 First meeting of the first night committee. I actually had a question. Is now that you're a bigger committee, do we have to do reorganization or can we? I think you should elect a chair. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I didn't think of that. Yeah, so I was wondering if it's. I would just ask for any nominations for chair and just do it. I nominate floor. I second it. I think it's a lot. Any further nominations? No other nominations from the floor. Floor. All right. All those in favor, floor Dia Smith is being chair of the 49 Articles Committee, signified by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Congratulations. Thank you, floor, for your service. I didn't even ask if you were willing to do it. I was not sure. No, it was good. It was good. I was no conflict. Well. Yeah. OK. You guys are good. So having, thank you, everybody, and any agenda revisions for tonight, if you guys have a chance to look at the agenda, I know that you guys are new and you don't have any copies. No, I probably should have. Any comments or correspondence? I did talk to Chris Leopold. So if you'd like me to review that now or later. Let's do it later, because we actually have a letter that's left for that this time. And do it right after the timeline. Could I have a motion to approve minutes? I know some of you probably, well, I think we emailed them. Oh, no, because we didn't know about that. I have a motion to approve the minutes of January 3rd, 2019. Please. I think they probably emailed the last group. Yeah. I think it's that minute, too. Actually, I haven't seen the minutes. Yeah. I'm not sure the minutes have come out. We're not even at five days. Yeah. I know you did, Holly. I just don't know. I don't think they came out of our office. Chris did it to everybody. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We're getting it. I think. Yeah, yeah. No, because she's, yeah. I apologize. Yeah. Okay. We can table that for now, and I'm going to send the minutes to one staff. Well, I would advise that you could approve a minute. I don't know. I'm meeting later date. Okay. I don't know. I just forgot. No, I just, it just, it's very quick meetings. I just forward it to everybody. So let's move to our discussion. So the first part of discussion for you guys that haven't been at the other meetings, we've been talking a lot about the timeline. The timeline review that I had for today is completely different. I have to build emails from tonight. So I want to say I don't know where to start. So at about 4.40 this afternoon, we received information from the agency of education that the district organizational meetings will be postponed until February. Third week of February. Third week of February, somewhere around the 15th. We're going to hear more later this week. I mean, they've got to get it back to us by beginning of next week to get everything posted for a meeting that week. We don't really know much else except for it didn't say in there that any group that was trying to propose articles prior to July 1st that they must be warned properly after the district organizational meeting. So we didn't get anything that said you couldn't do it. We didn't get anything that said, but it did say that the timeline of trying to have articles adopted by this week doesn't mean you couldn't do that, but they couldn't be warned until after that district meeting. Yeah. So I would tell you the pressure that I know that I've been, that we've kind of all put on ourselves. I've been the one running the timeline scheduled to say we needed something by the end of this week is not there anymore. So I don't know if that helps and makes anything clear, but I would say that if you wanted to have articles, a warning put out by the transition board at that during that week of February, you'd be in a March 15th or so I haven't calendared an election period. I was a little worried when I saw your email, so I reached out to Emily because I wanted to make sure that we could hold the hearing if we wanted to hold the hearing. Because as long as it's not a meeting of the transitional board, the Act 49 committee can go ahead and get any input that they want. So assuming our meeting today is positive, if we still wanted to hold the hearing on Wednesday since we put it in the front porch forum and everywhere we could still hold the meeting and gather input on the amendments, on the draft articles. And that would sort of serve the purpose that we have been worried about, that we also haven't been able to reach out to the committee. So instead of like totally slowing down, this allows us for us to gather information. That's sort of my point of view, but I don't know how you guys feel about that and I don't want to call that question until we see how this meeting is today. Does that make any sense? Yeah, definitely. In the initial public meeting. Yeah, so that could be the official hearing, right? It could be your official hearing. You only need, you have to have one hearing. It doesn't mean you can't have two, three, four, or five, but you have to have at least one. Do we have any confirmatory information that the deadlines that are based on the state board's final order of November 30th, all those deadlines that push back? We have nothing. We have nothing that says that. Because if we don't, then I still think we're laboring under the 90-day deadline. And even if there's going to be no organizational meeting and they have to go through the organizational meeting, I think we are not able to have a vote, at least a legal vote, if we still have to have that 90-day deadline. Yeah, I just don't know, Chris. And I think that's something that we'll get. As Emily Simmons said in her email, then talking with email and back and forth with Donner versus Savage, we'll get more on that this week. I mean, I think it's just the late-breaking news of it right now. We could sit here and do a lot of if-them-what-else right now tonight, but we wouldn't have any informed decision. Do you have a comment for me? Yeah, I would argue. I listened to that meeting late last week. We heard a lot of, I mean, that Chris Winters, Chris McVeigh, there was a lot of concern about not having the time to develop these articles properly. This offers an alternative to do that. It strikes me. I mean, I wouldn't be trying to force something, certainly not a last meeting, you know, by Wednesday, because you won't have articles from what I saw that you're really comfortable with. And I don't think that would be right. I mean, I would think use the time to develop these more fully. Who knows what course all of this is going to take, but this is an opportunity. I don't know how everybody feels. I do feel like, you know, any opportunity that we have to engage and you are one of the ones that have been asking for more engagement from the public. So I think any opportunity that we have to reach out, this gives us the advantage to be able to actually take input and listen to it and not have to buy next Friday. As long as it's not a final meeting, I mean, what Bill was saying, this, you only have to have one meeting. No, no, no, what I said. Okay, I just understood it, I thought. No, no, this can be one of several, is what he was saying. I said, give me your first, second, third, fourth. I just have a feeling of the citizens being rather annoyed to come to a public meeting when they haven't even read them yet. I mean, I don't see how they can read it all and it's going to be hard enough to understand, but be able to have any, there are some people who are well informed who will have some questions, but by and large, Joe Q. Citizen, first of all, won't be able to even download them from their computer maybe or have the time to. And if we're going to have a public meeting, I'd like it to be worthwhile so that we could really have some discussions. But I'm not wanting to push it off, but as a member of the public, if I were just said, we're having a public meeting on 23 articles, but you won't get them until you walk in the door. This is uncomfortable for me. So, you know, in 2.5, we were going to sort of talk about more about what that bullet hearing format could look like to and by not having so much pressure on the day, this bullet hearing format could be, you know, separated into tables and the people that are informed into articles could see with it. So I just want to time you out. Yeah. I've got the I-term reserved. It doesn't mean we can't get another room. I can't promise you another room. Okay. Yeah, but... It doesn't mean it can't happen. I just want you to understand I don't know that tonight. But let's see how we feel towards the end of the meeting. Does that make sense to everybody about the hearing on Wednesday? Yep. You've been very quiet, so I'm looking at you like... No, no, no, I just want to make sure that we're going to end at 8.30 and that we have enough time to have that conversation. That's all I wanted to say. So the timeline you just heard and we won't try to talk about the dates until we have more information about... from Emily. He would have the legal counsel update. So I forward you all this afternoon a letter from Chris Leopold that I said that he was going to write from the last meeting about the Representative Town Meeting Amendment. He really kind of zeroed in on the legislative body of the municipality. May vote an organizational resolution to adopt a model, but he felt that that was not an article of agreement. Committee didn't represent the legislative body of the municipality. And that was... And he was looking at... He was looking at Title 17, 2640A, which was the basis of the Representative Town Meeting Amendment. So we talked about that the last meeting. I just wanted to let you know. Sorry, I got the letter today at some point when I got to my email. I forwarded that to you, folks. Did you have a chance to talk to him about the other two articles? I did. I did. I talked to him about all the articles actually on the page. We went through from start to finish on everything that was included in the amended article. So I'm just going to start back at the beginning on the first page of the amendments. The finance piece. Chris and I really kind of went through all of the... Are you... Yes, those right there. I'm sorry. I don't have any more. I'm sorry. I should have bought more handouts. Yes. Does everybody else have what we need? If we need them, we can go quickly run to the coffee. Do you have some, Brian? I have some. So we looked at number five and really went into the... He went into the statute over the weekend and went on the use of restricted funds. Now, article five finances. According to article 14 of the articles agreement we've been handed from the draft board cannot be amended by the electorate or by the boards. If you look at page... I've got an old version here, sorry. Your version. All of article five cannot... It's article 14. It's article 14 is where you have the list of what can be amended and what cannot be amended. 11 of 13, I think... That's what I have on mind. I'm just... Chris, you and I are in the same version. It's on page... But it's the last article. But you'll see under article 14 A.I., article five is all part of that. So Chris and I went back and forth a little bit because we can find the words... He can find in the statute, scholarship or endowments can't be changed. What we can't find is reserve funds. It's his opinion and Paul Gillies' opinion, who's a municipal and school district attorney, that the funds would stay within the use that they were intended for coming in just as I told you last meeting. But he said, I can't find anywhere in the statute where it actually says that. We can't amend article five, which happens to do with finance. So he and I went around this circular conversation about, well, do you add a new amendment to do this or is that really part of the finance which you're not allowed to amend? That was a long way of saying to all of you, Chris was very confident, I agree with Chris on this, but I mean he's our counsel, that if someone took you to court on it, the way the voters intended for that fund to be used for the building in which they were... I'm staying with capital funds, but any other that would stay with that building would be used. We can't find a way, except probably having a different article and we don't know what problems that would bring up to have a new amendment that had something to do with finance. We just don't know the answer to that. Can you repeat one more time what money you're talking about? So we're talking about the capital funds. We're talking about this just previously in the Berlin. Chris and Paul... He didn't say who else, but he said he's talked with other school attorneys. They all believe, but they just can't find it where it says restricted funds coming into a new union district. There's other things like this and all this merger piece that's just new that says that, hey, the capital funds that Berlin put aside for the Berlin capital work here in this building need to stay with this building. They don't go get used somewhere else when the merger happens. And that's what I've been telling you, and that's been his opinion and other attorneys that he's been working with. We just can't find it in the statute that actually says reserve funds. Does that also apply to the general fund balance at each school? No, no. No, not the general fund balance. We're talking about reserve fund balances. Like, Romney has a reserve fund balance for their reserve fund for technology. The voters set up. Because voters have set these things up. And so when you're talking about general fund balance, that's something different that's already in the finance section and brings that together. We're trying to talk about the reserve funds that have already been set up by the electorate for a certain purpose. Where capital funds were established that way, there's one or two other funds in other buildings. I don't remember them all right now. I don't remember the Romney Technology one for some reason. I just remember it. But those are ones that the voters, the electorate established through a vote at some point. That's a great argument. This is also the voters' vote on the debt. I mean, I didn't vote on it. Maybe Michael did. But I wasn't eligible to vote on it. But doesn't that make it a special fund? I didn't ask that question, Scott. My support still. In that one, I thought we all had that first one. Do we have agreement that we feel comfortable not writing an amendment for that article? Yes, Scott. If I might just repeat what I said before, that the default Article 5, in my view, is unacceptable. Yeah. Doesn't mean it's not going to cram down our throats. But that doesn't make it acceptable. Yeah. So just as long as that's understood. Yeah. And I think a little bit of background of where we are right now, because the committee, is that when we decided to just do, and I mean, anybody can correct me, but when we decided to just do amendment, we've been going through this process. And we decided that the easiest thing was for us to take out from where we had changed in the Articles of Agreement amendments that we could add new articles without changing the draft Articles of Agreement so that we wouldn't have to put each article, as you see in Article 14, each of them almost require a separate ballot, not to say it. So it was going to be incredibly confusing and uncomfortable to do that. And we didn't want to lose the ability to add some character from each of our towns. So that's sort of, am I representing that right? I'm looking like that. So we want to be able to add some without changing those, all the ones that you see here on 14 that can be really amended by, by also could be amended by each town and by the whole, by a majority. So it made it really hard for us to be able to accomplish that and still get some articles. So even though we didn't all agree on Article 5, for example, we had to take against, have some compromises. So that is sort of where we're going with the articles that we've been discussing is that what can we add to this, to these articles that then we won't have to have this very complicated ballot for all our voters. Sure. I'm just stating my position on default Article 5. That's all that I'm talking about. Article 10A. I'm just going to keep going in order here for if that's good for you. So we've talked about this last time that we could add another member. We could add another member as long as it didn't affect 2020. It's going to be Article 10A, which Article 10, it's going to be, it's going to be a new voter. So it's going to have, that's going to have to be improved at each town, I believe. I have to go back and I'm trying to, It has to be approved. It has to be approved. Oh, at each town. Can we rewrite 2020? I think it's for Article 10A. I think, oh, I'm sorry. Article 10A, because it's, each town has to approve this. But 10A, we talked about that in 10A it was initial members. And I think that as long as we wrote, we remember we started with, what about if we do 2020? Right. It's everybody, the union as a whole, needs to approve it. Yeah, I see where that is under here. I'm wondering if I wrote my notes wrong when I was talking with Scott. Okay. Because I want to check that one more time. That that's not a town by town. Well, it's an Article 14A. Number three, I see where you are. I might have mis-wrote it when I was talking to Chris here at noon today. But that is one we can do because it's past, it's not this year, it's not affecting this year. It's a year away that's affecting. And then we would turn that, remember we turned that to 11 members instead of nine as it was written on the, because it would be a board of 11. As it said here, in the draft that we had in this printout, Chris had taken it from another merger he had done when he gave us that language. Would it be 11 now? Yes, because we have 10 right now. Five to 11 eventually. 10 now, but 11 eventually. So this needs to be written, I think it's 10. Because the 11 would be if that other one, that other article was written. This would be effective January 2020. The school director should be expanded to include one member elected at large for a total of 11 members. Okay, okay, so you would appreciate it. You see what we're going there? It's hard because we're using Chris's old language from a previous merger. So we just need to change the data. Yeah, change the data. And to 11, okay. And I'm keeping a, I have a running electronic copy here. So it would now be the appropriate time to raise another idea about a particular article. Well, it related to this particular article? Yes. Okay, okay. So it was suggested to me about a week ago and I had some time to think about it. Someone else suggested it tonight. Was rather than expand by one member at large to get that odd number to have three representatives from each town for a number of 15. I know we had discussed that the size of a board being 15 might be a little bit unwieldy. But I do, I've heard a lot of concerns about spreading this workload across fewer people. And it seems like 15 might be a good idea if you wanted more eyes and more hands on deck for this. So I'd like to kind of float that idea of three representatives per town for a 15 member board rather than the at-large member making it 11. You achieved the odd number. Yeah. But differently. It's fine with me. I think I was always unhappy about the fact that we were thrown away two people, 32 people in favor of only 10. At least now we'd be up to almost half of that of the local expertise and knowledge and thought. So I would go for that. We really need the article saying that to be approved by... It'd be the same article that would change. We would basically change it. Instead of having it at large, you would need to have three from each town and kind of rewrite the article. It's not a big deal. It has a certain elegance to it. I wonder what it will be like for voters. And this is true even if there are just two. The voting experience for each voter to go in and have sort of a telephone book to issues from. But I like... That would only be once, Scott. Pardon me? That would only be once. The initial time after that staggered. That's true. That's true. Good point. Yeah. Yeah. How does that work? Well, you would have the new board and its entirety would be elected on whatever day I set. But then after that the terms are staggered. You probably have five, one from each town every year. Yeah. Right. I understand that. But what's the mechanism to start that stagger? You would have someone be elected for a one-year term. One of three, a two of three, and a three of three. Okay. Similar to what we do right now, it's just that first election. The first election we would do that. Yeah. There's actually a table in the default of the N.A. which is supposed to lay out what the... That's what two, when two it does. With three, it's actually easier. Yeah. It is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm not opposed to the idea at all. I'm just wondering from the ability to do the work, if there's information that supports, I mean, I think the sort of general knowledge, I think we all anecdotally can say that our 32 board membership, the full board membership, is a little unwieldy to really do a lot of things. And so I'm just curious, you know, I want to set this board up for success in this 15 still manageable number, where it's not too many people to really get things done. I don't know. So I don't know if there's information or other examples of where this is being done, where it might be working effectively. Yeah. That would just be one thing that I'd like to consider. I can't speak to the effectiveness. I can tell you where different configurations are being done, different mergers. Right now, Lamall North has the largest board of any merger when they have 18, and that's the limit by statute. So there are other merge boards tend to be anywhere from 9 to 11, that area. That seems to be about the general area. I foresee at least three or four standing committees. Can you repeat that last time? I foresee at least right now three or four standing committees to do work. And that there'll probably be two meetings a month, and probably a committee meeting once a month. I think that going to three is kind of meeting halfway in the middle, where Berlin right now technically has seven, because we have two on U-32 board and five local. I think three is kind of meeting that halfway point of 15 is still manageable to accomplish the work that needs to be done. It's spread out over five more people when you're including the high school work as well. So I would support the three person representation in each town. And then it's even across each town. It's not like Strigitz 1, Berlin history. It's the same across everybody's town. Any other discussion about that idea? I think coming from a larger town, the one attraction to having one that was at large, it was that I felt like, you know, so even though we are all going to be representing everybody, I felt like that spoke more to U-32. So I would, you know, I don't know if it would make sense to look at a, sort of what we were trying to do for this board, so more of a representational board. So maybe we would have, you know, come from the larger town. So some of the larger towns have, like we did for the 706B, had three members. And then this, you know, Doty and Calas would have two members, and then we would have two members at large. You know, so it would still be, but I don't know if that makes it more complicated, but sort of, I think that the tie gets on tie more that way. I don't know how to explain it. You know, we were going to be deadlocked three, three, three, three people from each town. It's just a thought. It shouldn't matter, because we are all represented everybody. But I know that in other towns the members that are large have worked well. But since we are having everybody vote for all members, I just wanted to bring it up. Yeah. And the only way you're going to be able to keep that equal without having to go proportional, and this is still being challenged, so I know Chris, you and I have talked about it, is having all five towns vote on the three members. You're going to have to say one thing. Otherwise I think you're going to be proportional. I'm thinking only one town voting for their representatives and have an equal number of representatives for each town. So what I did, what I just wrote here is Effective July, January 1st, 2020, the Board of School Directors shall be expanded to include five members elected from each town. No, three. Three members. Sorry. No, five. Five members. Three members from five towns. Yes, that's the way to say it. It's a hard-to-edit when you're right here at the table. Well, I'd like to add one more idea to the whole thing, because if you think about town government, select boards, school boards, and so forth, all the people who are elected to those positions are basically the farm team for all the other politics going up the line to House of Representatives, Senators, State, void, nationally. And I hated to see our farm team be shrunk to 10s. I think 15 will be better. I think given what Bill was laying out of what the committee made up in the work, I do think 10 would be tough to manage on that. So is this for something that was going to apply this year or a year from now? And if a year from now went out this year? Because then you'd have to go, you could, so if you did it this year, whenever the warning is for the, if we don't, this is a, Chris Leopold and I had this discussion for a while. If we don't touch this year, we don't have to wait, we may have to wait now 30 days because of what just happened today. Previous to today, we were saying we weren't losing the town meeting election day. But, so if we didn't lose the town meeting day, then we'd have to wait 30 days for the, for a petition to come back, and then from there we'd have another 30 days of warning to get the board, and then we'd have another 30 days to get to a budget hearing. 30 days out to where we even vote on a budget. So the reason, the reason it's town meeting, the reason mostly is town meeting. Well, that wasn't just town meeting because we're going to, we may push our budget vote all the way out to July now for FY20. So, because let me just say that, is that if we have a smaller 10 person board, and then a 15 person board increasing by a third in a year, the initial 10 person board is going to be making a lot of significant substantive decisions that would be better made by a larger board if we're eventually going to a larger board. So I think if at all possible we should go to the larger board right away. So you may lose your budget ability for the next year and be at 95% of this year's budgets. And so we'd have a lot of risks that we need to do across the schools. And is that just based on time? Statute. Based on timing in terms of getting a budget vote? Yeah, we're going to be close on losing a budget this year. And I have to let any employee go if I don't give them a contract by April 15th. And the way it's an employee market out there for school boards, for school district positions, especially special education for math and foreign language. You can name where you want to work. I wanted to try to... I wasn't sure... I think I understand the timeline challenge. And I was going to try to explain it in a different way, maybe. Which is... If we amend 10A and so we're going to do that on our original schedule in February and so people can see it. And we're going to go get it that day to say on July 1st this year there should be 15 board members. And then we couldn't actually elect a board member on town meeting day because we have to wait 30 days for people to petition for the vote to be recalled. So then we have to wait those 30 days and then we have to warn a special election. So when did petition? No, no. To elect a board member. And we'd have to probably allow a little bit of time for people to petition or to get their signatures in to get nominated even. So you're talking about the earliest you could elect a new board would be May, I think? And then you need to warn another special meeting to pass the budget. So there's at least 30 days that have to transpire there and that's how you're already into June before you even have a budget vote. Now I think... So that's with the original timeline. If then things. But it seems likely that the original timeline is not in effect anymore. So we'll even push back forward if it's possible and we wouldn't even be able to elect new board members until June. If we amend 10A. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So if we don't amend it it would just become effective? Yes. And it would be better. And we'd have articles. So here's the thing. The district meeting would happen, let's say it's February 15th for lack of a better day. So March 15th to 20th you probably have your elections for board membership and you could probably get to a... You could probably warn for like a May 2nd, May 5th election on the budget. To give enough time you need at least 10 days in there or something to get the budget developed and adopted and presented to the boarders in the morning. So what you just said about Your vote still by April 15th that still holds. Still holds, but it gets worse as you get further down. What happens is we get further down and it's just part of the pieces that happens. So what happens if you... So just say make comes and you haven't ripped anybody. So that means you've come in after that. We're going to be in deficit for the final year. It's a decision we're going to have to make by April 15th as a board if we put everyone on without a budget. That's what happens to districts that don't have budgets. And we'll know more once this sort of lawsuit shakes up and they're able to give us more accurate dates. But what I understood today from talking to them was that they're still trying to figure out a way that the elections could be happening in the coming day. But it's hard to see how... I don't know that for a fact, but what I was asking is I was worried about the budget and being able to elect our new members. So even if something changes, those members wouldn't be elected anymore. But I know that that's not how it works. I just think that we can't... I don't think the election of the new board members could happen until better innovation only takes place. So that's automatically what's at the end of the day. It was all hypothetical, but I just... And for us, the other thing is that when I was looking at this, this is from the point of view of the articles of the agreement committee. We're not the transitional in the court meeting, so I think our job right now is just to try to get the articles done and to be able to put them to vote whenever that time comes. But whether the election of the new board happens now or then, we would at least have these done. So we wouldn't be... We wouldn't continue to scramble. We're still scrambling. So to me, it makes sense not to change it this year. Yeah, exactly. But are we on the agreement that it should change to 15? I mean, we were going to put in this thing about adding one, so can we say effectively January 1st, 2020, the board will increase five members? Yeah. Basically, I've got it that way and I'll get crystal clear on the language. Usually you say January 20th, so it's the head of the election, but the election happens at the annual meeting. Okay? If you do it at the end, then what happens is you would be switching when people change their... In some districts, this does happen that people lose their seats during the summertime instead of at town meeting day. So I've not seen any disagreement on that. Okay. Chris didn't have any feedback on the choice. And then going to the article for input on policy and budget development. And I think this is where we were last time, but we said we were on top of the second page there of the highlights where it says, and we would strike all the words new. We just say the school district board shall provide timely and sufficient opportunity for local input on policy and budget development. Structures to support encourage public participation within the school district will be established by the school district board or school directors to honor before June 30th, 2020. That's what we had talked about last. These structures may include but not be limited to local school councils that have the... have an advisory responsibility in key areas, period. And Chris agreed with that ending right there. He said, then you're getting into the places that he was commenting on when you got the including other things. It's not that they can't give advice in there. It's just it's better just to stop it right at the key areas. And then everything else... All the bullets go. All the bullets go. Yeah, all of them. Everything goes. All the way down. June 30th, 2018 was the date? No, June 30th, 2020 is what you told me the last meeting, last week. Sir, I think the only question I have is we're going to take out the included but not limited to budget development and current principles that... I know we didn't have complete agreement of this, but we have talked a little bit about this structure. Shall include, instead of may include, shall include local school councils. That's up to you and how strict you want to be to that. I'd be a little concerned that there may be a time... I'm just thinking about this, but it can be difficult at times for towns to find enough people to serve on a local school council. I'm always a little leery of kind of putting shall language in for a thing that really requires people to step up and volunteer to do it. Because then you kind of get into a gray area of like, it says we must do this, but we can't really do it because, you know, we don't have enough people in this town or that town to actually form a local school council and kind of do that. We can put in if one exists, shalls, listed input, if one exists. I'm sure that he says if people aren't willing to step up and volunteer, then save this opportunity without watering the others and actually incorporating it as part of the kind of approach of what we want to create. What this doesn't do though is explain the organization of a school council. Well, we had it before, but we have taken it out. Right. So we could put that back. Which is the, I think what we had decided is to leave it open so that the board could decide that, not just the new board, could decide how better to do the councils. We had the entire language of, you know, who should be elected teacher and citizen and teacher and that, but it was a different way back. So if you, if you want to put shall, if you put shall and shall determine how that should be the structure of the school council. Leave it up to the new board. Any other comments on that one way or another? Would this allow something like PTOs with this language permit and different type groups that weren't necessarily wearing a school council label? May would give it that but they wouldn't allow that. I don't see this is prohibiting PTO because it's not necessarily a governance tool where a school council would be a governance tool. But if somebody wanted to use a PTO adapted in that direction, they would just have to call it by a different name. It's the board that shall, right? The structures may, we talked about shall and shall. The structures may or shall is what we were talking about. That directs the board. The board shall, the board may, from whomever, PTO, anyone? I think that's why, yeah, it's kind of why I'm a little uncomfortable with shall because what does it mean? It could be a PTO, it could be a formerly constituted local council, it could be, are we talking about any group that exists in the community that might call itself a local school council? How many of them, are we talking about one per town or are we going to be sad? The may just creates a certain kind of word is like a sense of flexibility, not quite the word I'm looking for, but it's a good question. Thank you. So can I just do a literature and a word analysis on that? You're saying shall to timely and sufficient opportunity for local input and policy and budget development. There's where your shall is. Your structures to support and encourage public participation within the school district will be established by the school district board of directors on before June 30th, okay? I think the shall might and Chris you're better linguistic than I am and so has Scott over there so I would take any friendly amendments to the reading of this. I'm not sure if that shall goes to the next sentence or not. I would interpret that it does and then the may on the third sentence these structures may include I think it gives there's the some flexibility in what they should be. Tell me and your interpretation might be different. Well the limitation I mean if you look at narrow the limitations could be we have a public hearing and all the members of the public can come. Right. That would be local input on policy and budget development. And if you wanted to connect two sentences and I would add to the second one to facilitate local input on policy and budget development structures to support because that does link them there clearly rather than you know leaving those So let me put a comment at least in here. Maybe a semi-column. Do it. Yeah. A semi-column there. Okay. I would have a really good I would have a really good I would have a really goodени to tie the context look at it So can you repeat where the coma has been so at semi-column you wanted to comment what's the budget development Oh I think semi-column would connect those two primero I think it would too. I'm just set a semi-column and yeah and that way that would get This is one of the key areas referred to and who is the authority that's providing the responsibility or delegating responsibility. Is that the board or is that the administration? So I just want to be clear that Chris has been really, clearly a bold has been really clear to us is that the board can't delegate its authority away. It can take input but it can't delegate to someone else's authority. So we can't say to someone else, you tell us the budgets or the policies to adopt. You can give us feedback and give us input. We can seek input, yeah. Okay, so these councils would be providing input back to the board and key areas that just catch all. Because we got into a place when there was hiring there and budget development, who has the authority to do that? And you can't give away that authority. So when you started to get into that list mode, you started to look at what are you giving something away that you're supposed to have authority over. And that's my conversation with Chris Leopold. So the key area would be mostly support to the school, to each of the schools and sort of driven by, you know, the principal will be part in my particular role. The principal will be part of that and then teachers will be part of that and parents will be part of that. And anybody who's, you know, you can develop a structure, we talked about it, but we decided to leave it to the board to decide what that should or should not look like because there's no conflict of who's in charge. But basically we're seeking input from them and a lot of the different districts that now are unified have done local school councils. And some just said we're going to do one and then they were phased the past few months with what and who, what they are. You know, like, there is no time to really, which is sort of similar to what we're doing and then we'll decide what they do. Next one, I want to apologize. The other night we were talking about members to the board. I forgot a statute that I know very well. Scott and I know it very well, which is subsection 558 that says that no board members shall be a employee of the district. So, because Scott helps me with a letter that I write to the secretary, so Scott can substitute. So that one cannot, you can have anybody come that you'd like to come and be part of conversations, associations, in some district associations appoint teachers to be there at every meeting, to be a constant person there at every meeting to give reports, but you can't put them on the board, even in ex-officio action because they're employees. Title 16, subsection 558A. So, because I've been thinking about this one after our last meeting and I had a couple of conversations with other teachers and other principals and one option for us to just write our recommendation is just a reminder of how we run our meetings, too, so that we make sure, so much of what Bill was saying right now, that we invite that input from the teachers at our meetings, so either they're making presentations or they're giving reports, that they're not necessarily, the two teachers that I talked with, with them, they felt like they would never be able to represent all and that it would be a really hard decision for them to be put on, but that they love being asked for input, you know, or for, you know, what they're doing, so being included, so it's more of how this board would be run, like whoever is running the board, making sure that, you know, we can have presentations of what's going on or, you know, seek input. I don't really know how you were envisioning. I would just have as members of the board, you would have another avenue of information from folks who are actually living in the schools and teaching in the schools and being very, the whole part, I think, tuned to the condition that there would be a cross-pollination. Yeah, so I love this sentiment of that. That representative have a perspective from the board that they probably wouldn't have if they're just giving information because they leave after they give the information to the most part of the board, meaning from later on, they don't want to come twice a month and, you know, get the continuity of the same person showing up and sharing, providing information, receiving information. So I think there's something that is lost there and creates a distance that shouldn't necessarily be there. Yeah. I'm just curious, Bill, would it make a difference if given that the employees are non-voting members? That's what I'm saying. It doesn't matter ex-cofficio or not. They don't have a vote. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I asked Scott. I asked Chris these questions. He actually said that, you know, under state law, he said they cannot be members. He pointed me right to the statute. I read it. I'm like, oh, how did I even forget that? Yeah, I'm sorry, I kind of joked about you and I, but we do this thing every year because of that. I do it with one other school board, but it even says you only get it for one year unless you can prove you can't find somebody to take that position, even volunteering for the board, for the school. It's pretty limiting, actually. Well, I hadn't read it for a couple of years and I was like surprised to see how limiting it is. So a teacher that worked in our district could not serve as a board member? That's right. In the whole SU. Could serve as a board member? Yeah, no, but even currently, like if they worked in Calis, lived in Middlesex, wanted to be on the run, could not. Are we talking about in this article an elected non-voting member or an appointed position? It would be appointed by the group. It's undetermined, not clarified as to whether the person would individual be elected from their constituent group, whether they'd be a high school teacher, elementary school teacher, or support staff. How that appointment is not spelled out here, but it would not be elected by the voters of the new district. At least that was an envision here. I think that might matter. The statute refers to a legal voter in the school district shall be eligible for election. However, a member of a school board may not be regularly employed. So it talks about a member, but it's also talking about elections in this statute. So I don't know if Chris... So what Chris talked about is also that the composition of the board you'd have to go back to article 10 and rewrite that, because you got the only group that's authorized to change the structure of the board as the electorate, not the board, or not the Articles Committee, but you've got to propose something to the electorate to pass. And it had to be invited with article 10. That was the other nuance that he gave me. Could the board decide to appoint every couple months an hour? Somebody appoint somebody as... A board member, they could appoint to do something. A point to sort of have a rotation. A rotation of teachers. I don't know. I'm just trying to create a compromise. It would not have a... Well, they were still not going to be a voting member. Well, not voting member, but they would otherwise be a member of the board. They wouldn't vote, but they would be a member... At least as written here, it would be a member of the board, which is not a voting member. So they wouldn't be able to do make, you know, vote on decisions on budgets or personnel or any other issue that required a voting board. It was just basically... The goal was to have members of the staff as informational... Providing information, bringing information back and just kind of melt the lines a little bit between board, staff, and the information. We're just part of this. But it sounds like you can't do a statutory. You can't do a statutory. This is the... No, I meant... Maybe we could have transfer members from other absences. I want you to go figure that one out. Board member sharing program. So moving right along... Oh, sorry. I just want to try to get you all this information. For the third one on this page, which is, if a competent judicial... Chris said there's no need to have this. He said it's a basic principle of court that would especially apply if the articles were approved by the voters because they would have a stronger standing than if they were just something done by the board. And then for number by... I didn't say you couldn't have it. Just said I don't see any need for it. And number four, same thing. He said he didn't see any need for it. It's unnecessary, but if you want it, you can have it, but you didn't see any need for it. I mean, because he was trying to think about what do you want to put... One of the other things Chris and I were talking about was like what do you want to put in front of the voters? And I think that's for you to determine. So the next item in our discussion was to review the amendments, which we just kind of did. So... So we reviewed them as far as legality and whatnot, but based on that, we just automatically decided what we're doing in number 10, but then... Yeah, so I thought we would just go really quickly. You know, I still just see four, but I want to make sure that new articles... And then there was that pending question that Chris had, but I don't know if I want to put it up on article number four. Can I wait for that one at the end and just... I haven't forgotten about it. So we pretty much just see that we're adding... The number one article that we're adding is the 15... We'll be 15 members as of 2020. So it's article 10. We had another article 10, but it's going to be a brand new article. So I'm calling that one one. Well, yeah, don't get... Number how you want for discussion. Well, I just... And maybe we can make that clear right now. Just trying to figure out how this will appear in the ballot. I think this will be a rewrite of article 10. Oh, it will be. Yeah, it's going to be a rewrite of article 10. Even if it says 2020... It's going to be a composite... It's affecting article 10. Chris has been pretty clear about that. And his opinion that you're going to rewrite article 10. If you're going to choose to do that. So we're... So then we have to bring just article 10 out of... Because before what we were saying is like, we were not putting the draft articles of agreement from the... Right, but we'll have to take all 10 out of... So you take all 10 out of this document. And you're going to put the new amended article 10 in here. On the voter, on the ballot. Okay, but... So we're going to have to put the entire... 1, 2, 14... No, no, no, no, no. Test 10. From here... through here. So all that text. Okay. We'll be on the ballot. We'll be a separate thing on the ballot. That's to expand the three? That's to do the expansion you just talked about. Okay. The three numbers for... Because you've got to show the whole article how you're... But it doesn't... There's a lot of repetitiveness. But it doesn't mean we have to wait for the... The petition. That question about the 30-day wait. But we are... In touching article 3, article 10, you're going to have to have all of article 10 on there. Well, it's confused now. Because I thought that by changing the date, we were trying to get away. We had decided that we were completely getting away from... That's what we're trying to do. I can't... Let's ask again, because that's what we were hoping, because that's not the case. Are we affecting the date? Are we voting? Are we affecting the... Being able to vote for the members of the new board? Well, I mean, that's hard to know tonight with what happened today. I'm assuming, yes, the new members are going to be somewhere else. I don't see them being on town meeting day. Because to properly warrant an Australian ballot, or a floor district meeting coming, you need 30 days. And open meeting. So that if we're going through that whole thing, then should we just say 28 things like we had before 2019? Then you've got another piece coming up. So my opinion is if it's going to affect that, if it requires that petitioner or whatever, then we make this a recommendation to the board to put out later. Does that make sense? Right. Well, it's going to affect the time... So we'll have it. We'll have to have the petition. So he's going to go check with Chris to see if any of them in Article 10 would drive that. If it does, I say we don't... We don't make that an amendment. We make it a recommendation to take out for next year. Have to make this stronger than any recommendation. Well, we make it... Because recommendation is just... Recommendation is just that. It doesn't have any power. I understand, but I think our hands are a little bit tied in the sense that, as we just said about... Our hands would be tied if it... It's calendar. I hate to make it seem that... Make that glib... It sounded too glib as that came out of my mouth. I didn't mean it that way, but it's the laying out of the calendar to make all this happen. Okay, we can be able to talk to Chris tomorrow if we're going to have his... I will try. We're still calling 10. The choice we decided to not do anything about it so we pressed it out for now. We had written recommendation, too, in that one. We talked about... So, number two, I had the Community Advisory Councils, which is what you have there on the page. Including the bottom of the page? No, no, no. At the top of the page. This is crossed out. That's crossed out, yeah. I'm literally doing strike-throughs right now as you guys are telling me what you're doing so I can get you a new document. In the next page is no to the first article. Great. And then we have a letter from... I don't know if that was a recommendation to the new board, but I wouldn't... My personal recommendation would be to recommend to do this but recommend to research it further. I don't know enough about this to say that this is what I would want personally. It's my recommendation to go to the board because this is worth it. I like it in the position. Just recommend for that one, I would say. I'd rather recommend research on using it. And then I'm assuming we're keeping the other two, the two last ones on that page. The people said they were not necessary but that's what everybody had voted at the last time and I just want to get input from Brian. I'm not here anymore, Brian. Peter was there at our last meeting. I don't know how you feel about those two, Brian. The bottom two? Are you okay with that, Matthew? Okay, so I just don't remember who else I was having. So that's it for the minimum. So we're not putting in the choice provision? We're not putting in the choice provision at this time. We're going to let the board, the new board, decide how to do it. We're going to say that we want the choice provision and we're going to let them decide how to do it. Does this discuss it, Chris? Do I have a more recent one? This language that came from Chris from another district went to a good choice. I didn't feel like I needed to discuss it if it came from him. I didn't feel like I needed to discuss it if it came from him. Personally, I want to be sure that there is a policy set at the get-go because I just know that a family will say I want Little Joey to go here and before you know it, they're doing it and then, oh, we should have a policy. We've got the chance to say we want a policy written. I know that we can't put the policy in the agreements, but I think we should lean on them to that be one of their first. We have written that one also. I'm not saying that. Or you could write one that says you could do something like the board of school director shall develop a policy on school choice period or on attendance areas. I'm not going to quibble about the language. I want that to be one of the first orders of business to get that policy done. You could put a date on it within that year. I agree with you, Dorothy. I think it's something that needs to be figured out. In the first two years, it can't change. I agree. So what do we use the first three sentences? The board of school director shall develop policy and programs for operating district choice to families or gardens of students a role in the grace for which the union district operates multiple businesses as soon as responsibility is practicable following the first year. So that's a positive four choice. Do you want to develop? And this is a question. It's not trying to direct you one way or another. Because this is saying you're going to have something that's going to offer choice. Do you want to offer choice or do you want the board to debate it and then develop a policy around it? Because I heard two different things. As you guys all talked at the last meeting, do you want choice or do you want to have attendance areas for lack of better words? I'm trying not to use the word towns. So the way this policy is written, it seems pretty strong indication that you can be compelled if you don't have a policy that students, if they're all part of one district than they are, can push to go to any school in that district. That's why he uses language like only where necessary for legitimate operations. It really is pretty strong language, I think, to say if you don't have this, you're going to have problems. You potentially could have problems. And I think it would be in new entities' interest to develop a choice policy. Not debate one, but develop one because it will happen one way or another, I think, when you have a family that wants to go to a school and you say no. That's why I think we're all saying the same thing. I think you and I are radiant differently, and so that might be a problem with the language of, because I read this as very pro-choicing. I heard from this table the other night that that's what you wanted, that you definitely wanted choice or didn't want choice. I also saw arguments both ways, but this one's telling you you will have choice. The way we italicize language is because if you don't develop your policy of choice, it will be forced on you by, I think, court decisions. People that think they're equal protection arguments here are saying if you're all part of this one unit and everyone's paying the tenant tax burden, why can't this kid go to this school? Regardless of residence of what town they live in, because there are no town barriers anymore. I think you would run... That's why I think he's so... That's why that language that italicized, I think, to give it emphasis, and then he also kind of lays out the things you can consider in developing policy by... I think we talked a lot about this in our last meeting. We didn't resolve it. That's one of the two things that did make it to the article in the paper. And I feel like at least what I heard at the end is that we wanted to have more... Have that or have more information before we develop choice, right? There were questions at least for me. There were questions on transportation, on equity. I agree that we have to develop a way and we had floated the idea of what Maple Run did about having a lottery. This is like 14 for school or whatever. There's ways to do it so that it's equitable, but that we were not... We didn't have the information that we needed right now to be able to... But do we need information, or do we need to dictate to the board that they need to come up with a policy? We can say to the board, so I was reading those three, and it's not until Bill said that it's a very strong choice. We can say that they should develop a policy on that. Now, that's what it says. Shout, shout. Better than should. That's what... Didn't I read that? You just said should. I was just making sure it was going to be shout. Right. But this is saying that the decision of the board is basically made. We're making it for them. There will be school choice. Figure it out. I don't know. I don't know. That's the best. I'm not even sure where it came from. This is a separate article. They'll vote it up for that. Oh, he's saying the attorney. They're doing it all... That's where it smithed some sections. To make it legal under the law. How would it be written if we... if we say we want them to have a policy on choice? The policy can be... there won't be choice, can't it? Yes. We go through and write that it would be a challenge to develop a policy program. I want to get rid of that word off right now. No, because this is affirmative. This isn't saying... I understand. I agree with what it's saying. Chris, what I'm saying is... my bias is I'm not for school choice. I am not for it. I don't believe that it helps kids. And that it... and I believe that it hurts kids. But that's my bias that I'm putting in front of this. I'm saying so I'm worried about the word offering that this is telling us we have to offer school choice. Somebody in the audience. Sorry. I would argue that it does help kids in some ways. I've met first and I've seen a few kids over the years in college that would have probably... they were having trouble in our school and probably would have done better in an environment had choice been an option. And two, you know, in that... I think about the contingency of the school closure. First, you know, slap the community on the face by closing the school. And then not even giving, you know, a choice of the school that they would want into a tent, you know, that might... you know, that I think wouldn't be very powerful to me. And I don't think it would be powerful to others. And I think there's a lot to consider with that. Either way, by giving school choice to it offers some little bit of flexibility to parent people who might come into a community that's either, you know, got a small school that's less affluent, but, you know, the property values might be lower so they actually afford to be there and they can actually have their kids in school but they would choose to have them there. So there are a lot of ramifications there that some of them turn into economic and social. They can help the less well off communities a little bit. So I would argue... you know, we should think a little bit about that bigger picture. So let me re... can I re... I'm sorry. Can I restate what I said clearly? The reason I said that I'm biased for school choice is that the research has shown that you produce more of an equity gap with school choice. That those who have means will take advantage of the choice and will actually make the education outcomes for those who do not have means, especially transportation and access and have less quality of education. And that's what their research has shown on meta-analysis studies in school districts. But if the policy that the board made can you hold just one second? No, that's okay. Go ahead, Matt. I wanted to ask Bill to explain why... Yeah, what he just explained. Okay. So it... if the board could make on their policy something to do with transportation that it would not limit kids who wouldn't have their own transportation, which would be expensive. I think my issue is that now we're sitting here trying to write a policy. Right. We're saying, well, it has to include transportation so that we don't... It can't worsen equity issues. We're basically... this group is not going to write the policy that another group is. So we made a one-liner so we can... I mean, there's sort of more ornaments we hang on this policy the more we tie their hands to answer these very questions just now, brainstorming by our integral to the whole issue. Should we just let the board of school director show the policy of school choice or moderate? What if we use... Just here. Take out... Your address is transportation, too. And then add on... you take out that as soon as reasonably practical following the first year of operation and I would propose substituting after buildings for operation in 2021-2022 school year and thereafter. Because that creates a two-year window during which, according to the other articles, everything is basically status quo. So it's a two-year period of time to develop policies so that it becomes operational in that third year. Okay, so we're keeping the first part of this and we take after... So develop policy and then scratch programs for upper interest. No, I agree. The school board of directors shall develop policy and programs for interest, district, choice to families or guardians, students enrolled in grades for which the union district operates multiple buildings to become operational in 2021-2022 school year and thereafter. Okay. So just to go... four is still implying positive. What could we put? Regarding instead of four? You know, regarding the school and then it doesn't give up? The bureaucrats. Right. Well, ultimately, well... you know, voters don't want school choice to hold down the article. Sure. You know? So this really is a representation to the voters and if they don't want it, they vote it down. Holly, did you get it a little bit? I think I got it too, Holly, and I know it's actually helpful that Chris read it at the same time. It's helpful to have you read it and take it at the same time. So then we're adding one more to leave and I think we have five articles. So basically you just want to say Chris, in your opinion, putting this article on the ballot for the special election, which will occur whenever, is basically going to be a referendum on school choice. The voters can vote it down. It will be a referendum, essentially be a referendum, but I don't think that would be the end of the question from a legal perspective, but as a policy perspective, voters would say, you know, they don't want to have school choice. They couldn't do that. Because the board couldn't have school choice, I think. Yeah, and I think, you know, for people like me, it would be hard to vote in this article without knowing the details. Like if you're in the fence a little bit. Yeah, but if the voters voted down, the board would still be able to, would still have the discretion to develop policy on school choice. But if the voters voted in, the board would not have the discretion to develop policy on school choice. I think that would happen. Chris, what do you think? Looking for the other lawyer. I'm waiting for the wrap-up and discussion about whether we should be putting these in front of voters and anyone. Okay. So, I'll be right along on that note. Sorry. So January 9th. It's at 2.5. January 9th. Do you think you have all the articles talked about on the floor side? I just want to review. Sorry. I'm trying. Sorry. I'm supposed to make him forget. Let's try. Did you have all the... So what I count is five articles here. Five articles and we're about to open under our thoughts and we're having time. But Chris, you have the floor. I would propose that we change article 4b on school closing after the 2021-2022 three-year and after. And rather than having all the electric of the authority of the legislative union district, that we have it by a super majority of the electric and 65% of the vote. I want somebody else coming. I feel about it. Brian. Any comment? Sorry. So it is to regarding article 4b of the school that right now this is one that requires a vote of the entire school district not of each individual town. And so you're proposing that 65% of the entire electorate. If the board proposes closing school, the entire election has to... Can I ask you a question? You said it could be different than what I think you could have intended. Did you say 65% of the electorate or 65% of the voters of the voters in that election? So that's different. 65% of the voting of the vote. Of the cast votes. Because if you said 65% of the election would be huge. Both are big, but that would be really big. Why 65? Why was that chosen? Because it's a serious decision? No, no, I mean like yeah, not specifically that. That number of super majorities is two thirds. Two thirds of the vote is close to two thirds. But I didn't really have that in mind. I'm just getting close to the age of 65. Like that. Because it's a serious thing to be doing in terms of not only the school but the community that it's involved in. And we're not... We have veto power to an individual town or the school may be located. But it still requires a lot of support from the electorate as well. In order to close the school. And I think that it's worthy of that. Rather than a simple majority. I'm just curious. 65 was based on other... Sounds like it was just sounding good. That sounded good. I'm going to mix up. First. Speaking of that. I could feel... I could... Could you consider taking the last sentence of Article 4 paragraph A tasting that to be the last sentence of paragraph B so that it's the voters with the town affected even after the first two years that they would have to vote affirmatively. The voters there's so many more issues that affect that town when you close that school. To all the other towns it's kind of a budget issue. To the town affected it's 10 times more than that. And there may be good reasons to close the school. There are plenty of instances of towns willing to close their schools around Vermont. But it's so much more important to the people that live there than to the district as a whole. To the district as a whole criteria would be economic. And the town would lose... Calus would lose. People were up to the town of Calus. It might be a different outcome. And everybody might be better off for it. Okay. To that... Yeah, I would want to be on the record. I agree with Scott completely. I think, you know, if that was a four-fist majority, it would still be unfair because essentially four of those towns that are not impacted by that closure could mandate that closure. While that town that is impacted by has no voice essentially. And that is wrong by any measure I know. You know, because it really does. It's kind of said this has ramifications for those communities that go far and beyond just even the schools. And it certainly has ramifications for those kids that are now being sent to other communities. And so we... I mean, I think we should stop using this equity word and start using selective equity because I think that's kind of what's happening when we make... when we allow decisions like this. So I was looking... Well, you guys were talking 4A, but I can't find... So 4B is in the... 4A, I thought it was in the... 4A you cannot... But we cannot, but I can't find it, is there? That's in... It's in... 4... In 14... Oh, sorry. Oh, I see. You mean, Scott, you referring to the last sentence of the first paragraph? Of 14A and bring that down to B. That's why I understood, Scott. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But you're saying bring it down to B. Yeah, right. That's why I took what Scott. Yeah, so the change would... There would be one change before to B. And it would be that a school must be by the residing... voters residing in which the school is located. Yep. Would that be along with a majority of the other towns? Just the town itself could... would vote to close a school, even no matter what the other towns say? They don't have a say. They're not saying anything in that particular case. I'm just wondering... Yeah. Yeah, just because to... If... It does affect other towns of the kids from the school that... Let's say a... Callous were to vote to close its school. The other towns would have to take the Callous kids. So it would... I mean, it's not... It's not the kind of scenario that one would expect. Then before kids to parcel out to move over to... That's the only reason for closing that. Well, you think that... Yeah, I'm just... I'm just sort of... The full board... The comments of that is let's say Worcester. Yeah. At some point for some reason has 15 school kids just refuses... Voters refuse to close the Doty School. But we're all now in a shared tax and operational structure. So all the costs that are involved in operating a school fully for those kids would be borne by all five towns. And the four that are not Worcester would have no say over whether that's the best way for education to be provided across all five towns. Again, we've seen this happen in places around Vermont. It doesn't last forever. If there are 15 kids in Doty and it goes on for three years probably the voters in Doty are going to realize that that's just not tenable. In that situation was one unit. The economic cost is not borne only by Doty. It's borne by everyone. But educationally it may not be a great thing, but I think that's what Matthew is trying to get at is that there's a I'm asking you to do is to balance that strictly economic question against the whole canopy of questions that are involved for Calis, Worcester when you close our school their jobs is real estate. There's people moving out. My son came to visit at Christmas he heard, oh, they're going to close the Calis school. He said, oh, that's another reason not to move back to Vermont. There are a lot of reasons that affect just that town I ask you please to recognize that. True. I would support Scott's suggestion. I think the in the context of the town itself has to vote affirmatively to close the school but I would just add and the other towns have to vote just a majority additional so what happens if they vote no and then there's a 65% if they vote no then it doesn't close there will be just to speak to Matthew's scenario if there were 15 kids at Calis say it is part of a combined system I would expect that the organization that perhaps the principal oversight would be done out of East Montpelier for example, there would be adjustments made in order to run that disposition as well as can be because they will always be looking out for the welfare of the children and they were just it's not it's a completely, we have to think of it in a completely different way from how we've been accustomed to thinking about our schools because it won't need the entire you know panoply of administration and backup like that it will be part of a larger system that can potentially be sustained in a very different way in a very different way what I was just going to say just to kind of tack on what you were saying about what the best interest for the child is at some point we've got to understand there's a detriment to the child when the class size gets to a certain point too so we're looking to the leadership team to kind of focus on those understanding those scenarios and when the children are being affected by class size so and I'm not foreclosing any schools, I'm not saying that but when you get to a point where quite a few of the voters may be tricked so but they don't want to close the school for some emotional reasons and I couldn't really understand that so that would potentially have an effect on these children that don't have the numbers in the classes that support the education needs of those kids and it's a balancing act and I don't know how to do it it sort of comes back to that point that citizen oversight of professional activity and I think giving the voters of a town who's and this is especially important because it's the smaller towns that are most likely to have their schools closed having that a determining factor I think is a crucial protection because of what you have said go ahead I honestly believe that the people of Calis or the people of Worcester actually the people of any small town in Vermont really knows when it's time to close their school they're not going to wait until there's only 15 they will say you know folks we can't do this anymore this isn't fair to these kids or to whatever and they'll say we need to get together and find a solution and it quite likely will be to close the school but they still will have hopefully some control over maybe where the students get sent from that school I think there have been schools within the last 10, 20 years time flies when you're my age that have closed and they've made the decision on their own they haven't been driven into it by some kind of merger or the state or they've said we don't have enough students and we are going to close I think it would be done I think Calis is smart enough so considering where we are in time I'm going to have two more comments and just make one clarification that I think both sides are making the same argument and sort of not balancing them out there's an assumption that this board won't have the best interest of those small towns either so Matty yeah I mean this is the conversation we've been having for three and a half years really this conversation there are others as well and I don't think we're not going to be persuading people tonight to change their minds or think differently about everything it is 8.45 at the end of the night I think we could schedule a meeting to really just come to grips with this particular topic it's the one we even said when the previous committee did deadlock on a previous kind of iteration of suggestions they came up around that so we said at the time this really is the core thing we really want to come to grips with for the article so it would make sense to me to schedule another meeting it really is just to decide this topic but that then leads naturally into the question of the hearing that's happening in Lines Bay which it's alright I can just say one or two things about that is that okay? Do you have a comment on this and can you be very brief? I'm going to say this briefly but I'm going to say it but this is probably the most important thing you've got and that is all this talk has been about bringing that meeting across this whole region and what this does is put some more in the amount of pain on certain communities in the community you know okay if you've got I'm not going to buy that 15th kid for student number I would tend to agree with that dot that those communities are probably going to close that but they realize that but the reality is why not pull some kids from the surrounding schools take a little of that pain to the communities that aren't subject to that it's really easy to sit there and say this has to happen when you're not sitting you're not at risk of having a school closure so okay maybe your kids should be those school numbers drop perhaps they should come to our school floor that's a good way to kind of equalize that pain and it actually improves our flexibility yeah it might cost us a little more but in the end you know we've got more flexibility because these numbers do rise you know in spite of what this trend show right now we've got half a floor that's ready to go under water we've got most of these because 80% of the US population is in flood areas so my guess is sooner or later they're going to figure out the only place where I am probably going to be running here you know that not I may just in that but you know that's the reality that we face today we can't predict that I'm sorry you know I don't think the townspeople are going to take that really well in any form but having the ability themselves to make that choice Michael? at some point I'd like to just make a procedural comment but this might not be the proper time to do it but before that we could you kind of speak up because I'm sorry oh good I just wanted to make a procedural comment before the meeting ends whatever the appropriate time is we were going to get right now into trying to decide on the meeting on Wednesday and you know what that public hearing format would be whether it's added or not if that would affect that timing please make your comment now well it may it may be related to it and maybe I should wait for Bill to come back to you because he's the one who's executing thank you and I hope I'm speaking up Bill I asked to make a procedural comment yeah I heard you said that thank you and it's this the transitional board cannot meet until after there's an organization and that's been put off until February 15 there's also very likely to be a court hearing around that time based on the agreement that was filed in the meantime I think that if the Hoots is all to be very accurate with the information that's being put out and there was a recent publication on Front Forge Forum today in East Montpelier and there was something also in our local East Montpelier signpost newsletter that comes out that says and this was before this deadline but it's not related to it this meeting that was scheduled for the 14th that the new board will be elected on town meeting now that's been changed potentially but whether or not the board the new board will be elected has not been decided and the transitional board cannot warm that meeting and that might have been the perfect time to do it in town meeting but the electorate may decide that the new board is going to be elected by Australian ballot or not by Australian ballot and there's a possibility that the electorate will decide to not have that new board elected by Australian ballot and the transitional board which hasn't been seated yet cannot decide when that election is going to be until they're seated so to be putting out information there will be an election that has not been decided and the folks that are concerned about governance and authority get concerned when that kind of information is put out there and I mentioned this at the last U32 school board meeting that statements were being made that the new board members will be elected on town meeting then and that has not been decided I was the one that put both and the front porch forum what we were trying to do with everyone's everything a month ahead because we were trying to have as much information in front of the public because usually from you we don't give the public enough time I posted for that and then we got this email today at 4.40 after I had posted last night of what was happening on Wednesday and posting what we had posted in the signpost because what we posted in the signpost was already not accurate because we had to change all the dates after the signpost went into publication so we're doing our best to stay on top the whole point of it is to provide information at least for myself because I was the one that put that out as a school board member I'm just trying to comply with the law and stay on top in the end of that post I don't know if you've read it and I changed what it said from the signpost it said that's a pending lawsuit that might change the timeline I didn't know any of this so it's just we're doing the best we can to stay on top of it I want to get into the baby you're missing my point to be saying in public information may happen it's likely to happen it may be the best thing to have people elected on town meeting by Australian ballot but that decision has not been made and cannot be made so when you're giving information to people people are going to read that and go we're going to have an election on whatever date it happens to be that may not be true and so you need to be very I'm just saying you need to be very careful because when people I happen to have the time to study the articles of agreement a lot of people don't people are going to read that information and think oh there's going to be an election by Australian ballot and there may not be the other point was I was reading something that was put out about how maybe anyone can clarify this for me that existing school board members are going to be re-elected at town meeting and I just didn't see that in the articles of agreement act 49 Michael could you maybe clarify that is not in the articles it's not in act 49 it's not in act 46 it's part of the responsibilities of the current school board because they have operational authority until June 30th and they have instituted through then all the way to December 31st and so I've been putting that information out that there will be we actually tonight the Berlin board adopted an amended warning for their elections here in Berlin and they all need to those elections need to run in every town I put out a video about that last Friday I want to actually say that since you were at the U32 meeting everything that I've done has said recommended or proposed that we're right about that I just want to say for Floor and others we're all trying to get out the information I take your point 100% about who has a governance authority please give us the benefit of the doubt we're trying to do the best we're doing I give people the benefit of the doubt I understand people are trying to do the best they can I honestly believe that so thank you saying that the end was very reassuring so I did want to discuss the public hearing on Wednesday I'd actually like to make a motion I just would feel better about that do you hear that right? so I'd like to if many can vote it down if they want I just want to make the motion so it's a decision I want to move that we postpone the public hearing scheduled for January 9th to a date to be determined between January 28th and February 8th the second day may I speak to the motion? so I share some of the concern that Dorothy expressed earlier I feel like I'm encouraged actually by the fact that this committee is slowly but surely actually reaching some clarity on a lot of the motions we hear the amendments that we discussed tonight but there's still stuff that we're seeking legal advice about we haven't been able to publish or get out what this committee has discussed to the public in a meaningful way I would say there's a major issue that I would almost guarantee would come up at a public hearing this school closure issue of what we want to propose about that that we haven't even really been able to come to grips with and so you know I just feel like we and we might actually even among members of the committee might end up again stating positions of talking about you know I'd rather I just think it would be much better we've been sort of given the advantage of the time here I also feel like the pace of work for this committee has been very challenging I would say that to my attribution for Bill it's been punishing and that's my observation so an opportunity to give in a breather and a little bit of space you know seems like you know a good thing to do at the least so that's what gives me a mind Any more discussion? I might just add to that that again taking off from what you were saying Dorothy before if we were to try to have a public hearing on Wednesday it would look a lot like us telling the public what we're going to do as opposed to seeking the advice of the public to ourselves and sometimes that kind of public engagement can be I think I've heard you say this before Bill that kind of you know communicating rather than listening can be worse than not having public engagement or it's actually been proven worse than having no public engagement so I because we do not know my concern is that if we don't have the hearing we'll lose the time if we're assured that the new deadlines are pumped out for everything then we're going to lose the opportunity to actually have a vote on articles within the 90 day time frame from the date of the State Board final plan which was November 30th this stay, this additional time I don't believe is across the board basically saying to the State Board we're extending all your time deadlines by a certain amount of time it's more of a scheduling issue for the attorneys to give each other time to respond to the pending motion for stay at the Superior Court so I think if we do not have the public hearing we will probably not be able to have the vote on the articles within the time frame to set forth by the state, by the articles 90 days within 90 days of the State Board final order so I'm not going to say that I know this Chris but let me just read you the paragraph about articles if your transition board or initial board wishes to propose amendments to the default articles of agreement that if approved by the voters would take effect prior to July 1st 2019 including amendments initially drafted by the amendment committee then they should be warned after the organizational meeting pursuant to 16 VSA 706 N what was the 90 day that's I don't hear anything against 90 day but the 706 N because I did go look at that is the way in which union districts propose bylaws which is you have your organizational meeting and then you vote the bylaws so we're looking at article 14 B1 against one which is that the state board issued the state one claim district subject to merger to have 90 days to form a committee with members appointed in the same manner and number as required for a study committee under section under 16 VSA chapter 11 which is what we are now inch out draft articles for the new district during this period the committee shall hold at least one public meeting to consider and take time on some draft of the articles of agreement sub 2 if the committee's articles are not approved within 90 day within the 90 day period then the provisions of the state board's default articles included in the state one plan shall apply to the new district and so my concern is the 90 days period is start from the November 30 I agree with what you're reading I just don't have any of this legal filing does not extend that deadline is it possible to get a waiver but what I'm hearing is that we can't have the vote on the articles we can't warrant the vote for the articles of agreement until we have an organizational meeting so which means that the vote on the articles can't possibly take place within the 90 day window because we can't warrant it until after October 15 which means we can't take place until at least March 15 so that's beyond the 90 day window so then we can't even propose what I understood from that we can talk about articles we can seek public input but that doesn't mean that that is our public hearing but from the email it sounds from that email like there's intent to extend the deadlines but I don't know that for sure I'm just saying that's how I you know that makes sense to me I know you're an attorney Chris you've seen this one size doesn't fit all the time especially if it's just a they're extending the long deadlines for filing so considering the time of night should we call the question with the assumption that we can vote on articles of agreement and later that we can have a hearing later and it will be okay voting that's sort of my understanding for reading this email too or we can just vote knowing that we're taking our chances we can't have much defense notice for this hearing do we need to get it's already it's already but if we change it if we move it out the original 90-day deadline is in effect we would have to warn the article vote I was talking about a hearing a public hearing so if we can wait for the vote to cancel the meeting tomorrow actually the other thing is that I don't think the hearing does the hearing have to take place before the morning I don't think so I think just to have a public hearing I don't think the law at this point in the night I'm not going to tell you that I'm going to make any good judgment on any of these technicalities sorry but I'm just going to say this I know I think there's a little bit of faith here I've used that term before and I think I want to put in the way you said it I think you were trying to say we're going to assume this or that and you can vote which way you want to go and if we have to scramble and get a hearing next week I think either way we're scrambling personally my opinion I agree with Dorothy wait get some information out but that's me you can reject that that's fine I have one question the public hearing it only needs the 24 hour I'm not saying that's the best idea so if we did find out in the next day or two that it is required prior to we could pull in from the suggested data that Matthew mentioned and do it sooner but still give us time to do some of the you can still do one next week that's all I've been trying to get out of it I support cancelling Wednesday I don't think we're ready for it but it doesn't mean we have to go all the way up to the 28th of January we could pull it in if we needed to based on the dates does that make sense based on when we're finished based on when we're finished I don't have the certainty that we're not going to miss any days because the and that's why I guess if he clarifies that the next day we then re-warn and re-do the most important thing is to be able to put the warning for the vote and we have given ourselves that day between January 19th we know that that's so let me go back to this about where the authority lies this group has the authority to approve amending articles you do not have the authority to warn the transition board has the ability to warn they don't sit until February 15th at least that's what we know today I'm not going to say at least that's what I know today that's why I say that a lot these days can we call the question any I will call the question all those in favor of Matthew's motion please say aye any opposed any abstained the ayes have it so just one last thing for organizational purposes if we're not having this meeting on Wednesday we have a meeting scheduled for Friday morning at 8.15 that's what we have said I'm not trying to push it I do want to give Bill a break I also do not want to lose momentum in getting stuff back from Chris I can get stuff back from Chris I was just going to ask when do you want to meet next so is there anybody that can do that Friday morning that we have already scheduled and just get our brains together back home by him we had scheduled an hour yeah isn't that what you said you couldn't do more than an hour and a half so we have said yes I said that so we can do with closure then we can do with closure yeah and we can add stuff to the agenda and you can email me if you have any things that you want to see in that agenda and I'll send the amendments cleaned up I would just like to recommend we suggest that we budget time for this article for conversation because we can easily spend an hour just talking about that and nothing against it not trying to self-selfish I don't think you're going to get much done Friday morning for where this committee is at now I think you should set a schedule for when you want to meet I agree with you floor dropping it going too long is not a good thing and you don't initially need to do it tonight probably by tomorrow through calendaring and doodle pulls and electronic means and things like that you shouldn't have shorter than two hours you probably shouldn't have longer than two hours because as I watch this committee after two hours we all turn into general thank you so I think you know we can do things like that but I know we want to try to put this together and keep it going and the amendments are on morning to get those out in one new form do people have two hours on Friday? I have baby all the time there is and I would also like to try and figure out the answer to the article 10 too if you were a father okay so then we'll send a doodle pull out in trying to get some dates it's just my experience with doodle pull is that it's really really hard especially with people to try to get a specific date so just asking with morning or after work is best for all so that we have a quick question though besides the Chronicle 4 is there anything else besides just kind of clean up work on reviewing the revisions so I guess what I'm wondering is that what do we feel like we need that much time to do what seems to be a third draft and review of some of the things we've been working on just can we, even if it's just taking in bites at it just get some of this off our plate so we can have a dedicated focus on all of the most sensitive and important component of articles and if it's just an hour to I agree I think if we have a meeting scheduled for Friday everybody could come so far if we could at least get an hour of work and maybe just concentrate on the amendments that we already did and that would be cleaned up and we save article 5 for when we have we send a doodle pull for having a longer meeting or that one and be sure to have everybody there and be sure to have everybody there but at least we don't well I'm going to suggest we do one if we're not going to have an organizational we'll see first I just got a commitment sorry no I literally did today my son asked me if I maybe said well he goes to Long Island sorry bring the kids no that's a long way from Doverston Matt didn't you want to have a meeting for choice a separate meeting all together no just close just closure article 4 so we'll get you what we can for Friday yes so actually at the end of that would we have the discussion about whether or not we should even be putting these articles in front of the voters given where we are so we you mean oh so just I'm not going to get into that tonight sorry I just want to understand because we don't have to put them unless they're one of the ones that stated what he's saying is that if we are not prepared enough and we don't feel like this is worth putting out to the voters gotcha just might not but we're going to adjourn at 9.10 my apologies for really keeping that long and we are at meeting for 8.15 yes thank you for coming and carrying this thank you