 and call the meeting to order as I believe we have enough folks here. And the focus of the meeting tonight is actually going to be on learning a little bit more about the strategic planning initiative as well as some updates on negotiations and that's basically it. We do need to choose someone who's going to be the evaluator for this board meeting. So do I have one of the board members willing to take on that role? I can do that for you, Ann. It's Meg. Okay. Awesome. Okay. And we're a little bit ahead of schedule but I think we have a lot of people here and I'm guessing quite a few people wanting to speak. I may, I have a feeling that we're going to be hearing a lot of the same information after a while so I may at that point have Elaine just explain what's been happening so that we can get some information out to the community because there may be some misunderstanding about what exactly is going on. So we'll see how things go. Where we, because we have so many people we're going to need to keep comments to three minutes and I would like you to, you know, if after a while if we're hearing the same thing over and over again we have other things on the agenda so we may need to cut off comments at that point and then hopefully we can, generally we don't take any actions but in this case because it appears that there may be some information that's missing for the community we may go ahead and have Elaine speak to the community a little bit about what's going on. So do we have someone who would like to speak first or do we have, Brian has raised his hand so Brian you want to go ahead and have the floor. Thank you Ann. I'm sorry folks I'm a little bleary eyed. My day started at 6 a.m working on editing tonight's show that's been the norm for more than a week as we assemble pandemic theater. Thankfully I have engaged adventurous learners who allowed us to pioneer audio-only musical, an audio-only musical. After teaching class this morning I started to update my to-do list the status of the costume room a $31,000 renovation high density mobile shelving means moving 3,000 costumes cleaning and painting the space and getting a firm in Massachusetts that was ready to install everything in April 2020 off the hook and I was getting ready to sacrifice a week of summer vacation to make that happen so you won't find a high school in the state with that system nor the vastness of our collections because here at Randolph union theater is our football team and I was shocked this morning to learn around 1030 that the full-time theater position the full-time theater teaching position is slated for being eliminated. That's odd for a school that's had a program for eight decades an exceedingly accomplished program one of this scale and scope it's why Murray auditorium exists in 1967 folks took a huge chunk of this new wing to build a performance space which we've re-rigged rewired installed new drapes investments have been made because this is the center this is a center of our community but here we are talking about eliminating a job a full-time theater teaching position that's been at the center of my world for 25 years given the scale and complexity of what I do here I think there's a lot of misunderstanding out there and it's painfully clear that folks one don't know what I do and two don't appreciate it and I don't say that lightly having chosen to make this my home for 25 years see theater isn't an extra it doesn't just happen it is created a long complex exhausting process six months of pre-production find the script secure the rights negotiate a contract get those perfect things that make the show happen whether it's an antique baser bakery case in 1920s enamel stove or a stand-in for the rms titanic casting scenarios I cast a show twice first I find a show for my kids and then I put my kids in a show all before anything ever goes into rehearsal and it's afternoons evenings weekends an investment of thousands of hours thousands of hours but somehow I should do all this in addition to a full-time teaching job this is the most demanding job I've ever had and I love it I find passion and purpose in research adapting rehearsing and presenting it is exhausting it is why I bought that house on mount street because you do not want to find yourself at 11 o'clock at night on south randolph road falling asleep as you're driving home that is my level of commitment to this building to this faculty and this program an average year for us is 15 000 to 25 000 new york all by itself is 11 000 I've taken 1000 students to the theater district without a dime of budgeted money I write the grants I negotiate the contracts I work with the vendors to keep the cost down so that every child with a deep involvement in theater gets on that coach no matter what they can pay for and they see a Broadway show and it changes lives look around the room there are 40 on my screen and 115 in the wings look around the room and do not tell me that I should somehow teach full-time history and run this program on the side because it's grown during my tenure at Randolph union most people do not know that our theater is tax exempt in the state of new york I did that so our kids don't have to pay the rooms and meals tax when we're there because it keeps the cost down negotiating with the head of the new york state tax department and with much assistance from central office we move past the classic december main stage and a one act in march to three full seasons of programming back to back it brought us three new england titles in nine years that second main stage it doesn't have the festival cast to seven it might have 34 in the case of mary poppins it had 65 theater engages in meaningful engaging work with doubt how to succeed in mary poppins now I've long been accused of teaching history on that stage and I'm proud of it because every show is a seminar it is a deep dive into a specific time in place we collaborate with young playwrights we commission shows we tell new stories and our audiences our loyal audiences who I am surrounded by tonight hunger for something original in a place where academics community and possibility converge I love what I do it is a privilege and a burden and this proposal to eliminate a theater educator is not simply unfair it is unjust and unreasonable I'm sorry for my running nose I have a a sinus infection and haven't had time to seek care because I have a show opening tonight it's ironically called titanic this program ladies and gentlemen is magnificent and you don't dial it back and pretend it'll exist is the same thing as an extracurricular you don't tell an employee they're valued give them plaques applaud their work literally stand and applaud their work tell them they're a hub of the community and then cut their teaching position and ask them to do two jobs instead of one I don't know where I'd find a time and energy and I can't believe people are asking me for more after 25 years and two teacher of the year awards a congressional fellowship and three new england titles people are asking me for more now that's not a misunderstanding that's what people are asking for so this board has a decision to make because budgets are moral documents budgets tell us what people really believe and I ask you surrounded by 163 people the vast majority of which whose lives have been changed by theater how much does this board value the arts so and would you like me to start calling on people with their hands raised in order of them up sure that would be great okay so Hannah Arias I'm not sure if your hand is still up from the first one if so okay um and thank you Brian I'm gonna go I see Kate but I don't see a last name they're Kate hi Ashley yes I think you're probably calling on me does it have like an image of an owl yes that would be me okay all right so I just go ahead and then we'll go to the next person yep yep are you are you gonna okay yes yes just want to make sure you can hear me so hi good evening everyone and good evening to the board my name is Kate Durst I have she they pronouns and I am a graduate of the class of 2006 and I'm also a proud alumna of the encore theater company which I participated in working alongside Mr. Randville for the entire four years I was in school recently I've also participated alongside other alumni in the show which happens to be premiering tonight Titanic alongside a lot of other alumni and good friends and family and since being an REWH student I have gone on to become a lifelong patron of the arts theater in particular and today I serve as a licensed independent clinical social worker here in Vermont where I specialize in helping folks recover from symptoms of trauma particularly young people and families so with the news that the board is considering cutting funding to this position it's from all these backgrounds which I want to speak today I wish to convey to the board what the theater department meant for me as a kid and what it means now I was a Brookfield kid I was a free lunch kid and I came from a family that was deeply impacted by parent drug addiction and severe mental illness theater was not fun theater was not just a hobby and a fun place to go after school theater was a safe place and theater was a place where Mr. McMeekin was a teacher there for a time but where Brian was a consistent face where I could go and not only learn skills and build relationships that have changed my life my husband there and he's on the call tonight it changed me as a person and it helped me become the person and the social worker that I am today and I know personally but also professionally as a social worker what this community and what Mr. Randall's leadership in particular brings to Randolph and so for more reasons than I have time I just want to say that the program saved my life and it has made it so hard to hear that the board is considering cutting funding and cutting the legs underneath Mr. Randall's leadership in that program because of what it meant to me and also what I know it means to the kids that are currently in that program and how it's going to impact it for years to come Angkor Theater Company and Mr. Randall's work is not a luxury it's a necessity and the school cannot say that it values his work or the role of that community and the work that those students have put into it and not fund it at the same time and communicating whether implicitly or otherwise that by withdrawing funding it's expected that he give free physical and emotional labor to a system that the school benefits from not just the students but the administration the community benefits from is unconscionable and I would be ashamed if my high school for all the program has done for me and countless other kids goes forward with this proposal Mr. Randall and everything that program happen will continue to do will change lives long after the pandemic ends long after the enrollment issues that this traumatizing year has brought gets resolved to some fashion but what this community won't recover from is the price that it will pay if his work and the work of this program are not supported moving forward and so I urge you to continue funding and really show through your actions what we care about thank you thank you Kate next is Nora Skolnick hi thank you I will confess to being a little confused if I should be speaking now or if I should be speaking later but since we're talking about the potential riff I'm gonna go ahead now so I teach at Randall elementary school and I am co-president of the teachers education association or in southwest education association we are not here about negotiations this evening the process for negotiations is very clear and the negotiations team for the union would be happy to meet with the board if members of the board feel that would be productive even though we are currently at impasse to say or imply that this potential riff is the fault of the union is grossly inadequate inaccurate excuse me the budget was set by you the board the decision of how much to put into each item in the budget was set by the board the board went into the budgeting process knowing that this was a negotiations year knowing that we were going to be asking for an amount that would see an increase in salary to make up for the money lost by increases to health care health insurance costs you knew the minimum amount needed so that we would not have to take a cut in the amount of income we take home you the board chose to set the budget at the amount that you did it is a choice it is also a choice on how the total amount agreed to now by the voters is allocated how much money will go into different departments and salaries while the total is final how much goes where is not final there's flexibility here in addition to this there is federal money that has been allocated to schools for recovery over 4.6 million dollars just for our district well one might make the argument that a staff position doesn't fall into the category of student recovery from the pandemic an idea that we the union strongly disagree with money that was originally going to enrichment programs or counseling could easily be utilized for this staff position and those other things could then be paid for with federal money however i'd also want to point out that 80 percent of that money comes with no strings attached on how it is spent however we strongly feel that this staff position is needed for recovery from the pandemic i believe you're going to continue you already have and you're going to continue to hear just how needed this position is an investment in teachers is directly an investment in students cutting a position is cutting our ability to meet students needs it creates larger class sizes cuts back enrichment programs eliminates courses that keep students engaged in school and decreases teachers abilities to support students by increasing our workloads even more this greatly affects our ability to help students recover academically and emotionally from this unprecedented year and a half we are in a time when there is now a growing teacher shortage teachers are burnt out and are leaving the profession this potential rift would add to that burden how much more stress are you asking teachers to take on along with a growing climate of disrespect increases in cost for health care threats to our pension system there is now the possibility of a teacher losing their job you say teachers are appreciated you have a chance to show that tonight with your actions cuts in staff staff cuts are cuts in quality of education for our students you the members of the board once again have a choice eliminate a position at the high school hurt students and teachers and reduce the quality of education in our district or use the funds available to keep staff levels the same the choice is yours thank you thank you norah so and to say you know we are running over on three minutes do you want me to stop interrupt and stop people i think we're because we have so many folks here and i would like to sort of hear as much as i can from as many as possible before we have to kind of put in put a put a stop to it otherwise we're not going to get to the rest of our agenda if we can if we can try to keep it to three minutes folks i'm sorry about that but otherwise we won't i want to hear from as many people as we can before we have to close things out in order to continue on with our agenda thanks and so the next person i have is jake zanny thank you um in the spirit of keeping things brief um most of what i have to say in support of brian has already been said and likely will be said after i'm done here so i'm just going to focus on one particular point that uh has come to my attention throughout today and that is um simply the fact that um in um several updates that he has given to the community lane has explicitly said that there will be no cuts no academic cuts for programs this year i mean this is pretty obviously an academic cut so i mean do you really want to make lane a liar i mean that's all i have to say here and that's all i wish you contribute at this point thank you jake um the next i have is danielle gagnon hello can you hear me all right yes thanks hi and um hi everybody my name is danie gagnon uh i am a two two thousand and twelve alumni wow and i participated in um r ua just drama program all four years at college i am pretty sad that this is why we are having a drama kid reunion um but i am not surprised because really i think that's what the etc theater program taught us we show up we do our best and we do what we think is right so today i'd like to tell you why i think the theater program is an investment in our students futures because it invested in me i think theater is one of the best hands-on learning experiences and future work for skilling programs that r ua just has uh when i look at my experience with the drama program and how it's impacted my life i look back at high school when i was very shy and even freshman year when i was trying to look around figure out where it's going to fit in i was lucky that i found theater quickly and even for somebody as shy as me there was a role and that was technical theater essentially being a techie changed my life uh back then i would be surprised that i'd be speaking now uh but i went from hearing that girls were supposed to be small clean and quiet to being in a group where girls were in charge neither i nor anyone else would ever assume that i couldn't lift something that a dude techie could lift um and so i learned that it was safe to try new things and so i did and i learned new skills and my confidence grew and i not only learned i not only learned how to collaborate empathize and be a good human but i learned incredibly technical skills that look really damn good on a resume and helped me get a theater scholarship that made my top college possible so when i look at how mr. randall has made this program an ultimate mentorship program a top class drama program in the state and an experiential learning space i look at how he's using this he's looking at this through the lens of a teacher he's looking at it where he's seeing all tasks available and turning them into learning opportunities and using it as an opportunity to expose students to options and types of work that they couldn't have imagined as possible um at least i couldn't have imagined where possible back then and so we all learned skills and we learned about ourselves in a safe environment and we learned these skills in the safe environment so well that we are then able to leave this context and the safe walls of the theater to go apply this what we've learned about ourselves in new contexts and more challenging contexts and so i look at myself and my fellow drama kids and i realized that we are more resilient because of this program and i wonder how many girls might have been inspired to study engineering because of the theater how many boys were inspired to go to college after falling in love with acting and how many students won their battle against depression because they found a community so i'm looking around at the screen today and i'm seeing that i and i know that i feel invested in and i assume and know that my tears also feels that so today uh to the board i asked that the commitment to the drama program mr. rainville and this community is continued and i'm supported going forward thank you thank you daniel uh david turn eddie hi guys i will uh try to keep the waterworks turned off as i go through what i've prepared to speak of today um i had a fairly limited time um working directly um with the etc theater program graduated in 2014 from a different high school but i did uh i did participate for a year but that time in of itself in the time that i've spent in theater program since then have uh have drastically changed me and changed my life i will not pretend to understand the unique difficulties hardships and effort that it takes to manage school students parents and of course your own additional hardships both and more normal times as well as those additional obstacles that have affected us all during the pandemic success is abstract and difficult to measure by any ruler standard were metric it's definition changes depending on circumstance perspective and life experiences that being said i want to acknowledge the difficult choices that the board makes regularly and can only hope that those choices influence current and future students for the better all that in mind and with all due respect i cannot help but feel that just as i lack an understanding of the difficulties facing you all today that many of you lack an understanding of the impact your decision and the proposal regarding the theater program at ruhs will have not only on the future of the student body but your future as well as the future of the community and nation at large theater and the arts in general provide so much more than a fun time playing pretend or just something to do during or after school it's a means of expression decompression and of healing as well as learning learning to value the small things through the eyes through the eyes of stoopy and the children from the peanuts egg in your a good man trelly brown happiness is finding a pencil pizza with sausage and telling the time learning compassion from oscar madison and the odd couple learning the importance of truth both externally with others and internally with yourself if you'll pardon the pun learning the importance of being earnest from algorna and john in the importance of being earnest learning the gravitas of historical events through works such as the diana tapes or a man for all seasons and even titanic the musical in my case also a fair amount of learned humility as an actor turned techie as i worked behind the scenes and gained an understanding of what challenges are faced in that role and not to mention how annoying some of us actors can be above all these irreplaceable experiences have afforded me and others the skills and practice necessary to not only step into the shoes and mindset of characters both real and fictitious but also into the shoes and mindset of my fellows to thus gain insight into their into their own difficulties and to be more patient compassionate and forgiving as i wrap up my thoughts for you here today i am reminded of the words to a song from rent five thousand oh pardon me five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes five five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes how do you measure a year in daylights in the sunsets and midnight's in cups of coffee in inches and miles and laughter and strife in five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes how do you measure a year in the life how about love all of that is to say however pardon me however you choose to measure your life the impact of this drama program is and has been immutably immeasurable and you do yourselves and the students for whom you work so hard to provide a bright future for a disservice by removing this opportunity from them thank you thank you david richard hutchinson uh hi david thank you for that um i think that covered almost everything i was gonna say that was amazing um i want to echo what everybody else said that i mean i wouldn't be who i am today i wouldn't be where i am today i wouldn't i wouldn't be who i am if it wasn't for mr randall in the theater department and if if there's no greater measure for me of the importance of mr randall in particular in this role this last year told me everything i needed to know it would have been so easy for someone who works so hard like as mr randall does to say well you know what we can't get on stage like we'll we'll box it up this year we'll take another crack at it next year and he didn't he did not he went out above and beyond and created a show that exists only in audio format he thought outside of the box and made that happen bringing together alumni and current students and made it a musical and if that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the importance of him in this role that i don't i don't know if i if any of us can get that across to you but removing his position and expecting more than he's already given his heart and his soul is abhorrent and i am ashamed that it's even being discussed right now i hope that you reconsider this strenuously thank you thank you richard ainsley cook hello all um i'm currently sitting in my st michaels college dorm room as a freshman um and i just all of the points that have been made i just want to reiterate this man has done so much for this community and to cut him off at the knees is wrong and every shape and form it is wrong the theater program is probably the best thing that randolph union high school has and i do not say that lightly i have taken into consideration the sports and the widening programs and the racial justice alliance i have taken that all into consideration and i still say that it is the best program probably in central vermont maybe even in the state it influences us so much in so many different ways that you cannot possibly understand unless you walk into that building and you see what we do on a regular basis i was looking at the osst mission statement and even the mission statement whatever you want to call it and even though i'm not going to say it out loud because i'm sure all of you are very familiar with it it covers every single bit that you want covered it covers technology it covers learning about diverse communities and identities it covers so many different things by taking away classes and under and cutting him off and cutting it in half you are taking away that opportunity from kids this program and this man this friend this teacher means so many different things to so many different people i came here in 2016 a girl fresh off the bus from atlanta and i had no idea who i was and what i wanted to be i knew that i wanted to join theater and as soon as i got that man's email he immediately put me into a leadership role and i am doing what i love today i am studying theater because of this man and what he let me do when i was just a 14 year old i want to do this professionally isn't that what randolph union is all about is setting you up for your future and getting you to the career goals i mean that's why we have the tech center that's why we have things like senior project right is because we're setting ourselves up not to fail and to continue doing what we love he has pushed through lawyers doctors teachers career professionals i'm sorry but do you see any mlb players coming from the football team or not the football team the baseball team this man has single-handedly created a like a professional i don't want to say cesspool but a pool of professionals and you're going to cut it are you serious so ridiculous if you cut this man's full-time job you are cutting away at the program and it is going to suffer and this community will suffer the greater vermont community will suffer even schools look toward you our uhs or its theater program people come to us to look at our collections and borrow from it because it is so large please please reconsider making this a part-time position or whatever you are doing he has done so much for this community and if you are thinking of undermining that and cutting it away i'm sorry but that's just wrong so like i said please reconsider this it helps people it is a safe haven it helps people academically reconsider this please for the love of god i would not be who i am today without mr. reinville and without etc i don't know where i would be today without them so please reconsider your stance thank you thank you ainsley next we have kimberley medina hey can you guys hear me okay um so i am currently i'm about to finish my second year at one of the top law schools in the country and as i was thinking about my time thinking about everything that i've been through in life to get to this point every skill that has gotten me where i am today i can trace back to my time at randolph theater from public speaking to soft skills like understanding the perspectives of people who are different from me to being able to put myself in other people's shoes to just thinking on my feet faking it until i make it when things go wrong uh the persevering and diligence all of those things that have brought me to where i am they all i learned from randolph theater i can't imagine where my life would be without my time in high school at the theater program i can't imagine what high school would have been like without this program murray auditorium was my second home etc the etc group was my second family mr rainville was more of a father to me than my own father was you can't do that with just a part time position you can't create that kind of community that kind of family with just a part time position or a volunteer position it's not possible so i just want to echo everything that everyone else has said so far and that this program is truly life-changing and if you care about your students you will care about this program and if you care about this program you will care about keeping this position thank you thank you kimberley uh josey termetti i think it's kind of already been stated or kind of implied but the theater program it's not just a program it's a family it creates a sense of belonging to those that feel like they're about a place i don't just speak for myself but i had the great privilege of being student director for multiple years during high school and i got to work closely with the technicians and the actors and even some of the people that have spoken already today i was able to see them grow and progress in this program there is not enough emphasis in today's society on family there's so many people that come students that come from broken homes that don't feel like they have a place where they belong and theater provides that not only that safety that community but this is a family these are these are friends that you know will support you and encourage you throughout your lifetime and it really gives us the confidence that we have the people supporting us that we need to be able to accomplish our goals in life um i currently am studying communications business communications and my time in theater has really prepared me for that and given me the confidence to pursue my dream i also had the the great opportunity of of um the forming and the role of unis kennedy it allowed me to connect to the past and to history and this incredible woman and to be able to see and find myself in her and in this character that i was playing and i intend to continue um using the things that i've learned in my life and so i would really ask you to reconsider because i believe that this this family this community is something that will greatly benefit not only the Randolph community the state as a whole but also the nation and the world thank you thank you josie um next i have unknown i'm not sure who that is it might be me mk and i want to hold this up i'm taking the unknown space i just want to hold this up for everybody to see um i had the incredible privilege of working closely with the theater company etc with brian through five or six years this is a chimney suite from mary poppins this this represents our community this represents education and our community my daughter was in seventh grade she's now a freshman at the university of vermont and she wants to do theater because of this i know many of you were part of the mary poppins production it was not only an incredible show but it was an incredible learning experience and the fact that randolph actually for a moment in time funded brian and the etc program fully was a beautiful thing the loss to our community if this is not fully funded will be huge whether it's the moment in the theater going to chandler or going to new york city this is what we've done in this community the same community that figured out how to order straws and fray them at the end to make chimney sweeps think about it because if this board doesn't vote to fully fund this program educationally and from a performance-based perspective we will have great loss and i don't think we can recover it this is a very very very important moment and as a taxpayer in this community i urge you to consider the importance of this decision here look one more time i have many of these that i saved and little did i know that i would be saving them for this moment and thank you to all of the students who came to my house including brian to make these thank you mary k but there is still an unknown that was the above mary k i'm not sure okay then we're going to go to ryan anderson good evening can you hear me okay yes i'm very good well my name is ryan anderson and i am from the class of 2005 and i too i'm an etc alum i'm attending this from the west coast where i've taken the afternoon out of work for i would be remiss and not speaking out against any cuts changes or reductions in scope to brian's role as a former high school teacher myself i'm keenly aware of what enables student success and i cannot help but emphasize emphasize like kate and josey earlier the importance of elements like maslow's hierarchy of needs and if you're not familiar with the principle i'll post it in the chat after this but in my own adolescent years brian and the theater program fulfilled every single tier of that hierarchy consider the basic physiological and safety needs met by providing a safe space to stay after school while my parents ended their workshops or the psychological needs of belongingness love and esteem by fostering a community where intimate friendships prestige and a feeling of profound accomplishment are nurtured consider that final tier of what teachers everywhere strive to provide their students a sense of self-actualization where one realizes their full potential including but absolutely not limited to their creativity and i think that sense of self-actualization is so evident here tonight in this room in a rural area such as randolph uh which is just plagued by unmet needs brian's role and the program at large fulfill elements that are clearly imperative to student success and frankly are not fulfilled anywhere else in the school at least in my experience so by cutting changing or otherwise reducing the scope of brian's role and the theater program you will be denying students the opportunity for self-actualization and creating a dire deficiency that will be felt in ripples that i'm afraid you may not have considered and so i'm i'm reminded of demetrius from a midsummer's night dream who pondered are you sure that we are awake it seems to me that yet we sleep we dream and forgive me if i offend but i too am left wondering if you who make these decisions are awake and if so are convinced of the outrageous mistake you're on the cusp of making but i implore you do not do this thank you ryan um next we have zoe gabby smith is zoe still here okay um i believe this is probably keith minzinger yes it is uh can you folks hear me yes excellent thank you all uh for allowing me to speak um you'll forgive me i didn't get a chance to prepare remarks for this evening um so much of what i would hope to say has already been said by uh so many people much more eloquently than i could ever hope to do um but i i do want to underscore two points um you know i graduated in the class of 2003 um you've got to spend a great deal of time with uh you know in the theater program and uh i want to say that mr. anvil has been a huge influence on my life uh you know through theater and as a teacher um and you know theater really did provide me now and my job is a museum professional working at winter term museum gardens a library down here in delaware uh where i live um as a way to consider culture uh you know theater is such a wonderful tool uh to examine other people's perspective hit on it and i can definitely say that without the roles that i played in the theater uh with mr. anvil i would never be able to consider culture uh in the ways that i do now that have helped me grow into this career and really deeply think about uh you know how humans express themselves not only through words but through objects through theater through the things that they claim to love the things that they claim to hate um it's been immeasurably helpful um and i also want to speak as well for uh brian's role outside of the theater program uh for my two brothers who are also ruhs alums who couldn't be here tonight i think all three of us would say that brian helped shape us into the men we are today um by pointing us to opportunities and to things even outside of school uh that you know we may not have ever encountered i in one of my summers went on a uh uvm funded anthropological field school that brian had uh pointed me to up to far northern qabac uh to spend time with aboriginal canadians um and that was an immensely powerful experience for me that i would have never encountered or dreamed of doing if it wasn't for brian reinville and to ask him to do everything that he does uh as an extra i think is frankly absurd um and i fully understand that randolph union high school is is facing budgetary issues but as other people pointed out there are funds have been made available and i had looking through the most recent budget numbers i can see that you know money has been released from the state money has been you know will be released from the federal government to help uh make up those deficiencies in budget um and i urge you to explore every possible means that you can examine to try and make him try and malice and not happen as you can see here from so many people uh 186 right now i can see on the screen are here to tell you how much this program means to them and how much brian reinville has shaped them as a person and i think that should speak volumes thank you thank you keith laura stories thank you um i'm a mother of three graduates of this program they actually are all online tonight which uh shows you how important it is to the family i don't usually get all three of my children at the same time um so it it's a pretty big deal for our family i was a school board member in randolph at the high school at the ossu board for over 20 years i know the work that you do how hard it is and all of the things that you do to think about for the children of our communities i've had the chance to visit school districts all across the state i've worked in a role that has taken me there and i'll tell you that i think we have without a doubt the best theater program in the entire state i think it is what makes our uhs shine it's what i'm most proud of because of all the things that everybody said um brian is my daughter said earlier tonight to me he's a gem he's given more than you will ever ever have paid him to do um i think you should invest more in this program and i just want to say two things that came to mind as i was listening to people tonight one is that there's a little phrase about how some people come and go in your life but others leave footprints on your heart and stay with you forever that's brian and that's this theater program and we're lucky to have him here i think he could be anywhere in this country frankly and we have him here in little randolph and central vermont the other one is something that a mother told me when i was a teacher many many years ago it's that anyone can count the the seeds in an apple but only god can count the apples in a seed brian has a way of seeing every student that comes before him and seeing what they're capable of that they can grow into a tree and bear fruit i've seen him take students that are challenging and find meaningful ways for them to contribute to this program you can't do that in every classroom in every aspect of education this is such a wonderful unique program that i think that whatever you invest in this program you will reap many times over and that's clear tonight so i thank you for taking the time to hear from me thank you laura kasey bannier kasey okay aiden right i will go all you did sorry about that my name is kasey bannier in class of 2009 etc alum a lot of other people have said things much more eloquently than i have i will keep it brief because i know that we've got a long line behind me and i think that's the first point there are 187 people in this meeting right now i have got a massive line behind me and they're all here for mr randell all of these people drop what they're doing i'm supposed to be getting ready for work right now and i'm not other people are skipping work for this all of this because we support this man because he supported us as kim had said and his others will probably say afterwards he for me he was a second father for others he was a first this man gave everything to this program he's given everything to this school i have a lot of experience unfortunately with town and city administrators who pat you on the back and say how appreciated you are and how wonderful you are and then as soon as anything goes wrong you're out in your ass it's really unfortunate and i really did not think that i would see it here and i'm disappointed and i know i know i know i know that things are so hard right now with covid i have to deal with it at work all the time budget cuts we do what we have to do but has been pointed out as well we have money available we make sacrifices but we also value what's important and your vote here is your voice and you get to set your values and say what is important to you is everything has gone sideways over the past year we're all stuck inside we're all can't go out like nobody can go to the bars nobody can go do whatever go bowling or anything what do we turn to we turn to the arts people watched movies people listen to music people created all of this stuff was how we compensate how we dealt with all of this and that directly comes down to this this is the arts this is the basis here this is where it starts and if we just cut it out now and i know i know we're not cutting the program i know the program will still exist i know that mr rainbill will still be the directory wants to be afterwards but as it's been said you're cutting them off with the knees how many other teachers are being asked to do two full-time jobs or three full-time jobs for the pay of one i don't think that there are any who are probably making that requirement made of them i'll leave you for one more thing because i've got a timer going i was a two sport athlete with varsity soccer varsity lacrosse and i was etc i ended up leaving soccer because etc was more important to me what was my proudest moment when i was coming out of brandolph was it stopping a penalty kick and soccer which was difficult hurt was it scoring my first goal in the varsity game of lacrosse no none of that it was when i got to climb onto the stage as a senior i got to close my eyes and find my lights that was the best moment of my high school i went to st mikes because of mr rainbill i met my wife there i got established on my career there all of that came from him and that is why i managed to talk my devout catholic wife into having mr rainbill officiate our wedding instead of a priest she met him once and had no questions this is one of the best people i know and i will confidently say he is the best teacher that you have had in a generation and you've had some good teachers please just give him the support that he has given you over these years thank you for your time thank you kasey i just think out of fairness and i want to look to you again because it's seven thirty yeah we're we're at an hour of listening and it right and it does sound like we may continue to hear and it and it's coming across loud and clear that this community that the students in this community that the parents in this community that the alumni in this community value the importance of the arts and um so we have heard you loud and clear and we will take that um message further we are working on sort of a strategic plan that that is looking at and and um building goals for the community based on the values that the community is putting forth and what we're hearing very clearly here is that the arts in the theater program are a super important part of that process so thank you very much for sharing with us i apologize that we can't have you all speak um but we do need to continue on um with the meeting and would it be possible to hear from some of the this other staff because there are wider ramifications to these cuts as well i mean we i understand the time position right i do feel like it would be important for the board to hear from some of the staff members who are here as well i don't have to be that guy because others can speak better than i um if i could take just a moment um i just think it's important to note with the community here that mr. Rainville was not the only person to receive rift notice today um that one of our mathematics teachers um also received one and just to say uh and and i'd love to turn it over to him to speak to that as well but but i'd just like to say that that we we run a pretty lean ship um we've just begun to be able to offer classes like coding and robotics in the mathematics department we would like to be able to offer more than than just the very very basics and uh in the science department where i work we've you know cut down to where we can't offer many of the offerings that many people have valued and uh and further cuts are are pretty damaging um but i'd love to turn it over to the math department to to speak to the implications of their rift notice as well that seems to be on another topic um well i guess it may be related uh because i can tell you as a board member and and having made the the put together this agenda i had no idea that any of this was happening i heard about it today through email and through facebook and i believe probably most of my fellow board members have just heard it now as well um or were hearing from from community members um throughout the day today i have a full-time job so i was also working but i was checking my email a little bit um and did realize that something was going on so um at this point the board doesn't really know what but well so so anka maybe if we could have a point of clarification or something so and i think that's what i was trying to bring up earlier is that um the union has a has a right to be able to speak to the board about rifts and and i believe you have to make a decision tonight because contracts have to be issued by april 15th and rift notices have been given before we had that opportunity to talk with you tonight so i i understand that they can be they can be withdrawn a contract can be offered we're not at the okay i'm going to stop you here because people are talking in conjecture and not correctly no one received a rift letter from me or a notice from me today people were given a heads up from their principals and their administrators that it's possible that they may get one so again i think it's awesome that folks are talking but there is a lot of misinformation about a lot of parts and pieces flying around right now which is why the board um had scheduled time for the rift discussion later in the evening to be able to actually have a discussion and not as part of the public comments folks have a right to public comments but there was a discussion that was specifically set up um for the union and i think that's what an was alluding to but again we're getting very far afield from from some actualities here and i i think i need to put that caution in there so i guess that's what i'm trying to clarify right so norah on the on our agenda we do have a negotiations update and we have the opportunity for the union to discuss potential rifts so that is coming up on the agenda so that's why at this point if we can because we've i've i've given an hour for community feedback on this i we're getting we've got a lot we've got a really strong message we hear the message from the community um and if i could take just 30 seconds and can i take 30 seconds on this on are you wanting to speak to the rift notifications because it can you hold off until we're on that that well i i would accept that except that the minute you say we're going on to discussions that are purely business we're going to lose about half the people and and i really would like to talk about the level of commitment and respect that we have in our math department now and and we did receive a heads up that there could be a rift within the math department and the trouble here is it's not me and yet i've been here in two years we've had turnover in this school we need to show commitment to our people this is not the way to show respect and commitment that's my comment abbreviated so so i think that i i think and that there has been some norah i would let facilitate the meeting this is not your meeting to run this is and please let her speak so i think we're going to talk about we're going to give you the opportunity to to respond to the rift notifications or or what it sounds like folks are feeling like they're they've been given rift notifications in being told that there might be a rift and again as a board member i want to know that information as well so i am looking forward to that agenda item so that i can hear from lane and from the board members who are on the negotiations committee so that the rest of the board because that's not the whole board can get updated with what's what's going on so i think we're going to move forward to the to the to the rest of the agenda people can always continue to send us emails to the board in in support of what you know what you want we did hear we did listen and hear a strong support for the arts for the theater arts for perhaps creating a position that includes the performance program so that the person that is doing that is not having to teach a full course load and then continue a second job in the evening to run the theater program that came through very clearly and the benefits to that so um i think we'll move forward and um see see what comes up and you'll have an opportunity as the union rep to respond to um the information that lane presents regarding where we are with negotiations so at this point i'd like to move on um we do have a board training discussion this should take about five minutes and then we'll be moving on to the negotiation section of the board board meeting so board members um so i said them so very rude board members we need to make a decision about our july meeting as to whether or not we want to use that meeting for some training um on uh using our policies and working as board members so uh the question is um are our folks uh willing to use that time when and ready to set it set aside the the july meeting to do some training um as a board so i need someone to to move or do we want to have some discussion about uh whether or not we want to use that july meeting for that purpose currently we don't necessarily use that meeting time so board members are we are we uh do we want to use that july meeting for some board training need to have some discussion on that i'll speak that's fine with me i'll i'll just say it's it's tough to transition um from what is an intense and emotional uh conversation so i think that might be why you're not getting a lot of response and um i think it's worth acknowledging that it's really hard to move on to businessy type things uh and i'm glad to see so many people have have stayed through this businessy thing um but if if we could great let's use that time to train and let's keep going um to the to get to the rift discussion because we're gonna i might even propose moving that up in the agenda um because it it it doesn't make sense to me really uh on frankly an emotional level to stick business in the middle of these two very um uh we want to make that uh motion we can go ahead and we'll move that agenda item do you want to move to do that i move that we uh up the agenda item having to do with union speaking to rifts uh to the present moment um do you want to move that or do you want to first hear um the negotiate the the update from lane and then the rebuttal from the union or do you want to just move the union because what first i believe they need to respond to what lane is presenting lane is that not correct in in how this opera how this works um they were i can talk a little bit about the the rifts and the the purpose and the cause i can tie it into um potentially what's happening with brian which i think is important for people to understand um the union has uh has a right to be able to talk about um the rift pieces as well which is why we schedule that time um for them kind of similarly to what we did um probably i think it's probably back in january when we talked about the rift at the career tech center so does your so does your update need to come before theirs or can we just move the the union up to the top i if you guys uh you guys are right if you guys want to move to change change it and talk about it first that's perfectly appropriate okay so do i have a motion from hannah to move that uh the union's discussion of the potential rifts up i'll second that kacha okay thanks kacha so can we have a um any any discussion on that before we do that okay um so can i have a vote on the the uh motion to move the opportunity for the union to discuss potential rifts up to the front of the um business portion of our agenda all those in favor uh i guess raise your hand and it might be best to do a voice vote roll call okay voice vote so uh ashley uh yes and kacha yes and hannah yes and megan yes and brian yes and rachel's not here rachel's not here and our new board member chelsea are you with us yes yes and i i'm okay with it so that's yes and i believe that's all of us okay so um the floor is yours nora all right thank you um i'm gonna ask some of my colleagues to speak as well um and and also to please understand that part of my statement earlier was part of what i was going to present now on on the impacts of this riff so i just to summarize since i read the full statement earlier um this is a decision that does need to be made tonight contracts need to be issued to teachers by april 15th so there is going to need to be a vote tonight on whether or not to riff these positions um i also want to say again that this is a choice this is not from negotiations this is not from um lack of money this is a choice that the board has to make tonight and a choice that i think you have heard can have an extremely um a huge huge impact i'm at a loss for words at how big an impact this can have on our school on our community on the students who we currently have at the high school um you have heard the impact this particular arts program has had um and the the positive impact that it's had on so many students the fact that we had over 180 people at this meeting tonight and and i didn't even count how many wanted to speak to this issue shows the impact and i know that you have heard that loud and clear there is money available how the board chooses to allocate money within the budget is is a choice it can come from other places but i would also say it doesn't need to come from other parts of the budget there is money available over four and a half million dollars that will more than cover the positions that are being contemplated getting rift as a reduction in force that can happen no matter what settlement we have um in terms of negotiations the fact that we have not settled in negotiations on a salary should not is not a part of this should not be a part of this um this happens regularly regularly there is no settlement regularly um both parties that we have to go to mediation or even um fact finding in order to reach a settlement on an agreement the board has to plan for that just like teachers and staff have to plan for that um an investment in teachers is an investment in our students this is a time that you need to put that investment into your staff i would like to turn the floor over to um as i said my colleagues to speak as well thank you i don't know vicki or tim or i also can speak thank you if you want to go first i can go after sure i just i just wanted to to to sort of pick up what we left off and just say that that uh to lose a math position at this time would be incredibly difficult um we are um yeah and and obviously to lose to lose uh uh the drama position um would also be really really difficult um we we're we're very very lean we have um this is an opportunity to to create the schools that we want for our kids and it's not just to maintain the schools that we want for our kids we don't want our kids only able to take you know just basic reading basic writing basic math we want them to to to have a diversity of offerings to be able to see to to learn mathematics through robotics or through coding these are not extraneous extra positions this is just trying to maintain the program that we have um in the past seven years since i've been here every department has lost a position um and you know we we've we've corrected for any declining enrollment this is this is just trying to maintain that maintain what we have and and improve upon it as best we can without these positions we're going to really be struggling anyway i'll hand it off to julia hi i'm julia shuster i'm a ninth grade history teacher um at r us and um so i would like if the rift happened um my position i i personally would no longer be at randolph from what i understand um i'm part of the ninth grade team and as we all know we're in the middle of a we're we've been the middle of pandemic for over a year and um a key part of just making sure that the kids are safe and well is stability and our team has worked so hard together and with the counselors at school and the administration and all of the other grade levels to just make sure that we're giving the students the best support that they that they really really need right now and we heard how that support can come from the theater program that support can come from diverse offerings in um or just maintaining offerings in the math department but i guess i would just say like i i've built relationships with students over the two years i've been at randolph and i think that is something that a lot of them need um just um on a daily on a daily basis um and so um i i agree with everything everyone's already said about the um theater program and mathematics and i don't think from what um i understand it doesn't sound like these cuts need to be happening um and i just would say like i care so deeply about the students as i know we all do and i think what is i just don't understand why we would make a decision that would hurt the students which i think removing any level of stability and dedicated caring educate like just yeah diligent staff from their lives i don't understand why we would make any choice that would make that happen um so that's that's my two cents tev did you want to speak as well for the union yes i'm trying to yes i would love to can you hear me it's my um so yeah i mean i i think you've already heard many times over um a lot of what i have to say so i so i think part of what i want to do is just to you know in the history guys so i just want to there's a little bit of this in context you know you're you're contemplating a position um or maybe it's more than one you know lane i apologize if if we've said things or members of the community have said things that aren't entirely accurate i think um this has all been happening pretty fast and i think it's confusing as a representative of the association to get that as we did communication um from the district that a riff is being contemplated at the point we are in negotiations um and then to hear sort of trickling through my building administrators and colleagues what different people have been told so i apologize we're we're piecing it together but i just want to give a little bit of a sense of how it feels to work at a school where this kind of information is trickling in okay i've been in this district since i was the age of julia who is my mentor and her district mentor and brian randall was my mentor as a new member and um and yeah it's jake's on it's great to see you you're in the first class i see and taught it that was that was a long time ago um and then if this year and especially this last few days had happened when when i was a young teacher it would certainly have driven me away from the district and likely the profession and i don't think i'm the only person who is feeling this way on our our faculty and staff right now personally i'm still processing the ways these riffs or these potential speculative conditional riffs would affect my work and my department and my relationship with my mentor who clearly is um i'm sorry my mentee who is having a lot of uncertainty about her role and her value in this district my department which um presumably would be lose it well i don't know i'm not sure exactly how it gets sliced but i'll tell you one thing any way it gets sliced it will lead to um some kids getting less of something um i think the the implication here is that we are overstaffed that the people who are working um are too many that there that there's work that could be done by fewer hands and frankly that that is confusing given the premise of these level funded budget negotiations it's um also just it feels like you if you think that you don't understand what we do um personally i'm really worried if these if these risks were to come out of our department the impact i would have obviously on theater has been um so eloquently stated tonight but also on some other things that i think are near and dear to my heart and and our community senior project project based learning the pbl program ap classes when you ask us to do more with less you get less so um i also just want to remind us that over the past year the teachers and counselors and para educators and front office staff and custodians and food service workers and bus drivers and so many others in this district have made extraordinary sacrifice for the children of randolph and grand tree and brookfield and we are not asking for thanks we did this because we are professionals and because we love what we do and we love this community and these kids what we are asking is to recognize our humanity and that as human beings there are limits to how much you can ask of us without investing in us we're wearing out if you live in vermont you know there's only so many miles you can put on a set of tires only only so many times you can peel out in the parking lot or you got to get in craigslist and get a new one we've burnt through a lot of rubber this year folks the constant switches and learning modality public meetings unlike this one which has been so so heartwarming and nourishing to hear the support in the community because a lot of meetings this year did not feel like that it felt more like our professional and even moral integrity was being questioned and our concerns about safety were being minimized and we did not hear leaders in the district stepping up to defend the work that we did the way that our former students have tonight we have been through endless cycles of contract negotiations we faced significant hurdles getting this board to the table to recognize that we're in a pandemic and deserve an mou in recognition of the change working conditions and i know that the pension stuff isn't on you but that's real too so now this after this year and i'm not saying it was in any way an intentional attempt to influence contract negotiations but it certainly feels like a choice is being offered we're either we settle for less than we feel like we deserve or somebody gets cut so that's your decision okay we are not accepting any responsibility as the union as the staff for making those decisions our understanding is that there's a fair amount of flexibility with the budget that you have and we understood that there was a surplus that the decision was made to largely give back which is an understandable decision we know that there is a principal at our high school will not be returning that's your prerogative to decide how to use that and of course there's the 4.7 million dollars from the fed so again the idea that this is a forced choice is is is not true um but what i want to just finish on is there's a real cost to operate in this way even if you choose ultimately not to make these risks and i'm not just talking about the financial cost although i know that pho does not work for free and we have been in a lot of negotiations um we would be you know that's that's a separate issue but i'm talking about the human cost the impact on the human beings who teach care for treat feed support transport your children and the district's children and really ask yourself whether this is a good way to approach managing the human beings who do this work okay um and also i just like to say like our working conditions are your kids learning conditions straight up okay and when we talk about our safety during the pandemic we're talking about our safety we're talking about your kids safety too especially now that so many of us are vaccinated when we talk about racial equity or other forms of equity or pushback around mandates around standardized testing during the pandemic it's because we want your kids to have a safe and humane and meaningful learning environment when we say that we're feeling burned out disrespected unsupported shut out of important decisions when we oppose reductions in force when we oppose having too many initiatives when we say we're overloaded or case loads are too big it's not because we're essential workers who don't want to work it's because we want to work under conditions that we know are the best conditions for your kids to learn under okay i'm just gonna say it one more time our working conditions are your kids learning conditions and you need to take that into consideration in making all these decisions thank you and can i just jump in for a second this is chris armstrong sure and yep yeah um so again i almost i wish that that lane had gotten a chance to go ahead because as he said i think um sometimes i don't think everybody here understands the situations and how everything came to to be and this has been kind of a scattered meaning a little bit um i guess it really it comes down to the fact i feel that we're we're heading in a direction where we are we're gonna hear that because the teachers are trying to negotiate for a higher salary the budget that was created won't be able to cover all the positions if we do that so as tev said it's kind of this this give or take um you can either have a better salary or you can have less of you or we're going to cut positions um and i think it's important for the community to know that that lane does have to make this decision it's in the contracts um he needs to give rift notices by a certain date and and based on the budget that was created um he needs to make those decisions on whether or not there's going to be enough money for those positions i guess my big concern is that um as tev said there's there's pension negotiations there's there's been a teachers have suffered um they they're our contracts that we provide our teachers in this district have been watered down um in the last few years mostly because of like government decisions that were not local decisions however the teachers it's a fact that at this point many teachers are working this year for less than they made the year than they made last year it's just it's just the fact of how negotiations have settled and decisions that have been made around the state and so that that i just hope gives some context as to why teachers are asking for for improved working conditions or for improved um salary it's really not it's it's to make up for the losses that they've already got to kind of settle us and get us whole and i just really worry that that we're getting in this us against the community or us against the administration and that's really not the situation the the decision that's being made it has to be made right um but i wonder why it wasn't brought up earlier why wasn't it brought up in the original budget when we when we talked about this this is something that we've been dealing with for years now um and if we're if we put ourselves in a situation where we have to make this tough call and and we have to decide to cut a position or keep our district competitive and attract and keep the best teachers to keep the brian rainvilles in our district um i feel like that's something that should have been addressed earlier and that's it the board is now in a hard position where they have to make a decision on where that money's going to come from but i really feel that um as a taxpayer somebody who grew up here um i can't even tell you when the last time randolph voted down a budget very enough the community's been incredibly supportive of its teachers um and anything that's been asked okay and there's been some big asks over the last few years um so i i wonder why why this hasn't been brought to the community um and i think we have to understand that it's an issue that needs to be addressed earlier on in the year it's in it the board has to decide that they want to make our town make our district competitive and to bring in good teachers and keep good teachers um as norah said earlier there's a lot of teachers that and as tev just said there's a lot teachers that are burnt out that are leaving the profession i'm sure many of you i see a lot of faces that i grew up with a lot of faces of kids that that we've taught um i'm sure you've seen a lot of good a lot of good teachers have left the profession and and we're in a tough situation where now we're making we're decided if we have to make cuts or not um when i really think that the whole thing could have been avoided if we really as a community decide what do we value and it seems like you guys do value your teachers you you value brian you value us and um and i hope that that's just something that the board will take in consideration as as we move forward because this isn't the end of budgets this isn't the end of decisions that have to be made and we need the support to move to move forward and to actually make the community and our district what we want it to be and as a taxpayer in this community i'm very curious and upset that we learned about this i learned about this today from a student who graduated in 2016 in a panic text that he picked up on social media that brian reinville's position was at stake and i am abhorred by this as a taxpayer and a community member and i've put three kids through this school and not not none of them are currently involved in the school why are we learning about this today and that's a big question because we are the people who are paying for this along with the federal funding and we are invested in this community because we love this community and we've decided to be in this community so that chris to your point i am super disturbed about this as a person that has put three kids from kindergarten through and has taken advantage of the beautiful things this community has to offer and are now at stake eight hours that's not okay it's not okay let's not forget it's opening night too so you waited for a night that there's a theater production nice planning i'm sorry to interrupt i come on sort of an outside i want to start by saying this is lindsay hopped i'm an alumni i love our community i love theater i've heard all sorts of different information and i don't know how much of this we're allowed to have but my understanding as a taxpayer is that the percentages that are being asked are very steep percentages for salary hikes and i i support our teachers but i think we've all seen a really hard year and i know a lot of other professions that are not being given you know raises that are above the sort of mean of what those out there are and so i'm just are we allowed to know those amounts as taxpayers to be able to kind of voice because i'm all for raises but i think they need to be reasonable given the scenario that we're all in and i think it's important to recognize i like i said i love teachers but i also love the health care providers that have gone out in the way and those nurses that are burned out and you know a lot of places don't have a union to fight for them it's great that you guys do but i think we need to make sure that we're just making sure that what's being asked is truly fair and and it's nice to be able to see numbers i think that really helps so saying okay this is how much we need because our health care increased this much and this is how much we do to be able to make it could be really helpful for folks um like i said i love our programs i love our schools i want to support our teachers but i think that we also need to really be mindful of of every profession that's struggled in these last years and as taxpayers we have to come up with those extra funds if there's coven funds great but we also have to look beyond coven so i'm just wondering if there's insight that can be spread there for some of us that have heard lots of different things outside of the community and are kind of curious what that looks like yeah this is not really the time for correct me if i'm wrong and i believe this is not public comment if you want to take public comment if you take public comment i will just end on on the fact that i that all negotiation sessions um are open meetings and open to the public and their advertised i know i've seen some faces that are here at those meetings so lindsay if you if you want to be a part of that those are open meetings um where everything is discussed proposals are discussed rationales discussed um with that intention that i think we don't want people behind closed doors trying to share information that may or may not be true so i just encourage you or anybody else who's interested in the future to come to those meetings and hear for yourself firsthand any of the issues that you have concerns about i was going to echo this is this is not the negotiation session and everybody is welcome to come to those yes thank you for for pointing that out chris um so are there any more union folks who want to speak or teachers who want to speak to these rifts okay lane and uh perhaps some of the board members on the negotiation committee want to want to uh well i think what's going on i think okay on the rift side i think that's what we need to speak about first i appreciate after almost two hours of finally being able to talk um because i think again there's been a lot of misinformation that's been floating around i think well intention misinformation um but but but not quite accurate um i'll start off by saying the basics um and this idea that the os sd is a district in the union um as a body are symbiotic in other words the desires and the demands that one places on the other certainly does have an impact on outcomes and on the decisions that the other party needs to make and other party needs to react to um it is disingenuous to pretend that as uh was stated by a union member we are accepting no responsibility that all this is on the responsibility and a symbiotic relationship on the district itself there are two or three areas where rifts are coming from and so i'll talk about the one that's most pertinent right now and that's the one um that i think we need to spend a little bit of time on and that's the one that's potentially um affecting um brian's position also want to go back and say a few other things healthcare negotiations were last year the union had an opportunity in good faith to argue and negotiate last year when healthcare was on the table raised in salary and they did manage to do that they got higher than an average raise in the state last year um so again there's a lot of parts and pieces that just aren't connecting but let's go go to the rifts themselves and i told the union going all the way back to october that this might be an issue because the budget was locked in before negotiations were concluded which is where we're at right the budget was locked in as of january first the district had to estimate a salary increase for the teachers and we did and we did our due diligence and we did our job right it was not a failure on the district's part we took a look at what the historic state averages were and we put in an amount of money to cover those historic state averages right with no sands buts or problems the current asked from the union and lindsay this will go to your your question here um when we started off negotiation is they were asking for 13 percent over two years we are going into mediation with the union asking for 11 percent over two years which is significantly higher than the state averages and significantly higher than the settlements that are coming out now which are ranging between 2.25 percent and 3.2 percent with one odd district out there that settled for 3.5 okay so we're in a whole different world than what the district could reasonably predict um for for salaries um and i have to say this as well if we predicted too high if i asked for too much in a difficult year right because i have to predict it the budget fails and i have to make cuts and if i predict too low right if i predict too low then we've got a similar problem i didn't put enough aside i'm going to have to make cuts to make up the difference so this balancing piece was done very carefully it was looking at what our past negotiations settled that as well as what's happened historically um around the state for the last five years the current asked from the union is significantly higher than what we budgeted and we're going to mediation on this means that we couldn't negotiate anymore they weren't willing to come down anymore and we weren't willing to go up given the state of things they're currently 150 thousand more than we budgeted for if they go back to their original ask which is possible when we go in with the mediator they're asking for more than a quarter million more than we budgeted for they're also i do appreciate the fact that they took off the table they were asking for a retirement benefit which would have added 400 000 to the budget and i did the numbers out in detail twice and had them checked so we're talking significant amounts of funding that folks are asking for i don't have it in those amounts the federal money is not meant to be paid in teachers salaries and bonuses it is meant to help for the recovery from covid the sr two funds that we are working on right now are designed for us to be able to get what we need to give the students back what they lost during this year of covid which will mean if we can do it and we get things resolved and get our recovery plan done probably hiring more staff once things are approved the sr three funds are designed to be used to making whatever facilities requirements need to happen whatever programmatic requirements need to happen to make sure that all students are back in school full in person at the start of next year again they are not designed for for teacher salary increases through contract and budget negotiations a matter of fact there's even a line in there that that's not what they're for so again i know that people are trying to do their best there's a lot of information it's tough sometimes to keep it all straight but this is not the case so where are we so looking realistically at where things may end up because we don't know in the budget negotiations i'm stuck in a position with a fixed budget with a significant potential financial burden liability that i have no way to accommodate for short of cutting staff and that's the position unfortunately that i have been placed into so when we did the calculations um based upon their their their 13 percent over two years it was 2.66 staff to cover that excess to cover the 11 percent that they are currently asking for it's 1.6 staff members 0.6 right now are planned through through attrition we have some teachers that are leaving that aren't coming back so we have 0.6 that we're not planning on rehiring the 1.0 gets us down to brian's position and i want to talk about that position for a little bit because for decades um right up until about two or three years ago brian was a social studies teacher and he ran the extracurricular program and he was paid separately for both he was also given a significant reduction and this is not to demean brian i think brian is the cat's meow i respect him completely but we've got to talk about about the realities here he was also um given um one less prep than other teachers he wasn't given any kind of duties um to have to do he wasn't required to to do advisory so about three years ago um brian was a social studies teacher came in with this idea and said hey um let's try to expand the theater program a little bit let's put some classes in that run during the day um and see what we can do and so we tried it the classes were incredibly lowly enrolled they ended up being bolstered by the fact that when the staff realized how few students were signing up for it the ruhs administration mandated that middle schoolers take these courses to get the numbers up without those middle schoolers in the last year the numbers for brian's classes he had 10 sections um they were all semester classes all 10 of those sections in total would have served 16 kids okay there is incredible value to what brian does there has always been incredible value and i will be never ever argue that that is not the case in fact the um discussion that brian had about you know the funding to get his storage up and his costume programming and all the money that went into that if brian remembers he came to me and i'm the one that fought the fight to get him the tens of thousands of dollars to make that happen to support his program all right so the reason that this position was chosen by the ruhs administration was because of the low enrollment and we are not losing brian we are not losing the drama program the extra curricular drama program is not being cut it's the same as it has been for many years the only difference is that brian will return to the teaching role he had three years ago and for many many years prior teaching social studies classes and continuing to run the extra curricular drama program as it has existed for decades so it's really going back to the way that things were three years ago okay so again i know that's not going to appease folks or make them happy but i think it's important that we fill in the other details along with the story of of what was presented here tonight that position is actually not brian losing it brian has seen you already so brian actually bumped another teacher who is here tonight to move into that social studies position now all of this said what is most likely going to happen is what happens every year when we get into mediation we're going to get into mediation the union is going to come down to the what's the state average we're going to have an agreement this is going to be fine and we'll be able to replace the positions that is typically what happens but i can't guarantee it and i can't put the district in a financial hole of 150 to 250 thousand dollars can't be done and so that's the reason for this riff on the math question that is a whole other piece and that is required through the contract language and through changes that the union asked for two or three years ago these the math one is being affected because of grant funded positions we have positions every year that are funded by federal grants the problem is is that we have to put contracts and teachers hands before we're assured the money from the grant agencies so in this case we have about 540 thousand dollars in staff that are funded through grants which is a huge liability on money that i'm not sure is coming in until the agency tells us so every year these folks get rift 99.9 of the time june comes around around June 15th to June 30th the grant funding agencies give us the the go ahead and then we're able to hire those folks back um and put them to work um can't it's not guaranteed it's not a hundred percent but it's about as close to a hundred percent as possible prior to a couple of years ago what was done was uh these individuals received uh contracts from the the previous administration that was here norah stop sakin your head because you and i sat and had many meetings about this they would give them uh contracts um that were outside of the union outside of the cba with little lettering in the bottom that said this is a grant funded position it's not guaranteed the union legitimately and rightfully said that those folks should be a part of the cba i agreed being a part of the cba however means that those grant funded positions because of the way the contract works they get rift every year and then they get hired back when the grant funding is assured so again there is a significant amount of other information that's pertinent to the story that we are engaging in here tonight again i will push back dramatically on the union on this idea that this is all administration and that they take no responsibility to use their own words that were spoken here tonight and that they're not a symbiotic unit with us because they are our decisions affect them intimately their decisions affect us intimately the best thing that we can do is work together if there are concerns about how these things are falling out this year then let's work together to make them better work with us to find some language so i don't have to riff the grant funded people every year that would be awesome work with us so that we get negotiations done prior to budget time so that we don't have to guess at what we think or where we think budgets are going to end up that's my piece i'm happy to answer questions thoughts comments i'm going to uh i'm going to ask board members first brian i see your hand brian um but i'm wondering if there are other board members who have questions for lane regarding this or maybe any other insights from the board members who are in the negotiations with lane we have any questions yeah i yes please um in the interest of full disclosure i will say that um i by training and degree in a theater person so it's i'm you know there's some personal stuff coming out here but i just want some clarification um so the the theater position an extracurricular position is is being rift because it is grant funded or because of enrollment just bear with so we need that we need to we need to make up the potential difference for the ask of the union in terms of salary negotiations right they're asking for a lot more right now than we put aside and things are pretty serious because we're going to mediation to decide so i have to come up with potentially somewhere between a hundred and fifty thousand and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to cover the possible outcome of those negotiations because they are unknown the way i can do that um is given the fact that staff is 90 percent of a district's budget um is to cut staff and i have a limited time window in which to do that as as i believe it was nor alluded to contracts have to be in teachers hands on april 15th so these decisions have to be made prior to april 15th before we put those contracts in hands brian's position was chosen by the ruhs administration because he made a change three years ago he was a social studies teacher um who ran the the drama program three years ago we tried something we said okay let's try to have a full uh let's try to have your position be full drama courses so that's and he switched out of teaching social study into teaching drama courses you know suitcase theater technical theater main stage theater production we couldn't get enough kids enrolled in the program right 16 students had uh in the high school had signed up for it and so the administration scrambled around to try to figure out a way to make this work and the way that they did it was they forced the middle schoolers to take these courses and to fill up those numbers right and they made it mandatory um and so when we are looking at potentially cutting a position this year this was the one that they focused on because of the low enrollments brian is not losing his position the drama program is not going away it's going to exist in the same format as for 30 years brian will be a social studies teacher he will have more students to work with which is awesome because brian's an incredible individual and it's going to give him more exposure with kids um which i think is fantastic um but he also receives the benefit that he doesn't he loses a uh a section of teaching that he doesn't do and he also doesn't have duties like other teachers do to help him out with this drama piece so again it's you know it it's not my intent is not to make people necessarily feel better my intent is to try to get people to understand the rationale behind the decision making i think that went on yeah i appreciate that it does make sense i'm i'm trying to uh clear up in my head and and try to make a distinction between academic and and part of the curriculum and extracurricular so theater again not to get too personal but theater can belong in a strictly academic setting rather than extracurricular there are extracurricular programs right now that have low enrollment and their coach now i i don't want to it's kind of the stereotypical thing that the arts are pitted against athletics right and why is one funded and the other isn't well i don't think that because one isn't funded the other one shouldn't be funded i think that's just creating the division that much wider but i think it is telling that there are athletic programs that have very low enrollment and yet are getting still getting that money funneled to them and the coaches are still being paid and i'm married to one so i have skin in this game okay but i i it does seem to me that theater and the arts is is being undervalued here in favor of it could it could be perceived that it's it's in favor of extracurricular activities when theater is academic it is curricular i know that physical education is as well but the the teams are not i may have not made any sense but and well drama drama the drama program here has been extracurricular for ages we attempted we tried to do something different by adding a bunch of courses what's that i need to disagree my predecessor charlie macmeakam had one fifth of his day devoted to theater when i was hired three adults three adults worked in the theater program i was not alone when i went to administration they did not come to me with a novel idea i went to them and said this is unrealistic i'm being asked to do two jobs it's burning me out it's unfair and it's harmful that's why this happened that's why this position was created i went to administrators and said i need your help solving this problem under enrolled i taught tech theater for 24 children in a semester if we were mandated to be there no brian i went through the numbers with folks today to be sure i was accurate they may have been mandated to be there live anyway and i need you to gain control of the meeting i don't remember a public being invited in hey can you uh convert the superintendent's salary to the theater program because that sounds like the ideal solution and can i can i wrap up yeah i would appreciate it after 25 years um those initial discussions talked about junior high electives and part of why they talked about junior high electives is we'd burn three teachers out already cycling those children through without support so they landed in my lap and they're fun and they're sweet kids and i love them and it's building out the base of what we do if you go back to my numbers before covet before a split schedule that limited what our students could take you're going to see healthy enrollment and the idea that i'm not doing a full day's work i was hired originally to teach five when charlie retired i top four then we went to teaching six and the ta was taken away so i'm still teaching five which is still a very full day's work i don't have a jv program i don't have a junior high program i teach three seasons back to back all year no coach in the building has a roster the size of mine we celebrate theater we value theater but clearly you want me to do this after school out of the goodness of my heart instead of saying isn't it cool what randolph is built thank you for bringing it to this place and we support it i am really struggling as someone who taught classes this year because administration came to me two weeks before we opened and said hey we need somebody to do ap and i taught ap and i picked up another class because a colleague was overwhelmed and i picked up another class and i still did the shows so please don't ask me to roll backward do more and tell me i'm mistaken in that view i'm being asked for two jobs for one money after 25 years and ladies and gentlemen i don't know how you explain that to room with 140 people um man we are way over our time limit and i'm wondering again i know there's public who want to comment we allow our public comment in the beginning and i need to hear from board members and i need to move our our meeting along lane i would like um so when you when you say the the union has said that we need to have uh approval of these riffs um is that something the board is voting on tonight ah yes okay so board members i want to know from i've heard from hannah i'm wondering if there are any other board members who have to make a decision tonight if there is some other clarifying information that you would like to hear may i add to the to the conversation um i guess i would prefer to hear first from lane since we've heard a lot from the union and you and you had your well i guess we're still in the um we're still in the responding to the rift so go ahead go ahead i think that would be okay thank you so i don't think um the union is not arguing we we had a grievance on the grand funded positions we lost that in arbitration we understand that that is isn't you feel or um that that's something that you need to do we um while we disagree with that there's nothing we can do about that that is that is your decision so i want to make that clear that that is not what we are discussing tonight i also want to make it clear that we are not discussing negotiations tonight this is not a negotiation session we're not discussing salaries we're not discussing how much um you know the board has to make some decisions the decision whether how does how does spend the money that was voted on in the budget how to spend the money that is coming in that that 4.6 or 4.7 million dollars that's coming um for covid relief to decide if this arts position is falls under that category and i and i think other people spoke far more eloquently than i can that that yes this is part of the recovery for students this is helping students deal with the trauma of the pandemic along with the daily traumas that um students that age have to deal with this gets them through it this is support for them um i'm i'm not going to keep going on that one as i said others spoke far more eloquently than i can about that um but the um the money is is there if the board so just desires to to use it for that um but every other district in Vermont i know of um is doesn't make rift decisions or cut decisions on the outcome of negotiations negotiations are a fact of life that um happened on a regular basis the union does want to have a two-year agreement so maybe we can have a break from negotiations as i'm sure the board would like as well it is the the decision to rift or to set the budget is the board's decision it is not the union's decision and of course the union was going to be working for salaries to um i'm sorry i'm going to take that one back because i said this is not the negotiations session um that that is happening in mediation thanks so i just uh a piece here that i think is important it is true that a lot of other districts don't have to rift because of negotiations but that is because the unions in those districts are coming in around the state average in their negotiations they are not holding out for 13 percent over two years or 11 percent over two years and i've done the studies i've seen where people have settled this year so far and they are all in the range that i i explained earlier we are going to mediation because the union right now is holding out for 11 percent over two years i i i just one second again i just want to reiterate this is not a time for negotiations and there's so many i'm not negotiating i am making a counterpoint just to let norah could you please let me just finish what i wanted to say thank you this is not the time to discuss the negotiations that's why the negotiation sessions are open there's been a lot of oversimplifications on both sides about everything i highly encourage anybody who's interested in this kind of we don't end up in these situations in the future to come to the negotiation sessions when we do have them because they're open meetings and to to throw out a percentage and to say it in a certain way right now whether i say it and try to skew how the public sees it or whether you say it and try and use your version of how you see the proposals this isn't the time so please everybody if you're interested in this come to the negotiation sessions so that you can have both sides have the time that they need to talk about it this is not the time to talk about it's not the time to have the discussion to go into the detail right what i think again what it what is on the what's on the table tonight is whether this position is getting ripped that is what it's what needs to be decided whether whether the the whole district is going to have the staff needed to meet the needs of their students whether they're going to invest in this education of our community how can public members get access to the negotiation sessions chris because listen i haven't known about this and i really want to attend the negotiations sessions as a taxpayer not just but in here that the chair of the board has been trying to get a word in here and and i i need i want to encourage and to speak as loudly and rudely as i can sometimes and i'm not trying to silence anyone or interrupt anyone but we need to rein it into a little bit more of a structured deal yes and i apologize this is only my second meeting and i am i am doing my best and i was totally blindsided by this thing arriving today and i had a full day of work that i had to do so i wasn't able to focus and figure out what the heck was going on so i apologize for my meeting style and and i do want to hear from folks what what i would like to do as as the chair is board members we need to we're going to have to make a decision so i've only heard from hannah i'm wondering if others have questions are we ready to approve the rifts is that lane is that what our i i'm trying to recall from our agenda meeting this is just negotiations update i didn't realize we are so there there's two pieces yeah there's two pieces on there there's that in that's a separate piece so where is that in the agenda even so uh number three board management and governance negotiations update which we haven't done yet and an opportunity for the union to discuss potential risks before before the we just we just moved that to the front so we just did the union just told us their perspective and now um i thought you and your rebuttal was your negotiations update but maybe that's not it so do you want to i i think we need to move on because if there is a an action that the board needs to take we need to hear sort of the other side and the update in terms of what's going on so eventually there will need to be a vote on the rift um piece um i don't doesn't bother me when you do that it might make most sense now that we've had the discussion on it before we move on to the negotiation piece would be my my recommendation uh to so can you please clarify for board members what exactly these rifts are going to be and can i get some clarification because it sounds like depending on how negotiations end up none of these rifts may even take place is that am i understanding things correctly so there there's there's two pieces here um there are 5.16 fte's um full-time equivalent people that are funded by grants um that are professional staff and one support staff member who is funded by grants um that would receive a rift and would be called back immediately once that grant funding is assured uh the district liability in this if the rifts are not granted um is five hundred and forty five thousand dollars um in terms of the second piece um we've done what we can to not have to riff anymore than we need to um because like i said we dealt with some of that 1.6 um fte's and cuts we were looking at by um attrition a person that was leaving and not replacing the position until we're sure the money is assured um the 1.0 rift is specific to making sure that we potentially have what we need to cover what may come out of negotiations and that would be restored um you know at the end of negotiations um if if the money is there if if we're down in uh in a range that's close to the state average can i add that negotiations may not be over until sorry um whatever yeah i i think lane is an agreement negotiate i think you need to know that negotiations may not be over and well until next year but potential liability um for not making this rift um is 100 to 150 thousand dollars okay first that's the second rift that's the second one yeah that's related to negotiations 100 to 150 thousand yeah that's what we're cutting between the rift and the the the attrition loss okay that and and the other rifts are just those grant those grant rifts that we have to do okay so do board members understand that he talked to us last board meeting about the the first batch of rifts that are those grant funded positions that once that the grants come in and it's just a matter of timing that that makes those those rifts have to take place so that he's not over budget for what if for some reason those federal grants don't come in the second rift if i understand this correctly lane is um because we don't know how the negotiations are going to end up and if they it comes in higher than what you've budgeted for then um we'll need to um we won't have enough money to afford to have that that one teacher that needs to be rift at this point and that teacher would be the ninth grade social studies teacher is that correct yes okay board members any questions about and and it's now that the board has to decide on supporting those rift notices is that correct okay so board members i see your hand brian but i i want to give the board members a chance to make sure they understand what they're voting on and what this is all about um and uh it's 846 so i want to kind of keep us and get us back on track chelsea i see you go ahead and and ask your question so i just have a question about if the rift is not approved what happens then you need to tell me who or what i'm cutting and there will be a cut again the budget is set it was set in january there is no more we plan the budgets out um six months to a year in advance which is a really kind of crazy system you know um to how to do things um but it's a set set some of money there is no more until the next budget season and so it will have to come from somewhere else it will have to be another program or another teacher and it can't be another teacher at this point in time because as soon as april 15th passes um whichever teachers get contracts i can't you know rescind those after the fact so this april 15th deadline is critical so if the rift is denied or not approved then it just goes back to negotiations and you have to like find another position to cut or find some money there's no negotiations i have to i have to figure out something else in the budget to eliminate which means losing other programming or something else for the kids um that was planned on or is important for us towards meeting our ends um that the board has charged me to do um i don't know what it would be um because again the the problems with school budgets are the majority of the money in the school budget goes to salaries right um you know probably 90 so i'd have to go and and scrape and hopefully i can come up with it hopefully the you know the best best scenario is you know we come to an agreement that the union's happy with that the district is happy with in the end and that you know is is doable within the budget that we have you know that's that's the best scenario okay any other board members have uh questions i know public wants to comment but i'm most i'm afraid you're not going to be able to answer one question for lane yeah um so if we do come in at a you know the the budget or the the after negotiations are complete will the will brian have his job just the way it is yesterday everything will get restored and as long as the middle school students are still mandated to go over there and he's got his enrollments up there's not a problem and the ninth grade social studies teacher will stay the way that is if if the negotiations come in yes okay but as as nara was was pointing out um we don't know how long negotiations could take i just wanted to take a second and just say um in the meantime of all of this happening i will be without a job for next year so all those ninth graders that i built relationships with in the current eighth graders who i know and who could have a stable consistent adult as their ninth grade history teacher this all creates so much upheaval if i don't think i'm getting a contract why would i not look for another position and and go to another school so i just want to say like if you if you the board say yes we're going to approve this change maybe yes okay if like i just don't think we should be tying this to the negotiations the way as nora has said because the negotiations happen every year this is a um yeah like this is creating a lot of instability to say that lane his job is to design a budget that is going to serve our community and it's not why is it on my back that he designed a budget that doesn't support our students as that's a big thing so i call that that is a complete and utter mischaracterization this budget was designed incredibly thoughtfully in an incredible detail with incredible study to what the unions are are negotiating for and getting the issue right now is that our union is asking for 11 percent and holding firm and we're going to mediation and this budget cannot sustain an 11 percent ask right now there is not that kind of money in the budget so julia i understand and i feel incredibly bad but i am in a position where i have to make sure by law that the district stays in the black and just just so you all know that is one of the the limitations that we do place on our superintendent is that he can't spend money that he doesn't have and and he is we are sort of putting him in that position if we don't have that money and again it does it makes this whole negotiation process kind of extremely difficult and hopefully we can work on a better way to to do it so that the timing doesn't come out like this because it makes it very difficult ashley megan kacha i'm curious do you have some questions do you are are we ready to put this to a vote is everybody understanding what we're voting on yeah go ahead ashley sorry okay um i have i do have questions um and to be honest i i don't feel prepared to vote on this i think this is um as you pointed out and it seems like i was not well prepared um for this discussion this evening um but i'm curious i do know and i do appreciate lane sharing in the past about the grant funded positions and i just i have a few clarifying questions um we'll know by june 15th if we have secured those grants is that the timeline lane typically the grants um can i've seen them as early i've seen them as early as the end of may i've seen them as late as july it all depends on the grant funding agencies we have a very good team um that pulls all this together and gets the amendments into the grant system on time so it's just a matter then of waiting for the the state to do its job um typically there's a lot of back and forth um and it's you know excuse the expression it's really kind of dumb stuff we could you could you could you use the word and instead of or here or could you i mean it's just it's little wordsmithing stuff that tends to make things take a while um i do have to point out based on the comments that this has been on the board's agenda for two weeks now um and i did send to the board a notice of the potential cuts to staff probably two weeks ago um so i'm sorry if folks don't feel prepared um i'm not sure about what part folks are not feeling prepared about um i'm just asking clarifying or not clarifying but why was that not in our board packet the which piece it was emailed directly to to everyone in the in the board a couple of weeks ago to give you a preemptive heads up and it was discussed in previous board meetings what i i just pulled up the email and and there's not to to my understanding in my reading there's not reference to which specific positions i mean there's explaining grant funded positions because i don't decide i don't decide the positions i just tell the fte's from each of the categories which is what i did the administration at the local district at the the schools decide and then it has to come back and go through this huge matrix of bumping rights and seniorities which took about a week to figure out um so it's a pretty complicated process right but but i think that could help um someone understand why it's difficult for uh or it's it's easy for us to feel overwhelmed and unprepared right now when we're talking about very specific it what i understand not a grant funded position and not an rtcc position that we're being asked to vote on right now um that's partially why i feel unprepared for it because you didn't have the names of the folks the the the the attachment that i'm looking at right now that you did send to us and i can give you the three there were there were two or three of them um there was one related to rtcc there was one related to grants and there was one related to professional staff so i i guess where it's it's a long meeting and i i know that we're all probably feeling pretty frustrated but frankly if the board isn't feeling prepared and that they have enough information to vote on something even if you think that we have enough information if we feel that we don't then how are we to vote on it you know what someone feels we have and what we actually you follow you follow policy governance but again you guys have to make the decision i'm gonna i'll clam up unless there's specific questions just you need to decide what what you're going to decide if you decide not to vote that means i'll find the i'll have to try to find the funding somewhere else um most likely where it'll come from is i'll have to gut all the professional development that's been going on around math and el a and trauma-based behaviors amongst the district that's probably the only thing um that i've got available that that i can touch that's not affecting staff because after april 15th staff are locked in so can i explain when when the administration comes to a decision on who they feel who they're proposing be rift are are there alternatives or are we presented with this is what we think you have to vote yay or nay and if you vote nay then it goes back to the drawing board i mean okay this is an operational decision um they did their research this is the person they chose i shouldn't say person this is the position they chose i presented you with the reasons why they chose it it was logical um because of the low enrollments um you know without you know mandating that the middle schoolers be there they had a good rationale for why they chose this position it wasn't done in a vacuum it wasn't a card pulled out of a hat i'm not implying that it was lane at all i just if if you are saying and correct me if i'm wrong but i think you explained to chelsea if we vote nay on this rift then i think you said you need to tell me where to find the money or does the administration need to to know where to find the money okay if if i vote no on this rift i do who okay we need to find an alternative i understand that you can't make money out of thin air but i don't believe if i vote that way that that's where it should come from valid give me another option or tell me or or charge me with finding another option but the only yes very the only the only okay there's a there's a couple of things i think people need to understand this rift at this point in time one of the reasons that this is happening later than the others is because we were waiting for the last round of negotiations to see if we were in a reasonable range that the district could accommodate even if it was a little bit above what we had had put into the budget right and we just had that meeting not too long ago so we were waiting for that meeting to see what the outcome was going to be the outcome was not good in terms of having to plan the budget the outcome was that we were going to mediation um and the like i said the union was at at that point in time at 11 over two years with five percent in the first year that's not something i can accommodate in the budget so at that point in time a week ago when we had that meeting it's like oh crap yeah i talked with folks about this that we may have to potentially do cuts and i even talked about the magnitude of those cuts but it didn't materialize until the end of that negotiation session that that you know this oh oh darn moment that we're in a position that you know we might be looking at more having to pay more than we've got um so yeah there is a there is a little bit of a time crunch to your right but that's the the reason why that happened if that makes sense um that at that point in time again we went through um you know the possibilities that went over to the r u h admin this is what came back we checked the bumping um and determined that you know it would be this position but it would bump another position um so it it turned around fast but a lot of it was due to that last date that we negotiated so a lot of our reactions though are coming out of that fast turnaround so i just sorry nice negotiations i'm not disagreeing on on you know your feelings at all um but i i just i've been keeping people as informed as i humanly can um may i explain something on the negotiations process just on how the process works yeah that's the end does the board feel like they need that information would that be helpful i'm gonna i'm gonna turn it to the board norah to find out the board that's why i'm asking you ann i'm not trying to jump in does the board feel like they could use some explanation from norah on on this i need to see like uh can we see like thumbs up or thumbs down no no i don't okay uh it looks like no i'm and i'm sorry i just i i don't know if it's just so much information and i'm trying to just keep all of this straight and so i feel like i'm gonna ask another question that's probably already been asked but i just want to really be very clear so right now with lanes directives from the board he cannot run the organization without the money that is available to him so with looking at the budget he has determined that there is 5.16 positions that need to potentially be ripped so is that correct to that point because now i have more questions due due to yes that is correct but that's just for the grant funding portion those are yeah okay so thank you lane that's the piece i feel like i'm missing that 5.16 those are just the grant funded positions that are going to be rift and if this everything goes well with the funding agencies those positions will all come back yes you got it perfect okay so thank you so now above and beyond the 5.16 grant funded positions we need to cut two more additional positions need to risk two more potential positions due to the fact that we're still in contract negotiations and those two positions were chosen to happen at ruhs in the entire district in all of osfc the administrative cabinet team chose two positions at ruhs and one of those is going to be our ninth grade social worker i'm sorry social studies teacher and then the second one is a position in the math department are those no okay so thank you we're partially so so the the math position let's start with that one um the math position is a result of the grant funding so the person who is funded by the grant and this is under the the contract in the rules in the contract the person who is funded in the grant has seniority over the math person and so would bump them from their position now there is a development that is on that math piece and again that's the reason when i sent out the um so let's stick on the math piece for just a little bit so people understand when i sent it out it's i sent it out to the union the notification that potentially up to this much it doesn't have to be um we have some transitions that have happened are going to happen in the math department that i believe do not mean that that point three has to go out um to that particular person tomorrow but i've got to i've got to double check it because those discussions came up late this afternoon so but yes the math position itself if it happens it's due to a grant position and it's because the person in the grant position has seniority and is bumping that math person okay okay so that yeah so then we're 5.16 with the grant and then we're one additional that is affecting the social studies ninth grade social studies teacher and the other effect of that is that mr rainville's position is modified to include more classroom time at what we've heard from many at a cost potentially to the theater program so that's what that's what we're being asked to vote on this evening in essence yes okay thank you and very good that's not easy to follow without that i'm thinking about it uh thank you ashley yeah i appreciate that as well kacha and megan any any questions you're following what what we're going to ask you to clarify thank you very much yes okay so it is 9.06 is the does the board feel like it has enough information to make to um have a motion called on approving the rifts that the superintendent has put together wait can we well i don't know what else does the board need in order to be able to make this decision is there is there something else that we could get from either lane or do we want to look i am i think i mean we have to make a decision tonight because april 15th is coming really soon so um we kind of have two parts here i'll make the motion that we that we approve the rifts for the on the grant side to just move stuff ahead so i make a motion that we approve the rifts uh for the for the ones that are affected by the grants first okay do we have some a second on that motion and brian's motion to approve the rifts for the grant funded positions that most likely but we don't have a crystal ball that we may not know for sure will come through until once those grants are are put in and accepted do we have a second for that motion i'll second that motion it's megan megan salt's gonna second that motion uh do we have some discussion any more questions regarding that everyone clear what they're voting on okay so i'm going to call the questions so all those in favor of accepting the rift notices for the grant funded positions please say aye and i guess can i see everyone i can see everyone i guess rachel hasn't come come on even though we're running really late uh so i'll go through roll call um chelsea sorry i put you you're new and i put you first so you're saying aye okay uh ashley i brian i megan i gotcha i and hannah i and myself i so the eyes have it rifts for the for the grant positions go through um do we have a motion for the second here of rifts for the one uh social studies position is someone or a motion not to pass that rift go either way i have a suggestion we could also um um direct lane should go back to his budget and tell us um if he didn't want to take away a position where he might take away some money uh so that we don't have to remove a position do we want to do we want that's that's another possibility it sounds like that's something that we could ask lane to do i wondered that same thing and if we could be um given other options to consider and and if we need to vote on something tonight then i move to um didn't not approve this rift okay i don't know how to vote not to do i make a motion well you can make a motion to say we don't approve that this rift if you would like that is the motion i would like to make thank you i move that we do not approve this rift and consider other options okay do we have a second for that motion i'll second it taught you as a second do we have some discussion regarding this motion um lane do we have time for any other options the only thing i'm going to say is number one um you are interfering in my operations number two um you are putting me in a position where the cuts that i will have to make will prevent me um from achieving ends work that has been put into motion through blood sweat and tears um for three years now um and so again if you guys decide i will respect that i will abide by it um and i will carry out whatever it is that you asked me to do with full integrity um but i just want you to recognize the the path you're treading right now lane that that i i gotta speak up here because we've we've been asked to vote on something and if we vote a certain way uh that's being made to to be invalid or or personal or negative i mean if we're given the choice to vote one way or the other it's going against all the policies that the board under the ejection it shouldn't be a vote if we're being set up to either accept something or violate our policies then it shouldn't be i'm i know i know we're coming from and i i agree with you um but i'm just saying the position that you're potentially putting me i i will draw my motion and not vote on it i i feel totally set up here i feel totally hang on and lose it let lane lane will you will you point out if what policy what of our policies says that we you're you're asking us to riff a position you're based on but we also have to respond to the values and the ends that our community is expressing to us we're here we heard a huge outcry from the public um we don't know exactly whether or not we don't know where the negotiations are going to end up so we're not necessarily you're not necessarily over budget at this point exactly i don't know but the executive limitations are specific that i am not allowed to put us in a risk of financial jeopardy for something that can be foreseen this can be potentially foreseen everything in that budget there is no fluff in a budget it is all geared towards either staffing that's required to meet boards ends or program programming that we put in place to meet ends so any cut that we make at this point in time including brian including brian any cut that we make is detrimental to achieving you know what i'm required to do under the board's policies so it there there is no good solution to any of this so so when you go to write your ends report and you're doing your monitoring and your part of what you can do in your monitoring report for us is to say well board you chose to to put me in a position where i had to to change the budget that i therefore had to reduce some funding towards such and such a program and therefore i was not able to meet that end that's that's okay that's the and then the board has to go out to the public and say okay we said that we were going to meet this end and we didn't and that was and then the public can vote us out they can say hey you didn't hold the superintendent's feet to the fire or or you you put him in a position where he had to make some staffing choices and some funding choices in order to deal with your vote to to not uh support your position in terms of allocation of the budget and and we would have to accept that because we've we've said okay we've we've directed you to do that we've said look somewhere else if we vote according to hannah's hannah's proposal to say look somewhere else but i would i would weigh i think it's important i can tell you now where the cuts would have to come because they're like i said there's not fluff in a budget um assuming we even have to make them okay the odds are hopefully we don't so let's let's let's let's put that out there first but if if they had to come we are potentially sacrificing all work on trauma math and el a in one pan on the other we are still going to have a drama a drama program that exists in the state that it did for many many many years brian it will still have a position with us in an exalted position we'll be working in his field to study which is social studies with kids and so again taking the human element out for a minute and putting the objective pieces in the pan i guess that's what you got to make your decision on um my my my intent my role um again you know all the the most appropriate thing to do is to go after that that professional development and the work that's happening in those areas we may not be able to fund karnagy math next year we you know we may not be able to move forward um with you know the stern center coming in and working with us on our reading issues and our reading problems um we certainly won't be able to do the executive functioning training that that has already been started at the high school level i mean it's it's it's a tremendous amount that's going to potentially be impacted by this position the other thing that i could do um is that we wait and see who leaves through attrition and i don't hire back but that's just a surreptitious way of me taking the board's authority for the hiring authority for teachers out of your hands um i just don't recommend a hire back if i don't recommend them you can't hire them um so it's just uh yeah so board members you see what he has to he what he has to negotiate in his budget so again we have to decide whether or not we want to put him back into sort of looking at his budget and and making cuts in a way that i mean we still are going to want him to to um you know meet the outcomes of the district but he's he may have to do it limping along if and again we've got so much uncertainty in terms of how everything is going to pan out in the long term in terms of the negotiations and i know again this is not negotiations now but um it it revolves around that so i was going to say to make it easier uh board and in hannah everybody you got it's a decision i am not going to be upset or mad or you know my job is to come in here and plead my case and make my recommendation i've done that um but if you decide on something different you're not going to get any grief out of me my job at that point in time is to to make sure that i carry out faithfully as best best i can do you know the charges i've been given so don't let if if my personal feelings on the matter if you're worried about that don't let them bother you um at all okay so hannah do you still have your motion on the table for um not approving the rift and asking lane to go look in the budget for some monies to cover uh not rifting that position yes i stand by that motion and i hope it's still seconded by katia but if i need to make it again and ask for a second i can katia are you still seconding that motion i will still second that motion okay do we have some discussion any discussion regarding that motion uh am i only i'm sorry me and my clarifying questions no that's great if if lane is tasked um with our vote to go and find alternatives is that something we find out before the next school board meeting is that something that he will notify us in um may lane how long do you think it's going to take you to figure out where you might come up with that money and again it's sort of hypothetical but you you're trying to stay within i've already it'll come from the professional development because i've you know i'll take another look but that's the easiest easiest piece to cut from without you know touching staff which after april 15th i can't do thank you any any other questions or comments jelsie i see you're unmuted did you have a question i was just going to say it would be so helpful like coming into the meeting or coming into any kind of conversation in the future if we knew what the options were so that we could look and think about it sort of in a way that makes sense and um put some thought into it before just you know being blindsided like this tonight for the future whatever happens with this motion i'm hearing that i'm feeling that a little bit myself any other comments regarding this motion any other questions are we ready to call the motion okay i'm going to call the motion so the motion is that we do not accept the rift notification the second rift notification for the one fte um and that we send lane back to his budget to see where else he might be able to find some money for that right now so that he stays in compliance with his budgeting parameters so all those in favor uh do you want me to do a call okay so um this time i'm going to start from the bottom so i don't put chelsea on the spot every time so hannah you're up first yes hi kaca you're next hi megan hi brian hi ashley hi chelsea hi from me so so lane you've got you got some work to do and um and then we'll wait and and we'll be seeing what what happens over the next month or two or it sounds like this mediation process might go into the summer even before first meeting's june 2nd okay um and you'll just you'll continue to update the board as we as we go along okay um i don't know if this is possible it's almost it's 923 uh megan you're monitoring how well we're doing and we are way off track in terms of our timing um we had uh winton on for the strategic planning um i'm not even sure if he's still on the call um but i'm wondering if we want to just table that discussion to the next meeting rather than try and open that whole uh discussion up at this point winton are you on the call still and i noted that little message box in the corner of a while ago that he had left gave up on okay um so i think what we'll do is we'll we'll table that to the next uh meeting and that next meeting is um in may um or we may just have to hold a special meeting so that we can hear from uh how that process is coming along um so i need clarification because i'm not sure if the board has to decide i believe we will have to decide whether or not to hold a special meeting to do well does the board does the board want to move on i mean we don't have winton here to tell us about the strategic planning process and where things are at with that um so do we want to have a motion to yes nor sorry i'm really sorry i i just um i know you you need to move on to other things but point of clarification i think there were some other things they needed to update the board on with negotiation in regards to support staff is that on the agenda uh that's on our consent consent agenda we're just going to be um approving that that okay thank you i'm so sorry unless lane you do you want to exploit we probably should explain that to the to the other board members that are not on that negotiation committee how that outcome came uh yeah so the um support staff uh april first meeting i believe um the district offered the support staff to your contract 3.75 percent the first year 4.5 percent the second year and no language changes um following that meeting the union to ask for a couple of days to think about it um and then tentatively agree so that agreement is in your packet was sent to you earlier um for the board to consider and to vote on tonight as a whole and that's in our consent agenda yeah which is coming up a little bit later so however thank you so much actually about strategic planning and just to be able to put that one um to bed i guess um if i would be happy to suggest that we have an additional phone call or meeting with winton to hear his update as far as that process and how it's going so then we can move on with the rest of the agenda okay you need that for i believe i i i probably need that as a um as a as a um as a uh a motion to put it on the in for a special meeting and and maybe um katia would you be willing to do a doodle poll thing so that we can find a time that works for everyone to do a special meeting with winton and all of us to get an update on that so that we can move along with the agenda yeah so um ashley can i say that you are moving to um put the strategic planning discussion into a special meeting that we will decide via doodle poll and then invite including winton i can get you winton's uh email katia so that we can all um listen to that information when we're a little fresher and that sounds exactly like the motion i made totally nailed it it is 9 28 um so so do we have a second for ashley's uh motion to table the strategic planning until we for a special meeting that okay the second by brian any discussion seeing none we're i'm going to call the motion so i'll do a roll call again let's see uh i'm going to start my screen is changing a little bit katia you're first i hi megan hi ryan hi and she'll see hi ashley hi canna hi and myself hi so we're going to table that we'll get out a doodle poll for everybody to figure out when that might be and we'll invite winton as well in that doodle poll and hopefully be able to deal with that um covid operations um this is uh we need to figure out um with the the changes so lane you're going to update us on the on what has been um put forth by the agency of education and all the other rules and regulations the mou where we are with with um how kids are going to be uh receiving their education after yeah so the yep the um board reserved to itself uh the decision about what the learning modalities were so um my role is kind of give you current state um talk with you a little bit about you know recommendations after talking with the cabinet um and kind of go from there um current state um just so people know where we are right now um all students grades uh pre-k through seven are back full in person four days per week grades in 11 and 12 have been at four days per week most of the year um they have open campus they kind of come and go when they don't have classes kind of at need um so we're actually we're better than most districts in terms of in person instruction we're probably better than about 90 percent of the districts that are out there there is a little bit of worry and concern right now because there's an exuberance that people have about the rate of vaccinations um and it's translating into an increase in covid rates in the state because people are being just less vigilant in terms of protective measurements um and so we'll talk about the seven rolling day averages um at both the state level and in orange county um right now um the highest uh rolling average uh for case rates in orange county was on november 22nd that was 12 cases per day at this point in time we're averaging six cases per day and that number has been rising um since march 31st um we had nine new new cases today um eight on friday in fact we had three cases in the schools today um the time period between march 25th and today has had the highest rates of infection in the state of vermont since at least october i couldn't look back any further in the data that was available um those rates right now are climbing from what i'm going to call a relative low because it's fairly high from a relative low of 151 cases per day on april 7th to 190 today and they are rising like this it's expected that they're going to continue to rise given that next week is april break and we've been getting lots and lots of calls from parents about travel um and so it sounds like there's going to be a lot of traveling that's going on um one of the things that came out of the discussion that the cabinet members had with the staff and with the cabinet members themselves um was this idea that and i think you heard a little bit of it mentioned earlier today this idea of uh we've been in a in a state where we haven't had to transition between modalities for a long time right we went through this long period where you know we tried to get the kids back and then you know two days later we'd have to shut a school down or we'd have to shut half the school down it's been pretty smooth sailing we've had a case here or there but because of how things are set up it affects a very small number of kids we can identify them quickly they're out everybody else stays and so um you know that's been a nice thing about the state that we're in um vaccinations i sent an email out to the board on this a while back um about the state of vaccinations um things opened up on march 20th for the staff um only about 20 30 of the staff were able to actually get appointments when that first opened up and um probably over the course of the next two or three weeks following that you know the sign up um the sign ups um kind of increased there are more spaces available so it wasn't like all the the staff members were able to sign up on march 20th and get their shots then it was spread out over two or three weeks um most of the shots that they were getting were the Moderna vaccine at the time apologize i got allergies um the Moderna vaccine is six weeks um from the time of the first shot you get the first shot it's a four-week wait you get the second shot and then it's a two-week wait and then you're considered protected um as much as the vaccine can give so based upon kind of timelines and stuff and how many people that we still have waiting the staff kind of as a whole unit would be in a really good spot on or about may 17th in terms of actually having their protections in place um so that's current state right now um we had some discussions about the fact that you know we're at the in four days per week and you know why not move to five days per week um and there's a couple of things that are going on i think that people need to be aware of um the federal government didn't approve the state's request the wave testing right so we still have to do the math uh SBAC the ELAS back the Vermont science assessment um and the ELL assessments and so all the students even the ones that are in the remote modality the ones that chose to be remote all year they have to come in because the testing has to happen in school take the testing here in a monitor in an environment and so what's been going on is we've set this up so that every Friday we're rotating those kids through and those rotations on Fridays will continue to happen through Memorial Day through the end of May all right so we've got the Fridays used we don't have all the kids coming in on Fridays but having them come in to do this testing on those days is allowing us not to disrupt the other four days that they are here um we also had a discussion with the nurses nurses and one of the things that we discovered is um having the Friday off has actually saved us having to close the schools a number of times people that get infected they tend to get infected over a weekend by the time their symptoms show up it's usually Thursday or Friday of the following week and so with people not in school on Friday there's a lot of exposure that's been reduced because of that just because of how things naturally fall we added it up there's between four and five times that we didn't have to close the school because of those Fridays being off um the other thing that's going on right now is most of the teachers planning is happening on Fridays and a lot of the year-end reviews with the the educational support teams and the IEP teams is all happening on Fridays so there is quite a bit of work that's happening there again board decision I'm not going to argue or feel bad if you decide something different but the recommendation um from the cabinet and for me is to stay four days through the rest of the year um at this point in time also remember that the last day for students is June 11th right so it's it's not that far off the state changed the the law for this year in terms of the number of student days it's 170 it was reduced so the last student day is June 11th so it's um you know if the teachers came back on the 17th and we got the kids back then we'll talk a little bit about some of the work that that needs to be done if that were to happen it's only a couple of weeks um and we got Memorial Day in there and we got April vacation in there which you know we're worried about people you know feeling a little freer because the vaccines are flowing that they're not gonna you know behave the best um in terms of return on the grades that remain we've got grades eight nine and ten it's possible to bring them back but there's some pretty big hurdles that we have been working on and the question is is do we want to do that amount of changing around again when the students are done on June 11th high school master schedule would need to be reworked they've already kind of planned out what it would look like um but it would require some students to change teachers uh under the six-foot guidance that that existed um we had things set up dramatically different than regular classroom spaces um and so all that would have to be moved back it would probably take um over the April vacation for the the custodial staff to be able to make that happen um we also did a little bit of research in terms of what other districts are doing and the Vermont Principles Association had a survey that they put out that shows that most schools are still in hybrid mode and intend on staying that way because it's less risky given the current increase in cases and the potential impacts of April vacation in Memorial Day so again like I said we're already ahead of the curve um and so my recommendation recommendation of the cabinet again is to stay the course um part of it again it's the longest stretch of consistency we've had you know not switching back and forth between modalities which is really good for the students the year is quickly coming to a close um and I have these worries is that you know we're potentially taking this this last group of individuals that is unvaccinated which which are older students and we are putting them in a higher risk situation by bringing them back and so that concern um sits there um and again we expect the cases are going to be rising you know while we're potentially bringing these kids back we've got those two vacations in there which are during warmer weather which people are going to be traveling um so I would argue that we just stay the course with where we're at but if the board um really wanted to see more kids back I would argue limit it to eighth grade the eighth grade are you know their transition students are getting ready for high school and you know it might not hurt them at all um to get back into a regular kind of routine um you know before they start the ninth grade and so I'll stop there a lot just said a lot in case there's questions so board questions Ashley go ahead and yes thank you I would like to speak thank you Lane for sharing that information um but I am not on board with that plan I believe that there needs to be equity for all of our children and right now there are three grades that are not having the same experience as their classmates and we have done an excellent job this year as a district in updating the air handling systems the weather has improved there are outdoor learning opportunities for our kids that they can participate in and our eighth ninth and tenth graders deserve to be in that class in in those classrooms having not only an academic experience but a social experience I appreciate the comment about the eighth graders gearing up to be in high school next year but I'd like to talk about the ninth graders who did not have the opportunity to have that transition from eighth to ninth grade the way they should have and I feel very strongly that our children should be back in school all of them K through 12 after April vacation on April 26 we talk over the summer about the master schedule being updated so when we could indeed get these kids back in school there would not be an administrative obstacle so these are all things that could have been happening in the background and now if it's a time crunch then it's a time crunch but I am advocating strongly for our children that they need to be back in school for these last few weeks to get the education in a different capacity amongst their peers and the year on a high note so the only comment that I'm going to make is you know that veiled comment that if there's a time crunch there's a time crunch in the implication that the planning wasn't done the planning for the change in the master schedule and where the rooms and everything needed to be was done it's sitting there it's ready the chairs were ordered we are in a situation where the rates in the state are the highest that they have ever been and they are increasing we have a vacation coming up we have the 117 variant that's running around that is more contagious 50 more contagious than what's currently there and it's taking over the state right now in terms of what they're finding in the research and I go back six months ago to kind of what I said to the board at that time was this idea that yeah you know research is only as good as the information that we currently have right now at that point in time six months ago the research was yeah the the younger kids get it it's not that big a deal most of them shrug it off but the question that remains unanswered that an answer is starting to appear to now was this idea is what is the long-term effect what is the impact of damage on vascular systems and cardiovascular systems in neurologic systems and the research is showing that 30 to 40 of the people that are getting this disease are having neurological disorders at this point in time so again we come back to this question where for seven weeks is it worth that risk when we are so close to the end when vaccinations will be happening hopefully they're studying their tails off to try to get it so that the kids are vaccinated by the time we get back in the fall I understand about wanting the students back I think it's it's important too but again I always go back to take the emotions out of it put things in the balance and make the decision off off the balance does the risk outweigh the potential benefit at this point in time and so I'll leave my words with that I'd like to comment if I may go ahead yeah I I just want to point out that whether we agree with this proposal and I happen to or not proposal recommendation one or the other doesn't not care for the kids I I just I'm needled a little when there is an implication that one size one side cares about the kids and and the other doesn't and that's that's just not the case thank you okay are there any other comments or questions from board members about about the whether or not so we would we would be looking at either going along with the recommendation that Lane and the cabinet has made or coming up with a maybe a motion maybe Ashley wants to make a motion about asking for a different timeline and timeframe for getting all students back at the school um so Chelsea do you I saw that you're unmuted would you like to ask a question or have some things I I would just like to add a little conversation to this topic I think um I have two children one goes to Woodstock High School one goes to Randolph and we just got word that the um my daughter who goes to Woodstock is on break now and they are going back to four days a week after break for the remainder of the year so I think it's doable I think it becomes uh you know you weigh the risks of everything I think the kids who have been remote and have been um in the hybrid model could benefit from going back to school and being with their peers and that socialization I think it's important that they have that to finish out the year so that they finish strong way it's like mental health physical health what's the risk what's the benefit and it it seems like at this point in the covid cycle we're at a point where we can reintroduce those learning opportunities for the rest of the kids that's all okay thanks thank you Chelsea um anyone else have um I have a question actually or concerns or yes go ahead gotcha um I was just I know that um and this is mainly for Lane correct me if I'm wrong when we have the seventh grade come back part of the issue with not being allowed to bring the eighth grade back was because the seventh grade this class size required that they take over some of the eighth grade space is that correct yeah so remember the guidance has changed right they're saying three feet now you know as long as people are properly masked so there were spaces that were taken up to accommodate the 11th and the 12th grade right because they've been coming kind of all along so there was extra space that was taken up by that there was um the seventh grade class was the largest class so there was an incredible amount of space that they took up because of that six foot spacing that that was required and a lot of moving around and a lot of equipment that was purchased and put into place to make that happen and so um a lot of it is uh you know the more kids that we bring back the more of that that has to be undone um which is fine I mean you know April break would be the the right time to do it if we were going to do it um but yeah it's uh it's the physical amount of spacing on the positive it's been a pretty warm spring so far we have connected um with Perry to try to get them to come out and set our tents up to try to do more outside um and so you know that that may may help as well but again I with me I just I worry about the the the rise in the cases it's happening especially approaching a vacation that we haven't even started yet but with the new guidelines we are able to maintain a three foot space with the student capacity that we could could potentially have with bringing other classes back the statement and I would wish I had it right in front of me that I could read directly from the RUH administrators is that in in cases yes we can but there are some cases that still make us incredibly nervous um you know we do have larger classes you know our average class size at the high school is is nine to eleven kids but we do have classes that are 23 24 25 26 two um and so that makes a little bit more problematic and the more kids that you have come back the less choices that you have right the less open spaces you have to kind of put the puzzle together and move people around Megan or Brian do you have any um questions or comments well yeah I'll just kind of second what Ashley said I I think it is time we have you know three grades left to to get back in at least four days a week and if there's any way we can get them in as soon as possible after you know April break sounds like a good idea to me but um that's where where I'm at is this needs to happen because those grades are not getting the education that they the other ones are and they're not the experience or the time and I think if we can we should definitely get them in as soon as possible Megan do you have any concerns or questions no okay lane I I have one question and that is um have you have you checked in with the the ninth grade team the eighth grade team and the tenth grade team to see from the teaching perspective our students falling have they fallen behind dramatically are they seeing are they feeling like we really need to get these kids back in in order to get them up to speed no they the actually I could even pull up my notes if I can find them and read them to you the basic idea is that we're in a steady state right now and that's good consistency is good the worry is is that if we bring kids back in while case rates are going up we're going to be back in that choppy you know we're here for three days we're in remote session for a week we're here for three days um remote session for a week and that's the biggest concern that they have is they don't want to go back to that that that lack of consistency but let me pull up the notes let me just two seconds um been a long night so I actually it's better that I read it instead of try to do it out of my head no it's it's okay it's it is it is what it is um we still have just so that people know there's still 15 percent of the elementary students are fully remote and will remain that way in 13 percent um of the high school kids the R R UHS R U kids started um fully remote they're saying that the students that have transitioned back um are having a lot of trouble um so what what they're also worried about is that um it's going to take some time for them to get acclimatized again um to being on a regular schedule and there's going to be a lot of behavioral a lot of uh other disruptions that are going to interfere with the academics for the first week or two when they come back while they reestablish those routines um they again they really like the fridays because of uh a lot of the work any of the students that are that are out um hybrid or or remote that are struggling they physically come in and meet with their teachers on fridays um and do one on one work and and what with them um since they're transferred students that have transferred back are struggling because of the abrupt abrupt transition so we talked a little bit about that um they said whether it's three or six feet there's still concerns and spacing in some of the larger classes uh does that mean they can't be a they can't fix those or does does that mean what does that mean exactly which of the two pieces that I just talked about the the the three is the three feet distancing and sort of accommodating the spaces if if you get everybody back it's there are still going to be some problems potentially with the three feet um the guidance that they changed and again um it's basically you know three feet if you can manage it um so it's it's not very helpful I think the guidance is actually very good I just think it's a month too early um I think what they're what what they've got planned I think they just did it a month earlier than they should have but that's my own opinion and do administrators have any concerns about uh teaching staff or support staff coming back or or deciding the no I think um I think people feel a little more relaxed about the vaccination piece but remember the timeline you know we're talking we're talking mid-may before you know the majority of the faculty would have had time to have gotten in gotten both of their shots and and had the two weeks to be able to um you know know that they're protected so you know that may 17th is is a is a is a reasonable date on the staff side I mean Nora's here this is one where you might invite her in I'm sure she's had a lot of decisions I see Kev has his hand raised so maybe I'll go with Kev I was I just want to make sure the board was aware that we have I see at least one member of the eighth grade team the middle school principal um so I think you have the experts in the room not just say the lane is not an expert but just not wanting you to have to extrapolate too much from your notes I think if you want detailed um sense of what the impact would be there's lots of folks who could speak to that yeah and I think that's an awesome because I am I'm in the middle man in some of the conversation yeah can we hear from them is Lisa here Lisa I'm here are you here are you willing to share a little bit yeah um we we have done um a lot of the planning around what it would look like what the schedule would look like to bring everybody back four days a week um our biggest concern is around some of the rooms that are really tiny if you think about the wing that heads toward the senior high gym and go into some of those classrooms um those rooms are smaller than rooms and other parts of the building and so achieving the um distancing in those spaces I think it's it's likely doable um but at the same time it's going to be tight and some of that though there are a lot of logistics um that will need to go into making that happen um as well as scheduling logistics particularly um with world languages which have been fully remote all school year so students in the hybrid modality have been taking their world languages classes um on their remote days so then we have to figure out how to fold that back into the schedule so they can finish the year um with their world language class I'm trying to think of the other logistics um that we've been talking about and Katie I think is on by phone so she may be here as well um but we've definitely been talking about it we definitely have plans for what the schedule um could look like I do worry about the fact that people um may not be fully vaccinated until mid-may and with the um closer rooms or more people in those spaces that that is a concern um and I'm sorry if I'm a little foggy too I went to the design meeting before I came to this meeting so it's been a few hours in the grid along and and we're almost at 10 yeah are there any any other questions for either Lisa or Elaine um and I this is Katie Sutton I'm I'm here yeah the only one other um challenge I'll mention is that when we brought the grade seven students back we made significant uh classroom moves that would have to be kind of undone and reshifted and rearranged um which again is is just quite an upheaval for both the teachers who move but you know even more importantly for the students and their in their learning environments um so again it's as Lane suggested that you know there and as many of you have said there's this cost-benefit analysis of knowing that that re-acclamation and the kind of storming and norming that we do at the beginning of every year would have to be replicated so you know those first couple of weeks at least would need to be spent on re-establishing the classroom environment so that it is one that is you know healthy for kids to feel welcome within um in order to learn and maybe I'll just piggyback quickly just to the point about you know where is the staff at you know we sent out uh our most recent of many surveys of this year just to try to get a sense of that and I think the pretty strong feeling was that folks are comfortable with what's going on recognizing obviously that they're um that it's not ideal that there that there are inequities um but that the level of disruption and um various other factors made it nearly unanimous among the people who responded to the survey and then I also just wanted to make one point about the equity issue that Ashley raised which you're right Ashley I mean you you are not wrong that there's inequities there I I do want us to take a step back and think about the inequities that are maybe less visible in the quote unquote normal runnings of school and that we can sort of predict pretty systematically which kids will have a much harder row to hoe in school um and again not to like make say that's okay but it is something that happens and I will say that one of the things that I have seen in this year is that I have felt and um I'd be surprised if there weren't other educators in the grid who agree with me more able to address the needs of the kids who I know are systematically underserved um understanding that I'm not meeting kids needs as well as I usually do um and I worry that going back to full-time in person um for kids who suffer from anxiety for kids who have medical needs um which make the whatever the risk level um a much more serious risk than for those of us who are who are relatively healthy um and for kids for whom a disruption to their learning routine is not something that they can just roll with the way that many kids care so I you know it's a very complex question and I don't in any I really appreciate you appreciated what you said Hannah about none of us are not on the side of the kids here right I mean I'm I in no way I'm trying to um say that but it is there's a lot of nuance to it and and I appreciate you um making the time to hear from some of us who see that up close and personal so thank you okay it's 10 o'clock we've heard from a lot of folks uh does the board feel like they have enough information to make a motion in terms of the modality when I'm seeing yes no are you ready to do we have someone ready to make a motion so I'm gonna stand by where I started with and I think for equality for our eighth ninth and tenth graders they deserve the same experience as preschool through seven and eleventh and twelfth graders and I make a motion that our eighth ninth and tenth graders we resume in-person learning um the Monday after April break I don't know that date off the top of my head um and you can have the same schedule as they are um as the other kids better part of the OSSD districts that are currently getting four days a week by second Brian is gonna second that motion do we have some discussion around that motion okay I'm gonna call the motion then so all those in favor of Ashley's motion that the district uh return to full in-person uh for well full four days in person for the eighth ninth and tenth graders resumes after April break which would be April 26 um please say I when I call your name and I'm gonna start with you Ashley I Chelsea Brian I Megan Hannah no gotcha I I'm an A so the eyes have it so we are going to direct Lane to direct his cabinet to try to well no to make a four-day in-person for the eighth ninth and tenth graders and hopefully Lisa and Katie are aware so again start kind of getting themselves ready for that process okay so we are moving along very limping along I should say maybe um legislative update uh Lane you have anything on that that you think is pertinent that we really should be probably just the two the two biggies the state pension fund that they were working on doing some pretty massive changes that would have had a negative impact on state employees kind of imploded on itself um there's still work that they have to do because there's a huge deficit there um but they've kind of backed off uh based on the recommendations that that had been put forth um the other one was the universal school meals bill the idea that you know um district should be providing free lunch and breakfast to all students in the district um at at district cost it was basically an unfunded mandate um the legislature heard from quite a few people and then they heard the cost that it was going to be between 24 and 40 million that ended up um at this point at least the last I heard dying a slow death so I don't think those two are are going anywhere anytime soon so those would be the two big ones because they would have had the the big financial impacts um for potentially for the district and the way that that's also been sort of put on the back burner also yeah they um find my notes on the waiting study they um are pretty confident it's not going to pass um they were really worried that if it's not phased in property that properly that there was going to be huge shifts in tax implications right 30 to 40 cents um either gains or losses in districts over the course of the year um and they haven't remodeled the wait since 2020 so they really don't know what the total financial impacts might be um and so it's going to probably be another couple of fiscal years um while they kind of review stuff and try to come up with a good plan that'll that'll make it work so my guess is it's probably two or three years down the pike all right so then we move on to the consent agenda so um in that um we had the minutes from the regular meeting on March 8th we have the special meeting on the 22nd of March we have the professional contracts we have the administrative contracts we have the superintendents contract um there's a facilities approved a facilities request for use of facility facility reserve funds that normally we have to pull out and do a a um vote on correct um approval to use uh reserve funds yeah i've seen i've seen it done both ways so i guess it depends if uh how much discussion folks want um i believe this is on the well i believe that this one is on um redoing the bookfield well yeah okay so i'm happy to answer any questions that folks may have the board have any questions regarding the the reserve funding being used for the well we looked at that the last time when you went over the the facilities yeah okay and then approving the support staff agreement that he talked about in the in the negotiations update so i am going to ask that we um just pass the consent agenda as a whole um can we have someone move to do that i move to uh approve the consent agenda as presented i second athlete ash the lincoln is going to second is there any discussion any questions concerns okay i'm going to call the questions so um all of those in favor of approving the consent agenda as uh as written in the agenda uh please say i and i'm going to call starting lucacha hi negan hi ryan hi chelsea hi ashley hi hannah and myself hi let's see you nana okay and then uh oh you know what i'm realizing that we never never got back to uh oh did we did i don't know if i need a motion to say that we are going to use the july meeting for uh training uh i'm guessing we probably do so that's back sorry i'm i'm going back we i neglected to see that when we moved into the next thing on the because we moved the uh rift discussion above the board training and deciding whether or not we want to use that july meeting can i can i have a motion that we want to use that july meeting i make the motion that we use the july meeting for uh board training i second and hannah is going to second that do we have any discussion on that okay i'm going to call the question then everyone uh in favor of hannah's uh motion that we or wait was it ryan sorry ryan ryan uh motion that we use the july meeting for uh uh board training on on governing policy and i will start with ashley hi chelsea hi ryan hi megan hi hannah hi gotcha hi myself hi and um we'll talk about the specifics of exactly what the training is on the next uh why don't we talk about that at the next board meeting just so we can move along here um and then where are we we are on incidental information those were the superintendent's reports and the principal's reports and the director of the rtcc financial report and other incidental um we have an update on the staff appreciation plan so lane anything that you want to sort of fill us in in regard to your i think the the big piece is uh you know we're in the middle of doing the work on the s or two monies that have come in 1.3 million um that is tied to a recovery plan that the um cabinet has been working on um each wednesday um we're actually we're approaching completion of that um those funds are specifically designed for um us to use our data to identify what deficiencies the kids have that are a direct cause of covid and to fund the implementation of programs and staff that will help address those needs um and so we're well ahead the due date for that's uh june 1st for the completed um recovery plan ours may very well be complete before we break for april um vacation so excellent um and how are we looking financially actually um uh really good uh i was taking a look at the breakdown earlier um there was nothing at all that doubted me as is a concern at this point in time um you know there are some um some of the lines are a little overspent at this point in time but that's because we're still waiting for the reimbursement for the s or 1 funds that'll cover it um but we're in pretty good shape okay well we'll we'll know we'll know about surplus if we have one um probably mid at the may may uh board meeting yep okay any questions for lane from board members okay uh ashley and cacha you were working on on a um plan for um our staff appreciation norah close your ears i say don't we kind of keep this a secret there's a lot of teachers on here i know but can i say that it's um well i would say i'll be thanks so much and and going to be executed flawlessly is my update okay uh awesome okay awesome okay so megan we're on to board evaluation and uh i apologize it's 10 14 uh we are way over time uh yeah so do you really want to know what i wrote uh mogia what were you gonna say well uh i i would say we we we have uh timing issues okay so i gave us a lot of ones um i did give us a five for the meeting being well attended um um honestly it was uh pretty i don't know it was pretty mixed um a lot there's a lot of screens on the second page i gave us a four um for debating um yeah i don't know if you really want to know all this stuff uh three for participation um three for members listening attentively um there was really no side conversations uh because this is remote the participants treating each other with respect and courtesy i did give us a two um work was accomplished i gave us a two um in an atmosphere of trust and openness uh it was a little heated at moments um all actions considered by the board were clearly the board's work i gave us a two uh the board reviews what it had what it has already said in its policy about each specific topic before discussions on that issue i gave us the board here helps the board get its done rather than supervising are we coming involved in staff work i did give us a two um it was kind of just there was so much going on nothing with you and really it was just the meeting itself um and then the board supports the superintendent and a reasonable interpretation of applicable board policies i gave us a two just because if we had that discussion about what to do if we all say no or voted no i should say um and that's my evaluation thank you again that that was a difficult meeting um and we do have an executive session on here um do we feel like it's necessary at least there's a few things we should talk about there's one you want to talk about and this is linda i need to have you stop by tomorrow to sign contracts sure okay thank you um lane what what um for what reason are we going into executive session like we're supposed to be citing the the legal reason why we're moving to two so there are there are three personnel issues um some of which may result in legal action okay so uh in our so what so it's because of uh possible did you get legal counsel from Pietro that we may be in legal jeopardy around something i may not necessarily be us that's in legal jeopardy okay i don't know the the appropriate way to word it may be the ones going after um yeah so do we have a link to our executive session yeah i just emailed it thank you a little while ago okay so we need to move to executive session but i need a motion to move to executive session i move that we move to i move that we exit this meeting and enter executive session to discuss personnel issues i second that okay all those in favor we just raise your hand uh looks like we've got uh majority majority vote so we'll see an executive session would you like me to adjourn the meeting i'll i'll take a motion to adjourn the meeting i make a motion that we adjourn the meeting at 10 34 don't we have to say that we come back in and um that no action was taken during executive session what brian said so you got so with no action taken from executive session i make a motion that we adjourn the meeting at 10 34 because i had so many emails from everybody i couldn't find the meeting link i was like it was there before but i have so many emails from people i apologize so if we turn catch it did you take over because yeah we're working out we're working on it i think brian was going to second that adjourning and then there you go yep all in favor raise your hand meeting adjourned everyone have a good rest of the day take care