 All right, guys, we will call the meeting to order at 6.05 are there any adjustments to the agenda tonight? I'm approve the minutes of Tuesday, September 26 and motion. I make motion to approve the minutes. I have a comment on the agenda item 12 starts off with Rainville move to exit executive session. And I got a second, we went to public mode, and then there's a motion seconded and a vote unanimous vote. Those attending of this SU board to approve the the recommendations of executive committee. And I think it's timely to thank everybody and feel thankful that we've got a talented, extraordinary, bright, committed, compassionate superintendent and this superintendent who is sitting two steps two chairs down for me is going to be with us for five more years. And I I don't know if it gladens my heart more of that thought. We're facing unbelievable challenges as public school officials in this country and the state are to do the very, very, very best and that starts with the top. I believe in that unanimous vote, I think shows again, no surprise that we've got the talent. He's got the team. Got the vision and the planning to get it done. So I don't know about you, but I just hope to be able to. Thank you very much. You did. Jamie did work out a contract with Jamie for the for five years. For a while. Thanks to everybody's been putting hard work. And Jamie, you sure that's what you're watching? Don't worry, Patrick, give me a minute. I'm sure it'll change his mind. We did just get down the policy committee. Thank you for that. So any other discussion on the minutes? Hearing none, so move. Board correspondence of communication. Does anybody have anything and public comments? Do we have any public on tonight? We have a number ending in nine six. You have public comment. Public star six to unmute and comment. Yeah, thank you to the board. Just to clarify to remind the board to say I'm here five years, but year ones right now. He's already shortening it guys. I'm really excited about it. That's to be sure, you know. But no, thanks. I, you know, I guess I would I would say, You know, what a what a pleasure in regards to working with the boards and you know, I just had a board retreat last week and I went home and shared with my better half how just excited I was for the work ahead and Ronnie was part of that board with the White River Unified District Board and I felt like there was a lot of really good visioning happening and I have felt really good about the work that's happening at the board level. And I just want to know that trickles down into our schools. I had a pleasure of leading a faculty meeting at our high school today around work that we're doing around proficiency work and best looking at how to leverage pathways and support kids and make certain we're providing appropriate modifications and accommodations of kids need them. And so what I would say to you is that it's a real pleasure. I feel like we have a great team here. Our admin team and our teachers and our support staff and our custodians and our food service staff are pretty incredible. And you know, I would say that one of my goals has been to make certain that we are an organization that makes decisions on what best serves kids. And I really feel like you feel that when you walk through our buildings. And so that feels incredibly good. And there's a lot of work to do, but we got the right team to do so I'm really I'm really pleased with the work. So we're going to have a data presentation for you tonight. You're going to get the first draft of your budget will rock walk you through the changes within the budget document. And some of the wise to that suggested changes. And you know what I would say to folks is that there's a lot happening in the SU right now, but it feels like it's it's it's all happening in regards to taking form around us best meeting our needs of kids. Okay, I feel like we're in the thick of making some significant impacts on student learning and that we are not being mired down in regards to operations. There's operation work happening, but I don't feel like that is taking the majority of our energy right now, which is a good thing as an organization. We're able to focus on our number one go around student achievement and outcomes for kids. So there's always operational work happening behind the scenes, but I do feel like in general, a majority of the SU team and the focus at the buildings is around instructional outcomes, which is good. That's what we want. And so I'll take any questions folks may have. I would just add before questions. I'm already starting to really monitor what's happening in my pillar. As we come up to the second half of the biennium, I'm, I continue to be concerned around what the Ed funds yield, what the impact of the Ed fund may be around our yield. And also word on the street is that we should expect pretty significant impacts on our common level of appraisals across the state, meaning that they're going to drop, which both increase what we need to collect for taxes. The yield drops, common level appraisals drop. It means taxes go up. And so, you know, I think there's a lot of work we're going to need to do on these district budgets and on the SU budget to get us what we feel good about them. What you've seen in the first round of budgets is us showing you what desires are in regards to student support. You'll get the rest of your FTEs and all your other support staff and instructional staff next month, which is a big chunk of your budgets that we can control. And then we're going to have to really roll up our sleeves and make some informed decisions come December and in January when we look to adopt. But, but I just wanted you to know that that is something that we are talking about a lot at the admin level, and we will give you information as soon as we get it. And the tough part is, is those two things I just said, CLA's and the yield we don't get until December. But what I want board members to do is go into this budget cycle, knowing that we do not expect those to be as positive as they've been the last few years, specifically the EU. So not to be the bearer of bad news, as we're going to the SU budget. We're celebrating five minutes ago. It's just something I want us to really be thinking about as we're going, like our trajectory around budget. And I'll take any questions folks may have. Hopefully it's not going to be any word on the AOE new. Yeah, no, it's a great question. I think there's some concern out there that we really need the best we can get to move the state and advocate for public education at the legislative level as well as with the governor. Any, any word on that? So the word is they're interviewing. You know, I, I will say I was just reading an article the other day that I, I thought I put it in. I share this with the admin team perspective around the agency of Ed and the state board so far has spent $500 and trying to recruit the secretary of Ed, and we have some supervisor unions that will spend 20,000 to recruit a superintendent. So, you know, it's, it's I don't know what the candidate pool is going to be bill. I would encourage the VSA, the BSBA and the VPA. I do think I've done a good job of communicating in the state board the priorities that we're looking for our next secretary of Ed. And that information has been shared with the state board. You know, I think it's one of these positions, you know, it works on at the, at the leisure of the governor. You know, in regards to attracting a full slate of candidate pool, there is, you know, a worry out there in our field in regards to folks who might have considered that position or post knowing that it's not clear whether our governor is running again. So that it could be, you know, or essentially we're looking at just over a year. And on the job. And so is that something you'd want to take off knowing that it could be only a year. And so stay tuned. I don't know where that's going to go. If you read the governor's letter to the state board, he emphasized, at least out of his office that he didn't feel that that the best candidate necessarily needed educational experience. And that we may be well served of someone coming out of possibly the private sector. So, you know, stay tuned. And we'll see how that plays out. You know, the state board will, the way it works here is the state board will give three candidates for the governor to interview and then the governor will make the decision. I think the work for us, though, and what has been advised at least from Jeff Francis, who's been with the BSA for a very, very long time. For some of you board members, you've probably heard that name before. And, you know, Jeff's advice really is, is that we should be right now really honing in and focusing on the work at hand for us. And certainly take an AOE support where we can get it. But I would I would tell you right now, the AOEs in the state of flux. And so, you know, I would say the biggest concern I have from where I sit in, I looked down at the end of the table is where Tara sits. I am very concerned that we have someone in the fiscal office, Brad James retiring out of the agency of that who's been there for multiple decades, who really has our funding formulas and how our tax rates work and things on algorithms and spreadsheets that he understands. And I worry about how much of that knowledge has been shared out and systematized. So that is a worry I have and a worry that I have when I think about the yield, that there could be over corrections even possibly with the yield to ensure that it doesn't get messed up. So, yeah. Anyways, I'm still not being the bearer of great news, but we got some good academic data coming from. I'm counting on the staff at the end of the table. I am not all doom and gloom. I started by saying I was really happy about a lot of the instructional things happening. But on that side, we're going to have to watch it really close. Anything else for Jamie? We'll focus on things we can control. We just said you have no gloom and gloom. No gloom and gloom. All right, so we'll skip right to. So in my report, we talked a little bit about data in the first part there, we can get into that when we look at the report. I do think just to further highlight Jamie's comment about instructional practices, we have really great instruction happening in our classrooms. I'm just further bolstering that with this work that we're doing with other issues across Vermont called inclusive education practices, also known as universal design for learning, but really thinking about what are those instructional practices that are going to make it our education accessible for all students. And we had a session with this nationally known educator, Dr. Katie Novak, two weeks ago and then yesterday in our admin team had a chance to sort of then apply it and think about it in our own buildings. And then I met with staff principals today who are already thinking about how they're rolling it out to their staff and thinking about really it gets at that middle line in that second goal about how to make sure that our education is relevant, rigorous and personalized. That's what universal design for learning is doing. So we're the, you know, the adding this program learning again is not something brand new, but really trying to dive at those, you know, that goal and unpack all those pieces. So it's really, really exciting to see it that starts to take off and be able to highlight where it's already pieces of it are already happening and thinking about different ways to engage our students and where we can get better at it as well. And that looks different at different levels and in different schools in terms of areas of strength and areas of growth. And then I think this Friday I'm always excited about professional learning. So this Friday is the second of our six half day in services that are SUI where we have our teachers come together from across different schools in some sort of job or project to light grouping. So I will be working with kindergarten through second grade professional learning communities. We'll be talking about effective reading practices as a whole group K2. So we think vertically, but then also they'll have time in their individual grade levels. And they've got plans to talk about sort of report cards and scales and looking at student work together and sharing different resources. So it's an exciting way. It creeps up on us and we've got what 26 of them running now, 25 of them running. I think it's a really good use of time to get all our folks together. We have a lot of experts in the system that's great when they can share with each other. So I can take any questions if there are any questions on that part of the report, otherwise we could move to the academic report. So as we have done, this is the second year where we've had all the schools using the same universal screener. And we use it three times during the year fall, winter and spring. Every year we make, you know, slight adjustments on whether that's to exactly when we administer it. We've added an additional grade level this fall, which is kindergarten. You did not see kindergarten data last fall. And that's just based on kind of the information that we're getting and working with our teachers and making sure it's the most effective. So the first page of the report just tries to give you a lot of information about how we get these scores and what they might mean. It's probably more than anyone really wants. But I do believe it's better if you're under the information rather than, especially when we're so reactive to colors and you can think, right, like just looking at red, just good to know from your attention to the yellow, which we call below expected, is between a 40th and 59th percentile. And, you know, we want our kids to get up to that 60th percentile and above, and to know that nationally, right, that kids are in the yellow may still be comfortable to have kids in the 50th percentile across the nation. And that's not a bad thing. We're going to continue to look to grow it. But we are really focused in a lot of our conversations with teams around what kinds of additional plans do we need. We're looking at those students who are well below expected or considered to move in an economy in this important show. And then I just think most important is to think about this as baseline for the year. So we did it within the first six weeks of school, not right when kids walk in the door, but a couple weeks after that. So we get a sense of where they are. And sometimes we'll compare that to where they were in the spring and see how much slide might have we had between the end of the previous school year and the start of this school year. Some of that slide is also expectations get higher every grade level. So the end of fourth grade does not look exactly like the beginning of fifth grade. We are assessing on different standards and proficiency. So not all lower performance in the fall is about summer slide, though some of it is, if that makes sense. And so we then we just look at what kind of performance do we have by kind of grade level and, you know, do we have the right materials instruction happening in each grade level. And then also how is the individual cohort doing so are they making growth from between first and second grade and then second to third grade. So we're both looking at this as like a systems, how's our curriculum instruction going and then how are students doing as a result of that and look at their growth. And that's the way that we look at this data. In general, we're seeing the kind of growth we want particularly our early elementary and math there. You can see kindergarten through third grade all making great progress. That number has gotten better. That grade level has pushed off every year. So last year we saw the first and second grade. The gains that we've seen in those earlier grades is now pushing up. We continue to see that push up through the upper grades too as we fill those gaps that have been missed previously because of this rough learning and instructional gaps. And then we also look at the last graph in math around the domains. This is looking at sort of all of the things that we test in math by the kind of that sub subject within math and see what is it that we may need to be working on more consistently either at a grade level or vertically across the system. And different domains are tested in different grade levels. So something like counting and cardinality, that's only a kindergarten. So we're just looking at that for kind of our youngest students, see how they're doing expressions and equations. We start testing that in sixth grade. So there are fewer kids, but that looks like it's a big one that we really want to start looking at and thinking about if there are ways to increase earlier performance to help improve that one. That is certainly got some some gaps in on any questions on that. Yeah, that's good. Hey, yeah, thanks. So what is this? Does this trap my progress? Is this are there tests specifically created by, you know, how are these numbers. Is this the test that the program generates, you know, for these children to take, or is this school? Oh, okay. Thank you. Thank you. That's a great question. If I understood you correctly. So track my progress is the assessment company and platform that we use. So they have created these tests. That's the name of the company. So that's what we that's what we use when we're talking about it. I think everyone across the SU is taking using the same the same platform to get these these numbers. That is why why they're sort of relatively comparable across track my progress bases the questions on common core state standards, and have normed the the results across the nation. So that's how we get sort of these national national percentile rankings on them. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay, thanks. Previously, we do something called star 360. There's other kind of platforms out there. This is the one that we use across all of our schools. Anything else on that? And just so the board knows one of the reasons we chose track my progress was we felt like we could analyze the data in a in a much more teacher friendly way. So we just could use that data to inform instruction. It's in the other piece of this to that we've appreciated is track my progress is actually was started locally in the upper valley. And so I would say that they've tried to work very closely with us to try to adjust if we give them input. So it is a local company as well that now is across the country, but that's why we chose this. So starting on page four, we have the kind of the same layout of data for English language arts. Again, looking at sort of how the entire cohort of first graders and second graders and so forth performed this year as compared to last year, as represented by an average scale score. What that progress looks like from last fall to this fall we're looking, you know, we want blue and green. That's good. So the progress looking at progress there over the course of one academic year is, you know, either meeting or kind of exceeding the expectations for that year across all our grade levels with particular growth in the eighth grade. And then looking at how those performance bands for the current fall. So this is again baseline. We'll look at this and see how do we see what's that growth look like in expectations meeting and exceeding expectations those percentages by the time I get to winter. And then the last one is looking at those individual domains within English language arts. You know, the biggest group there that is not yet meeting expectations is in reading foundational skills that is where, you know, our focus has been over the last year to really think about both our materials and instructional strategies to make significant improvements there. And so we're, we still got work to do that is assessed K through fifth grade that that's that domain. And we've made a lot of progress K2 and we've got some kind of touch up and get going work to do it free time. Awesome. Any questions? Any questions? Last spring we celebrated the enormous gains of our students as measured by track my progress both in math that originally I thought was our biggest steepest mountain decline. And also in English language arts. So then, and the game was from the fall test results to the spring test results. Now I'm looking at the new fall results. Now in some ways you'd say ideally the gains we made last spring would remain with us this fall. And you talked about summer slump appears that we don't. And I know this organization spent a lot of time and energy and we talked about one planet everything else about heavy supplemental proactive summertime interventions with our kids. So the question I guess is, it's natural to have a summer slump is it also natural that we can look forward to as we go through this year, so that we can get back where we were and then hopefully a little even further. If you're hearing what I'm saying is last year we were our gains were over two years in math and over one and a half years in English language arts. We're talking about here gains averaging about a year. So I'm saying did we lose a year or is that temporary because we haven't had a face time with these kids with our teachers and our support staff to get a movie. So I think of it in three in three ways the two right one is that is the there is the summer summer slide that that may have it is hard to capture exactly what that looks like. Two is that right that we are assessing kids in you know for almost every single kid we're assessing on a new set of content in the fall. So they are now right second graders who ended last year now getting assessed for right now on third grade content. So some right again someone could be summer slide with some of it is like we will hear our Tuesday I we haven't even taught that yet. So that I think it's the same content. I mean it's a computer adaptive test and that it adjusts to what kids know but there is like it is a third or at least they start with third grade standards or to some degree right there's going to be there's not it's not they're not taking the second grade test and we have those with our teachers too who have like curriculum days that don't give the end of second grade tests at the beginning of third grade give the third grade readiness test. So what they need to by starting the year and into the year that's huge for us to understand and I think I just slow on that end but if you could make that clear in your reporting. I've been thinking about this thinking about it. And to me that makes sense because it's okay if everybody already knows the third grade stuff and that's why I always I always say this is baseline and we can do some comparisons that we want to make sure that we're not just like taking in isolation and it's baseline for this year for that. The third piece and I do want to say this I also envy as much as I had the same wondering as I said I think our progress rates last fall or our last spring was a lot better than they do this fall. And so I talked to our the founder over at track my product and I talked to me about why if our progress rates are all up over one and a half and two why we're still seeing you know a good chunk of kids who are who are not yet meeting expectations. I don't feel like those two data points are talking together and he advised and this I'd never heard before a month ago when I started pulling reports that when we do rate of progress we should always do it over the course of the year. That's how it's been going and that's how they've gotten sort of the bell curve that gets there. So when we look in winter we will look winter of last year to winter of this year when we look in spring will go spring of last year to spring of this year. We won't do fall to spring he said that it's not calculated to do it that well so we won't see that correction. You can do it the program lets you do it lets you set any sort of any sort of parameters you want. But that was the guidance that we got this year when I had the same inquiry that you did like why does this not match. I just had a quick follow up to that under thank you for this thank you for spelling it out this is the looking at these numbers for a lot of years and this is the easiest format to kind of ingest. So thanks. I wanted to touch briefly on the lagging behind of the cohort of the fifth graders and ask if that has to do with kind of coven affecting their early elementary education or if there was any if that is developmentally a group that tends to have trouble or something we should be alarmed about there. No so I think when I think about that third through fifth grade we're speaking particularly we're talking about English language arts I think of as is there's there's two main factors that I that we were seeing I think there is a coven effect of right interrupted instruction in those early years when we are building those foundational skills. We also know that like art right like we we got kids back into school fairly quickly right so that is not the whole story the other part of it is that across all our classrooms we did not have the emphasis on ensuring that all students were getting explicit systematic instruction in those skills like we do now. And so and we have really really great materials and structural strategies around that for kindergarten through third grade at this point. There's not as many in those upper grade levels because they think every kid has gotten it earlier so that's the piece where we've been having to be a little bit more creative around making sure that if they're in third fourth and fifth and haven't gotten that we are sort of figuring out ways to develop mentally appropriately bring that into those great levels and it has to you have to be sometimes a little bit more creative because the instruction is sort of the materials and sometimes already skipped over that so that's the place that we are working on a more intentional. Thanks a lot. Thank you. More data coming from that. I was just going to say I'm just going to continue with that data talk if that's okay. Yeah, because, you know, as Anna had mentioned, you know, we are exploring my progress program and what I can offer us for data points and so we started playing around with just identifying scores for students that are serviced via an IEP. And kind of what does that progress look like? We haven't really explored that much and so we were having fun. Wow. So in the report you'll see that fall over fall that Anna was just explaining about for students that are just serviced via an IEP and you can notice that they are all making, you know, expected and a couple of grades are making above expected progress. So that means what that what that's telling us is that those gaps in their learning are being filled and they're coming into school in the fall with with less gaps. And so that's something to to celebrate. You know, are they, you know, some of them, majority of them still, when you look at the reds and yellows, are they still kind of reds and yellows. Yes, but their scores are getting higher, and their skills are are growing. And so they are making that that progress that we're looking for. That's super exciting. Nice to hear. So, so just something to add to on this data presentation. So any questions? Yeah, we'll keep looking at this to us like when we do winter, we'll try to do like a winter overlay as well, just kind of see how the progression works. Yeah, I think we're all aware that it's not only academics, but when you're able to test a mechanism that you have confidence in and test it, and you can all blue or green. I mean, that's that's we're in that upward trend. That's what we want. That's what we want. And I think that when kids too better and adults too better, and they somehow can measure and got that, they feel better, and when they feel better, then that multiplies. It goes down the road. So I think this is, are you going to continue to do this? That's our hope is that when you see a winter, we'll do a winter to winter overlay and same in the spring. So this is the recommended from the company is to do that. So you all have my report now lines was happening in the business office during the month of November. An update I wanted to give just actually as a reminder as we're going into the budget season as you know we start with your student support, go to your general education. And then we slowly start to build in the rest of it and then in December, you also see your revenue budget. So our districts who were receiving the small schools grant, which was changed to the merger incentive grant if you merged will actually be going away for all of our districts as a result of the new waiting study that was part of Act 127. So with the increase in the long term waiting amounts, it actually does also take away that small school merger incentive revenue stream for us. So that will be something you will see zeroed out on your revenue budgets when the time comes for those in December. So I hate to piggyback on Jamie's news, but I just didn't want anyone to lose sight of that or to be surprised when that comes out in my board report and you see that. It's just a reminder that that did go away with Act 127. Question. Was that offset the positives we got in the new waiting formula? Because I was in the impression we were as a supervisory union came out ahead on that. Did we lose it all? It depends on the district. It depends on the district. Some districts are still going to come out ahead. Some districts we have some concern. And then I'll answer any additional questions there are on my report. Otherwise, I'll come back and do the overview on the first draft of the budget and then let each department administrator discuss their changes. All right. Okay. Okay. As I bring up my report here. We had a very exciting last minute change on the PSA team. All new all digital this time and not for technology reasons, but for test administration reasons that got moved to the law school on Thursday or a Tuesday where Monday was a holiday. And we were talking about waiting. So coming up in December, you'll see enrollment data. ABM is my focus for the next month, give or take. I don't have anything to share yet. And then lots of other projects going on, including HVAC controller work in Rochester's. Bethel and temperature, which requires some coordination between my department and those members. I would field any questions from our virtual or in person. Thank you. Yeah, so Haley was planning to be here tonight, but is feeling under the weather. So, Haley provided you a written report in regards to our one planet after school programming. You know, I would say in, I'm really pleased where we're at within our after school programming, considering the challenges across the state that systems continue to see in regards to highly. And, you know, we've been working hard to get community members back into our buildings to help offer programming. That is one of the areas where we have felt like we've struggled since COVID is to get folks who typically worked in our after school programs that come back. But it is outreach we've been trying to do to our community schools work. And so what you'll see here is the offerings we have. And then what I'm really excited about is through our community school grant, we've been offering middle school programming via clubs. Now at all of our middle schools, there's that we started it last year at the middle school in Bethel. And now there are clubs happening at first branch after school for middle school students and we've now started at the Newton School as well. So we'll continue to expand that and there is a goal to add middle school to our 21 C application next year, so that we have funding that can support this notion of clubs at the middle school level. And we use clubs because one it is a club. Some of them offer are offered multiple days a week or some are offered just one day a week and we don't require students can decide to sign up for just one club. It's not like in one point where you tend to sign up for the week. And we have found that that has met the middle school need. Well, and it's it's probably a celebration of learning that we should bring to the full board at that middle school level because I've been really impressed around how engaged or middle schools have been with clubs for a long time. I think schools have struggled with what can you provide for after school programming for middle school students. That's actually engaging and gets them to want to stay outside of the typical extracurriculars or co-curriculars we may think about in regards to drama and athletics and things of that nature. And I think we've come up with some that seems to really capture them so in hearing the students talk about it has was has been pretty powerful. Anna and I got to be part of a visit from the agency of Ed at our middle school in Bethel last year and hearing our students talk about the after school clubs and what that means to them was it was it was moving. So I think it would be good to bring that to the full board so you could hear about that program. So I'll work on that for next month. And so yeah we're looking to build that. So it's something that you know the community school grant has been supporting but we'll look to transition that to a 21 century grant so that we have the funding to keep making that possible without happen to budget in your local districts. And one thing that we've talked about before is part of the success of that too is how much our staff are willing to leave those. And that's not always easy to do that on top of the rest of your day. But our kids are already and sometimes it's great to see someone new and sometimes they've been already connected to that person in the school but seeing them you know hooking club rather than like reading intervention. It's just an opportunity just to thank our you know our educators and our staff who do sign up to do that and offer that because it would be a harder to step but we were trying to do that entirely with brandy or an external people. Policy Committee update. Who wants to take it Stacy you want to take it. Sure so the policy committee is rigorously going through a very well linked Google spreadsheet. To compare the policies that the board has written over the past five years with updated policy. So we began that work tonight we are starting with some of the staff policy. As they come. Clearly if they're grammatical or smaller changes. We're just going to credit those up that if and when we find substantive changes because it was made or updates that we make them to expect some updates coming away very soon. Eric. So one thing that we talked about that I think would require would be helpful to have the sense of the board the full board is on the format of the policies the policies currently start by saying it is the policy of the either the district or or the supervisory union to X. And there are a number of us I think just two but anyway a number of us within the committee that feel that that is a vicious surplus language and that we ought to just simply say what the policy is without having to to glorify it or make it sound like really really official because it's not necessary. And before we undertake to to change every policy to to be from my perspective what is plain English. The committee felt that it would be helpful to hear from the full board. So my perspective is if it's not a change that we have to warn every policy and bring it back that winds up just being a substantive change. Then I think it makes sense to make make them all. Unified uniform uniform and start off the same way. Yes. And just to follow that briefly. You know in addition to it being you know a vicious and kind of blow hard language in the three policies we looked at tonight. It was inconsistent. So I'm cleaning those up just for consistency would be great. With our lawyer to make sure that that language can be changed without it constituting a substantive change. Could you provide maybe for next meeting or something an example of how you would phrase it so that we can kind of see what you're picturing versus what we currently have. I think we can do that right now. If you give me two seconds. I got to open up a document. Sorry. This is unfortunately the benefit of being remote and having the computer in front of you is I can actually do this at the same time. So for example substitute teachers. It's policy B1. It is the policy of the White River Valley Supervisor Union and its member school districts to employ substitute educators who will meet the minimum qualifications outlined by Vermont Standards Board of Professional Educators rule five three eight zero. So rather than it starting by it is the policy of the White River Valley Supervisor Union. It would read the White River Valley Supervisor Union and its member school school district shall employ substitute educators who meet the minimum qualifications. That's that's the language change. So it's just taking out a sentence that seems like redundant. Right. Because it is I mean the document is the policy and the policy statement is on the first portion of the document. You don't have to announce to the world that this is a policy. That's a good change. Anybody have any issues with that change because that way with policy committee goes back to do their work. We know that the board supports us making that change and we are going to check with legal to make sure we don't have to warn everyone to make those kind of changes. Nobody has any issues with that. All right. Anything else for the policy committee guys. Feel free to drop it and hang out with us anytime you have a meeting 530 right before this one we'd love to have your input. As always it's the most fun meeting. It is the best. Right. We are on to discussion item draft number one of 2425 budget. So just a couple of reminders those of you who have already seen draft one in yours. Your individual districts you know my feel on what we're using for numbers but for those who haven't been for health insurance I won't know until the end of this month beginning of next month. Exactly how visit filed their rates and what they're looking for through conversations at my basketball meetings. He has indicated that it will be a substantial increase higher than they wanted. So as you may recall last year was 12.7% was the average increase. So I use 13% increase in the first draft of the budget to make any necessary adjustments once I have the actuals from the high. On the dental insurance I'm using 5% same thing there as soon as I know what those rates are making the additional adjustments. And then the way I set this up is similar to the way that you see the budget document as we get to the full. So first we have the central office and then we have special education based on the fact that we have two different assessments. So that's the way I also broke up this first draft. Similar to follow along with the way that the main budget does as well. So that's the way I'm looking down by department. I think we have people from far. All right. So tonight, essentially what you're looking at in regards to central office and you will get the full line by line expenditure budget next month. But tonight we just focused on personnel. What you're seeing in central office is essentially the increase in FTE of 1.75. But really it's 1.5 FTEs that we're looking to bring in and there's the 0.25 in regards to leaders in the curriculum area. You'll notice that's your second one that says 1.35. 0.25 is to cover the remainder that we need to cover of McKayla Martin salary. That's not part of S or moving forward. So that's our intensive programming system support coordinator position at the SU level. And part of her salary is also in special ed because she does both. She works in curriculum and works in special ed to really help within our system bring those two together. That salary is in here and you'll see it in both of those areas. So I wanted to mention that the other 1.5 FTEs that we're looking to increase is the other one is our community school coordinator, which is Mary Shell. She's been covered by the community school grant, the White River Unified District. That grant was secured by our middle school in Bethel. And the focus of that grant was on the middle school year one. Year two was to focus on the middle schools in the high school in year three is to focus on all of our schools across the supervisory. And we've been using funding via that grant to support schools across the supervisory union. So when you think about clubs happening, those clubs in First Branch and Newton are being covered by that grant that we are the secure. At our elementary schools, it's helped cover some other activities around enrichment. An example is that community school grant in Rochester Stockbridge is going to help cover to for us to repay the skate rink in Rochester for their skate park that's used by the community. And it's also funded all of our community conversations and things of that nature. And so half of that salary and benefits has been carried via the grant the other half by the White River Unified District. Mary's schedule really is halftime employed by Rudd and then is also helping provide some support for other schools around community connections like we're having a math night in First Branch tomorrow. Mary Shell works with our principals and teachers and things to make that happen. And so we're looking to continue to fund that community school coordinator. Mary has also played a role in us getting our maker spaces up and rolling here in this upcoming year to support our students at the middle school levels. And for next year moving forward, that community school coordinator will continue to help us with community outreach and supports at each one of our buildings. But also we have a big task in regards to our capstone projects that we're going to be looking to leverage as a way for us to authentically assess our kids at the end of either elementary or middle school or high school. That's part of our strategic plan. And in order to do that, we're going to need community engagement and support around mentoring our kids. And so that position will be helped to support that moving forward as well. And I've been linking in the community school page on our SU website into my reports. If you haven't had a chance to look at it, please visit it and it'll show you all the work that we're trying to do in regards to truly becoming community schools. So that's part of where that increase in the SU budget comes from. The other part is that, and if you read my report, you'll see we are looking to support within the technology department a data assistant. We've currently carried a $10,000 stipend to do data work in the SU. Instead of carrying a stipend, we're looking to bring somebody in full time to do that work. And if you say, well, what would a data assistant do? A data assistant, I really see wears two hats. One, it helps support central office admin in regards to all the state reporting we have to do, which annually becomes more and more tedious in regards to what we have to report to the agency. Two, as we're trying to do to best leverage platforms like you've heard me talking about edgy climber and things of that nature, it does require us to still update edgy climber on a regular basis, meaning weekly. So that when our teachers sit in teams, they have up to date attendance data, up to date behavioral data, up to date any type of academic testing data that we do. At their fingertips. We've been currently asking Ray to do that. And it really, you know, as we've met in budget conversations, it has become clear to me that it's high time that we support raised department and on this. And this person will help in the business office to with this data as it becomes more and more intense here, because we're trying to use data better, but also as the agency just continues to ask for more reports on a regular basis. So that's the big changes in regards to the top part of the budget. It's bringing Mary Shell in full time off of that community schools grant, like I said, right already supports point five of that position they have been, it would be looking to the SU to support the other half of that position. That's, and when you see that figure that's full salary and benefits, that's not just salary. That's everything rolled up in these departments. And then like I said, it is really to bring in that 1.0 data assistant of which I want to hear the board's feedback on because I actually believe we should be looking to try to search for someone to possibly start this year in that role because I don't want, I'm not speaking for my team. I'm just saying, I think I'm asking them to burn the candle at both ends pretty significantly in this work. And I'd like us to try to fix that. And some of it I did not predict to be as intense as it is this current fiscal year. So if the board was supportive of this, I would say to the board that you would be looking for us to try to figure out how we're going to fund it and make it happen this year without going. And, and then in special education services, what you're seeing is our SLPs, that's, I don't believe that's any FTE change. That's just what we've got currently for salary and benefits. They're just, I hired and I really experienced SLP, which was the staff budget. Yep. We always budget on what we have for staffing in the future year and then sometimes people leave and then they have to hire. And then we change it in the following year. The really the big change here is you'll see it in OT. When you see your full budget, this will be offset some by contracted services. So we currently have 1.8 FTE and we have to contract with folks to provide other services. This is our attempt to not have to contract services and try to bring the equivalent of an additional 1.2 in so that they actually work for us. We're hopeful of that. I will tell you, we're going to budget accordingly to try to do that. That doesn't mean we're going to find it. And it may mean we have to continue to contract. The same thing with the behavioral analysts. We've contracted some services for that at the SU level. We are looking to bring that person in. It'll allow us to leverage our Medicaid funds to pay for that position because there's no build-down on Medicaid there. And also we'll use some of our grant funding through Special Ed. It's called the Block Grant now. Again, we're going to try to hire that. It doesn't mean we're going to find it. And we may be back to having the contract services there too. But the goal would be to try to have those positions work for us so we can maneuver accordingly and not have to rely on multiple people that have to do some of that work. And be able to have somebody that's like set for us and not having to contract services and have a piece of people with different issues. So those are the big changes there. And like I said, that behavioral analyst, you're going to see some offsetting revenue to help cover that. So those are the big changes. I don't know, Anette or Anna, if you want to add anything else. I mean, I array, those are the FT changes. What you will see here and which the board has, we've talked about in the past was this concept of a chief operations officer. And frankly, I don't, I don't see where we can necessarily support that right now. Yeah. I was going to ask you about that. So that is not budgeted for. It's not budgeted for because I'm concerned that the SU budget's up already. And we do carry some building console time in there. You'll see we're carrying $26,913. I just, you know, I'm looking for direction of the board seeing that number at the top up that much already worries me because I do think we still have. Excuse me, constituents that will go into our, our mailers and look to just see what the bottom line of the SU is up or not and vote sometimes based on that. I think we're getting farther away with that. I think we built more trust with our communities. I think people will get a better sense of what the SU is doing. But it's already up quite a bit. And I would say to you, like, you know, I look at where it's going to be the biggest impact for kids and, and, you know, we are working hard at managing our buildings. We're using some like consultation around it. I'm certainly putting quite a bit of effort in it. I also think our teachers really need ready and available data to make informed instructional decisions. So you said to me, why are you supporting data versus that, that would be why. Well, one of the things we talked about, I'll grab just six or one of the things we talked about when we were talking about viewing your contract, James, we wanted to constantly try to fill that fill a position to put you back on. Totally agree. I know we've talked about that's why I brought it up. We all talked about it as a board. So Sarah. And I, you know, I understand that we're, you know, we're in the business of educating kids, having buildings that work and are efficient is important to that process too. And we, I mean, many of our buildings are fairly old and they're going to need, I mean, I just, you know, are we paying Peter to whatever that saying is. Yeah, whatever. And, and so I mean, I'm, I'm wondering if maybe we should put it in now so that we can pull it out later if we need to. But you know, we could certainly add that position and then next month, we're, I mean, we got a couple more drafts of this. So we could certainly put in a position like that next month with the rest of the budget lines and then you can see what does that mean for the overall budget and we probably could even start to give you a sense of what does that mean for the assessments at your district level. And I, I would wonder how, how having someone who oversees our buildings might in the long run save us money. Yes, this is I wanted to talk this through. And I just said I did not feel comfortable doing it right now because I felt like it's already a bit sticker sharp compared to what budgets we've given you in the last few years. So, but Sarah saying the long term goals. Save money less. I mean, yeah, I mean, I would tell you like we're talking about two possible. Within the SU right now we're talking about two possible bonds. In the next 12 months to vote on that position would be busy. Yes, Sarah. Absolutely. I mean, I would write now before putting it in. I mean, sort of like my, you know, getting the Sears wish book, you know, and adding what I want. And then when it comes down to brass tax, then we can look at it and, and make some adjustments. If we need to, but I think that's a really, I mean, there are, for me on a lot of different levels, that's an important position to have. I agree with Sarah. I would like to see it in and if we have to cut it at the end because we all talk about it doesn't seem to work. Start there with it and hope that we can do it. Eric. I agree with the notion of adding it in. I would suggest that one of the things that would be helpful. One is to be able to create the narrative that that allows us to easily explain to the taxpayer what what the value is that is being created by these positions and value can be actual educational improvement. I'm not I'm not suggesting that that it's just a monetary value. But to the second point, which is, I mean, I look at the 13.75% increase in one area. And I hear the fact that, you know, we have brands that are, you know, expiring and that we are looking at a potential yield and an assessment that's that's going to be negatively impacting the district as a whole. Sorry, the Union as a whole never mind individual districts. And I worry at the end of the day, sort of what the big picture will look like. So, long story short, it should be at it. We need to be conscious as as we identify these issues to create the priority list, so that at the end of the day we understand consciously what it is that we are agreeing to or not agreeing to. Anyone else? Any other discussion on the budget that Jamie's on over for us? I just wanted to add, I wanted to put a huge shout out to a Nets department within regards to special services, that if you do some research on other supervisory unions around the state, you're going to find that that that number over the last few years has been incredible. And that our work, our early intervention work in MTSS is paying off. You know, because my sense is that you're going to find that that number tends to be quite high. So just wanted to take an opportunity to do. What are folks I am looking for some thoughts around this data position, and we can have a job description for you to look at next month. We were not ready to pull that off this month, but I'm just getting a sense that that's something folks want us to put the time and effort in on sharing that job description with you next month, so that we could possibly look to try to move forward on that. I say I'm in support of it. Does anybody have any thoughts? I'm not sure if it's the job description that is most helpful as much as sort of a baseline understanding of a the need and be sort of in a visual form, the need and how the position fills that need in a way that creates a value for for the for the supervisory union and the individual districts. I think that that's what would be what would be most for me anyway most helpful. Everybody's in support of then Jamie bringing us more information for the position and the job description so that we possibly get it out. Everybody proves to fill that position this fall. We'd advertise and we found the right person. Okay. Amy. Yeah, I was moving on to another question on the budget so if you want to finish the discussion on the. What you're discussing or if you're ready to move on. Okay. School coordinator. I understand that it was previously covered on. Are you saying that a portion of this coordinators salary is also in a district budget. Correct. Is it half of it. Did you say point five is this a point one or a one point one position. It's a 1.0 position. Yeah. And this is a single person and this these numbers are the total package including insurance and all that. Yep. Salary benefits everything. Wow. Okay. Point five here. Large number was a little shocking. Yeah, I think it's just important for folks to remember that health insurance is is large. Yeah. And you'll see in some of these budget items where they go up and down. Based on what plan they take. Can impact it. Yeah, I believe Tara at one point said it could be up to $25,000. The family plan is 28,000 right now. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's big. So and I do appreciate that we budget for it just because it could possibly happen. Any other discussion on the budget. Any other feedback and other options we want. Jamie to run with for us for the next time we see it. Yeah, good direction. Thank you. Yeah. I think we can analyze a board retreat date. And for those of us that we're going to attend, I'm sorry that we canceled the other night, but it was going to be barely a quorum at the quorum. It didn't seem to make sense. I think more numbers would be making a much better event for us. And we would get much more work done. It's hard if only eight or nine people are in the room talking about a board of 28. It would be nice to get at least to the halfway point with us. But if all the boards get whole membership because they want to get a prize, then we'll have 28 only. We didn't pick an exact date. I know we tend to talk about next week, which next week back here really fast and we didn't talk about it more. Do we want to try to do something. So I've heard from some of Sharon, and I've heard from Rod, if we were going to do next week, members of those boards speak up if I got this wrong, but the 30th seem better than other dates next week. Which is a Monday. Monday. How many people here could make it on Monday the 30th? What time? 530. Come on, Dustin and Eric. Eric's got his thumb up. Sorry, I didn't see it. And Dustin. Yes. Let the record reflect that my chair is unable to support the members of her district by not seeing their thumbs up. That's because your name on my computer was where your thumb was. Guys, this meeting is in person only. Just because it'll be dinner. Get your board members there because we'll be a prize. Chris, does Monday work for you still? Andrew, can you do Monday? Andrew said yes. Yeah, I'm hoping I can make Monday work. Okay. Right here, but what we have guesses on is more than we had that could have made it to the previous meeting. Yeah, it's important. It's a good meeting. At our retreat. And we got to know each other better. We started kind of coalescing as a team. And then we set a mechanism going forward to establishing our SU board goals. So we can build on all that starting again this coming Monday night. So it's important. We can do it. And it makes a difference. So look forward to seeing everybody there. High school, right? Yep. That's a high school. Last year we played trivia warm up trivia before we got started. We broke up into teams. We had handy for prizes and we had a really good dinner and we did a lot of good conversation happened there. So I hope everybody will get excited. All right. All right. Any public comment. And your resignation new hires. Any other business. Do we want to set our December meeting. Day before December fills up really quickly. What's it would be set for. 20 steps. 20. Is that that. I will be there on the 26. That sounds like a great day. We do the 19th. Yep. We do the 19th. What's that? We're going to be the 19th. Yeah, all those. That's not right. No, because the 28th is not a Tuesday. That should be a Thursday. It's halfway through the graph. We move the board pieces. The dates. 28th is a Tuesday. December is a Thursday. December. December. The numbers are right. The board meetings. Okay. Tuesdays are booked. So the 19th will have meetings on it. So if the full board wanted to go that week prior, they could do the Monday, the 18th. I can do the 18th. Amy can. Eric can. Stacy. Patrick. Right. And thank you for picking up on that, Sarah, because that's an important meeting. Yeah. I would also. Append that amend that by append that by proposing that we go ahead and move the policy committee meeting that month to that date as well. Yes. 18. All right. A motion to adjourn. So moved. See everybody on Monday. All right. See everybody on Monday.