 The Unified District Board of School Directors regular meeting Tuesday, December 1, 2020. And it's a little after it's, as I say, 633. We need someone, if Jenny's not here, we need someone to take our notes. Somebody else be willing to take that on for us, please. And I realized we talked about this a long time ago by finding some other people to do it for her. He said, I will do it. Oh, Megan, thank you very much. Much appreciated. All right, any adjustments to the agenda? And this is Bonnie, I'm gonna ask that we remove under discussion 7.6, the plowing bid. Okay. We received a late bid. I haven't had a chance to connect with the contractor and there's a couple of questions I have before I'm ready to make a recommendation. So we can move that to the January agenda. That would be great. Move to January. Thank you. You're welcome. Ethan, I think the plan was to move 7.3 down. Yes, thank you. 7.3, we'll move that down to, now that'll be our new 7.6. Well, yeah, let's put 7.3 after 7.5. Is that, do you remember them usually? Yeah, just 7.6. So policy 7.1, budget 7.2, project manager is now 7.3, our set articles agreement review committee is 7.4 and sale of high school building is 7.5. All righty. Good, Amy not being here. I will endeavor to keep us on schedule. Oh, what did I do with my phone? Well, I guess I'll have to use it on here. Okay. Consent agenda, I'd say especially to the small group, let's keep that to five, board comment, five, unless I don't know if Carl Megan, you have an extensive, or Justine, reports to board. We had that at 10, I'm gonna give it 15 just cause we have a couple of questions we wanna get. And then discussion items we're gonna try and do all of that and hopefully vote on it and get that done in an hour. That would be reasonable. And then we have public comment, we'll leave 20 minutes to 30 minutes for that and then our executive sessions. So let's shoot for a two and a half hour instead of three hour and see how well we do. Ethan, I could volunteer to be timekeeper if that would help and then you won't have to do two things. Thank you, I'd appreciate that Bonnie. Thank you. So we have five minutes here for the consent agenda. Yes. Do we have any comments? We have approved minutes Tuesday, October 6th, 2020 approved minutes Monday, October 19th, 2020. We just got them from Jenny, she apologized for that. The approved minutes, I think it was the November 23rd special. Do we have any changes or any changes to these minutes? Or can we have a motion to accept them as they are? I'm at the slate. Yes, as the slate approved minutes of October 6th, October 19th, November 9th and November 23rd. So moved. Carl and Megan or Justine? I moved to approve the minutes. Sorry, is that Justine? Okay. Thank you. Yeah, if you can just name, because Megan's not our usual, just it'll help her if you say. Second on that, move the slate. Carl, seconds. Thank you, Carl. Appreciate that. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you, Megan. Good. You guys have it moving on. Board comment. I just have a couple of things. First thing I just wanna say is a really good job, everybody. It just suddenly hit me today as I was talking to Bonnie and Jamie. Very few places in the country have gone back to five days in-person education. And we have not only done it, we've done it with knock on wood, good health and very real support from the parents, which I think is the real unusual item in that. And I just, I hope there's some parents listening who can spread that word that we really appreciate people going along with it and trusting our administrators and our superintendent and I just think we've done a great job. And I'm just so proud. And I talked to a family, a mother of a child and she, a very close family, almost always, always has Thanksgiving together. And because she said no, she said no this year because she sees the difference in her child going to school. She sees the difference in what it's making for him. And I just, you know, people are making some sacrifices, really appreciate it. Again, to our teachers, much appreciated. I just want to put it on the record. I was at the Select Board, the Stockbridge Select Board meeting, last Select Board meeting. And there is a petition being circulated. It may have already been submitted to start the process to unmerge. And just so that people know that, I was hoping it wouldn't necessarily have to come to this. This is my personal opinion that we could handle these issues through the school board. But I think this is an important process. I was impressed by the seriousness of the response by the Select Board and some of the other people there. The hard questions are being asked already. And I hope that will continue to be asked. Please, whatever process in that process, whatever help or whatever information we can provide, please do not hesitate to ask. Good. Any other board comment? Justine? No. Megan? No, just to thank you, Ethan, I think you said perfectly about our teachers and staff and Jamie, our superintendent, just thank you to everybody and parents. Good. That's it. The petition. Oh, sorry, Megan. I said the petition is not, I guess not shocking, but unfortunate. Carl, any comment? No, I'm good. Thank you, Ethan. Thank you. All right, moving on to reports of the board, starting with the superintendent. We received that earlier. So everyone has my report in hand. There's, I felt like last week was hijacked in regards to us responding in regards to new orders from COVID. I want to put a shout out to the community for their support as well. Principal teachers, administrators have done a fantastic job. Central office staff, Shane Oaks, our WRVSU COVID coordinator who took that on in addition to his other role at Rudd, has done a terrific job. And the one thing I can't emphasize enough, I think that one of the really, the positives that have come from this throughout the SU is I think it has really sped up our ability to work together and become more interdependent. And, you know, I'm really proud of that. And so, you know, the way that the, again, I don't know if everyone realizes that the principals meet Thursday mornings voluntarily, without any central office admin involved unless they invite me once in a while or I just drop in. There's some term for that. I know it's good when you just pop in, but I have a good time with them. They're doing great work. They run scenarios by each other. I'm just, I'm really, I feel good about in the face of COVID and all the other challenges we have in front of us right now, that the product that we're providing for students is really high quality, like you said, Ethan. And I'm just proud of that. And I think the ability that we've been able to do to stay open as a testament to everyone's dedication to student learning and how it works for students. So there's a lot of work to do. And I talked about a lot of that work throughout my report and I'll entertain any questions folks have. I had no questions. Justine, have you any questions? No questions. I really enjoyed reading it. I think it's really thorough and it just shows that there's a lot ahead. So I don't have any questions right now about what's going on. I did have, sorry, let me go through. Megan, any questions? I'm okay, thank you. Good, Carl. Any questions for Jamie? Yeah. Hi, Jamie. I wanted to, when you talk about the universal report card, I don't remember where I saw a comment about that. I remember if it was in, was it in your, was that in your- Yeah, on our first agency, we're piloting an elementary report card through the Virtual Learning Academy because all of our students are under the umbrella of the WRVSU VLA. So it made sense to pilot something in that regard there. Okay, my comment is as someone that in my other life works for a place that has done a bunch of proficiency-based assessment, the one thing I would add that really being, thinking very, very clearly about how we communicate and explain to families how to read this report card, how to interpret it, what that means, that was a really hard, and certainly I think a high school report card is a different beast than an elementary skill assessment report, but still I think really, really putting some time and effort into thinking about how we're going to explain to our families and with my camera off, I don't understand why I'm trying to talk with my hands, but I do think it's really, in our experience, we did not spend enough effort being ready to hold parents' hands through understanding a personalized learning pathway is and what a proficiency-based, a skills-based assessment kind of looks like. So just a comment. I appreciate that, Carl, yeah. I agree, and Lindy, in the principal's report, Lindy, maybe you can give an update on the steps you and Amy Toth have taken to communicate and what you have planned, but Carl, the other thing to note is that the Rudd High School, we don't plan to actually change how we report out on core academic proficiency. At this time, we're gonna add some transferable skills. I know that some folks in Rochester and Stockbridge do have students in Rudd High School, so I just wanted to mention that, but we don't plan on adjusting the report card there. We're gonna focus on the elementary reporting mechanisms at this point to be more standard-based. Excellent. I think I'm gonna kiss the reporting document. It's gonna make it easier for not just RSUD kids, but for sharing kids and strafford kids as they are coming in with a consistent document for evaluation either at Rudd or at Woodstock or wherever they may wanna go. Yeah, no, I agree. Thank you. Ethan, you're muted. Don't mute the chairman, we get nowhere. There have been some questions about tuition and that we seem to be, that the tuition students coming in to the Rochester campus seem to be charging not enough for them by some people's vision and that somehow we're losing money on those tuition students. And I wonder if you and if necessary, the administrators also step in on this. I didn't know the answer and I'd like to have a good answer for that. No, thanks, Ethan. So I can speak to the students that are currently coming. I know there's some questions about transportation of those students. Right now we're utilizing one bus to service our students in Rochester and that bus is also transporting our tuition students just cause bus riderships down. So we've been able to do that with one bus. So we are down a bus right now in Rochester. So we don't run a special bus for the tuition students. I met with the principals and talked about if we eliminated tuition students, would we always be able to stay with one bus and not two? And that very well may be the outcome that we could find. It makes the ride a little bit longer geographically but we're doing it right now with one bus. But we're doing this now with COVID capacity. Got you. And we're still doing it with one bus. So across the SU I've talked to our transportation company, Tara and I have several times and said, we need to re-analyze ridership in general because I think at times we were probably having more buses than we needed, not just in our side but just across the SU. Cause we've been able to do it, you know, ridership decrease but also the capacity decreased on buses and we've been able to eliminate some buses across the SU this year. So that was a question there. In general, there's been some questions about the tuition students and what the added costs are, you know, through analyzing staffing levels in the way that your grade clusters work. We really don't bring, we don't have any added staff per se to bring on tuition students. Now, if you removed all the tuition students, could we possibly reduce some FPE and a teaching position at Rochester campus? Potentially, but I think what Bonnie would talk to you about is that based on the different cohort sizes, we would have teachers juggling their teaching assignments throughout year to year. And something that certainly I think that as you look at, you know, research around elementary ed, the more focus we can get teachers on at least a three grade level span, the better, because then they really know the content. Specifically, you guys are gonna get sick of hearing me say this all the time in mathematics. And Bonnie's the math expert, but there's a real linear way to teaching mathematics. And, you know, you can teach reading through two because you're teaching foundational skills and we can train them up in that. To be strong in literacy and in math, having some predictability around that I know I'm teaching multiplicative reasoning in subtraction and that's what I'm really good at. I'm thinking grades two, three, right, Bonnie? I got that right. Subtraction and multiplicative reasoning. I picked on Bonnie about my math understanding levels of knowing. I think that that's important. And so it's not like we brought on an additional teacher is what I'm saying for our students that we have come in. Now, as far as the formula you use for how we came up with tuition, I'm gonna turn it over to Teresh. She can talk to you about the formula used. And I do believe what was recommended and what the board approved last year for tuition was off of that. And Ter, do you wanna jump in on that? Sure will. Hi, everyone. So by statute, the board is required to announce, set an announced tuition rate every January. And the formula that we use for that because most often you don't have an approved budget in January is the projected budget increase. And then we offset any revenue that you obtain locally. We offset the transportation. And then we offset, when I say offset, we subtract out the special education assessment from the projected budget. And then we divide that by your equalized pupil number. And for an example, for the FY21 tuition rate, that came out to be $16,553. The board at their meeting in January voted to, rather than going with the recommendation of the 16553, they just did a 3% increase on the prior year's announced tuition rate, which set your tuition at that 16444, which is what we charge to any students that you are receiving from outside of Rochester and Stockbridge's footprint. Is it an accurate statement that currently, and if you say that we didn't get the right tuition rate, and is it just an impossible thing to know that we are losing money by bringing these students in? No, I mean, no, I mean, I don't know how you would because you didn't add additional staff and we didn't add additional expenses. So, I mean, really, I mean, even if we said that we had one extra teacher, let's just say that, right? You figure a teacher with salary and benefits is around 80,000. And you're bringing in revenue of, what is it, Tara? 300 and... For the current fiscal year, it's $361,768, which offsets, that's a local revenue that offsets what you have to collect in taxes. I think Carl has a question. I also think, Ethan, that it may be kind of an apples and oranges comparison because it may well be that they're saying, well, it looks like they're only collecting this $16,000 some dollars, but it looks like our average cost per student is, you know, 18 something. So, we must be losing money and what that doesn't take into account is that a good portion of our budget is not for educating our own kiddos or a Granville Hancock or Pittsfield kiddo. That includes the cost of our special education assessment, our SU assessment. That includes the cost of all of our secondary students. So, it's not, you know, they're not really two, you know, a two comparable figures in that sense, even though it looks like when you just glance at it on paper right quick, it looks like we charge out our taxpayers more than we're collecting for a kid that we're bringing in. Great, thank you. That sounds very clear to me. Good, I'm satisfied. Shall we go on? Any further questions for the superintendent? They're being done. Oh, yeah. I'm gonna give you time, Jack. We have a minute left for this section. Okay, good, thank you. Principles. So, you got our report, Christie emailed out. I think the only update, well, I can speak to virtual, I can speak to the proficiency report cards that Karl asked earlier, but also I just wanna welcome, we have two new families who moved into Stockbridge since we last met. So welcome to those families. And then we had some kiddos return from virtual learning. So it's amazing how some things shift in a couple of weeks time. So that's exciting. And while you're kind of scrolling through that, just in terms of the proficiency based report cards, Amy Toth and I have been working with those teachers that are teaching in the virtual learning academy on the proficiencies that were previously selected and prior in services as like the 10 months that kids must master before moving forward. So we really focused in on literacy and mathematics for the time being to really ensure that those were well done. Plus, because we found that teachers, just like parents, also need some support and making sure that they're providing evidence and seeing that. And one of the things that I think we all experienced in the spring is you know how to do it in a classroom as a teacher, you know how to figure out how to assess that skill with a student in a classroom face to face, virtually can be a little bit different. So they're trying to overcome that at the same cost, but I, Carl, it's a great reminder. That are trying to overcome that. The teachers are trying to overcome that. Yeah, because they're teaching themselves, we're learning together how you would, okay, I know I would do it this way in the classroom, I know I would have a kid build this type of mathematics equation in the classroom and show me the different ways they know that. To do that on a screen is very different with our first grader than it is in person. So those are the types of conversations that we've been working on with teachers, but Carl is a good reminder, we really need to work with our parents too. Cause for some parents, it'll be a very different report card. And we tried to make the language as parent friendly as possible, while still making sure that you could figure out that it connects back to a standard. So. Is it posted somewhere on the report card? If questions, definitely call your administrator, your principal. It can be. And the only reason I say that is cause they're literally working on entering grades right now. So the report card itself hasn't been like printed. That's what I'm saying. This might be a good time to put in big bold letters up there. If you have questions, this is new, please call, you know. Yes. And there is a letter that goes, that coincides with it. This looks different. We understand that. Here's what the differences are. Here's how to help explain that. Good. Thank you. My sense is too, we'll probably have another one of our virtual meetings for the VLA families once it goes out to walk them through it around questions. Great. Good. Questions for our principals. Justine. No, thank you. Megan. Just want to say thank you. You guys are doing amazing. Carl. I do have a question. I really like that you're working with local resources in one planet for the winter wellness and getting that up and going. And I think, you know, as visible as we can make that program to our families, that's important, but I also want to make sure we're looking at ways that we can, you know, I know we're trying to keep some pods and some distances, but are there ways that we can incorporate our VLA kids or make an offering to them to get, are they going to have an opportunity to participate in some way in some of this? Whether it's, you know, go make your own kind of a snowshoe trail around your backyard and take selfies in it or, you know, some kind of, you know, they're going to come in on a day by themselves and have some instruction and, you know, whatever activities. I honestly hadn't gotten that far in my brain, Carl, for offering it to that, but those are good creative ideas that I think some of those families might feel safe with. So something, food for thought. We're definitely trying to include them as much as possible in our school communities too, but yeah, that's a good point. Excellent. All right. I think we move on to the business manager reports. Thank you, Ethan. You all have my report. It was sent out previously. I'll answer any questions that you may have, but I also just wanted to mention I had spoken about the number just a minute ago. We have completed the tuition billing for the current semester and based on what was budgeted, we had budgeted for 30 kiddos coming in on tuition and we ended up with 22. So we will have a short follow if we don't pick up additional kids in the revenue tuition line of $131,552. Sorry, that number again, please. 131-552. We're receiving 361-768 and we budgeted for 493-320. And just so the board's aware, I mean, I sat down with the business manager and principals to review that and the reason why is I really don't like when we have shortfalls in revenue because I can't make things, right? We can't make trinkets. Here's when we say this before, I can't sell items to bring in additional revenues. And so we have to try to do that by cutting expenses. Now, like I just said, we're down a bus, that's good. And we've essentially had a spending freeze on the entire year to ensure that we ended up in strong footing this year and didn't have any overruns. That's the goal across the SU, but it really came down to some folks that we would have expected to be here chose to homeschool. And that didn't hurt our ADM, but when it's tuition students, that hurts because there's no hold harmless to that. That is we lost the revenue. Home, homeschool, not virtual. Right. Correct, okay. Homeschool, not virtual. And there was some talk about how the state was going to handle numbers. And I thought- They did do that. They grandfathered us in. So our average daily membership is not gonna take a hit this year for homeschool. And that's what I was trying to say. So like, if a Rochester family chose to homeschool, our average daily membership can't drop below what it was for this current budget cycle. So it won't drop below what we're currently using, but when we lose someone that's a tuition student that chose to homeschool, we lost that revenue. And so when the budget was created, if folks didn't choose to homeschool, we'd be right about where we expected to be. The homeschool, you know, curb ball is what hurt us with that. Okay. So that's something we're gonna have to talk about. Is that just, Tara, is that included in the budget talk when we get to the budget? This deficit, I take it that this is- We are only talking tonight, Ethan, about expenditures. We're not even addressing the revenue side of your FY22 budget. And I wouldn't say that it's a deficit at this point in time. As Jamie just expressed, you know, we are working with the administration to make sure that we're spending below what we budgeted for so that we don't end up in a deficit. It's just something I needed to bring to your attention now so that you're aware of it. And just know that we're monitoring the expenditure side of the current FY21 budget cycle to make sure we can offset any portion of that tuition revenue shortfall that we can. Great. Thank you. That's very clear. I appreciate that. Ethan, there's one other piece that could impact us in a positive direction is that a couple of more, a couple of additional seniors were accepted into the VAS program, which is an early college admittance program. And we pay no tuition for those young men and women. So I think on the positive side, we will see, we'll see a little, we'll pick up a little bit there. Gotcha. So it is a trading back and forth until we get to the final, you know, whatever the financial end is. And then we have the accounting. Okay, very good. Tara, I had a question for you. And I think Jamie passed this on to you. A number, I don't remember if we ever had this number put out publicly. If so, I would just like to put it out again. The cost of the engineering study and where that money came from. For the study, Ethan was $28,484.48. And that was paid for through your general fund. So it wasn't from, which of course included, Amy would be here and probably say this right now, included, what did we say, 70,000 from the, not 70,000, but about 40,000 leftover from dandelion daycare sale. Yes, that is sale of assets as part of your general fund last year. Gotcha. Just so we, so it could be said, it's not tit for tat exactly how that got paid for, but that money was rolled into the general fund. Correct. It was there and could be considered that that paid for it. It wasn't specifically allocated. The revenue for the sale of the fixed asset went into your general fund just as the expenditure for the engineering study was paid for from your general fund. Good. But yes, it was revenue that was brought in in the fiscal year and an expense that was paid in the fiscal year. That's what I want on the record. Thank you. You're welcome. Good. All right. Any questions for a business manager, Justine? No, thank you. Megan. I'm okay. Thank you. Good. Carl. I'm good. Good. Thank you. Thank you very much to our superintendent, principals and business managers. So policies, we've seven one into discussion items seven one. Those are the few of us were on the full board meeting. I believe Megan was Megan. We were there and I know we were there. We've gone over this. And of course, Carl, you're on the policies commission committee. I don't have any further questions about these. I feel like we might be ready to just move the slate and approve them. Does anybody have questions or further comments before that happens? Justine. No questions or comments. I feel ready as well. Good. Megan. I am good. I feel ready to move them as a slate. Great. Carl. I'm good as well. As a matter of fact, I'll make a motion that we approve the seven policies as a slate. All right. Do we need to mention them to be? Sure. I've moved that. 824. 824 board and superintendent relationship. B22 complaints about personnel instructional materials. B34 records retention. D1 proficiency based graduation requirements. F28 disposition of assets. F29 investments and F30 budgeting. Great. So moved. Somebody second please. I'll second. Justine seconds. Any further discussion? And there being none. I'll call the roll. Justine. I or nay to accept this. Good. Megan. I or nay to accept the slate. I. Carl. I or nay to accept this slate. I. And Ethan says I. I pass unanimously. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Well, good work. I feel like I talked about those a lot. My first sort of real policy bunch. So good work. And thank you, Carl. All right. You're on the car policy committee. Correct. I appreciate your work for that. I am. And you're welcome. I between that and the negotiations committee, they often seem to butt up against each other. But hopefully I served them both reasonably well. Good. Thank you. All right. And then we'll move on to 21 22 budget. Third draft for discussion only. Where is this? Let me get. Oh. Sorry. I emailed this to you all earlier this afternoon. This is. What you're familiar with seeing versus what you have been seeing when we were breaking it down by support staff and regular. Instruction. Yeah. Yeah. So on this draft, the key things to point out are. We haven't done anything with the building and maintenance operation side of the budget. There hasn't been anything done with the SU assessment other than transportation. I updated it per your FY 22 contract with, with Butler. And there hasn't been. Any announced tuition rates set yet. So what the principals and I worked through was updating the students. That are currently tuition students to what they'll be in for grade next year. And then removing the seniors and bringing on the sixth graders. And we did that based on current enrollment where they're at and then projected enrollment that Bonnie and Lindy have spoke to the children and families about where they think they're going to go next year. And we use the FY 21. Tuition announced tuition rates for that purpose at this point. So that will also need to be updated. Once the announced tuition rates are released later in the, in January. I feel that other. Sorry. Other things that are in there is, you know, the supply items have been updated as go. And we're really trying to focus some of our spending next year on. Mathematic instructional materials. It's, we've spent the past couple of years really focused on instructional materials. And now there's huge. Holes for lack of a better term on what we need to focus on. To help make sure that kids and teachers have the materials they need to support the curriculum that we're pushing to make sure every student is proficient in mathematics. So that's definitely why you see a little bit of a jump in supplies in that general elementary line item. That would support the direction we're looking to go with that work. Other things that are not in there that you're probably used to seeing are things like. Winner on this with the future being unknown. With COVID and what travel is going to be like. We're really thinking that this is probably going to be a local thing. And we've worked with some local community members to really start to utilize, you know, the resources available within the Rochester Stock Ridge area. As well as the ice skating rink and snowshoeing. We have all of those things. So starting to shift our thinking a little bit around that. As well as. Those big field trips, like to key weight in or Boston, we just don't feel comfortable budgeting for or thinking about, because who knows where we're going to be. So really thinking about keeping things like that. And that's what I think is a really good piece of the agenda. We're really going to be able to focus on local as possible and exposing kids to things within our own communities. I feel a little of the loss, having two of our big number of people, Amy and Jenny, not on tonight. But I know Carl, you're often got a good eye. The other big change for the boards to know is that, 100% exposure on the HRA. So that's a bump there as well. And we fully budgeted for anticipated, well, increases. We're still waiting on a mass, the master agreement to be ratified officially tomorrow at G HUD. But that was that had been ratified by all the local boards and SU board prior last week. So that those increases are budgeted for as well as anticipated health insurance. And we budget the full percent of exposure on HRAs. And I also worked really hard with my team to make sure that we had appropriate budgeting for all the ancillary benefits, which are their life, long term disability, the dental insurance. We also made sure that those numbers were updated and where they needed to be as well as workers compensation and unemployment. So you may see some shifts there, as well as the retirement for the employer's contribution. The rate for FY 22 is 4.75% is what the employer is responsible to contribute. So that's also in there. And you'll see that there there's new lines that have been added where things may not have been budgeted for because I really wanted to make sure that within each function code, we had the appropriate benefits identified. So you may see in the past that there was zero dollars there and there's a budget line for it this year. And that's really to make sure that the functions have each of the benefits where they need to be. Two questions. One, I know I remember the conversation last year, when we came up with budgeting for 60, 64% HRA, I think that was what it was last year, correct? 65. 65. What is the thing and I and I remember you, Tara, being part of that conversation and that we all felt pretty good about 65. What's the thinking with 100? I mean, has there been some change in the way people are taking, excuse me, taking their payments that we 65? Yes. I mean, with the state negotiated agreement, their employee is no longer responsible to contribute towards their deductible. It's the HRA that pays for that. So it becomes first dollar by the employer. But also utilization is up in comparison to where it was that 65% number came in from a recommendation as a minimum contribution or minimum budgeting tool. I did have some districts that chose to go lower than that because of their individual budget constraints. But I don't know if some of you may recall that conversation, it is recommended that you do budget that exposure in full because you can never anticipate what your employees health needs are going to be. But that 65% gave you a good starting point. I absolutely am in full support of this 100% contribution. Just because I do see the utilization, I do see, you know, when employees are out and having procedures, I know a lot of stuff was delayed because of COVID. A lot of procedures, a lot of maintenance was delayed for employees. So also anticipating that by people putting off their preventative care that needed to be done during the time of COVID that there could be an increase in claims moving forward. How have how have we done to date? Is it any way to tell at this point how we've done to date with our 65% versus 100%? I don't have it broken down 100% for our set at this point. I can tell you utilization if all claims submitted are paid is at 56.69 through November. So that's 56.69% through November. Yeah, and claims are usually two to three months behind in submissions. So I do anticipate to see an increase in that number. Okay. So those people who only did it 50% might be struggling right now. It could be. Yeah. And we don't know whether we gambled well or not yet. Yeah, I don't right now. Based on we just haven't got enough bills yet from Datapath to give you a valid number as to where we're at. But I can definitely look it up, Ethan, when I haven't sent your expenditure report yet for the month, I can sum that up and put it in my email to you to let you know where our set stands currently. I do remember that it is, it is one of the few places we have wiggle room sometimes when it gets to final budgeting. And so that that's, that's, you know, having the backup detail of how six, you know, how did it come out last year? Did we win? Did we lose in the gamble? I mean, there's so many things we gamble on in our budget and this estimate. Good. The second thing I'm curious about is, you said that we would, the tuition rate gets set in January and yet we're expecting to meet early, obviously the first Tuesday in January to vote on this budget. Shouldn't we know the tuition rate before we vote on the budget? You guys actually can hold off until February, Ethan. We can. Yeah, well, because you're February, I'd like you to approve. You could even hold back as far as March. But because of because of when you guys are in May, the rest of my boards, we get to have as a, you know, we're going to have to talk next month as well about Australian ballot again. But for my other boards, I got to have that done, but no later than the end of January. So they will be, they will be setting budgets without knowing the tuition rate. Is that true? Because it's set in later January? Yeah, Ethan, I'll be coming to you on your first meeting in January with my recommendations for what you set your announced tuition rate on. Okay. I know last year we had done it as a wagon wheel meeting similar to what we did last week after an SU meeting so we could all set them together. But you will know yours as with the other schools know theirs. And as we get closer to budgeting, I can project what my announced tuition rate is as we get closer to the final budget number at any point. It's just a matter of the board has to accept it in January per statute. Okay. And we're all gonna we're always gonna lean moving forward. I'm gonna recommend that we budget for what we the worst case scenario in these areas, because if we missed it, it's hard to make up for it. Yep. And I just I you know, I really am committed to we don't get into our ourselves in places. Like we have in other places across the SU where we run into the red based on that those gambles. Justine, do you have a question? Yeah, I have piggybacks a little bit on what Jamie said. I was looking at the the projected budget for cleaning services. And I noticed that it's the projection is cut significantly from the previous budget. And I wanted to know Tara, if you could explain a little bit about that projection. I remember in the last meeting, we spoke a little bit about of a new position, potentially coming on to look through the high school building. And it was expressed that the cleaning crew was very busy due to COVID and kind of to busy to the math. So I question the projected budget for that. And I just wanted to speak on that. And maybe we end up having to do a lot more cleaning than is projected. We haven't done anything with the building and maintenance portion of the budget. That was one of the things that I noted in the beginning. So we haven't even gotten to that section of the budget yet. That's why it's status quo as to what was there last year. That's what we'll be working on and presenting to you in your January meeting. Okay, I guess I misunderstand that. Thank you. Good point. Megan, do you have some questions for about the budget? I'm good. I'm good. I'm trying to do the notes. So I'm listening and taking it all in, but I don't have any questions off the top of my head. Okay, good. Carl? Yeah, a couple things. First of all, it looks like what used to be a monolithic like central office assessment is now out into SU Assistant Tech, Tech admin, you know, 2590, 2580 granted men, 2510 fiscal services. So what I used to look for as a central as a central office SU assessment is now kind of been been sugared into what it's actually being spent on in my budget. Yes, you assessment, Carl. Yeah, that's been broken up between function codes for a couple of years now. Okay. The next question is around the tech portion of the budget. We went from 50 to 56 down to 40. I know some of that is because I'm no longer paying health insurance or anything for someone that just works in my building. I'm paying that as part of my SU assessment now as technology, but that doesn't seem to be all of that. Is that because we were able to get some equipment replaced using CARES funds or were caught up on what had been catch-up spending or something like that? And now we're looking at a figure that's much more balanced for ongoing. Can you explain that or is that not something that we haven't really touched yet either? We have not addressed the new assessment for technology by moving the individual employees to SU employees rather than budgeting for your tech support service person. Locally, that will be in the SU budget, so you will see an adjustment when we make the SU assessment and we finalize the SU budget. And then as Ray is on, so if he wants to speak, please if you feel free to do so, Ray, but what we based on the majority of this budget, we moved a lot of what your central office billbacks are for your software. Those have been moved to technology supplies and we were able to get a lot of replacement computers for our SU through the CRF funds. And Ray, do you want to add anything more to that? Not really. I had sent a proposal to the principals over the weekend and they worked with that. And Tara yesterday, was it today? Sorry. A little bit of both. So what Tara mentioned about moving where that employee is budgeted for, Ray explains part of that. There is some money, some there's a reduction based on no anticipation of needing hardware at Rochester for employees for next year because that was pre-bought basically at the end of last year. Excellent. And then this should have a much better, much more accurate budget for what is actually spent in terms of services which come under the supplies line because they're under $5,000 capital threshold. Carl, further questions? That does it for me. Okay. As I say, I'm sorry we don't have Jenny and Amy's input on this. We will be seeing this again. What do you expect different? Obviously will we have building by January? Will we have? Yes, so next we will be doing the building and maintenance section and we should have the SU budget final, almost finalized if not finalized by your January board meeting. Jamie, would you agree with that? Just out of curiosity. Oh, sorry, Jamie, I cut you off. You were about to say something. Yeah, I mean, yeah, the goal would be based on our proposed budget timeline that we're going to try to see whether or not we can get an approved budget for the SU in December. So you guys have real assessments to work off of. Great. I remember last year it was just a litany of what the state had missed as far as numbers. It was just incredible. Every meeting it was another thing and it just kept getting past that in the audit, of course, too. But how are we doing with that? The state continues to be delayed. They haven't released the allowable tuition rates for FY 19 yet or FY 20 yet. So that delays are announced versus allowable comparisons, which districts can be built back additional tuition for where you send kids to. Today is December 1st. We were supposed to have the yield and several other numbers from the tax department so that we could start building your tax rates. We don't have any of that yet. The ADM reports that have been released had errors in them. So December 1st is supposed to be when we get our initial ADM and then the final ADM is supposed to be December 15th. So we'll see if they can meet that December 15th timeframe. As you may recall, my very first year here, so two budgets ago, so when we established the FY 20 budget, we didn't have your finalized equalized pupil number until May. And then last year, we didn't have your final equalized pupil number until February. So that ultimately impacts what you end up paying for a tax rate and impacts what your per pupil spending is. So when the state delays is delayed on getting that information to us, it has a direct impact on your budgeting cycle. Well, it makes all of this a bit more of a gamble than I think any of us would like because we're just sort of working with what we got. Even if I can just chime in, everything that Kara just said supports the fact that we are more fortunate than a number of districts in that our budget can be delayed. I forgot, Jamie, what did you say until February? Because even though you want your administrators working on the expense side of the budget and having that all justified and wrapped up, the longer you can delay, the more these numbers will start coming in. And then the more accurate your projections around tax rates, etc., will be. So it's a benefit that we go later than earlier. Question. Last question for me, I think. What is the lie, and this is just a guess on your part, obviously we're still dealing with a significant deficit at the Department of Ed. I mean, it's sort of been portrayed as a sword hanging out or something dangling over our head that could fall at any moment and significantly chop budgets across the state. Is that true? And do we have any, are we making any projections on that just so we're on top of that? Of what that could affect in our own budget? That's a real moving target right now. I mean, Terry, you can jump in. I'm not getting anything right now coming out of the VSA in regards to having any predictions of what they may do to curb reductions in revenues in the Ed fund. Now, I think there's also, one of the things that they're probably waiting to figure out too is would there ever be another federal legislation that take action that poured money back into the states to help with reduction in revenues based on things like sales and things of that nature and whether they would prop the Ed fund up with any of those resources or not is yet to be determined when they come back into, you know, what we got to keep our eye on is when they come back in session, that's going to be telling and following what they're talking about at that point. Things are pretty quiet right now because they're not in session. Is it worthwhile to even think about that in terms of what the percentage would be for the RSU and even for our district? Well, I mean, I can say that I've, what I've tried to say to administrators Ethan is and I've said to some boards is I believe based on the financial times and anticipating that something's going to happen in regards to just being handed increased tax rate just due to the shortfall in the Ed fund, that what we can control is our local spending and I've been saying to folks the goal for us is to keep it at no more than two percent and I've said that to boards and asked them you know what their thoughts are on that so we're clearly above that right now and so I was going to ask you guys before we move on to the next thing how you're feeling about that and you know I feel like just how folks are doing that you know we got it we what we can control is our spending and so you know that's sort of been our target across the SU is that we're trying to keep that at no more than two percent if could is it is it too early I know you know we send you back and and later in the process we send you back and say okay cut it down can we see what a what is it we're at three and three point four three can we see what happens if we go to two in our next presentation I mean you know obviously reduction in force all those kinds of things come into play when you're talking about that larger percentage but I think we I don't think we can dodge that bullet I think we have to be looking at it and I think it's better if it's the administrators doing it with some forethought rather than us just saying nope gotta do that so I would I don't know what the rest of the board feels about this but I feel pretty strongly that we need to see what a two percent budget looks like Carl, Megan, Justin? I agree I agree with that I think that you know it's yeah we haven't talked about about revenues yet but we know that we you know we will we will have over 10 in personnel cost and we've lost 16 years worth of tuition income so you know yeah I think looking at you know taking a preemptive strike at a two percent target is a worthwhile exercise because I worry that we're going to be scrambling to get under the cap and to you know have an affordable budget if we're not really starting to think about some of the hard choices now. Justine? I agree completely with Carl I think the hard choices are kind of always looming and I think that I think it's important to adjust frugally and be able to look and see the range so we're educated and the community is also educated in that. Megan? I'm gonna have to I'm gonna agree I think we should definitely look at maybe reducing a little bit especially given that our tuition students didn't bring in you know as much revenue as we are anticipating. So then I think we we we want to we want to see a two percent budget. We also would like to see options so it's it's not just okay this goes or this goes you know give us give us some give us some options for that. You know and and don't spare us don't don't you know if it's if it's reduction in force we got to hear that the community needs to hear that. We don't want to be we don't want to be pushing this off so we're at the eighth hour in March saying come back tomorrow at a special meeting God how many special meetings did we have last year? Holy smoke you know let's let's see if we can do this at least in our regular meetings if not a few more. Good is that clear? Yeah no I appreciate I've been looking for that direction from board so that makes it very helpful and we'll come back with some different scenarios for you and what that would for the bottom line. So thank you for and bullet points help because sometimes looking at the whole numbers every time I can't program in my visual head that something's changed there so a bullet of what's new and what's different and here are the options of what we can spend it on this or this. That's that would be very useful for me thank you. Good I think we've done it. Good work let's go move on to seven three sale of the high school building. Oh gosh my brain just went dead. Jamie what how do we see? I think we moved that to the end right? Yeah sorry we're at very right. Object me. Manager for the sale of the high school building. Great I would like to introduce Cricket are you on and if possible able to speak or be seen? Yep I'm right here and my microphone's on and it looks like my videos on too. Yeah somehow we're not seeing you but that's okay as long as you're present. So this came out of a discussion that we were getting into some technical things in this high school project especially with surveys, wastewater permits, test pits. I was feeling a little overwhelmed with all the detail and I had a conversation with Cricket about helping, helping be an intermediary as she was in the engineering report and the building committee to basically help us help us understand and sort of keep an eye on things. Now originally obviously it says project manager of the sale of the high school building. Since then we've realized that's that's probably a little ambitious. She is offering to donate her time to to what what time she has to sort of help us look over this. So what I'm seeking for tonight from the board is approval to sort of let her on board, let her have access to our materials, let her be able to talk to David, let her talk to David, David Rowe, David also to Mark Bannon and obviously to whom I think you have in Randolph, the engineering firm, sorry. DuBois. DuBois and King, thank you. DuBois and King. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Justine, any thoughts? Did we lose her? How about Megan, any thoughts? I would just say we're lucky to have you Cricket. Thank you for offering to help us out the subdivision. Yeah, no problem. Carl, any thoughts? I think the only thing I'd like a little more clarity on is she is representing the board, the select board, she's representing the school board and she's helping us understand all the documents and keeping us on track and her role is going to be more along the lines of like, hey, you guys really should have a special meeting to approve this that or the other document so that we can move this process along versus waiting to, I mean, I'm trying to understand what exactly we're asking her to do. I'm kind of trying to figure out what the exact scope of work is too so I can, and also who I'm representing because that's another thing I was curious about was if it did involve the donation of more professional services than I was comfortable with because donating professional services is a little bit different than donating. Other time, I could potentially work more directly for the town of Rochester select board in a paid position, which would, of course, open up maybe a little bit more time for scope of work if it was something I was doing during my professional time. So there's different options there in terms of paid and paid representation. I'm up for most anything, honestly, but I just kind of need some clarification for the work. Let me say, Cricket, here's what I would describe it. I guess I didn't do it as opposed to a project manager who would be taking over this. The idea as an advisor to the RSUD board who would be looking over the details of this process and directly advising us how things are going, how you feel, what else we should be looking at because there's a lot of details. As I read Jenny's responses, very technical responses to the drawings we saw, what we're going to be looking at later tonight, I was like, holy smoke, this is not stuff I understand. I want your eyes on what we're seeing because I trust your ability to translate information and I trust that I know I can talk to you and get a clear answer. I would say, yes, as an advisor, and I hope this helps, Carl, as an advisor to the RSUD board to help us understand the process of what we're going through with these engineers and with the lawyers. Does that help, Carl? Yeah, it does. I'm just trying. Like I said, I just wanted to make sure I understood if she was representing us or the town. No, us, definitely. The idea here is not so much that she can make on-site decisions, per se, as much as she can say, hey, they need an answer on this or we need to lay things out in this particular way so that we can do our job better and do our job more efficiently because... Go ahead, Ethan. No, go ahead, Cricket. I talked to you that a little bit with Ethan, too, Carl, because I wanted to make sure... I thought there might be a possible perceived conflict of interest with having professional services provided by someone who is both a taxpayer in Rochester and has kids in the Rochester school system. So I wanted to make sure that the professional services in terms of stamping, certification, things like that are coming from, say, Mark Bannon and Randolph, very objective, completely separated from the community person. On and aside, you're in very good hands with him. He's worked in both the public and private sector, so you're in great hands with him and Du Bois and King. But anyway, I wanted to make sure that my role was more slightly more informal, just as Ethan mentioned, that technical kind of liaison helper to help you sift through the technical aspect of things, but not direct professional advising because I think that coming from someone out of the district is probably the most appropriate. Actually, thank you for answering my questions. Great. Great. Megan, any thoughts on this? No, I'm okay. Thank you. One more thing, sorry to interrupt, Ethan, one more thing is just hopefully to put everybody at ease. I talked about perceived conflict of interest, but in general, engineers, professionally, it's kind of in our professional code of ethics that we don't represent. We are just, we're supposed to be objective, so we're not supposed to represent one client or another, so you shouldn't, if an engineer is doing their job properly, have to worry about them representing someone more than another week. To be honest, we just represent science and the technical aspect of things, so you can rest assured that that's at least how I try to do my work as well. Great. Well, I look forward to after we're going to take action on this in a moment, I look forward to being able to just sort of say, hey, this is what we're looking at. What do you think? That kind of thing. It can feel like it's in a completely different language. Yeah, yeah. Good. Well, I'll entertain a motion, and I think maybe I should word this, that we take on, we accept Cricket McCusker's offer of an advisor to the RSU board and allow her access to our legal and engineering documents that have to do with the transfer of the high school building. Does that sound good? I think maybe we should word it a little more like technical liaison to avoid the advisor language. No, I think it's really important that Cricket did explain her role for the record. Yeah, technical liaison for the board for informational purposes. Or something like that. Yeah, technical clarification purposes, something like that. Yeah. I just think it's important that we say and allow her access to our all documents. Observation as opposed to observation and analysis, but not for decision making per se. Technical review. Technical review, excellent. Okay, who's going to put this all together for us? I move that the board accept the unpaid services of Cricket McCusker to serve in the role of technical review of board documents related to and around the disposition of the high school building and the subdivision of the property thereon. Nicely done, Carl. Thank you. Is there a second on that? I second. Great. Justine, seconds. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Megan's up. The ayes have it. Thank you very much, Cricket. We will be having and could invite you to our executive session where we have further details to talk about. Obviously, there's a lot of information for you to catch up on and we need to get access to that, get you access to David in particular. Okay, and David is here a little. David Rowe, yeah. Is it Rowe? Am I pronouncing it right, Jamie? David Rowe. It's David Rowe. Rowe, thank you. Thank you, David. Rowe. Cricket, I'm happy. Look forward to working with you and I'll be sure that we can set up a call on the coming days to discuss the nature of the project. Excellent. That's good, David. Thank you. Thank you, David. Very good. Moving on to 7-5, the scale of the high school building. Now, one thing I wanted to bring up in this section and David, I don't know if you can stay on. So, Ethan, you skipped 7-4. 7-4. Because you shifted everything, right? Yep, yep, yep. Okay. Are these the Articles of Agreement Review Committee? This was an idea that was brought to me that I mentioned last time and I would like to get the board's approval on it to set up a committee that includes two board members, preferably one from each town. I would be one from Rochester. And a small community involvement as well to look over our Articles of Agreement and review. I'm sorry. I meant to send on to the board a sort of overview of the articles from Donna Savage. Is she the AOE legal representative? Yes, which we got. But one of the biggest questions is what do we have access over changing and what we don't. But I think it's obviously something worth looking over at this point. So sorry, David, we're still on this for a second. We'll be back with you in the next article. What's your thoughts on this? We talked about this a little last time. Anybody have any further thoughts before we move on this? Justine? I have a question. Would this committee be working with the community in any way? Would this be like meeting with community members in a kind of form manner? Yes, I think I've been approached by one person from Stockbridge who would like to be on this committee already. And I think we would take invitations from somebody in the Rochester side. I don't think it needs to be a huge committee. And I would entertain ideas on numbers for flexibility. But I think it's a useful project. I guess my question was how where would the input from the community members come from outside of the committee? Would this be a public meeting? Yes, any meeting about school business would have to be a publicly warned meeting. And there would be minutes and obviously accessible to anybody who wants to listen in. So each committee meeting would be a public? Absolutely. Okay, yep. Further thoughts, Megan? Oh, well, Justine, do you have something else to say? No, I think this would be really helpful. I think it's hopefully not too late to really hash some of this stuff out and get some community involvement in that process. Great. Megan? I think the the Articles of Agreement Committee is a great idea. I think we've been talking about trying to reach our communities since last winter. So I think this is a long time coming. I'm glad it's happening. I also hope that it's not too late to reach our communities. All we can do is try. That's true. All we can do is try. Thank you. Carl, any thoughts? Carl, are you still there, Carl? Well, yes, I am. No, I think it's a fine idea when I can find the unmute button. I think it's a fine idea. And the conversation needs to be hat. My thought is, as I say, to keep it small on me and other board member, I was thinking of asking you, Justine, if you would be willing from Stockbridge. Absolutely. I would love to. And then, I mean, I really think maybe two other people, community member, one from Rochester, one from Stockbridge, how does people feel? Does that seem too small? I like the idea of it being a little more flexible that way. What do we think? I think it's helpful to keep it small, especially where the community will have the opportunity to express their thoughts during the meetings. I think a small committee is appropriate. Megan, the size for two board, two community, sound good? I think it'll make it easier to manage. So, yes, absolutely. Carl? Yeah, I mean, given that the whole idea is to explore some ideas and make some basic recommendations, combine with it being a small group of people talking things through, it's not setting binding policy. So, I think it's better to be flexible and brainstorm some ideas and then bring them out and bounce them around the bigger group. Good. Just to be clear, it was reinforced several times to me that no changes to the Articles Agreement can be made without votes in both communities to approve those changes. So, just so we know, yeah, this is totally an advisory thing that would come back to the board and then we would put forth some changes that we think would be good and have them voted on. Good. Would somebody do me the honor of coming up with a motion? Carl, you're very good at this if you would be so kind. I think he went to unmute and exit. Okay, then we can't, we have no quorum so we have to wait for him to come back. Anybody know any good jokes? He's back. He's back. Good. Hey, Carl. Yeah, no, it was instead of fat fingering my mic on, I decided to hang up the whole call. I move that the board authorize ad hoc committee to study the articles of agreement and make a recommendation for any potential modification to consist of a Stockbridge and Rochester board member and a Stockbridge and Rochester community member. The committee's charge is to provide recommendations to the board. So move. Do we have a second? I second. Thank you, Justine. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Very good. Guys have it. Thank you. All right. Now, seven, five. We're still in this tricky gray area of what we can talk about, what we can't, but the one thing I do want to put out is to David. Jamie, did you forward Jenny's new outline? She had a more recent one on to David. Yes, David did receive a copy of that. Okay, good. And Ray has it if folks want to project. Yeah, I would say that that still needs some more updating before it's ready to go. Updating from you. I'm happy to do it. There's a few things in there that are not quite accurate. Who would know that the accuracy of that? Well, I only briefed. I only had about a few minutes to review it because of the timing at which it was emailed in. But there's I can fill in the blanks if the board is interested in moving forward with something similar to this. It could approve it releasing it subject to a review by the board's attorney. And that way probably around sometime by the end of the week I could update it and make sure that it contains all the information that's necessary. That sounds good to me. Wanting to get as much information out in a and we would put it on our website and board pages, I believe. Is that those are two main posting places? Yeah, got you. I'd entertain a motion for that right now. Does anybody else? I don't know. Actually, how many of the other rest of you have had a chance to look at it? I have only briefly looked at it. I find that to be a really great idea. I think that it should be reviewed by our attorney first and also by us. There wasn't enough time for me to really pick through it the way I'd like. Yeah, okay. Megan, your thought on that? Yeah, I would definitely like a little bit more time to go over that. All right, so then David, Carl, sorry. I concur. I read through it. I think it looks pretty good, but I think I'd love to have some other eyes pass over it so that we're not misrepresenting anything in our naivete. No, here's the thing. Didn't we release something after the last meeting? I thought we released something, information, or was that David, do you remember? Didn't we release? I believe you released a draft document with the data you voted to. I don't know if that actually occurred, but I recall and obviously the minutes would have to be checked on that, but my recollection from the last meeting was that a draft document was put out there that is similar to what Jenny prepared, but not 100, similar in language to some extent, but different in format. The minutes of that of the November meeting would confirm, but my recollection. I was not here for that meeting. I do believe I remember you posting something the following day. Is that correct, Ray? Thought so too. I thought so too. I'm looking back. I remember an email from David the next day saying, hold on for some last-minute edits and then it went from there. I'm looking now. Okay, yeah. Well, I'm pretty sure that it was put, that at least the board authorized releasing it and that Ray and I consulted and I said, okay, you can let this one go or something like that. Let me just take a look. If we move, as you say, David, then I would, I think it would be great if we could, what was I going to say? My brain just stopped. We may have some additions to that information after our executive session tonight. So that's another reason to hold on. Some new information, obviously, what we're doing tonight looking at the first survey maps. It would be great to have a description of all that in there. But let's do his motion first, if we can, that we will entertain a motion that Jenny's template be used by our lawyer to release information going forward about the building transition. How does that sound? My brain's getting a little foggy. So moved. So moved. Great. Seconded, please. So moved by Carl. I'll second. Seconded by Justine. Thank you. All in favor, signify by saying, I. I. Great. All right, David. So Jenny's, Jenny's outline is it. And with whatever added dendems we come out with after our executive session, we will add to that document and it will be released on our web page and also on the our SU page. Is that I'm sorry. Brain is really slowing down here suddenly. Just to cut in Ray on the 10th of November, I sent you a PDF to post on the district's web on the district's website publicly of the of the of the draft, the board approved. And let them show that Ray has just said that it is on the website. Okay. So we are releasing information. Great. All right. Good. I don't know because we weren't, we basically decided that we are keeping most of our communication about this, at least initially in our executive session last time. I'm not sure what else we can talk about here. Ethan, I'm just giving you your time, Jack. You have it's like four minutes. Good. Well, in that case, that may that may close it right there. As I say, I don't think we can talk about anything else. I do say we had promised people that after executive session, we would come out and give a review of what we had done in that executive session. So we will do that those for those of you who want to stay tuned. Good. Then are there any further questions, comments in this section of our meeting? How about that? We're keeping to our time limit. Good work. All right. We'll be taking care of all of these action items. Yes. Good. And again, so I think we're ready. Let me get my list out for public comment. And I want to get, there has been Ray, there's an unverified caller on here. I don't know if we know who that is. Is that Orca? I believe so, but there was no confirmation of that. They didn't respond when they joined early on. All right. And I'm just getting members here. It just helps me to be clear. Tim, 315, 802, 38, 253, 497. Okay. Just so you know, we won't, for comment time, we may not be able to have an answer for you. But I do take notes and I write them down. And I think some of you will notice that some of the comments that were made last time were addressed in, oops, we have no quorum. We need to hold on a second until Megan's back. I'm here. Oh, you're there? Oh, it said you left. Okay. It said you left for a moment. So with that said, let's start Janet Whitaker. Do you have, are you here as a public person? Are you here as a taxpayer? Do you have a comment? Okay. Hearing from Janet, I'll move on. Joanne, do you have a comment for the board? Can you hear me? Yes, I can. I just want to verify that we're going to really shoot for being under the threshold. And that's my concern as always, as Stockbridge has always been under the threshold. That's my comment and concern because it sounds pretty scary right now. Yep. Good. Thank you. Karen, Karen Rubin, do you have a comment? I actually do. Good evening. And I wanted to start out kind of, I was making notes in order kudos to Carl for pointing it out that parents are going to need their hands held through the proficiency change. It definitely has been a learning curve for those of us who are working with high school students that have been going into proficiency. I can honestly say that helping to guide a senior through this year on proficiency based is actually going to be probably one of the most successful years that he's had down that we have a thorough understanding of how to not only read the proficiencies, but understand them and how to apply them when we sit down and we work together on what his assignments are. We have a clear understanding of what he needs to show his teachers. And it is definitely a little bit of a learning curve for those of us going through from a grade based to a proficiency. But I think it's going to be a very successful tool for our grade level students to have in their pocket as they move into middle school and high school. We have a very clear understanding of what it takes to get a meeting or an exceeding. When we look at my son's homework at night and we're able to see what the expectations of his teachers are, he can ask himself, am I clearly showing this research in this form or my communication to create my thesis in this manner? So I would highly recommend and totally back Carl's assessment of making sure that your families are understanding how to interpret the proficiencies. Because once they do, they will have a very successful student. So thank you, Carl, for bringing that up. Ethan, you were super fantastic after the last meeting to take the email that I had sent you in what would be deemed as an Arlo Guthrie song, I don't know, 15 bullet points with so many different breakouts and answer all of my questions. But one of the questions that I still kind of have hanging out there from what you answered was in regards to the building committee and report. I don't understand why we still are not seeing that. We have had between 23 and 27 people on this Zoom call this evening. So clearly Zoom is a successful way to gather and meet. So I would like to know when we are actually going to see that building committee report come out. No, I meant to put it in my, because I talked about it tonight today with Jamie and yeah, I'm sorry, I missed on that one because it was going to be something we were going to do tonight and find. I don't have it. The report, the final report, there are two. So report from Black River or the report from the committee? Sorry, the report, I guess I thought from the building committee. Well, is, Carl is the chair of that committee, correct? Yes, that's why I was going to ask about that and see if we had, even though I know there was no consensus between bringing those two statements together, I think it'd be worth putting them out there so that the board, and that's what you're talking about is the final report of the building committee, not the engineering report. Is that correct, Karen? That's correct. So maybe Carl can give us some understanding when we might be able to expect that. Could we, could we just release it, Carl, as that is, as those two reports as they are and put them out there so people can question? Has it been completed? They were, I believe, both, and I think it was actually new, Ethan, in I want to say our February meeting or maybe the first meeting in March before COVID hit where they were both, both drafts were given to the full board. Back then I can dig them up and send them out again, but yeah, there was, two different documents were submitted and we had some conversation about where the differences were. Let's, let me do some research and see if I can find that for you, Karen, and find that release. And Carl, is it possible, do you have access to those? Could you send them on to me again? I can certainly find them and do that. I probably can't do that in the next three minutes, but I can certainly do that in the next three days. That'd be great. Thank you. Is that suitable, Karen? Yeah, that's great. I appreciate that because that was the last kind of hanging out there. Yep, no, no, no, it was, it was, that was the one. You picked, you remember the one? Darn me for taking notes. It's all that high school proficiency I'm doing lately. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Karen. Cricket, I realize you're on here as an advisor, but do you have any comments for the board? Just so we don't, because you have a multiple role. Don't know if she's still there. Yeah, I'm still here, Ethan. Yeah. With respect to Karen's question or in general? Well, somebody dropped something. You're there? Yeah. I'm still here. Yeah. So I was just wondering with respect to Karen's question about building committee or in general? No, it just in general. Just because I realized you are also a taxpayer and a school parent and you're on this call and I shouldn't include you. I got you. No, I'm all set. Thank you. Thank you. Tim Pratt. Oh, sorry. Pat Harvey's next. My apologies. Pat, do you have any comments? Hi, everyone. I just want to reiterate from the select board that are standing by and waiting for any information or tools or anything in our way. And anxious to take a look at any documentation you may have. So bring it on. We're by waiting. Thank you. Good. Thank you. Tim Pratt, do you have any comments for us? Yeah, I just have one about that tuition not being expense. When we were doing K through 12 and keeping the high school open, we pretty much knew that Rochester was paying the extra amount of money for Hancock and Granville. It was more of a AIS instead of telling our neighbors that we didn't want to take them. So we were paying the extra amount of money that it was costing to educate our Valley kids. Now that we're only talking 20 kids, it's minute now, but it was never told to Stockbridge in any of the pre-merge meetings that tuition kids coming in actually did cost money. And you can think of however you want, but if you're paying somebody 20 bucks and you're only billing out for 18, you'll never catch up. So I just wanted to say that there's two different ways to look at it. And now that we're talking 20 students instead of 70 or 80, it's a whole different deal. So thank you. Thank you, Tim. And some notes. Okay, we're into the phone calls. Erichord 443, final digit 15, star 621 mute. Erichord 443, last two digits 15. Do you have any comment? And please identify yourself in your town. Okay, we'll move on and come back to you. 802, 38, last two digits. Please identify yourself if you have a comment. Hey Ethan, it's Keith over in Stockbridge. Hi Keith. A couple of questions slash comments. A lot of time was spent on the discussion of the budget. I know that you didn't discuss the revenue side at this point, but I'd like to know if you're going to take into account the fact that since you fell more than 25% short of tuition students, if you're going to use a number that's going to be more reflective of what you, the tuition students we had this year. So in other words, instead of projecting 30, you're going to project 20. So there are no surprises and we're not fooling ourselves. I believe that was Jamie's that, you know, he was aware that we didn't, weren't very accurate in our projection last year and that we could be better though, of course, we couldn't have planned on COVID and homeschooling. Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you. I'd rather be surprised on the upside that you get more money than you get less money. Because otherwise, you know, it's just a line item in the budget that shows we're going to end up with more income than you actually, well less income than you projected. If you end up with more income, that's not a bad thing. That's always a good thing. Good thing. Thank you. Good point. All right. The other thing is I do have certain issues and I really appreciate Cricket and how candid she was, you know, admitting that she is a Stockbridge resident. But I certainly question why the board would, and I appreciate the fact that she's doing this pro bono, again, which is a very generous offer on her part. But at the end of the day, I think that in terms of transparency, I think the board's responsibility should be to have someone that is not related to either community reviewing this documentation. I understand that there are standards for engineers and all professionals whether legal or architectural, that they need to adhere to certain standards. But I think in terms of perception by the two communities, the board should take that into consideration before agreeing to utilize the services of someone who may be perceived as being cited one way or the other. The other issue I raise is since you brought up the fact that you are aware of a petition that is being circulated within the town of Stockbridge. And I guess I can be considered one of the five voices that are not thrilled that the way things have been proceeding with the RSUD. I feel that the board should take a position of not spending any further funds or money or even people's time focused on the sale of the high school building until consensus is taken as to whether or not this merger is going to make it. Because a lot of people that I've spoken to within the town of Stockbridge don't seem to feel that they want to continue on with this merger. I could be completely wrong, but I would like to see a vote by both towns to see what should be done. And to spend any more time and money on the building or what we should do, I think is a waste of resources. And those resources could be better spent for the children within the district at this point. I guess at this point, those are my comments. Great. Thank you, Keith. 5-3 has gone off and 9-4 has gone off. 8-02, Star 9-7. Please identify yourself and give us your comment, if you would. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. This is Charity Colton, Stockbridge. First, I just want to reiterate something that was said way back in the beginning. I think Ethan, you were the one that said it. Kudos to everyone, administration, SU teachers, for dealing with what I think was the state, very poorly chosen way of rolling out very last-minute changes around the Thanksgiving holiday. As a parent, I saw that. I thought it was an absolute nightmare, last-minute move on their part. And I think having kids in two different schools, two different districts and SUs as well, a lot of administrators and staff and everyone pulled together to deal with that in a way that was phenomenal. So kudos to all of you. The question that I have, kind of something that Keith said also, when we do the, or when you guys do the budget process, often when you're doing a budget process, you are adding in a one or 3% increase when it comes to something like expenses. When it comes to the revenue portion anticipated for kids coming in from tuition town, is it customary to look at what last year's actual number and do a percentage decrease on that? And if not, is that something that we could look at doing and better anticipate a reduction that we might not know about last-minute changes like COVID just as an anticipation move? Yep, got you. Thank you. Oh, Jamie, can Arnie raise the hand? You would like to speak to that, Jamie? If that's all right with you, Ethan. Absolutely. I just, yeah, I have been, one of the reasons revenue hasn't been rolled out yet is that we're going to go through it with a fine-toothed comb and I'll be involved with principles in Tara. Again, because we can't make things. So we have to get revenue right. And I'm certainly in agreement with Keith and what was just said in regards to, we're going to budget on the conservative side to ensure that we don't come up short. That's something that, when we look at some of the financial downfalls that we wrote out in August, it's one of the areas across the SU that we got to get better at. Very good. Yeah, and is there any way that in looking at those, obviously, you know, Act 46 in itself made it, excuse my language, dead obvious that lower numbers of enrollment in schools is happening all across Vermont? And is there a way to look at that trend? What those decreased numbers look like and then figure out some basic algorithm to anticipate how much of a percentage decrease from last year's actual revenue to create a projected number to put in? Good. Thank you. Is that all, Charity? Yes. Great. Thank you very much. Well, just to go through, is there anybody who wanted a second comment? If so... Ethan, I'll just give you a time check before second comments. We have like two minutes. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Hey, Ethan. It's Tim again. Yes. I sent you an email about this, but at this point, if that high school building is going to put us into spending over the threshold, what if your board shutters the high school and then the Rochester taxpayers figure out what they're going to do about the building? Because really, Stockbridge shouldn't have to put a burden on bonding or paying for any of the things that need to be done to that building if we're going to get it for a buck. And at least that puts us safe for the two-year process if the merge doesn't go through. And it moves it forward that way. And I don't know why we're not talking about that because really it's a Rochester issue. And Rochester is going to be the one that benefits from that building if the people of Rochester even vote to keep it. So that's my consent. Okay. Thank you, Tim. Good. Being no other comments, we will move on. We thank you for your comments and take note on them. Now we will entertain a motion. Let me just farm my sheet here to enter executive session for confidential attorney communications made for the purpose of providing legal services to the body. Would somebody move that for me, please? They moved. So moved from Carl. Seconded, please. All seconded. Thank you, Justine. Okay. All in favor signify saying aye. Aye. And Ray, are we headed to another site? Thank you. Thanks, guys. We are back in our... Thank you, Cricket, very much. At 906, we are back in our regular meeting. We come out with a report that tonight we looked at the wastewater plan concept, as it's called, created by Mark Bannon Engineering. He's about 60% done with his work. Survey work, which is actual deeds and boundaries, is just beginning with Dubois and Dubois and King that we're about to make a motion to give them the full funding that they need. Total expenditures at this point are just over $10,000. And we're looking for possibly another three to hopefully not seven more. That is an estimate, a very much of an estimate, hopefully in the three range. And the board also reaffirmed in our talk the commitment to continuing this process of subdividing and moving off the high school building. With that, I will entertain a motion to, what's the wording, to allocate? To a motion to approve the expenditure of $4,000. I believe it was $4,750 to Dubois and King for survey and work. For survey work. Would somebody move that for me, please? I move that the board vote to expend no more than $4,750 to Dubois and King to approve additional surveying work. Seconded, please? I second. Thank you, Justine. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Good. Thank you. Okay. We have completed our work on that executive session. We will now enter a second one. And I think for this, Jamie, is it just you and the board? Or do you want to? That's correct. Okay. Yes. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much, Lindy and Bonnie, for your time tonight and for your work with our children. Much, much appreciate it. Thank you. Good night. Good night. All right. Thank you. We are now entering, good night. We are now entering, I'll entertain a motion, that is to enter a second executive session for personnel matter. I move we enter an executive session for personnel matter, including our superintendent, Jamie Canarney. Thank you for that. Seconded, please? I second. Thank you, Justine. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Are we going to use that same executive? We return from executive session to our main session at 931. We are taking no action on this executive session, personnel. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. When's our next meeting? Our next meeting is Tuesday, January 5th, 2020 at 6.30 p.m. via Google Meet. Well, 2021, but I'll let you slide. 2021, it says here 2020. That's a typo. There is a typo. Have that staff member flog, Superintendent. I think so. That's a good thing to do at the end of a meeting. Excellent. Excellent. I move we adjourn. Thank you. Seconded, please? I second. Thank you, Justine. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Having no raise, everybody.