 It is 6.03. I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. Ensuring a quorum, one, two, three, yep. Okay. Meeting purpose tonight. Board reorganization and orientation. Yay, welcome to our newest members, Ryan and Emile. It's such a pleasure to have you here. We're going to start with public comment. I do see one member of the public, so I'm going to go ahead and read our general public comment preamble. Okay. The board welcomes comments, but is not able to take any action on them other than to direct the public to the appropriate staff member or to the complaint procedure. Comments are limited to three minutes per speaker. Time may not be seated to another speaker. Comments are to be addressed to me, the board chair, or to the board as a whole, not to any individual on the board, on the staff, or in the public. Please raise your hand, either in person or electronically, and wait to speak until you are called on. Please identify yourself with your first and last name and your town of residence. Please refrain from restating comments that have already been shared. You can certainly express your agreements with past comments. Order and decorum shall be observed by everyone. Shouting and profanity are prohibited. As the board chair, I will maintain the order and decorum of the meeting. With that, I'll open the floor for any public comment. Unsurprisingly, we're a small group tonight. Small but mighty. Hearing none, I'm going to go ahead and move on. I've welcomed them, but I haven't officially introduced them. So if both of you each would like to introduce yourself and then if we can go around with all the other board members and say who you are and what town you represent, that would be lovely. I'm Ryan Anderson from Brookfield. Sam Hooper, Brookfield. Let's do everyone, yeah. I'm Kyle Southworth. Heather Lawler, I'm the assistant superintendent. Lane Millington, superintendent. Hannah Arias Randolph. Rachel Gatiss, brain tree. Yay, and who do we not have with us? Katja. Yay! Oh, good. That's an entrance right there. How about that timing? Yeah, that was pretty impressive. We just did a, no, we just did a round. This is Katja Evans from Brain Tree. You're perfect. Our most consistent. No, I'm just kidding. All right, so the time has come for the biggest purpose of this meeting, which is reorganizing. And any discussion that needs to happen therein. So I'll go on with running at least this first part of the meeting and then depending on what happens, it may be handed over to someone else. The first seat to be nominated, seconded, and then voted on is chair, currently myself. So are there any nominations seconded by Rachel? I think so. Are there other nominations? Do I take other nominations? Yes, please. Other nominations. Do you accept the nomination? I do accept the nomination with thanks and appreciation. So then all in favor of... Discussion? Oh, please discuss. I'm sorry, this is awkward while I'm making it awkward. Discussion. I think you've done a nice job over the last year. Continuity is important. Thank you. Further discussion? Okay, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions. Okay, thank you very much. Moving on, vice chair, this is a currently vacant position. I will hear for any nominees. I call for nominees. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. That was Sam. Other nominees? Is anybody else interested? It's a party and a hair? Everybody's quiet. Don't make eye contact. All right, discussion. And do you accept the nomination? Thank you. Welcome. Discussion. Let's get that part this time. Ann recently attended a workshop where I was there too about orientation and orienting board members. And it was really nice to see you there. You made me feel welcome, so thank you for that. I think that this is appropriate. Okay. All those in favor? Ann Kaplan, vice chair, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions. Great, congratulations. Okay, clerk, currently happily held by Sam Hooper. Do I have any nominations? I nominate Ryan Anderson. Is there a second? What are the duties of the clerk? Please tell me the duties of the clerk. Sure, so the clerk takes minutes in, well we don't take minutes of inside executive session, but once we exit executive session, usually Kyle doesn't come to that session and often can leave, so then the clerk would take minutes following that, any actions we take coming out of the executive session. And it's like a very simple form. Yes, it's a very simple form. Kyle gives you the form and she takes the minutes for the regular meeting. So it's really only for when we have an executive session. And in the absence of Kyle, you would take minutes for the, the clerk would take minutes for the entire meeting. I understand. And I will say it is quite minimal and I will continue to do it if you don't want to do it. The thing that I'm bad at is sending the executive session minutes into Kyle post meeting. We're going to make it on. Is this your form of tasing me? Yeah. All right. I accept this. No, we don't. We don't. Do you accept the nomination? I accept the nomination. Okay. Any discussion to be had? Or for their nominations? None being heard. All those in favor of Ryan Anderson serving as our clerk for a year. And then we have elections again. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you very much. Let's go back to yourstadt. Thank you. Sam will mentor you. Thank you. Yes, I will look forward to your guidance and leadership. Scheduled for regular meetings. So right now they're the second Wednesday, of every month, at 6 o'clock, and there's, of course, rotating locations for all of the meetings. Would anyone like the board to entertain a different day and or time by Sarah for their discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions. Passes unanimously. We need to assign a member to sign official documents in the absence of the chair. It's currently vacant. It was filled by the former vice chair Chelsea Sprague. Do I have a nomination? No way, but I can work with him. I'll be here in May. Seconded by Ryan. Further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions. Great unanimously passes. Thank you, Ann. RTCC representatives currently Sam and Sarah. I guess I'll start with our either or both of you interested in continuing to serve in that position. Still beyond the board? So I'll just just say the RTCC advisory committee meets once a quarter, correct? It ends up being like every other month. Oh, so more often than I thought. Well, it's less often than this board meeting. And it's an hour before this board meeting in that same location. So it's basically an elongated night. So instead of nominations, I'll just put out there. Is anyone interested? Really dying to What have you guys been doing on that board? A lot of the discussion we've had lately is in regards to enrollment, I would say. Would you agree with that, Sam? And new programming? Yes. And a lot of that, I guess, is going to be determined on if we go move forward with a new building in the future. So there's the occasional approval of vehicles and necessities for the program. Yeah. Were the other representatives who sit on that board, other groups? Is there anyone else coming to the other schools? So they're sending schools? Yes, that's we recently have from He's come to one meeting. And there was a woman who was coming for quite a while. I want to say Her name begins with an A, but it's not a common name. Anybody help me on this one? No one knows it? Okay, hold on. I'll pull up the numbers. Should be on the minutes. So that was a discussion of bringing some of the sending schools in? They're supposed to. They're supposed to. It's getting them to attend. Right. Remind us what the whole of that, because it's sort of an advisory board. It's an advisory board, but this board is not really supposed to act on too much unless you've considered their recommendation. So you make the official vote on what happens at RTCC as the OSSD board, but they are supposed to make recommendations. And again, your job, their advisory, so your job is to consider the recommendation, but it doesn't mean that you have to always follow it. I would, and I just say the value to me from my perspective of sitting on that board is just having a more closer, just having a closer relationship with what's going on at RTCC. Looks like I need the RUHS for things. Yeah. I'll second. Further discussion? Great. All those in favor of the two nominees, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions. Great. Thank you both. Appreciate the extra time commitment. Point Teacher Contract Negotiations Committee. Aha. Yes, this is certainly, this is currently myself and two vacancies. Megan and Chelsea were the other two board members serving on that committee. So these are the professional staff, the teachers, the negotiations committee, which in a year with negotiations, which we are coming into, can be a time commitment depends on how they go, quite frankly. The superintendent is there with us along with Council, Pietro Lin. There are meetings with the union. We have, you know, we split off, we talk amongst ourselves. We also have separate meetings, just the committee if there are items to consider just the committee. It's interesting. It's challenging. And I'm happy to serve on that committee again unless there are three others that are yearning and burning. Is anyone interested? Great. If you'll have me. If you check the sheet from our support staff. Great. Thank you, Emil. Anyone else want to battle it out? It's a fun time. I move to appoint Hannah, Emil, and Sarah to the Teacher Contract Negotiating Committee. Thank you. Do I have a second? One second. And seconds. Further discussion? All those in favor, please say I and raise your hand. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions. Passes unanimously. Support staff contract negotiation committee currently and Sarah and Katya. This one is very similar just with kind of a different group of people. It's the support staff. I'll first ask the sitting members if you are interested in continuing to serve on this committee. I'll stay. Are we negotiating this year? We are. October. It feels like we just finished. The teachers and support staff as well. Okay. All right. Yeah, I'll stay. Sarah, that would be a really big commitment for you to serve on both. Yes. So I am giving up the support staff position. Okay. So that's two vacancies if there are people who are interested in serving. I can step into that. Great. Ryan, thank you. Rachel is looking really interested. I was just noticing the town breakdown that we've got all Randolph people on the teacher contract. Oh, good eye. I guess that matter. Probably not. That's an interesting observation. I wish it had come up during this question. Well, I didn't think of it. Does that cause concern for everyone? It's an interesting thing to note. No? Okay. Then Sam will put you on the hot seat. Just my curiosity. What was the breakdown of it last year? Let's see. It was for Chelsea. Representative. Chelsea was. So two Randolph and a Brookfield. Okay. I mean, I don't have a problem with it. And the support staff was two Randolph and a Brookfield. Which wasn't by design, but interesting. Yeah. So we have Ryan, Katja. Sam, you want to arm wrestle this one? And. You want to go to the XCCC ones and I'll take this one? No. I can't get here at five. I struggle to get here at six sometimes, so I guess I'll take this one. Gosh, just laughing. Yes. I'll do this. Great. I move that the support staff negotiation committee, contract negotiation committee consists of Rachel, Ryan, and Katja. I'll second. Seconded by Sarah. Further discussion? All those in favor, raise your hands. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions. Thank you. Passes unanimously. Thank you, the three of you. Sorry, I forgot my glasses. Review of board expectations, rules, and orientation. Oh, this is me. I see you both have your Finders, which were put together, I believe, by you and Chelsea. Oh boy. I don't want to take this one on my own, you guys. So any time you are a great trainer, I guess I'll start there. I find, not to them, everyone, absolutely. Ongoing process of learning how this works. Referring back to the policies as often as you can, although I will say for me, along with learning from the written word, every single meeting ends up being teaching a learning moment for me, even right down to the policies. So I would encourage new members and also current members or continuing members to rely on each other, to ask questions, to call each other out as it were, to challenge each other. Because we're all learning every day. Even a trainer coming in about policy governance, that person sitting in with our group, it would be, I think, a learning experience for them as well. Because there are rules we can abide by, or still a group of humans, you know, with our own personal rules going on. We are a policy governance board. Again, constantly a learning process to figure out what that means. We are governed by our policies. I think of it visually, we're up here. We see things umbrella-style. That's the position from which we gather, you know, by which we oversee the district. You're doing great, Hannah, you're doing great. Our connection to the district is through the superintendent. The superintendent provides us with information. We challenge that information. We accept that information. We delve into that information. We ask for information, and he or she in that position provides it to us. Executive limitations are the, yep, stop. We've lost, I think, camera here for online. And I think it's that cord right there, and I didn't want to do this way. That should start right back up when it plugs in. Yep, that one. Oh, the... Come on, you can do this. Talk about putting on the spot. He needs his reading glasses, too. Yeah, look, there's one pair between the two of us. All the fun he's going to have in front of us. Click what? The audio. Well, but it's the owl that does the video and the audio. Right, the camera on the computer, not the owl. Michael, can you hear us? Well, but that would be the microphone on the computer. Same with the camera. It's that microphone we need going, which I can certainly do as a backup. Sorry. Good catch. Okay. Hi. Sorry. No, no, no. Oh, gosh, in case that's a conflict for any of you, if any of you have a senior or someone in your family that just wanted to let you know. Or I think it would just be nice for board members to attend. So, yeah, thank you. So that's Brooke. It's scheduled at Brookfield Elementary on the same night, so possibly you might want to... I know you already approved the calendar. I'm sorry I didn't tell you at that time, but you may want to modify the calendar for June. I was only looking for Valentine's Day, I'm not just here. Oh, right. So the mic is there now for the owl. Everything's back. It is back through the owl. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Todd. Thank you, Lane, for going to get him. Yeah. No, no, no, I think we're good. We're good. All right, sorry about that. Thank you. Okay. So I totally derailed us there. No, it's fine. No, no, we're at executive limitations. Yeah. What's that? We're at executive limitations. At executive limitations, which are the standards to which we hold the superintendent. We are provided with reports on each executive limitation each meeting, and we have a first read. We don't vote to accept or not accept. The superintendent provides his or her interpretation of that executive limitation. Evidence that is not only available when that report is provided to us in meeting materials, but it is always available at the central office. I'm going to say that again. Things are available at the central office. I think it's important, I'm going to remind myself and in turn remind all of you that what we do is not confined to once a month from six to, it's not confined to the work we do here. There's work out there going in and reading the evidence, so we really understand it. Reading through it beforehand, being prepared for the second read, and hopefully a vote to accept. Or if we don't, it's either we're asking for more evidence, a further interpretation, or it means we need to look at that executive limitation and figure out if that's what we're really asking for. It may be that we need to accept an interpretation and a report of compliance, because it's been interpreted reasonably. But if we're not getting the information we want, that's the fault of the executive limitation, and that is our responsibility to make sure that it's written in such a way that we are getting the information that we want and need. Trainings. To understand all of this stuff and the language that we use, like ends and executive limitations and any policy governance term, the VSBA, the Vermont School Board Association, has what are they called webinars all the time on different topics. You can watch them at any time, they go back years. And I find that they do it in a way that is really accessible. And being able to choose when I do those trainings and how fast I'm receiving the information, I find it really helpful. So I encourage those. You to look into them and see what information. Biggest thing about the way this board, biggest things, a few, and please add on to these. We speak as one voice. Doesn't mean we all agree all the time, certainly, and I would hope not. But in terms of that which we put out to the public, our votes, our policies, we are one board. When we go out to the public, and they were in the public, because we are sometimes, and someone comes up and asks what we think about a particular topic, they are, this is tricky, it's a small town, happens all the time, right? But it's important to keep in mind that the board is an entity that you are a piece of. But you may not speak on behalf of the board in your own personal voice or opinion. Is that a fair way of putting it? Ann is a wonderful resource PS. You'll find me looking to her often when I start talking about policies kind of with a long kind of face. She's a great resource. She has a lot of experience in the policy governance model. And attends trainings often, which I really respect. Speaking of which, you are all currently enrolled and invited to look at everything that's in this current policy governance training that the BSBA is doing. So there's a shared folder. Everyone should have gotten an email. If you're having trouble accessing it, let me know. I think you've accessed it. So if you're having trouble accessing it, it should be there. It's in a shared folder says policy governance on it. And there are also the, we've had two sessions, one in person that was four hours or so, and they did record that. So if you want to go back and look at that recording and then they just recorded the one that Ryan just attended. For the new board members, what they said was they can listen, but they were like, just let them know that if they have a lot of sort of basic general questions to go to a board member rather than piping up in the training, because it's supposed to be for board members who are already sort of using policy governance. But I think attending the training is worthwhile, even if you're just getting started with it. And you all, everyone has on the board also the getting started book that sort of gives you kind of an overview of, well, maybe you don't have it. Yeah. Yeah, so. They'll be coming from the VSBA next week. No, that's the essential work of the board. I believe we have the policy governance model, the essential work, and Robert's. Yeah, it's like a textbook. So the other two board members, I'll, I'll, that was all that got returned. Okay. We'll work on it. Yeah. Because with a board bought a copy for all board members and it's sort of, it's part of the OSUD's materials, so it, like the computer, it should have been returned. So I'll, I'll connect with you. And I don't know that that was clear when they were handed out. Oh. So if that was the intent, I don't think that was made clear. And that's fine. That might be why it wasn't returned. Yeah. Well, I'm sure I don't think they're reading it for years for a time. So I can follow up with, with Kyle and just make sure they get, get to you folks. Because that gives you an overview of how it all works also. So that would be helpful, I think, just sort of understanding our system. And then just reading through our, I mean, reading through the policies, you'll notice that they're very, prescriptive, especially the ELs. What's less so are the ends, and this board has been working on sort of further developing the ends. So that will be a project that we'll probably pursue a little bit more with Michael and building off of the porch of a graduate that we completed last year that Heather was pretty heavily involved in. I'm sorry, can you clear me? The porch of a graduate? It's a portrait of a graduate. Of the porch of a graduate. Yeah. So maybe Heather, you could send that, those materials to both Ryan and... How do I see your name? I'm sorry. It's like Amelia, but no A on the end. And you can ask me 55 more times, and that's okay. It's like the French, Aimee. It is, but it's Ailey. Oh, okay. Yeah, that might be really helpful for them to see, because we did that porch of a graduate with the idea of trying to one, reach out to the public again, because it had been a very long time since we had looked at our ends and really looked at what is it that we want to have students be able to do by the time they finish in our K-12 system. So this is a summary of the goal of... Yeah, it's a little bit more specific and a little less, it's not written in N's language. So that was one of the things that we were working on was, sort of, and it's much, it has many more goals and then sub-goals, would you say? As compared to the ones, the ends that are in here now that you'll find, but there is a committee that's working on using the porch of a graduate to perhaps further develop our ends because they're very broad. I've just shared the folder with you with all of the materials and so you can access the seven pillars in the description of them. We're also using these icons as part of our public relations. So when you say we put up a picture of students doing a community service project, we'll do the hashtag caring community member and use the icon that goes along with that. We have a lot more work to do with promoting this and branding it and really we should be tying our professional development plan to this and we should be tying our strategic plan to this. Like this should be referenced often. Like we're doing this because it gets us where the community wants our students to be by the time they graduate. So I've shared this folder with you and there's a lot of different materials in it and you can access those and use them as you work toward sort of like making the ends more robust. Got it. Thank you. My pleasure. Along with, I said the speaking in one voice as being a big thing to keep in mind, open meeting laws are also something you really want to familiarize yourself with. All of us to be reminded about open meeting laws, especially keep this in mind when emailing, emailing a reply all to an email sent to the entire board constitutes a meeting. So if you have a response to send to the sender do not reply all. Just reply to that person. Unless you're doing scheduling. If you're scheduling a meeting, that's different. But if it's anything with any board content, board work, you want to stay away from responding to everybody. Pretty allergic to replying all anyways. Good. So scary thing. It's a scary, scary thing. So many big corporate settings where you've gotten into the vortex of hey, don't reply all. Yeah. Yeah. Times 1000. It's just, it's the biggest thing is that we are a public body and our work is public. So any business of the board needs to be public unless there is something that we take into executive sessions and there are very strict rules about what we can take into executive session. Personnel being one of them. Contractural issues being another student issues being another things that would compromise someone's privacy. Can go into executive session. If there are more than other board members. So there are cliff notes on open meeting law and the very back of your binder. Do you want to laminate it? And we did get the laminated Did you get that one? Through the BSBA. From the BSBA. And we're missing one. Instead of socks this year. So I'm on that. I mean, it's been a couple of years. Yeah. So that might be another thing that will because I think that got sent out to board members. Yeah, during board appreciation. Right. Right. So, Emil, we're not getting one for you. But the sort of the abbreviated version through the Vermont League of Cities and Towns is at the very back. Yeah. That's a great website in general as a resource that you questions about. So it gives you some information. So as I said, this is an ongoing. We self evaluate every meeting. On a particular board policy. Just do homework as your life allows. Ask questions while we're in board meetings. I think that's actually really important because I don't know about you guys. But before I joined the board, I had no idea what policy governance was. And I think that's the case for many people who haven't served on a policy governance board before. So I think it's important that we have these learning moments in public so that we're not the only ones learning how it works. That being said, I'm going to go ahead and move on. I do really try to keep to time, but I'm bad at it. Just one more thing before we get to Melinda. Election tallying. Rachel, you had asked that this be added to the agenda. Yes. I'm curious. Who is in charge of school district and board elections? What's that? Your clerk. Clerk, Linda. Linda. So Linda prints our... She arranges prints. She prints our ballots. And then who tallies our ballots? Usually Linda. So Linda's been telling the ballots with volunteer help that has over the last two years strictly brain tree people. So typically the town clerks of each of the three towns are responsible for finding people to support and be there because the three towns have to bring their ballots to that central location. But as you said, the last few years people bring the ballots from the towns and then they don't have volunteers to help or stay. So we were there till 1 a.m., close to 1 a.m. On Tuesday night. The second thing is we're also using the tabulators in the towns. So we had to wait until I think it was 9.30 before the tabulator machine was ready for us because obviously Randolph was using it for their tabulation. So one of the things that I would propose to the district would be as we have annual elections and our elections annual, we do have annual elections and annual voting on the school budget is for the district to consider purchasing a tabulator that they own for the purpose of tabulating votes each year. And that way that group of people who are coming together to support doing that process on Tuesday evenings can actually just get started when ballots close and not have to wait for the other town machines to be available. And the only towns that have it are Braintree and Randolph Brookfield does not have a tabulator. And the other thing is it was a lot of just having to like, again, things that were very manual because we had to like open up each vote from some of the towns because some towns fold them to put them in their slot, then some machine or into their box that they hold them in. So it was a lot of like having to make sure that pages would actually be able to go into the tabulator. So it was a pretty long process for four of us who stayed there till 1 a.m. to do that. And we had fun, which was nice, but but it was just a lot. So my recommendation is that the district purchased its tabulator. Do you know what kind of investment that would be? Six to seven thousand dollars. Yeah, I think that was okay. I heard seven thousand dollars. Yeah. But we do have a, we do do this every year. You know, it's not like it's a one-time thing. And we did learn that I think that they only, they don't bring them out on some off years. When like this was a big year because we had the presidential primary. But I think we heard that in some years they're not actually the towns don't bring their their tabulators out. So is this happening in range? So I'm going to bring them to Randolph because he's the Randolph machine. So and we have to commingle all of the so we actually had to wait. Brookfield was delayed. So we had to first wait for them and then we had to get all their ballots. And then like I said, we had to wait almost two and a half hours because we got there right around 7.15 and then we weren't able to start using the machine till 9.30. And then I slept to our election officials as I was going through and I said, Hey, last year that our clerk was stuck staying really late. Are you guys going to be helping? Oh, yeah, yeah, we're going to help out. Sure. Well, we did have some. So that's interesting. We did have some. I mean, I'm interested to hear this. I mean, we have no memory was there. Okay. But the thing is, is that the machine itself is slow. You can't, you have to be feeding in one ballot at a time. The older machine that they had was a faster feed, but it would also miss feeds. So you'd have to like stop. And so it was always a process. This one is very accurate, but you have to like, you feed him an end, you wait for the arrow. You wait, beep, you feed another one in. So starting that process two and a half hours after we actually could have started it had we had a machine available, we would have been done at 11 rather than one. How long does an entity usually keep a tabulating machine? Wait, what's the lifespan? What's the lifespan of it? Yeah. I have no idea. No, I think these are relatively, I think the towns are relatively recently adopted. I know we used to hand count the brain tree until just a few years ago. What happened to their old one? They never had one. No, or Randolph's old one. The one that miss fed. When they got the new ones. And then I have one. So just thinking about it, it is an investment, but again, it's something that we would be using annually. And in a year like this year, we had a lot of votes, obviously, because there was a significant turnout. How, what's the total vote number? It's about 1500. I was going to say, I think it was like up to close to 16, over 15, yeah. Because we were watching that little number keep cropping up. Yeah, but we're like, oh, we only have two and a half hours of this. So. Yeah. Who would authorize that purchase? Would it be a vote to the public? Or is it something that the school board doesn't do? I think it would be asking that. So you got, there's two ways to do it, is if you want to vote to see if there's surplus money at the end of the year, it could come out of that. There is the operational reserve fund, so you could vote to have it come out of there as well. What I would do is I would make a motion to vote for it to come out of surplus. If it's available, if not, then allowing us to take it from surplus. Operational surplus. Operational surplus, yeah. And we can't pull it out of, because the funds for the school board, those are marked for professional training. Your training. Training. Yeah. The other activities. So it would belong to the district. Then we could rent it out to the town so it don't have it. Because we used to, we rented it for a couple of years. Well, we can't vote because they need it. They would need it. But we don't have a school board, we don't have a school board election in November. Berkfield doesn't have a tabulator. I mean, it's worth exploring. It's worth continuing conversation around it. I think the alternative, an alternative is that we don't tally our votes that night. That the school board, school district elections wait until there's, wait until Wednesday during the day. And so people don't get results until Wednesday. Is there a state law that governs when we have to? I'd have to check. I do know that there were probably 10 or 11 districts that didn't have their votes the next day because they were still waiting for it to come in from their satellite towns. So some of them, it took three days. So I'm assuming it's, you know, the count gets done when you get it done, but I can check with Pietro. Yeah. If we're able to wait and say not long of the ideal. Then my other, the other consideration, I think is that we're using the Randolph tabulator for the district's purposes. And that is on Randolph. So is there wear and tear on their machine that, that they want to consider, that, that they would want to consider? Do we pay? They don't say anything. Does the school district pay the town of Randolph to use the tabulator? Is there a rent order or anything like that? We were, I wonder if it was before they had, we had a couple of years that we rented just to speed up the process. So let me check. Thank you. Sure. Yeah. Well, that would be the other things. It could be an incentive to purchase one. So I feel like this has been an issue for a couple of years. So I don't want to say like, let's just keep thinking about this and look into this. I feel like this needs to be resolved in some sense. Like, how are we going to tally our ballots? Well, let's find out what the odds are. We have them every year. So this is not something that we can resolve right now. Can we please put this on the agenda for next month again? Can we? I think it's worth if we're going to vote on something. I would rather it be next agenda rather than this just so we could maybe have some numbers in front of us. You know, $6,000 to $7,000 if we can have a couple of options. I don't know. So shall we make a motion to have plain research the possibilities of what makes sense? Yeah, options for the district. And maybe Linda has. Yeah, I'm happy to look it up anyway. Some suggestions also since the last one. I have a motion on the table. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Ryan. Further discussion? All those in favor, raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Passes unanimously. Thank you, Lane. Okay. Melinda, you're up. Randolph Elementary School. Melinda Robinson, principal. I don't know if you guys have to accept it. I thought it was sharing. It's showing that I'm lying that it's sharing. Oh, God. Do I add her as co-host or something? No, she should just be able to do it. You can add it or as co-host if it matters, but she should just show up. It's a, sorry, an error. It's occurred when screen sharing. Melinda, do we log out? No, you're a co-host. Okay. Or log out, log back in. Do I have to log out? Just reset stuff. Okay. I don't know if the disconnection would, if not, Todd's still here. Oops, I'm sorry. That's hers. So you need to, you need to turn to your key. There we go. Sorry. Good job. Okay. All right. Sorry about that. All right. Thank you for having me here. It's great to be able to come and chat with you all about what's happening at Randolph Elementary. Last time we were here, we were really chatting a lot about behavior struggles that we've been having and some pieces that we were putting into place to try to help with some of the things in the building that would support helping with that behavior struggle. So we had an action plan that Lane helped us put together and we have been working on that action plan for the last three months. We had stepped aside, stepped away from some of our professional learning community time, our PLC time, and the entire staff at Randolph Elementary, including some of our parents, helped on different committees. We talked about what we feel was the major needs based on that action plan and the staff really dove into helping to make some solutions to the problem that we had. We had these different committees. We reviewed our policy for restraint and seclusion. That was one thing that we did as a whole staff. We reworked our behavior expectations for major and minor behaviors and really clearly laid that out. And we'd had this in the past, but we had made it more clear. We relaunched our PBIS focus across the school and PBIS's positive behavior intervention system is what that is. We considered alternative spaces for students in need. We started a student mentoring protocol for our older students to mentor our youngers. We solidified the practices for sharing information on student needs and plans. And we created a process for reflective practice within the staff. So I thought I'd just unpack some of that for you. The restraints and seclusions. This was one thing that really drove us wanting to dive into this action plan. It's from the beginning of the year through January 4th, we had 35, what are considered 4,500, those restraints and seclusions. And we knew that that was too high and we needed to figure out how we could find alternatives other than restraints and seclusions to help with some of our behavior issues. So since then, we've adjusted some practices around our reset room that helped to, I think reset in all of our minds how we can regulate behaviors in a different way. We received two half-day trainings for all staff on regulation. We had many discussions around approaching students' needs in a proactive way. And this committee work that we did, I think, also made a big difference on this. We've only had 8,400 since January 4th and only three since our last training that happened in February. We debrief after each needed restrain or seclusion and I think we've grown in our practice around that. We did a big reboot of our PBIS focus here in the building. All of our 5th and 6th graders got together and created skits and led the discussion on what should be the positive behavior in each section of our building, from the classroom to the hallway to the cafeteria to everything that you can think of. And then we had in early February, our students did stations throughout the buildings where our 5th and 6th graders were leading the students in that station. Did you touch the A? Yeah, I touched the A. Cancel. Cancel. And it was just fun to see the big kids taking the lead on that and I think they were pretty proud of that and it's made a difference. It helped to really re-establish what our expectations were across the building. This was that major minor revisit that we did. It's really a flow chart from if for minor behaviors we really clearly defined again what minor behaviors were, what would happen in the classroom, who was responsible for each of those pieces. And then we clearly defined what was a major behavior and went through the protocols and the flow chart of how we would handle those major behaviors. It was very informative for that committee and then they shared it out with the whole staff. So it was great work from that committee. We had a committee that worked on mentoring, decided that they'd like to see some of our elders really serving as mentors for our younger students in areas where they might need some help regulating. So for example we have reading buddies for some students that were struggling with just staying focused and staying on task during their reading time. We have established some reading buddies, social emotional games and modeling to just really teach, help to teach our younger students how it is to play a game, how it is to take turns and share. We have lunch and recess buddies, we have pack up at the end of the day, help, we have breakfast together in the morning, run walk partners. It's been really fun and we have a great protocol now for the youngers to really put out a plea to the fifth and sixth grade teachers. They set up with their kids who's going to be the mentors and they have the process in place. Right now we have, I think 12 fifth and sixth graders that are serving as mentors and many that would like to, so we're still working through that. Reflective practice was another piece that one committee decided they really wanted to look at and that is really helping some of our staff who might be having stress after, like stress comes with this profession. It comes with having our students sometimes meeting more regulation than others and this is a process that we're putting into place to have really mentors within on the staff that will help to be a sounding board for a staff member who might be feeling stressed might be just needing some support on how to manage a situation and to support the staff in really building a relationship with the students and with the rest of the staff it really is building that community feel of you. It's, you're not alone in this stressful moment. You have a group around you that can help you with that. That was really, are there any questions on there where we went with the action plan? Because I'm moving on to other things now I just wondered if you have any questions from the last time I was here and want more on that. I'll go on to the fun stuff. Our PTO has been really engaged for the last two years. We started at the beginning of last year and they have just been amazing. They, we do an event almost every single month for the family to invite people into the outside or do something that supports, they do something that supports our school in some way. For example, tonight we have March Madness where we invited the varsity players in to play with our kids in the gym. And it's, they've been very, very well attended. Our mini golf night had like probably 130 people here. Many, many families came and we've been doing things almost every single month. And it's fun. We've had a couple of movie nights with over 70 people at each one and they've been fun. Our upcoming event so we're having an April Raffle event which is helping to fund. The PTO really wanted to be able to help fund our Teacher Appreciation Week which is our next big thing that we'll be doing. May 3rd we're going to be doing our first ever dance party at RES and we'll be pulling raffle winners at that time. The week of May 6th the PTO is going to be working diligently on our Teacher Appreciation Week which really is an appreciation for all the staff. It's not just for our professional teachers it's the entire staff in the building. And then June 14th they're planning on helping with our field day support. I need some thoughts from you. Since we last met we had been talking about our rebranding for our mascot. We, you all agreed that we could have wizards as still one of the votes that the students would be able to vote on. It was an overwhelming vote two to one to keep wizards as our mascot. And since then we've had a our enrichment art group are trying to help build a logo for our, to like rebrand our logo for wizards. And we really have focused on the idea that wizards is not about the magical piece but it's more about that definition that you helped us think about. And I think when we were here last time focusing on that definition of wizards as an expert at what they do and really focusing on how to become an expert you have to work hard you have to study hard you have to do all you can to be the best at what you can do. The committee of students has come up with three thoughts for the logo. They still really wanted to keep the hat but they were trying to re-image the hat so that it looked more cartoon-like and more of a like more of a Walt Disney type hat but they wanted to have they had many different iterations but they finally came up with three final possible pieces where it would be that cartoon wizard hat on top of books that idea that we're trying to become wizards and learning in our learning. So what we would like to know from you is if you feel comfortable with us continuing with the wizard hat piece of the logo or if you would like them to completely step away from that wizard hat idea. And for the information for those new board members one of the concerns around the wizard mascot was that wizard hat that it could bring up the image of the Ku Klux Klan grand wizards and the there's some imagery that shows grand wizards with a hat that looked somewhat like our wizard hat. So well it's a pointed hat. Yeah it's a pointed hat. Yeah. So that's what I would love to know from you all is if you feel comfortable with us carrying forward with the icon with a hat in this way. Do we discuss now? I mean that's that's part of you bringing it to our attention right but discussed in your thoughts. It strikes me that this the illustration especially the one in the upper right really embodies that that fantasy archetype of a wizard very well. I don't think that it's reasonable to mistake that for anything problematic. It looks like an arcane wizard hat to me with that really embodies everything you discussed of you know encapsulating the knowledge and delving deep into expertise. I would have a very hard time finding something inappropriate with that and personally I love it. I think it's it's charming and I think when I walked in today and I saw them the wizard iconography on the hanging up I thought it was really fun and I think that's a great mascot. Any other concerns or thoughts? No concerns. I mean I think it's great that the kids are so enthused and engaged with this so I personally would hate to do anything to derail that enthusiasm moving forward. And they're feeling kind of so they're really owning this and I appreciate that. Are you still hearing feedback from your school community about feeling marginalized or threatened by any of the we have it at all. I never personally have it all. Even prior to us thinking about rebranding. I don't have an issue with any of these. I do want to acknowledge that I think it was a really great process to go through. I think especially for adults being kind of forced or being asked to recognize that imagery however far off one may think it is like oh I never thought of that someone might. So I think I'm all about learning moments tonight but I think it's a really good one. I think along with someone in a hood riding a horse it's important that people acknowledge and recognize and hear that can have an effect on people and to see what can be done to fix it. Like the curl at the top and also the fact that the name of the school is also a Ben I think really helps. Everything's very rounded which I think really works against what the problem was with. Thank you. The other shape of it. It looks like our PTO is bringing you food. Thank you so much. That's lovely. Wow thank you. I'd like to speak briefly to the policy for non-discriminatory mascots and school branding. I like the image personally and I want to ask you acknowledge them before they oh yeah yeah yeah yeah. Thank you. Thank you. For all that you do not just the sweets. Okay. It's very clear that the likeness feature symbol traditions it shouldn't be connected at all to gender or to a certain type of person. So I want to ask with this will there ever be another image of an old white man wearing that hat in the school or is that now that hats for any child's wear. That would be for anyone and we've taken out the image we had heard that we are taking out the imagery of any people involved in it. Perfect yeah. Perfect because I think that if that becomes a symbol that any child feels they could they could own then I think we're compliant but if we keep seeing like the adult man sure absolutely. Elderly man wearing that hat if it's not. Yeah and I think we want to make sure it's gender neutral. Yes it's much as we that thank you. Anybody can be a wizard. It's not there's no gender involved in that. Perfect. Thank you. Thanks. If there is no concern then what the next step would be is the the leader the student leadership committee will actually be putting it out for a vote on the three icons for them to vote on. And then we'll move forward from there. We're excited about it. So I did want to give you just a little bit of an update on our progress for our academic progress. We do our track my progress test three times a year and on that we have the colors that you'll see on here. You'll see some yellows. You'll see some blues. You'll see greens and you'll might even see reds. Let's hope not. The blues and greens blue is on grade level the expectation green is above grade level. You've got yellow that's close to grade level and red would be below. And these are our percentile scores from fall and winter for the last round of testing that we have and this is you're seeing math. So at this point all but our fourth and sixth grade are listed as on grade level for our percentile score for math. So I don't think any guesses has to to what's going on with that. I'm not sure because actually the funny thing is is our fourth grade which were last year's third grade were extremely high scoring on our cognitive test. So I'm not sure why there was that that's dip in fourth grade sixth grade is an interesting year. It's a brand new set of domains that they use. They are looking at some things that they've never looked at in math before. When you hit sixth grade it's a new set. Yeah it's it's a interesting new set. Would you say that's the same with fourth grade too? Does fourth grade no it's a very much third grade fourth grade builds so clearly on to third grade. They're just so I'm not sure what was happening with the third the fourth grade it was unusual very unusual. Our ELA is one area that you'll see we're yellow in most of our grades except for grade three. It is something that we are working as a whole school on and interestingly enough across the OSSD other schools have sometimes struggled with the math and they've been doing really well with reading. Historically for the last few years we flipped it seems like the reading is more of a struggle for us than math and I'm not sure why that is. We've worked really hard on the science of reading to get the the word study time the really looking at breaking apart words and thinking through it but somehow it's not making the connection that we're hoping to make. So it's something that it's going to be a major focus for us in the upcoming year is to really hone in on what is it that we need to do for reading to make that a priority in our school. Yeah it's it's funny because the literacy piece is a problem across the state right now. Interesting. So they're in the legislative session that's happening they're actually starting to put in some ground rules and get some ideas that'll be rolled out statewide probably next year. Yeah and I think it's something that you just need to work on. Yeah. Yeah. Forgive me is this percentile score for the state? It is for it is a norm referenced across anybody who's ever taken this track my progress and it's taken largely across Vermont but it's in other states as well. Thank you. Yeah. So sorry what did you say blue and green was? Blue and green blue is above grade level I'm sorry blue is at average grade level green is above grade level yellow is nearing proficiency but not not at grade level nearing proficiency and then red would be below well below proficiency. Okay. So and it's an interesting task because it gets harder each time they take it across the verse of the year. Yeah. Because they expect them to have learned more halfway through the year and then by by default. Lynn's going to pick on me here because of my eyes but so is that blue or is that green? That one is a it's blue so that's a I don't think we had any that were green that would be meaning that that grade level was scoring well above proficiency. And the previous page those were those were all blue actually I'm sorry second grade I think is a green. Is it blue? Okay. Thank you. This is an interesting one. Leave that up there for a second. What's that? Take a look at where the blues jumped in right. They're in the earlier grades. What program did we build over the last preschool? There you go. Yeah. It's made of it's makes a huge difference. Yeah. Yeah. I can get those two if you want I can email them to you so you can see them better. I'm not even trying. I'm just having this good joke that my eyes are going faster. What was that preschool program implemented? Depending upon which building you were at. I think it was two years before COVID. I think it's been in place for about five years now depending upon the school. And so one of the there were a couple of reasons for it. One of them was the kids were coming in kindergarten in first grade without a lot of the preacademic skills that you would expect them to have typically from the home being able to count to 10 being able to reset the alphabet as well as the social skills. And so the preschool that we've built they've slowly been doing more and more work on the academic side of things to make sure that the kids are repaired. And so kind of what you're seeing across there is that's the extent of where the preschool kids have gotten in the time since we built the program. Immediate results. Yeah. Fantastic. And it's getting them to a good start. The other thing that it does is we were having a lot of students with speech issues. It's yes. And so this was allowing us to identify them early and start to actually doing work to resolve those issues before you know they got in the later grades and then it's much more difficult because speech is an acquired skill over time. And if you've acquired it improperly and you're reinforcing it and reinforcing it and reinforcing it in later grades it's very hard to fix in reverse. It's an exciting time a year to sit in on all of the IEP meetings because there's so many right now where the kids that were identified as speech and language impaired are getting by like first and second grade are no longer meeting it that they are testing out and it's only because of that early intervention that's happening in preschool. So I wanted to share with you that Cognia testing is starting now which is our state tests that we take this week and next week we're doing ELA across 3rd through 6th and the week of March 25th we have our 5th grade science that's the only grade in the school that does science testing and the weeks of April 8th and 15th are math testing. Those ELA and math both of them have 2 sections each and they can take anywhere from 2 to 4 days sometimes for some of the kids that takes longer they're not timed on their tests they can take quite a while if they need to. So and that was science only in 5th? They do it 5th and 8th and 11th? 5th and 11th Yeah. Yeah. And they're doing we talked a little bit about this when it comes to you know talking about ends and in especially in future years they're doing the testing a month and a half earlier than they usually do that'll be interesting. So being able to compare this data to previous years will be difficult but being able to compare it to the rest of the state should still be okay because everybody's taken it around the same time. We're a little nervous about it happening so early when you think about a third of the year the year's learning hasn't happened yet. So but we'll see. Classic. Do you guys have and thank you for anything you want me to clarify or any questions you have for Randolph? Well thank you guys I appreciate you having me here. Thank you for pulling double duty. I know you were there and down here. I'm left and hanging up but that's all right. Thank you. That was great Melinda. Thank you very much. Oh my god. Quarterly facilities monitoring reports. It's it's bad. I think another parent did it too. Yeah. Do you want to take us? I can talk about that. So this is if folks have the packets this this is the sheet and I'll give a kind of an overview of what this is. There was not what we call dual control on a lot of the funding and stuff that was being spent on facilities when I started a hundred years ago now. And so this was an attempt to actually provide some of that dual control. So what happens right now is that anything that's over about seven thousand dollars that facilities is working on they actually put on this form. They'll talk about and go out and get their estimates they'll put down what the estimates are when the project is done they'll put out the final costs. And then what happens is somebody from Central Office whether it's me whether it's Heather or whether it's Robin we go out and do a direct inspection and make sure right if they purchased equipment that we actually have the equipment here if they're saying that repairs were done that the repairs were actually done. And so it's a control that way. The other thing it also does is it looks out a few years in terms of what the priorities are for maintaining the district and making sure that the proper work is being done to kind of protect our facilities assets. And so it gives an idea of kind of you know what we're working on right now versus you know what we're holding off on for a couple of years. A couple of things to point out if we're looking on this and there's actually two things that are missing on here that I'll talk with them about for the next report is security equipment it's like the fifth one down for floor locks and go buckets. That's going to be a reserve request. They've been doing a really good job revamping their kind of emergency preparedness. You know re-looking at Alice making sure the staff and the students are trained and going through and doing their multi-option or what do you call it drills. And so they've identified that they do want go buckets in the classrooms right. It's a place if you're locked in the classroom for a long time that the kids can actually go to the bathroom and they're usually stocked with supplies as well. The door locks. What those are is it's a it's a little slot that's actually put into the floor and there's a little crossbar that drops into the slot that way the door is secured and nobody can open it. And so we'll be asking for some money for that. It'll be probably rather expensive my guess is it'll probably be in the 80 to 90 thousand dollar range to do this for the entire district. So that'll be up and coming. Are you going to do that in the elementary schools too? Yeah, every every door every it makes it so that some if someone steals an access key they don't work. Right. You have a second way to barricade that's fast and secure. It's attached to the back of the door. Like it's a it's a slot like a bolt. So if this is where the door opens it's a slot in the floor and it's a metal piece that fits into the slot and sticks up. So if you try to open the door it's going to push against the slot and you can't get it open. But the metal piece is attached to the door and you just kick it Yeah, it's going to need to be on like a chain way up high on the door so that the kids can't run off with them. Oh, good point. That's the big is the big piece. So that's the piece we've been talking about. It's a redundant measure to really make the classroom secure. Yeah, because the the Alice is interesting. I mean they talk about you know using your belt to secure the door and this and that but you know if you're in a high stress situation and trying to map manage a bunch of nervous kids. This is just this is a two second you drop it in there and you're done. So that'll become and there's a green shed that's out back by the sugar house. It's not in OSHA compliance with the stairway that goes down into the basement that's there. So to get that into compliance it's going to cost about $10,000. The shed is used by ag. They store a lot of their equipment and things in there. They don't actually it's not like a classroom space. It's more storage. But right now the way things are is you know based on OSHA requirements. It's not safe for the students to be in there. So it's been been kind of shut off until the work gets done. So that may or may not be a reserve request. The other piece that will be coming this way is if you remember at the beginning of the year we had the main waterline coming in from the Randolph water that went into the building. It was a patch. So it was not you know a full repair. So that'll be a reserve request to actually replace that waterline. And that's going to be difficult because it runs under half of the school buildings foundation. So they're literally going to have to drill in from the side of the school underneath adjacent to the current pipe and put in a new pipe and try to get it connected. Yeah. No they've got to put it on. That's one of the ones to do. The the last two things that they're going to they'll need to put on here. And just as my time is winding down to make sure that it's on people's minds as well is we do have the wood chip boiler that was put in and was used for a number of years that is now defunct. That is something depending upon what happens with the potential for building a new school that either needs to be removed or you know potentially replaced if a new school was built as a way to kind of bring down costs a little bit. But it was meant to it was a giant boiler system that burns wood chips and was meant to heat the RTCC high school complex. It has been sitting there we've had folks come in and look at it just before COVID and there's no way to repair it. It was built by a specialty company and so there's no way to get the parts for it and the cost of manufacturing the parts that we need is above and beyond what it would cost probably just to replace the thing but there's probably five or 10 tons worth of steel there that's probably worth something. Yeah. Yeah. So thing things to talk about the last piece in the facilities unless there's questions is they did complete the osmotic system up at Brookfield so they have their own drinkable water now. It worked. Worked exceptionally well. Yeah. There's an ongoing cost that's associated with that. Is it is it super? Might be 90,000 a year. 90,000 a year. Yeah. But the the water there even with the new well was absolutely horrible. Right. I remember and we already dumped a bunch of money into that. So at least this is working. Yeah. But it's 90,000 a year just to have it. Very quickly what was the problem with the water? That's actually it's a good it's a good What wasn't the problem? It's a good question. Without getting into politics and things like that they it's undrinkable the levels of salinity and a couple of other non-toxic solids that are in the water are incredibly high. It's like 4,000 parts per million. You know anything above 150 is considered hard water. So it's it's it won't kill you but it's not palatable either. If you had tasted it I actually did a little little sip of it was four hours to get the taste out of your mouth. It was oily greasy salty and it had been that way for for nine years when I came in one of the I remember who it was at this time. One of the Brookfield board members sheepishly kind of brought it up and said did you know about the water there? And so we had an engineering crew come in and they put in a three-step process for us to try to repair it. The first was to try to repair the current well. You know the question was is because the salinity was going up over time was you know was leach eight getting in from the road salts on the road that didn't look like what the problem was it looked like they had internally tried to fix the the water problem by putting in a water softener. Water softener has to backwash salty water to recharge and it looks like the way that they put the piping in it was discharging into the well. Oh good. Which explained why the salinity was going up. So we tried we tried sealing off the sides of the well all the way down to the bottom so the water was only coming in from the deepest part. We drained the heck out of it. It did make some improvement but it still wasn't palatable. The second piece that they recommended was you know drilling a new well. So we had the state geologist come out and we drilled that a few years ago. That water was just as bad and it had radium in it. And so the third piece is what we just did was the osmotic. So each step was a little bit more expensive but we followed the steps that the engineer put in. But they've got drinkable water now which is great. So we were able to shut off bringing in the bottled water. Well that's great. So how much did it cost to bring in the bottled water? Oh I'm sure that probably was I'm giving you an estimate of that. Was that more than a 90,000? Oh no my guess is it was probably five or six hundred a month at the time. Yeah. But you also there is no usable water there. I mean you also have to think about the kitchen. Right. You have to think about all the sinks. It wasn't having an impact on the pipes and everything else. So all the pipes were replaced as part of this project. We drank that for six great years. The teachers because they weren't were unsupplied with bottled waters the teachers used to fill up the jugs and bring it in again. Do you remember you guys were kicked in this terrible? I went to fill out an entry I don't remember and I'm surprised by this. I'm wondering like did the well degrade over time you know. There was there was testing from nine years prior to my start. I think it was the first year that myself and the new facilities team took a look at this. The salinity level had doubled over that time. Okay. So it was at 2000 parts per and then it was it was like 4000 or 4400. Okay. After nine years so it was going up over time but again the engineer said it looks like the backwash from the water softener they put in was part of the problem was it was backwashing into it. But even at 2000 parts per million it was still undrinkable. I remember it not tasting good. Yeah. I don't know anything apart from that. So that that was a huge project. It took them took them two two and a half years to get the house run again. Okay. I'm moving us along because we're like an hour behind. Yeah. The second review and possible approval of EL reports 2.3 and 2.6 we had our first read last month. Does anyone have questions concerns additional comments about either of these? We'll start with 2.3 financial conditions and activities. 2.6 asset protection. No. Nothing. All right. Seeing none I will entertain a motion to approve both. If someone's comfortable with that. So moved. Moved by Katya. Do I have a second? Hold a second. Thank you. A meal seconds. By the way, someone told me to think of it as a meal like the one that you eat. If anyone needs that hint. It's stuck with me. Julia Hutchinson who gave me that one. Further discussion? Actually on topic. None. Okay. All those in favor raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions. Great. Passes unanimously. Okay. We're going to assess our compliance with Board Governance Policy 4.0 which is pretty, I'm not going to say broad, but it's you know overview of what we're doing here. The purpose of the Board on behalf of Braintree, Brookfield and Randolph is to see to it that the Orange Southwest School District A achieves appropriate results for students at an appropriate cost as specified in Board's ends policies and B avoids unacceptable actions and situations as prohibited in Board executive limitations policies. Kind of consider this our thesis statement for what we're doing here. You know when I was thinking about it I kind of felt like well this is rating if we have a purpose in being here. So hard to give a low rating there. I mean yeah. Board executive limitations you know one that came up recently we talked a little bit about conflict of interest and how it's especially tricky in a small population when everybody knows everybody but we just need to be as transparent as we can and review what our limitations are so we know what we need to be transparent about. Usually when we go over these I'll just tell the two of you that it's a meatier conversation but again this one is I mean if you don't think we're doing this why are we here? Right? Fair? Yep. Okay great Rachel. Moving on. Good we're moving. Oh policy update B-5 unlawful harassment as my dad used to say first read. So this is um I'm kind of one of the the more final projects and I'm working on is you've got your policies so I'm reviewing them against you know what's mandated by the state so this is a mandated policy we currently have it in place but it's been updated by the legal council with the Vermont school boards association there's not a substantive change between what we have and what this is but this language is much more specific and usable so this is one I would ask the board to consider updating and part of it is I'm also some of these require a protocol to be developed around them about how we operationally you know put them in no effect so I'm making sure those protocols are all at the date and the ones that are missing have been filled in. And we updated the correct contacts there so there are some updated contacts on the current adopted and I'll just add this is the first read so we're not voting on it or anything like that the any reference to gender is neutralized I know we're trying to do that in everything that we're putting out now so I just want to keep myself in check and thank you for that yeah neutralized does anyone have any initial questions right then I'd ask that we're going to have a second read next time so go over it come up with uh questions comments concerns suggestions or all or none of the above okay so would this policy need to be updated anytime we have a change in the principle of the schools that are listed yeah so I've got a grid and that's something I can hand off it lists which policies have things that need to be updated yearly on it so like this is one that would have a checkbox in there to know that yeah we got to go in and make sure that there's been any personnel changes we got yeah and those changes aren't substantive so the board wouldn't need to vote on those ones in particular but there's something that we know is probably job for time and remember that we have EL 2.9 that basically says that's his job he's got an update make sure everything is updated and that we approve it and we're approving this because it's a required policy it's not this isn't this is a district policy required by the state that he's implementing and we keep track and make sure that he's implementing all the state policies through our policy 2.9 we need to assign signing authority in absence of the superintendent yeah so this is and there's a couple of months but I've got seven or so weeks of vacation that I'll be taking at the end so my last day will probably be I added it up I think my last physical day in the district is probably March 17th or not March May 17th through July July 1st so try just but what a lot of the a lot of the position comes down to the signing authority and so that is something that the board you know during that that time span we want to assign to somebody to be able to take that over basically what you need to do is decide who vote on it and then I can take the minutes from that meeting and I send it to the secretary of education and then they know that this is the proper person and you can limit it in time span it would go from March 20th until June or May 20th awesome May 20th until June 30th have that the error system superintendent she has you should have the license she's the one that has the license for it so do we have to make a motion then obviously on this one yeah it would need to be voted so that it's reflected in the minutes because I have to pass that off to the secretary I move to have Heather our assistant superintendent have signing authority in the absence of our superintendent from May 20th 20th through June 30th June 30th oh second seconded by Rachel further discussion all those in favor please raise your hand and say aye aye opposed abstentions passes unanimously thank you Heather thank you may I respectfully request that the board would consider a stipend for me to cover those six weeks I the difference in our salaries is approximately $680 per week I'd like to request 500 per week for six weeks for your consideration or any amount that you think is suitable as a gesture of respect for the additional work that may come I mean it is the end of the year it's a busy season it is you know all of the graduations I will attend hiring yeah hiring yes so if the board would consider that I would appreciate it what you could do is just as a recommendation is if the board so inclined would be to maybe get a couple people together to sit down and just have a talk you know with Heather and kind of work out what the same reason mm-hmm so yeah why don't we propose to put yep Sam mm-hmm I was wanting to find it financially how do how do we where does that come from where do we pull the money just with the talk with Robin there's there's money to cover it's a small amount and with it being the end of the budget we have anticipated surplus right so it would be so I maybe put it on the agenda for next one yeah I mean do you think maybe sitting down you a couple of us and that's it to to talk specifics so I'd like to or there are a couple people I'm going to throw myself in there God yeah I see you Heather if you're comfortable with that then the three of us could maybe sit down could I get a motion for us to be a I move that Katya and Hannah meet with Heather to discuss an interim to discuss a statement or an agreement around her serving in an interim capacity just thank you thank you do I have a second second seconded by Sam for their discussion all those in favor raise your hand and say I I opposed abstentions unanimously passes we shall find a tie meet in person awesome thank you for the recommendation or almost caught up legislative update that was the entire superintendents report yes and the unless there's there's question probably the only thing of real note there was that they are starting to work forward on a master plan for renovating buildings and the one that will impact us the most out of that was the the fact that there's just going to potentially suspend the pcb testing so they're pulling us off the list yeah they can't afford to do the work right that's right that's great we'll just hope that there's nothing going on yeah but most of that is pretty self explanatory in there and it'll change as they they work their way you know through the next couple of months the laws and the bills are going to change we can turn the testing results thank you for all of this you know that does anyone have any questions about laying superintendent report the pre-tech was interesting especially when we met at the middle schools which you'll notice that they the middle grades but they included six which I thought was interesting too for our directions actually but they didn't include the funding mechanism mm-hmm which is it can happen yeah make it work but we've already got pre-tech yeah sounds good all right well we've come upon the consent agenda we have minutes from our regular valentine's day meeting it was a lovely by the way it was it lovely it was lovely and romantic minutes from the annual meeting facility reserve funds request well let's go stop there and just so it's gonna it's gonna have to go out to bed we're just trying to get the money available it's for the three elementaries we've been going through and updating the PA systems and this is to get these ones updated as well that's a safety concern to make sure that they can connect with everybody in the building if they need to if there's an emergency high school RTCC and I think bookfield excuse me yeah bookfield is being well but high school and RTCCC have already been done but bookfield was the first one and then we realized that the we should take a look at our AS and the brain treat as well okay any questions on that reserve fund request okay and then the teacher's contract RTCC boop oh yeah that's for Jeremy Laford replacement yeah oh okay so is that something we all said nothing mm-hmm I mean I can't think of a hiring that doesn't matter that's public college they're they're allowed to even have copies of the contracts if you as well yeah this is so did folks hear what the hiring contract is Jeremy Laford's replacement at RTCC it's a work based learning coordinator he um thank you he does hold education licenses to teach not in as work based learning coordinator but he's highly qualified as an educator with master's degrees and certifications so he has a we've gotten him a provisional to be a work based learning coordinator and when does he have a time limit on when he has to get a non-provisional license they have two years it's okay however this is just oh she's hitting on what we're going to talk about later tonight go ahead I'm just saying this is we're hiring him at this time on an emergency and so we will be posting the job and we may very well hire him for next year as well in which case then he would be have two years to complete the required courses oh so he's coming in now yo immediately yeah he's already here this is for the main with the year it's retroactive it's March 4th this is like a critical need for the rest of the year okay yeah yeah yeah the provisionals they have to put a plan together on how they're going to meet the standards of having a regular educators license they've got two years to get the work done if they are not making progress on it the AOE will pull their provisional license and we'll be talking about that later today yeah so if no one has questions or concerns about any part of the consent agenda I'll entertain a motion for the whole kit and kaboom I don't want one please I always I love those I was at the annual meeting just online and that listed as a important number present so oh you and Rachel we're there we are both remote online it it oh we can accept it with that change yeah that's where I'm going to I always love to see people so I'll entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda with some of the uh with that correction correction authentic again I'll second seconded by Sarah moved by Katia I'm going to give Kyle a moment just to attend the others were all there so it's Hannah Rachel and and then myself and Rachel and I are both remote Hannah and Anne were in person thank you for catching that yeah so we have a motion to accept the entire consent agenda with that correction from Katia and seconded by Sarah for their discussion all those in favor I in hand I opposed extensions motion passes unanimously now what's this I hear about Peter stepping down Peter now and step down Kelly Green is coming in is in moderator it's just for moderator last like 15 minutes he's been he's been there for years I know I know and he's very professional and how he does he is that in close superintendent's report we discussed financials financials they're in good shape at this point in time we should have spent about 66 percent of the overall budget we've only spent 49 percent which I remember perfect yeah we should be well in the in the black it looks like we'll probably have somewhere between an 800,000 or a million dollar surplus a little bit less than than we've had in previous years because the grant funding is starting to dry up but yeah another good amount the only other other piece that I would say while we're on this one is in terms of the superintendent's report we talked about this at cabinet today we are probably as long as you know there's not the board isn't you know set against it are gonna talk to the community tomorrow about having a half day on april eight for the eclipse because a lot of the staffer have already kind of put in personal days and stuff and vicki johnson's been doing a lot of planning with the students to try to go to a good location and whatnot not sure it's gonna be cloudy we all know it's gonna be cloudy yeah we've talked about that today too for sure whatever well right just in case you've heard that like two hundred fifty thousand people are supposedly gonna be well they didn't check the weather it's april in vermont come on come on it's gonna be cool it's like a set against it it's cool right some meteorologist said that he looked back and he was like yeah seventy percent of the students I just want to take a minute and celebrate the fact that we were not one of the thirty nine or forty budgets in the state that did not pass so publicly thank you community and for those who who talked about the budget and and worked on the budget yay this is because many didn't so I think the way you present your budget is is really well done absolutely really accessible yeah I appreciate yeah those those letters were great yeah the community is always stepped up so yeah I think Mike Clark too in his uh presentation of the community noted how generous the taxpayers are with this community and passing budgets and he's right every time you look at it over the past so many years it's like seventy five percent approval nearly every time it wasn't much different this time despite the challenges yeah and I think a lot of that is your presentation and communication of it so yay thank you and I appreciate thank you yeah um I wasn't on that I almost said menu agenda staff appreciation and I do like that it says staff appreciation here thank you Kyle for that on the agenda the week of May 6th in the past we have had a couple of staff members that or staff members board members that we appointed to kind of be in charge of coming up with an idea of what we might do we've done gift cards in the past to to local businesses and I've found just feedback one of those businesses and people have said something to me that that is truly appreciated and I think more so than I get together I know that a get together gives us a chance to thank people in person and that's also really important and we should all make an effort to do that but the opportunity to have a nice moment outside of the school I think it's important but the staff really wants gloves this year so oh we can't we've got a conflict of interest yeah there we go so it could be it could be a it could be a it could be a it could be a it could be a it could be a it could be a it could be a like a it could be a a text shelter for you it could be like I made this donation to the school master's donation if only we needed a text shelter if only I wish you did say so if they're here I go throwing you under but Katya you have done that in the past I would love if someone else wanted to do it Sam Hooper I yeah you were supposed to do with me last year I did do it with you last year and just do you did all the work you're like the apprentice that's why I pass it off to you all right I'll take it on okay would someone like to help Sam out I'll help Sam great thank you Sarah thank you facilities committee of your awesome thank you so May 6th maybe next month come to us with either a couple ideas or one idea that would be fine as well but that'll be on the agenda just to let us know what you're thinking and we can help brainstorm if anyone has an idea throw it at them no it's up to us but so maybe instead of just coming with the idea a formal plantation yeah a plan for how you might split it up and we'll have a power point and very cool Sam Hooper because here's their budget budget oh yeah it wasn't budget was it ten ten dollars per yes that was the gift card amount but it was two a few of them so I think it was six I remember if you check we should have it in their records similar to what we paid out last year because I think we did it to four or five different locations yep yeah we gave ten dollars to six different locations or something like that yeah that each person got one yeah gift card but but each person got ten dollars ten dollars each staff member yeah it's you think it's too low we gotta do better than that well I would agree yeah if someone gave me a ten dollar gift card like you're you appreciate it hey man you can get a breakfast burrito with that gift card so don't knock it but yeah people like it we yeah feels like they kind of pass them around to like some trade yeah yeah I don't there should be a budget line for that somewhere like what we paid last year so we have an idea of what the cost is so maybe you and you and Sarah can find that yeah yes reach out to Rob and Pembroke and ask her what the budget is then divide it by the number of staff members and see what you can do try to crank it up all right all right ten dollars gift card we'll give you a sliding scale and you guys can improve it all right thanks you both for taking that on I appreciate that action items recap action item for all of us always is review review review look into the policy governance training folder so you can keep up with kind of yourself evolvement as a board member that's on all of us Katya and I are going to meet with Heather people have committee assignments there are other committees I think we can talk more about that next time as well because while we don't call them standing committees they are committees that still exist so people can think about whether they so want to serve on those and we can be really clear about what the charge of those committees are yeah like the gift certificate committee really clear what we're doing so we are here for you okay that brings us to the end of our agenda we do have calls for an executive session it sounds like for both personnel um and I have an item as well just for the board on contractual issues discussion so we'll have two do we need to come into public session between you somebody else could we have some people coming in and others not going into the second one because I'm assuming we'll have Lane and Heather in the first one correct we wouldn't have them in the second one correct so I'll entertain a motion to enter our first executive session under our first executive session and invite Heather Lawler and Lee Millington do you have to say for personnel pursuant to which one of the we're supposed to be personal personal can you throw one to her what is it vsa 313 a is it a4 that we're doing what's the title uh disciplinary dismissal action with that one uh that would that would fit a4 yeah great uh all those in favor are you gonna all right I okay thanks Michael nice to see you well yes for that one but we'll have a second good okay we are now back in in public session I will entertain a motion I'll make a motion to accept accept the recommendations of non-renewals thank you Katia do I have a second seconded by Sarah further discussion oh we don't have an well we're still a quorum we're a quorum what's that well we can just wait for the vote okay we'll pretend we have further discussion where'd she go to the rest room to the rest room oh I feel badly I should enough okay at least there's no one here talk more about dance something later with you it's a method of it's rubrics for teachers on every way you could measure there's four pillars right and then each of those pillars have multiple standards just like you design instruction for students you design instruction like you design your expectations for teachers and it's a so there's a few different models out there and Danielson is all of the principles and the cabinet agrees that we're moving to Danielson next year that's awesome I know you're gonna get and you know act in like an education geek if we talk about this too much more because you're totally hitting my like excited things hi and there's a motion on the floor to accept the recommendations of non-renewals and there has been a second so further discussion to be had hearing none all those in favor please raise your hand and say aye aye opposed abstentions the motion passes unanimously I'd like to move we enter executive session to discuss contract negotiations so I'll move to enter executive discussion thank you executive session under BSA 313A1 313A1 someone I will second that you got that Sam you got it yep Kati is moving Sarah is seconding all those in favor aye aye opposed abstentions unanimous we have a motion to have something so important from Clatchett to adjourn yep and we don't need to vote on it personally all those in favor understanding correct between most and that yep less than 12 I'll second that in that meeting meeting is adjourned 907 wonderful thank you everyone thank you with no action taken yep okay so these gets silly thank you for um videoing