Could I again have a motion? Natasha? I move the board authorize the use of capital reserve funds not to exceed $7,200 to proceed with the feasibility study for the U32 driveway circulation and parking lot layout. Thank you, Natasha. Second? Second. Let Jonas take the second or so I think you guys were at the same time. Chris or Brian? Yeah, so we really needed to pull in some engineers to help us with this one. This is a really big project and there's two versions of this and the request for the second piece of it was more around safety. So we were really looking at a one directional flow and that's why we needed to pull the engineers in to give us some feedback on that to get their professional opinion. Thank you, Chris. Any questions from board members? I just say amen, because I agree. Yes. And now if they could flatten out Gallison Hill, I'd appreciate that. All right. We'll send them over. Chris, was your hand up? Yes. So Chris, is this part of a larger project? Yeah, so there's a project that's approved for next year and so there was the initial project and then there was a request from the administration to look at the flow regarding safety. So we've reached out to engineering ventures to do a feasibility study on that and let us know what we could do better around safety and not just the repaving of what we have today, sidewalks and repaving. There's a lot more extensive work to be done. I have all the details on that as well. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Yes. And just so that the board knows it's going to be a comprehensive planning because we are also looking at our green emissions too and maybe don't stress, maybe chargers, but we'll get a report on that. Just, I know that we had this conversation on other schools. So I don't want to bring up in that can of worms. So let's wait for the report, but just want me to let you know that we're looking at it. They are looking at it comprehensively. So with that, I don't see any other hands. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you. And now let's move into the policy discussion in... Chris, I'm going to give it to you. There's a couple of clarifications on the... And I'll let you start, Jen, and then give it to Chris. Sure. I want to apologize to you all. I did not realize until about an hour before the board meeting that the wrong copies got in your packet. So the current policies, C4 and B5 are in your packet instead of the ones that we have worn for a second reading. So I think we're going to need to table all of that. I will make sure that our steps are in a row for next time. We'll have them in the packet so you can review them and then for a second reading and move to adoption if you're ready to do that. And I apologize for that mistake on our end. Thank you, Jen. There's no problem. A lot of weird, you know, it's part of being understaffed too. So, and those went in. But Chris? Well, and it also helps us meet our two and a half hour goal for the meeting tonight. Right. There you go. So I thought we had a pretty good policy committee meeting. We had two new members and join us. And the upshot, one of our conversations was about the naming policy that we discussed before and the consensus of the committee was to not have a naming policy and just draft a very brief policy saying it's going to be the policy recommending that it be the policy of our school district not to name fields or facilities after individuals but honor individuals who contributed to our community in a different way. Understanding that the track has already been named after two educators who contributed substantially to our community, but just leaving that as it is and just moving forward. Be pleased to hear any comments or questions from the board as a whole on that proposed that recommended proposal that will be coming down the pike. Okay, we'll take your sign that says this. Oh, I'm sorry. Diane and then Lindy. Okay, Diane. So just wondering, it would be helpful. And I think you said it's coming down the pike, Chris, but to see what were the maybe the different considerations that that committee had and why they chose to go one way as opposed to the other. Does that make sense? Yes, and that won't be in the policy but we can have a discussion about that now. And I'd ask any of the other committee members to weigh in as well if I overlook anything. It seemed like it was just going to be too difficult to develop enough criteria, objective criteria to have an honoring or naming policy that would not be consuming a lot of time for a lot of people, including administrators and board members. And it seemed like it was just a cleaner path to say that's not what we're gonna do. We'll honor people in other ways, either with a brass name tag on a kind of like when we talked about the memorials before, either having a dedicated area where we put someone's name on. And there was also concern about naming things and then all of a sudden finding out something that we didn't know and avoiding that type of potential difficulty that could arise later, which we've, you know, things have come up like in especially in the athletic realm, I think. So it was those considerations that we thought it might be cleaner and easier, not that it's always better to do the easy thing, but a cleaner way of moving forward and just not having a naming or honoring policy, just not do it. Chris, I don't know what sort of thing it was about. Hold on one minute then, is that okay? Just get, Lindy was next and then you can go in. Yeah, that's okay. It was fine. I just wanted to say I like that that was what came out of it. I kind of felt like the track, those two individuals spent their whole educational career at U32, there won't be very many people who have done that. So yes, it was done before, but I feel like there was something different there and this will save the issues that you just laid out as far as I think the way the world is nowadays, it's probably better to not be naming things for people. Maybe dogs and cats and birds we can get away with, but otherwise we're in trouble. So I support the decision that came out of that. Thank you, Lindy. Dennis? I was just gonna say, Chris, I appreciate what you said and I agree with everything and Lindy, thanks for that support, but I think not necessarily easier, but just more pragmatic thinking about all the potential political issues that may arise from naming something for somebody that a contingency of the population doesn't agree with their support and it just kind of allows us to not be facing those sort of trials and tribulations down the road. So I think it's the right thing. Anyone else? So next I'm gonna describe what we are adopting as our work policy for getting our work done. So we talked about just using, we, Jen and Michelle prepared a list of the policies and then highlighted them by required recommended, things that were outdated. And so we are adopting a work model of tackling, depending upon the difficulty of the policy and the potential need, depending upon how much time we take up to three to four, possibly five policies per meeting to go through and discuss, make recommendations for this board. And so we're gonna start off with the most needed policies then work our way through the list. And so that is our expectation for how we'll get our work done over the next year. And that is all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Natasha? Yeah, I just have a question. Considering that the coalition is gonna be doing work on policies and are gonna be coming up with recommendations, how would you like us to interact with your committee? That's a great question. And I think we should coordinate in some way. And just first, so I'll reach out to you, Natasha. Perfect, thank you. Thanks for the question. And Chris, you know, I had the request for a couple of different board members of receiving the policy packet, even if they're not in the policy committee. So talk to, that's what we do with the other equality and the finance committee packets go to everybody and then you just get the invites to the actual meeting. So we're gonna send the policy packet to everybody. So they have it just to let you know, it felt like it was easier than doing it differently. No, no, absolutely. Okay, thanks. All right, thank you for all your work plus committee. Now let's move into the consent agenda. I'll be looking for a motion for the minutes of 228 and 3222. I move to approve the minutes of February 28th and March 2nd, 2022. Thank you, Jonas. I'll second. Thank you, Maggie. Any edits or discussion? I see any hands up. All those in favor of approving the minutes of February 28th and March 2nd, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Hearing none, the motion carries. Now let's move into approving the board orders. You ready? You're ready. Thank you, Wendy. I make a motion to accept the board order for March 16th, 2022 in the amount of $393,145.81. Thank you. Could I have a second for that? Second. I'll defer. Okay, Ursula. Thank you, Chris. Any questions? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the board orders, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, none. The motion carries and please remember to sign electronically and I have an email ready to send, so I won't forget. Now let's move into personnel. So who wants to be the lucky? Lindy, can I count on you or somebody else? I've got it open. You have opened it. We received an update at this afternoon. Yep. I am not. Jen, do you want to do the little corrections now or as we go? I can do the, I'm going to do it right now just so you're isolated. Yeah, let me do it now. Yes. Yeah, okay. So again, you all received an updated version today in your email. There were two changes. One is a resignation that we have received in the past couple of days for Patty Abraham, who's a PE teacher at Calis and Rumney and Berlin PE Health teacher. The second is a change in position for Gwen Doffier who is going to be a speech language pathologist next year for East Montpelier, if you approve that. And then one other correction at the very last minute that there was a typo in the non-form for Gwen, this again, I appreciate your grace and understanding how stressed we've been lately, but there was a mistake. So Gwen's what you received headed typo with a wrong name in it, but Gwen does have three years of experience. She's been working for us across schools this year as a speech language pathologist. We want to welcome her to East Montpelier full-time next year. It's a little typo on her salary placement. She's a master's degree and the salary is based on the collective bargaining agreement is about $1,500 more than what you saw in your packet, just so you know. And I apologize for that mistake, but it would be helpful to have you approve all the updated ones that you received today. Okay, you ready? I'll just go down the list. So I make a motion to accept the new teacher nominations for the 22-23 school year. Jenna Howard, Jake Plouffe, and Kevin Richards. Second. Thank you, Dennis. Thank you, Lindy. Any discussion? I'm just, go ahead. Looking at the SLP, the new SLP said in the description says Shannon rather than... That's the typo. Okay. Thank you. All those in favor of approving the new teachers, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. All right. Next, Lindy. You just went off camera. Are you... Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. You were sounding robot, but it was me, not you. I make a motion to accept the resignation of Patricia Abraham, PE teacher. Second. Thank you. That was you, Dennis. Daniel. Daniel. Oops, sorry, Daniel. I just, I had moved to my other screen. Sorry, Daniel. All right. So all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. I make a motion to accept the extended leave of absence requests from Justin Fontaine as the athletic trainer. And I'll talk about what he's going into in the next one or another one. Could I have a second for that? Second. Okay. Thank you. There's a little delay in my... Any questions? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The motion carries. Long-term substitute for this school year. I make a motion to accept the nomination for a long-term substitute, the 21-22 school year for Jory Hart as the Athletic Trainer Assistance Activities Director. Thank you, Lindy. A second. Okay. Can you speak up? Sorry, my internet... I'm not talking. I'm not talking, there we go. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. And the last one is two changes in position. I make a motion to accept two changes in position. Justin Fontaine into the Athletic and Activities Director for fiscal year 22 only. And Gwen Gauthier as the full-time speech language pathologist, I believe for next school year. Is that correct? Okay. For the 22-23 school year. Okay. Could I have a second? Second. Thank you, Maggie. Any questions in this one? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Hearing none, the motion carries. And believe we did them all. Thank you, everybody. So let's move Jen. Do you want to update us and take a seat? Sure. So just a little bit of change. We currently have two behavior support positions open. We still have some paraeducator and BI positions, including essential early education or triple E for paraeducators. Those many of those positions have been vacant. There's been a little change here and there. And folks are doing their very best to support our students and be flexible. We've had that driver's head vacancy all year. We're moving ahead to re-advertising. I think that hiring committee might be under way by now for next year. Again, that special education position that we've had all year that at this point, we're looking ahead to figure out special ed and instructional coaching from for next year. And just a few leaves of absence that we're filling, plotting away and posting for some more long-term subs. So those are the current vacancies right now. I'm just a great appreciation to everybody for stepping up as needed to help us continue to staff our schools. Thank you, Jen. Any questions from our members? Okay. And then we've been trying to, as the steering committee, we've been trying to really shrink our future agenda items to things that we have a parking lot and things that we know that we're gonna be talking within the next two to three months max. So you see the list here and we'll update you as we bring them up into the agenda. Now I'm gonna move us into board reflection. Any board reflections? Everybody's really quiet. Lindy. Like somebody should say something. I thought the flow tonight went really nicely and we moved in a pretty nice pace through that agenda and the tone. I thought it was a very nice tone. Thank you, Lindy. Jonas. I think we always have a nice tone. Very rarely do we not have a nice tone. I should have asked this question at a number of places in the meeting and I don't need an answer. But as we were talking about staff appreciation, it occurred to me how much we heard early in the year, how difficult this year was, how stressful, the increased responsibilities and the changing standards and everything. And I just wondered, Jen, next time, could we get a sense of the climate of how people are feeling? Has that stress dissipated? I'd be happy to report on that next time. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Jonas. Any other board reflections before we let you go and get some food? Well, thank you everybody for being here. We're looking forward at our next meeting is gonna be in person. It's our community. That's what we decided our last meeting. We're gonna give it a try and then we will, our next meeting after that will be remote and at that meeting, we'll reassess how we wanna proceed but just have that in your calendar. It was really nice to see everybody today. The floor. Can I ask that Melissa Tuller put in the agenda in big bold letters in person so that when we get the agenda, we'll remind it again. Just because of two years. Yeah, yeah, totally. And don't worry, I'll be on your case too. But yes, not on your case but I'll make sure that nicely remind everybody that is in person. So just plan accordingly. I thought I would tell you today so that we wouldn't forget and I'll be trying to send that email to remind you about the board orders for new members. We just at every meeting we have to right now sign electronically because we're not meeting in person. So we don't get to sign. Usually it was a folder that was passed through the entire board to sign the board orders. So you'll be getting an email tonight. Yes, Natasha. Person is in person, is that you 32? The next meeting is going to be IU32. Yeah, we're going to start rotating but it would be IU32. Yeah. And it would be our shorter meeting since the community meeting. Yeah. Will it have any kind of hybrid component? We will. We will have a hybrid component. How that's going to work, Jen. Yeah, I can update you. We just practiced today at our central office team meeting. So we have some equipment. Mark said it all up for us. We played around with it a little bit and we'll need to get back and touch with you all a bit more. What we think is going to work best is if board members have electronic devices in front of them, they turn off their microphones and their speakers and we have a high tech speaker in the center so everybody can hear. And then we can also project so that if people do join in a hybrid way you all can still see everybody and they can see you. So that's what we're working on. I would say we're going to approach it with some grace and patience because we haven't done it before. A well done hybrid meeting is great but I've been to some that are really quite awful. And we're bound to anticipate some stuff and we're also bound to have stuff happen that we didn't anticipate. But yeah, it is in the works and we did a little practice today. Mark's going to check out the cafeteria because we were just at the conference room at central office then the cafeteria is obviously a larger space. So we'll do our very best and when you do your board reflections or we get public comment at the end next time we'll get some feedback from you. And maybe because there's so many of us now, you so that speakers kind of in the middle will work in the cafeteria better. Yeah. Thank you, Lindy. Chris. Yeah, is a smaller space a better space for the hybrid connection? And if it is, why wouldn't we just go back to the normal room that we were using? It's 130, whatever it is, the classroom. We were trying to figure out the level of comfort of everybody. So let's start big right now. And it's so we did not want to put everybody in a smaller room. Let's just make sure that we have a bigger room and move slowly back. Yeah. Is that okay? Is everybody, I think that we are listening to what everybody said. It felt like that was the appropriate thing to do. Okay. So I'll be looking for a motion to adjourn. Please. Second by Chris. Have we asked for public comments? Have we asked for public comments? I haven't asked you're absolutely right. I haven't asked for public comments because I've just seen David at the end, but any public comments. And I apologize, David, for not asking before, but I know that you're, Erica, you're here with us too. We joined just recently. I don't see any hands up. Jen, do you see any hands up? I don't see any hands up. So with that, again, so Chris, do you want to move to adjourn? Second. Thank you, Dennis. So Chris and Dennis, all those in favor, please say aye and... Aye. Aye. Aye. Good night. Good night, everybody. Have a good night. Good night, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Jen. Thank you. Bye, Kara.