 It is six, three, sorry. Oh, you can hear me, now you can't hear me, good. So we're gonna go ahead and call the meeting to order because we've got lots to do this evening. The first order of business always is public comment and quick reminder that especially in this budget season, we are, we have a second public comment following the presentation of the latest budget numbers. So you're welcome to speak now or after we see that. I would encourage you if you have public comment that is not budget related, now would be a good time to share it. And if you wanna wait until after the budget presentation, you're certainly welcome to. With that, is there anyone in the room or online who would like to offer public comment? Being no one in the room, I'll call, I see one hand raised online from Timothy's iPhone. If you can go ahead and take yourself off mute and introduce yourself for the audience. Hello, it's Tim Smith. Thank you all. And this is actually budget related. I wanted to say thank you for the FAQ, that's up online, it's super helpful. I was a little bit concerned about, sorry, two things. Well, two comments in the FAQ. One of them says, if a school receives the merger grant, their schools do not qualify for any of the new waiting categories for having a small school. And then another comment further down says, it was not apparent that Roxbury, one of the smallest schools in the state would not qualify for the small school wait because of the past merger. I just wanna make a comment that I feel like that is a major flaw in the law. I think it's deeply unfortunate. I feel like it puts the two laws kind of counter to each other and that the new law that's in place is going to really push back against and maybe even do damage to the previous law that I went through and that we were a part of. And that's it for my comment. Thank you all. Thanks, Tim. Thank you, Tim. And just as a reminder for everybody, the board really appreciates public comment and takes it in. It's our practice not to respond back to public comments because the whole purpose of public comment is for us to hear from the community and use what we hear in our thinking and in our decision-making, which in some cases, although it's probably not to remain tonight, the public comment we hear doesn't necessarily address something that's on the agenda, but then even if it does, we can weigh those thoughts and those comments when we do our deliberations, but don't necessarily respond or it's our practice not to respond in the moment. And I think with that, we can close public comment for now and move on to the consent agenda. And I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. I move to pass the consent agenda. Second. Second. Any discussion or questions about it? Okay, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. And just a brief bit of context for those following along at home, the consent agenda is a bundle of things that are generally not very contentious and pretty typical to board work. So we just bundle them all together and take care of them. But if there is something for discussion, any board member can pull one out and item up for discussion, which we didn't need to do tonight. So moving right along to our first order of board business, we'd like to invite Jodi Emerson of the Central Vermont Career Center to come up and present on your fabulous school and district. Like moving up and on screen. Yes. Thank you. Hold on one second, Jodi. Can you minimize the squares on the side? Thank you very much. Thanks. All right, Jodi. Hi, Jodi. Hi. Welcome. It's my, you guys get the first go of this. I think that happened last year too. So every December, the Central Vermont Career Center is working on our budget just like you are. And we have the opportunity to visit all of the sending school boards and make this presentation. So this is like hot off the presses today, literally, because the finance committee met last night and our full board won't see this until Monday. So you're actually in advance of our, the CVCC SD board. So this will be helpful for when I'm ready for that. Good work. Yeah. Every photo in here is of our students this year. So you might recognize some students in here. That's one of my favorite parts about sharing what happens at the Central Vermont Career Center, where you do send students along with five other sending schools in our region. And then some students from outside our region do access as well. And so we get the opportunity to prepare students for a variety of careers in like really intensive programming. That's four hours every day. So they come to us, they grab breakfast on their way in this year. At 8.30, they're in their program and they're with that program instructor until 12.30 each day. And then some of them would licenses leave and some of them stay and go get lunch in the Spalding cafeteria and then climb onto the bus and come on back here each day. This year, we actually have board goals. Last year when we came, we hadn't done that yet. We hadn't done the work for that. So it's really great to be able to share those for the first time. The first one is around long-term planning and the best news for us and for our programming is the plan for a state of the art career center in 2028. So fall of 2028. That's not in this year's budget though. So, right? We're looking at last year, we had 408 applicants for our programs and we took 208. So 200 students who wanted access didn't get it and that's been really hard. And each year we've seen our applicants grow, the number of applicants we have and so thus each year we're turning away more students than we have before and it's really hard to do that knowing that they all deserve an opportunity to do that hands on work. We also want, we have a program quality committee and they're working to provide equitable safe rigorous programming and just make sure that we're more inclusive in our curriculum and instruction. We also have an equity scholar in residence this year who's been an amazing asset to our staff especially and has also been teaching some citizenship related work in each program and talking about OSHA history and in connection with Barry history. A lot of the OSHA rules actually came out of Barry which is not really a surprise with the granite industry there. And then we're as I think most boards are except maybe at budget season we're looking at ways to engage our community and of course our community is 18 towns. So it's really hard to get our information out to everyone and to also gather information and feedback back. We rarely have folks at our board meetings and ORCA has been there this year and maybe that's reaching a few more folks but it feels like there's a lot of work to do to get the community more involved. So some of the charges that I've been given this year as a result of these goals is to develop and implement a full day educational program that meets the needs of our students in conjunction with that new center. We did really look at can we go to full day with academics next year and that would have been a 25.8% increase on our budget and knowing what all of you are already struggling with to put that on top of what you're already trying to deal with in your budgets didn't seem appropriate or fair. We've also concerned about being able to find licensed teachers to fill those positions and what does it do if we're taking them away from some of our sending schools for example. And then we're continuing always to try to enhance the skills for our students to be ready for the workforce wherever they're going. So the reasons I've already sort of addressed this that we don't wanna keep turning away students but we don't have the space. Last year you may have heard we tried to open a welding program in a partnership with an industry in Barrie and because the space that they had available to us was too small, we were not given that permission from the state. So we're seeking actively that space for next year. We have applicants for welding next year and we have a teacher who's in the interview process. So we may be able to hire them in January to start building that program for us. So we're really excited about that. And we're just looking for ways to be creative and meet the needs of more people. I included the mission statement that we have here for the career center. It's been one that has been around for a long time and I inherited it. This is my third year there. And I love our tagline education that works. It's so much fun to see that everywhere. I have with me both our program of studies. I have several copies. And last year's annual report because our current ones in draft process. So for anyone who wants those I will put those copies with Jill for you. This is actually a lot of this slideshow from here forward is very similar to last year. We just made a copy and then updated some of the numbers. And there's actually a couple of slides that aren't updated yet because the information isn't in for us yet. So this is talking about what do we look at when we're making a budget. And it's the same thing that your board looks at. And as far as resources, what do you have for qualified staff? What are you coming out of negotiations with? What do you need for supplies? What is best gonna support the students for us? How much is it gonna cost to have OSHA training? Because in the past we had someone who did that training on site who was one of our staff and that person retired. So then we had to kind of contract out for that. What does it look like if one of our staff leaves and we need to fill that position and maybe can't find a qualified applicant as what happened with plumbing and heating last year. So we hired one of our permanent subs to ask an emergency teacher license, but they didn't have the plumbing and heating background. So we contracted with BHB to get someone who did have that. And that partnership has lasted through this year and has been phenomenal. Every student in plumbing and heating that took the apprenticeship exam passed the apprenticeship exam last year. So very exciting. And the partnership with BHB has been wonderful. So the board set these parameters in November when we met so they asked us to continue thinking forward to what does it look like for FY29 if we have that new building and we are full day with academics, what does it take to build up to that so that we successfully are ready for that? They wanted us to explore opportunities for collaboration across our sending schools. Are there things that you have that are pipelines to us but also things that we can work a little more collaboratively to support so that we have students that maybe can access a program here if they can't come to us or somewhere else. And those are things that we need to discuss. And it's also part of the Conference of Local Needs Assessment which we do every two years for our Perkins funding. They wanted to think about what the programming a little differently. So this year we did, I'm gonna forget what we call it but a program analysis and basically figured out how many students do we need to break even in that? And sometimes the break even costs of programming like automotive or welding, for example, needs more students than we can actually legally have in the program first numbers based on state law. And so other programming like digital media arts or exploratory where we can have more students because it's not as dangerous and then there's not as high cost of equipment. Those are the areas where we can kind of offset those more expensive programs. And so looking at the configuration and figuring out ways to make sure that we can sort of offset that. And the board was really generous and said that we could increase between 16 and 18% but not 25.8% just my wish list. These are very similar to last year that like we're looking at our class sizes where things going well, where are we struggling? We know we don't have enough space at Spalding High School. And so where can we expand? Where can we hold that welding program? What do we need to do to build that facility? As you know, we have a base funding rate and then we take a percentage of that and throw it into a really complicated formula to figure out our tuition. And we just got word last Friday that it might be 13,063. Maybe, I think that came through at like four o'clock on Friday. Always does. So our updated numbers are a result of that a little bit. So that did help our percentage increase. You all know that the health insurance benefits are going up quite substantially. We have liability insurances that are increased. Negotiated contract may increase quite a bit. So a variety of things that just cost more than they always have. And of course we're buying lumber which costs more and tools that cost more than they used to. So we do anticipate some salary increases. We're hopeful that we're gonna have a negotiated agreement soon but we do not have that yet. Other things that we've already talked about in there. Our FTEs have steadily increased but we're at the point now where they're gonna reach our capacity and level out. So even though we've seen that increase that we've been able to apply and kind of help cut down the total cost of tuition we're getting to the point where they're gonna flatline. This one is just the enrollment that we've had in the last two years. And you'll notice that there's different headcounts sometimes over the amount of what we actually have in the program and that's because of co-op students who are out working and they're in the program one day a week. We, co-op is running a little different this year in that it's happening across different days. So students are in our center at different days instead of all together in the same day. And their instructor of record is their program instructor. So it might be the automotive teacher it might be the electrical teacher. It is not the co-op coordinator, he coordinates but does not have the right to grade students. And so the program instructors really need to see the students. One thing you might notice on there is that our design and fabrication program which was brand new in FY23 had two students last year or yeah, it says three but we only had two students complete the program last year. We have five students in it now we have no applicants in our first round unfortunately and we have over 200 applicants already for first round applications that opened November 16th and closed December 22nd. I did tell you already that we have welding applicants we have well over 20 applicants for welding. So we're probably gonna swap those programs. This slide has not changed from last year because I only have projected tuition from four other centers right now. So the two I have at the top, Patricia and Hannaford looks like they're gonna be right around 30,000 in their tuition. Southwest is gonna be about 27,000. Stafford Technical Center which is right there in the middle is gonna be 21 just over 21,000. We're gonna be just over 19,000. That's our projection right now based on the numbers we have and Riverbend is just under 18,000. So those are the only ones that I have for next year with the chart I expect to be about the same that we're gonna be in the same location on that comparatively to other tech centers. So our anticipated tuition is 19,423. If we put it through that whole complicated formula some of that comes directly to us, the on behalf payment from the state and then we bill the remaining tuition to the school district. So it would be 8,058 per FTE which is on that six semester average. And we anticipate that Montpeliers is a little over 26 FTEs next year. That's just a chart to kind of look at where we're spending the money. A lot of you probably do that in your budget presentations as well and thankfully as in all of ours it should, the majority of it should be going towards instruction and education. These are some of our revenue sources and we also have Perkins funding a grant which is about 250,000 each year that we get. Sometimes we are lucky enough to get some time grant funds. This year we also got 24,000 and unexpected gear grant funds to renovate a mobile home. And we're still waiting for that mobile home to show up from the state for our building trades program to work on and renovate and then we'll sell it and hand the 24,000 if we make that much off of it back to the state and put the rest into our building trades program. I think that's everything. Jill, did I miss anything? Can we just explain, Jodi, because I think we have some new board members since the last time you presented on the budget how it works with ballot language and things like that. Good question. I removed the ballot because it was last year's ballot and this year's is different. We basically the budget goes out to do you approve the total amount for the career center which is somewhere between four and five million total for our center? And so it'll have that amount on there. And if the vote and everybody gets that all across all 18 towns, they also will vote for one at large member this year Washington Central's at large member is up for renewal, even though they just got appointed last year by the electorate, it was one year was left on that term that they were appointed to previously. So that person will be up for election. So we'll have two items, the amount of the budget, which if approved by our voters, all of the ballots go together and they all travel to Barrie and they all get counted together in Barrie about a week after town meeting day because we give the town clerk's time to pull that all together. And if it is approved, then you are responsible for your share and it comes out of that amount of your budget. And so we try to be very clear that this is not, this is what you're already anticipating this in your budget, Washington Central is anticipating it, Harwood is anticipating it. So it's not above and beyond the monies that you're already asking for in your budgets, but it's anticipated within and that their approval means that you're gonna pay your bill that you get from us. Is that what you're asking? Yeah. That last part seems really key for everybody to understand that even though we would be voting on that specific budget separate from the school district budget, it doesn't mean that then there is another cost. It is already included in our school district budget. What it does mean though is if mine passes and one of my signing schools doesn't, they're still liable for that amount in there. So the cuts have to come somewhere else. They can't say, oh, we're just not gonna pay the career center. Good point. Yeah. Yep. Do members of the board have other questions for Jody? I just need a clarification. So here's the challenge, but it's not to pass that particular part of voting pieces. What then the kids can still go to the center, but the town has to come up with the money. We won't actually know. The school budget has to come up. We won't actually know if a specific town because they're commingled. So we have no idea what town supported or didn't support the career center. We just get the overall tally from the 18 towns. Those votes are all commingled. Then what happens if it doesn't come up? Then what happens if it doesn't pass? We have to go back out, just like you would have to to all 18 towns. And it was very intentional to have them be commingled. So it wasn't, while these three towns passed it and these three didn't, the whole idea is it's one district, 18 towns. We vote as one. It acts 127, have an effect on you guys, didn't that? No, our funding is coming up for discussion this legislative season. We have this really complicated six semester average formula and there's literally a spreadsheet worksheet that we punch numbers into and put all of our, how much does each of the, there was a slide that talked about where we get reimbursements. How much did that get reimbursed? How much is on behalf and all these things. And then it spits out a number at the bottom that tells us, here's what your tuition amount is. Our tuition is 9.7% higher than last year and how much is the remaining after the on behalf. So it's a complicated formula. The hope I think out of the APA study from last year and the work that's being done across many groups to try to advocate for a different funding for CTE is some direct payment for the students we have. Cause right now I have more students that I'm getting funding for. So it's spread out more if I had direct funding for every single student I had, that tuition could be lowered a little bit. The hope is that that would come directly off the top sort of thing. And I guess there was some research done in before COVID 2019, where it was 3% of education funding with CTEs. I'm sure it's up a little bit now, but everybody's is up. So it may still be a 3% of that funding is CTE. And so there's gonna be a lot of work done this year as a result of that study and the legislature is kind of primed for it to see if they're gonna fund us differently. But it doesn't, the Act 127 doesn't impact us, except that it impacts all of you, which impacts us, if that makes sense. So anyone want annual reports or program of sites? Can I ask you a quick question about the, do you have an idea maybe statewide or at least our towns, the number, I guess you told us a number, but the percentage of students who are able to take advantage of CTE? By state or by just by us? I mean, I could figure it out if I did the math, because you told us how many we have. I'm curious more broadly. Do you have any students total to start this year? We're down a little bit from that. I don't know how many high school students there are. And I would say look at 10 to 11, look at 10 to 12 grade, not, we do have three, nine graders I think this year, but in general, we don't. Maybe do you know statewide, do you ask that? That's fine, I'll put them around here. Jody, I have, I think what's a, is an obvious question, the, when you say the 19,000, that is essentially the full cost of educating one student in the, at the career center, but then the 8,000 per student, that's that $11,000 difference is because it's made up by those other sources of funding. Is that right? It's made up by that. Some of it is, we get some of the funding for those students directly. And then I think the remainder of whatever your tuition is goes to you. And then we take the rest of what ours would be. So if your tuition is at 22,000, I don't know what it is. I don't know what it's planning to be. And ours is 19 and there's a little bit of money that you would hold on. But we also, it depends also because of that six semester average, I could have 30 of your kids and you could be paying for 26 or I could have 26 of your kids and you could be paying for 30 based on how it's been over the last three years. Correct. So Jason has some numbers from a few years ago. He says, a few years ago, 29% of eligible high school students participated in CTA across the straight state that was pre-pandemic. So he doesn't have the numbers now. At that time, MHS was about 12% of the portion of the portion. Yeah, we've talked about the question. Sure. I'm curious about the pressures. You mentioned I'm using my paraphrasing. So it might be wrong. Like the loss leaders, right? That there are programs that cost a lot more to run and there are programs that cost a lot less to run. Yeah. And like within the industry of CTE, if there are pressures to like, like are there more students that are interested in those lower cost programs? And so that's a way to like clap up overall CTE or yeah. Good question. Any program that started, we have to prove that it's high wage, high scale, high demand first. And the way that we do that is through the comprehensive local needs assessment. So last time we went through that was two years ago because we're just starting out this year. And what I got out of my process was that welding was number one, there's an interest in diesel and auto body repair. And there's a number of things that we do. And there's an interest in business, interesting enough, like I think that we, CTE's had it, then it went into high schools for a while. And now there's financial literacy, but not so much accounting and business stuff, depending on the high school. And so when we looked at that as a center and with that CLNA team, they identified, let's move forward with that welding and also design and fabrication was part of that. Cause we thought putting together something that would benefit the granite sheds because they have lots of older folks that are in them that are ready to retire. COVID unfortunately caused a huge demand for granite. And yeah, yeah, stones, yeah. And so we thought we could build that for them. And we also had a partnership plan with Norwich University. And those things didn't happen the way that we expected out of that piece. But we went that way first and then thought we'd build up welding next. And so right now we're just gonna shift them. Although if the granite industry decides to step in and financially support, maybe there's a way to do both. I think we're exploring industry support a lot more than we used to. Like are there other ways to help fund these programs to support the workforce development? Yeah. So I think there was an exploratory program. Can you say more about what that is? Yeah, so most of our programming is open to 11th and 12th graders. If we let in someone who's younger, we have to have state permission to do that and then explanation why. Otherwise there's pre-tech courses. So you could have foundations which some of the tech centers in Vermont have. Randolph Tech has one, which is more for ninth graders, kind of get them familiarized with. And then 10th grade is more of an exploratory level. So students in our exploratory program have two instructors and they get some all four of the academics from those instructors, but they also have the opportunity to get introduced to every single program that we have. And so they'll do a week long kind of adventure where the students in those programs teach them something and they learn some of the tools of that trade. And then they will also shadow. So they've already started shadowing different programs and we try to get those all in for them so they know what they wanna apply for next year. There's been a pretty healthy trend of students that are in exploratory getting into other programs. Sometimes it can be a way to not get in because if you aren't following safety regulations or rules, it can be obvious to the instructors when you're shadowing in their program that that student isn't listening to me. This might not be the space for them, but it is an opportunity for students to explore every single program that we have. Does that make it less likely than you would be denied entry into a program if you've been in the exploratory programs? Is it kind of like a... It's on the year and it depends on the student. Early, yeah, right, touch it. Yeah. Some of them, when they come in, they're looking for an alternate setting, right? So something that has something that's a little more engaging for them, but they may not really be invested in exploring all their programs. Some of them, I think it surprises them how exciting it is to go in and explore a program that they didn't think they had any interest in and we see them come in and say, these are the programs I want to go into. And then by the end of the year, they're like, actually, I'd rather go into this one. That was way more fun and I realized I really enjoy that. But at the same time, we have some students who are resistant to programs that they don't think they have an interest in and that can set them up a little bit for failure as far as moving on. Kind of a quick question. I'm really grateful that this pathway exists for our students. The traditional four-roomed walled classroom doesn't work for many kids and so the fact that we have this as such an asset. And I feel like, I think this is the third time I've seen you come before the board and this is the third time you've said that we've had more demand than we have space for our programs, which I'm sure is kind of a heartbreaker for you all when there's so much demand. And I'm hearing about this FY29 state-of-the-art facility and I'm curious about that and what that might look like and just sort of the development work and how at this point, you see that possibly panning out. And then in the meantime, what's the plan? In terms of like other options to kind of creatively, like I'm building partnerships to increase capacity. I'm just curious, like, wow, there's this kind of pie in the sky and this is where you'd like to get and like kind of knowing along the way how you can continue to build program to try to satisfy some of that demand for students. Yeah, you could help with that. Any thinking that we can get on that would be great. But right now I've sort of tried to do some backwards design thinking about that and my staff has helped a little bit with that as well. And so we're thinking it does make sense in some ways to open a foundations program. And what we see when we have students that are with us from 10 through 12th grade is that a steady improvement and steady growth in those scales, right? So the longer we have them, we are seeing improvements. I've heard my teachers say that. And so if we do open a foundations program, does that mean that we can split our exploratory? And one of the things that I talked about last year was our new EMS2 program where students are working on their paramedic license, right, our certification. And so if we have a kid come in and we set the stage for them in foundations as a ninth grader and that's where they wanna go and we have a health sciences exploratory after that and then move them along that pathway that might strengthen those pieces for them. We are gonna need to look at sites outside of our building and we are thinking about right now baking and culinary got before I came, they got merged back together. They had been separate and baking had had a space on Main Street and Berry and they were able to be open to the public sometimes. And that went away when they got kinda squished back together. Again, two teachers in a really small space where we can't accommodate the number of students that we should. And so we're looking at spaces for that and how can we take those two programs back apart and provide more opportunity there. We are considering business, we're looking at our digital media arts program and does it make sense to have two layers or is there a way that we can shift some of that? And I think it is important to look at what do our sending schools have? How can we help build the pipelines from there? How can we collaborate? And I know that long before I even thought about working in CTE that CBCC had pilot, like they had foundations programs in some of their sending schools. So they had one at Harvard, they had one at U32 and I think one other school. And so we can put the bill like pay the salary of someone and count those students potentially and have a space at one of our sending schools. So there are a lot of things that we can explore that we just haven't had the capacity to do yet, but we need to. Thanks, yeah. You have your own mechanisms for transportation? We have a bus without a driver. We, I mean, mostly we rely on the sending schools delivering the students to us and taking them back at the end of the day. We have a couple of van to truck and a short bus that we can use for field trips and for projects that we do, but we would need to work on that. Right now we also partner with Community Rides because the students who are in design and fabrication are their classroom is at the Granite Museum. And so they come to the center, they get their breakfast and then Community Rides drives them to the Granite Museum and then brings them back at the end of that day. So we are working on ways to meet those needs. And I think that's another area we could partner. It's also one of the things that we're hoping the legislature works on because right now equity for students in access doesn't exist if you can only come to me and I turn you away because I don't have enough seats. And the only way you can go to Randolph or to River Bend or to Essex is if you have a transportation. And that's not equitable. And so I think that on the line calendar throughout the state for CTE and having a transportation system or plan statewide for CTE would benefit more students. Beth, do you have a question that they have them? But I don't see any. Thanks again, Jodi. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Oh, we have a great question. As everyone's finished with their questions. I wanna thank you and CBCC because I have a lot of classmates and just like people I know are on the school who've gone to CBCC and it's just worked really well for them because for whatever reason this building didn't work for them or that just worked better. And especially with the concerns that we all have about getting a job that pays well enough. It's just really awesome to see how well that works for people. So thank you for everything CBCC does. And I hope that you keep getting the support you need to run your program. Awesome, thank you. I'm glad your friends are feeling like it was the right fit for them. Thank you. Okay, our next order of business is the latest presentation on our budget and then a board discussion on what direction to go in. Take it away, Libby. Okay. So just some reminders of where we've been. So the board and the community have seen this chart before. This is the FY24 comparison if Act 127 had been in place last year for the fiscal budget that we are in now, FY24. We do have some new numbers in here. So the December 1st dollar yield number came in lower than anticipated slightly. So the dollar yield is recommended to be keep in mind the dollar yield does not get voted on until May by the legislature. It's typically one of the last bills to be voted on. The dollar yield is anticipated to be 9,452. Last year, if 127 was in effect, the dollar yield would have been 9,687. So it is decreasing slightly from last year's kind of fakish numbers to this year's more real numbers. The other number that is different on this slide is the equalized pupils. So Christina put in anticipated numbers. This is not a real number yet. We get the real number from the state and we have, although they said that they were going to send it to us yesterday, we did not get it yesterday or at least I'm not aware of us getting it yesterday. So this is anticipated. It did, Christina is anticipating that number of equalized pupils to go up actually because although our enrollment has dropped slightly because the state is using a different way to qualify students and families as free and reduced lunch, our numbers actually went up across the board there. And of course, that's a larger weight with the new weighting studies. So that's the reason why that number went up by approximately 60 students. So that's good news. That's good news. Yeah, okay. The audio bad news. She says 60. 60. Yeah. So the rest is similar to what the board has seen before. Okay. It was minus 74 and now it's minus 14. No, okay. No, the minus 74 was the, I'll remind you that it was the calculation that Brad James at the agency of education did to show districts whether they'd be an advantage or disadvantage district with the new weights. And what he did was he took the new, he took our old weights and then use some magical math that I could not tell you how to do it but with a equalizing factor to kind of show apples to apples there. And that's where we know that we would have been, we were a disadvantage district under Act 127 that is not the number you see here on the board. That was the first number we used. And we got clarity to use a different number which is essentially doing the column on the right FY24 budget if Act 127 were in place. Like that didn't happen, right? But that is if it had been in place. Does that make sense, Rhett? Kind of. Yeah. I know. It kind of makes sense to me too. So does that increase, quote unquote increase in equalized pupils translate to a decrease in projected effect on the tax? Yes, slightly. So while I don't have the number exactly right here and I don't want to take the time to pull it up. I believe this lower yellow number, the 17.89% number. Last time actually Jill's got the presentation right now. I think 18 points something. Yeah. That decreases the equalized tax rate slightly which is the tax rate prior to CLS. Okay. So for the community's benefit in order to have this conversation, Jim, me and I had a long conversation about how to jumpstart it to make it a little bit easier. And the three of us decided to send the board an anonymous survey simply to jumpstart this conversation in the last board meeting last Wednesday. You remember that we showed pie charts of percentages of potential cuts for the board to ask questions about and ponder throughout this week. And so just yesterday, yesterday, two days ago, yesterday, I sent out the anonymous Google survey to see where board members were kind of landing in that. And so really all it asked them to do was rank the five categories that were shown in the ideas presented last week and then add any other comments. So this is what the community will see right now in the board for that matter. We'll see the results of that survey put in a little bark out. So responses to the anonymous survey where cuts should be made to the board, not to the community, but to the board. This is already assuming if we are anticipating that we will have to cut approximately 800,000 just as a reminder, approximately 800,000 from our budget in order to come below the 10% number. The top yellow number. The top yellow number in order for our budget to be capped. Somebody told me told business managers and superintendents at a conference this week to not use jargon. And I was like, how do you explain this? Using jargon, I don't know. So I'm kind of, I'm stumbling around based on that. So if we have a 800,000 that we need to cut that we're anticipating, what the board was asked to do was to assume that 400,000 of that, at least 50% of that 800,000 would be in staffing and benefits. The reason being is staffing and benefits is 80% of our salary. And there's our budget, sorry, thinking, yeah, is of our budget. And there really is no way to get to $800,000 without thinking about staffing and benefits a bit. So what Mia, Jim and I decided on the survey was to assume there would be $400,000 in cuts to staffing and benefits. And then we asked the board members to prioritize the five ideas that were presented to them. So individual school budgets, each school has a budget that they have. Principles are in charge of those budgets. They include things like teacher supply lines, field trip lines, things that are very individualized to the school. The board looked at transportation. The board looked at increasing the fund balance facilities and staff and benefits. So what I did with the responses this afternoon was I looked at four and five, if somebody ranked it as a four or five, then they were willing to take those cuts, right? They were more willing to make those cuts than other cuts. If somebody ranked something as a two or three, it was in the middle and if somebody ranked something as a zero or one, they really didn't want to look towards cuts there. It's ranking all makes sense to everybody. And so the responses were what you see right here. So six board members out of our nine said that the school budgets would be something they would be willing to look at for cuts as a larger or as a percentage of that pie chart to get to the other $400,000. Transportation was also highly ranked by the board members. Five board members said that transportation should be a place that we could make, that could be a big part of the pie. The one that stood out that was don't do any more there is staffing and benefits. So the board were quite clear with six people again that that is not something they're willing to do beyond the 400,000. So the question around staffing and benefits would be, we're going to, we know we have to cut $400,000 from staffing and benefits. Do you want to do more than that? And the six members of the board were quite clear that that was not a place they were willing to go. Any, I just want to stop right here from the board. Any questions just on this? What does the facility say? So is that saying that most of us said it was a two or a three? Yes, okay, yes. And I just wanted to say just to piggyback off of what Libby was saying is that this is really just so that we could jumpstart the conversation. We wouldn't hold, I mean, we don't even know who those six board members are, but we wouldn't hold you to it if you decided over the course of tonight's discussion. Actually, no, don't touch school budgets, for example. It really was just to give us something as a launch point to be able to start the conversation. So there were two open-ended comment boxes for the board to be able to make comments. And the themes, we put these into themes. So there was a theme around no more reduction in force. So no more, that would be a riff, no more reduction in force staff and benefits than the 400,000 K. However, retirement buyouts are supported by the board which have already been offered into our three unions. Transportation, keep all transportation to Roxbury was a theme from a few board members and cut Main Street Middle School busing was a theme from a few board members. Use the fund balance. So consider unencumbering money for the track was a theme, but from a couple board members. Facilities cut out any renovations, but no deferred maintenance was a theme that came out and stay away from the student experience. So just generalizing what you all said, not using your direct quotes, but generalizing what you all said, these were the themes that popped out. Is there a way to see, I feel like Jake or Jim might have a question. I feel maybe I'm, let's, yeah. There's Jake. Jake, just shout out, in and out. Sorry, we don't have your little squares on the screen right now, so. Go ahead, Jake. That's the reason we haven't. Do I have a square on the screen? Now we do. Okay, so, sorry to, there were a couple of slides, there were a couple of slides a few slides ago that went by kind of quickly, but the student count, it's now 1860 roughly. So are you feeling like confident in that number or is that something that you're not wanting to use at this time? Well, we have put it in there. So we're confident enough to put it into the calculation. However, we don't make that final decision. The agency of education is expected to give that to us any day now. Okay, because on, it's, so, you know, the 10% increase that we're trying to avoid, that's on per pupil spending. So it's not on overall budget. So now that there's more pupils, that per pupil spending amount, I don't know what the, you know, what the target is, but it's something, you know, higher than 14193. You know, if you take last year's per pupil spending and multiply it, you know, add 10% to it, it's 14647. So I think there might be more space than we think there is. Slightly, perhaps we'll see what the number is and we'll have that, I'm anticipating we'll have it by next week when we do the actual first draft of the budget. Okay. So from, this is from the survey and like what Mia said, nobody is committed to what they said, but from the anonymous survey of the board members, the clear direction that I could see is to make cuts from school budgets. So again, that's teacher supplies, field trips, new library books, that kind of thing. That's where the principals would be taking that from. And number two, transportation. And so I just put what we talked about, this was known information from last week with just an addition of the number of students. So eliminating busing for students living in Montpelier who attend Main Street Middle School affects about 125 students daily to the cost of $170,000. Eliminating the late bus for students living in Roxbury affects approximately three students daily and that's to the tune of $25,000. Eliminating the afterschool bucks for Roxbury Village School is really hard to predict because of the state of the afterschool program next year, families will have to pay for that, which they won't this year. So currently that affects one to five students but that number could go up if people decide not to do the afterschool program. And that cost is approximately $35,000. And it was very clear that the board members did not want to make any more cuts beyond the $400,000 from staffing and benefits. I don't know what I was saying, the survey. Well, we asked that directly. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, very clear. Yeah, so thank you. It's like, what am I right? There was one comment that was not a theme because only one person said it to eliminate the extra, the positions that were added using ESSER funds which of course would be staffing and benefits elimination. So there's a little contradiction there. And I would just point out that those positions that were added using ESSER funds are interventionists and that's what they are. There are no other positions that we've added besides academic interventionists through ESSER funding. Did we add social emotional learning interventionists using ESSER for something else? That was local funds. Yeah, okay, thank you. So there's more discussion needed around facilities. How much is the board looking at? That was kind of a middle ground piece. So there's more discussion around that. The fund balance, there's some discussion needed there. Currently with the track money encumbered, the board can add 200,000 to the already committed 400,000 in this budget. Okay, so we've already committed, in that revenue source, there was already $400,000 committed from the fund balance. And in order to stay within policy, the board could add approximately 200,000 more. The board can take action to unencumber the money for the track, which opens up a force more money. And number three, staffing and benefits plus school, plus school budgets just to give you an overall sense of where we're at right now is $435,000 total because I suggested last week that the school budgets would be around 35,000, 10,000 for each mob pillar school and 5,000 from Roxbury Village School. That of course is not a set number in some, right? That's just what I presented to you. So if we use using that figure, we would need approximately $365,000 more to come up from transportation facilities and the use of additional fund balance. I also wanna put out to the board that we're not necessarily asking for specific ideas from the board. We're still asking for kind of percentages and chunks. And then it's our job next week to come back to you to show you specifics on what it is that we've cut. So if that makes sense to the board, then I will send it over to Mia to open it up for discussion. Yeah, why don't we start with questions? Yeah, for clarification. I can't remember, when does the facilities work that's currently happening? When do they give us a report or something? We have to look at the RSD. Because I'm feeling like there could be some really good nuggets of information in there. I think that's probably why we're having to do that. So it's a little late for this cycle, but they might find some really interesting, I don't know, just as soon as we can get it, it'd be helpful to see how that, because if we might think we know what to do about a certain building or heating systems or whatever, they might have come up with a different. The interim report to the school board for that is March 20th. Okay, thank you. The final report is May 15th. Okay, thanks. One of the slides said cuts from transportation for MSMS, not Roxbury. And I felt the slightest whisp of hope. And then the cuts were cuts to the late bus and cuts to the after school bus, the PM bus. I don't understand that some seems like, I don't understand the discrepancy. No, no, no, I was just sharing with the board the slide. So this is something that needs more discussion. So people were pretty positive that transportation was a place where cuts could be made in order to make up this money. And I wanted to give the board the figures there. These are the three options that were talked about last week. So we could say, yep, do them all, which would be 195, 230, or we could say, do all, but now this might be a place where direction from the board would be useful to you at a little bit more of a granular level than just transportation. Yeah, there aren't too many buckets in transportation. Right, so we could also say, just do the Main Street Middle School bus, which is students who live in Montpelier and take the bus to Main Street Middle School, which would just be 170. Does that help clarify that? Yeah, and right now with the direction that we've gotten from the board so far, our total that we've gotten to is 435 and we need to find 365,000. 435,000, we need to find 365,000. So just as a hypothetical, we as a board could say, let's do the Main Street Middle School bus at 170 and let's do an extra 200,000 from our fund balance and we're there, just as a hypothetical. We could do that. We could also say, no, go bigger on school budgets and do something else. That's, so are there any other questions that folks have? I see Miriam and then Scott, just to try and understand the presentation, I think would be, let's get that all out and then let's hear thoughts that people have. And then just like last week, we'll open up to public comment after that. Is there, is the reason that you're using the $400,000 cut already from staffing and benefits that there's, I realize this is a matter of judgment, but that there's no plausible way to reach the $800,000 cut without that cut? There probably is. However, it'd be significant cuts to facilities transportation. 80% of our budget is staffing and benefits. So there's gonna have to be some work done there. And there was already some planned things that we've discussed last week, like there was because of enrollment, a K6 license position would be reduced because of enrollment. So I don't know if this question is for Jake or for Libby, but Jake, if I understood your question and the answer correctly, the target based on the projections and numbers that we have now is no longer 800,000, but something less than 800,000 that we would need to reduce for this coming budget. It will still be around that. Remember, that's an anticipated potential. So it could be 740, it could be 820, right? So career center tuition just rose. So that just adds to our, to our needs. You know, like things are changing. Just keep that in mind that we are still very early in the budget season. Even in a typical season, this would be the board meeting that you see the first draft, right? So we've pushed that back a week. And as more veteran board members will know, and you know, from serving on Randolph's board, we get more solid numbers as the budgeting process goes on. And even when we send a budget out to the voters, we still don't have totally solid numbers. So I would say we're still hovering around the 800,000 based on things coming in, 3K tuition, just we just learned it went off today. Like I just got an email right before the board meeting. So there are things that are still waffling out there that can influence that number. I think it's safe to go with around 800,000 and maybe less, maybe a little bit more. And I think it would be great for us to be in a position a month from now to say, oh, actually we can put something back in the budget then to again, a month from now have to do another. Which has happened in years past. Which has happened in years past like significantly so. So I don't know maybe they're pleasant, nice surprise. Would it be nice? I just want to make sure I'm connecting all the dots. So coming back to the numbers that you mentioned, so 435 and that we need to get another 365 to reach our 800,000. So the 435 is staff and benefits. We're assuming we need to cut 400,000 from there, correct? Yeah, and so the additional 35, where does that come from when you say 435? Individual school bias. Okay, great. And so then when the slide that lists kind of our other potentials, that's kind of showing us the ranking and the priorities or maybe that's kind of taking our rankings and saying this is where they could come from and this is the amount they equate to and how far they would get us in hitting that 365. Just like to make sure I've got it all up there. Are you asking about the bar graph? Or are you asking about the one that had the... Yeah, I just want to make sure I'm understanding the current pots. Got it. Okay, thank you. On the bar graph, was one of the options about the fund balance? Yes. And where did that just fall like in the middle? That fell in the middle, yeah. I fell in the middle, okay. It sounds like Rhett and then Scott. I have a fuzzy memory that the pie chart number one had salary and benefits of 65% of the 800,000 and that accounts to about 520,000. But I thought that there was a path that wasn't gonna have a strong impact on the student experience, binding 520,000 in salary and benefits. Was that not? I just, I thought that there was a couple of, there were some rep positions that were expected. There were a couple of things that were sort of expected and then there was a possibility that potential retirements would fit in there and I had a memory that it would get to 520,000 without too much pain in the sense. Is that right? We can get to 400,000 without very much pain. I mean, we're talking about people's positions, but we can get to $400,000 in staffing and benefits through a K6 ref with enrollment that we know about not filling a couple of open positions that haven't been open all year. And potential retirements. So I am not hopeful on the retirement piece on finding a significant amount of money that helps us this budget year on the retirement piece. So 400 is the number. And that's just my hunch. That's just my hunch in knowing I'm right, Alex. That's all that's based on right there. Well, hopefully people like it here. Could I say one comment before you go? I just wanna look at that, the bar graph of our responses. Great. If you can pop that up, I can probably answer my own question. I just, the thing I wanted to comment on was this word pain because I think no matter what we do here there's going to be pain, including making decisions to not make cuts causes pain in the other direction of hardship of increased taxes, particularly on people who might not be able to bear that hardship. And so when we're talking about pain, I think it's important for not only to, for us to keep that impact in mind and hold that very carefully, but also to be thinking we are, we need to make these decisions at a systems wide level and we now have the benefit as a board and as a community of having priorities that we have just recently articulated based on a great community engagement process where we got a vision from our community that we need to be prioritizing closing the achievement gap and belonging safety and wellness. And so when we say pain, we should probably be thinking less about, although it's very hard, the pain that individual members of our community will be feeling because that is hard, very hard, but also we need to be thinking more about what not about staying true to those priorities and using those priorities to guide us. So I appreciate, Rhett, you framing that as what are the cuts that get us that have the least amount of impact on the student experience because that is a major factor that the board needs to be considering. Do you still have a question after looking at the bar graph? I was gonna like geek out on the stats and I don't know that it's worth it because it's really just our opinions at that moment in time. And so, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna, what's it, defer my time to the... Yield? Yield my time. Yield my time to the book. The woman from Vermont. I really appreciate how much explanation and thought has gone into making this really transparent because it's helping make some decisions. And we're talking a lot about the student experience and I'm heartbroken to say that I do feel like it feels a little blind to not be looking at the money that we have in the fund balance. I think we've been hit by like a literal and metaphorical flood since then. I just feel like we're in such a completely different financial place. We had this fund balance that was healthy. We had huge community and student support. We were... I mean, that was a great use of one-time funds and I don't want us to do the thing where you buy it down one year and then our tax rates are still impacted. But it does feel really a little blind to be talking about 10,000, 30,000 here and not talk about the money that we have encumbered or at least some of the fund balance to put towards it. So I guess I'm advocating to consider maybe using some of the fund balance. Okay. I have another question. There's been so much discussion about the track or not the track and what's gonna happen to that money. Was that involved? Is that in here anywhere? It came up as a scene in the open-ended, the open-ended thoughts. It is not represented in any of the numbers that I've shared with the board because that for me, from my position as superintendent, the board has not given me the rights to touch that yet. Right? That's your decision. That's my decision to make. And so because the board encumbered that money for the track. So anytime you see increased fund balance, as of right now, I am asking the board to draw the line at $200,000 because your own policy has set an amount that needs to stay available for the district's use. And if you spend more than $200,000 as it is now with the money that is encumbered for not just the track, but other projects as well, you will go below your policy number of how much money we need to have in the right balance. In the balance. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Does that make sense, Lynn? I understand what you're saying. And I guess my question is more, has the track been set aside or has it just been assumed that it's part of the fund? The board took action to encumber that money. The board voted about a year ago, a little more than a year ago. Okay. So the fund balance, the fewer of us said anything about the fund balance. So there, Mike, I had a question when I was filling it out about that and some people didn't respond at all. And so I'm wondering. I didn't notice that, Scott. Yeah, because there are far fewer responses to the fund balance than the others. I'm curious. So again, I don't think it's as important to talk about the survey, but maybe talk through what that might mean. And since we're talking about it now. That's great. That's a great idea. And then I just want to make sure again, Jim and Jake, we can't see your squares. So if your hands are raised, or maybe you can stop sharing your screen, I guess, so that we can see their squares. It keeps sharing and unsharing stuff. That's okay. I think it's helpful to show the slides again if people need to see them. So the question on the table is, I guess, I think if I'm just gonna frame a specific question is we have $365,000 more to find. How much of that do people, would people propose come from the fund balance? Again, just as a reminder, because there's a lot of numbers being thrown around in our regular budget, we're already projecting to draw 400,000 from the fund balance as a source of revenue. So is there how much more than that would board members like to see drawn? I mean, I need to really watch this over on balance. Oh, I don't have that on me right now. I haven't. It was in the most recent quarterly financial report. It looks like Rhett might have it at his fingertips. I don't have that in that with me, Rhett. So it's all you. That's impressive, Rhett. And I'm trying to find it. And it's the board policy. A percentage of our overall budget. $577,000 over the 2% limit from as of first quarter this year, 24. That's what it says on the paper. It's my favorite question from Christina. Yeah. I remember looking at it. I thought I saw it wrong. But then there's a total figure. This is the unencumbered. Right. And so this is set aside for like the track is here. And then this fiscal year and next fiscal year. So does that constitute a discrepancy then the 200,000 versus the 577? If, or maybe we're going to get finality on here. That would be by your calculations too. We could draw another 200,000 in order to still be in. Up to date numbers with our fund balance of what she had and what had already been committed. Yep. Which could be different than what's on the first quarter report because we're now well into the second quarter. Yes. Okay. And it was around, is it exactly $200 a round to put it about? Yeah. So 9.7. In addition to the quarter. Yes. Total. Okay. And the track is part of that. Now that's set aside then. Outside of the extra 200,000 that's available that still keep us within all the parameters. Yeah. Of the requirements we have. Yes. Oh, okay. Okay. And knowing that for four more years we may be in. So. Somewhat of a similar dilemma. So we don't want to put all of our eggs in this basket. I would agree with that statement. Yes. Okay. So if anybody who's following along at home would really like to see these numbers themselves, you can find them in the meeting documents for the November 1st, 2023 meeting. They, it's in the FY24 quarter one financial report on page two, at the top of page two. And again, as Libby just pointed out, this is a little bit old because it's the end of quarter one and not, and we are well into quarter two. But our complete and total fund balance is $3,677,019. Now there are assigned items, including the revenue that streams that we plan on using for FY24, the year we're in FY25 next year. Each of those are 400,000. So that takes that down by 800,000 already. Then there's the committed fund balance that the board voted on. That's 1.9 million to intended for track upgrades. And then there is an unreserved set aside of 50,000 for the potential net zero study, which brings us to a fund balance that there's no plan for of about $927,019. And that number is about $350,000 over the 2% limit. So there's also the equity audit is coming out of the fund balance. The facility's work is coming out of the fund balance which essentially equals another 100,000. Which takes us down to $250,000 over that 2% limit. And that 2% is what the board has in policy that we have to have liquid and unassigned and available to us in our fund balance. I believe there's also been some small facilities things that have come out of that as well. So out of that last remaining 50,000, Jim is saying he'd like to jump in. Right, so just to close that thought, those are where you could find those numbers to be able to do that math to say, oh yeah, we get it. Another $200,000 is what we could quote unquote, easily move from the fund balance on top of the 400,000 we were already planning. And now Jim, I'll let you go. First off apologies, I'm in an airport so you might hear an announcement, can you hear me? I hate to interrupt you while you're apologizing, but I just wanted to give Lynn a chance to finish her thought before I move on. I'm sorry. My bad. If we use that, that would leave us with nothing for the next. That would leave us with the policy, with your policy. Your policy has a statement. Right, but I mean where we're with the requirements we've set for ourselves. Yes, yes. If we use the 200,000 this year, that would leave us with no more fund balance to draw from in future years. Based on our current policy. Right, yes, right, yeah. Great questions. Well, Jim's talking, did you help slide out that just has the like the transportation figures, just the other kind of topic areas and the assigned costs, please? You're on a seven. It might help to share the slides with board members now so they can have another computer support. All right, Jim, take it away. All right, so a few thoughts. And you're gonna hear some airport announcements and one, sorry if I repeat some of this, but I think it might make a lot of sense if we unencumber that money for the track and just put it as a set aside for future budgets for the administration to potentially use and also for the potential aftershock of when the 5% cap goes away. I think it's a distraction to have it named for the track right now. I think the chance of it going to the track is pretty slim. And I think it just might clear some confusion. I think set aside that money for what we probably wanted to be set aside for, which is to give us some room to maneuver over the next few years. Just an idea, I think it would be smart. As much as I really support the track, it were just in a very different situation now than we were when we uncovered that money for the track. Second, I think if we do that, we have to realize that this is a five year game and we should be very careful about trying to extend its utility as far as possible and use it very judiciously so we're not bathing ourselves from one year's disaster to create a much bigger shortfall the next year. So use it as a glide path to make it easier for us not to avoid, I think you did a really good job of framing the pain issue, not to avoid some temporary pain for some maybe more intense future pain. I think that could be very tempting to avoid making hard decisions and we're gonna have to be very kind of conservative with that money. And I think that's pretty much it. But I think things have changed since the track was the intended use of that money. And I think it just might be clear to the community how we're thinking about that money if we kind of officially changed what we have designated its use for. All right, thank you, Jim. Jim, just to clarify, are you proposing we vote on that on uncovering the track money tonight? I think if we're ready to, if not maybe the next meeting, I mean, and if we wanna keep it uncovered for the track, I think that's fine too. I just think we should kind of, what I'm hearing in the discussion is that, and probably the community is here too, like that money is set aside for the track and it's not at least, for this year, something that we're thinking about in terms of a revenue source, maybe for futures. And I think we are at least thinking about it as a revenue source for future years. And especially if we use the extra $200,000 now, then probably next year, we're gonna be in a place where we're gonna have to go to that money anyways. So I think unless, unless we feel there's a substantial chance that we wanna keep that money for the track, I think renaming the designation makes sense. And I know there's definitely some rumblings and confusion in the community. I don't think it's widespread, but we've seen this kind of flare up before that this money is, that we're still thinking about this money as track money. And I don't think we're really thinking about this money as track money. I think we're thinking about this money as money that we're probably gonna need to use over the next four to five years to kind of deal with the implications from Act 127. And I think it's just a confusing message to the community to still have it be officially designated as track money. Because every time we say that, that's what people hear and for legitimate reasons. So I think if we just clear it up to confusion and look, if the legislature comes in this year and fixes Act 127 and we're in a very different situation next year and we don't do something like spend all this money this year, we could still revive the track conversation. But I think where we are currently that designation is creating confusion. And I don't think it's making a track any more likely. Yeah, yeah, and that I hear that Jim and Libby just reminded me, if we were gonna vote on that we would need it to be warned on the agenda. So tonight is not the night to take that vote, but duly noted, and we should put it on an agenda as its own item to have that conversation so that the public is fully aware when that's gonna happen. I don't think I have anyone on the stack after Jim who wants to go next? Yeah, I just wanna, I don't wanna repeat everything Jim said but I just wanna agree with all that if as much as I'm still hopeful about a track as a track runner, if we don't have any intention currently of building a track, I think it's probably making some community members either hopeful or angry or anywhere in between more than as needed. Yeah, that's me. I was gonna see if there was anyone on the board who wanted to try and fill that $365,000 hole with a proposal before we open it up for public comment or if board members would rather at this point hear from the public in order to be able to have that conversation, I'm fine with that too. Were you raising your hand? So that's not the conversation around salary and benefits or school budgets but the other piece. You could say, part of that $365,000, I personally as a board member would like to see more cuts to salary and benefits. That could be a thing you put on the table but yeah, generally answering your question, yes. Yeah, that won't be what I'm saying. Okay. I'm wondering about the transportation piece and maybe this is a conversation for next week and so because I, how is the current transportation policy for MSMS applied? If, how is the policy for busing students to MSMS currently applied and what would we be taking away by cutting them? So you would be, I'm not sure how to answer the policy question. I think I just last we monitored it last week so we could pull up that monitoring report. Vermont is a privileged state, it's called with busing and transportation so we are not required as a school district to provide busing. Yep. And under policy there's no direct schools that you have promised busing to under policy. How it would influence Main Street Middle School is that when it came into existence was my first budget year as a superintendent here at Montpelier Roxbury and it was framed as an equity issue and that it was unequitable to not bust the kids at Main Street Middle School because of their youth and because of distances from the schools because of the large hill that was, is right because of the street there's lots of things that were brought to it. So currently any student at Union, any student in Union and Main Street Middle School who live beyond a mile radius of the school can take the opportunity to ride a bus. And there are no other factors considered in that decision. No, it's a mile radius, that's it. And there's those buses that serve Montpelier schools only they are full, they're complete. So there's 77 kid buses in the fall. The reason I ask is not all miles in Vermont are equal, right? Yeah. And so a mile, so if you live two miles and there are sidewalks the entire way versus if you live half a mile and there are no sidewalks, right? So to me, that nuance is important. And so I'm... It depends if you live a mile away and you live up Town Hill Road. Again, so there's like sidewalks, sidewalks was just one, one of the factors. But that's pretty significant. And so is it, would it be feasible to have a policy where you have to opt into bustling for MSMS and in order to do so, there are certain factors that you... I think, I mean, sure, we could try something like that. And Jim was talking about earlier, maybe just bust the fifth graders, like could we limit the number of kids who are able to take that advantage? The challenge with the suggestion you just had that I can think of just off the top and I'm just talking off the top of my head because I haven't thought about that, right? Is that that makes it very difficult for the bus company to figure out who's supposed to be on that bus and who's not. And so I can imagine that the bus company, I don't wanna speak for them, but I can imagine that they would block us that pretty hard for that only these kids ride the bus and that you only pick up these kids and drive by the other kids that are just as far distance at negative 20 degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit or whatever, you know what I mean? I think that that's a tricky scenario for the bus because we contract that, right? That wouldn't be on us. That would be on them, the bus company. Well, how does the bus company know? They do it by, because you don't, only kindergartners get picked up door to door. So they do it by bus stop. So they have essentially the same bus stops every year because that's where kids generally live, you know? And if there's a kid who lives, like it's happening once or twice. If a kid moves into a neighborhood that doesn't have a bus stop anywhere near them, they usually write to the bus company and see what happens. How about getting one? Yeah. Yeah, it's, I would never wanna work for a bus company. Ever, it's like the most thankless job ever, both doing the routes and driving the buses. Jill, you have a question. We're sticking with transportation right now. Do you? Oh, Jim also wanted to jump in on transportation. And then I also have a question on. So we'll go, Jill, your question is not on transportation. No, I thought you asked us to kick off where we were at. Just that percentages. Yeah. And that percentage is, I love that. I love that. It sounds like we're still in the information gathering mode of what do the numbers really mean? So let's see if we can close that loop and then, okay. Jim, you wanted to chime in on transportation. Yeah. No, just because I was around when this discussion happened. I mean, there were a few, I think, and Libby articulated many of the considerations with the FSMS busing, but a little extra context. One is when the issue really heated up was when UES used to be K through five, but when it went through K through four, having those fifth graders not be bust, I think got the attention of a lot of caregivers and community members because the younger, Scott just well articulated that, not all miles in Vermont are the same, but also kids' ability to navigate those tough miles with judgment and et cetera just becomes more and more difficult and more and more of a safety issue, the younger the kids are. So fifth grade really kind of precipitated the conversation. So there's definitely that issue of some of the seventh and eighth graders that are a little older are probably more able to safely get to school from a longer distance. The fifth graders in particular, I think there are some legitimate challenges there. I think it's also worth noting that a lot of the families that benefit from busing and will be impacted from pulling back busing are some of the communities lower income families that don't necessarily have perhaps as much means and flexibility. There are often times families where the caregivers are in service jobs that have kind of less flexibility than office jobs, especially kind of post COVID and are living in kind of the outskirts on places like downtown terrace, downtown hill, on the other side, up Berlin street, up towards Berlin, et cetera, where they have some barriers that some other families don't have in terms of being able to get their kids safely to school. So I just wanted to point out that the equity issue was not just kind of in terms of age and grades, but also where some of the outer limits of our circle of transportation are and some of the demographics there and the type of families that are getting impacted the most by not having transportation. Thank you, that's helpful, Jim. But Kristen and then I have a couple of questions. Right, so I have comments that kind of hit on some of the themes that Jim is just bringing up. I think we've been wrangling with this in the last week, which it feels like it's been weeks. I was like, wow, the big yellow bus feels as synonymous with public school as like a carton of milk and it's just not, it's just not that way. And I'm thinking about Roxbury and I'm thinking about the geography of Roxbury, which is a 42 square mile town, how do we're really rural, the distance from East Roxbury to kind of the far reaches to Roxbury Village School is about, I think nine miles of 17 minute drive. So this, we're talking about like a pretty expensive, so to come to the school and to drive home is a 34 minute drive for a parent. When I hear from in our community, we have families that are working families and that are operating out of one vehicle. And I think about the value of the bus to those families. I feel concern about the elimination of the bus at the end of the school day when we don't at this point have an after school program kind of concept in place. I hear that there are intentions and there's thinking happening around this, but I definitely have concerns for our families, especially kind of, and from very much that equity lens and thinking about our goals that we've set around chronic absenteeism belonging. Kids need to be able, and I'm glad to hear because I think at the last board meeting, it was being considered also eliminating the morning bus route to RVS, which, am I correct? That was also included, I think, in one of the options. Yeah, no? Okay, so glad to hear that was... I don't think so. I have on the list in front of me and I don't see it. Okay, so I'm glad to hear that's not on there, but just thinking about without the after school program that I think currently about 90% of our families rely on. In the thinking, Libby, that you and your team have done that there've been any talk about pursuing licensing for an after school program such that there would be subsidy. So it would be more within the reaches of our lower income families. We have not talked about that and we don't have the staff to do that. That's an intense process that we don't have the staff to do. Yeah, I know you. You didn't know that. You mentioned it. Yeah, you are aware of that. Yeah, so I'm just thinking about that. If it's feeling financially out of reach for families but that after, at the end of the school day, boss would feel like it's going to be a very critical piece for kids getting back home. Yeah, that's why it's hard to protect. Yeah. I will tell from my opinion, if I can give it for transportation, I think I honestly think cutting transportation for a required event of students, meaning you are required to be at school is something the board should really think about carefully before making that decision before they absolutely have to make that decision. Doesn't matter which school we're talking about. I think that is a question that the board should consider put a lot of thought and consideration and discussion. So my questions are, can you say a little bit more about why the bus to Main Street Middle School for Montpelier residents is $170,000 a year if it's already on the routes that they would be doing for UESs? We had to add buses. So it's more buses that are costing that much. I believe we added two, but we had to add at least two buses in order to fit the amount of kids. Got it. Yeah, okay. I wanted to actually ask a question then about facilities. So I'm changing topics a little bit, but it's again to try and understand the full picture. In the three options that we looked at as like potential scenarios last week, it looked like the biggest number you went with for facilities, again, kind of just as putting it out there was around $144,000. And that included not doing classroom renovations and doing some deferred maintenance. Would you say 144,000 is the highest you would recommend we go on facilities? Absolutely, yeah, okay. So we wouldn't be 365. I mean, the board can make that decision. I would highly recommend not doing that. Right, I get that. We have two very old buildings, three, including half of Roxbury, not the renovated half, but that's right. Roxbury doesn't have many facilities challenges. Yeah. And a building that was just flooded. Yeah. And when I said that 144,000 number, you cringed significantly. Do you have a more like, if we were, facilities was one of the places that was like kind of middle of the road where some of us are like, yeah, we cut from that, but not all of us were, actually most of us were like, yeah, I'm kind of on the fence about it. Yeah. You have a number that you feel better about than 144, but also maybe a little higher than 22, which was in idea one for less. I think probably we could, we would not want to cut facilities drastically every year, but I think if we're talking about a one year, get us through FY25's budget process, sorry that my back is steel. There's less people over here. If we're talking about get us through FY25, right? We could probably comfortably do around $100,000 in facilities for this budget year because it would be one time costs that we wouldn't be doing that Andrew may have been planning to do. And maybe one time furniture costs, or something like that that wouldn't hurt us drastically to not do. And this doesn't include keeping, not making our investment in the capital plan. It does not include that. That is included in our budget. Yeah. Because that is not something we've discussed. It is not something the board has discussed. So the $100,000 would be from our regular general budget. Yeah. Regular facilities budget. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful for me. Any other questions on lay of the land or understanding what we're talking about, or is everybody eagerly anticipating Jill's proposal like I am? Jim wanted in. No, sorry. I was wondering if we wanted to do the public comment and then, but I'm fine. I can throw it out to start the discussion. Okay. I actually understand this. I really appreciate how much work you guys got into it. And like the facility that was my next question is like, what does that actually look like? I do feel like I feel like we should use at least 200,000 from the fund balance. It seems like it's a rainy day fund. It seems like it's healthy knowing there's things coming in the pike and it's raining right now. And it's really hard to leave that alone in the bank while we're talking about some of these other things. And then I would ask, I guess I was sort of gonna ask that. It's like, okay, so facilities, like what next week you've come back with, I'm sure Andrew has ideas. Not that this isn't the way we want to think about this, but and that way if Jake's right and the numbers still fall our way a little bit, then that's all the better. But I feel like it would be irresponsible to make some of these more extreme smaller cuts when we've got some money in the fund balance. So I'd like to use a good chunk of the fund balance personally. Okay. What are you saying? And the like 100,000 from facilities? Yep. And then hope for the best and then hope for the best numbers for next week. Which is something the board can say. Like, right, let's start there and see where we're at next week. So much quite back to the napkin calculation checked by Mia's, that's 735,000. Yeah. You're close. Yeah. That's not for where she's named, please. That was my name. I know, I know. No, that is most definite. That's the kind of thing we're looking for for the board. This is the direction we want you to go, right? We can do that. And we next week's the first draft of the budget. So the more specifics will be brought in, hopefully we'll have better, more solid numbers in terms of people counts and things like that. So it's totally something the board could do. And that's also kind of spreading the pain, so to speak, right? So we have the salary, we have the facilities, we have the fund balance, we've got the school-based right work. And that also might buy us some time so that when we get the facilities report, we go into next year's budget cycle with a lot clearer information. That's my two cents. Do folks have thoughts on gels and others? Ideas, because I don't want, if we hear from the public, like, don't do that. We're not only blaming Jill here. Oh, okay. Yeah, Jill said that. But it's in Jake's hand, and then are there other folks who just have initial thoughts on that before I open it up to public comment? Yeah. Quick question about that. So we'll go Miriam and then we'll go Jake. Okay, can someone just list out for me because I've just blanked out a little bit what that's 730,000. So it's 400,000 assumed for the staff. I was saying, say 200,000 or so from the fund balance. And then about 100,000 from facilities. And trying to get from the school budget. We're trying to get underneath the 10%. Yeah. And that does not include an MSMS, cutting the MSMS. Correct. It's not currently in the calculation. Okay. Yeah. So that's the MSMS bus. Okay. It's not currently in this calculation. So it's any transportation. Clutting the MSMS. So thank you. And I missed one. It's the 400,000 of the staffing that we started tonight off with, I think 35,000 for the school, which is at field trips and library books, which really stinks. Really sucks. And then say 200,000 from the fund balance and then maybe 100,000 facilities. And that was getting us there and then see where things shake out. Yeah. But not cutting any bussing, but I said. Right. All right, Jake. Thanks. I think that if we do find out next week that things are looking more favorable, that'll be a relief, but we still are gonna need to be really strategic because there's gonna come a time I don't know exactly when, but we're not gonna be protected by the 5% equalized rate thing. And we don't want a cliff at that point. And so I hope for better numbers next week, but I think we are gonna also have to be very conscientious about long-term spending. Thank you for that reminder, Jake. Yeah, thanks, Jake. All right, why don't we pause board discussion and open it up to public comment for anyone who would like to share their thoughts after hearing us? Yeah, please come forward. And we have two folks in the room, two folks in the room and then anybody who would like to online use the raise hand function on Zoom or go ahead and turn your camera on and physically raise your hand, we will make sure you get in the queue. Yep. So first we'll go with the folks in the room and please for everybody, please remember to introduce yourselves, name and where you are from. My name is Arthur Smith, I am from Roxbury and I have to comment on the process because this brings to mind some of the graduate work I've done and sometimes it's really nice to remember the context of why you study what you study. And I studied with Eleanor Ostrom, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who addressed the issue of managing the comments, which is really what you're doing here, the process of managing something that's a public value and a public ownership. And it's great to see how you work with the information that you have that's ever changing. And one thing to remind it as a student is that institutions are artifacts, they're artifacts of what we value at the time. So when I hear this refrain, and it's been a constant one which is really encouraging to hear that as a school system for students, we value a sense of belonging, safety and wellness. And that's a guiding principle in how you decide what actions you're going to take. And what you always told us, no matter how you model a problem, things change and the numbers change, everything changes. So you're always working with less than complete knowledge. So you have to work with the knowledge that you have. And one of the best things about the process that you have is you have so much information from the community about what they value and how you're working with it. So I think one takeaway from so many years ago is that we don't always have the information we need. Things change, but we have to really focus on what we value. And since it's been so clearly articulated on almost every discussion that you've had, the priority you give not just to academic performance, but the total wellness of a student. I look at some of the decisions that you're making and the pie charts that you give. And I was really encouraged to see post COVID that mental health and wellbeing can be addressed. And sometimes numbers don't speak for themselves. Something may not make sense as far as cost benefit analysis, but there's more value in it than the dollar spent. And that's when I look at the transportation cost. When you alienate students and mentioned this before, that cost is well beyond the dollar value of transporting them because there are mental health issues associated with it. And what you have, you have wonderful tools in place. You have panorama and time you'll have more information. But right now it's a matter of just getting through now and addressing the problem and seeing what we can do with what we have, taking a little bit more money perhaps than you might have anticipated from the, I don't have all the language down, it gets the fun balance. And working with things staying in place for now because communities, and I know Roxbury is very resourceful, we developed a beautiful garden in the middle of our town by bringing people together and resources together. And so if we have to come up with some per dollar mile of value for transporting students, maybe they'll be a friend from, maybe there'll be other initiatives. There's also a recreation committee that's establishing that may wanna fund some of this. So we just need more time. And I think we've clearly articulated what you value, you value the students and their total wellbeing, not just their grades. So I wanna applaud you in your efforts and the process and you are the pulse of the state. And you are really, when people look back 40 years at the artifact you've created, I think you're gonna be proud. Thank you. That was lovely. My name is Nathan Sutter. I'm a resident, parent of two, and something else that I'll come to in a minute. Thank you as always. I feel so grateful that we have such an intelligent and caring board. I love the way you work through this stuff. I had one question which you can answer after I leave the stage, which is I'm curious about when the equalized people numbers, I think there's like a daily census, sort of how often that's sampled and when the final numbers. Based on October 1st counts. October 1st counts, okay. And then I had a thought as you were discussing the fund balance, which is the way that I think, the way that it became so robust over time is that we have either by budgeting carefully or getting lucky, it seems like every year there has been a surplus at the end of the budget year, which goes into the fund balance. Is that accurate? The more complicated question than a yes or no. Okay. There are some years we do not use the fully encumbered like 400,000 or whatever we've based our budget on and there are some years we do. Right. I just, to one of Lynn's questions I was thinking, well, it may not be that by committing some of the fund balance now, we're then at a razor thin line next year, because we may be fortunate again, gambling. And then I want to reiterate that for some, there was a discussion about pain or difficulty and where that sits. And I think that it's good to remember that for many people in this community who have a fixed income or limited income, their tax impact of budget decisions made by our district is income sensitized and they are protected in terms of their property taxes. And so I think that there are a portion of folks in town who do bear the changes in the budget impact and those that largely don't, which is great. So I just want to keep that in mind. So the other identity to have at this table is that I'm the track coach for the middle school track team and I also help with the middle school cross country team. So I have vested interest in the funds allotted towards a renovated track that said, I can't ignore the context that we're existing right now. And I have a thought, which is one of the challenges we have with our current facility is that, I think it's beyond sort of deferred maintenance. I think it's been neglected. That doesn't, to have a functional track doesn't explicitly require that we have a brand new track. We could instead pay some attention to the facility we've got. And so I wonder if for a very small fraction of those committed funds, we could, rebuild the inner curb of the track, fix the substrate, the material that it's on. I mean, it was as an athletic structure, it was remarkably resilient in the flood. It's all still there, as far as I can tell. And then to invest in some equipment for the track team, to a machine that can, or a device that can help us line the track so that we can hold competitions there, hurdles, equipment like, a better runway for the long jump. So much more minor improvements that would, if we had an auditorium where the roof was falling in and most of the seats weren't safe to sit in, we probably wouldn't accept that. That doesn't necessarily mean we build a brand new auditorium unless we have the opportunity, but it might mean, hey, let's tend to those things. So if we look at the track in a, okay, let's do what we can for now in the context that we're in, I still think that there is a bright way forward for that. And then that's a deferred dream as we renew or think more broadly about all of our athletic facilities. So if that helps, it certainly helps me to see that as a potential way forward. And I'll commit to writing to Matt Link and to Libby with some specific ideas about what that might look like. So thank you again, tremendously grateful for all the careful thinking you're doing. Thank you. Thanks. Just one more call out to anybody in the room who would like to speak, okay. I see James's iPhone online with the hand raised. Hey folks, Jim Ikenberry here, Montpelier resident and a supporter of the track, because everybody knows. I really want to echo what Nathan just shared that I would even add to it is we have an unsafe facility and I think that we don't want to have that from a track standpoint. We don't want that for our soccer fields. We don't want that for the theater and we can't safely hold track meets and we lack a lot of basic equipment. And so as he said, I think we can take some of those funds and make improvements just so it's a safe facility where we can have practice and somebody's not gonna break the wrinkle at the long jump pit. I don't think that's asking too much. So I think that we should make efforts towards that and that that's not a $2 million project to get there. So let's consider that. And the equity piece I also want to talk about is related to transportation. I really appreciate what Libby shared and I think that the board should think long and hard about taking transportation away because I do think that's gonna disproportionately impact the folks that we don't want to be disproportionately impacting. And as somebody who is a low income kid in a rural school who was bused to a good suburban school, I feel like I can really relate to the Roxbury folks right now. And I also think that there'd be a disproportionate impact to them if you took away some of the afterschool busing, whether it's for the current afterschool program, locally in Roxbury, or for the folks that are in middle and high school and need to take a bus to get back to Roxbury. I think those students deserve to participate in theater and afterschool programs and sports just like the Montpelier kids too. So again, thanks for all your hard work and efforts on this and I appreciate your work. Thank you, Jim. I see I believe it's Benjamin with your hand raised. Go ahead and come on on Mike and please introduce yourself for the record. Can you hear me? Yes, thank you. My name is Ben Pinkes and I'm calling from Roxbury, Vermont. And I just wanted to briefly say, I want to thank again all of you guys for working really hard in trying to get through really difficult decisions. I do want to say that of course it's ironic that Act 127 is supposed to improve student equity the irony is there of course, if it negatively affects the struggling school like Roxbury even potentially leading to its closure is a huge irony, but beyond that, there's also other kinds of inequity at work in particular the sense of a real lack of power and agency on the part of myself and I think many, many other citizens and parents and in Roxbury in which we feel like we have very little bit of a voice or say in this process. So I guess I'm just pleading to all of you guys, I know you're doing your best to make these difficult decisions, but I'm pleading that there's, will be transparency going forward that we that Roxbury residents and parents are engaged in this process timelines are really important because we need time to plan for the future of our town and there's so much uncertainty and just I know that basically that's it. I just want to say that we need to know that there's going to be transparency and that we can be engaged in a process so we could have town planning and with the potential that our school will be closing in the future. And anyway, thank you. That's all I wanted to say. Okay, thanks, Ben. Welcome. Is there anyone else who would be interested in making public comment? Okay. Well, the thinking so far out there is just to reiterate it, $400,000 to get us as close as possible to $800,000 of cuts, $400,000 of that coming from salaries and benefits, $35,000 of that coming from school-based budgets, $200,000 of that being additional draw on the reserve fund, and $100,000 of that coming from the facilities line of the budget. Can I ask it really quick? But the school-based budgets, what is the total amount of school-based budgets? So we're not saying all school-based budgets are going to be cut and we're going to save $35,000. We're saying of the $100,000... We would deviate out per school. We say like $10,000 per month. There are schools in $5,000 per month per school. So it's a reduction in the school-based budget. It's not an elimination of school-based budgets. No. Okay. We're not getting rid of it. We're not getting rid of it. No, I just want to make it clear. So for instance, what we could say, and this is just an example of what's in the school-based budget, right? One example, one principle gave to me today, because I said, I know they're going to ask for examples. So give me some examples of where you would think about this. One principle said to me today, well, some of our field trips are pretty far away from school and they cost a lot of money to do that. Maybe we say, no, you have to do it within a certain radius of the school system to keep it within the X amount of dollars. And so I can cut some of that money that's dedicated to field trips in that way. Thank you. Another principle said, well, our classroom teachers get this amount of money. I could cut that by a couple of hundred dollars and easily get $10,000, right? Like in what the district has provided to those types of lines, like supplies and things is very generous over the years. So there are places that can be found, but that again is a principles decision that principles run those. I don't run those. So I would trust that the principles would be working with their colleagues inside their school to figure that piece out. But those were examples that were given to me today. And were you asking, Scott? Let's just pick a school of $10,000 from the Main Street Middle School. School-based budget is $10,000 of $100,000, $10,000 of $50,000. Just, and I'm not saying you have to tell us exactly what Main Street Middle School's school-based budget is, but just roughly, right here. That's okay. I think the take-home is we're not cutting all field trips. No, no, no, no. Nor all school supplies. There's still gonna be money for pencils and field trips to recycle. We're thinking about new textbooks. Maybe this isn't the year that we buy the new textbooks, right? So those were the examples that were given to me today by principles, but it was not eliminate field. I don't want that message getting out there. That's why I wanted to. Thank you for asking it then. So it's not eliminate field trips. Okay, you have this amount of money for field trips. So you need to really be careful about where you decide to go because this is what you have. And you have this amount of money for your classroom budget to make sure all the caps get back on the markers. Exactly. And so recycling program. I see, Mary was thinking, I think they tried that. So I got an example. So sorry, Mary, hold on one second. Like a school-based, one of our school-based budgets is $15,000. Another school-based budget is $450,000 plus. So we're talking about $10,000 from $400,000. Another one is $234,000. It's almost like we're in the future. Well, you're reading that out of your mind. I'm not sorry. But, Mary, would the appropriate time to talk about smaller renovations to the track thing next week? Yes, of course. Or maybe even after we land the budget. But yeah. Thank you. I'm sure Nathan would love to hear what you're thinking about too. I just want to make sure we have that conversation at this point. Yep, you betcha. You betcha. Any other comments on this current direction that the board is giving to Libby? Or questions? I would just like to thank the board for a very thoughtful process and really good conversation, but it's not easy to have. Well, thank you. Not every board can do that. So I appreciate it. Yeah. Here. Here. And more to come. And we're about to comfortable. Right. Right. Okay, that brings us to the next item on our agenda, which is policy monitoring. We have two policies up for monitoring today. The board of superintendent relationship, which is a 24 and class size, which is D six. So I have a motion to approve those monitoring reports. So moved. So a second. Okay. Any discussion or questions? I have a couple of questions on the class size. It looks like our policy is a required policy. Does that mean it's the kind where the AOE wrote it and we adopted it? No, no. So it's required that we have it, but we came up with the language. I will tell you, there are several boards of districts who are disadvantaged by 127 who are rewriting their class size policy. So that they can have bigger classrooms and fewer teachers. Yes. Yeah. And we are not doing that. We are not doing that. I just wanted to, as evidence of you can change the policy, it's a mandatory that we have one, but it's not written one by life lawyers. Yeah. And this might be something, I don't know if Jim is on the plane by now. No, I still see him that he could answer because he's been on the policy committee or maybe you, Libby, can. I'm curious to know, and it's okay if we don't answer this exactly tonight, but where the numbers in our policy came from if they're like rooted in some kind of best practice research or I see in our policy, it says recommendations by the AOE is one of the factors we considered, but I mean, just wasn't sure basically how we came up with those numbers exactly. Can we not know how the numbers were created? Okay. Yeah. Go ahead, Jim. Yeah, Jim. I don't either. And they predate even me. Oh, I thought it was 2018 policy. Okay. It was, but we basically carried over the numbers from previous policy. I think it had something to do with what, at some point, teachers kind of felt was the, like the sweet spot zone of manageability for a class where you have not too many students where for whatever age group, it becomes a management problem and you're not really able to give individual attention, but also not so small that there's not the opportunity for a class interaction and good social dynamics. That's my recollection. Okay. Yeah, and I'm certainly not at all tonight or maybe even ever advocating for changing the policy. I was just curious. I'm sure there is science out there that tell us what optimal class sizes are. And anyway, wasn't sure if we had it rooted in that. And then why don't the class sizes apply to specials at the Main Street Middle School? Do you know? It's not part of our policy. It's just, I think that the way I read the policy, it's really focusing on core content. I see. Which when a specialist want to be considered it. Although it is something that, particularly at the high school when there's so many Latin fours out there, what that class size could look like. And I'm just picking on Joe and the audience. But it certainly, I think it's something that they discuss at the high school level when kids choose classes. But can this class run or not? Or how is this class going to run with all of our kids? Or could it run differently? Is my understanding of it, but Joe can correct me if I'm wrong. All right. All right, thanks. Any other questions or discussion? I just, is there most with policy monitoring reports at the end you report compliance. And so I guess, I mean, the numbers are the numbers. It's not. Oh, it got cut off. That's all. It got off in the car. Okay. Sorry. We're all waiting to know, Livia. Are we in compliance? We are in compliance with our class size policy. I forgot about that. Thank you. No, signature at the top. No, there's usually at the bottom. See how it goes all the way down? Compliance or? It goes all the way down to the bottom of the page. My hunch is, is that that was on the back of the page. And I stick in just the front of the page. I comply with the numbers. Okay. All right. Any other discussion or questions? All right. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. I think the next item on our agenda is to adjourn. I'll entertain a motion. I move we adjourn. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Thank you. Thanks, Jim. My plan doesn't take off till 10. So he was ready for a long work. So we can keep going. Yeah, I've got nothing better to do for the next hour. Jim, go ahead and book. Yeah.