 Janie Feinberg from Stockbridge, from representing the administration, Bruce Labs, Bonnie Bourne and Lindy Stetson. Moderating the meeting is Ray Baloo. I'd say that because I saw something in a VSBA email or maybe on Digger that talked about how we're supposed to be really more formal with these recorded virtual meetings about making sure that we're aware of who's attending and a little more by the book. So, I'll see how well I do on that. Have any adjustments to the agenda? Did the policies make it on there or not? I think there were some that were emailed to you. We, the policy committee did and I or Christie did actually I'm just not sure whether you got them or not. The big thing is, is policies, at least policies for approval cannot be, can't be done unless they're warned. I know that. I wonder are they on the agenda? I do not see them. They're not. I can't see the whole agenda. They're not. So we'll have to do it. They don't make the agenda and we unfortunately cannot add them, but the agenda, we're discussing the budget teacher, laptop replacements, distance learning report, grade configuration and a building use request. Those are the five items that made it on the, on the agenda as well as. I have a need to speak with you in non-public about an issue. And I would like everybody to be a part of that. Okay. One, two is taking minutes. Well, that's a good point. Jenny's not here. I've got it up on my computer if that works. Okay. Excellent. Thank you, Lindy. Keeps me focused. It's hard at these virtual meetings. Yeah. Yeah. And especially, these school board ones are often like my, my at least second or third, fourth one of a day. And like my ears, I can't, I can't wear your buds that much. I don't know how kids do it. I don't know how I can store it. We have the consent agenda. And we're going to add an executive session for a personnel matter, Bruce. Yes. So we'll add, at item 11, we'll add an executive session. Timekeeping, one of the things, my experience virtual meetings are hard to go as long as an in-person meeting. So I would encourage us to go as quickly as we can. Budget discussion, 20 minutes, 15 minutes. Sure. I think 20 minutes will do it. Okay. Teacher computers, five. Yep. That should be fine. Distance learning online teaching, 10. Sure. Great configuration, probably 10 as well, 10, 15. Okay. And then build use request. I'm thinking could be another five. Yeah. That'll be, that will be quick, Carl. Okay. And Ethan, can we press you into service to be our stern timekeeping taskmaster? Okay. Excellent. We have a consent agenda to approve the minutes of Tuesday, March 4th, Friday, March 20th and Tuesday, April 7th. I think we figured out last time that February 4th was already approved. Do I recall that from our March meeting or from our April meeting? I thought actually we approved the special meeting minutes on the, I think the only minutes we actually really have to approve because we didn't get, Chris, you didn't drop them off or the April 7th. Yeah. And we haven't seen those yet. Right. I think I would suggest we table the minutes until we have our next meeting and we can have hopefully Jenny here to have sorted and let's, I want to note to Christie to ask her to check the status of those first two. Okay. All right. Board comment. I think we'll probably cover most of everything else. I don't think I have anything extra to add. Does anyone else? I can't link, no, like, we can't. Maybe type it. Yeah, Ethan, we're not, you're cutting out. Okay. I don't know what to do about it. Maybe you can type it in the comments or. Yeah, maybe. Not unless I can't share. Can you reach that? Can you maybe call it on your phone and reach the audio number? Well, that limits comment. That seemed clear. Can you maybe try turning off your camera? See if just going to audio bandwidth. That's command E or control E. Yeah. We have too much. And he can, building, building it. Oh, yeah. Discussing, discussing what's going on with our building use. Yeah, we can have some board discussion of where we stand with that. And that's probably actually something that I should have added at the adjustment as a formal item because we have to, we have to reconcile, figure out how we want to move forward with this. And it's really hard, you know, when I contemplate trying to have a community, a mediated community meeting over Zoom or Google Meet, but at the same time, I don't know that we can say, well, we can just kick this can down the road and we'll just try to operate two buildings and for a year. So my fear is, I think we're already looking at a zero, but we still don't even know what our budget's gonna be. Ethan, I'm not understanding you. You phase in and out. I don't understand you. Let me try something else. So a couple of things, you talking about kicking the can down the road, one of the things I wanna say in my report is to talk about the annual, your annual meeting and I don't wanna put it in here, but. You know, it's the, if you looked at the report from the joint fiscal office that's on the legislative website, that came out at the end of the month, there's, they're projecting that in the, for the next round of taxes, there's gonna be a 17 cent, 25, Carl. Okay. Well, the end of April now, they're on the website, oh, 17, but thank you for coming up like that. Yeah, 25 right now, which is the latest, which is the information that was given out yesterday at the second conference on finance. Mm-hmm. Carl, I don't know that it will, that it will help clarify the discussion around the high school building, but when we talk about implications for reopening and moving forward, some of the things that Lindy and I will share will at least give it some more context. So maybe you wanna have that discussion after we share some thoughts that we're hearing about possible openings. Sure. I'll open it up. Sure, absolutely. We're going to go on with this now. So let me get the agenda back open. Able the minutes, we're gonna have board comment towards the end after we've gone through the discussion items and that will include a conversation about the building. So now we're into reports to the board. So it's technically Bruce first, but whoever, if the spirit moves Lindy and Bonnie to go first or Tara to go first, whatever. I only have a couple of things. I think you guys feel pretty much up to date with a lot of the things that I have to say because of our meetings that are going on weekly. Just two things really. The negotiations progress, I'm not gonna get into too much detail here, but the committee is going to meet after our Thursday meeting and we're gonna put Dina on with the executive or the negotiating committee members at 645 on Thursday so that we can decide on strategic planning. I guess you would wanna say about how we're gonna do make our next move, whatever that is. So that's one thing, Carl, that you'll wanna know about or whoever's representing. I will definitely be there. I wanted to know while we're talking about negotiations, so they've gone and they've settled the... Yes, so what I wanna know about is, I think it's really speaking of affecting our budget, you understand that now support staff have the ability to take a family plan, which costs us 80% of that family plan and the family plan last time I checked were about 18 grand. Now, I don't know how many, I mean, our thinking has always been, well, we weren't sure how many of support staff would opt into that plan. We'd always tried to at least in the past encourage them to take Dr. Dinosaur. But, I mean, knowing what our potential exposure is, how many of our support staff are eligible for that and how many might wanna take it really concerns me because healthcare is such a giant part of our cost. And I also wanna make sure that we understand, I recall Tara saying something around the idea that the way that part of what was made funding those contributions was that we weren't sure what the agreement was and how that was handled in terms of first in and first out and who pays first dollar and some of that stuff. Does knowing the settlement of that agreement mean that we're gonna have a cleaner idea of healthcare costs in our budget? How much will it change our budget? Because we're like a hundred bucks a kid below penalty right now. I don't know. The first thing you brought up is not something I think we know which is who would take, who from the support staff would take the bigger plan. I don't think we know that and we're gonna need to collect that information. I would change it. Mr. Bruce, the fastest way to get that would be to say if we sent out, I mean, they're gonna find out from the union but if we send out a note saying here's the packet around the, you know, if you want the packet around getting family care, reach out to us, you know, and then send them the information from the insurance company. We're not, you know, we're not violating any, you know, violating any kind of employer employee relationship. I'm sure we supply insurance documents already and just finding out who might want those documents might give us a preliminary, you know, broad strokes clue as to where our exposure might be. Well, if that's something that you want us to do, we'll do that. I guess you did, Tara did put in your budgets pretty hefty amount. I think it was 12.7 and the settlement was 12.9. So I don't wanna say a whole lot on this conference call but basically I think we were conservative and did put in a healthy amount so that it shouldn't be terribly taxing on your budgets other than what's already there. Tara, do you wanna comment on any of that? The budgets were only based on current enrollment and has nothing to do with potential projections on who's gonna sign up for health insurance. I don't have a crystal ball, so I didn't do that. As far as the HRA is concerned, it's funded based on the enrollment at the time the budget was developed and what tier they were on as to how much they would actually get in their HRA and then we funded that at the 65% of the potential exposure. Now, does the settlement entitle them to change their insurance status? We have to give them a new enrollment window. When are we doing that? If so. New hires can enroll in July. Otherwise, open enrollment is January so we start that process in October, November. So there's no way that a current employee could jump on a family plan now. They could, the earliest anyone could access the stuff under the new plan is January. Not true, they have a life event that's governed by the IRS. They can make a change at any life event so there is a chance if they have a life event that they could do that. And that life event could be very diverse. First, spouse open enrollment, or spouse losing employment, or loss of other benefits. Any of that is a qualifying life event by the IRS and that would give them the opportunity to change their health plan. Okay, and do we have any exposure to the, so I guess it also qualified that people can now, because I know a couple of years ago, there was a whole statement about we didn't have, we didn't or we shouldn't cover people that didn't work enough, a 0.2 FTE, even if they were 0.4 somewhere else and another 0.2 somewhere else, a total they're 0.8 and would be eligible. At one point in time, Don, a couple of years ago, the IRS were saying we didn't have to pay our share of that but now this document seems to say that we do and we do have part-time teachers. Is that, do we already cover their partial FTEs now? Will that change? Is that something that- I think 17.5 hours is the minimum amount of hours you can work. I didn't really change that, I think it's 17.5. So you can prorate the premium, you cannot prorate the contributions to the HRA if they're not a full FTE. So regardless, if they're eligible for benefits and they're enrolled in benefits, you have to fund the HRA to the full extent but you can still prorate the insurance premium. So if they're working 17.5 hours then they're eligible for health insurance. Okay, and I mean, do we, I guess what I'm most curious about is if our current population of faculty and staff, if these changes are going to affect our costs, long-term or short-term. And I know this just happened. I don't expect you to say, yes, Carl, it's going to be $437. But- Yeah, it's just happening yesterday, so. I don't know, Tara, you wanna answer that or what? I mean, I- I don't have a cost figure. No, I'm sorry, Carl. I will work on one in the future but it's not something I have tonight and it's not something I will be able to accomplish this week because I am booked the rest of the week doing fiscal year rollover with the software company. She is extremely busy right now. So I'll tell you that cause she won't, but she is. The other thing I wanted to tell you is that all the, I think all of the districts that don't have budgets yet within RSU, FBUD, Stratford, Grandville Hancock and you guys, three out of them, I haven't talked to you guys about this, but I mentioned this last Thursday on the call, there are districts now around the state that are trying to get a budget vote in May or June. And they've taken the Secretary of State's guidelines for how it might be done and started to implement them. Two of the ones that I know about are South Burlington that are gonna hold votes in three of their schools. Some of the guidelines that bring your own pen, wear a face mask or shield, social distancing, but they're gonna try to get an annual meeting in. I know that Stratford's talking about it. I know that FBUD's talking about it tonight. They're thinking about using the fairgrounds in Tunbridge and spreading people out because they wanna speak to their voters. So I guess I'm recommending to you, if you're up for it, maybe there be some planning to try to get a date before the end of June. Because quite frankly, the Senate's proposal, which is holding things steady at the 2020 budget rate and allow you to have spending authority after June 30th, is not gonna help you when most of the budgets around the state have gone up about 4% the ones that have been passed. There are still 19 districts that have not gotten votes done. So I'll leave that in your court, whether you wanna do something with that or not, but it looks like there's movement. The other one is Essex, Westford is doing, gonna be doing a vote as well. And I know Stratford and FBUD are planning them and G-HUD's gonna have the conversation tomorrow night. So go ahead. Have we gotten the authorization to do Australian ballot? We voted that and we sent that in. Yeah, I believe that's been okay to also ballot by mail. You believe? That can be done too. Okay, so we do have that authorization or you're not sure yet? I believe it was in about a week ago, the approval and I have to look it up and send it to you. We can't do anything if we can't do Australian ballot, so. Yeah, I think the idea of, I mean, the state has not lifted the restriction on gatherings of more than 50 people. So it doesn't matter if you put them in the tumbridge fairgrounds and space them out five feet apart, you still can't get more than 50. I think that number was 10 to the 15th and the long-term number is 50. Well, we're supposed to get more guidance by the end of the week and maybe a lessening of restrictions. We just don't know. We've been told over and over again that something's coming but we don't know what it is, so. Right. What's the ramifications of us waiting longer and just- First, till after July 1st, 87% of your vote because the other scenarios haven't been approved. So it would be 87, you'd be allowed spending authority with 87% of your vote until you get a budget voted on. They didn't approve any type of level fund. Not yet, but I expect there are pretty polar opposites in what the house side wants to allow the board to pass the budget and allow you spending authority after July 1. They believe that the boards know their budgets and know their voters. As long as that budget is the same as you, the same or less than was originally going to be what you put forward to the voters in your case because you haven't put one in there yet, so. Yeah, the Brad James memo says that we wouldn't count for that because us in Granville Hancock didn't have a warned budget. So it's, it's, it's, Tumbridge could theoretically, well, I'm sorry, not Tumbridge, people that warned a budget and that didn't go in front of the voters could theoretically spend up to that budget. But I mean, I don't think our, I know our community, I'm pretty positive at least the Stockbridge side, they'd be, you know, if, you know, I think they'd be okay with us spending what we spent last year with the Senate proposal carries in the house, but I really, I would be really, really leery of not going before them to do much of anything beyond beyond that budget. And we're trying to say we're allowed to. Right, Amy, I think the answer to the question about Australian ballot is that you do have the authority to do it, but I will check tomorrow and make sure. I know we had to just take a special vote and get, we had to get a specific waiver and I just wanted to. Right, and there was a, Dina had emailed me a letter that I was supposed to, you know, put the, you know, put, put your name here, Carl. Kind of one, you know, one of those documents that got prepared and sent. Okay, I was just hadn't heard back if we had gotten it or not. So I just want to make sure before we even talk about it. What would be the ramifications about going a month or two into, I mean, we're not going to spend 27% of our budget in July and August. You know, do we, do we think that by July or August we would be able to, that we're going to be able to get together? Or is it just so unknown? Everything's unknown. I mean. I feel like it's unknown and I've already taken phone calls from community members wondering what the budget is and what the deal is for that. And I don't know necessarily about a vote, but they at least want to know what's going on and have information in their hands. I feel like, okay. Well, I also just want to point out that at seven o'clock Megan can only be here till what, 740? And if she's not here, we won't have a quorum. So just if there is anything we need to vote on we might want to skip down to it. Yeah, I'm done. I'm done. We'll have, we'll have, we have two stockpards and two Rochester, Ethan's back. Oh, okay. Good. Well, I'm finished. I've told you the things I want you to know. Okay. I'm just getting concerned of our, I was just trying to be conscious of our time and getting concerned of, good, glad to see you back, Ethan. Thanks guys. Okay. So that's Bruce, Bonnie and Lindy or, Tara, do you want to go? I don't have anything to add to the budget discussion. Okay. Thank you Tara. So, Lindy and Bonnie, you're up. I think you're muted Bonnie. So did people see the one we sent out with Christie's email? Yep, looks good. I think for the most part, other than the budget and just to update on distance learning and return to school, do people have questions about the principles report itself? I don't have anything additional to add to it to you, Bonnie. Nope, she's still muted. I got it. No, unless anyone has any questions. No, it seemed, it seemed pretty, pretty clear. How's everyone, you know, everyone's holding up well at all. I mean, you're, you're, you're, Raul's good. People are. Yeah, I think people are doing, I think people are doing remarkably well. There's certainly some challenges, but folks are mobilizing and rising up to meet those challenges. I do think as this wears on, it's becoming more difficult for some parents. So parents who were not particularly having difficulty at the start of our, of our distance learning are, you know, expressing little frustrations, but I think networks, good networks of support have been set up and people are beginning to access them. Would you agree with that, Lindy? I would. And I would just say that, you know, the same families or kiddos that engagement, not necessarily attendance, but engagement was hard for in the building, still continues to be a challenge. And we're just trying to work through those on a case-by-case basis, not that that number is large, but to just really guarantee that there's some continuity of learning happening and how kids are showing that has been the best. So Lindy, I was on coaching a teacher today and from Tumbridge, and she said, you've been asked to take attendance and that she's doing that, for example, even if, you know, she talks to the parent or whatever, she's saying that kid attended. Is that what you guys are doing? Or what if- Right, it's some sort of contact and obviously depending on the grade level, depends on who and what type of contact that is. And we just kind of have a big spreadsheet going for lack of a better term that Jana and Erica oversee for each building because it could be with a wide variety of teachers throughout the course of the day. And there's also those families that there's multiple kids in a household. So sometimes that contact for attendance purposes, we don't need mom and dad making four phone calls in a household of four when one can count. Does that make sense? Yes. I think the other thing we discovered, and I think it was discovered in a lot of districts is in our rush to be supportive and make connections, we overwhelm some families with our attempts at goodness and connectedness. It took us a couple of weeks to get that settled out and scheduled down. I think now people are feeling much more that the job is much more doable. We continue to send the message to everybody that this is not distance learning that we had a lot of time to plan for. This was really an immediate transition from traditional learning under the schoolhouse roof to a distant learning model for which many most weren't prepared. So I think sometimes parents are overly hard on themselves and we spend a fair amount of time helping them understand that there really is no such thing as the perfect distance learning parent and that their best effort, especially if they have multiple children, that their best effort is certainly more than adequate. So I guess what I'm trying to say is we're doing a lot of chatting with parents and helping them understand just what a great job they're doing supporting their youngsters. Did you see the memo that the AOE came out with middle of last week, end of the month about identifying, about just that continuity of learning and identifying the critical proficiencies and working on looking at what really is the key things to be focusing on, looking at reinforcement versus trying to push out new content. And in particular, there was a table that talked about how the difference amounts of time that a kindergartner should be 30 minutes to 90 minutes max. Right, right. All of that, yes. I mentioned span versus a fifth grader should be 61 hour to two hours and that hopefully we're balancing all that and we're not. We are curling, we did send those out, those time recommendations and Mary-Anne Simmons and Amy Toth have done a great job identifying the specific proficiencies at each grade level on which instructional will focus from now through the end of the year. I think one of the new learnings for parents and for teachers and administrators alike is the notion that distance learning looks very, very different than learning under the schoolhouse roof. I know a couple of the early calls I had parents said, well, you didn't send anywhere near enough work to keep them busy all day. And that wasn't the intention of keeping them in front of a screen all day. So there's been a lot of learning, but yes, we did see that document and we did try and reflect it in what we're telling parents and teachers. Yeah, I thought that was pretty interesting and again on the idea of trying to narrow focus and narrow time, but okay. Does anyone else have anything for Lindy and Bonnie? Okay, that means that the next thing is budget or distance learning report. I suppose since Lindy and Bonnie need to be around for the distance learning as well, we might as well do budgets so at least Tara can move on to somewhere else. Sure. So did everyone see the documents from Tara? Yes. Yes, thank you. Yes. The ones I sent at like 5.30. Yes, and you said that Lindy was gonna update the review for the change. Sure, there was Bonnie and I just had a question and were able to catch Tara before she went into her six o'clock meeting about 110320 on the version that was, line 110320 on the version that went out yesterday. Seems like it took a big jump and what's in that line item is a shared interventionist between Stockbridge and Chelsea and we had actually also put another interventionist who we share with the SU, Amy Toth in there and really she was in, she's already in the general salaries. So it created a little bit of a savings there. Thanks. I have the right explanation, Tara. It was what, 320? Yes, 110320, contracted services was. Oh, there it is, go. There was the two interventionist positions and then in the 1101 the local interventionist salary was also included. So we had double deducted or double added, whatever word you want to use, that salary. So we were able to back that out which resulted in a reduction in your budget. And then also the changes that Bonnie had requested after a discussion, I believe it was with you, Amy. We changed the board clerk fee to $250, a board clerk salary, a treasurer salary to $750 and then added the treasurer postage back in for $500 that somehow had gotten dropped. And then I adjusted the FICA for both of those positions. Okay. Well, just so the rest of the board, I did go through this and spoke with Bonnie who clarified a number of questions I had. I won't pay you guys with those. She answered my questions quite well and I feel quite satisfied. I do have a question about our revenue and our Farm to School grant. Go ahead, Amy. Yeah, well, I'm just wondering, I mean, that's not gonna be in the spot. It's not gonna be in our revenue and this budget, is it? That's a terror question. It is not in here, Amy, no. Right, okay. If you don't budget for food service and that's going directly into food service revenue. Okay. So that's not included in your local revenue. Okay, so there is, but there's a stipend for Farm to School coordinator that is in our budget. No, that position is part of the grant funding. We didn't change any of the structure of what is being moved over from the general fund through food service. We talked about that early on, but we haven't made any of those moves. I'm sorry. That whole Farm to School grant is still up in the air, obviously. So there's no, so, okay. Questions, Amy? We'll answer ourselves and with other schools who have received those grants on just exactly how we're going to proceed with using them. Much of what we propose to do with our grant, we wouldn't be able to do until next spring. Okay. Because it heavily involved youngsters in planting, harvesting, stuff like that. And we're going to miss that window this year. Okay. I just got a line item for a stipend for Farm to School coordinator in the budget. So I was wondering, I just- Worked up. Well, it's under, I will correct me if I'm, I could be completely wrong. Maybe I'm assuming under 1400 athletics and co-curricular, there's a 108 general salary, it's only seven to $90, but I just was kind of wondering, I saw that and I was wondering where the other side of it was. No, that's just what is contractually obligated if people were to run clubs after school. That has nothing to do with Farm to School. There isn't a contract. Right. There is in the contract stipends for people who run after school clubs. And we put, I think, two in there, thinking that we might be able to do some this year. Okay. The after school clubs. Thank you. That's not Farm to School coordinator. Okay. On the revenue page, Tara, the, the E-rate is shown as we had budgeted 3000 revenue from E-rate in 2019, the actual show nothing. We say we budgeted 1632 for 2020. And when you look at the expenditure report you sent out this week, it shows that we collected none of that. And it doesn't show that it's encumbered or that we expect to collect any of that. Should we really be putting in these revenue figures that are not showing up? I mean, is that being done at one point in time? I know we had a consultant doing E-rate for the whole SU. Another time I think it was done by the business manager, but I'm not sure where that paperwork and the filing window and all that gets handled these days. You. I don't know anything about E-rate. That's been Ray. Carl, can I speak to that? Sure. Thanks, Ray. All right. So I can tell you for next year there are no projects planned for Rochester Stockbridge. And thinking back, my predecessor would have done those for this year. I don't think there was anything for Rochester Stockbridge, to be honest, but I'd have to look to be sure. It certainly wasn't anything big. Okay. We're building a room and components to kind of more orderly put together, at least that's how the money was spent to put together, organize some of the electronics but there's even in Rochester. Yeah, the E-rate, I mean, the way the E-rate program works is you do, there's the federal government says, we'll qualify these projects, which are usually, you know, your ISP costs and your phone costs and networking. And they've moved now to wireless equipment is a big focus. But the idea is you do this project, you spend a bunch of money and then you get the percentage that's kind of equal to your, it's a little bit modified, but it's equal to your free introduced lunch percentage back of that project. Right. So the idea, Bruce, that there might have been some part project that what's his name Mark thought that we were gonna get 1600 back from. The question is, you know, where we've treated this as now like $6,000 worth of revenue over the last three budget cycles that it doesn't seem like we've ever collected on. So it kind of seems like either we've got some sort of revenue artifact that we should be looked at and made accurate, or we should be doing the submission to get that money back from that wiring project that was put together. Because we were supposed to have gotten $1,600 back this year on the Purly Expenditure Report. Yeah, I don't know that we didn't. And Mark's not hard to find. So we can follow up on that because if we're supposed to get $1,600 and I'm watching Bonnie and Lindy scrape $200 out of this, this fund and $100 out of that fund and making kids only color with 12 crayon packs instead of the full 64, not getting the $2,000 kind of matters to me. So, may I, Carl? Yeah, well, I can't speak until I'm recognized, right? I believe that the only project that went forward and then got reimbursed this year was something in a different district within the SU. At this point, I don't think there's any reimbursement for phone and internet. That did used to be the case, but over the last five years, they've stepped that down in 20%. And I believe, you know, we're going into the sixth year so next year there wouldn't be any. It's Cynthia Powers, a grants coordinator who did the category one stuff, that's the phone and internet. In my position, I've worked on the category two stuff, which is, like you're talking about, wireless access points, switches and things like that. So I think you're right, Carl. We could take it out if it's not an anticipated revenue any longer. Carl, you're muted if you're talking to us. I was branting still, I'm done. Can I get an idea from Lindy and Bonnie? Obviously, you said you wanted to come back with a zero growth budget. What went by the wayside? The big things, Ethan, are on that summary sheet we set with the budget. Oh, I didn't see that. Okay. They're so memo type sheet that just has increases and reductions. It came with the draft that was sent Monday. Oh, the first one. Yeah, not the 530 or whatever time I called Tara. So basic budget protection? What we did, Ethan, is we level funded, we started out by level funding everything that we could. And then we removed some things, did you find the little document? Yes. Okay. So we removed the things that are listed there. Probably the biggest savings is in a personnel change. We're going to take advantage of the fact that the counselor at Stockbridge received a full-time offer at another district. And so the counselor at Rochester, which was full-time at Rochester, will be shared with Stockbridge. So we're doing the same thing with the counselor's position that you recall we did a couple of years ago with the music position. That's probably the biggest savings. But we did level fund pretty much everything. We did take out funding for Keywaden, Holbert funding for the Best Institute, which is a professional development opportunity that teachers have. That we feel we probably can fund through a grant source. So it's, though it's coming out of the budget, it's not a total loss. And Lindy, is there anything else you think we should mention? Well, I had a question about underneath that. It says if we don't replace part-time custodial, Rochester savings would be 19,000. Are we losing custodial or? That would be something for executive session, Amy, that I'll bring up. Okay. But that is currently in the budget right now. This is just an F, okay. In the current budget is full fuel funding for the high school building? Yes, at 50, 55. Yes, at turning the temperature down again. Okay. And did we keep numbers for oil usage? I know this is an old question, but I just don't remember the answer. Do we have any break up between the high school and the elementary school as far as heat oil use? We do, Ethan. I don't have them with me tonight, but they are broken out under separate accounts. Okay. I initially was thinking about tapping that line item down a bit, believing that the cost of fuel is going to drop, but then we decided to leave it at its current level until we got a better handle on everything related to this 19 piece. Yeah. I don't think so. I'm sure there'll be some pushback about Kiwaden and some of those trips that we took out. We did leave winter wellness in. I think there were two feelings. We just don't know that that'll ever again be a possibility. Wait, frankly. What winter wellness or Kiwaden? Kiwaden. A week over with, you know, away with a lot of other kids from a lot of other places. While a great learning experience, I just don't see that in our new normal anytime soon. And I don't know. Is there anything else around that, Bonnie? It's a great experience. I know kids will be bummed by it, but I just, I think we're going to be lucky to get everybody back in the building. Exactly. Yeah. And the goal is to get kids back in the building, which I think they'll be happy enough. Correct. And the other thing I would say is that even without the COVID-19 piece, there were not a lot, but there was an increasing number of parents who were sort of questioning the week away, the four nights overnight, the supervision, all those kinds of things. So I think there's two things that were operating for Lindy and I when number one, we realized that we wanted to try and bring in a budget as close to zero as we could, because at the time we were finalizing this, we were hearing some of the financial implications for next year. So that was just a bigger impetus for us to do that. And I agree with Lindy. I don't think by next year we're going to be bringing large groups of kids together for future activities. Yeah. Bruce, and maybe there's a question for you. There was talk back when, about making up the $90 million deficit that they were going to attack the, the legislature might attack every budget at 10%, taking 10% back. I have no idea if that's even in the conversation anymore. Should we be preparing for even less money available? You're muted, Bruce. I don't think you have any way in preparing for that at this point, not to say, I mean, I think the AOE and the state are looking for a second funding of CARES Act money. The first funding of CARES Act money, which is $31 million is coming to the districts in the form of Title I funding and probably Perkins funding. They're hoping that they will get a second shot of CARES Act money that might help to replenish the Ed fund. And if that happens, of course we don't know how much it's going to be. If that happens, there wouldn't be any reason to rate past budgets and try to collect some of that there. But this is all real fluid and nobody really knows. It's not set anywhere. It's going to outrage a lot of people if they do that. Everything's okay until you start messing around with my funds and my budgets. But I don't think there any, it's been talked about, Ethan, just like I told you, but I don't think there's anything, any movement in that. Gotcha. The last thing I had heard was that they were talking about maybe clawing back. The budgets that got passed for the increases calling clawing back like a quarter to a third to a half of those increases at those other towns. And so not as to make, have and have nots of people that voted before the world change and the people that are trying to pick up the world's Jesus. Yeah, the amount of money that passed in those budgets that did pass was 4% above the 2020 budgets. I think just another thing to think about not that it directly impacts our budget. Wendy and I both sit on a couple of emergency management groups that also have members of select boards in those groups. And, you know, a budget can be passed, but whether or not the town is able to collect adequate property taxes to meet that budget is the next question. So not necessarily, I think it's wise for those, those towns are struggling with if they think they're gonna be able to collect the funding to meet those expenditures or identified in those approved budgets. Do you, do you, Lindy Bonney, have a sort of secret sheet somewhere where if you knew you had to suddenly, you know, we were suddenly 500,000, 200,000 short? Are you prepared for that? Not without losing more people. Well, no, that's what I'm saying. We've certainly talked about it, Ethan. And Lindy, correct me, or if you think I'm wrong, or if you wanna say something differently. I think this budget represents about what we can do without some sort of restructuring. No, I understand. Whatever restructuring means. No, I understand that restructuring is the next step. It's, it's, it's just, just that you're thinking about it is reassuring. Yeah. We, go ahead and- You're thinking about it, yes. I, 500,000, for instance, if that was a big number, I don't know what we would do. Secret sheet, we're not, I'm not sure where that would come. 200,000 even, I don't know about you, Bonney, but that would be a stretch. Yeah. I mean, we would have to talk deeply with Tara and neither one of us feel comfortable in doing this and changing how much we're funding HRAs for next year and things of that. We, I don't know how we open a building. You're now talking custodians and lunch people and a lot of different things. I think, I mean, the reality is if we may be forced to make a decision about buildings. Yeah, I think we're in the crisis. I think we're in the crisis we were trying to avoid. Yeah, I just, you know, as we say, everything's saying, we don't know anything about the future here. We don't know if kids are even coming back to the buildings in September. So I just, that we're aware of the possibilities and that we as a board are aware that it may mean very dramatic changes very suddenly as we've already gone through. Yeah, and I think as Lindy said, if the numbers actually get 200,000, 300,000, 400,000, we are really talking about not line item decisions, but structural decisions. Transportation, for example, it's not required in the state of Vermont. I don't know if we had to cut $300,000 or $400,000 out of a budget, how we could do it and still offer transportation, still be structured the way we are. So could we do it? Yes, it would just depend on what of, you know, our communities would be willing to accept. What guidance, and maybe this is something just for down the road for another meeting, but what guidance or vision would you need from us? I think probably, Lindy, again, chime in here. I think probably what we would have to do at that point is to take the facts, take what we know. And right now, there's so many unknowns. I think we would have to take the facts that we know. We would have to keep at the center of our decision-making that our primary goal is the education of youngsters. We have to put politics aside and we have to say this is what our professional expertise and judgment has us recommending to the board and then get a sense from the board is it tolerable? What we've offered, get community input? Certainly it would be schools looking very differently. I have- I was just gonna say, and I'm naive and I continue to be this way even at my age and I'm trying to make lemonade out of lemons, but- You're not so naive. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Was that a compliment or not? I haven't taken whatever way you want. Ha ha ha ha ha. I think that this, I hope that it doesn't narrow down to what you're saying, Bonnie, or personnel, but it also might be an opportune time to say, okay, we gotta have one building or we gotta have, you know, kindergarten through second in one building and three through six in another building or everybody at the high school, I mean, high school, I'm not sure, but it might be a time that quiets the voices that have been screaming about this because this is a crisis and everyone is going to have to realize that. Well, as Bonnie says, we'll see. I just, you know, it's certainly something I've been hearing going to these full board meetings. It's certainly something that just reading the memos from the School Board Association and the AOE, I mean, just the amount of uncertainty we're going into for next school year is enormous. It's just to me and that's what I keep hearing. And I just think we're better to, you know, be thinking about it and be contemplating it. Yeah, I think you're right, Ethan. I think there's a lot of uncertainty, but I also think it's an opportunity. I don't want any community or either community, I should say, to feel slighted that they weren't part of the process, but I think it pushes us to the conversation about what's best for kids educationally. Yes. And I think we have to understand that that means it could look very different in a lot of different ways. There's still a lot of possibilities out there. We just don't, that's where that uncertainty piece kicks in, but we need to understand that kids are probably not going to be transitioning to specials classes. So what does that mean? Is that an opportunity for us to make a small adjustment now that potentially provides us great savings in the long run? And maybe makes a decision, at least for a couple of years until we can get out of this. I don't know. And that it's all moving forward. Like it may not be ideal, but I think it's all moving forward and an opportunity for us to make some good kid, kid success stories, instead of kid consequences based on our decision. Yeah. I'm sorry, I realized too funny. Hold on a second. I realize I have kind of derailed our budget discussion here. So I'm being mindful of timekeeping. I don't want to be too speculative. Do we need to approve this budget tonight? Is that our goal, Carl? I'm sorry. Is our goal to approve this budget tonight? It is not. A listed as an action item. It still has, we're still finding issues with it now. And I'm still hoping, and my last question to Tara was going to be, when do we get our audited numbers? Cause I really think one of the things we talked about all along that is going to improve the community's trust and faith in our budget is being able to say, in 2019, here's what the independent auditors of the actual CPAs, the firm say, here's what we spent. Here's where the money went. For sure, he's not just, you know, we think this place close. So here's where we're at. The first draft of the long reports from the audit were issued. We found lots of issues and we sent them back to the auditors. So now we're waiting for a second draft of the final long reports. One of the major issues is they didn't have your special revenue funds allocated appropriately in the long reports, which we didn't see until we got the very first draft of the long reports. Cause none of that information is included in the short reports. Okay. And so Amy has straightened all these things out a month or two ago, but we just didn't see that they didn't get the straight information until we saw the longer report yesterday or the day before last week. Yeah. So when we got the long reports, we went through them and identified that these are still the areas of concern that we have. It doesn't look like they're identified correctly. The balances don't match what the bank statements say. So we sent it back to the auditors. And when do we expect to get it back? Because- I would hope within the next week to 10 days, I got, they're also dealing with the same issues that we're dealing with with staff shortages. So that would be my hope and my desire. Because if we got it back in a week, so we get it back next Tuesday, the 13th, we maybe warn something for say the 14th or 15th as the emergency meeting to approve this budget that now has all the proper numbers and audited figures in it. And then we warn the meeting. So that means we're now warning, if we're gonna warn something, we have to warn it for mid-June and then figure out how to put together an Australian ballot. We don't have any, we have to just warn it for the minimum 30 days almost and just figure out how in 2000, I've never done an Australian ballot, how to do one on the fly. So I mean, it's something to think about, but I don't know, I still- And Carl, you're basically saying if we don't have those audited numbers by next Tuesday, we're pushing it out probably even another month or something like that. I would think, or we're saying, we're not gonna put in audited numbers for the fourth year in a row and just get Rob and what her name, just climbing up our, just being upset with us for not having audited numbers, even though we've spent $10,000 on audits in the last couple of years. What $2,500 a pot for us, I think. Well, you were at the full board meeting where we're putting out the offer for new accountants. Yes. Yes, but we still have to- Yeah, deal with what we have. With these, and it really, I mean, for my sense is the politics of having audited numbers would really go a long way towards making us not look as unprepared. So do we have further budget discussion? Only questions. My question is even if I get the whole audited numbers completely, but should we be exploring what it's going to take to make an Australian vote happen? So if all of a sudden we're ready to approve this or present it for approval next week at an emergency meeting, do we need to start reaching out to people to figure out how to make that happen now instead of waiting until the budget is ready? Does that make sense? That makes perfect sense. My question for Tara, though, is can she put audited numbers into a budget that fast? That's what I thought. Up between today and Tuesday, or whenever I get the final report, because I am both solid for the next three days. Right, and even once you get it, it's going to take you some time to get it in there, is that correct? Even once I get the second draft, I need to go through it and Rose needs to go through it to make sure that it's still accurate. So then when do you think in all reasonability, you could have us the document we need to put into a warning? Do you think you could do it by the end of the month? Could we be pushing for a June 28th or something like that? I think if all of the information comes back, Carl, that's an absolute reality. But as far as giving you a specific date, I can't do that. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I can't answer questions, I don't know. Right, and telling us you don't know is fine. And I would prefer that rather than you saying, yeah, Prowley, I feel comfortable saying that. But Carl, don't forget, we would be voting tonight on a budget without any final accounting. Right, no, we'd be voting normally. We would have a YAR meeting tonight, correct? Yeah, yeah. So I mean, the fact is we were gonna go ahead without that, so maybe we should just go ahead without it. If it all depends on what our priority is, is our priority to get a budget in front of people as fast as possible or is our priority to get an accurate budget in front of people? I think your priority is to get a budget. And maybe you set a date at late June and work backwards about what you have to have and when you have to have it. I mean, I think at this point, yeah, a budget, I agree with you, Bruce, I think a budget, rather than, I mean, clearly this process of accounting has been going on and on and on and on. And I think, you know, from Tara, she can't guarantee us anything. So we have to go on what we have. And I think you should move ahead. And after speaking with Bonnie, I believe these numbers, they had a lot more information though they're not, the audited numbers, they are a lot more accurate than they were before. And I don't know if there's a way to present that as it is, you know, we're... A mostly audited budget, yeah. Right, Tara has certainly straightened out a lot of things. There are, we are just miles beyond where we were a couple of years ago, but I do hear the frustration and feel a bit myself about, you know, why we can't get audited numbers after three years. I can understand how the communities feel that way. Yet there's nothing Tara can do anything about what she's doing. So I don't know if there's a step that combines both if you could set it later in June and if Tara has good audited numbers by then, great. If not, we just move forward like we have. Well, you know, if we go, if we do that, then where the place we've kicked the can to is, do we have audited numbers to drop into a document by whenever the document needs to go to Spalding Press to pick it and mail, you know, we count back from that timeline. We also need to look at, you know, besides how to conduct an audit, we also probably would need to reach out to Spalding and find out, you know, under their circumstances, I believe, you know, they didn't have a work crew of more than five anyways, so I believe they could theoretically be back to work. But I mean, that's still up to them as a company, whether they want to. Correct. So I don't even know if we can get a booklet printed. And I don't know if the State Department, if the State Department relaxed the rules so we could just publish online, because that would be the simplest, because then you could just make it a PDF and we can pop it up on a website, you know, look at a split. But I don't know if we still have to send a paper copy. Bruce, do you know if that's gonna change? I don't know about the paper copy, no. I don't know that. But I'm gonna get the guidance yet tomorrow and I'll send it out to all of you when I see it. Thank you. I know the information I get in Brandon is not the full budget mailed to me. I get what the increase is, what the major changes are and what's going on in the school. It's funny, you can probably correct me if I'm wrong. And then I also know in Bristol, Vermont, all they get is a postcard that basically just explains some of the changes, what that means for your taxes and where you can find the actual budget online. Or you can call and ask for a copy. Yeah, I don't know if that now requires, it used to require voter approval to do that. We don't send out anywhere near the number of school reports we used to send out. But without voter, unless the legislature has taken some action in the last couple of years, but with voter approval, you don't have to send those in anymore. You can just send a postcard or you can just have it emailed to you. Right, and like I said, I don't know if that was one of the things that got relaxed in some of the changes around everything going virtual or not. Yeah, I don't know. I haven't seen anything as far as the statute adjustment, Carl, as to what we're required to send out to voters prior to the annual meeting. I haven't seen anything of that in the statute. Okay. Yeah, then the last thing, I mean, so we're debating whether we think the certainty of having a budget that's pretty much where our budget was last year. Being able to say, yeah, there's a little bit of an increase, but that's because it changes in the CLA and changes in Pupil count. You know, we're dollar for dollar, pretty much where we were, right? Because that's where this budget is, correct? Yeah, it's about 18, I don't know, 18 something, 18,000 above last years. No, Bonnie, the revised one is 2000 below last year. Oh, all right, that's even better. So we could put that, we could put that budget out. And that would give people certainty that they knew where they would have a better idea of where their taxes were. The other thing is, you know, I've heard at least from a couple of people that, you know, I'm so glad you're not trying to make us come somewhere and vote, you know, is it responsible to put out a budget when we don't know what's going on? We don't even know what schools are gonna be like next year. So I think we should think about our messaging on that, because I see both sides. I see the value of saying we're being patient. The state's gonna let us level fund and level spend. If we hear that decision, hopefully by the end of this week, stay tuned folks, we're, you know, stay tuned, shelter in place versus we're gonna formally pass a budget that's $2,000 less than that last year's. I would agree with Bruce. I think we're in a lot better position if we have a budget approved going forward as soon as possible. I'd rather not deal with 87%. I mean, I don't know if that's probably unrealistic at this time that we're not gonna go past the end of June deadline, but I just feel that we want a budget and then we can hang on to that and then we deal with all the adjustments that come one way or the other. I agree. I'm just trying to recommend to all of you that you at least set a date for something before June 30th, that's all. Yep. It can be the day before that or the last day of the month, I don't know, but. Yeah, I think, I agree. I think we want control of our budget and it's gonna be a lot easier if we get it done before the deadline. Sounds like anyway. Forget, you know, don't worry about audits. We've got better funding, you know, we're gonna take some flack for that. Hey, we're getting a budget done in crisis time. So I think that's really good. And we're being very responsible by bringing in zero growth. So I think that's very good. Well, it'll be 3% tax increase. Yeah. Okay. But that's even though it was. Yeah. No, it certainly is. It's just, we have to be careful about how we messaged it. But do you agree Carl that we should just get one, we should get a budget out there? Um, I think so. I want to make sure, I want to, I'd like us to figure out the logistics about the printing, the logistics about the Australian ballot, because I don't know, you know, I don't know how we can have a floor vote. No, we can't. Oh, you know, I mean, yeah, well, I was looking at the Tumbridge idea standing in the field. And I'm like, we can't do that. Um, so, but, but let, let, let, let's look into the logistics and let's, let's, you know, We do that. Who, who does that? Something for Lenny or is that for us? I will talk to the Secretary of State. Bruce knows how to do Australian ballots because he does them somewhere else in the SU. Well, we, Rochester used to. Yeah. Rochester always was a stress ballot until we joined our side. So we're pretty familiar with it. Okay. Okay. So, I think we need to, I think we need to loop the town clerks in. Yeah, that's, that's one of the, that we've all talked about, the superintendents and the Secretary of Education. We, we all talked about this, that we have to get the town clerks on, on working with us on this, because if they're going to put up a lot of roadblocks, because they're scared to death to do any of this, we're just going to have more trouble. We need to get them working with us. Could it, could it, could it be at our schools? Does it have to be at the town office? Do votes have to be by legislation at the town office? Or could we do it at our school where there's more space? Well, that's what, that's what South Burlington's doing in three different places. Couldn't we do some type of card that people free fill out and then they don't get out of their car. They're just, Right. Why don't you, rather than us trying to invent the ways to do this, you seems like you've got resources at the superintendents level. Yeah. So can you give us a proposal and say, hey, to do this, we're going to need to do this to get it printed. We're going to need to do that to get the vote done. You've talked to your town clerks. They like the idea or they hate the idea and circle back to us with, with how to get this done. Okay. Do we want to set a date tonight? I'm looking at the calendar. I think we should wait till we hear from the town clerks what their, what their thoughts are. I know for speaking with Lori, when I talk three times a week right now, it wouldn't take a lot to get feedback. Like it could be a short turnaround, I think is what I'm saying. Right. I think we can, let's get some information and try to have a special meeting at the end of the week or next Monday or something. Yeah. We can, we can go back and say. We're moving forward with this. Yeah. I don't want us to wait till the end of the month or whatever to do this. I think if we're going to, if we're going to consider getting this done, we need to move on it. You know, number one with the expectation that we can do this as opposed to let it see and we'll figure it out and we'll kind of lack of days until we can't. The other question we need answered is about the report. Does it need to be mailed? Ken Spaulding do that for us. Is that something we should take care of? Is that a Lindy and Bonnie? I don't just don't remember how we assigned that before because I'm certainly willing to call Spaulding. I, you know, I have some relationship with them and see. You've already started a good, good part of, you've already started a good part of that report as well. Yes. We just have to fit in. We have to fit in a lot of details. But, yeah. I mean, we're, if we had to, we could put it up in a week or something like that or two weeks if we had to. If I do a crunch time, we could totally put it together fast. But I just, we just need to know, are we printing it out? Are we putting it online? What are our requirements? Cause I think the minimal requirement, people are going to understand that. If they have to go somewhere online, they're pretty used to that. So what's going to make this easy for us too. Right. Well, the big question is again, we haven't, you know, we haven't put it to, to our voters to change the way we distribute the information. So we got to do it that way. You have to do it the way we did. However, you know, like they said, we got to, we did that vote at our last regular meeting to produce that specific motion that Dina wrote us to get the ability to do the one year Australian ballot. And, you know, I'm curious if the State Department has similar guidance of not, you know, needing to get everything printed in mail. Can we, can that be the last for one year? So. Sorry, can we, somebody remind me off the top of their head if they can. It's 30 days, right? Is that, is 30 days before the meeting we have to send out a bulletin? No, the warning. The warning of 30 days. The people are supposed to have the book in their hand 10 days before, I think. 10 days before. So if we're looking. That's correct. 10 days. Yeah. So if we looked at, let's just ballpark, look at the last week of June before the 29th. And let's say we put a meeting on the 23rd. So that we're looking at the 1st, the 2nd week of June, we would need it. The 1st or 2nd week of June, we need to go to a printer. Right. Is that reasonable? Yeah, probably the 1st week of June because we'd have to send, you know, the printers are not going to be working full speed. And, you know, the post-sale process. I will get an email out tonight to Spalding to see if they think that's a feasible thing that they could do in the 1st week of June. And what are our numbers again for copies? Does anybody have that number off the top of their head? There's about a thousand. It's less than a thousand, but. That's great. That's all I need is ballpark. Good. Thank you. I think this is really useful and good for our teachers and good for our staff to have this done or put forward. I also think we need to think about like a Q&A session or some type of opportunity for community members to be able to ask questions or get clarifications around the budget because without that school, like, you know, that floor meeting that kind of takes that opportunity away from people. Yep. I'm not sure how. There has to be an informational meeting if you're going to put an Australian ballot together. I could probably be done on a webinar, I would think. You know, some of you have to know this. Yeah. Because having everyone to get together for an informational meeting kind of defeats the point of distancing to an Australian ballot. Right, I think you do it. Ray tells me this will take up to 150 people on one of these calls. Well, how about if you, I mean, is it ridiculous to ask people to schedule to literally let out a day and within a time, you know, we have people scheduled questions that they could come in one-in-one, as opposed to trying to do a mass meeting on one of these things, which I think would be chaos. Ray? Ray, yeah. I think you would have enough time that using a Google form to collect questions in advance and then whittle those down to, you know, the duplicates and then produce, you know, have a meeting where you answer the questions. Okay. The largest meeting we've been successful at is, I would say, 60 give or take. The product can do 250. I've heard from colleagues successfully doing 175. You know, if you do it with teachers who have a lot of practice with this, I think that could happen. If you get people from the public, it's hard when they're on the phone getting them muted and unmuted, things like that. It makes sense to have everybody have a period of time that they can submit questions to. We go through the questions and then have a meeting where people can essentially just listen, possibly with one contact person that could maybe take by phone any additional questions and then put it for us to the, you know, to the board at the time. I mean, you gotta think there's ways that they do this in massive, you know, radio stations and all these, they take massive calls and they filter them first before they are able to, because then people can ask questions. The texting feature of this program too could be useful for questions as well. It certainly has worked in the SU meetings. Follow-ups or something like that. Okay. Well, I also think with your, especially if you can continue on with that drive of a very detailed or detailed as we can now, you know, a budget book that kind of answers a lot of questions in it is to start with that and it will be very helpful. Okay. Okay, I guess I have to really get to work on it. Yeah. That's the other reason why I want to set this forward because I just, I've been sort of, you know, punting it and punting it and punting it because who knew, you know, August, September, but I feel much better just, let's get this done. So what do we want to do with the actual budget tonight? Do we want to get this information regarding how we can go forward with a meeting or a vote and then at that time approve the budget or do we look into approve it tonight? No, I don't want to approve it tonight. We still need to correct, we need to take the E-rate that we're ineligible for off the revenues. We, there was something else that was gonna be adjusted that I've forgotten and I'll look at my notes. Well, so later this week, how much time do we think we need to finish this up? Let's wait, you know, let's get the information that we need to get. You know, we don't, if we decide to schedule a meeting for say Friday or Thursday and we don't know yet from the State Department what we can do. Got you, yeah. We've got some questions to answer. Okay, yeah, got you. So we're gonna get those questions answered. I mean, we have the SU meeting and the negotiations meeting on Thursday. So, you know, we're looking at beginning of next week probably at the earliest. We don't know. So I think let's try to keep maybe next Tuesday open just as a timeframe, but. Carl, may I throw out another idea? Sure. I'm wondering about the idea of using ORCA to do an informational meeting. Like I know we need to keep social distancing, et cetera, but it seems like two or three people could keep far enough apart to actually anticipate some questions and do like an informational meeting that everyone can see. Would that get enough questions answered so that people might feel they had enough information and could we design a way to do some follow-up questions? That's an interesting thought. We should, you know, we should see what we can find out about that as well. I mean, we could certainly just, I mean, we could do a forum like this with all the board members answering some of the common questions and just record it and put that recording up on, you know, on YouTube. And send everyone the YouTube link. So. Yeah, it could just be an informational meeting. We could just take a stab at the, you know, 25 most frequently asked questions. Get that information out. That would probably answer the questions that a number of people would have. True. True. I think the way is to get information out. Yeah. Yeah. I think we've gone way over time on our program. Yes, we have. Can I just summarize? We're getting a little bit in the weeds. Can we just summarize what actions we're taking? We're finding out how to hold an Australian ballot election, correct? I'm going to find out about printing and is there anything else we're trying to get done before we schedule this meeting? I mean, how do we actually need to print in the first place? Because if we could just put a PDF up online and send out a postcard saying. How will we know that and who do we ask? We ask the State Department. The State Department? OK. And who's doing that? Is that Bruce? Bruce is the one that's been having, he was saying he's been having all the conversations with superintendents about how to pull these things together and what they're doing in Burlington. OK, good. So Bruce, do you have your list? Yeah, I do. Good. Thank you. I'm done. OK. So Tara, you I think can move on with your life. I'm improving payroll. It's great. Good for you. Keep an ear open and you're busy working. That's fine. I just didn't want you to feel like you were hanging around. I would like to be part of your executive session because I know what it's about. Oh, OK. If you're OK with that. OK, yeah, that's fine. Let's move on to a replacement of teacher computers. OK, that's Lindy and I. So it's the last board meeting. You will recall that I mentioned the fact that the Rochester teacher computers were old. They're between nine and 10 and 11 years old. As I've explored that a little bit, what I found out as we've moved to distance learning is that a couple of teachers are now using their own machines because the functionality of their older computers just doesn't hold up. I'm anticipating that we may be looking at periods of time next year where we are going back to distance learning. I'm feeling more of an urgency to replace the old computers that teachers have at Rochester. Lindy, we've replaced the Stockbridge teacher computers. Was it two years ago? Right. When I was first hired, we replaced Stockbridgeers. OK. Did we budget for that? Well, no, we did not budget for that. But Tara is for the budget for which part, Carl? I'm sorry. I was asking for the X number of teacher computers in Rochester. I'm asking if we have remaining funds in this year's budget to cover that expense or if we budget it for it in next years. No, we don't. We didn't budget for it in next years. Tara is projecting a healthy surplus for this year. I asked Ray to work up the numbers for me. And I'm looking to spend for 15 teacher computers. We also need to upgrade and add a few Chromebooks. I'm looking at about $28,000. Oof. That's a lot of off-budget expense. My fear is, Carl, I don't want to overstate this. But my fear is, let me say it differently, we need to be in a more robust situation if we head into another period of extended distance learning. Yeah, I get that. It's just it's explaining to people how we got into a $28,000 hole in the first place. Where, you know, why, you know, this is like the pretty much the worst time for deferred maintenance to bite us in the backside. Exactly. That's the message that now we get to add to our conversation. And I mean, because we either have to be transparent about why we're doing it and saying, by the way, at least in the budget book and some part of the narrative or somewhere, because I do not want us to try to slide by. But hold on. Carl, Carl, of actually Bruce, is there any chance that we could use some of the CARES money for this? Seems like that would be pretty appropriate. Perhaps. But we're not going to even know how much money that is for another week or so. So can we find out? But we don't know how much it is for us. It's all tied to your poverty numbers and Title I funding. So yeah, I think so. But I think it hasn't come back yet. Can we get an opinion on that? Because I know CARES is limited to what it can do. But if we could use that money for that, I would certainly, I would far prefer saying we're taking. Very good. Here's money. Very good use of that money. Versus saying, yeah, by the way, we got it. But I don't think it's, yeah, by the way, I don't think, and Bonnie, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think necessarily that this would have come to light this way, except for the crisis. 11 years old. I mean, five years old or six year old might be a thing. But saying that the computers are older than some of the oldest kids in the building is a hard sell to say that you've been doing regular technical maintenance. Yeah, and we did have it on our list to start the replacement process, yes. Yeah, no, we did. We did, and I understand why we're accelerating it. I'm not necessarily saying that I'm trying to squash the idea. I'm just saying that it's not a positive message to be sending to our community after all the things that we've said about deferred maintenance and about problems and about stuff to do that. I think I'd far prefer if we could, if we were allowed to do it, I prefer Ethan's idea a lot, saying, you know, we were starting a technology replacement and we're accelerating it because of distance learning. And we're using our CARES money to accelerate it. It's not coming. It's not another 28 grand of your property taxes. That's a whole different message to tell our communities. Bonnie, is there some critical, like are there three or four that are like absolutely neat? I mean, I know that Hope's been having some problems with hers. Is there something that we can do that's smaller that we could do right away or is it all or none? We could certainly start, we could certainly start with the classroom teachers, but I would very quickly follow that statement with the fact that we have got to get anybody whom we expect to be connecting routinely with youngsters during the period of a shutdown on a new computer. And I do know what you're saying, but the reality is there has been a lot of deferred maintenance at Rochester and we have to do some catching up. We have brought in very low increased budgets. I understand why not more technology was in those budgets and it is coming back to Roost right now. So, yeah, I'm saying that we could do it in a couple of steps, but we need to be quite honest. We need to have new machines in people's hands, I think by fall, because I think we are going to be moving into a period of time where we will, if we go back to school, experience continued shutdowns, hopefully for shorter periods of time, but I really want to support, if I can do this for a second, I really want to support what Bonnie's saying. I've taught online now consistently, I teach all day long and without a computer that is working properly, you get cut off, you freeze, the instruction is inconsistent. If they don't have the appropriate technology, this is how they're going to be teaching guys. This is going to be, I mean, we can plan for two or three weeks. So, this is like having, as far as I'm concerned, it's like having direct instruction in the hands of the teachers in the classroom. They must have this technology, there is no choice. Is there any place we can, I mean, do we have any place we can get this money from? I would, that's the question I was going to ask, Ethan, where were Bonnie in her request hoping to get the money from surplus money? I was hoping to take it from this year's budget because Tara's projecting about a $200,000 surplus in this year's budget. So, we're going to under-expend this year's budget by a significant amount of money. And I was just hoping that we could take it from there because I think rolling forward, we're going to be reporting out in a minute, I think rolling forward, we're going to have several other expenses that are going to be competing for next year's budget. And we don't want to defer the maintenance even further because that's, by three minutes or more, you're deferring it even longer. And Janie's point is our schools are the computers right now. That's basically yours. I'm not saying we should not do it. I'm saying that we should, number one, explore the idea if we can use CARES funds for it or if we can find some other kind of grant funding opportunity because otherwise we're going to have that much more of an uphill climb as we, I think we will need to tell the taxpayers that we are spending this unexpected expense because if someone finds it, we've seen that happen where someone says, oh, what's this? And we say, oh, that was this thing. Well, why don't you tell us about that thing? So I think it's very important. I agree, the kids have to be taught and we can't just say, here's two soup cans and a string. But we need to, we need to, I really think we need to be aggressive to find some sort of alternate funding source before we just pull it out of general funds and finding out if the CARES money could be used for it, we can pay for them with general funds and then backfill it from the CARES money when we, when we record. The problem is, the problem is, this needs to happen now. Well, you're not going to fall for it yet, but. That's what I'm saying. The CARES funds yet. No, we don't. And we use them for this. That's the question. But can we also get the money from somewhere else and then pay it back? That's what I'm trying to say. We need to, we should know that. Okay, but it sounds like Bonnie wouldn't ask this if it didn't happen to happen now. If it needs to happen now. In other words, as soon as possible, you do have. And you know what? I don't think the community is going to be as negative as you're saying. I mean, I've watched these parents as I teach these kids, they understand if the technology is not good. They understand if their kid gets cut off from that computer. So I think the way Ethan phrased it, it's all how you present things. I mean, crap happens. It's how you handle it, it counts. So if we present it in a certain way, we were planning on doing this anyway. This is a crisis. This is our future teaching. I'm not saying don't find the money someplace, but it's somehow other than the general fund. But I am saying, Bonnie wouldn't be saying this if we didn't need this. And I know personally we need this. So how can we do it, how can we not do it? Carl, if I can find it, I think your first point is absolutely crucial. I don't think a board should spend $50 without letting folks know that they're doing it. I think that's the first step down the wrong road. So yes, this has to be very out there, very open. And as you say, it's how you message it. A little bit of my concern is I'm guessing a number of schools are making these same decisions because I'm guessing there's a number of schools who haven't stayed right on their game with technology. So I'm a little concerned about getting equipment. And then of course we need time to set it up and do all that stuff. I really would like to, I really would like to have it in the hands of teachers by early summer so that we can do some professional development with it because I think our online learning could be ever so much better if we got newer equipment and training into our teachers' hands. Sure. Sometimes when you spend grant money, it has to be spent by the grant. You can't, like some of the, some spend expenses, if they get covered by a district, Stockbridge got burned for this. When we paid a para to do some other things like to do some classroom cleaning that was not connected to direct spread instruction. So we couldn't get that money back because we took it from the long bucket in the first place. The person at Montpelier very nicely explained how if you had filled the form out this way, you'd be fine, but you unfortunately filled it out that way. So you're hosed. Finding out, if we're meeting in a week or so to approve a budget, we can improve the computer purchase at that time and we can have some idea if we can fund it from grant money or fund it from CARES money. And if we don't know then, we don't know that. And we can address that. I don't see, like I said, I would really rather not have to listen to someone from my community talk about another $30,000 going to the other school. So that's the conversation I'd like to avoid and I'm trying to be very circumspect in public session. But so figuring out a way to support those teachers and support those kids, because that's our job without having to necessarily have another Mia Culpa is what I really am trying to avoid. Can I? I do understand that, Carl. Can I ask Tara a question? Tara, can you refresh my memory? Didn't we pull the money from the daycare sale out of the surplus for next year with the idea that we would put forward in front of the voters to officially put that money into education fund? Yes. So if that's a plan, can we not use that money from the general fund to buy these computers right now? I'm throwing that out. That money right now is sitting as part of your general fund surplus that rolls because it's not separated out. So the 70-ish thousand, I think there's like 72. Right. Something is just sitting in the general fund. So I'm wondering, and this is for the board, your thoughts on using those funds to make this purchase since it would directly impact that education as students. You're muted, Carl. Sorry. I can see your lips, but I can't hear your words. Yeah. I mean, that would certainly, you know, at least we'd be saying it came from a non-general fund, but we have to be careful because we've also sort of, that's where the engineering study was theoretically maybe being paid from, if it wasn't being paid from those theoretical leftover merger funds that we're still sorting. So I think we've got a lot of moving targets. I really think, again, if we can try to sort this out this week and figure out a strategy to get these things bought and paid for, I agree, the teachers need them. 11-year-old computer just makes me shake my head. No, I completely understand that. I'm just trying to say, if next week is our deadline, and I think we should just say we're meeting on Tuesday and report out on what we have, so we don't let this get away from us because it seems like the days kind of all blend together. I don't know about everybody else, but the only thing that keeps me consistent is we have admin meeting Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So I know when a Monday, Wednesday, Friday. But if we don't have an answer on the CARES money and I don't have that much faith in our federal government to have an answer by then, then for any government, quite frankly, then I think we need to make a move and maybe this is a way we can make a move by Tuesday to get that purchase done. I'm curious what other board members think because ultimately it's your call. Okay, my opinion is that at our last board meeting that daycare money had all been put into the budget, which was at our last budget draft, it had been. So that was pretty heartbreaking, but I came to terms with it because it was on, we didn't want to, it was all we had to do without losing programming. I think that I would like to see the teachers to update their technology. I do think we are accelerating something we were going to do already. And I think it would be appropriate for a good portion of it to be paid with with the Dandelion Fund. Maybe we can do a little bit of both, maybe mostly pay it with the Dandelion Fund if other money doesn't come through and maybe it can partially be taken from last year's budget. So this current year's budget. My opinion is I hear you Carl and I understand your point, but I disagree. I think we, I think this is absolutely crucial right now and we need to spend the money where we need it. And this is like the roof just caved in personally to me at the elementary school and we had to spend the money to fix it. And Amy, we should have clarified in our report. We did take that money out and not roll it over in the surplus because we heard that and had the opportunity to go back and fix that when we had the whole tuition thing come up. And we never clarified that. That's why you only see that $100,000 surplus roll over. Thank you for clarifying that for this current budget that we're in front of us now. Because I will have to go on the warning, but that's a different. Yes, I understand that, yes. Sorry. Janie, you're the fourth board member. I totally, no, I totally agree. They have to get it now. There is no choice. So do we vote on this? Ray had his hand up. I don't have the power to call on him, but I see his hand up in the grid view. So I don't know. Thanks, Lindy. Sorry to interrupt. I just want to say that the dates were not in the inventory. This is not my inventory of it. I inherited it, but looking back, in terms of teacher devices, the youngest one I'm seeing is from 2014 and the oldest from 2011. So not necessarily 11 years old, but from 2011, but even the youngest at 2016 is older than it should be. 2014, excuse me. I think our administration is asking us for a vote on this. I understand. I just wanted to be clear about that because the term 11 years old was used. That's not accurate. So the question is... Is there a depreciation term on laptops for the SU, Ray? I'm sorry, Carl, what? What's the regular depreciation? What is our standard replacement cycle across the SU? Yep. So when I asked RHR about that, they said, you tell us. So laptops would be three years, desktops or other network equipment, five years, but nothing over five in terms of depreciation. So a straight line, you know, five years, generally. I guess I agree with what Ethan said. It is kind of crisis, like something major just happened like the roof just caved in and we just have to spend the money. And especially considering we are expecting a surplus. Sure. We're going into deficit funding. Now do we, what do we... Make a motion? Well, wait, wait, wait. We need to figure out where we're getting the money from. Because at the one point in time, first we were saying that I thought what Amy had thought was that Danny Lyon-Akers was rolled over into there and we could, you know, we could say, well, you know, the Rochester funds from that got thrown into the general fund and we paid for computers for Rochester from the general fund. So if it stays separate, how does it work on the warning or budget? If we say that we're going to take that money and we're going to use it and out of that money, we're going to pay for Rochester's reports and we're going to pay for the replacement. So right now you would do absolutely nothing as far as the warning is concerned because that's not a special revenue fund. But even when a special revenue fund is established, the board does not need the authority of the voters to spend the money because they've already set it up for what the reserve fund is for and it's the board's authority to spend it once the reserve fund is established. So because the Danny Lyon daycare money is just sitting in your general fund, you would just purchase the computers, you would code them under the appropriate expenditure line and it would show that you overspent your hardware by I believe $19,000 because I think there was either eight or 9,000 left in there. And the story to that when you present it to the town and you give an explanation to the town would be this is a result of our need due to COVID-19 having updated technology for our faculty and staff to use to teach our children for being the best case scenario. Now, if we get COVID money, what I would be doing, which is what I have to do all along and almost on a weekly basis, sometimes in the past two weeks, it's been three times a week, I have to submit a report of estimated additional expenditure as a result of COVID. I would include those costs in our additional expenditures due to COVID because it is a result of that that you're needing to do it now. And can we show somewhere where that Danny Lyon acres revenue ever went into our revenue stream so we can point out why it's in there? Yeah, I mean it's just sitting in your general fund. It's separate. Yeah, I mean it's not tracked in infinite visions. It is not tracked as a separate reserve fund because it's not a separate reserve fund. It is just part of that surplus that's rolling from the year of the sale, which I believe was last year. Right, because the vote never got done properly when the bank sold to make it into a Rochester fund before the merger happened. Is that correct? That's what you remember. Yes, because you as a board don't have the authority to create a reserve fund. So because it was done at a board meeting it made the motion in the process invalid because it doesn't meet the requirements in order to set up a reserve fund. You have to put it on your morning and you have to put it in front of your voters. So what you could do as an option is if you know we have 71,000 or 70,904 is the revenue for the sale proceeds. What you could do is on your warning you could request the voters to authorize you to create the general education reserve fund. The purpose of that fund would be for unbudgeted general education expenditures something along those lines whatever your intent is for this fund. And if the purchase of the computers is only 28,000 you could roll the remaining of those proceeds into that reserve fund. Now if we get enough COVID money for the ARSA district we wouldn't even have to take that revenue stream. We would just be bringing that in as COVID-19 revenue which would offset that expenditure. Okay, so we are legal and okay and we won't be upsetting people that think that Rochester put that dandelion acres money away separately because that didn't happen. That was not the advice of two business managers ago or whichever one David was. That was wrong. So the sales went properly into our general funds and they've been kind of rolling as a surplus and we could tap that down. And then you're thinking the way that you at least the advice you've heard from the business managers association or whatever is that you're filling out a report of COVID-related expenditures because this CARES money is supposed to be for COVID-related expenses and you're pretty confident that by you're putting it there it makes it pretty eligible for getting reimbursement. Yes, that's my understanding of all of the meetings that I've sat through all the legislative sessions that I've sat through including the one yesterday that I was involved in from the VSA Vermont Superintendent's Association where Secretary French indicated that the CARES money was for additional COVID expenditures. Okay, then taking your head. Did you not hear that? I heard it. I'm not taking my head for any reason other than... Oh, okay. Well, I don't think... Exercise, it's exercise. I don't think that all of the replacements should be just the dandelion money. I think that we should take a portion from the money that we have at the end of this year. Because we're going to replace them, that was the plan. We're just doing it in an accelerated fashion. Right, right. I'm just trying to come up with... To think about the narrative that gets away from more Rochester deferred maintenance because that's the sentiment. Well, we don't have a place in them anyway. We're planning on spending what? We don't have a place in them anyway, so we're tolerating and we're funding a portion of it, but not all of it because we're planning on doing it anyway. We got there in place last year and our budget paid for it. Can we move on? Yeah, I do want to... I think we're ready for a motion and say... Yeah, I make a motion that we fund the funds to buy new technology computers for Rochester teachers. Up to $28,000. As a result of emergency distance learning needs caused by the COVID-19 crisis. Excellent. Perfect, Carl. Does the wording have to be Rochester? Is that the only place we're planning on replacing? Or would there possibly be one in Stockbridge that needs to be replaced? And we don't want to put a restriction on that if it needs to be replaced. The quote is for the current need that Bonnie shared. Yeah, just to clarify, because I don't want it to get lost in the discussion, there's also 15 new Chromebooks in there for youngsters. I second the motion. The motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor of authorizing Bonnie and Lindy to spend up to $28,000 for emergency replacement of teacher and student laptops in response to the COVID-19 crisis signified by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? A motion has been made and carried. I want to thank the board for your vote of confidence in our kids and our teachers. I know this was not anticipated, but we will certainly put it to excellent good use. And thank you for your support. Oh, lastly, Ray, can you circle back and maybe get Ethan a little blurb on just what technology replacement is or whatever. So we have some text to use around the idea that we're stepping up. You know, this is how we're responding. We're stepping up our response and we're moving the equipment. Just give us an idea of what we're replacing and what error it was. So that we've, you know, we're ahead of the conversation. And could Bonnie and Lindy add that into, could they add that into their newsletter or some sort of communication to the public? Because that's another great way to get it out there to saying we're replacing. We certainly can do that. Yeah. We're putting the principal's report for the annual book. Yeah, that would be another thing to do. Right. Well, I just worry that it's, you know, the parents all see the newsletter and the parents all love the school because they see how well their kids are doing. It's, you know, it's a lot of our pushback is from people that, you know, don't necessarily have that same vested interest and are concerned because they're on fixed incomes and so on. So the next thing is distance learning and online teaching. I'm sorry to interrupt. I just need a clarification for the notes. Do you have to do a roll call on virtual? Well, would the vote carry unanimously? Okay. Thank you. That's all I needed to know. Yeah. I generally don't vote because I'm not, you know, I'm the chair, so I'm not supposed to really vote except break ties kind of thing. Sort of. I mean, big issues. I have my opinions and I make them pretty known, but I usually don't normally vote. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. So distance learning and online teaching. Ethan, I think you asked to have us put that on. Do you have any specific questions or do you just want us to update on, on where we are at this point? No, I also, you know, we've done a lot of work tonight. I think it's not as urgent for me. It was. The basic, the parent thing, you know, about that these are our frontline teachers are essentially parents now. They are not teachers. Teachers are doing their best to be mediators and communicators and instigators, but the basically parents are doing it and probably some students are doing it on their own. Correct. So I guess that was just, it was a philosophical statement that I made in my email and we wanted to talk about that. But I, I feel like we've done enough work tonight that I think you got the message. I do want to say something positive though, because we've been doing special ed and they are learning the teacher. This special ed teacher and ton bridge made a photo of a Google photo or whatever it was slide. And those kids are going through lessons. She started at lesson 15 and she's now less than 28 and she's going. And those who can get their kids, I mean, they are teaching and she, we just had a workshop with the special ed teachers. The other morning, Linda attended where they learned how to make these Google slides. And today, when they got something right, she had a picture of fireworks that were going off. The kids loved it. So there were, you know, there's a lot of that they're learning. They're going forward and I'm coaching them. I'm giving them teacher support forms. I'm, I'm watching and observing the new superintendents observe the special ed directors observed and there is learning going on. There is really learning progressing. Is it as much as it would be in the classroom? No, but it's better than anything else that is out there. I guarantee it. Especially because this book is right up there. I mean, the kids are seeing it right there. Um, so it's, we're learning. This is not maintenance. This is not chatting with the kids. I instruct them. I start and I go. And I have two third graders from Stockbridge sitting for an hour. It's a week. Even the other thing I, the other thing I want to say too, because I think it's, it's crucial. I think it's important to have a good understanding of the future. And I think that Linda and I is every day that we move through this, we learn new things. None of us, none of us signed up for this distance learning. In fact, many ways I've stopped calling it distance learning. It's more, it's more crisis learning. We were sort of all thrown into this. One of the things that I'm finding is that it goes on as it goes on further. Some parents who are doing, you know, well in the beginning, they're talking about some of the difficulties that we've had. You know, you know, some of the difficulties in students that they've had. When they talk to us, let us help, let us just chat. I've probably had half as many conversations with parents this week as I have had with youngsters and it's, it's only two days. So we are, we are acknowledging that it is not easy for parents. They didn't sign up to be teachers. They surely didn't sign up to homeschool. I've asked teachers to check in with all parents this week, sometime between yesterday and Friday, just to ask how's it going, what do you need, what can we do, how's the pacing going. And we continue to send the message that there's no, there's no one right way to do this. A family has to look at its structure, at its resources and figure out how does this work for us. And we are constantly encouraging teachers to understand that there's a different story in every child's house. And we have to adapt to that versus them adapting to us. Part of this came out of just our own personal experience of the schedule changing so significantly after vacation. And we'd gotten sort of used to the first schedule and was working and then the whole new schedule and meetings every day. And we're making it work down to the second week, but it just felt like, whoa, we were just getting used to the one thing. And also, my wife Courtney's doing a good job, a really good job of teaching. And then felt like it was sort of getting taken away from her a little bit of what she'd been handed before. And it just, I think it was just a consistency. And I know that's partially what the AOE and the SU put down of everything's got to be taught the same and so that we can replace people. But there was just a feeling, I think now they've also remembered that thing that they only have to go to one meeting per day so that they're accounted for. But yeah, it was a little bit of getting some frustration and some parents who were getting like, first grader was getting nine meetings in a day on online. That's a lot for a ninth, first grader. Ethan, I'd like to comment on my experience as soon as the continuing of education started, the day, the week before vacation, it worked much better for us that we had structure and we had expectations that were assignments that were due by the next morning at 9 a.m. And that was actually helped our schooling at home. So where it may have turned yours upside down, it actually was, it brought my and back into a better focus and better discipline. So, you know, I just wanted to. They mentioned that the attendance went up when they put that new policy in. So I think people took it more seriously. So I think, you know, it's just different experiences and that's just, I'm really glad that teachers are reaching out to parents. I think that's a really excellent goal to make some communication happen there. So parents need support, in some ways almost more than the kids do. Yeah, definitely, no question about it. I can't tell you how many parents are shared with me that they didn't sign up to home school. They don't know how to do it. They're not sure they're doing it right. They're afraid their child's gonna fall behind. And what we try and do is really dispel all of that. Good. Good. That's really all I wanted to talk about in distance learning. So fine to move on if anybody else. Yeah. Well, I think it's important that we understand that it's a partnership. And like you said, it's a partnership. Sometimes a student figuring it out for themselves or parents and teachers figuring it out together. But I will share with you, we have friends in another SU with kids who are elementary, middle school age and they meet with just one teacher per day and so like math is Monday, reading is Tuesday, social studies Wednesday, so forth and so forth. That's their only meaning of the day, but they're still expected to be doing all the work the rest of the time. So as I shared with Stockbridge teachers today, it just made me really appreciate what our communities are doing for each other. And I say communities because it's taking all hands on deck right now to make this happen. So. I agree. I just have to shout out and agree with Lindsay a wholeheartedly Bonnie. First of all, Bonnie Lindsay you're doing an incredible job reaching out to the kids each week, reaching out to the parents. I mean, they're really incredible. And I do, I said, because I contact my old districts that I was with teachers are sending assignments. That's what they're doing mostly. They're sending assignments and the kids get what they're supposed to send in and teachers have office hours so that if a kid has a question, they can call in. But our teachers are going far beyond that in really such a short time that they had to do. So really it's remarkable what we're doing. I really, we should be very grateful for the staff and the administration we have. Oh. Okay, anything else regarding distance learning online teaching? Great configuration. Okay, let me just say, I think this is where we start down one of those worlds of the unknown. We're starting to hear a number of things about possible reopening if we reopen. And one of the things we're starting to hear is that the recommendation might be groups of 10. And so we have a configuration at Rochester that was the one we were leaning toward accepting before we closed school. That configuration, if indeed the directive that comes down is groups of no larger than 10, that configuration will not work because we don't have enough classrooms. This is where we come back into the high school discussion again and I hate to bring that up. I say to Lindy sometimes, there's nothing I'd like better than to be rid of that high school building. But the reality is if we have to go to groups of 10 when we open, we don't have nine classrooms in the Rochester elementary building. So we would have to locate some youngsters in the high school. The other thing- What are some kids to Stockbridge? Yeah, I think Lindy and I sort of talked about that. I think there's only a room for a few over there. I don't think they could all, I don't think we could manage it, Ethan, in those two elementary buildings. But that's certainly something we would look at. So the reality is we don't have a configuration identified for next year because we're not sure what it's going to need to look like. Gotcha. And hopefully we can make something work. My concern is if we have to use more space in the high school, we have to heat more of the high school. We have to light more of the high school. And then suddenly our budget that's $100 per kid is blown out of the water. Right. And so I think it's really, really important that maybe we start pushing our legislature. I mean, could we make it work if it was 12 per room? Maybe. I mean, again, looking at ways that we could be trying to lobby or push back on some of these things to avoid. I mean, I. I think they will probably be offering schools or the other option that's being mentioned is that you can go, that you could go and split shifts. Some of your kids go to school from eight to 11. Your other kids go to school from 12 to three. They're really being, but again, there's been no direction from the AOE. It's too early for any of that. My only point is that we need to know what the recommendations for opening are going to be before we can land on a configuration. Okay. Right. Thank you. All right, building use request. We have a request from the Rochester Emergency Management Group. They are anticipating need for expanded health need as this pandemic moves on. They are anticipating that people will, some will not go back to work who have lost their job. Some will work through their savings. And they're looking for additional spaces to put a food shelf in. They're looking at the basement of the town offices, which they say could work. There's some pros and some cons. And then Vic and I were chit chatting about the high school and he wanted me to ask if the board would even allow him to pursue the possibility of using some room in the high school as an expanded food shelf if it were necessary. He's not asking for approval tonight. Just support from the board for him to move forward and figure out what it would take and if it would even be a possibility. Can you, Bonnie, think of any reasons why that's not a good idea? I cannot at the high school. No. Which engines would they be using? Would we be able to keep the two areas physically isolated, like put plastic over the barriers so that on one side of the building and the heat, the forced air heat doesn't move an atmosphere or air really between those two areas? I mean, that's what I was curious about. I would have to look into that, Carl. Those are the, before we can give him approval, we need to know that we could be keeping the kids, you know, virus-free from the people that are coming in and out of there because it's our, you know, I don't want us to be having them using our doors or us having to worry about people's temperatures and all those sorts of pieces. You know what, I think these people are so careful. This is a community group that is, we have an issue here of people not eating, guys. No, I understand. But I don't, I think that we obviously look at our, look at our administration, look at our leadership. We're gonna have people who are gonna make sure that our kids are safe as we are. And I think for that, let's see a point before we go forward to at least examine it. How can we refuse someone who wants to put a food shelf in our school? We did. Just let me be clear though, I'm not asking for the board's permission tonight to do anything in terms of approval. I just want permission to have him come over, look around, figure out if it possibly works. I'd like the proposal to answer those kinds of questions. Can we keep the kids isolated so that germs aren't spreading to between the two communities? Can they use separate entrances and exits? The last thing I would suggest that we could look at is that if part of the issue with using the town basement or another space where you wouldn't have the problems about public being around kids would be that if there was stuff that needed to be stored, they needed to move things out of part of the town hall or out of somewhere, what we can do without having to heat an extra part of the building or anything like that, what we can do is free up space by letting them stack old documents or whatever file cabinets or things that they have down there because we can give the town secure storage which might free up spaces for a more public-facing- That's why we have to say, Vic, go ahead and look at it. That's part of the issue. I don't think no one should not look at it. I just wanna make sure we answer these particular questions. There's many exits in the high school. There's many rooms that can be completely isolated because there's exterior exits. I think we should go ahead and let them investigate it. Absolutely. Carl, just let me answer this point because I think it is a valid one. I just wanna expand on what Amy said a bit. The rooms that we would look at would be rooms that could be shut off and that have exterior exits. So they wouldn't even be coming through the building. Now, in terms of what is the heat system gonna move around, I don't have the expertise to answer that question. I'd have to ask someone else that question. But there are parts of that building that can be completely shut off. And I would think they would probably need more than a room because if they're going to be there for any period of time, they're gonna need access to a bathroom. So we need to think about where we're going to be. This is so tedious now, guys, at 10 of nine. Vic's gonna be examined it. He'll let us know when he does his tool, his see if it's even viable for him. So all of this, let's just wait to see what he says. Absolutely. Okay, so that's number one. Let me ask number two. And again, I do not need an answer tonight. We had another request from the select board to see if the school board would allow use of the gymnasium for their vote in November. And I shared with them that I couldn't speak for the board, but that I would have personally myself, I would have some reservations about bringing six or 700 people into the gym to vote. I would far prefer if the board wants to support that initiative that they use the commons in the high school. In November. The presidential election. Oh, okay. Remember that? Well, that's not what you mean. Oh, I know that we could be a voting location. That's what you said. Yes. Oh, God. Well, again, I think, I think we're going to be in a whole new world then. And as we, you know, I don't, you know, the polling boots are gonna have to look so much different with so much extra protection and stuff. We'll find a way. I do think you need to support the democratic process. I guess what I would be hoping for is that the board might support me in my thinking that they should use the commons area in the high school versus the gymnasium, which is also is the kids cafeteria, et cetera, et cetera. Yes. And we, we are planning to at least on our schedule. We don't take, we're not taking the, that Tuesday off. Right. So the kids would be the kids would be there. Yeah. No, I would, my. Suggest would be it's in the separate building. And you know, you know, you know, I might suggest would be it's in the separate building. And you know, we tell Dune, you know, figure out how we can do it, you know, the commons along the backside or, you know, that sort of thinking and, you know, look at what the capacity recommendations may be. They may have to line up outside and where would those outside lines be towards where the park the buses and not towards the elementary school. Exactly. But again, I just could think about all the logistics and the safety and give us a proposal. Certainly support them using that building. Okay. So right now we're exploring both and we'll be back with a plan. If it works out for either one of them based on the conditions that we give them. Good. So here's one more building use in Stockbridge. There's a blood drive that typically happens in May on the 16th. The Red Cross has its own set of guidelines. They only let X number of people in. They take everybody's temperature. They follow all sorts of social distancing. I actually feel more comfortable them coming in the building than myself going in the building, quite frankly. But I just want, and then we have the custodian come in and clean after the fact. I'm O positive. So the Red Cross has always hounds me to give blood and I give blood all the time. I've done a blood drive the 18th or 15th of April. And I saw the post COVID preparations and they are, they are thorough. There is someone outside the door. You're having temperature with one of those remote probes before you even get into the building. And they're, so yeah. I mean, if they still want to, and they also, they limit, they limited the beds. They didn't have as many beds as they usually did. Right. I would support, you know, any community use. I was going to say, I hated to turn them down in a time where I know that blood drive is so important right now. And this had been scheduled over a year out. But those are the precautions we took in April or actually March, I think, before this really took off. So I just wanted to make sure everybody's okay with that. Right. Cause doctors did a blood drive but just a month or two ago. Is that correct? Right before this really got, I think like the weekend that we ended up closing school is the weekend they had a driver, maybe right after that. I can't remember which. I think it was like March 14th. Yeah. Right. And I want to say it's either that Saturday before they had a blood drive at Stockbridge and we had the custodian come in immediately after cause we thought people were going to be back on Monday or it was the weekend after. Either way, he came in right afterwards to clean all spaces that had been used. They just had one in Pierce Hall in Rochester and my cousin said it was like trying to get into a nuclear arsenal. That's how they have everything arranged. So. I don't know if that happening. Okay. Sometimes easier, fit voice call. Thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs sideways. So, I guess before we go into executive session for the purposes of the recording, the next message is, the next meeting is going to be a special meeting on May 12th, virtually at 6.30. And the next regular meeting is Tuesday, June 2nd. That will also be at 6.30 in the internet. That is our regular meeting. We are now going to go into, or I would entertain a motion to go into the executive session to discuss. One quick thing, Carol, sorry. I sent out an email earlier or last week, I can't remember when, about Encore Renewable. They wanna do a presentation. When would you like that to happen next week or your June meeting? Let's have it our June meeting. Okay, I'll let her know. Thank you. Unless anyone wants to hear a presentation sooner. Not a special meeting, we've got plenty to do. Exactly, I figured. But I didn't wanna just make a decision for everyone. All right, so we're going into executive session. Thank you, everybody.