 opening the February 5th meeting of the Board of School Directors for the Bonn-Furrier-Rossburg School District. First a quick agenda item. We had talked about taking the superintendent's report and making it a separate item. We will remove that off the agenda, make it a separate item, and it'll appear as a separate item. I just didn't get communicated before this got printed, so easy fix. Could we... Executive session is on the agenda for later. Yes. Could we also add in the executive session a chance to talk about our executive argument? Yep. And then also just a quick announcement. We have a couple of additional administrative position searches going forward. Libby's already recruited, well, has already talked to you, and Steve is willing to serve on the SPED director position, and Jerry is willing to serve in the RBS principal position, so I just wanted to let folks know that, and if there is a burning desire for someone else to serve on one of those committees, let us know, but I want to give a chance before they get too far alive. Thank you, Darryl. Thank you, Steve. Yes, and as you probably know, we have two very exciting principal candidates for MSMS coming on Monday, and there'll be some times, I think 730-11, and perhaps again at 6-4. Is there a separate for both of them? No, public. Yeah. To meet them, and most of you know Roy, but it's... And the times are 730-11 for the public? Yes. Or the public, and I think we're adding a six o'clock to for people who, you know, that doesn't mesh with either their morning or lunch hour. And who is making a desiring decision? Is that us or Libby? Libby, yes, okay. So, so, and should the feedback go to you? Give feedback forms to, just like in the high school, yeah, everybody will have feedback forms, they all come to me else, and besides not, okay. I noticed that, less I understand, that information was not in the weekly middle school, you know, this week. I just wanted to flag that, so I could get a It may have been that Pam just had a grandchild born, and she is away this week, so that may have been written prior to the announcement, and scheduled to be sent out, so I don't know why, but that may be the reason. Maybe send a short thing that says that? It's on Facebook, it would, it would, if the middle school could get out an announcement, that would be ideal. And probably it would have to happen tomorrow, ideally. I've already made eyes for the, I am on? We have already had that communication, and not all see that. It has happened twice since we started the board meeting. Okay, good deal. So public comment, first order none. So consent agenda, and we've already taken the Superintendents report off, so, motion to approve the consent agenda? If I have the threat, it's to approve the consent agenda, adding the additional letter of resignation that was distributed just a few minutes ago, and subtracting the Superintendents report? Yes. So moved. I second. All is in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Excellent. So learning focus, the RBS gazebo? Yes. Thanks. Well, I'll just give you each one of these so that you can have more information about it, basically. This is Dottie Guicri. She is the preschool teacher here at... Yeah, I see it. She's making sure everybody knows who she is. Oh, good. Basically, we're asking for permission to put a gazebo there, and also for some financial assistance in putting it there. Thank you. And I brought a couple of visuals that are made here. First one is... First one is basically, you know, what it would look like. It's a 10-size gazebo. It's 20 feet in size, and it would provide... Oh, thank you. It would provide some shade, which the new regulations for playgrounds are saying that we need some shade out here. But it would also be basically for the school to have an outdoor classroom, which would connect with a lot of our science-based learning. And it would also be a place where we could have celebrations, rather than indoors in the gym space. And it would be a place where the community itself could utilize it when school was not open during the summers, in the spring and fall, when the weather is good. But it would add something to our community, and it would also add to the school. And this, when I discussed it with the facility manager, he said he would need some engineering drawings, which the company that builds the gazebo said to me. And we basically need to do some site work, which would allow a concrete base to put it on. And it would also be a trench to put some electricity out to it from the school, or the two things site-wise. And this is how they suggest attaching it and the actual shape of it. And on the playground, I looked at a map of the town. And basically Rockstory, this is our main street, our main and only intersection. And it would be a place where we would line it up with across the street. Right now there is an old abandoned church that has a wood shop in it that they're trying to sell, but it's a nice traditional building. And if we lined it up with the center of that and with our door out from the way with the school, it would be located in the place on the playground. The children never go to. I've been here eight years, and kids play over here on playground equipment, and they play on the soccer field. But they never use that corner of the, or that section of the playground, so it wouldn't interfere with any previous plans for using it. And I would be happy to answer any questions you have, but on the sheet that you have there, basically we are proposing that, that town meeting day. We will have a table set up in the hallway as people come in and leave. And we will be showing images of this and asking the communities help in raising funds for it. We would be asking the school to put in the funds in order to do the site work. And that might be around $10,000. But all together, you know, we've raised $5,000 so far for the gazebo. So we have $25,000 to go. And we're planning to do something at town meeting. We're also planning to reach out to friends and businesses in the area and organizations that might find this worth clear consideration. I have a question, because it sounds like a great idea. And my question has to do with timing. This could have been in the budget. Well, we've been talking about it since fall. And this is the first chance that we've gotten any realistic idea we had planned to do. We had planned actually to put something on the town budget. And the select men didn't like that idea and didn't want, even though we collected 20 or 30 signatures, they said, you'll make more money by doing it individually. Then if they shoot it down, you won't get anything. So it didn't get on the budget, but we would like to get it done this year, this summer. I think Tia was referring to the school budget. Oh, I'm sorry. It's a great idea. And we would have discussed it with our budget and perhaps put it in the budget. Well, I guess perhaps we weren't aware enough of your timetable. I'm sorry. Can I speak to that? In talking with Grant this morning, did he talk about this in finance committee? He did. So you probably know exactly what I'm going to share. So if Grant were here, he would say that he would rather, as the business manager being fiscally responsible for our budget, put this in school funding rather than fundraising. He has several concerns over fundraising for this. And if it's something the board agrees is a good thing for Roxbury Village School, then he would recommend using fund balance to do it or put it off till next budget season and put it into the budget. So that entail us, because if we're contributing to a pot, that sounds a lot like fundraising as opposed to just building it. And one of the things we talked in the finance committee was that it's not clear yet how much you really want from us. Well, the amount is probably the least. Around 10,000 is what I've been quoted on putting a concrete pad on enough support underneath it to... So one of the things is that that land out there is very wet. And in the spring is a pond. This area, the area that we chose is the highest point and it's not in the back fence area of 20 feet where it floods. What I was going to say is one of the things we talked about is if they were further along in the process so that we knew how much was raised, it might be more reasonable. So are you saying that you don't want us to fundraise at the town meeting? That's up for the board to discuss whether or not they would want to pay for this outright or you'd want to fundraise or you'd want to say, no, we don't think that's a good idea for the property. If we were going to fundraise, I would think it should be pie that should fundraise and the money should go into there. Maybe. Another consideration. But the other thing is there is a grant program through the state specifically for playgrounds and a grant of this size is an excellent candidate for that program. It would mean that you couldn't build it until 2021 I think because I think the applications are doing well. But that's an option for getting it paid for. It's called the Land and Water Conservation Fund and they fund playground improvements. I was kind of hoping though that originally my concept was that the community, the town, the community members and the school would all work together to achieve something visible and successful and bring the town together is what I, you know, that if everyone contributes something to it, they own it more. And I think Roxbury is a community that has several factions needs to feel that they're working towards something that the whole community can use. It's a nice idea since this is both a town and a school facility. So that's my question to you is to consider that and will you let us know what you decide your approach would be? I have a question. Yes. So on the 10,000 number, was that as a result of some like three quotes? I was just actually, I think Grant, I know it was Andrew mentioned that might be the amount that it would come to. And I think I did ask one other person and they thought it was in that range. I think you could do it for less actually. That would be lovely. And we have some really great engineers in town. Okay. So we might be able to get some pro bono work as well. So, you know, I think I just did a barn foundation. So it was 8,000 and that's a lot. Oh, yes. Okay. Well, you know, the more people we can get to feel that it's worth doing that, you know, whatever way they can help will say a lot to the community. Bridget. Yes. Yes. Speak to the fundraising issue because I hear what you're saying that having the community come together. And I see that the way that could be a positive thing. I do think there's some legal concerns around fundraising. That's what Grant was saying. Yeah. So that sounds like what Grant was saying because I don't know who would be doing the fundraising. If the parents group, we can't tell the parents group, which is Pi, to fundraise. But they can choose to fundraise as the parents group, which is its own nonprofit and then give the money to the district for some purpose. But I would share, I think, Grant's concern legally about the school district itself conducting a fundraiser. And also the suggestion that there would be like a donation bricks or gift bricks that are personalized. Yeah, raises some significant concerns for a public entity too. Advertise. Well, yeah. Advertising. Personalize messages. You don't know what. Yeah. Usually costs more than you get from them. Of course. You know, somebody has like you're speaking that and I did investigate. And, you know, each one was at least 10 or $15. And if someone contributes 25, you know, it's probably not worth doing that. And then there's maintenance challenges and so forth. That was the other question that even Grant was speaking to this morning is when you build any kind of structure on, even if there's maintenance afterwards. So you would be agreeing to cost from here on out. Well, I think a shade structure is a great idea and we should build one and maintain one. Yay. So then we should do it. Yeah. Bridget Grant's real concern wasn't so much the fundraising component as it was the construction component. Instead of just seeing so many horror stories of we have everybody and their brother come together and build something. This is coming from a company that they make their business by building gazebos. They put the pieces on a truck. They drive it up from Pennsylvania, attach it to your foundation. And in one day it's done. And I've worked with a company in Pennsylvania before, not this one, who came and erected a gazebo at the top of a hill. And they carried all the pieces up the hill. And it was done by evening. And it's just so much simpler than trying to, I mean, it's wonderful if you can get everybody working together and construct it. But that's too complicated for this project. We need it to be, you know, here's what we want. Here's where we want to put it. Let's all get together and make sure we have enough money to have it happen and put it there. And then we can start using it, you know, in the summer. Do we know how much that nest structure costs at Union? Not that we want to replicate the nest structure, but a simpler structure. Did Norwich donate that, or did he buy it? They donated the time bill to design. But we paid for the materials. I think so. It was built before I was hired, so I'm not positive. Because that's another option would be a Norwich design bill. And this company guarantees their work. And it has 30-year guaranteed singles on it. And it's cedar, so it's not going to rot like some things will. So, you know, the maintenance is minimal on it. So, what do you want to maybe have? Well, let's open up for discussion, but I'm not sure we need to make a decision tonight. I feel like we could just make a gesture of direction without committing to maybe a dollar amount. It might be a reasonable enough conclusion at this point in time. You might wait to see how much money they get at town meeting. What the actual costs are, and I would feel happy in supporting the project in general. But for sure I'd like to see it happen. We got kind of pinched time-wise and not knowing total exact numbers. It makes it a little bit tricky to say this amount. Okay, well, the amount of the foundation is the unknown amount. The other is a quote from the company, delivered and assembled. It seems like a big unknown, because it's the civil engineering on the site drainage and whether or not, just by moving it to the highest point, whether that really is the solution from a site-wide problem at, because the site has problems. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, there can be a lot of money spent as we've discovered in site engineering. And so it's not that you're wrong, it's that I think we would have to do due diligence on that. Sure. No, that makes sense. Does it need a permit? No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. Okay. Sorry. So, I think whoever did the foundation would have to make sure they knew where they were placing it. Well, then there might be the need to actually do drainage to make sure that... Right. Would we maybe get some quotes on that? Is it too small to trigger Act 250? Educational institutions are de facto not subject to town. Well, it's not 10 acres or... Okay. Let's do it on a really... Yeah. No, I just... I know that they... Educational institutions, even if there is town permitting, are often exempt from town permitting. They go directly to state permitting. So, I didn't know if that would just trigger it, just like that. I don't think so. Okay. If there's an existing Act 250 permit on the property... Excuse me? Yeah. It would reopen it? Right. Yeah. But I wouldn't think there would be. So, they doubled the size of the building in the 90s, but I've never heard... In any conversations I've heard about the additions that have been put on, Act 250 has never been raised in any of those conversations. Again, I don't know that for sure, but Act 250 has never popped up in any conversations about previous work and enlargements of the building. How big is the ground? This might be too small for Act 250. How much property is this? I don't know. So, I mean, it's ten acres. Ten acres or ten subdivisions. Yeah, exactly. It's just less than that. Yeah. So, what do folks want to do? I want to try to get a few more. Well, it sounds like they need a decision quite quickly on the question of whether or not anyone can fundraise under any guys at town meeting. Yeah, the selectman told me to do that. The selectman told me to do that. After I shaved them the information, they said, you know, they said the library does it, you should do it too. And they've raised $5,000, right? Yes. You understand that correctly. Fund raising already. And where does that money reside? Is it with the fact that it's my contribution toward it? So, I will put it in when other people put money in. Gotcha. And whatever entity we need to decide hasn't been decided yet. Oh, thank you for that. Sounds like questions need to be... Yeah, I think we need enumerated so they can be resolved. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what does the board need answers to? About the... I would just say, like, is there anything legally we should consider before... Well, I think we have to decide whether we're authorizing someone to go fundraise money for the district, like the district is sitting at the table saying, give money to the district, or this is just a group that's either a parents' group or something like that. It's like we're... The PTO is doing it. In which case they don't really need our permission. The district owns the property now. It used to be that the school properties were owned by the municipalities, but now it's the district that owns the property. So it's up to us to make the decision about whether this happens. Yes. Right. Not really. How was money raised for the playground? Because there was a fair amount of... Parents' group. Parents' group. Which was not... Smooth. Well, it was not smooth, but also parents' group wasn't real. It was not an organization. It didn't have... It didn't have, like, a... Plus it started with... Right. Now we have a formal non-profit. So, for instance, at town meeting, if people are writing checks, they can write a check to... We would buy town meeting. Yeah. And pack... Then they would be tax deductible. To write the checks to... Right. And it might be a good example if I'm not mistaken. The original intent of starting that playground was, you know, no problem, we'll do this little... Little fun thing. And it turned out to be, as you've talked about, a big problem as far as the land and the structure, which we don't know. It could conceivably be the same thing this time. And we started with a grant from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to build that playground. And then the parents were trying to raise money to match that, but then the project was so much paper. Which can happen. So an LVVCF grant was, like, something... like, over the whole cost? No, it requires a match. From the district or just a match? Just a match. There are really two questions here. The first one is whether the district would be interested in... If it was... If all the money came into the district as donations, whether it would be... The district would be interested in building it and having it on the property. And then the second question is, would the district contribute to the property? Or should it do all of it? But the final... Who pays is separate from whether the district says yes or no, the gazebo's a good idea, and we should allow it effectively. If the money works. You know, if the money works. Would the district like it? Because if that's a yes, then the next question is simply, how's it paid for? Who pays? I think if the district would like it, the district should pay for it, but the district would also certainly welcome community contributions by Pi. Unless Grant has a real concern about it. No, I think Pi would be very much a different scenario than fundraising a large portion of it. How would Pi be different? Because what Grant was... Then they could say, we're going to give you this much amount. Right. Right. What he was saying is that if it's an independent fundraiser, is that... So Dottie goes out and she tries to fundraise $25,000. Let's say that's the actual number. But she can only raise $15,000 in year one. So if the project don't hold, do we build it? Do we order it? And pay the rest of it? And then hope the rest of the fundraising comes in? It gets really tricky with like, what if you could never get to $25,000? But you get to $20,000. Right? So Grant was saying it's just really tricky around that. And he would much rather have it either we're not building it or the district is building it and the district is using district money to build it. But could we do a hybrid in which the district decides to build it and is in charge of getting site engineering, site design. Oh yeah, he will be doing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. District is going to build it. District is going to control the stitch. But we welcome community contribution. Can we take this approach? Can we say the district would like to build it? The district would like to go out and see what the cost of building it is because we're a little... We have some questions about the grounds, the site, and if it's a reasonable cost, we'll go forward. And if it turns out that there's, you know, a huge drainage problem or some other issue that might send the cost through the roof, we'll re-tick it. So I'd propose that we might approve finding out how much it would cost as the first step. So we want Andrew to study this and Andrew to bring up the proposal. Yeah, what's required to do this. And then the board can decide because, you know, my wish would have been that it's in a budget. It's not this one. If we're paying for the whole thing, then the next one. But at least then we'd know how much it costs. And would it be possible for us to say, we'll fund it and we want to match from the community? Like we'll do like half and half? Would that be possible or not? Is that what gives you the community ownership? What if they don't get it? What if the community doesn't make that money? I think that requires a really clear board resolution that we shall not do anything beyond pre-development until all funding is in place effectively. And so whether that, we decide that's going to be private funding or public funding or a combination of them, we do the pre-development, we get our price tag and we stop. And we don't schedule it. We don't hire people. We don't order materials. We don't order contractors. We don't sign contracts. And who would be responsible for, I guess, the continuation of the process at that point in time? The bill? No, just pull the money together. You could decide again, couldn't we get the estimate on how much it would cost to actually do it. And then it comes back to the board. Then it says, oh, it's only going to cost $5,000 to put this on, or, oh, there's lots of drainage problems and it's going to cost $50,000. Does the board still want to do it? So it comes back at that point to the board. And then you decide whether you really want to do it or not. And then you could discuss the how. The issue with fundraising is if you have people who make a bunch of pledges and don't collect it, then if you don't get the number, you can quit. But if you're taking a bunch of checks and it gets mingled and you have organizations that aren't super straight, and a bunch of people have written $40 checks for different $40 in cash, we don't get to the number, and then people are like, well, I gave my $40, because Zibo, where is it? Where is it? And then we say, well, we're not building enough money. And then they say, well, where's my $40? And they're like, well, we don't know. Well, now, certainly before any funds were collected, there needs to be a source to deposit them in and a record of who gave what. So if they have to be returned, it's possible to do that. It sounds to me like fundraising on Town Meeting Day, given that it's a month away, that doesn't seem like a thing to go forward with at the moment. Just since that's a separate question of all the other questions. I would disagree with you, because the impetus right now is for Town Meeting to be the place in the community that that's their timeframe. I just mean, like, timeframes of the project doesn't allow for that timeframe, sounds like. Dottie, the article that the petition, the petition was circulated. Yes. The article would have asked for X amount of dollars. It would have asked for $10,000. To go to who? Do you remember? How was it? It was just to the project. I didn't do it, I think, and actually had the petition. The language. Yeah. So she would have that. So we didn't say it's going to Merb Spy? Because I would have had to assume that that's where. I don't know. Because I didn't do what she was doing that part of it. And she supposedly has contacted everybody who had signed it, expecting it to be on the Town Meeting warrant, and told them that we were now, because of the Selectman's decision that we were going to do it as an informational table and collect funds at Town Meeting Day, because we would have access to more people at that time. We can't tell Merb Spy not to do a fundraiser. No. We don't have any authority over what they do and those do. I mean, technically they're a separate institution doing whatever they want to do. So. I mean, I guess my thought is let's have Andrew investigate if a separate fundraising wants to occur. It can occur. But at this point, it can occur with, I think, until we get some sort of guarantee about how that feels and what the cost is. But I think you can tell me the board is interested in considering it. We just want to find out the cost. And, you know. Fundraising should not be for the district as well. No. The check should not be written out. No. The check should not be written out. The community's contribution. Exactly. In some way. Yeah. But it should not be money given to the district. No. But I think having Andrew look at it and see what the price tag is and, you know, if it's reasonable, hopefully we can just, you know, whatever fundraise is fundraised and the district can pick up the rest and make it happen. If it's, you know, if there's unanticipated problems and it's really expensive, then we'll have to figure out who they are. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for having me tonight. My name is Matt McLean, and I have the, well, first of all, thanks to each of you for just all the service to the school community. It reminds me of driving down here from Worcester all the time and effort you put in. So I just wanted to genuinely appreciate that. Walking back to 1998, I was an intern at Montpelier High School of Social Studies and had the really good fortune to be hired as a part-time teacher in 1999. And just really, again, thanks for the opportunity to be connected with the school community and thanks for, yeah, just all that you're doing. Really appreciate it. We appreciate you. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, seriously. I want to, kind of, three goals for just sharing information. One is to share and inform the board or inform additionally the board about flexible pathways. Share some target areas that are, kind of, like lenses through which we're looking at our work so that we're, kind of, keeping an eye on equity so that all means all in terms of our students that are accessing flexible pathways. And just to identify some of the growing needs and priority areas as we just, kind of, move forward. So it's really, it's an information share and hopefully there's enough information that can prompt some questions, whether it's tonight or additionally down the road. We welcome dialogue about a lot of stuff that's happening, which is a lot of moving parts, which is, it's cool, it's fun. Before we get going, I'm going to just ask, please, and thanks for indulging me in this. Can you take about 60 to 90 seconds? This is kind of a rapid fire. And do some... If you didn't think about something that you have chosen to learn in your life, something that you chose to learn about, who was there to support you in that learning and what was a skill that helped you in that learning process? So just in your life, just something that you chose to learn about. Could be anything. Who was there to support you in that and what was a skill that was important for you in that learning experience? I'm going to ask for a couple of volunteers on the response, so get out ahead of it. What was the last piece, that skill piece? What skill allowed you to access or engage in that learning experience? Time is valuable. So the question is, what's something that you chose to learn about? Who was there to support you in that and what was a skill that helped you to access that learning experience? Would anyone be willing to share what that learning experience was? Sure. Thanks, Steve. Actually, when I became a principal, it was what supported, the first question was, what was there to support me? Who or what? Because it was one of those things that when I got my first job, I thought, nobody told me this. It wasn't in the program. And it was the other principals in the district that were very supportive because they'd been there to say to me, yeah, I know that. Nope, you're not going to do that right the first time kind of thing. And that was good. And the skills maybe directly related to that was in all the confusion of that first year, I had to be able to listen to those people that talked to me about it and maybe be concise about focusing what I needed to know and what they could help me with. Thank you. You're welcome. Awesome. Anyone else? So I decided to start learning Russian and the support there was really that the infrastructure for language learning is different than it used to be and so the independent infrastructure of apps and things so that I could choose to engage independently without having to have a teacher or something like that. That support was available and then the skill that I needed to make that happen though was kind of an understanding of what was going to be sustainable as an independent learner in terms of how often I would engage or what goals I would have to set for myself and those are skills that I had learned before in other things in school and things but the skill of choosing, pacing, and capacity. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. One more? Sure. I learned how to fly airplanes. Sorry. Now continue that. What? No question. And there was a guy named Pat and we had a mutual love of music. We both played in bands and things and he was an excellent pilot and so he really kind of took me under his wing. It can be a little intimidating at the airfield and I would say he taught me confidence to be able to do my solo and all that. Yeah. Confidence was key. Are you flying still? I have not been flying lately, you know, but I had my best year at 78 flights. Awesome. Wow. So maybe you may not set up a flexible pathway with Jerry. I know. I know. I know. The fields are dirty. We need air traffic controllers. You have to be a pilot. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. You know, probably obvious where I'm heading with this is there's so many opportunities to engage in learning and when we think about, you know, what our overall mission is, you know, within the schools, you know, we want caring, creative, equitable communities and, you know, the building children's talents and passions and continue to promote them as lifelong learners. And I think that that's, in my mind, that is flexible pathways offers a way amongst many ways within the learning community to promote and support the mission, where students have voice and choice. I just took a tour of Dottie's classroom and she was talking about this amazing new voice and choice piece that she has with her preschoolers. She didn't know what we were talking about tonight and she's like, it's unbelievable the engagement that her students have when they're able to have some choice and agency in that. So it's cool from a system from pre-K all the way through graduation, how do we encourage young people to think about their interests and their passions and their skills and their aspirations and then what do we do with that? So anyhow. I apologize if I'm going to yabber. So please interrupt as we go along and certainly obviously questions at the end would be welcome. But just to kind of point to the attention to Act 77 from 2013, really it was a mandate for all schools in Vermont to create flexible pathways to learning hand to graduation. And so this is, it's well, it's our locally adopted framework where we're also doing this because all schools in Vermont are being asked to do this work. You know, developing and expanding high quality educational experiences, promoting opportunities for students to achieve secondary readiness and really like honing in what are the skills regardless of what path the student takes and then graduate what are the skills that they need to move in that aspirational direction. And then this idea of, you know, making sure that we're looking to increase secondary high school completion and post-secondary school continuation, whether that's post-secondary training, two-year associates degree, small-year degree, whatever that is. Those are some of the main aims that the state legislature adopted as they put forth Act 77. And so that's partly what, you know, we're charged to do and we're happy to do. Just to kind of orient you to the different pathways at the high school. Just kind of list them out. I'll touch on some of these additionally, but I just wanted to just kind of list them out. So community-based learning is one of the longest-standing pathways and it's, I'll talk more about it, but it's really students engaging in community learning experiences often with mentors in an area of personal interest. Personalized learning studies, it was kind of renamed last year, it was called independent studies and really wanted to kind of reframe the idea of like it's just an independent thing. We're going to increase this idea of collaboration of learning with adults and students collaborating in the design of learning. Online learning. Just driving down here, VT, VLC, virtual learning cooperative is, you know, you'll hear it on a lot of different radio stations. We've had focus from a fiscal standpoint, from a learning platform standpoint, and it's a growing element in Vermont high schools and one that's keeping us kind of on our toes trying to understand what it is. It's an interesting dynamic that we're learning about every day with every student experience. And then dual enrollment in early college again affording all juniors and seniors in high school the opportunity to dip their toes in or immerse as early college as what it does in higher ed as part of their high school education. The Centre Vermont Career Center located on the Spalding campus and our extended learning opportunities which are learning opportunities that are really specifically focused on our learning expectations and the transferable skills. And then we have a partnership with the Centre Vermont Adult Basic Education High School Completion Program and that's often times a hybrid of students accessing opportunities at the high school and also accessing opportunities that they would have with adult basic ed and creating a learning plan. Can I ask you, the ELOs confuse me sometimes because I always kind of imagine that being integrated into each of the other pathways but I just don't understand the mechanics of it all and like the personalized learning study and the ELOs they seem to overlap with me and I don't I'm sure there are different paths but I don't really get why you need an ELO if you've got all these other things. Yes. Excellent confusion or a question. Totally. And we're realizing that ELOs is, I mean that's the thing that interweaves between so many different learning experiences including classroom experiences. All classes at the high school have transferable skills that are attached with their formative and summative assessment instruction around those skills and the same is true of online learning or personalized learning studies community-based learning. Really the transferable skills are embedded within them. If a student really wanted to do it's also a way to just kind of bridge like a student did an ELO and he's a dishwasher at Mad Taco and his skill that he identified was persistence and around washing dishes he set a goal for making enough money so he could buy a drum kit so when it wasn't like a personalized learning study it wasn't a community-based learning it was just something he was doing naturally and he wanted to say, hey, Montpiler High School please value what I'm doing at my work and by the way it's connected to the skills that I need to graduate with as part of my graduation. It's one of those skills. So Steve, yeah they are woven in and my sense is that ELOs as a pathway may just get enveloped into all the other ones. But yeah, there's a good question. We have a current team a position was newly created last year, I had the good fortune of applying and getting it as an administrative position as a director of the team Stephanie Delina is the longest standing faculty member on the team and Sarah Lovelace and Keanu Bromley are the two faculty community-based learning advisors and Bill Laidlaw is a split halfway 50% of his position is a case learning advisor and 50% of his position is special ed funded and he has students as a case load he case manages a couple of students so he's got kind of two discrete jobs but affords a level of expertise within our department that allows us to really think about how do we best support all students and their ability to access these opportunities and kind of brings continually to the work and the conversation and then we have an instructional assistant Katrina Phillips and all these colleagues are amazing and Katrina focuses on supporting students directly in the community with the most significant barriers to accessing opportunities so she's there really supporting students mostly with developmental disabilities in their community-based learning experiences and then we have different content faculty members who support students who are doing studies in the content areas whether it's English language arts or Google citizenship or the science, technology, math and engineering and so we've got 3.5 faculty that are dedicated kind of purely at a big chunk of the flexible pathways work instructional assistant and then my position as an administrator that's kind of the team and to be fair you do many more things than just flexible pathways many more things all fun so and again I have a short I'm not going to bother a lot but so community-based learning there's 3 different types of work-based learning kind of your traditional internship soon goes they work with an architect and really kind of learning a trade or a profession kind of in that traditional sense community-based personal study those are studies that a student might pursue in jazz piano or pottery they don't necessarily want to be a potter but they really want to have that artistic creative element as part of their learning experience during whatever semester so it's not really that traditional internship but it's just a personal learning study kind of identifying and wanting support in accessing along the way and then service-based activities students that want to work at Heaton Woods or they want to work at the elementary school working as a classroom assistant because it just is good to get out of the school and to go and be in a very different learning environment supporting kids and the big 10 is community-based learning and then we're really trying to understand where students are trying what's their entry point to wanting to leave school to access other learning opportunities that are community supported kind of going back to Steve's question just because I had an example come to mind and I want to check that that's what you're talking about so I've had a kid do a CBL and that's a structured formal thing with a set duration check-ins with you and so forth and I had a kid do independent study which is a semester long with check-ins with the teacher and staff and so forth also formal and structured and but in ELO could that be like you know so my daughter does the conversation if she does a presentation at a conference and I mean they have a lot of opportunities to do presentations but if for some reason they didn't and that was a skill that she wanted to demonstrate could that be an opportunity that she identified like with Lyssa or something to get credit for? Yes and it would be yes is a short answer it's and ELO's right now are funneled through TAs so that it's a way for TAs to also get to know who the teachers are and to be able to support them in that skill development through the PLP process is that something that she would identify with her TA and the PLP but Lyssa would be kind of the primary supporter of that work and then that would go back through the PLP and the TA who's the main supporter of that yes okay cool so they can identify that kind of if they're building a skill way they could as long as they talk with somebody about it it might be an opportunity yeah there's some reflection there's some props verification and accountability and all of that yes but less structured than say of a community based learning experience but yes there's a structure and expectations within that right I'm curious Lyssa's in front of us right now has a bunch of careers that you might have traditionally found in a tech center some of those like culinary arts the furniture making nursing that stuff would still be found in tech centers are we somehow recreating the same opportunities as a tech center or how would a CVL experience in nursing differ from say maybe in the tech center or brand offer you know I think it's the scale of the experience you know some students really want to do a deep dive which is if you commit to the career center you're really committing quite a significant amount of time during any given year to that particular focus where somebody said they're a junior and they're thinking about what they might want to do after high school nursing seems cool like my mom's in there my friends in there so they're able to have that experience during their semester that is also complimented by a number of courses that they would just take in-house so they can take a number of different courses and then they would sign out they'd go up, they'd go wherever they would go to work with a nurse so it's not displacing a student from going to the career center it's actually encouraging potentially could encourage a student like let's use automotive technology student did community based learning at Ottons Automotive with Pete Brown got completely jazzed about it apply this is a true example, apply junior year to the career center did a senior year to the career center did a senior year there and automotive technology is now a freshman at BTC in their automotive program and so really students can kind of test the waters a little bit and then if they want to make that bigger jump into anything and if the career center has that they're then able to make that decision so really it's also a place for them to launch ideas as well I did maybe not the same one but I did speak to a student who went to Ottons learned to do things and said I had no idea that the tech center was there that wasn't why I signed up and then when I learned and I wanted to learn more, there it was yeah I just kind of address that one down the road but do students know about the career center right and so that's another important question to ask for sure maybe just a comment and I'm sorry I don't mean to be negative or anything but um are we considering that some of these jobs won't be around I mean we even I talked to recently to somebody who completed the automotive and came to that realization as well, I mean a lot of it is just diagnosing with a computer with the newer cars I mean are we just considering some of the future careers that will be available at the career center just in general like to try to encourage people not to go down a dead-end path because Vermont when I see Vermont I see a lot of it seems to me behind quite a quite a bit in some areas and so I worry that the kids don't really have the skill sets needed for the future yeah um good question I think well just focusing on the career center and this is true all of the state career centers are really closely connected with the Department of Labor and really looking at like where are the trends of need within industries and they're really working to be responsive to those labor trends that are shifting last two addresses that Governor Scott did were both really about jobs and young people staying to do the jobs and what's available so career centers are really working to be responsive in their programs for that with community-based learning is less about like what career will you do it's about that but you know 15, 16 years old the proficiency in this course is self-awareness and responsibility and so the content of the course is not nursing or midwifery the content of the course is the student themselves and so because the content of proficiency is self-awareness that's the content the vehicle to understand themselves and their skills and their aspirations is the experience itself in the community with a mentor it's just kind of flipping it from like what career do you want to do and I'm 15 or 16 that's hard some students don't but every student has the ability to have a facilitated opportunity the iterative process of reflection Excellent, my daughter did a CBL in an office and she got to do some very cool stuff but I think one of the biggest realizations was so when you work in an office you sit at a desk all day like all day that's pretty that's an important realization and both of her parents work in an office so she has an idea but to experience it and understand just the basic level so much of it is hard telling not knowing I don't know, maybe I might be interested in that or that might be a relevant job but it's more about skills and it's just self-awareness that's really what it's about and finding out what you don't want to do yeah, sitting in an office totally for instance that makes sense how to learn and engage thoughtfully in a community and civic context so it's apparent hundreds of community partners the school community relationships that are born and sustained over time is absolutely amazing we can't do enough as a school community to thank our community partners every single year because of adult mentors who reach out and accept invitations to work with students it's amazing so I just wanted to point to that as the backbone because without them these experiences cannot be facilitated and that learning is just exciting online learning it's one of the Act 77's kind of platforms and pathways that student needs are around online learning some of our partners are Vermont Virtual Learning Co-operative VTVLC which is kind of most closely aligned with the Agency of Ed as an online partner and they have their own course of studies they have semesterized courses and they also have these on demand which offers some flexibility when students start the course and when it ends virtual high school national online provider E-achieve is Wisconsin's state online school both Hope, Petraro your board members Hope and Eve both have taken or are taking French courses through E-achieve French 4 because that particular level of French is not offered in the other schools and because it's a singleton there was scheduling issues they couldn't take French 4 because it bumped into something else it was a singleton so that's in their case that's partly why they chose an online course is they could not access that course because they had something else that was also offered at that same time and they had to make a choice so this offered some flexibility for them to continue with their French studies and not have to just give it up and then obviously there's all sorts of things that students can the program of study blows open pretty significantly with online courses for sure I want to thank you for that because it's been one of my bugaboos and we really have raised the number of kids that are doing online courses and online courses are not necessarily easy to do and so the support that you've been giving students is good because you can do things we can't offer yes with those partnerships with those virtual and we're still learning how to best support that for sure and so part of that is asking students this was just 13 responses this was this last year just trying to get some feedback what are you bumping into what skills are you finding are useful and time management there could be another two or three different pie charts that keeps coming back as just kind of you were referring to that in your own Russian studies how do I prioritize my time and so really working with students and school counselors to really kind of identify like when will you do this it's a dedicated time and we're learning with every student experience how to best or better facilitate that and we know certainly all of our had our own experiences with that don't imagine you'll get it done over the summer no so we're learning every day we will not we actually stopped offering online courses over the summer because they're not supported and we found the students just and it's long to do a course all by yourself sitting in a computer and nobody to talk to unless you have somebody that's going to ask you how you're doing there's virtual instructors but again it's not that side by side or how you have metrics for success of the program on online learning I would imagine those are complete satisfactorily might be one of those things and if you do keep those sorts of records like how are you seeing it changing yeah are you effective we've yet to collect that data and that's part of the role of bringing in director position to put attention to that and so last year we began to just both high school and dual enrollment there's many students who do dual enrollment courses that are online through UVM or CCV or VTC so yes they're great as a marker but I think it's going to be their own experience through an evaluation at the end of the course around important did you feel like you grew your skills like putting their attention back to the skills that they are needing to do a course and to journey through it almost as if the process is more important than the product not more important but we want to put their attention back to the process of learning in addition to their achievement in the course itself so we haven't really set the markers but that is in the wheelhouse I mean even if you had two markers to start just use for some longitudinal stuff yes personalized learning studies these are more content specific studies and they're supported through faculty who are licensed in the different areas and students can choose to do these any semester it's more typical that they do them as sophomores, juniors and seniors we have two freshmen that are engaged in English language arts journalism they were at the state house this morning we're working with John Walters who works for VT Digger looking at doing journalism around climate crisis so they were in one of the house committees this morning at 10 listening to testimony and then they'll be writing about that so all sorts of things they're going to have to do they're going to have to do research and repair because that's what his family has done for generations wants it to be a part of his own experience and so trying to honor that bring that in again just trying to being asking students what are the skills that you this is kind of a pre-assessment before the students so we have some formative ideas that they're going to really be needing to access and grow as part of these experiences and it gives us a chance to kind of identify which students feel that they're good at setting goals or they have a way of being organized etc. Organize our support accordingly dual enrollment in early college increasing number of students who are accessing both of these really amazing options at CCB today just looking at our early college and dual enrollment students before the ad drop so that if students say they want to do it but all of a sudden oh my god and they haven't been there for two weeks that we can support them in exiting that experience if that's appropriate for that situation so that they don't get in a situation where they have this course that's officially transcripted and then follows them both part of their high school and their college transcript as their kind of foray in the so we're really trying to look at that because a lot of students have never had this experience and for those that don't have the prerequisite skills to do what we want to make sure that we're supporting them in being able to access that Career Center lots of different programs I think question around relevance to modern society and future societies yeah I think a lot of digital media arts is the most popular natural resources and sustainability it's also very very popular and a lot of students are putting their attention we this year next Friday we'll bring 31 students to the Career Center for interviews and a job shadow which is the highest number of students we've had applied to the Career Center we currently have 18 students that are enrolled and that's high a year before that we had 11 and so I think the question is like why is it growing right so then that begs that question I think increasingly students are wanting like really tangible, relevant learning opportunities that they may not be finding you know in their kind of general education experiences and it's not that it's not there but there I think increasingly saying like I want to have a full immersion in this area and students cannot matriculate to the Career Center until they're juniors and seniors there is a sophomore program but it's really small and it's only 10 students for all the different sending towns so there's not a lot of sophomores and so we really have them at Montpelier High School for the first couple years trying to understand who they are and what they want and then a lot of them are wanting to develop their hat and the ring for these programs but again Steve you're point like we want to be better understanding why are they applying that's an open question but I think really relevant, tangible, authentic experiences building a home plumbing a house, doing electrical building websites, doing marketing work for companies through digital media arts those are I think exciting opportunities for students and I think it's an acceptable thing now at Montpelier High School and at least when my children went to school here it wasn't quite an acceptable thing if you wanted to go to the Career Center it's shifting for sure and that has to do with families too because parents certainly hold so much sway over you know what students will be doing and what they won't be doing and so I think it's really both from students and faculty but also just from a family's perspective but if the school doesn't value it then it becomes harder to negotiate going someplace else, coming back, making sure you've got not missing something of the high school, not missing something of the tech center so that's bureaucratic we try to avoid and apologies in time, please keep me unchecked on this so we're putting our attention towards equity, trying to make sure that we're really focused on including all students in our pathways the lenses through which we're looking at that are just clarity, support and agency and again these are just focus areas and they're continued efforts we're not there but we know that we need to just continually look at these areas just what communications do we have for students, families and community partners faculty and staff continue a review of processes and procedures through our guidance processes, our external partnerships whether they're community-based learning mentorships or online to do enrollment teacher advisory and special education you know how are we how are we working with systems in order to make sure that all students and their families and guardians understand what the opportunity is and how do they access it to kind of level that playing field of how do you play the game of school that's something we're focused on and then trying to consolidate that all in our flexible pathways handbook and being better at promoting that so that families and students know what that what all those pieces are in one place support with the staff that we had up earlier just tremendously dedicated to this idea that all students should be able to have access it's hard it gets clumsy when all students are in the mix and but is dedicated to that we're constantly looking at how our partnerships with higher ed our community partners are supportive again for all students our online working with VTVLC to make sure that IEPs are transferred to the teachers and that we have the right agreements in place so that the teachers understand what the learner profile is so that when they're doing those courses it's not just like well I didn't know and so really trying to refine those sorts of partnerships with our in this case with our online partners but in any of the partnerships and then TA in faculty support teacher advisor faculty support really teachers knowing what students are wanting what they're lacking and continuing to provide appropriate supports along the way and then transportation kind of a discreet item thank you for that support the school has some vehicles that we have not had in many many years and it just affords kids a chance to get places they're not taking vehicles themselves but right you got all the keys check it out man don't drive slow but that's that's huge and just have a unique situation in town other schools don't so that's really unique in that way but thank you that's a huge piece and an agency if we're going to ask young people what their interests and and and having some voice and choice we have to be responsive in ways that we can support them to experience those areas and we need to have adults of orders to support that in the absence of that it's it's undermining the idea of like who are you what you want to be real quick just some there's some numbers this was from 2018-2019 there was 358 over the course of the entire year 358 supported student experiences of which 187 were unduplicated so essentially many students did multiple experiences 187 is kind of the individual student that may have done one online course and one community-based learning experience in that year 43% so of the 187-29 were eligible for free and reduced lunch based on the the total number of students who were eligible for free and reduced lunch during that year at the high school 43% of free and reduced eligible students participated in a flexible pathway during 2018-19 last year we grew in the number of total supported experiences and the number of individual experiences so more kids accessing these opportunities and our percentage of students who are accessing these pathways increased to 56% based on this year it's I think there's 72 students at the high school who are eligible for free and reduced lunch 43 of them participated in one of the pathways so we're just trying to keep our eye on making sure that the students are really and their families know about these and that they're supported in them dual enrollment and this has come to a close sorry just to kind of give folks a landing pad here dual enrollment early college just to kind of like break it down into this piece we know the state knows that there is students from low SES are not accessing dual enrollment in early college to the extent that was originally intended period that's a statewide issue we know that and we again this is our work moving forward we need to put our attention to that and to have the right supports in place so that students can be supported in that transitional knowledge which is kind of a privileged knowledge like how do I navigate an external system and not all students have the ability to navigate that that's a privilege kind of like skill set that many students don't have just because they haven't been around it they haven't been taught it and so making sure that we're identifying students that want this opportunity and supporting them through this is this year so we have 34 students total doing dual enrollment courses and seven doing early college this year it's through one at Northern Miami University we have three at Norwich and four at CCD do they have to fulfill certain requirements in order to be eligible to do that like do they have to have gotten to a certain point in their traditional course work or they can do dual enrollment or can no is the short answer any junior or senior can do that yes but it's made in collaboration with school counselors parents like not every opportunity is appropriate for every student and so we look at just content core content have you had the math background to take this this math course and is it appropriate students said well I really want to take a dual enrollment course but I don't have that math but I'd like to experience that but I want to take a painting class or a philosophy class or something that's not necessarily discreetly aligned with a progression of knowledge then they can access that through that so it's a conversation about what knowledge and skills do they have going through the door and what courses might be appropriate in that situation and we put together three buckets that we look at with star assessment scores, aspect testing transferable skills and just looking at all those markers with students and their families to say here are a bunch of things that we can look at to say are you ready so that you can be successful so we're not saying you should not be doing this we're actually saying the exact opposite here's what you need to be thinking about to make it a form of choice enrollment projections show this from Libby and Grant slide presentation, budget presentation in December as you know our total enrollment is increasing in the district as it will be at the high school we are turning kids away from opportunities so we don't currently have the ability to absorb the demand in our programming and there's waiting lists for each of the, not all the pathways but community based learning online learning, personalized studies they all have waiting lists because we don't have the ability to staff appropriately the supports that are needed for students and they're all at a pretty significant threshold are they just going to grow for growing number no because that would be to the disregard of what students, all students need in order to access these pathways we asked for a .5 increase this past budget cycle but given the priorities that were competing across the district that was not on the table for this year I will definitely be coming back to seek additional support so that we're not having to turn kids away we're turning kids away, we're denying them access to these opportunities and we don't want to just grow the numbers that's not our goal our goal is to afford to any kids the right support and opportunity as possible I work ahead and just to finish off just continuing our focus on equity clarity support student agency just looking at data untangling a lot of different things that have been in place to try and pull out the right data so that we have a better sense of who's participating, what's their experience kind of one of our markers for success both achievement and qualitative student experience and then achievement continue to form strong partnerships new pathways we don't want to stay static in what we're currently offering, we want to continue to innovate one thing we did this year was wild, which is the wilderness inquiry leadership development that Dave Bennett leads and the connection that Dave has made this year with Jerry Tillison and global citizenship around this big idea through the C3 standards college, career and civics around inquiry this big idea around inquiry and this entire piece of wild is really around inquiry and how that transfers as a global citizen and then just support and retain the faculty that we have and if we can we would love to grow in order for student experiences and I think Ana you mentioned that you'd be able to share this and so there's also some resources here that I apologize I totally apologize about that but questions that you may have about this I just want to say first of all thank you so much you used the term or the lens of privilege there near the end which I think we all talk about that a little bit now but I think we only talk about it more but when you were having us do these things I had a hard time with the skill I had an easy time with the what was the privilege I had to get me to that point, right, like whenever it might be learning to play piano or whatever, some privilege behind that and when you were talking about the issues around dual enrollment and such it really struck me that one of the things your programs do more than anything else is kind of the privilege of opening a door supporting someone when they fall mentoring them, those privileges that some of us have or someone's mentored or someone's caught us when we fell those things as we talk as a district about equity and it's about opportunity in learning it seems like your programs can do almost incredibly valuable tools to achieve to level out that privilege a little bit to provide privileges of opportunity and mentoring and support where you know when it doesn't come from when they enter the school district and you know it's not a magic bullet but I'm just suggesting that it's worth investing in is all I'm saying I agree I think there's quite an opportunity that may not be afforded based on whatever context of situation I agree Two sentence explanation when somebody says ah yeah but I know that they've really been a success you know they're not getting an A, B or C right so what in the system allows you to assess that well in most of the yeah in most quick question this I actually didn't put this in there I put it actually less but I put a couple slides just so but we do have really specific assessments within the within the pathways and that are transcripted they're assessed and so it's not just a like cool experience and but they're really like we're really targeting like community based learning self-awareness responsibility responsibility to others and what are other responsibilities back to us so kind of looking at that two way street and so students are being assessed at that at those skills personalized studies there's content proficiencies that they're asked to demonstrate so that there's assessment there but then getting back to like yeah so those are aligned with our courses and you know measures of success I think you know continually get students feedback on their experiences what worked for them what didn't work for them using that to integrate into our work moving forward but I think kids are just coming back we're turning kids away so that's a marker we're turning kids away that want to have these experiences because we're not staff appropriately to support them in those ways I think that's a marker I would say that they don't get ABC's in class anymore this is even squishier and somebody asked me about this it's surprisingly not though in my own kids experience it's just as structured as class there are rubrics, there are meetings with teachers, there's the same kind of assessment and the same kind of learning expectations in these things as there is in class it's a very consistent system across that's the game of school we don't want kids to have to navigate additionally how they need to get credit or what they're going to be assessed on the more we can create consistency across there are general classes and then they do a CBL if there's consistency in reporting an assessment it just levels that's good too as far as equity goes because some kids are just good at the game of school and the kids that aren't won't be able to negotiate that if it's different so we're trying to remove that sort of navigational space that some kids and families may not be able to navigate as effectively yeah there's so much work here it's cool and I feel like we're moving ahead there's a lot more to do when we get there run an example an independent study so my daughter dances and a bunch of the kids who dance take an independent study in order to get peace a study in order to get PE credit but it's quite structured they can't just say I want to dance there's a rubric there are expectations they have to demonstrate proficiency it's just like class but it's maybe a little more work because they have to independently set goals and report back to the teacher but it's the same for other activities but then the school provides a structure that they put that into to demonstrate their proficiency do you feel integrated into all the other initiatives going on in the school? I just want to cut off that's fine I don't want to do a quick time check why don't you answer that and then we can sorry no it's been excellent the presentation was great but I don't want to keep the conversation to a minimum because we do culturally yes structurally yes like me is it like the program and the different pathways? I just mean your programs integrated with the other initiatives going on in the schools around curriculum development and around all the other things that we are working on yeah integrated yes it's a great inherent tension that needs it's good to explore the tension between content and personalization and it's just a natural tension that exists I mean just to name it so yes but as we yeah that's where the tension point exists between developing curriculum I guess proficiency type stuff versus students who are taking algebra 1 or geometry and making sure that all students are meeting proficiency and are supported throughout their experiences in those courses sometimes requires those students to you know do extra, get additional support and so then that potentially could remove them to create some personalized experiences because they're really trying to dig in on their math course you know to make sure they might be very motivated in that way but they also might be motivated to also seek out another opportunity so there's sometimes a tension that exists there um yeah and because Jim called time next the way that we the next frontier is how do we work into our school in a meaningful authentic way you called time right? we should go tell him to stop talking no that's another conversation but there's so yes but there's um there's there's good work to be done there yeah it's good work thank you this is a flagship program of our school and you've done a fantastic job so we're very appreciative thanks for the time tonight thank you I'm no more near as elegant as Matt look at him he's like should I stay for this um so thank you for having me this is not nearly as intriguing as it is but we'll go for it um so I put together just all the information we can think of in terms of what happens um when somebody wants to use our facilities so here's the process interested in a part to fill out facilities use form founded that at our web page um or you can call Tracy and get it they they mail scan and deliver this form to Tracy Locke Tracy is in my office of course this is one third of her job it's probably about two thirds of her time um that she spends on building usage uh Tracy works with party with whatever party concerning the pricing and the schedule events and the form has already been improved you know through past years or whatever they just email Tracy she's on a first name basis with most people who use our facilities um and she Tracy is the one who communicates and schedules with custodial staff about the coverage and what's the setup that's required so Tracy is really our point person here um this is I actually forgot I'm sorry I forgot to bring the copies of this I actually had copies of this for you I have an idea of what a typical week of gym usage looks like across our district and I know it's really small but you can all see how packed this is all after school this is not during school hours this is all after school um so you can just see how packed they actually are this is high school and middle school um so she's doing um usage of the building for our own use and for community use yes for community one of you needed to use a conference room or something in the building you would contact Tracy and say I need to book the conference room Anna can do it too but Tracy does most of it and put her back up um but but Anna can tell you that this is a constant conversation and between her and Tracy and the opposite um and Andrew uh so custodians this is the contractional language that I've referred to before with you all um these two pieces are in the contract right now and 11.5 is what is being intended to be negotiated out of the contract that does not eliminate the need for a custodian in a building if somebody is using our facilities um but it does make us have to have one unless it's Matt going in on Saturday to do office work or whatever um so you're saying the difference there is the contractual requirement versus what we would like we would want to do anyway 11.5 was put in it's archaic language and it's my understanding from Heather who's my historical perspective in all things contractual um that this was put in by one custodian a long long time ago who didn't like to go outside and so I saw this language was in there and it's just never been taken out but I'm not sure of that piece that's what Heather's perspective is um but it does require us to have custodians there this is what they do when our facilities are used after school hours they of course unlock and lock the facilities they do the setup and breakdown they make sure the sidewalk and the drive maintenance on snowy days so the users have safe access to the building if somebody were to slip that would be our liability um they do any kind of damage repair which there is damage repair and they clean up after scheduled and unscheduled events like pizza parties that happen out of the blue um they also make that you know the cleanup is also bathroom usage toilet paper making sure there's toilet paper and paper towels the next day for school making sure all of that happens so they're quite busy during this time they're not sitting around twiddling their thumbs um the overtime cost of the district in 2018-19 was $38,400 that's not just for facilities usage um there there was a time in the worst time of the year for us in summer and early fall this year very early fall where we were down custodians so some of this particular overtime was because of that but not a huge amount of it um so there there was a time in the fall 2019 where there are a few custodians particularly MSMS and MHS who worked a stretch of one month straight with no days off and we're not talking regular eight hour shifts we're talking 15 hour shifts for one month straight that was during the construction um it was during summer and fall and it wasn't because of construction it was because of facilities usage and the regular cleaning schedule of our custodians because when somebody's schedules are building outside of facilities Tracy has to go say which one of you guys want it um and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't um and if we've booked it then we say we need somebody and she kind of twists arms a little bit um so so our custodial staff I have to tell you are fantastic they're a fantastic team we are almost fully staffed now we're down 0.5 here in Roxbury you see the guy out there is a roving custodian so he's he goes where he's needed right now he's needed in Roxbury because we haven't filled that position the 0.5 position who was here Donna came over to the high school to work she transferred positions um so they're working beyond their schedule hours on weekends they're good people they want to be here we are paying them to be to do so but um I know for myself I don't like to work 7 days a week you need days off the families um and we don't want to lose the staff that we have right now right now in this job market the idea of hiring a custodian I think is Andrew La Rosa Hives like it's really hard to do right now um is there pressure on them to take those shifts we don't pressure them we don't do that but I feel they feel pressure because they care about the buildings right so the pressure comes from their desire to make our buildings sparkling and to make sure that they're well taken care of all the time um so there there is and that's coming from us yeah you know we want our buildings to look great for kids on a daily basis and for the community um but they really care like they have a big role in the the place we provide for for learning so and they really care about it we have an excellent staff these are not people who just come in and clean they're they're excellent they know students they say hi and Matt can agree Mickey is one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life and so dedicated um so we want to really keep this crew and if they're overworked then they're not going to stay so should we be taking less rentals right so there are times that we do say no more rentals we need to give our guys break and we have said that we've gotten pushed back a lot of pushback around that I'm sure you do but um so we just wanted to put this out here that like they're working hard they're working hard here's the pricing structure and this is a couple different slides um this is very typical Vermont public schools uh we got you 32s we got we got Randolph's we got I talked to Winooski I talked to um such a Vermont I've talked to multiple superintendents and we've actually gotten the pricing in multiple places the only place that does not charge for their gym is Twinfield at all so that's not saying there might be under the cover like hey Michelle I know you come on in you got keys to the building I'm not saying that isn't happening who knows if that's happening in other buildings but according to what their procedure is on file everybody has a pricing structure um so this is ours educational civic groups um 75% of MRPS students this is the usage free like we have a custodian on staff Monday through Friday 3 through 9 so there's no usage fee for that there aren't here so we don't charge them for anything um this is for over this is the overtime pay for Saturday and this is the overtime pay for Sunday is what it would represent so then nonprofit groups in Montpelier and Roxbury um so just for a case in point the Montpelier gym for anybody to rent is $30 per hour just anybody so we're right around where that is all non-profit groups not in Montpelier and Roxbury those are the costs and all for profit groups in any other group that could fall under any other category besides non-profit and children use I'm sorry I haven't had time with these four categories so this is the usage fee this is the overtime custodian fee yeah does that make sense no that's one the groups the four groups oh so this is these are kid groups right like girls on the run or Green Mountain Youth Symphony okay but not our groups no if it's a school group like a basketball team yeah we're not charged so they're groups with a lot of local students basically boy scouts they're usually turned weak but you know so things like that but other non-profit groups Brian Gallagher does the board for the mountaineers the mountaineers is a non-profit group right but they're not they don't have students on that board and they use our building at least once a month so they be in the first group no they're in the second group because they're not students they're not the kids and then these are these don't represent our community but they want to use our facility and these are the for-profits local or otherwise so here are revenues so fiscal year 18 the revenue was $20,486 $19 was $11,283 but it was very limited because of all the bond work that was happening so a lot of our facilities were closed for large chunks of time and so far this year which our bond has limited this year so far too because of July, August and September $7,203 that's where we are so far so here's our dibs list and who gets rental space so obviously school sports or school activities and any type of school events, school clubs and unified programs after school programming is right there and then the rec center is actually in our MOU to have them have first dibs after all school events and then outside rentals have our fifth after that MRPS employees are not charged for building use or custodial services that are working with students outside of school hours so a good example of that does a lot of work with students around climate, he uses our library on Sundays he can get in he has his passcode so there's no need to get a custodian here he's with our kids and probably some U32 and our kids we know where to go right is number two on that number one on the previous list no that's still school clubs school activity it's not a community activity using the school it's run by somebody who is our employee and through and our students so what would number one on that list fall into here five five because it's outside it's totally well number yeah yeah or four or four that's what I was just going to say got it okay outside entities so here are these here who's out renting our gyms who are not MRPS Montpelier rec department basketball mini metro basketball that serves primarily Montpelier U32 students AU basketball mainly serving Montpelier U32 students but there are occasional requests Montpelier high school is a very nice location for AU tournaments being right off the highway in central Vermont easy to get to so there are other tournament requests that are not representing our community capital soccer is enormous they are asking actually for more gym time because I believe they just lost a gym space that they use somewhere else I'm not sure where that is but it's a it was a building it was an outside entity that they somehow lost that space so now they're asking for way more of our safe and they want to book it out years in advance now they serve primarily Montpelier students their coach John is under the employee of our district he coached girls soccer and he coaches something else too I think just up down is the girls coach something else too I feel like he's always in our school he's a substitute okay that makes sense then I mean I know him so and then the rare occasion for big yearly event that are held in the community Bernie Sanders or there is the rare Bella Fleck yeah touch a truck was that because some other friend and you had a problem no because the high school auditorium is the large physical remember where this is just about gym usage yeah this is not about our other facilities usage although the revenues were totals for the entire facilities use including auditorium yeah other spaces so using capital soccer as an as an example so couple questions come to mind there so how much is too much for one group to dominate the space and then the other question would be if there is a substitute teacher who happens to be also a student of that group does that then exempt them from paying up until this point John was an employee of ours so they are capital soccer is a for-profit entity so we charge them the for-profit rate yeah and then how much is too much in terms of that's the question that we're asking right now they just asked us for to book out two years and two years right they just asked us that to book it out two years in advance and because they just lost this other space so that is the exact question that we're like do we don't we you know like is that smart or not so changes that have contributed to the book Jim so I went to my historians to find out what's changed why why this curve level now what's happening so number one ultimate frisbee went from a club to a school sport at both mhs and msms and they practice nearly around and they booked the gym and as we went to the dip side they have first dibs on the gym so they use the gyms pretty much every weekend the girls are at main street every Sunday and the boys are at the high school every Saturday or every Sunday volleyball became a school sport which heavily influences fall scheduling that takes that's a gym sport so it takes up gym time spring sports are heavily dependent on weather and have nearly half of their season of practices in the gyms so these contribute to very booked solid gyms and I'd also probably add to that is that and I don't know if this is a change or not but there are limited gyms based in superior and as the population of the high school increases some of the sports with the laws may come back and they would be number one did our race change? no not that I know of not in my tenure the high school floor maintenance so this is just maintenance schedules Andrew would ask some questions around that well can't they just which we need to recognize and respect custodians time schedules all that kind of stuff I consider them the expert in this so floor maintenance at the high schools late August they prep the floor they install the volleyball court lines they seal it all of that kind of work it costs $900 you'll find out why in a second why I'm putting that in there in November they do very similar things and that's about $2,300 for that work mainstream middle school floor maintenance they do this November break stuff as well at a cost of $1,800 a community member we're using a key that he had personally that he shouldn't have had went in stepped over caution lines stepped on the wax floor that was just done and cost us an additional $1,800 because we needed to redo that when I found out about that I said we need to change the locks my first question was how many keys are in the community just curious like who's got those keys no one who I got and that was the answer I got no one's lived it's a school I said let's change the locks so the locks were changed that week so we we recognize that that's a major safety issue we're not sure who has keys to our buildings and it's not respecting that there's caution tapes that were stepped over so the maintenance schedules are pretty tight and we've pretty much taken access away from people who are not employees of the district going forward so the guidance from the board there's equitable pricing for various groups across building use gyms are not the only area that we have a high demand for the cost of coverage for custodial needs the electricity, the toilet paper, the paper towels all of that kind of thing that's well over $40,000 for the district to cover this cost so there's batteries crossed to get rid of the cost structure that's what it would cost us and this is just another note to consider all requests go through Tracy from the reasons that I said before they don't go through me they don't go through you all they go through Tracy because she's the center point to all of this she's who Tom Allen goes to she's who we all go to for this kind of work and she's had one gym request in the past two months for people who haven't already scheduled this gym time so the concern that I'm hearing in the community of when are they going to fix this problem they still haven't fixed this problem this problem has not come to us because Tracy has not gotten the request right she hasn't had to turn any window it happened once and it happened literally the day I made the slide and sent it to Tracy and Andrew and Tom to say check this over to make sure this is all factual what's the problem we're talking about community I know I was there but it wasn't it was about money it wasn't about access that's not the the story that's been relate to me it's about pricing and access oh I didn't hear I just heard the money yeah I've heard both there's no access to it and the pricing stinkers so I think that's just conversations for this board to have is that there are realities here to people using our facilities outside of the school day that aren't just custodial aren't just cleaning we're paying for the electric we're paying for the setup we're paying they use our computers they use our smart boards they use the technology they use their electricity and toilet paper and paper towels and all of that adds up so we put about it's well over about $40,000 for all the additional facilities usage if we're not charging people which is an option for you all to tell me to do don't charge anybody then we have some budgetary problems that we have to fix not problems but things we have to fix so do they also have to put some kind of deposit down in case there is damage? no they don't they just pay they just pay the fee I don't see how we can have both a scheduling problem and a pricing problem you free market people because if we're fully booked then our prices are aso okay also peak demand pricing should be in there too right? don't give us any ideas this is it I just wanted to lay out all the factors to the board and so as you continue I know to get pushed from the community around our gym usage and how do we make this easier we're not denying kids access to the gym we have denied community members who had keys previously to the gym we are denying that access and asking them to go through Travely to schedule it that should be the case thank you so there have been changes and I recognize there have been changes but nobody likes changes so what is the change is the change that community members that had keys and could walk in at any time and play basketball in the library okay that is a major change that has happened plus the addition of other sports and they're used they are absolutely used absolutely not a doubt about that our whole Montpere High School is used you guys are here I coached girls on the run and it was ridiculous because we were assigned a gym in the elementary school but there were always three people assigned to both gyms in the elementary school every week it was impossible we tried to eliminate that kind of over-scheduling and Tracy does a really nice job but I think the mayhem the mayhem here and I don't I truly believe there's like one of the first education books I read in college that was a long time ago so that's how much this is connected to me that schools should be the most opening and welcoming place in the community and I truly believe that and school districts you all have realities that we have to pay for and our kids should come first and they do but I think the question is not, I think you stated it right but the question is the balances are we at the right balancing point right now and I think that would be the guidance from the board yeah on the Cosby-Slovied two budgets ago this overtime during the weekend as they come up before I thought we budgeted for more weekend staff we did, that's in our budget this year that you all approved and hopefully for the coming year that will help, that overtime will turn into a salary now for some reason I thought we've done that previously I thought we were a little ahead of that curve we talked about it are we open and welcoming financially to the people we want to be in other words so the group of it was a fairly diverse group of men but what I mean is it was a fairly diverse group of clubs some were adults, some were kids and they had concerns what and I guess the question you know I remember the one I've heard follow-up from is Peter of course and he said it's really just that 60 some bucks every time we have to do it that's really what he cares about is that that becomes prohibitive so the question would be I think it's because they needed an hour and a half or two hours or something it's probably two hours is probably the reason two hours on a Saturday are you referencing mini Metro and AAU are you referencing originally the men's he doesn't care about the adult thing he's doing a kids group anyway the number was 65 probably AAU yeah that's probably right so they fall in this category right here yeah and so the question was is that okay with us to say you know what it's his argument was that it's mostly kids mostly mobiliar kids and it's prohibitive financially for them to be using their own communities gymnasium after hours the rate is the same regardless yeah and that's a non-profit group right yeah it is and I just don't know how to answer that I know that it's a fair question to say $65 every single practice is that what this district wants to be charging a group that's bringing kids in and is that if it discourages the program are we at the right balancing point because we don't have room I don't well I mean it's I mean I have two questions what is it actually discouraging the program and second I mean yeah it's $60 for how many kids is that it might be $6 a kid who accesses AAU which kids good basketball players middle class family basketball players that's not necessarily that has been mostly my experience that was a leading question I was saying my experience of AAU is that it's kids who already have lots of access to lots of things and then my other question was about like per head how much are we talking here like if there are 20 kids who come in $60 it's a typical AAU team it's probably about 15 players is that fair so if you're at $60 that's more about the kid for practice for an 8 week season $32 a kid is it an 8 week season I'd say it's an 8 to 10 week season yeah and then that brings back in the capital soccer kind of question is there a where does you're saying that would fall into group one which would still be at the bottom of the AAU list no no this AAU thing that we're talking about it would be maybe in group one here and in the dibs list it falls as number five as would capital soccer they would just pay a higher rate but they would be on par and is that the balance we want like a for profit versus a non-profit for instance and I don't even know if AAU is a non-profit I assume it is I think the problem is probably the problem is when you're tight on the schedule you have to prioritize and maybe your question is how are we doing that what are the rules for prioritizing AAU I don't we don't prioritize among number five it's first come first serve I mean the other thing would be is the costs that we have do we have to incur those costs for every group that rents and let me just play that out just a little bit further because I think those are all important things to get done but for instance you could create something where you had a preferred responsible party kind of person they're bonded they've been trained they are a person who is in some way get certified to bring people into the building and that there's a high level of responsibility on that person and therefore they're able to avoid some of the costs so do we give them keys wait it's past electronic keys right is it done where everybody has their own well and then why do we do that for some groups and for others if they go through the certification process which is a repeat group repeat adult who is that one person has effectively gotten gone through a training process what we have also seen the keys concerns me because the access concerns me because we have videotape people who have not had keys but they have gotten in and because they're keys we can see who the name is attached to said key and it's not the person who's in the gym so they were previously being passed around for access to the gym but then that person not only loses their preferred status but their bond goes away and it happens we turn the key off I respect the security need I just know there are ways to do things around training people and holding them accountable I'm not going to give them the amount of people that once we've filled it all up with the things that are our kids there's very few spaces left is what I'm hearing and I'm not sure putting in place such an elaborate system for those spaces beyond first come first serve which we fill out and to be quite honest with you for a cost that is not it's a cost, I'm not going to say it's not a cost but it is not an enormous cost on a kids basketball group to do 8 weeks if they've got a reasonable number and if there are it's one of those things it's 4 bucks a kid for 8 weeks so 32 bucks for a season probably 70-80% of those kids can afford it so charge the kids 45 bucks it's not weird in the community I mean you can say we disagree with the public that came in here but they said is it so you're just saying they may think it's a problem but you don't think it's a problem that's what I'm asking well I'm saying is it a prohibitive problem they said it is are they not doing it as a result people did not come to the board what's that we did not have people come in it's been a while now it's been a while now I mean I didn't hear that they weren't doing it because of the cost I heard that they did like the cost but it's harder but I didn't hear we can't play basketball because of the cost and let me show you the number our gym rates compare to the other option that is here it's just that there is only an access that you took away from that I don't remember that my perception and it could very well just be how I read this so I'll put that out there is that for certain groups there was open access to the gym because of keys that were available and that has been taken away and that's the major change in that situation that's my perspective so I want to make sure that's clear well maybe really what's happening I don't remember that being said there was saying that why can't the gym just kind of be open I thought there was another issue fairly recently they were not charged because they had keys they were not scheduling through us they were going with the keys that they had access to but I mean exactly but I did not hear we cannot pay $60 we cannot afford this I heard why can't this be open it would be users open it's a tax tax dollars pay for this why can't we just have an open gym I did not hear from anyone $60 this cost is prohibitive if we have to pay this cost we cannot play basketball to be fair we've had one request for a gym that person was an AAU parent and Tracy told her sure you can have the gym at this time this time it will cost you the same stock answer that she would give this last one she said but they have false information so she said the parent wrote back and said that's really expensive to rent the gym Barry doesn't charge you 32 doesn't charge which is not accurate they do charge it's on their website there may be people who have access in a different way they may not also so you 32 may publish a rate schedule but then they also I think make deals because I know that are internal Green Mountain Youth Symphony won't use Montpelier because it's too expensive because it would cost them like $300 a week for two rooms for five hours so but they use you 32 which supposedly has the same rates but actually doesn't charge them if it is private then well it's not prohibitive according to our comparable rate schedule it's because they have a deal with the other we could make a deal if we were inclined to do that so that gets to this question right here it's the equitable pricing who would you like me to make a deal with and who would you not like me to make a deal with please tell me exactly who those people are I don't want a bagpipe players in my office to tell me about that but something like that it could go to it could go to multiple use if you have a league that's going to use it as a regular time then maybe you do cut a deal but if it's a long time use you don't because then you're talking about costs that do add up it's almost like a contract over time is a better rate than a one-time use like if you're going to use this every Saturday from 11 to 12 for practice for a season okay we'll make it 40 bucks a pop for that but if you're just coming in I just want this Saturday and maybe I'll have him five weeks along another Saturday I think that would have to reflect actual costs though for that to be something we'd want to do so if and that gets back to the idea of is there an adult who truly is responsible not just says they are and who would truly save us money by being present over time and knowing the rules and insisting on the rules but I think we need our custodial staff there are so many other pieces to that I mean the pizza party is a real thing and the bathrooms they're a responsible person really going to go and make sure that all bathrooms have toilet paper and all that kind of stuff if cost really is an issue could we set aside a certain amount of money that people could apply for like a grand or something you know just a simple and then we just verify okay you're you know you don't have funds or is that just too complicated seems complicated giving the amount of time that's already going into but I want to say there is a cost savings with someone who doesn't consistently which is administrative cost like if you have to schedule eight different events is different than schedule one event for eight different sessions because you're just working with the same person you know it's coming in you just mark another calendar for eight weeks you know that's going to be so and so it's basketball group or GMOS it's the whole entire school year exactly it seems different than what we did because you don't you don't have because I just want to make sure I'm clear he's looking for a discount for so like GMOS if GMOS said we're going to use U32 randomly and we're just going to call up and schedule the U32 person every time we do it then it would be maybe use it 50 times over the year instead of what they're doing is they're saying maybe Saturday morning from 9 to 11 we're going to have practice there book us for the whole year but don't charge us so U32 does that and they say okay we know we're dealing with Lea we know they're coming in that's their block so instead of charging them for all 20, 30 uses as if each time you're charging the full amount we're going to give you like a discount rate for the whole year so there's a reduced rate reduced like a seasonal rate as opposed to a per-use rate although it still seems like we're not paying our costs at this point well that's the balance question because what's the value to us because we're also supposed to be providing something we want something to be in our building that feels like a lost opportunity to have that engagement with the community and you guys are trying this room is it really all money remember that's a different cost structure so just keep that in mind because it's not a gym you have the price do you have the price between your work packet the other thing to consider is going back to this right somebody schedules it for a year we we want a custodian for an outside organization in our buildings during that time now we have put in a weekend custodian so these will have to shift because we don't charge people the custodial fee if there's already a custodian on staff so that doesn't happen so I'm already saying currently even like a weekend would we have a weekend custodian that's in our budget I know but is it weekend or the evening do we know where we're putting that person the new person would weekend it's a weekend custodian job to help with this because we have custodians who are here until yeah so this is only a weekend so this will have to change the thing based on if the voters you know this covers a considerable overtime cost it covers the overtime custodian because even if we're going to have just a regular custodian on the weekend both in all three buildings now we'll have one that could go through to different buildings this building does not get used in the same way UES does not get used in the same way UES is more weekday rentals people don't access UES necessarily on Saturdays and Sundays but Main Street and the high school are big time yeah might have a person that can go back and forth between the two the two areas I think because the person doesn't have to be there all day that person isn't a security guard no it's to make sure they're in make sure the walls are clear make sure it's cleaned up afterwards all that kind of stuff they don't have to actually be present they're kind of a security guard but not like a lockdown security guard I mean they've gotten into some situations like that that have caused us to talk about how do we block off areas of the building because kids are running rampant in the building so we have had to and our guys don't need to I just mean more the reason we want them here is because we don't want someone who's not supposed to be here and we also want things to be left reasonably so that's all the facts hopefully voters will agree to our budget and we will be able to find an amazing not go to the park weekend custodian and some of this gets eliminated ish more some of this easy we revise this right when that goes into play but you all have all the facts thank you you might just want to check with U32 about what deals they're cutting or you know yeah I don't know find out what I can find out about that I truly equity is a big thing for our district and it's a big value of mine personally so I really need some guardrails as to I just think if they're coming and saying we pay $15 for basketball practice at U32 like it's almost like price matching at target or whatever Michelle I think one of the things that came up that night was that U32 their teams were practicing in our spaces which is not accurate was not okay based on our data it is not accurate and if teams have U32 students there's also non-pillier students on those teams and if U32 is offering their facilities in an unequitable way I do not wish to emulate that but the word equitable now I mean I just want to be careful here so equity is a big deal to us then charging big fees to get into things is not equitable the only way to get there is to reduce fees I think we're talking about fairness not equity fairness is just trying to apply the rules fairly to everyone equity is really it runs counter to what we're talking about equity would mean making sure there are no financial barriers to using the space or that they're leveled out somehow so I don't think we're really care much at all about equity in this conversation we have some rules that are easy to administer and I think that if we do care about equity then we do fair is fine but equitable and I know that word means both things but what I mean is that we use that word in a very loaded way in a school district and I want to reserve it for that in a sense because money is a barrier and that means some groups like the capital soccer or the AAU whoever has got money and they may have internal systems but they just want to come and use the space I'm not necessarily going to bat for a big solution here but I do think this is a balancing test ultimately thank you for the information I appreciate that I put it in your laps she's very savvy I'm not getting direction what do you think we go on to exactly the purpose of discussing labor negotiations for personnel and superintendent superintendent evaluation second I shouldn't have initiated that okay oh all is in favor any oppose