 I put out that announcement from last meeting, finally, today, about how to sign in, because I was not here. I'm going to trust you. I'm going to put it in all of you. I put that out today and put a detailed fact sheet on the website and put an announcement out through my forge farm. No, I just actually typed it real quick and sent it to the town clerk, so there are a couple questions, but nothing that's ... Well, it depends on what happens on the 19th. If the recommendation we talked about that the executive committee made last meeting in the minutes was to have it be on April 2nd, so if that's the case, then they're due February 28th, and that's what I said in there, but it depends on what happens on the 19th. I mean, there's just some things we're trying to organize around those different warnings, but we can do that in the full board as well as here. I think that might actually be the better place. I've been Chris Leopold for a while today, just going down through every article, making sure. I understood what there was. There's probably a reversal that I'm best suggest that the resident they want to suggest to the moderator of changes on the board of these articles. Because how do you ... So you would talk to Paul ... I did, yeah. I haven't checked back with him. So I was going to ask you if you could ... Oh, yeah. I checked back with him. I should do that, yeah. I don't know if he's planning on it or not. I'm sorry. You definitely should contact Paul. Paul, go ahead. Paul, go ahead. No, no. No, it's Paul Hamlin. Okay, that'd be awesome. For the Worcester. He's really nice. Yeah. As long as it brings Mimi. That's what I was going to ask you tonight. Yeah, yeah. Because it brings Mimi. I was going to ask you tonight if you could check him out. Yeah. I will, yeah. Because we need him there. He's not with you. The board is making friends. So just so I make a motion for the both sets of board orders. Yeah, so I don't feel like I should be the one to just join the ... We approve the two sets of board orders and the amounts of ... I'll get these two in a second. Okay. $468,960.42. And $44,273.17. And I'll second. Is there a discussion or questions? I'm curious. There is a ... Somewhere there's a schedule. Yeah, my website. I'm curious. Of what we were thinking in March, which would be the week, the 20th. There's a carousel for reorganization, which will need to happen on the 27th, not a carousel. We need that to keep operation. We have to keep the murder go through. It keeps on track. You need it. Because this is not your ... This is just like the local board. The executive committee is the representative of the operational for the SU. That's why we had the board orders. We need justice. Help us pay. Authorize the payment. Does the executive committee have ... Do we set the meetings every month? Do what they work best? No, we usually have it the Wednesday before ... It's usually been the third or fourth Wednesday. We've been alternating. So we found the executive committee on the same night as the carousel usually doesn't work. We have planned. We just ... So the third or the fourth? Yeah. Okay. If there's no carousel meeting, it's the fourth week. Fourth Wednesday. If there is a carousel meeting on the fourth Wednesday, then we do it on the third Wednesday. Okay. Right now, Matthew and I were sort of on agendas with the work we need. The executive committee is the board orders. It's willing to do other, or at least I'm willing to do other. That's the work we need to do. Yeah. That was a good one. Okay. That's just for your ... Thank you. Thank you. Good meeting. Yeah. We'll try to see if we can get the next one to be in. So we're going to call the meeting to order at 5.39. And the first thing on the agenda is the reception of guests. It looks like we may have one more guest. Hello. Hello. We received you. No. Happy Donald from Berlin. Happy Donald from Berlin. Welcome. Thank you. Is there a particular item on the agenda or issues that you came and wanted to look at? What's happened about Act 46? I do a TV show in Montpelier of even covering Act 46 a lot. Okay. I don't get this interesting. And would you like to speak to that when we get there? Or do you just hear them for the listeners? No, we'll say them. You know people. Thank you for being here. Are there any revisions to the agenda or board comments? Are there any ... So we do offer an opportunity up front to say something for people, members of the public to go into meetings. And we also try to report out if we've received notable nor respondents from the public since our last meeting. So are there any public comments or correspondence? We'll move to 2.1. Is there a motion to approve the minutes of December 5th? All right. Is there a second? Is there any discussion? Are we ready for the next question? All those in favor of approving the minutes of December 5th, please say hi. Opposed? Abstentions? Motion carries. Item 3.1 on the discussion agenda is Act 46. So I'm going to do my best to provide like a one to two minute kind of overview. I'm sure there's a lot of nuance to it. So I'm sure I might not say something you'd like me to say, but we'll see how I do. And then we'll be bringing the microphone over to Bill as we talk about the organizational meeting next week. So essentially I think most people are aware that we are essentially under a legal order from the ANC of Education working off of the state board's statewide plan to move ahead with an organizational meeting for the new industry that's created. And there are, of course, at least two initiatives underway to try to either overturn that order or change the terms of that order. One example is that the House, I believe, last week passed approved a bill which would first own the deadlines that were set in Acts 46 and 49 for Washington Central by a year. So essentially if that is taken up in the Senate and is passed in the Senate and signed by the governor, in that scenario we would not be required to murder until July 1st of 2020 instead of July 1st of 2019, which is what the law says currently. So that's one initiative that's underway. The second, of course, is the legal action that I believe four of our six school boards have endorsed or signed onto. And my understanding is that there's a hearing in that legal proceeding on Friday of this week. But essentially unless and until the legislature and the governor take action for a judge in order to stay or injunction or rules on the constitutionality or the galvanity of the law or the process, we basically are, you know, the order we are under is, you know, has the force of law for the moment. So there is an organizational meeting scheduled. I think everyone should be aware I hope for next Tuesday evening. It's a floor meeting. And I'll turn it over to Bill to kind of share his thoughts and the attorney's advice and recommendations regarding that meeting. There it goes. Excuse me. I wanted to take a few minutes just to kind of go down through the items of the morning. We haven't had a chance to do that. So I ended every kind of copy of the morning for next Tuesday night. I spent about an hour in the vacuum with Chris Leopold talking with him about what each item means and what are the different ramifications determined by the way the electorate would choose to go. This is a floor meeting like it were a town meeting day four. So there is no Australian vows. So whatever shows up that our legal voters are there, are there will determine the outcome of each question. Thank you. So I'm going to get into that as I go through this. I've been working with the five town clerks. They have awesome town clerks in your towns. They've been extremely helpful, extremely patient, and willing to ask detailed questions to get it right. And they know that they probably have two or three elections to run this year or into next year. And I must say they've just been really flexible. Well they understand a lot more work than what they usually have on their plane. So if you get a chance to see any of them, please thank them. I've been trying to do it as much as I can. They've been really, really helpful. So the Secretary of Education has appointed me to be the representative of the Agency of Education. That's happened in other performing districts. So the Secretary of the National will get the Secretary scheduled for the Secretary of the Year. So I have authorization through the letter to be the representative of the Agency of Education. So as Adrienne said, who's running the meeting, I'm actually convening the meeting through the first article. So even though I don't need to be a registered voter of any of the five towns and the Secretary would be if they were here, but I will be doing that. The first item is about be liking a temporary monitor. And you say why is it temporary? You may not be able to get the monitor there that we wanted for the year. Down in the next article, we're all officers of the District and Virginia moderator for the meeting. So we've talked to one moderator. We're going to try to confirm that, that they're available to be here that night and to run the meeting and would like to do that work. And I'm just going to go through these. If I go over an article, I'm going to pause by 15 seconds. If you say I'm going too fast, stop because you want to think if you're doing that. I'm not sure if you have a question. Don't be down. But I would want to take questions by our side. That's the best way to do it. The next one is to it. All school district school boards are required under statute to follow Robert's rules, but for school district school district meetings, they have to let what four rules of order they're going to use. And there are two main ones. I'm sure others around this table could help me with others, but the two that I remember are Robert's rules of order and the Mason's rules of order. And the Mason's rules of order are used more for legislative bodies like the legislature runs on that. So the recommendation is Robert's rules of order. So there needs to be the electorate needs to say for this annual meeting also essential, what are the rules of order we're using? It's a one-time piece. Three, to elect the following officers for the district on qualified voters. So it must be a voter to be the moderator, the clerk and the treasurer. We know that Mary Orangeby, she's been the clerk of the treasurer for Washington Central for June 32 for Calis. She's willing to continue to do that work in this role for the Unified Union District. That doesn't mean others can be nominated to have a vote for. But we know we have at least one person. We're hoping, as I said, we've talked to a moderator of one of your towns and we're hoping that they're willing to be part of this as well. The reason I'm not saying the name is because I want to confirm it one more time. So I don't want to put it out here in public. It's not fair to the person. But Mary has been very open. I'm willing to keep doing the work. Four, five and six kind of go together. So four is about when's the date for the annual meeting this year and in subsequent years. Five and six, five is about Australian ballot for the budget. And six is about the district forward by Australian ballot. I'm going to suggest to one of you that at this meeting you ask the moderator to change the order of these three items. The floor determines are we using Australian ballot for all items? Or are we using it for some items of the election? We do need a floor meeting because that may change the date that the electorate may want to have the school district meeting if it were to be a district meeting where everyone comes. If it's Australian ballot, my recommendation to you and I would hope you'd recommend this to the electorate is to use town meeting day as the annual school district meeting. So I think that it would help the meeting and I didn't see this when this came out really this came from a conversation today with Bruce Leopold that hey if you're going to have some because in the Articles of Agreement committee we've been talking a little bit about floor votes or anybody that can help you with the other type of electoral matter. Representational election representational annual meeting you would have a different annual date and so it may be a Saturday it may not because town meeting you'd be conflicting with towns the towns. So I would urge someone and I'll talk to a couple of you individually that I know you're going to be there that I ask the moderator to move four to after five and six. I believe that that would be better because if it's Australian ballot you may say hey and that could be changed through the Articles of Agreement later on and you could change the annual meeting later on so you don't feel like this is saying stone forever but it is asking you right now. Yes, Irvin. All of these parliamentary parliamentary proceedings are these for the transitional board or for the ongoing union school district? They're for the ongoing union school district until or not just until if an Articles of Agreement were passed by the electorate or a different way as in our Articles of Agreement that have been handed to us because if you look at Article 14 there's three different ways that particles could be changed change something. If it were going to change a vote methodology you would probably have to be done by the electorate. This may be a little premature because if we decide that we don't have to have an in-person meeting it doesn't really matter but where was that in-person meeting to happen? Well that depends on attendance. So I mean Stephen helped me with my numbers here but I believe the auditorium can hold about 440 people that I actually know because I want to make sure for the annual meeting because that's where this district organization we were having there. The gym is about a thousand Stephen? Yup. That's the biggest place we've got you know the next biggest place we've got in our town, not in our towns it's in Montcullier it's a civic center at the bottom of the hill. So then any questions on any more questions on four, five or six? Okay. I'm assuming we're all set. We're all set? No I understand, I understand. So seven and eight. Seven is to determine and approve compensation to pay to the officers for the moderator that are using not any compensation but for the clerk and the treasurer there is especially the clerk does work as making sure that the specific meeting minutes and warnings are taken care of and elections. They're the ones that are in charge of making sure the election runs for the Unified Union District. The other work, since it's usually the same person and that's in the industry in Washington Central the treasurer is every two weeks doing works to review the board orders and make sure the checks are signed. So there's quite a bit of work there. Lori's been running some figures I don't have with me tonight on what it is for time and the compensation that we've had on that but we'll have that for a Tuesday night for you. Do you hand to your folks about what you should have seen? The item A to determine and approve compensation for the district board members I did a quick email out to Merge districts and school districts that aren't necessarily Merge but our city districts like Montpelier didn't actually ask Montpelier but Springfield, Burlington, South Burlington and so on and it seems about the average compensation for district members to pass the dollars. I don't know, Lori, are you creating any difference through the SDA? Yeah. It's about $1,000. 9, this allows number 9 and number 10 and 11 are a little bit to talk about here. Number 9 allows for bills to be paid for the new Unified Union District before July 1st and it even allows them to be paid before there's an approved budget because it's going to be coming from the 2020 budget not this year's budget and one of the discussions that you said the committee I think we had but I may be wrong because I know Lori and I had this conversation or it's a question I've heard could this be paid for out of the local districts? And one of the issues of that is that the voters have given you this board's authority to use the approved, audited fund balance for the organization that you sit on as a local board. So for example, they've given the Calis Board the authorization for the Calis School District but they haven't given the Calis Board the authorization for the Unified District and it's a different entity. So there is an authorization for the local boards to pay for the new work of the Unified Union District ahead of time to either give money to do it or to approve bills and the only place to do that is through voters is the way that this has been this is why this question is here it's for the voters to authorize the Unified Union Districts to pay the bills before July 1st because otherwise we wouldn't be paying the bills until we had an approval we were into the FY20 school year with a approved or not approved budget but we could be paying it. So looking at number nine it says to establish provisions for the payment of an expense who is it that would establish the provision the electorate at the meeting and would they have to come up with a specific provision? No, they just need to say we authorize the payment of bills. So it needs to be another mechanism there or something I would think because it's not giving a payment well I would authorize the bills out of each month of the year's budget but just in terms of an audio or something in terms of provision I would think so just... The other part of that and this goes into ten which is to authorize the district to borrow money on a short you know penned a receipt of payment from the state fund that to pay those bills and this goes to where I was talking about earlier could the... there's been some talk about can we use general fund balance or use our budgets especially the Washington Central budget could we use that to pay some of the bills and talking to Chris Leopold he said that at least he thinks there needs to be authorization from the Secretary of Education but he felt more comfortable that we actually had authorization of voters to do that we don't have that question on the morning so we need to borrow money to pay, there would be a short term loan and pay it back to to pay the bills but the supervisor invited me to do it and you ask what bills well we got to run on an election we got to pay for all the ballots Laura, I think we said that was like four or five thousand dollars just for that one yeah to four, one and we're gonna have three elections you know we have a legal expenses we've been paying for right now out of Washington Central for Chris Leopold the executive committee authorized to do that but we're pretty much we've run through that money you know there's going to be printing costs for ballots there'll be other expenses where fees for putting together tax IDs we've actually just started that this week and different federal IDs that we need, forms that need to go in we've got that list put together and we've started doing that work of creating a new organization so there'll be some of that as well we haven't really gone over many other fees at this point we're trying to keep it as small as possible frankly but can you just clarify what you meant when you said it wasn't warrant? I mean, it isn't warrant authorized it isn't warrant authorized it's warranted at the borough it's not warranted to say have the Washington Central the voters approve the use of Washington Central Supervisor Union money to pay for those expenses that's not warranted and Chris feels that he said I think you can do it with the Secretary of Education but he said I feel more comfortable if you add that authorization from your electorate because you're crossing organizations you're crossing actual organizations we have to borrow instead why does it have to be this is a one time right now and we're going to be voting at this special meeting like a town meeting so I don't understand why it has to go or am I confused in this you're saying it has to go to the ballot we're voting right now you're going to be voting on Tuesday night whoever shows up from the electorate on those things on Tuesday and that's it that's the only one time but these are a lot of almost this whole warning is one time pieces but it's confusing because we haven't set up school districts in many, many years so we're having to do the initial work that I don't think anybody really remembers having done I know Scott Thompson did some research into the formation of the 1832 districts and we'll get some of that and some of those pieces new legal law has come in to require us to do that work so it's just it's different it's just one time thing for a lot of us and then any more questions about that borrowing and authorizing the pay because that can be very confusing and I'll look at the pursuant the last part is the number 11 is determined whether to authorize the board of school directors pursuant leave every year and I'm going to be the rest of it but every year we send out an annual report about that cost over up in the I think $6,000 to $10,000 range of total cost and many districts have gone to mailing post-carousel where you can get the report online or call this number we'll send you one and we're one of the last districts actually sending one out to every electorate and I would recommend that this be the way we do it to you and that the voters would would like to do it that way you can decide hey we don't want to determine this meeting we'd rather do it in another meeting we'd like to table it or reject it that's fine too it's just it's an agency that the patient decided to put this on because I think so many folks are sending their their annual reports through sending a postcard out sending a copy of the report and calls and we're going to do one of the accounts please because you just said that whoever shows up so whoever shows up gets to vote on how much we can borrow and the budget there's not a budget but they get to authorize the borrowing because whoever shows up and that's I'm sorry but is that your legal? yes it's it's the Vermont governance of the Vermont town meeting whoever shows up is there a forum? no there is not a forum I can tell you talking with Chris he said I'll give you some anecdote he said to the Champlain Valley or a district organization there were two people there himself and his wife outside of board members and elected officials that needed to be there to run the meeting he's barely been to 15-20 across the state to help out at the meeting it's been 55 at Westford he just doesn't see that many people showing up I'm not saying that not to get people here I'm just saying I'm just trying to give some facts that I've been told anything more that I need to go more detail really just that on the top of the morning he said it's February 9th so it was corrected when it was warned I actually have the old one in my car drive and I just printed it but not thinking this afternoon Chris was being helped for Achias' contact right before it was being posted and called the agency he put Tuesday on that and they fixed it I still have the old one good catch just out of curiosity a large number of people in our district who have been vocal opponents of Act 46 if people show up and vote against these things then what do we do I would change that to not against it's more which way you want to go so if you don't have Australian ballot you're staying with them before but if you don't allow for borrowing we're not going to be able to pay bills if we don't have and so that will just slow down the development of the district to the point where we're going to be and get some places I don't think it's going to stop it I think it's a good question I think it's a good question I think it's a really fair question I think it's a great question that's part of what I was asking Chris so tell me where the pension points are what if this doesn't go through what if this doesn't happen you said well your electorate's spoken you know and he said you'll deal with that and you get there I kind of actually like that attitude it's less worrying about it you get there when you get there I would also just say and I really correct me if I'm wrong but these articles or these items are actually listed I think it's in the 706th and somebody couldn't vote from the floor to remove number 3 of the agenda for example because it's required by statute I think so but I just haven't gotten into that detail because this was prepared it was the responsibility of the ABC of Education to publish the morning it was our job to post it I'm pretty sure that the statute could explain how the district forms literally lists word for word like the items that have to be worn on the first organization I'm guessing there's the same question about them being amended I think it would be important for them to have round rules or expectations laid out to start a meeting about how people can respond to these because it sounds like they can't be altered in any way shape or form rather than to vote them up or down I guess I can't say that that's the governing Chris is right, you're going to go to Robert's rules and that's the first thing we're going to do and I was willing to be the secretary's agent there for the meeting to get it started so I'm going to go through article 1 and I'm going to get an experienced moderator up there to run the meeting so they can't be amended we're going to be just like a town meeting who is the school meeting anybody? so right now for voting on a budget and a school meeting are two different questions all six schools have a school meeting on town meeting day because there are certain things that must be voted on to keep the operation of the school districts going because of the operational mode so there's articles for U32 they haven't even clerked the treasurer and that's it and then Callis and Berlin have decided to present their budget so they're adding their budget on the local meeting I don't know what that's going to do as I said earlier we'll deal with those issues when we give them oh so no one has that we went to an Australian ballot two years ago three years ago in Worcester no we still have a board meeting in Worcester but for the budget the budget we voted on the budget Callis so then yeah so just so they well we'd ask the moderator who does it every year in Worcester if he would be willing to serve and again we're not using his name because we're trying not to well thanks we're purposely trying not to use his name because he hasn't confirmed yet that he will do this for us but that is the person we're basking because he does it every year and he's got a lot of experience with it and runs a tight meeting I think from having attended them so are there any other questions about the organizational meeting it is next Tuesday at six it's six days and I think as I said at the outset for people who weren't here when this was said essentially we're under a legal order to do this there are things that could change that I think most people are aware that the house has to build that would change the deadlines for Washington Central I don't believe there's time at this point for the senate to take it up and pass it and have it signed by the governor before this meeting would happen there's also of course the pending court case where there's a hearing on Friday and a judge could issue a stay or an injunction or some other kind of delay which would affect the timing of this meeting potentially but absent one of those two things happening this meeting will take place next Tuesday at six can I add one other thing that I sent out today I haven't sent it to all of you you will get it out to you but I did make an announcement on our court forum the executive committee in January I talked to them about this earlier tonight in our executive committee they suggested that we start getting out of information earlier on how you can be nominated to be on the ballot for a new unified union school district board member so today we published a fact sheet that's up on the act 46 and posted on all five towns from court forums people can start gathering names before the 19th you need one percent of your electorate no one needs we don't have a town large enough to hit the 30 limit but you must be a resident of your town and you must have signatures from your town even though you'll be voted on by all five towns and those will be due if on the 19th the annual meeting set on April 2nd you will need that to be in by February 25th and I put those on there as temporary dates we discussed that executive committee we'll do more of that I plan to do one of my videos again this Friday kind of doing the same thing I just did with all of you going through these arguments for everybody that wants to be able to watch that ahead of time before they get to the meeting so on that fact sheet shows the terms for each town for the two positions it shows how you it tells about is a generic petition sheet that you can use for any town office it's on the secretary states website and your town clerks have those and you can also if you have if you need the length let me know I can send it to you as well and it talked about how the votes are voted in all five towns everyone's elected so if you're running as an East Montpelier you'll be voted in all five towns to that position yes it's very quick because we're trying to get to the ideas we're trying to get to a budget vote by mid-May so we're looking 65 to 70 days out because you have a 30 to 40 day warning period the warning has to be up and that's where we've gone through the timelines I sent you that's why they're so tight and it's not just the reason for the mid-May is thinking I hope there isn't and you have a very good record of Washington Central budgets but if the budget were to be lost for the Merge District we'd still have one more chance before we get to June 30th and if we don't have a budget on June 30th we have authority to spend 87.5% of this year's budget for next year until the budget is approved by the voters that's why the timeline I've shown that before I didn't bring that to anything are there any other questions or comments on this topic the organizational meeting we're going to have apart from the moderator how are we going to start this meeting are we going to use some background of where we are depending on what's going on how are we going to run the meeting where it doesn't purely exist in the moderator because there's going to be people that are not really informed not informed but we want to have an update at least there's a little background so that they're better able to answer the questions that would be before them I'm just asking all I can say is that it's not our job to run that meeting so actually we have no authority or standing to at the beginning of the meeting get up and start to talk about the situation or the background or the context someone could make a motion to add an item to the agenda maybe just background discussion or something and if that motion carries it would get out of the agenda and then someone could stand and speak to that this board and these board members can show up to the meeting and participate in it from the floor just like in all of their voters but that's really our only sort of role and in my operation working with Chris Leopold today he was and I agree with this sentiment that especially because I'm the superintendent and I'm opening the meeting and I'm the agent from the secretary of my job is to open the meeting and I will ask the floor if they might need to read the whole warning some places do that some places don't and they do all read it otherwise I will write down one and get a temporary monitor for the meeting it seems to me that front porch forum just make sure that each of our boards is prepared to post something to our town front porch forum maybe show people obviously the meeting is warned there's nothing else on this we can move to 3.2 educational priorities so I guess I will just say just for everyone's reference that the the three goals that the SU board adopted on December 5th were subsequently adopted by all six of the district boards as well so instead of recap very briefly we essentially endorsed the math goal that the leadership team and the staff had already put together and were working on we had asked for a similar goal in the area of literacy and then we had asked that there be a review and analysis of that data and the process the goal setting process at the end of the school year we had talked about a fourth recommendation from the school quality committee to possibly look for a way to develop a longer term maybe three to five year plan or ways that we could support improving student learning outcomes but I think that you know it's very difficult to see exactly what's going to happen the next few months but if the timeline that the state board raises its plan continues to be in effect I think the next few months are going to be quite consumed with governance and administrative issues related to that consolidation so it doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense to try to dedicate a lot of time to in-depth conversations about you know a long term plan until we see what happens with that process and where it goes I'll also just note here that the executive committee received a kind of question or took up a question at his last meeting about some committees like the school quality committee like the policy committee who were curious about whether it really made sense for them to be aggressively tackling their work in the areas of policy or educational priorities given the backdrop of you know kind of confusion and changing administrative work that needs to be done again with regard to this timeline and to the executive committee basically said that we don't committees can meet at their discretion during this period and we're not sort of pushing or demanding that you know ex-work gets done at least for the next few months so I wanted to relay that to the kind of relates to this Bill I don't give anything else to not really I do want to assure you that one of the things that I have to really thank my teens that they're doing a great job of running the schools and moving things forward and making things better every day it's one of the strategies that we talked about as a team is that that BRAC 46 it's not something that should be affecting their work and impacting their work with kids, families and children that they should be focusing on that and listening to all of this the BRAC 46 work so first I want to thank them for that I also know that we did a data review this past month and we're seeing some glimmers of hope and we'll go into the data we'll see some more but all our measures that we use are so it expects kids to learn it's not like it's a baseline that the kids learn but the target was with kids during the year so while it may be something that we're alone consuming boards and superintendent they're working on making it better every day for every kid I have any questions or comments about the educational priorities we'll go to 3.3 negotiations who's the I believe this was on the discussion agenda in case it required discussion but because we were able to come to a tentative agreement on Monday this is actually a report I don't think there's any discussion that's needed but we disagree the negotiations committee met three times in the last three weeks and we were able to come to a tentative agreement through the bargaining consensus process on Monday we agreed to narrow the scope of our work to health care and compensation and table the other issues that we had identified because because the state is going to be taking over negotiating statewide health care agreement this contract could only be a one-year contract and somebody will be back at the table negotiating again starting in the fall and so while we we all made kind of an informal commitment to really dig into some of the issues in the next cycle we agreed to table them all we were able to come to agreement on a health care package and a compensation that included an increase for the staff and so the next step is for that to get drafted into contract language by the attorney and then go to the associations for ratification and the boards and the ESP negotiations will use the same health care package that was negotiated through the process we just split through the ESP negotiators that made us for that part and then the ESP negotiations will take up compensation and potentially other issues questions? Thank you yeah and thanks to all the board members who worked on that it was a very good process can you say what the percentage increase is? not yet we're going to wait until the ratification process generally accepted generally accepted in Vermont that you don't release those until the ratification happens both the board and the association have a chance to weigh in on what their percentage is negotiating I would also just like to second Johnny's comments thinking not only the board members but also Bill anyone else in the room serving on the negotiation it is an extraordinary commitment of time and energy and you know the last few years have been at least from my perspective very smooth and cordial I think among all the parties so just really appreciating the hard work that goes into that can I say one more thing? I've said this before thank you for saying that and we really do owe a great debt to both Bill and Lori for the work that they do to make it possible to engage in the negotiations process and the way that we do and especially for using the IBV process for it to be very transparent so that people in the room actually feel that they understand the very very complex technical matters that we're trying to sort out around healthcare and how different options that we're considering would play out for different staff members depending on their family situations and where they are in their careers Any other comments or questions on negotiations? So we'll go to 4.1 the executive committee report so just briefly I've already mentioned a discussion we had about their schedule in the last few months we also at our last executive committee meeting accepted the audit which I think everyone should proceed by email what's passed with flying colors or just the extraordinary work that goes into that every year I appreciate that Bill already mentioned we did discuss also trying to give information out to communities about how to gather signatures and just the fact that there is potentially a new Unified Union District Board that will come online and you know their name on the ballot for that that was pretty much the subject so the last executive committee had questions about that we can go to the financial reports Alright, so on page 12 of the packet you will see the beginning of the financial report give me a second to get there on page 12 summarizes the entire SU by each school district and the supervisory union and down at the bottom it shows you a summary of the unbalances throughout the supervisory union from pages 13 on at your individual board meetings you will see that in the month of January we spent a considerable amount of time going through each line item and updating a projection for how we think we're going to end the year under the revenues a common theme is that most everyone will see there's an additional interest income this year it's because we had a better interest rate on our investments as well as the way that we're currently not spending money, thank you to the principal you'll also see under the revenues a variety of things so I'm just going to give you a summary so for instance at U32 you will see the tuition income forecasted to be greater than budget based on a larger number of students you will see changes in special education income based on our staffing at the schools you will see in some of the schools an item called miscellaneous income for shared benefits and I wanted to take a second and tell you about that um Calis and Ismael Piliar share it's a bulk number of staff and so does Romney and Doe and so what happens is the school that works pays for the benefits so if they were like 0.6 at one school and 0.4 at the other the school that has the greater FTE will pay the benefits and they will receive revenue of equal proportions from the other school so those are items that we don't double budget for, we budget for at each school but the school that has the person and their benefits will actually see this month an increase in revenues and an expenses for that shared benefit arrangement I went through each employee who has a contract and we updated every employee's contract and their benefits to reflect their current health status as of January so you'll see changes for payroll you'll also see oh some of the school boards have voted to transfer fund balances to the capital fund so this month you'll see that update there are three of you and last but not least we had some good news, Calis and Lister received small schools grants greater than what we had budgeted so you'll see those and utilities and some schools you'll see that we're forecasting a savings we haven't finished updating that for the year because the plowing, salving and sanding are obviously going to surprise us last but not least next month at Washington Central we'll be doing a complete special ed update we have a state report due in March and so that involves going through every student in every program cost for students on ITs and that is something you can report to in March any questions or comments on that? I don't believe that the policy committee may have met so that would take us to the SBA just have a couple of things the meeting is happening as we speak so we usually meet on the second Wednesday so I'll update you in today's meeting and a couple of questions I got an email from Doug so I also wanted to update you on that I think the most important thing today is that it's me that was working on number four ratios finished their work I don't know if you've read that for one figure and they're recommending that no action is taken we basically have given some recommendations from this task force that thresholds or benchmarks to evaluate staff to student ratios won't be touched they don't have enough information right now to make the SU so all that they have right now is a guidance so there's no action being taken on that the next important thing is that there's been some back and forth on the BSBA response to the delay or not delay with the question that has them February 7th at the state house the house to ask that bill that Matt was talking about and we had given very clear guidance to Nicole who's our executive director and I'm talking to you I feel like she our guidance was to not we are a diverse group of people from people in both the size of the issue was to inform the conversation but to not take position the question now before us has changed a little because they're talking about delay or not delay and the senate is not sure exactly when they're going to take this question but I just want you all to feel like you know we have your best interest in your behalf as a group I am the minority of the groups that hasn't has not merged yet too so it's very diverse the conversations are rich and are not always agreeable so we as Nicole to walk a very thin line and I felt like she represented us it represented as well and that I'm not trying to you know defend her or I'm just saying we gave her guidance and and she did what she could and we one day formation her testimony to always inform the conversation of what the consequence could be for either side not to take a position so to many they are talking about if they should and I don't know what the response would be if they should take a position or not take a position on the delay and from my point of view not representing necessarily you guys I just we talked about it at our executive session this afternoon was that you know we just have to be equitable to all that I in any way want to feel like leaving us a pass or anybody a pass because there's very different situations around the around the state so that whatever they decide to do that their only recommendation hopefully when they testify is that the guidance is clear so it doesn't create more we have enough confusion as it is with the lawsuit and and now this action by the house that Santa hasn't taken I feel like we have some we have this lawsuit going on we should let that process go through and then have them decide something but that's my personal point of view I don't know exactly what would happen I have a question about in the we've funded the law school board's association dues through this for the superintendent's office I believe through the individual schools they have not represented us very well in the past years personally I would not I would not be a member as a county council I wouldn't pay my dues and I feel like they're forced I actually want to know about how that decision was made it has not always been that way dues were paid by the individual schools and I think their schools should have to be able to retain that power because it's a way of voicing misrepresentation which we have seen with the SBA and I take personal offense that Calis is forced to pay dues to that representation through our supervisor Calis has not represented that in many cases so I'm happy to bring your input to our meeting since this is not a meeting with the PSBA I can comment on for entire SBA I do want to say that I hope that when I hear your comment from my point of view it's a very narrow perspective because if anything you might be disagreeing with 5% of what the PSBA does but the PSBA does more than just do testimony at the state house so there's a lot of services that the PSBA provides to us and all over the state we benefit of it we benefit of webinars we benefit of many other things so it might just be that 5% so I hope that you can keep an open mind but I will bring your input back to our point the PSBA should be making that physical decision that should be made in this room and provide it's not itself and frankly I don't care if it's 5% that 5% may be that very 5% may not be a significant significant to you but a great significant to us and frankly that is our taxpayer power to make use in a way that we don't necessarily feel is in our interest so my original question is how is that decision made that this body or that the town body does not control their portion of that dues and we do not really care about membership as far as they do do some but they've done great damage as well and so why don't we have that voice and I know that maybe there could be a new kind of point which force consolidation but this is bothersome to me that we don't we're forced to participate in an organization that is supposed to represent us unless there's a burning desire to take this up in tonight's meeting it's not on the agenda but we couldn't add it as an agenda item to our to a future meeting other questions for floor about SBA reports hearing now we have the administration report so you'll see on page 35 there are reports I submitted one to all of you late January because there's changing so information on equalized pupils on small school grants and where we are with the Washington Unified Union work and also a memo on that as well there are reports in there from each principal along with the directors report I don't know if there are any questions you could talk a little bit about the social emotional learning professional development work or if one of the members of the leadership team could I was planning to ask this question to my local board dean but I thought if there's something maybe a brief example of how this is starting to change practice or something exciting or an opportunity around this that you wanted to share with the whole board I think it would be great to hear that I'm going to ask Kelly to help to join us at first because she's leading us but I would ask her colleague principals as well to talk about what they've seen in their building so if no one stands up I will probably draft somebody to come here with us so over the last I don't know 18 months or so we've had some professional development with Dave Melnick from NFI we've done some SU-wide in-service days he's leading a small group we're calling it a catalyst group some folks from across the SU some leadership roles around learning about trauma and trauma practices they're starting to make changes within their classrooms within the work that they do in our schools we're starting to look at student behavior and wonder about what happened to that child and really dig deeper instead of seeing misbehavior as a kid just being naughty or being a rat what else are they trying to communicate to us and to provide different ways to help them get their needs met we currently have a graduate level class that Dave is leading last count we have 18 folks that are signed up to do it we have they've had one school day the rest of it is weekends and evenings the teachers are volunteering to take some time to do and we're starting to see an impact in the behavior of the students across the Supervisor Union can you maybe talk to a minute about that course with your partner yeah this has been such an opportunity to work with Dave I started working with the cohort group that was it last winter? last school year the whole last school year and then again it started this fall and I started with the course with Dave, Alicia and Amy have joined us as well this is a heavy lift really for us to start examining what does tier one look like for instruction for a universal approach that is common in form and it's really exciting but it's also frustrating work I think we're going to have to sit with that discomfort for a little while because getting folks to think about it's easy to see when there's a challenge in the building for any child there's a non-behavior there's a gross behavior there's a rude behavior but to get folks to stop and reframe their thinking around this comfortable place of worry or pain or stress or anxiety it changes the adult response so instead of the adult coming out a problem with what are you going to do to that kid what's the consequence it opens that door for letting that kid's pain to be felt and heard and shared and then work through and it's kind of beautiful man to see we've got a long way ahead of us but we're starting by looking as a leadership team at examining our own practices and how that might be both top down and bottom up because we have a lot of great folks who work sort of bottom up the para educators, the VI's the behavior coaches who have already struggled so they have this movement of a trauma informed approach from day to day face to face interactions and it's trickling into our classrooms I see a lot of folks who have been in education for a long time struggling a little bit with how to go from that naughty or misbehavior to how can I support this kid who's struggling and they're working through it and it's a really great thing to be a part of I appreciate the opportunity to have this be brought to Washington so I'm really proud of this work I also think that it's pushing us to rethink our comprehensive discipline our approach to discipline we're so great at talking about how to support learners in whatever way they need us to be and meet them where they're at when we're talking about math or literacy I know we've got work to do on math but we're there, we're getting there I keep saying it's great to be able to but it really is does anyone want to add anything? they're all doing this, not it any questions? thank you, does that answer your question? thanks John, that was a great discussion I really want to thank Kelly, she's inspired by doing this and bringing it to the team and she worked closely with Dave for years so championing on this course any other questions about the bill? I wanted to ask about a story VT Digger ran on Monday concerning Title I funds are you familiar with that situation? can't see it well it's like it gets pretty in the weeds really quickly and I don't want to do that but basically it involves the problem, the ongoing problem the education agency has had retrieving data specific to a school because Title I funds are supposedly to go to those schools who most need to help for kids who are behind and the fact Vermont cannot produce the specific data that's needed to identify those schools the state agency is now planning to spread Title I funds throughout all schools which causes a problem the next year because if you start if you really need to have programs for needy kids and you're not getting the Title I funds you expected to you're getting a small sliver that everybody is getting and you start spending local funds to fill the gap it means the next year if your federal funds come back you can't use the federal funds to supplant what you had started using local funds to cover that problem my first question was are we impacted by that but it sounds like this is something that's evolving the second question I had how is all this going to work when we're a unified district if we indeed are some schools in our district have much higher levels of poverty and numbers of needy kids how is this going to decide how the Title I funds are targeting so because of the size of our supervisory union we already do that and we have been doing it there's a formulaic approach called targeting and ranking and when you have more than a certain number of kids in your supervisory union you have to target in rank so we use our free and reduced lunch data and it's really a formula based on the population in your school and the poverty rate so that the school with the highest frl rate gets the highest per pupil expenditure so we already do it it would not impact us just to be a little clearer for Alan the federal law requires you to do this in the school level not in the district so if we were in another state of urban multiple schools you still have to even though it's one district City of Rochester and you are 100,000 you've got to do it by school because there's different social economic levels in different schools I thought it was on the LEA level not for Title I it's at the school level other questions are on we have one future agenda items or any other future agenda items that people would like to add now board comments I just wanted to say briefly this is not a business matter it's more of a personal one I debated whether or not to bring it up but at our December meeting we spent some time talking about how we all belong to each other so I just wanted to know for people many of you may be aware of this we board a couple of weeks ago to go to Romania a full rate scholarship with several large children lost her home here in Vermont on Saturday night to go to fire luckily her partner and two children who were there are safe and unharmed but the loss was near total since obviously an incredible appeal for their family especially for what would it be out of the country what is happening so their family is fine but I just wanted to let people know if you wanted to reach out and say a few words of support or kindness I'm sure it would be appreciated is there any board communication yes, Adrienne can I just add to what you said the front porch form in middle sex on Monday had a posting about the fire and it has a link to a real train so it now has like three different comments it also provides an opportunity to provide money to donate and they've already raised an incredible amount of money and her comment maybe yesterday she's absolutely overwhelmed with the response that she's gotten from the community she said it's more overwhelming than the actual fire and she's thrilled to be part of this community so if there's to come over the board just add some Mark Chaplin is raising money for Waylon to be able to to win the floor sorry for Jed to be able to go he's working very hard this year and they're trying to raise $700 the entire team I think we almost raised it already now if there are no other comments then I will take this opportunity to shockingly end our meeting six minutes early which I'm very grateful for so without objection we're adjourned at six minutes and four minutes