 the meeting at um 633 um let's do roll call gel yeah etiquette yeah Emma here here Ryan he's sitting here yeah okay let me give a thumbs up it's like it's only wrong with your audio all right Bridget here Jerry here hi Tina uh so uh first uh item is uh public comment um if you uh let me just put the participant thing on um if you want to speak please use the raise hand function um I'm seeing three four um so let's start with uh I've got Julia, Amanda, Kimberly, and Melissa um so let's start with Julia go ahead and please uh introduce yourself uh for the folks at home and for the recording hi I'm Julia Shepitz um Montpelier resident and parent of uh almost first grader any day now um thanks for for uh taking the time to hear me again um I just wanted to um say something about the um the meeting coming up on the 16th um where we're expecting that you're gonna take up um conversations regarding the school resource officer and looking at the policy and the budget decisions around that and um folks have been asking us how to engage with this discussion how to engage with and making sure that their voices are heard and we don't have answers so um we need some transparency in that process um to be clear of the you have a clear idea for ourselves and for you know to share with others about how um your process will go around the policy and budget discussion um and how we can engage in it as residents and parents and caregivers and um community members so anything you can speak to that now would be helpful but also you know if you don't have immediate answers um would be really helpful uh to have soon um I will I'll just give some some clarity now because I usually don't go back and forth on this but I think it would be helpful um I think some of those decisions will be made on the 16th about you know what our decision-making process is going to look like for this um kind of depending on on what we hear and what we think is necessary um you know right now you've you know all the board board knows um you know the uh you know we'll be taking it up on the 16th um you know Libby's going to kind of make a decision and we'll confer about kind of what sort of information to bring um you know to that meeting um and then you know the board will make a decision about whether there's a process there or whether you know there's a decision to be made at that meeting it'll probably be you know some sort of process that leads to a decision um in terms of participation at the meeting um you know the two best ways to reach out and give input are what you're doing now to show up a public comment um and also you know written correspondence via email um and all of the board members as well as the administrators emails are on uh the website so um so that's that's basically you know the process and the ability to weigh in you know if we you know have further process which is definitely a possibility for the process in terms of you know a more formalized process to make a decision um you know we'll give details about that the 16th and again um you know have um uh clear clear lines for you know how to comment but obviously you know everything the board does it has to do in public so um you're you're seeing what's happening and again you know public comment and uh written uh correspondence is the best way to give input can i ask a quick clarifying question on um public how is there any way for the public and the board to interact asking and answering questions in real time together in community it seems like email doesn't provide for that and we don't respond to public comment and yeah so i'm just not sure how you could have a conversation together i think we can definitely give thoughts about how how we might want to do that um i mean that's definitely a possibility we would have to uh we would have to dedicate either part of a meeting or some sort of special community event to do that but it's a it's a possibility um great thank you um amanda thank you jim hi my name is amanda garces i am a parent of two beautiful children one who's going to be a second grader mellon wants to preschool um with an iep and um yeah i mean i read the article that was in the newspaper so obviously there are conversations between the district and the chief of the police and then you know we have been bringing these conversations to this board we in the hopes that there is some community involving in and insurance that the voices of our families of color are um really listened to i i think that um for me it's like being you know like we have been asking okay what's going to happen and now that there are articles and there are obvious conversations between the district and the chief police like what you know like not being able to know um what's going to happen and how we can be part of this conversation and alter and creating either alternatives of what it is i know that um yeah so like being in the dark as a parent that have concerns about this it's um i don't think it's transparent and i think it will be really important to ensure that our voices are heard um whether it is in that meeting but that we we can also have like in advance what is going to be discussed so that we can prepare for whoever it is that we need to bring to the public comment so um again just like asking for transparency and asking to ensure that our voices are heard as something that is really deeply that i care about i was really really concerned about the fact that the the article in the newspaper says that the the chief the police the school resource authors will be in the middle school and given that some of the issues that have happened in the middle school like i i it just literally it gave me a stomach pains from just like thinking about that so um yes again asking for transparency thank you so much great um thank you um kimberley so i am uh kimberley kirk shank and i have two girls one going to main street middle school and one going to rocksbury village school i am on this call to ask about the bus number one um for main street middle school for the first two days i got an email that it is going in the morning but there was not confirmation on what time in the afternoon i am concerned about the bus schedule for main street middle school because i do have a fifth grader and music starts at 2 p.m. virtually and i'm not sure what time the bus gets home on at rocksbury so that is a concern so uh that's issue number one uh issue number two is what is the bus situation and i call it a situation at this point with rocksbury village school and because i've heard um many different scenarios being offered and um but when this merger all happened we were promised the bus and i understand that this is covid times now but if we get rid of the bus now that just tells me that the bus the budgeted line for the bus will probably go away and not come back the following years so that is a concern to me and i realize that there's only eight families using this bus but it is if i was to go back to the office then i rely on that bus just as well as any other of those eight families so it is very concerning that there are options being offered that don't make real sense so i just want some transparency around it great thanks and you know the rvs bus is uh part of the the board discussion update later on um i think you can really uh melissa hi i'm also a parent of an rvs second grader um and would have been rocksbury preschool unfortunately we're going to northfield um we again it's about the bus um i can be i share some of kimmy's same concerns um the other concern i also have is we have at least four middle school students who are typically picked up by the rvs bus from the other side of town and they no longer have a way for their parents to put them on the bus before going to work they then have to travel travel some of them nine to ten miles from the normal bus stop that's not the two or three miles they already traveled to the nearest bus stop to drop their students at i think it's seven a.m or seven ten now and then they also have elementary students on the rvs bus who they would then have to come back around for seven forty to drop those students at school if there was no rvs bus so my concern is is that the rvs bus serves two purposes it's one to get the kids from the other side of town over to meet the ms ms bus and it also obviously picks up the elementary students i know eight families this doesn't sound like a lot but when you have 31 kids in a school it's a decent percentage of the school that utilizes that bus i mean yes it the number of kids it sounds low but if you look at i don't know what the percentage of montpelier is that uses the bus for their elementary middle school but when you look at it in percentage i'm betting it's not too far off for those students and i think it's an extreme hardship given the unknowns of this year to eliminate that bus i understand that there's an issue with the driver being sick and there's out of the district's control but eliminating the bus at this point is in the district's control and i don't necessarily agree with the elimination of it for those eight families i am one of those i am working from home but that's not guaranteed to last and at the point i have to go back to work my 7705 bus route is a necessity because we don't we work in not far away places we work in montpelier we work in barry and 740 drop off at school to get to work for eight o'clock in those locations is just not feasible thank you thank you and uh meredith warner i think it's the last one yes hi thank you my name is meredith warner i'm a montpelier resident um this is a follow-up to a request for process around the sRO question um my concern is really um a request i guess for the board to really consider how testimony from families of by-park children and of children with disabilities can be received by the board in a really meaningful way um a way that doesn't expose them to any kind of um harm in providing that were exposure and providing that testimony so i guess the request is in that process how will their testimony be considered and also how will it be weighted so is that is that testimony for students that are potentially vulnerable in this conversation is there um is there experience of it weighted differently thank you thanks um any other public comment uh well thanks everyone we will um again we'll be taking that if i get that off on the 16th we'll try to get the agenda out as soon as possible and get as much clarity as we can about um you know how the discussion will take shape but um you know we are you know the the board is is not is not hiding information on on the sRO question or on the busing question and these are evolving issues and we're uh um you know again we are by law an open an open board so all our deliberations uh are are public and uh you know you're you're seeing you're seeing what's happening in real time um uh the first uh first item uh beyond that is the consent agenda um do i have a motion to approve the consent agenda don't make a motion to approve the consent agenda and seconded by Bridget uh any discussion great let's uh do a vote Jill hi um um etiquette hi mara hi ryan hi Bridget hi jerry hi great the uh consent agenda passes um so more discussion uh limby you want to tell us the latest i know we're getting very close to to launch time so um yes we are you're uh you're you're frozen oh no am i i think we can hear you but um hold on there you go you can see you now i'm moving sorry mom i've been interrupting my mother's dinner am i bad am i unfrozen now yes we can see so um first and foremost the administrators that you see on this zoom call should get medals of honor um they are really in it right now and um from a superintendent's perspective that once in service starts then i'm kind of just the cheerleader on the side but these administrators are doing an amazing job and are incredibly stressed out and i still made them come to the board meeting tonight um in case anybody had any questions that they can answer that i can't so i just want to publicly acknowledge that these people are working so amazingly hard and are i am so appreciative of every single one of them and the work that they're doing um and it's you know it's kind of at the point of go time where we're testy and we're short and we're just trying to get it to work and then we put a public face on for teachers and and all that kind of stuff but um this team is really working very hard so i have to i have to say that before i get into any kind of update and administrators please jump in during this update if you feel like you have better information so the first thing i want to update the board on are um vacancies so we do have vacancies right now that um everybody should be aware of as of right now we have a grade eight humanities teacher we need a long-term sub for that position uh we need a social studies teacher that's point seven at at uh mhs it will be 1.0 for this year because we need the additional fte for this year but the interviews are happening i believe on friday for that position we need a point five preschool teacher at rbs we need a world language teacher at msms but i believe those interviews are happening tomorrow is that true katie or soon we we met today and hopefully uh next week we'll be scheduling then we went through applicants today okay uh we had a grade five six multi teacher which mike and i will talk to about in a bit we have a point five fte special educator at rbs that is that we're still trying to hire for we only have one application for that we have several instructional assistants that we need to hire for right now i'm listing four but there could possibly be five we have 1.5 fte's in our custodial staff that we need to hire for we have two food service positions that we need to hire for and we need three bus monitors so we have a lot of vacancies happening um some of these we can handle internally many of them we can handle internally for a short time period but that's concerning with so many vacancies the school starts on tuesday um so we have zero applicants for the custodial positions those have been up for quite a long time now um our bus monitors kind of we had it all figured out and now they dropped like flies so we uh we've put out a public notice for bus monitors which is pretty easy hours even if it's just the morning from six to six to seven thirty or so or six thirty i'm sorry six thirty to seven thirty uh so if a parent wants to do that that's great just contact anna about that um because we we desperately need some bus monitors we won't we don't have to do the health checks anymore um on the bus per guidance but we would very much like to do the health checks on the bus um and have those bus monitors so we don't have them we don't have them we'll do them in the school building but that that has consequences so i just wanted to update the board on the vacancies uh the rvs bus um so our ms ms and mhs bus will run from rvs they because of the health check piece and we want to help do health checks on the bus especially for the rvs bus because that bus those kids are on that bus for quite a long time uh that is leaving from rvs at seven ten in the morning so but that is running the first day of school um and i know katie has talked to the ms ms families and some will be able to drive their kids to school those two days because they're doing a staggered start time to get the routine down so i have a smaller amount of kids at ues and ms ms doing the routine of the health checks in the first couple days um but that bus is running because mhs has to get the kids from mhs have to get to school too so um so families can take that um as far as the roxbury village school bus we have six families who have said that they need that bus um but and beth who i'll let her add on to this if i if i've missed anything beth has um done an amazing job and talked with the person who does the daycare at rvs to offer early morning childcare um should we decide to not run that bus so parents could drop their kids off anytime after what is it beth it's anytime after seven fifteen so she's offering morning care from seven fifteen to seven forty for those parents most impacted by the bus and we and she's offering at a very low rate that the district would pick up for childcare five dollars per morning which yeah so the we can pick that up and we can use our crf funds to do that um if we decide so again there's six families seven kids who want the rvs bus the savings to the district would be forty two thousand eight hundred and seventy dollars uh for this school year should we not run that bus uh the capacity for the bus is seventy seven kids and we have seven who need it to run so there's the very good possibility that most many mornings there would be no children on that bus um so that's a decision that um i'd love feedback from the board about it's a considerable amount of savings i understand the ramifications it has for families um and beth has done a yeoman's job to to get another alternative in place for families as well uh rvs pre-k we we have don't have a teacher the teacher has chosen to retire we do have that position posted it's been posted for over a week we have zero applicants we don't expect to have many applicants to hire a pre-k teacher on a regular basis it's not the easiest task um ryan do you remember how many candidates you had this year for satie's position in a normal hiring cycle i want to say six or seven yeah we don't get many right um sorry put you on the spot ryan for that um so we don't have many applicants uh we're going to leave that up for about two more weeks and see if we can get an applicant to to get our pre-k situation going uh the daycare provider has has offered to do daycare for the entire day correct beth for any family who needs that yes and we were able to connect with i believe it's three families four children don't quote me on that um who are taking advantage of her offer to provide child care during that normal preschool block so we have made other accommodations for families who might need it during that time in the same space uh but with a daycare provider not pre-k she's not she's not licensed for act 166 funding or anything like that she's not a licensed pre-k teacher um so it's not pre-k but we'll leave that position up for a couple more weeks and see if we get any good applicants uh but if we don't then we won't be doing pre-k at rock rock spray this year plus monitors like i said before we need three currently um four including the rock spray you know five including the two rock spray buses um we weren't we knew we would have a challenge at finding rock spray monitors because we have in the past but Montclair we usually had taken care of uh so we have put that out to the public to see if anybody can get um we can get any takers my next step would be to offer different well i have offered different hours to the ias who want to take it that doesn't seem to be a big pull so the next step will be to offer a different pay for the bus monitor piece um to try to get bus monitors but there is large possibilities you won't have them for the first day of school or for the first bus run rather uh i wanted to talk to you about numbers right now main street middle school in particular has 20 to 23 kids in a class they are at their max capacity at the moment um we are able to fit the kids in with only six feet of distance six up for maybe fifth grade katie there might be a little bit closer in fifth grade um but they still have some space apart from each other uh but we're really at our max with main street middle school and uh that led me to think about um the the new enrollment data that the just the i thought the school board might be interested in so as of today we have 79 new children enrolled in our district we have 19 at ues seven at rbs but we've also lost 15 students at rbs so it's um not in the way we want at rbs and msms we have 15 new enrollees and in mhs we have 38 uh which i asked the registrar that was a interesting number to her and she said the only thing that rivals it was two years ago when we had 50 new enrollees so that 38 number is pretty big for mhs which equals 79 new kids in just in case you're interested for home study uh last year uh we had we have well this year we have 52 students who are doing home study and 19 of those students are new so we have a considerable amount more new enrollees than we do um kids were losing for home study we might actually have 80 new kids because i think there's a new kid coming into ues too that may not be a part of these numbers just yet um so our numbers are in the right place for us but at msms is my biggest concern that we really can't fit many more kids in those classrooms so we need to safely so um so we have to take anybody who comes our way so katie and joy the registrar they are watching that closely and letting me know that there could be a shift or a pivot should we get a lot more new enrollees at msms in terms of scheduling and breaking kids up and maybe into an am and a p.m cohort that is the most definite possibility at msms it's we're pretty good at ues correct ryan we're pretty good the way things look at ues right now thumbs up from him um and at mhs they already have the am p.m cohort so um msms would probably follow the mhs lead a little bit in that that made um but but it is a definite possibility that could be a switch in the future uh i'm gonna stop there for a second i have more things to say but i want just want to give everybody a chance to ask questions if they have any questions on that any questions for louis emma um i'm wondering about the preschool position did you end up i see that you asked ryan um and said that there maybe was a hiring process at ues earlier in the year did you go back and look at the applicants who applied for that position and contact them and tell them that we have another open position at another one of our schools we did that hiring in april april early may that that hiring was a long time ago so we could go back and we have now but we could um but they that was a long time ago that we did that hiring that was one of the very first hires we did actually um this school year so i we could i i just don't think they'd still be available at this point if they haven't applied for it yeah other questions or comments one more sorry um with the bus for rock's very religious school um first of all i i just want to thank the people who came out and spoke tonight about that because we had kind of there had been a little bit of a gap in our understanding of what the individual families um what their needs were so i appreciate that public comment um i'm wondering so you you gave us the number of the amount of savings we had also discussed reaching out to individual families and surveying them to find out if there was a way for us to get creative and a solution for each individual family did that um communication happen believe that reached out to most families and and the key to remember is that most most families this this challenge isn't going to be solved because we give them a gas card that the the challenges that they need to arrive to school um because of i have to get to a job or or something of the of the sort right um so it's a time situation but that i believe you reached out to each of the families i did i contacted each family personally and i talked to them about their situation from that i learned that most of it was that they needed to get their child on of us so they could get to work and so um just seeking a creative solution to that i reached out to jenny from kangaroo care to inquire whether she would provide morning care and she agreed to and i reached back out to those families to make it known to them that they could contact jenny for their early morning care so just to clarify the early morning care would be that um a parent who typically would send in their child in the raspberry village school bus would bring their child early to the daycare center and drop off and then there would be is kangaroo care right at the village school or not like so okay so they would just start their school day from there that's correct and they would come in the back entrance be temp check there and then when school actually begins at 740 they would be dismissed to the classroom to join um their regular class at that time anything else thank you bet one question so the does that solve the busking situation okay i'll keep going but feel free to ask questions about that first part at any time too um calendar sir like jerry was asking a question sorry jerry i can't see jerry can you i'm sorry i can't see or hear jerry you are frozen liby yeah am i now oh yeah i think jerry was asking you to fix the bus question yes so the bus question um i'm moving to where the router is i'm sorry if you get an x to her my home wait the does that bus um what about for the people who need to i can't i literally can't even see jerry on the zoom if you could just tell me what her question is that would be great jerry's in the process of asking it right now that off can you can the other people hear me week i can hear you fine okay okay so if somebody needs to get their child to want to hear is that busing situation from my cousin now yeah man okay i'm just gonna give up go and just turn off your video oh yeah am i free up some space okay so do you have the gist of my question would would someone still um have a bus option if they need to do it is our answer on yet mike tc grant he was having computer problems as well yes i'm here liby yeah maybe anna maybe if you could just type into the chat so liby and let her know that we want to hear jerry's full question before we continue speaking as the chat yeah should i just type my question into the chat i don't think you have did i think the chat might be disabled i just i don't need to be able to okay yeah go ahead and type your question into your thanks sorry about that that's all right i could go snafu i'm gonna try to log i'm just gonna try to go and get out and then come back in sorry and if somebody wants to convey my question it's just can't is the bus from roxbury to montpelier still okay for people who need to get roxbury to montpelier so you're basically at roxbury to montpelier bus is is untouched by this and still yes yeah that's correct i'm the answer to that is is yes that's what we get we'll be back out okay it also sounded to me basically that we received from the two parents who used the bus um that whatever solution was presented to them either wasn't clear or it didn't solve their problems yeah yeah that's where where i was confused as well it sounded like there was going to be a problem getting kids to montpelier as well yeah maybe someone could text her and ask her to call in is there a call in number jim do you know if we're taking action like voting on the wrong sorry go to school bus tonight i did she's trying to call out i don't believe we are um it sounded like um lily was looking for input though i think she is looking for input but i asked her earlier on ryan's urging if um we needed an action item and um she did not say that we did okay i think she's having some serious computer problems um so i feel like i'm just a little bit confused it it sounds like we need a solution um sooner than school yes um and that we don't have another meeting before then so i think i'm just not clear on how the decision gets made or if you know what happens to families who can't do this without the bus if we don't make a decision this evening so my understanding is that's an administrative decision but she was seeking our input um that's how i was hearing it and maybe it's a you know it's a small enough line item that it's an administrative not more decision uh because yeah school starts tuesday i just want to put forward that i personally feel very strongly that um the if the bus is needed by a kid i'm i personally support using the forty thousand forty two thousand dollars that's already committed to make sure that kids get to school rather than try to change the plan based on dollars when we're not in his dire financial situation as we could be i think he's going to be back on hello everyone i hear you i am so sorry literally i have two macs in front of me and both of them are not working i don't know why that happens over a virtual world so i'm just gonna give you oh no worries so to give you a a an overview of what we've been talking about um in the last couple minutes i think um i've heard two things ever one there's um i think a desire for clarity on the part of the board on what exactly you want from us tonight and then i've also heard a couple people express that um that it is more to provide busing if you've committed busing than to uh you know save potential money even if it's a very tiny number of kids all right so the way i the way i see this the way i see it from a board's perspective is that you are the financial stewards of the district and so if so it we are about to hit as grandma to share with you later a financial cliff and so i i felt it was my role to put this out to the board that the that that transporting seven kids um for for fifty seven thousand dollars is an exorbitant cost um so if the board feels they still want to pay that money to transport those kids despite the fact that we have a different more cost effective route to go then that's fine we'll we'll do that we budgeted for it we were expecting to do it we'll do it but as the financial steward of the district um from the board's perspective i felt the need to let the board know that that was the situation um so my question this is morris speaking my question was that it sounded sounded like the two people who spoke during public comment do do not have an accommodation that works for them and i i feel like the implication is that the what we have an um a cost effective means of addressing that um and those just aren't matching up for me i didn't speak to those two so i wonder if that's if you if you spoke to to parents or and what their response was to the uh do that i did speak to sorry okay so um i made an effort to reach out to every single parent that i knew would be impacted by the bus and made contact and i don't have my notebook in front of me but i do leave lots of messages i talk to lots of people um but to my knowledge at that point that was the best solution that we could come up with should there not be a bus because i felt like it was our duty as a district to make it work somehow even if we couldn't have a bus so it was really more of a workaround at this point and um we were looking at solutions the last time we met and i felt that this was a solution maybe not the perfect solution but it was an alternative to solve a problem so i've got a question i'm um this is anne here i'm sorry i'm i'm getting confused is the solution to have the um the childcare provided in the in the rvs school um or is i mean i'm getting confused is are they getting to mom failure and that by the bus but the solution is to have them in rvs um no you're talking about two different things okay so there's one bus that is running from rocksbury two month clear for msns and our mhs students but that's not that's not that's not in question that is running um the the bus that's in question is for the rocksbury village school that has seven children lined up for it six different families um who have said they needed bus um but it but we don't have any option other than running a large bus other than running a 77 capacity but person capacity bus um so the workaround that that's created was to have very early morning daycare provider and provided so a parent needed to drop their kid off very early at rocksbury village field we're talking kid around the fourth graders we're not talking anybody above fourth rate um who need that bus then we could do that um and the district could pick up that tab at a very a much considerably less dollar sign but if the board decides that we budgeted for that money and we will pay that money for that bus then we'll do that um because we have budgeted for it and we were prepared to pay for it uh we are also going into an incredibly hard budget year and so that that a bus is not cheap so we just I just felt like the need to let the board know that this is a considerable cost to the district um and there are other things that we could do once sorry sorry go ahead and get okay um so the the bus option is to get the seven kids from their house to the um RVS Rockbury Village school um where the school starts at 740 one of the parent mentioned that you know it's going to be hard to drop them off at 740 if there's no bus um so the solution is if you can drop them at 715 then there'll be a child care provider correct yes you're correct so what was the piece about Montpelier that it just I still I'm so sorry everyone I just feel very confused as to what the parents at the beginning were yeah I can I can clarify that Mara so UES and MS MS are starting their buses two days later um and so so when when they were talking about that they were talking about not running the RVS bus to Montpelier as as well and I didn't know about that so we clarified today that that bus has to run because we have Montpelier high school students on it as well um so that bus will be running to Montpelier and we can and yes we're still going to do the starting start times at at MS MS for the different grade levels but we'll make it work for the for the students who come in on the bus from Rocksbury that's not it's it's a challenge but we can overcome that challenge pretty pretty easily so yeah there's just some misconceptions there I also think the other piece of this is that there might be some middle school aged children in Rocksbury to catch the bus to RVS in order to catch the bus that comes to Montpelier that was not planned for the rock for the bus company the bus company is not expecting that so that may be a parent expectation but that is not an expectation from the bus company the the children wouldn't be able to get to the get to Montpelier in time for that to happen because the bus from Rocksbury to Montpelier has to leave at seven ten in order to get to Montpelier on time for school start so that thanks Grant that was that's not an option for families it never was an option for families so if if you're a Rocksbury parent of a student who's coming to Montpelier for school you've always you had to last year and would again this year have to drive the RVS you didn't last year it was door to door pickup last year oh that was different we yeah that's different because we didn't have to do health checks so our goal and our goal is to do health checks before kids get on that bus we may not be able to do that in Montpelier because we don't have the bus monitors we may not be able to do that at RVS so the reason why the the location change for to meet at Rocksbury Village School was because we didn't have a bus monitor for that and we need to health check the kids before they get on the bus so somebody at Rocksbury Village School would do the health check before the kids get on the bus that was the reason for that change this year last year but kids were picked up by Northfield because our bus company also drives Northfield Williamstown and all those and Barry so because the Rocksbury is so spread out that some kids were getting on the Rock the Northfield bus driving to a point where Northfield and Rocksbury buses crossed getting off the Northfield bus and onto the Rocksbury bus we can't do that this year that's not possible because of the situation we're in um I want to say two things first I echo Mara's feelings about around equity if we're busing some of some of the elementary school kids in our district and not others that feels off-based to me um especially if we've already budgeted it and that's the expectation so I would feel strongly that unless we're able to connect with all six families and confirm that the kangaroo care or whatever the early child care at RBS was a suitable solution for them and I feel like we probably should commit to what you know follow through with our commitment to bus the kids um and then the second thing that I think we should address that I don't I don't know how to address but um the two people who spoke in public comment from RBS um we're concerned about sort of the future of the bus so is this really a COVID specific issue and are we planning to you know if we do cut the bus is that really just because of COVID yeah it is limit limit Dory is that Amazon or is that me I just have to make that was I think it's should I wait Jim I think go ahead um she's pre hung out for future years so um so this is just a lot of things the vast majority of Roxbury students typically ride the bus um so if we have 35 students we usually have about 30 who ride a bus in the afternoon it's less because of the bridges program so on an average year this this is not an average year so students and parents have decided they don't want to put their kids on a bus and and we have a very small amount of kids who need to go on a bus this is but this is not an average year this has never been discussed before this year I have a question for me to you or Grant the number you presented tonight for the cost for running the bus was lower than we had heard in our last meeting no it's the cost to run the bus is $57,000 the saving should we choose now to run that bus is $42,870 okay um specifics about the contract would STA allow us to run the bus just in the morning would that be an option probably that we have that could be a really good solution for the position we're in right now because you just mentioned you're absolutely right ridership in the afternoon it's historically much lower than the mornings and if we can get the kids there they'd have either the after school program or big hang root care daycare program to take care of the kids who would need to be picked up later than the bus route so is that so just around the morning has not been presented or considered with STA I have not presented that to STA but I certainly can we've talked STA and I've talked about that in years past but not this year but Ryan you make a very good point because I believe but I don't know if you have these numbers but I think the last time Casey told me there are 19 kids signed up for bridges and we have about 24 enrolled right now is that true so it sounds about right based on the last numbers I heard yeah and that's pretty typical the vast majority of students that already asked to do the after school program with Casey yes I'm feeling a little bit stuck tonight I'm not really sure kind of where to go I I'm not totally sure that the families maybe knew that the drop off with Jenny in the morning was the solution that was going to be presented I'm not really sure like when I came into the meeting this evening I don't think I was expecting that to be the only solution for these solution it's a little bit stuck right now in terms of happy to make a decision I think the way I hear the board saying is that we keep we keep the bus run and that if we see that there aren't any kids in the afternoon because we haven't run that data yet then we cancel the afternoon run and SCA's brought that to my attention before so that makes sense to me we can we can do it that way as well but if there are kids in the afternoon considerable amount of kids then we keep the afternoon run as well does that make general sense to folks would that be half of the savings half of that amount I don't know I don't know how it works Grant do you know do you have an idea there these the savings is about 70 percent of the full cost and so I didn't find out what the savings would be for half but I assume it would be half so it's a $43,000 savings it would be 21 and a half and then meanwhile if they could get a smaller bus they can they've already I've already gone okay they're all being used by students with special needs um Libby are people I know so I'm thinking about the the online option and how like if you opt in the virtual school you're in virtual school you don't get to switch right um what is our thing on people switching bus and ride options are people allowed to change that as circumstances shift through the year yeah parents do that all the time and so what we we talked to the UES parents Ryan had a UES meeting last night and and I mean the parents just let us know around that piece we do have to take attendance and all that kind of stuff on the bus this year which we've never had to do before um but they just be marked absent that day so there could be more people later that decide they want it or there could be people who end up figuring something out and eventually we don't need it is it a thing where we have to make the decision with the bus company now and so in if the situation has changed in a month we can't cancel it what I would say more is that the bus company works for us um they're contracted with us and we can make changes however they are also employing people and and relying on us for that money um so and we have to in our contract we have to give them a significant amount of time before changes can be made but there is a there is a part of our contract that allows us to make changes in the contract I think we just need to give them like 60 days notice or something like that and thank you for reminding me that the person who's driving the bus would like some assurances on what time you appreciate that yeah that brings up an interesting question is the is there like an rbs bus driver that we've had for years who's the rbs bus driver is the one that we can get to ride drive the r or that sda can get to drive the rbs bus so they may have this similar driver but that's coincidence not not tradition um can I just go on the record of saying I would I would like to do as Libby had suggested and that we want to move forward with um continuing with the bus and then if ridership in the afternoon drops off that's always an option that sounds like I feel very strongly that um this is an unprecedented time and the idea of taking away one of the few pieces of this puzzle for families and students right now would be not worth the savings and I think if we are about to be asked to make significant financial savings which I completely respect and understand the work you guys have put into trying to find a solution this is in no way a criticism of that that I I think there might be other places I would want to look first and I also um I get a little worried when we start to parcel the budget by students because then it starts to become um a bit of finger pointing in the same way that we don't want to talk about special education students and what they might cause or busing versus not busing so um you know to the to the folks I think they're still on the call the parents that that came to this um I I just I don't care if it's three kids I I would I just if we're if we're being asked to cut the budget to that level of detail I'd like to start somewhere else because um for those families that is that is absolutely a lifeline for their kids to get to school so um I hope that's helpful thank you all for all the work that you've done to try to figure this out and I hope I'm proven wrong but I'd like to keep that that one one piece of normalcy for those kids if it can well it seems like uh seems like a pretty strong consensus on this does anyone feel differently um that we should alter or cancel the bus um and go with the other option good I think that's I think that's the consensus of the board let me do you do you have what you need on that yeah I'll let Stacy know that the bus is going to run at rbs and we'll watch the afternoon ridership great thank you thanks for um thanks for trying to think of solutions and thanks board for the for the input and for um everyone for supporting families um there's a couple more things yep we in the board packet you got half a year calendar the reason why you got half a year calendar is because the the statute for student days is 175 we have to have 175 um it has been asked of the legislature by five different people in the past week to reduce the student days from 175 to 170 we have every hope and understanding that that is going to happen at the legislative level it's uh the vsa the vsba the nea and uh the secretary of education have all testified saying that they meet they would like the 170 statute change for one year um but because we don't know that yet I put out the calendar the calendar to you all for a half a year so that I didn't have to do that multiple times people didn't have to make fun make plans and then change it once again because it's already been changed so many times so that's why um we have until december until this until the end of december it's pretty set um and it looks pretty good uh there are a couple changes in there that parents should really note um and some things for our teachers could be to knock out some teacher days in there as well so because we did parent conferences in the beginning of the year this year we're not doing them in the fall this year we just switched those around that's a that's a pretty big change for teachers in particular so uh happy to take any questions about the calendar but that's why it's only the half year and once we know about that 170 versus 175 days then we'll we'll go ahead and get the rest out to everybody um I know that that that's a little bit of consternation but you know right now nobody's going anywhere anyway so go ahead Anakin um is this the district calendar right which would include the online piece as well especially the the vtblc it is however vtblc um I learned today that vtblc has a significant increase in students understandably this year so their online classes will start september 14th this year so in the next week Mike and sue monomy are librarian at um mhs will be working with students to work on their professional learning or their sorry personalized learning plan um and making sure all their goals are set for the year um that will be the school the school attendance and things for next week and then vtblc will start on september 14th okay so that the five days for those kids would be um it'll still start on eight it's just it's just not vtblc learning is exactly exactly the guidance of your attendance for virtual learning is still pretty broad that has never been rescinded from the spring so it's still pretty broad in that sense so we're going to rely on that in order to get the attendance markers down for vtblc students um starting september 8th and i'll confidentially that vtblc will have will be ready to go to the 14th mike a little over 50 percent okay that's i think they will um the reason i say that is that we literally found out about the change in date yesterday at 4 p.m um and it's obvious that their system is overloaded at the moment and i speculate that 14th is going to be a solid start date um but we've had enough changes in the last two days that i don't want to say for sure what i know right now is the 14th the slightly weighted corn toss yeah yeah uh so as a calendar um and then i have two other things one i'm going to switch the order a little bit because then i'll let grant i don't have to go ahead um so are the days that you've designated here um september through december is that based on the 170 and if the legislature decides to change the 170 um is there any chance that this calendar that we see in front of us will change based on the reduction in mandatory days no that's based on the 170 what you see the calendar that you see there is not going to change and can you explain um that you said no parent teacher conferences through december right well unless the parents request one wait we do them up we do them when they're requested at at any given time but not the two two days dedicated to parent conferences like has been in the past because we've already done that this fall or this uh in service sorry okay because it does seem like um you know with everything that's so different that parents might be very interested to find out how their student is doing with the new face of schooling public education i would absolutely recommend that they contact their teacher and and make a meeting because teachers will do that if they need one um we also with the with the student days the way they are we have a certain amount of teacher contracted days and so we had to get rid of some um and so because of our long in service this year we couldn't have those were those were days that we decided to not make teacher days so that we would be contractually okay i think it's important to know a lot of this is contractually driven but um yeah to reiterate that um you know parents should definitely be in frequent contact with teachers especially if they have questions about how things are going and you know teachers will be responsive absolutely and their teachers still contracted through like 330 or four whenever they were yep they're contracted days from 730 to three that hasn't changed and it doesn't matter if they're a virtual teacher or an in person teacher that's their contracted hours okay so the good news from the federal government standpoint is that they have further waved the free food for all kids under 18 through December 31st so we're still under summer summer food rules through in the beginning of the school year um which both provides a benefit and a detriment to our food service but so each school is developing kind of an ordering system so that they know how much food excuse me to make for kids um each day but nobody will have to pay for any kind of school meal for breakfast or lunch going forward through December 31st so that's very good news so i'll spread that word tomorrow in my parent newsletter and then the last piece is a five six virtual teacher and this requires some board action so our five six virtual teacher is beautifully pregnant um and so we had already put out for a long term sub for her um a virtual sub for her however our five six because we're doing that multi-age we didn't have quite enough to split the two split it into two classes but now um now that the numbers are sugared out we have just over our class size um limit for five six in our virtuals so because wendy is so very pregnant um we would like to ask the board to make that a full of one year full time um position so that wendy and the teacher can co-teach for the year um in that virtual setting mike do you want to add anything else to that piece i would just say additionally we've only had two applicants for the long term sub that we have posted and only one of them was qualified and was hired immediately in another district so we've had no applicants since then so a one-year position is probably more likely to be attractive and because it's virtual we can get a little more creative with the catchment area so this wouldn't be a permanent position it would be just intended as a one-year one-year yeah one-year position do you need a motion from the board on that yeah we put that under board action i just kind of moved it up in the agenda sorry did okay i moved it above the both grant um then i let grant i'll let grant go all together yes um anything we need you know more about that or can i entertain a motion i'll entertain a motion um does anyone want to move to approve the five six virtual teacher i'm moving as the board approve the five six virtual teacher hire who was that sorry gerry thanks gerry um any discussion gel anaget hi ryan hi hi rijet hi emma hi hi gerry hi maura hi great uh motion is approved um and now turn it over to grant for what i'm sure will be all good news yeah we only have three years to cover so i think we can get it done in about 15 minutes um the good news is one of the first things you got is a draft fourth quarter report from fy 20 um and that was very good news we finished with the surplus it appears for fy 20 which will help immensely for fy 21 when i assume we are going to end up finishing with the deficit we discussed this at the finance committee last time last time there was a board meeting so i'm not going to go into detail now that the surplus was stated as perhaps $790,000 this is still a draft report because we haven't finished our audit but i already think that that 790 is a little um aggressive uh we just heard from the aoe that there's some costs that they're not going to fully reimburse and it also assumes that we're going to get 100 percent of what we asked for in crf money um which i asked for 42,000 so i'm thinking the surplus for fy 20 is probably going to be closer to 700,000 which is still incredible it's very good news and will help us out a lot for fy 21 um fy 21 there's a lot of unknowns right now um we don't know for sure how much we're going to be paying for all these extra costs we also don't know how much we're going to get reimbursed whether it's from the cares act meeting crf and esser or now the latest monkey wrench that got thrown in is last week uh we were told that fema has a pot of money that we can try to get um that all sounds great but realize these are all federal funds which come with a whole lot of hurdles to jump over um one of the big questions i have is whether or not if we pay for salaries are we going to have to pay a federal grant assessment which might have to worry about for consolidated federal grants and it's like 15 percent so there's a lot of unknowns on what we're going to get from federal funding how that's all going to work um what the applications are going to look like so i just don't know how much we're going to get backfilled but um the fact that we finished with 700,000 extra and fy 20 really puts us in good shape to be able to try to absorb those costs if you know in worst case scenarios where we have a lot of increased costs and don't get a lot of reimbursement for it um so that's kind of fy 21 or 20 and 21 wanted to talk a little bit about the fy 22 budget and i was going to start with the timeline document that you got and i'm not going to read through everything but um we are going to start talking as a leadership team within the next two or three weeks about budget personnel requirements for fy 22 so we're getting that started like around the middle of september by the middle of october or so we should have enrollment projections and class size analysis that we can give to the administrative teams so that we can have a better conversation about staffing that milestone is a little worrisome to me because i'm not sure how smoothly like october one counts are going to be um how if there's any kind of anomalies with this year's counts what that might do to our projections but we'll do the best we can um october and november leadership team will be meeting several times to go over budget and staffing um the beginning of december is when we get a lot of key information the aoe is supposed to give us an equalized pupil count um dollar yields come from the commissioner of taxes um and hopefully we'll get those data points on at a timely in a timely way um december second is when we're scheduled to have our first um budget with the board with the full leadership team and then we'll have a few more of those um january 20th is the big date where we have to finalize the budget the board has to approve the budget so that we can have a warrant signed and meet the timelines for warnings for the budget vote march first will be the informational hearing and march second of course will be the vote and then i'm gonna go to the there's a two-page budget discussion document that i believe you all have and i wanted to spend a little bit of time listening to statewide issues um i already kind of mentioned a little bit about covid 19 cares funds and now fema is part of that too we don't have a solid estimate on how much money we're going to spend um i did submit a crf application grant application that was um they was like four hundred and forty thousand dollars that we were estimating that we might need from crf money um but we don't know if we will need that full amount or not there were some placeholders in there and i'm not sure that we'll get that full amount depends on if the crf money runs out um the dollar yield is as if you've gone through a budget process you know the dollar yield is one of the most significant factors in our tax rate calculation considering the poor health of the education fund i wouldn't be surprised if that dollar yield stayed flat or even decreased usually there's an inflationary increase if that doesn't increase or if it in fact decreases it can make a dramatic spike in tax rates um the ed fund the last i heard the the shortfall is actually down to 66 million dollars which that sounds horrible but it was worse um and they're also keeping a 38 million dollar reserve so they might even tap into that a little bit but it's still not a healthy fund um ed fund um equalized pupils uh louis just mentioned that there's some some things in front of the legislature to try to hold harmless for equalized pupil counts that would be great because with homeschooling now with uncertainty about how october 1 counts are going to go and adm counts are going to go it's quite possible we could see a drop in equalized pupils and if that drops you're spending per pupil and tax rates go up so i'm hopeful that the legislature will in fact approve some kind of a whole harmless where um one of the things they're asking for is that maybe our adm for this this coming year stays level with last year in which case our equalized pupil counts would remain fairly level which would be good news um common level of appraisal for those of you that are tax rate nerds like me um common level of appraisal is a factor at the very end that we have no control over it's based on sales information um for home sales in the past two years i think it is and if that cl a drops your tax rate goes up and you can't do anything about it i'm very concerned this year about cl a dropping because it is as you probably all know a seller's market right now in vermont everybody wants to come to healthy vermont and get out of the urban areas so if sellers are getting their price that they want or even getting an inflated price that could drive the cl a down which could have a dramatic impact um a two percent drop in the cl a is four cents on the tax rate so it's huge um health rates of course are probably going to go up in the double digit range they have for the past few years i'm not going to talk about statewide healthcare bargaining wasn't a big impact us act 173 is going to be delayed again that's a change in the the um special ed funding formula um then i break it out into pressures and opportunities pressures salaries of course is a big pressure because that's you know over 70% of our budget is salaries and benefits and all of our bargaining unit agreements that you're painfully aware are going to expire this year so we're going to have to redo all of our bargaining unit agreements so that means we're going to have to make some assumptions in the budget process which it's not unheard of we had to do it last year as well but salaries is always going to be a pressure because even a minor increase in salaries is a big dollar now um staffing high school staffing might need to increase in f y 22 we looked at that last year we were on the on the verge of needing to add some fte the good news is it looks like middle school might be stable depending on these new kids that liby was just talking about um but actually it might be time to look at reductions at union um there's like this bubble of kids that's going through and is hitting the high school that the lower grades are starting to come in lower than the past few years so we'll have to look at our class size analysis and determine whether there might actually be an area where we can make a few reductions um special education is always on there because it's not known for the past few years we've had fairly low special ed costs so it could continue or that trend could reverse itself you never know um technology will probably have a big increase in f y 22 we're buying a lot of one-on-one devices or one-to-one devices for students we're seeing a lot of damage to those since they're going home um so we're probably going to have to replace a lot of student devices and um Mike can also tell you that because we've been so focused on student devices we haven't done a whole lot of purchases for teacher devices so we've kind of built up a bow wave of requirements for teacher devices um food service will probably be a little bit of a bump although we had I think we increased it by like $75,000 to cover a deficit going from 20 to 21 we may still have an increase again for 22 but it shouldn't be that dramatic I wouldn't think and on the opportunity side high school tuition it's our final year in f y 22 for grandparent at high school choice for Roxbury students um so I have on here that my guess is we're going to have probably a decrease of about $75,000 um private pre-k tuition is maybe going to be another savings of about $75,000 but that's good news and bad news it saves us some money if you have less private pre-k kids you have less equalized pupils so um it'll save us some money but it might reduce our equalized pupil count and then the big opportunity is fund balance we've worked really hard over the past several years to build up a fund balance this is the time where we will be tapping into it I'm sure um we budgeted $240,000 as a revenue source in f y 21 we assumed about 250,000 for 22 and for 23 as well because we were having to absorb that um loss of tax rate incentive due to the merger so for example I think it was on here someplace and I probably skimmed over it this year's tax incentive for the merger was four cents and f y 22 it drops down to just two cents and then in f y 23 it's gone so for the next two years we figured we'd use some fund balance to kind of offset that two cent tax rate increase if you will because it's a loss of two cents of an incentive um we may need to tap into more than 250 uh in f y 22 the good news is we have it so um we will have to look at that as we calculate tax rates and see how things are sugaring out that's a great lever that we can switch you know we can increase the fund balance to help control the the tax rates the downside of that is if you use a large amount of it in one year the next year if you don't it's the same effect as if you increase your expenses so you have to really manage it we can use more to manage the tax rates but we also have to figure out a way to kind of wean ourselves off of it so that we don't have a cliff in revenues um that's well I guess we always end this day with um proposed guidance that I kind of read off to you and you either confirm or change it and tell it back to us so that we can start building a budget the proposed guidance I wrote down was to consider all the requirements that would improve student learning of course that's a recurring recurring theme also look at requirements that would improve efficiency and effectiveness which that's a recurring theme um but what isn't really a recurring theme and is special for f y 22 is for us to really scrutinize staffing levels in the past five years that I've been here we've always been looking at staffing as far as what else do we need what else do we need this year might be the year that we have to say what don't we need what can we live without what can we shift around so we will be looking with your approval um to really scrutinize staffing levels class sizes um and really try to make sure that we bring forth the most responsible budget we can um the key is that um you usually give us some kind of a goal and this I think last year it was to try to limit the increase in that spending to four percent this year because of the tax rate implications statewide with the various factors I think really we should look um to limit that increase in that spending to just three percent so that is kind of those are my thoughts and um I'd really be interested in hearing some thoughts on proposed budget guidance for us to start working with and then obviously I can take any questions you might have I have a question that it actually might be more of a question for Jill than uh Grant but is it possible for the common level of appraisal to go up or to go down in every town or if in other words if all of Vermont is experiencing this bump with um real estate going up what does that mean it's based on three years worth of their sales data so it is not going to look the same it's in every town but it could theoretically they could all go up or they could all go down um it used to be that um it was a lot more stable and now there's quite a few in both of those buckets there's a lot of towns where it's it's really really um high I mean they're overvalued so yeah I could and the next couple years is going to be really strange to look at because people might be flocking here but they're not flocking all places in Vermont equally yeah we haven't seen that that's very true and you could see an increase in CLA if there's a reappraisal in a town which I'm sure there'll be one or two at least there'll be a few that get reappraised I think we're perhaps going to be getting close to having a reappraisal in Montpelier within the next few years I would assume I wonder too is the legislature able to somehow offset or inject the ed fund with CRF money at a statewide level is that because I worried this spring they kept talking about flaw backs and having districts you know basically that they would sort of allocate it to the districts but then they claw it back to put it back in the ed fund but Ken sorry go ahead I don't get started Jill don't start him off on this I have to take some medication before I answer deep breaths grant just deep deep breaths okay so the way this is supposed to work when you you when you put in for the CRF money you're supposed to identify what was budgeted already that you are wanting CRF money for in which case that's basically saying look I already had the money for this but I want you to give me CRF money instead and then they would claw back your ed spending grant or you can say these were unbudgeted expenses and I need you to give me the money to make me whole and you shouldn't cut my ed spending grant right now the application that I put in for I reflected everything is being unbudgeted and give me the money and don't take any money away from me the reason why I did that is it is a very it's very much of a challenge to execute federal funds and what I've been begging the AOE for is to give everybody some clear guidance on put in for this budgeted requirement and we'll rubber stamp it everybody can do something everybody can put in for five percent of your teacher salaries and say it was for planning for remote if if they did something like that all the district's business managers could put a simple application in saying here's what we want to use the money for and we know it's going to be approved by them unfortunately the AOE has punted and they've said now we can't tell you what you need to put in your application so you have to think of of what you want to do and then we would have to go through that effort figure out if it's approved jump through all the hurdles that they want us to jump through and then face auditing for it and make sure that we didn't do anything inappropriate and there's federal funding requirements that for procurement as a matter of fact that I have to go through a federal procurement form where I have to check to make sure that they're that they don't have any disbarment actions against them I have to get multiple bids if I there's all kinds of things that I have to do if I want to execute this money and they're not giving us any answers and I've said it to probably 15 different organizations and maybe we'll confirm that every time I get a chance I keep saying you are blowing an opportunity to help make the ed fund better if you just streamline and give everybody some clear guidance on what we can put in for that you won't scrutinize us for and make us regret then we would all gladly do that but right now they're just telling us good luck put something together we'll see how it goes so yeah Esser is the same way there's a grant application that we have to try to figure out how to put that together and if we do it then then they are saying that if we go through all those steps that we would use and spending grant as as a result which why would we bother doing that so yeah I'm sorry I'm gonna stop ranting but if if nobody puts in for budgeted costs is there a chance they could claw back money yes they could we it's happened before with healthcare okay and I know FEMA is not an easy application either and I know at least for municipalities the deadline was last night September 1 so I don't know how feasible it is for you guys to put in for FEMA I mean it'd have to be next quarter I suppose but oh yeah and we just heard about that for the first time last week and the application was due this week and the first application was through June 30th which we've already gone through our pre-audit I'm getting ready to host our auditor next week and they wanted me to put in for FEMA money for FY20 last year I do think that they're going to be reopening that for FY21 so with some a little bit of advanced notice we may put in for the FEMA money but the idea is FEMA money would cover 75 percent of eligible costs and then what they would do is reduce the amount that we asked for from CRF so it doesn't really help but we'll see thank you other questions comments for now does 3% increase in that spending seem like a reasonable goal I mean it does it Bridget oh what you can go ahead Jim I was gonna talk about that I mean yeah good I mean my thought is it sounds reasonable given the constraints I know we've done more in the past I'm definitely concerned about you know the ability to meet our needs but you know these are yeah these are numbers we have not faced in the past and yeah I think anything more aggressive than that we're going to start to get into some tax territory that's it's going to be pretty scary for a lot of other residents recognize too that the state could come back and we could say through to now the state could come back and say no you're not allowed this this will this will be a very interesting budget season I think very much of an arm of what we're used to yeah now and I think there's a pretty decent chance that the state could put some parameters on what we can and can't do that again we haven't seen previously Bridget so I think my concern is that you know before COVID we were talking about budgets last fall and building on the work that started the year before we had been really trying to allocate resources and tag resources to try to address equity concerns and obviously a lot of that work has been diverted and everything has been overrun by the need to address schooling during the pandemic but it seems to me that our needs are just going to be greater next year not lower so I understand that we have to be responsible about the tax rates and we have to keep that in mind but I'm also really cognizant that I think we're going to have high needs going forward as we all recover from this process and try to get back on track and try to meet the needs of kids who have not you know did not get a full year's worth of education last year and are going to have a very different year this year as we all try to work through this so to me it's you know the number is important but the most important message I would give is that I don't think this is a time for a skinny budget it's a time for a budget that that meets the educational needs that we see in the district and then we try to see what that is and then try to grapple with the consequences of it and see if we can afford it but I feel like that always has to be the starting point. Yeah no I think those are are really important words and important thoughts and I think you know another another way to maybe think about it is I think we've thought about a lot of you know a lot of the initiatives that matter to us equity you know closing the achievement gap etc and I think we thought of those as kind of additional expenses that we would add to the budget I wonder if now is the time to think about how we allocate our existing budget and if there's ways we can shift our existing resources to achieve those ends without additional resources and where you know those savings might be if they exist and if not you know do we I think we'll have to grapple with that and have a discussion about what that means but you know a lot of times in a budget context that you know the new initiatives tend to be things that that you you add on but you know sometimes you can think about in the context of of what we're doing and how can we we shift existing priorities with similar resources well and I and I I'm happy that that you folks took the time to look into that early retirement incentive I think that was really forward thinking for a couple reasons and I'm hoping that maybe um there are some if salary and benefits make up that amount of our budget and the health care is out of our hands to a large extent that may be having um having made that choice this summer it might have gotten us a little bit more flexibility or at least a little bit more breathing room as you had pointed out there you know the newer educators coming in a different part than maybe some of the folks that took that retirement so thank you guys again for that because I think that was a mutually beneficial arrangement I echo everything that's been said really well articulated especially Bridget um not that the other two didn't articulate well but just that I really particularly um what Bridget said resonated resonated with me um especially around the fact that there is there has been sort of a gap in learning and we don't know what that what that gap will look like until we get back and are able to assess kids and see where they're at and I think the idea of cutting teachers particularly at Union Elementary School really worries me during this year when that crucial early learning has no doubt taken a hit since spring so that was my number one concern with what you said okay if that's uh if that's it then I guess what we'll do is we'll we always use that percentage as a target anyway so it's not like you know if there's if we're looking at 3.2 percent so 3 percent I'm gonna bring it to you at 3.2 but we'll do what we can the idea is we need to scrutinize staffing I think closer to see if there are areas that we should shift to meet requirements whether it's equity requirements or social emotional learning you know we will look at the requirements for all staffing and just not think that we'll keep it level just because it has always been level um we will definitely look at class sizes and all requirements and have a thoughtful conversation as an admin team so thank you yeah yeah and thank you for um yeah giving us this overview and uh you know the landscape is definitely gonna be uh uh not hard a year than we've had in the past so I think being very very thoughtful about the choices we make is gonna be important next item and sorry I got my agenda here very um uh policy reading um Ryan do you want to uh give us an overview of uh the very nice job that the committee did on the transgender policy I have a couple questions Ryan or mayorals from the policy committee sure I could give a real quick overview of how the policy has changed into its last before the board but maybe before I do the update I just want to take a quick second to acknowledge all the people over the last year to year and a half that have worked in the policy I honestly don't think I've ever worked on a policy that has taken this long to reach conclusion and there have been people in all of our buildings outside of our educational system have had input and suggestions made to this policy and it's definitely the work of a lot of right individuals so thanks to everybody who has contributed so far the the change that has occurred to the policy since it was last before the board has really been a shift away from a transcentric approach to the policy when it was last before the board the majority of the language in the policy was related to transgender students we had received some feedback from some of the social workers that we just shifted to a slightly more gender non-conforming focus and after the last two meetings with the policy committee we really shifted it to be much more inclusive to students in general so it's not really targeting one specific gender identity I think any of us in the policy community would be happy to take any questions anyone might have but in terms of the the shift from the last reading that's really been that movement away from a specific gender identity to a more inclusive overall to all students any questions or comments about the revised policy a little small ones like sex assigned at birth is pretty important to a lot of other definitions but it's not itself defined should it be or is that self-evident enough that it doesn't need I don't think I could answer that question terribly well I'm not sure if anybody else on the committee might be able to I don't so you're looking for when we have listed definitions at the beginning of the policy you were considering having sex assigned at birth detailed there as well is that what you're thinking Jim yeah just a definition of what it what it means and kind of maybe to make clear any different the difference between sex and gender if I would see a problem with that if you have a definition to maybe share anybody else okay absolutely find a definition and I think that that's probably a good idea because sex assigned at birth is I think it's it's something that people might think that they know what they mean and it is not the same as what it means like it isn't biological sex those are separate so I think a definition is probably helpful okay and while you you think you have access to something that would be helpful and I super do okay great um the other question I had was and they don't get it wrong but uh for it sounds like for a currently enrolled student they may request retroactive changes to their records including name and gender and then it seems like it would be um up to the discretion of apparently administrator to make a determination as to whether or not that change would be made whereas former students apparently if they make a request or guardian makes a request on the behalf that the change will be made so it's it's mandated as the request of the student why is it discretionary for a current student but not why why isn't it mandated for a current student as well if they want that change I might let Mara respond to this one but my suspicion would be I was gonna say I feel like that might be one of those questions of will like the actual word will that came up um so I was actually gonna ask Bridget but Bridget didn't look like she was responding so well I think it's different because the building they are actually in the space to be interacting with other students and faculty whereas after they've left the building they're physically not present to have the same types of social interactions um so that would be my first plus response to that question but it's it's the last two paragraphs of student records and it says a student or guardian monitor who's currently enrolled may request retroactive changes such requests will be handled on a case by case basis with consideration of the need to maintain legal accurate records consistent with you know federal and state matter reporting requirements etc well I think I think the difference between that paragraph and the next paragraph is that the next paragraph includes upon receipt of documentation that such legal name had been changed okay under state law where is the other one whereas if it's in the paragraph you're looking at it's a request where the language is trying to deal with situations where there hasn't been a legal name change okay that's helpful all right I think that's all I have anyone else any comments questions so third reading and then should we try to add language in there to address Jim's question for for current students who have gone through the legal process I think it's in there but maybe I'm maybe I'm reading strong oh right it does say former did you say former or current yeah maybe just former or current in that last paragraph so is that the suggestion the final paragraph in that section will read former and current students permanent people records will be changed by request yeah I would say former or current because more encompasses and but not vice versa I'm not disagree with making the change I think it might be that this policy was really aimed at situations where there a student's name hasn't been legally changed because there's kind of an underlying presumption that the district has to use the student's legal name and what this policy is trying to address is how to how to deal with with those situations where the name where their student's name hasn't been changed yet legally so not arguing with the clarity but I think that might be where that came from yeah but the clarity doesn't um have any unintended consequences does it yeah I'm not seeing them right now but we've spent a lot of time looking at it so I don't know maybe the smaller groups should go back and stare at it again and make sure yeah well that's tentatively they won't make that change and if if further review indicates that that creates some sort of ripple that we we might be concerned about we can we can uh flag that well thanks thanks policy committee for the great work on this it's uh it's really well written and well crafted and we appreciate the the time and thought that went into it and also yeah everyone who contributed because I know it I know that it got some broad input so excellent work um policy monitoring uh any questions or comments on the policy monitoring piece that moves around um practical involvement and board conflict of interest board conflict of interest was yours Jen I sent it to you and it didn't get done so we'll get we'll put that on the next one we'll put that on the uh you've been so busy that I have been so busy now I'll put that on the next board agenda um homework between then and now okay no thank you I I saw those emails and thought it was a form I needed to fill out that I could fill out later but um um that's a trap of of glansy the subject line and not do it so uh me a call on board normal conflict of interest um I'll I'll look at it for the 16th and uh um parental involvement any questions or comments um motion to approve the policy monitoring report for parental involvement to approve the policy monitoring report for the parental involvement uh Rujie go on second I was second thanks uh Jill oh oh we've had a discussion uh Jill hi advocate hi Ryan hi Emma hi Laura hi Rujie hi and Jerry had to drop off um motion to adjourn movie adjourn second um Jill hi advocate hi Ryan hi Emma hi Mara Bridget hi well thanks everyone um and it just a little early uh well uh happy good start to school uh thanks everyone next time we'll uh we'll hear how it goes and um hopefully it goes smoothly I know you guys have done everything again to make it go smoothly so uh knock on wood that the fates are with us as well yes everybody keep your fingers crossed wear masks wash your hands don't touch your face all right thanks everyone were you gonna talk something out the Anna no that was all it just usually they call out the additions in the motion if it wasn't listed on the paper agenda they didn't spend time I think it's fine yeah they were confidential though too were some of them were they all confidential yeah a lot of them are the new hires they usually just bulleted this is the technicality but I'm sure they have to approve it yeah all right thank you all right see you tomorrow morning I'll be so I'm gonna go up and get that car I've signed my name a couple times and then drop my husband off basically and then I'll be in probably around 9 30 okay so I'm good grab a busy morning with the flu clinic and stuff and yeah I'll get my flu shot when I get there no okay see ya