 Let's go ahead and start the June 2nd, 2021 meeting of the Montpellier-Roxbury Board of School Directors. I mean, it starts at 6.32. Let's do roll. Kristen. Yeah. Here. And again. Here. Andrew. Here. Amanda. Here. Right. We're missing Jerry, Jill and Emma. I think we do have a quorum. Jerry was just in our finance committee meeting. So she might just be running. Did you just open? We do currently have a quorum, Jim. All right. That's what I thought. All right. Public comments. Um, again, if you could, Tina wants to go. Otherwise, if you hit the participant screen, you can raise your hand in the participant screen and I will see you. Otherwise, you can just do what Tina did and raise your physical hand. And I don't see anyone else with their hand raised. So why don't Tina, floor is yours and please introduce yourself. And that was Jerry. Okay. Jerry, do you want to just sit in there for a roll quickly? Present. Great. Thanks. All right. Go to Tina. I am Tina Muncie and I'm here just to ask, I don't see it anywhere on the agenda, the discussion about Roxbury. Now you said after budget, after retreat. And so I'm curious, when might I see it appear? Hopefully soon. Thank you. Any other questions? It is definitely on our arc to consider list. But we're processing a lot. I'm happy to talk offline. Anyone else? They're great. I'm Nathan Isantando. Oh, Nathan, yes. I just, I'm here tonight in support of and to be an audience for the high school track and field immersion class, populated by students who are running track this year and two of whom were part of the middle school program when I was there. And I want to applaud them and all the work they've done leading up to this meeting. And as ever, thanks to all the board members for all the work you do. Great. Thank you, Nathan. And I'm going to step on a turn and just give you and all the people who made a great track and all of our people who made a great athletic season possible. All the coaches and volunteers and parents who in the toughest of years gave our kids a great opportunity to go out and have some healthy competition and friendship and camaraderie and exercise. And I know it was a ton of work and it was more work than usual. So thank you to you and everyone else who made that. So next on the item, sorry for the equity agenda is the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move to approve, but I'd like to pull the idea B for discussion just because I'd love some clarification on what it is. But I move to approve everything but the idea B. Okay. Hi, second. Any discussion? Just really briefly, we had a really positive financial report from Grant before this. And we're because of our fund balance will be fine, but it's a it's a wild budget year and we may end up with a little more surplus. We may end up with a little deficit this year, but all in all, we're in a good place. So thanks to Grant and Libby and all the administrators for, you know, minding the public coffers while navigating this really difficult situation and having the money to spend it when we needed it on really important upgrades and provisions and services. So thank you very much. Excellent. Here, here. Any other discussion? Let's proceed with the vote then. Kristen. Hi. Mia. Anacet. Hi. Amanda. Yeah. Jerry. Hi. Great. Consent agenda passes. And then you had a question, Mia, about the idea B assurances. Yes. I just couldn't, I read it and I just still couldn't really understand what it is. So I just would love a just a summary before I feel comfortable voting to allow you to sign it. Jim. Yeah. Idea B is our is the federal grant money coming for special education. So IDEA is the special education law. And so with all of the federal grants that come, there are a list of assurances that need to be typically to check off quite honestly an electronic signature from me with the special education funds. I think it's just a it's a slightly different thing that that goes to the board chair for whatever reason. I'm not sure why that one goes to the board chair and all the rest of them I have to do. But special education certainly has its own rules to it. So it's just grant, it's grant money and the assurances come from, you know, we won't that that Jim is assuring that the money is used on with kids with special education needs that, you know, that kind of thing. It's literally what the word means there with assurances. There's a whole laundry list of them. Okay, thank you. Any other questions about idea B? Motion to approve authorization from the board chair to sign the idea B insurer assurances? I'll move. Second. Second. Thank you. Kristen. Hi. Mia. Okay. Hi. Jerry. Hi. Amanda. Hi. I just have it. And now we are... You skid me, Jim, but that's okay. I thought so. I thought so. I was like, maybe I missed it. Well, yeah, I still have it, Andrew, but you want to, you want to pile on? Sorry about that. Now, very excited and pleased to have another student presentation on track upgrade. And I think I definitely see Meg and Ben. I don't know if Ezra is here as well. Maybe it's under Beth's Zoom, but let me turn it over to you guys. I do have to, I have to duck off at seven for about half an hour to 45 minutes to attend to a kid thing. And Andrew will be able to taking the reins, but hopefully I'm able to see all of, all of most of this presentation. So Ben and Ezra, go ahead. So I'll just introduce them. Thanks, Jim. And we will have the presentation. It's on a website that the kids have created. So you can actually watch it at a later date and we can share it out if people are interested. I'm Beth Merrill. I'm a parent of two kids in this district. And I also am the library assistant at the high school this year, which has been really a great, great place to be. I was really hoping to get kids in school more. So when they opened up Enriched Big Classes for kids to be able to be at Montpelier High School twice a day instead of just once, I volunteered to get this group together and just look at the track facility that we have, the track program. And just, it's one of them to kind of delve into this as a research project, as a, you know, a community building project. So we have, we call it track enrichment. I think it's technically called covering ground. We've been meeting in this quarter, which started at the end of April, once or twice a week. This Enrichment has had them sitting a little bit in a classroom, but mostly doing some research going out to the track and actually making actual improvements to the track in preparation for real life events. And they've done a great job. And they really just want to share with you what they've found about just the numbers of kids who are participating in track and other people who are involved in the benefit from MHS's track. And so I'm going to, we have a presentation, because Libby, would you be able to share it or if I'm able? I have enabled you all to share. So you should be able to share your screen. Let me know. Okay. They're going to introduce themselves. Ezra is actually on his way back into service from being in Northfield. So he should be here momentarily. They're going to introduce themselves within the presentation. So I'm going to mute myself. And I'll kind of know, Meg and Ben, when you want me to advance. But if you need me to go back or forward, just let me know. So this is our MHS track enrichment class. I'm Ben Wetherill. I do the 400 sprinting relays and long jump. And I started running track this year. I'm Meg Vosian. I've run track for two years. I'm a freshman. I run some of the distance events, like the 1500 and the 3k. And I also started throwing javelin, which has been pretty fun. Ezra's also been in track for two years that it's been offered once in middle school and again this year. And he's a distance runner in a high jump. So our goals for this presentation are to advocate for improvements to our track that would make it safer and just altogether better for everyone who uses it. We'd also like to coordinate with other stakeholders in our district to organize our advocacy efforts. And we are here to ask you, the school board, to consider a range of improvements to our track to accommodate for our growing track and field programs as pictured in this picture. So so far we've had meetings with Andrew LaRosa, our director of facilities here, to talk about what he's done so far to work on this project. We've met with Chris Levine, the Harvard Athletic Director, because they just upgraded their dirt track and see what they did. We researched new equipment in the current state of our own track and what we need to host and meet and other things. We've created this presentation and website to inform the public on the standpoint and where we are right now. We've assisted with preparations for the middle school track and field meet that happened at MHS on the 8th. And we helped to host the MSMS Invitational for 226 middle schoolers. We did the line painting, we helped run events, and we did some finish line camera. And in this photo there is Meg helping paint the lines. So when I was in seventh grade there was a the track club at MSMS was formed. It was volunteer effort. We had eight volunteer coaches that were parents which provide transportation for us to get 232 because we didn't really have the space. It was just harder for us to train at our track at that point. Before then before 2019 when I was in seventh grade there weren't any track programs at the middle school level. And there wasn't really options for girls in spring sports. You could do baseball, you could do ultimate frisbee, but they were male dominated and it really wasn't like inviting. But in 2019 we had a team or a club of 24 athletes, 20 of whom were girls which was a pretty amazing effort. Then of course in the 2020 season it was canceled due to COVID. But this year we have 30 high schoolers and 50 middle schoolers in our programs which is quite the increase. That's pretty awesome. So now we'd like to share some of our major accomplishments from this year. Our track was used to host meets for the first time in 17 years. This is a picture of some girls that I think are May 8th meet running the 100 or at the start of 100. This spring because of COVID lots of middle school teams around the state had few or no meets on their calendars and we decided to host some meets to give the athletes a chance to compete and just go out there and challenge themselves. On May 8th the coaches at MSMS and volunteers hosted the first meet at our high school in 17 years. And then again on May 24th we had another meet hosting 10 teams in 226 athletes and they competed at our MHS Invitational. This meet was put on because we had help from our neighboring towns. We had a high jump bit from Northfield timing system and hurdles from Spalding and a starting gun from U32. So it really did. It took more than just our city. That's like saying it took a village. At the meet we had over 50 parent community and student volunteers which ran the meet. They did everything from paint lines on the track to weeding around it and moved shop put tow boards and hand timed and measured all of the events. It was really a pretty amazing effort put on by this group. So we just have some photos of different events that were happening at that meet. In the center there is the hurdles. In the right corner is long jump. Bottom right is high jump and bottom left is a sprinting event. At the MSMS team they won both meets even when they were facing in the second meet 10 teams. Winning is not a new thing at MHS. In the 1990s we won I think six championships. This tradition we think started to fade when other sports gained popularity but given our recent numbers there has definitely been a resurgence in the track and field community. I think we just wanted to point out from these old yearbook photos that is a pole vault in the top left corner that we actually had pole vaulting at MHS in the past. Yeah and then on the right. So the Montpellier Recreation Department is a program that helps generate interest in the track and field program for kids between six and 14 years old. It's been hosted at MHS on our track for years and it'd be great to get kids interested in track and field on a better track. So top right is like photo taken in 1987 and then the other ones are more recent. Actually the bottom right one is some kids doing long jump too. So our track has many uses. We have many people that use it over the fall cross-country running season. I believe U32 came and they used it because theirs is under construction. Outdoor graduations have been held on the track both the middle school and elementary ones in 2020 and then all the high school ones have been on it. Teachers and state workers and any other people that want to walk on it during their lunch breaks can use it. There's an all night fundraiser called Relay for Life hosted by the American Cancer Society that also has utilized the track. And then the Central Vermont Runners when they host the kids track meet among with other events is also on our track. And our district Pi Fall Festival in one mile and 5k runs have worked on the track too. So there are currently 272 members of the Central Vermont Runners 50 of whom are under 19. The Central Vermont Runners has been hosting the kids track meet at Montpelier High School for over 20 years. Years ago they had over 200 kids competing in each track meet and just last year they had their 40th anniversary of the Central Not Runners group. They weren't able to celebrate with a track meet because of COVID of course and they didn't have get to have a track meet the year before either because no there wasn't any track that was available to host it. Some potential users of our track could be Girls in the Run which is a elementary school and middle school running group. In the past years they've had 700 plus kids unifying sports at MRPS community could use the track. MHS and MS could host more meets and that could also be an income generator and it could be a community gathering spot for different groups of people who either work in and around town or come to run on it. Some current track issues that we have here at MHS is on the left hand side there's tire tracks and people driving on it like during graduations. There are puddles over around our track which could be solved by better draining and most of them are formed also by tire tracks and broken edging which is on the far right. This could be a tripping hazard for different people and just is dangerous overall and yeah most of these problems could be stopped by not letting people drive on our track. These numbers were provided to us by our director of facilities Mr. LaRosa. They are rough estimates of facilities improvement costs. There's fixing our wood curb around the track which is a safety concern. Material like the surface of the track and grading, paved long jump, high jump and pole vault run-ups. Ours are currently pretty cracked. There's discus throwing pad and backstop. Throt foot showing pad, throwing pad pit and backstop and this bullet is a permanent fence that would prevent runners or athletes or anyone from getting hit by lacrosse or other balls. The last one is engineering permits and stuff and it comes to a total of about $63,000 to $110,000 and these could be ongoing improvements. I just wanted to thank Mr. LaRosa who's here at this meeting for really helping so much with this enrichment and coming in and talking to us almost on a weekly basis about just ideas that he's already looked into and just coordinating with us. It's been really great. I think Ezra may be signed on. Ezra are you able to talk about the field equipment that we're looking at? Ben can you can you see the notes? I can do it yeah. So this is a list of different field equipment costs that would be basically needed to run a track program at MHS and MSMS. So the first one is high jump pit and the standards for high jump so that we can have a high jump here. The second thing would be hurdles. Currently we have 12 hurdles and you need about 50 or 60 for a meet. Also a better long jump runway right now is cracked asphalt and is not the best for anyone to run on and well another useful thing would be pole vault so that we could practice that and add that to our list of things we can do at meets. So another option for our track could be to completely replace it with a synthetic track. This would cost around 1.2 to 1.5 million dollars. We believe that Montpelier tax players would support a bond or budget increase to finance this endeavor and on the right there is a picture of U32's track and it's Montpelier which is synthetic. So in conclusion where do we go from here? We have options of course we have improvements that we could do to our own track as we have mentioned and then of course the new synthetic track option. We ask you the school board and superintendent to consider building a new track to support the sustained and growing interest of running in track and field in central Vermont and to purchase the equipment necessary to offer our track and field programs like to offer it as a school support that is sufficient. We ask you to consider to change your policies to protect our facilities for example no driving on our track and make short term improvements to our track if a new synthetic track is not possible. We have begun to put information on this website as well so feel free to take a look at your convenience. We hope this presentation has given you a glimpse of what's possible for the MHS track and field improvements to the physical space will benefit many students at MRPS as well as community members young and old. We're wondering how we might continue to support the board and our administration in moving these changes forward so that we might see improvements in the near future. We're happy to gather letters or support or petitions to do further research to help determine what's feasible for the MHS track. Thank you for your time. Thank you everyone that was really really helpful. We really appreciate the time and energy you put into this and it's it's really empowering to see students driving an initiative of this nature and also in the face of such unprecedented adversity this past year organize these important events like it's it's it's not really social distancing in this regard you physical distance but you guys came together as a group of runners and that's really empowering and exciting to see so kudos to you all. I want to open it up to the board for questions. I see Mia you have your hand up. I first want to say thank you for all that information is so very helpful to have that all presented in such a such a clear way and for us to see some real numbers especially so I wanted to first say thanks for that because I know that research is a lot is a lot of work and yeah job well done. I also wanted to say you're bringing me right back because I also I ran track in high school myself. I ran the 800 and those pictures are definitely bringing back a lot of really great memories and just a touch of performance anxiety so thank you for that and my question is around this being available as as a community resource in addition to something that our schools use I wonder if there was any consideration that you've made yet to other kinds of fundraising seeing that there's the central Vermont runners that this is something that the whole town and neighboring towns could be taking taking advantage of if there are other any other funding resources that you've considered yet or would be would be open to considering. I think that we well just speaking for the students and just kind of going on Mr. LaRosa's suggestion you know we looked at what you know what are the issues right now with the track and what what are the goals and didn't focus so much on on the funding because we're not necessarily that well versed in that I mean we do feel like there would be you know this is an asset to the whole city of Montpelier at the same time it's like a resource that our school district really I feel like we really need to get this up to speed to be able to accommodate the 80 kids who are participating you know in the spring in the middle school program just keeps growing so I mean I think we'd be open to it but that wasn't necessarily the focus of our of our of our course all right thank you Jerry yeah thanks for the presentation it was awesome um question you said uh some of the items you listed were um revenue generators do you have any numbers behind that or even ballpark figures um I would call on our middle school coach Nathan Peter who has brought that up as a when when you host meats you're able to charge meat fees um I mean honestly if we had been able to sell food at the last meet with the 226 kids and their families um we might have gotten a down payment for the track but Nathan you want to say something more I think that's the right idea I don't um I don't have hard numbers in sorry about traffic noise I'm enjoying the outside um you know if we build if we build a track that's a contemporary good resource we can host invitationalism we can also host championship meets uh and those can't you know you can do we do 250 dollars a team to attend there you can do a per kid um you know and I think it's worth talking about access and equity and things like that and we we want to be inclusive and the meats we held this year we didn't charge anything because we just felt like it's a service to the to the uh the young runners of Vermont to to be able to compete at all um but as we get more confident at that and if we have a facility that's really top-notch or or at the very least contemporary then I think it's reasonable to charge those fees and it's probably you know it's probably not enough to fund the fund the bond but it would probably go to defray a lot of the direct costs of the program in any given season uh and then you know it's a um like let's see like a gymnasium right it's a it's a resource that can be used by lots and lots of different entities um you know it's just looking at the the I think it's the warrants I can't remember one of the one of the board documents for today you know talks about rental fees for the district which are not a thing this year because of covid but it but the district does make money make revenue in other years based on rental fees and so um it's a little bit a little bit if you build it they will come uh model uh but again I I did not over promise it's not gonna fund the uh debt service on the bond but it would uh it would certainly I think carry its own weight uh in other ways okay thank you I I did get a call today by a community member in Roxbury saying um they support uh doing something about the field all right thank you Anakin thanks Andrew and thanks uh for the wonderful presentation um I see something that that definitely we need to we need to look at um and this my question is more I guess for Andrew I'm just curious what are the maintenance costs for currently what what we have in terms of track and whatnot and then um I guess if we have if we upgrade the track and and add these programs does anyone have ballpark numbers of what maintenance costs would be maintenance and maybe you know other costs associated with um having these programs yeah that's a great question um so the answer to that is I don't have those numbers but as we transition from letting from having the rec department take care of our fields to us taking on on in-house with our own maintenance people our own field grounds and fields personnel and our own equipment will be in a much better position to just to be able to do it and fold it into our normal routines uh you know we we felt bad this year when these track meets came up that the the track wasn't in better condition for them but we weren't positioned to do it we didn't know they were happening until a couple weeks before so so the help of the community was really bad quite fabulous um but I think that that the maintenance and ongoing care of it is certainly would fall easily within the realm of our expectation of what we would be doing um with the rest of the fields um yeah that 20 year I want to kind of go on a little bit of a side here that that 20 year mark that 17 mark year mark is really as I go back and look at the history I want to you know it was about that time that that we started to let our athletic facilities down a little bit you know when the track program left and the football program started to to lesson that's when it seems we started to say okay you can do touch a truck on the track and we started to say okay you can use the parking you can use the practice soccer field for overflow parking for circus smirkus we can drive over the softball field we can do all kinds of things that would never ever happen in any other school district and I think that we now are positioned to really make some solid improvements to to our fields and that was one of the things that when we originally talked I originally talked with Beth and the students was you know the the unless we do a paved track right away we know we need to still invest in our facilities there is safety concerns that we need to deal with with it is a it is a fundamental piece of the campus that needs to be taken care of and we are we are in a position to do that we're going to be putting that you know in the in the budget as it comes forward I'm going to break out athletic facilities so we have a better clear better and clearer idea of how much money we're actually putting into pure athletic athletic programs the facilities wise versus just grounds so that'll be coming up so I I I really think that the track if you look at the track and we talk a lot about every look at the edging and go up you know it's falling apart well if you look at the traffic pattern sadly that's where the that's where the edging broke down is where cars clipped it and the where where it's flat and level and square that's that was built in 1973 so we do have to change the habits around our campus and how we use it and it's we're breaking habits that are you know some of them are 50 years old but we're getting there you know as far as I know no one's driven over the softball field this year so that's that we we got to feel good about that thanks Andrew very helpful Emma um yeah I just want to echo what everybody's saying about thanking um the youth athletes that are here tonight um you guys have put an incredible amount of work and thought into this and I think um if you put a bond forward and spoke the way that you did tonight to your um community members I think they would definitely vote to approve that bond so I'm not sure um I just wanted to say quickly like I think public schools are are at the heart of every community and I think we have really strong public schools academically and I think we can I like what Andrew said about sort of we're in a position now to maybe start looking at how else can we strengthen our school communities and um I never played youth sports growing up but I've been able to see it through the lens of a parent and community member and I think I've seen all of you as athletes um growing up and it's really cool to watch you all succeed in your individual sports and I think that um brings the community together you know I was at the school tonight for a baseball game there was a ton of people surrounding the tennis courts watching people play tennis there was a lacrosse um practice with a bunch of community members there's people that come down to the baseball games that aren't even parents of the kids you know just community members that love baseball and want to watch it and I know you know younger kids look up to the older kids my daughter does gymnastics and word on the street I think Ezra are you the only guy on the gymnastics team I am yeah so you've got notoriety people look up to you the community follows you guys as athletes and it brings us all together um so I'm a hundred percent supportive of you know if we're in a financial position in this town to invest some money into our facility facilities I would like to see that happen um my question is in terms of maybe this is for Andrew or Libby or um but in terms of like a bond if we wanted to get something kick started for facilities would it be um would that be a bond that the school board puts forward or would that be something that the citizen like a citizen initiative bond be a school board piece um Andrew and I weren't here when the when the last bond was created so we'd have a lot of learning to do about how to do that I think to help the school board through it but the other pieces is that you know we are looking at we're getting considerable money for us or three and while we can't use us or three on a track it we can use our capital fund on a track so it may not be a need for a bond or that maybe you know we have lots of we would have lots of decisions to make around how to fund such a project um that certainly Andrew Grant and I have talked at length about um but if we can't use the federal funding coming in for this for something like this but we can use the federal funding for projects that we are already planning to use for our capital fund like window renovation and replacement so there are ways to use buckets that are coming that may not require a bond maybe it does maybe I'm totally speaking out of term because we haven't done a huge amount of research yet but yeah we are talking about all of those options so yeah I'm I'm really supportive I mean I don't really want to I don't want to have to like move things around like I think use ESSER funding for what we want to use ESSER funding for and then make sure we have funding available for these types of things when the um when the baseball team came to talk about their field I had requested a little bit of information about like prior spending so Andrew I'm really interested in that you know like what has our historical spending been on what sports and I just think we need to like sort of create a long-term vision for you know when do we spend money and and be equitable but all in all I just think you know when parents and community members are able to go to art shows and theater productions and track meets and you know baseball games like that strengthens our community so I'm a hundred percent supportive and thank you for coming tonight yeah and and in terms of process here I'm uh and and then I'm gonna I'm gonna get to Amanda and Mia but I just wanted to respond to to that particular notion we did create this facilities committee which hasn't really had the bandwidth to meet yet and I was thinking before this I was emailing with Anna and some other community members about the end of the MSMS building committee and the creation of this facilities committee I think this is a great issue to refer to the facilities committee and I think we need to get a facilities committee meeting on the calendar in the next month or so here and I think this should be one of the first issues that we talk about in light of the capital plan I think we need to flesh out the charge but when we talked about it before and I wrote down what everybody said I think that'll be pretty easy for us to do and then I think this could be you know the one of the first big issues that we talk about in the context of the capital plan and obviously Andrew La Rosa would be there and Libby and that committee and then we could we could make some progress on that heading into the fall I don't know what people think about that but I wanted to propose that Andrew. Well one of the things that that Matt linked the athletic director and I are working on is we're going to create we're going to fold in a athletic fields section into the facilities report where we look at not only just the fields themselves their usage their care their maintenance their sort of a five-year plan for their improvement as well as to the best of our ability Matt's ability to track where athletes are so when we so we can see groups coming up before they get to the high school we can see where the trends are so we can so we can adjust and we can make sure that we are we're prepared that oh we're going to have and it's in a small school it's tough because you know you get a group of friends and say hey let's go do it and suddenly your your team your team is doubled in size so but it's better it's I think it's it's going to be better that we at least are making an effort to sort of track this this moving forward so that that Matt link and I have been starting to coordinate on that and that would be part of our next facilities I could imagine someday it separates off into its own piece because there's so much there but it's a start and Matt link for those for our newer board members is our director of athletics just in case you haven't met Matt yet so I'm going to go to Amanda because she hasn't spoken yet and then I'm going to go to Ezra and then I'm going to go to Mia that works for everyone thank you so much for bringing this their attention for doing all the work that you did I'm really amazed and I'm really happy and thank you Beth for working on this too and Nathan for all your work I I I dream of the time where we can have these conversations and also include thinking about wheelchair accessibility you know there's many many in our country many role run and roll competitions and there are so many ways that we can think to include our our students and our families that are in wheelchairs or that have other disabilities that that we can include in these conversations I think it's really important to make sure that we are like when we're thinking of equipment what are the things so that you know eventually long-term plan of like really thinking with sports I know that they're they're they're where was it called was it called inclusive sport unified unified sport that was at the elementary school that doesn't happen last year didn't happen this year obviously but so just like to think about when we're thinking of any programs around exercise and around you know this freedom that we do include our communities that have other types of fun that can be included in like the track I know that we when we did um there when when I we didn't do it but when when our district did the race against races a couple of years ago that was like a conversation that we were having so I really hope that when we're thinking about this plan that we also think about that and I you know I support I um I'm a wannabe runner that doesn't run but I dream of running in my head every day so I you know support you all hopefully I'll get excited to run you're a very fast walker though thanks maybe maybe if there's a new track you can run on that come on that that'll be inspired maybe I did sign up for a 300 mile challenge in 2021 and I have done 1.5 miles this year so I still I don't know how I'm gonna make it but I will and just before we move on to Ezra Andrew do you want to address um ADA accessibility when it comes to these types of projects oh sure yeah I mean there would be a there would be an absolute baseline fundamental uh accessibility that would be expected in any public project with regards to adaptive sports and things like that it would be a great opportunity to to folk to speak with the folks at vermont adaptive and you know what are what are the facilities and and it's really in working in projects similar to this it's uh it's the little things and I'm I don't know what they are but it's it's of the right bench in the right location the right storage unit in the right location you know it's those little it's that sort of like I say I think most accessibility fundamental ADA accessibility's you know 99 percent of those are covered just as a matter of this good design and and we capture them it's that last one or two percent that makes the difference and we absolutely if there was a serious consideration of moving forward with this and that's one of those things that that number that 1.2 to 1.5 you know as any of you I don't know how many of you were involved in the last bond vote or have been involved in bond votes they they roll up because you're not going to just do the track and without doing the lights because you're going to have the trucks out there digging it up so you're going to run make sure your powers up because those poles were put in in 73 so you're going to put in metal poles with led lights well are we all tired of the porta potties out there yeah we're probably pretty tired of the pretty the porta potties out there concessions what do you need to do concessions wise um and then once you start serving press box Andrew press box you got to bring him at length press box well I we I want to fill this I want to fill the seats first um you know the the the concession stand you know yeah it would be great to have a concession stand well then you get the department of health involved and then you get lots of stainless steel hoods and things involved in fires so it it's um it it needs to be discussed because if it was so easy as to just say let's just redo a track um that's the easy part the track is the easy part that's the 1.2 that we know it's all the others that go along with it that we don't know quite yet um but we think we do we do need to make a yearly investment thanks for that Andrew Ezra hi everyone sorry I'm so late um I just wanted to say that like the whole enrichment group is more than willing to do anything we can to make this process any faster because I think we all really want to have a track you know like when we're in high school and I know you through the two track took a few years to build and there was delays um but yeah I just wanted to say that like we're all really willing to do whatever we can to make it go by faster thanks so much Ezra yeah I think sending along this presentation to everybody in an email would be really helpful and I think you guys have kicked off a really a really valuable conversation here Mia yeah um totally agree with that and Andrew I was going to um yeah suggest that we get the facilities committee on this right away largely because as Angela Rosa just pointed out it really isn't just should we improve the track there's a lot more that's wrapped up in it and it feels like the facilities committee is the place to be um looking at this holistically with all of the buildings and grounds and facilities of the district in mind um because if we were to decide to go to bond it would probably also include some of our buildings but you know but I don't improvements to our buildings um and you know I don't know that for sure but I'm guessing um and it also seems like the facilities committee is the place to do the research on not just what are we going to do to hit the baseline requirements for um ADA but how do we incorporate adaptive sports and you know can can we and should we put our focus and our resources toward that and that kind of thing so and as as the facilities committee is thinking about this there's a couple of sort of plugs I'd like to make one I would love to invite students to be a part of that committee if possible um to help in in as the discussion can um continues I think that would be really really valuable and um and I would like for the part of the discussion to be uh are there other funding sources we could consider knowing that this is really a community resource um including like local business sponsorships or you know whatever I just would like that to be part of the conversation obviously that's not a decision we're going to make today but I really would like to have that seriously considered um as we are also considering using taxpayer money for these things um so those are some of the points I wanted to just put out there to be part of the conversation and then I do have two follow-up questions one is to the students um this might have been in the presentation and I might have missed it but do you have maybe an order of priority um of the you know for spending the money uh or or the the improvements that that you need and if it's in the presentation and you're emailing it to us great that'll be very helpful for us to refer back to but if it's not I think I would just be requesting that maybe that could be a follow-up conversation that you all could have and then send it to us um to help give us you know from your perspective here's what I would tackle first and then second and then and then third um so not to put any of you on the spot to to name that right now but that's just a request that I'm making and then the one thing that it felt like we could do immediately and probably should is changing the use of these so that there's people nobody's driving on the track anymore etc but I'm not I just have a question around whether or not that is a board the board makes that call or if that is an administrative call it's like if there's a policy that we need to change then we should do that or if it's actually procedures that need to be adjusted so that maybe that's a question for Libby yeah there's nothing in policy around that I think the decision was just made that you know parking was an issue for certain events and that people people started I mean people now park on our on our property on MHS at the track without even talking to us about it for weekend like on the track yeah yeah yeah that that's more and and and those of you I've only been in Montpelier for 20 plus years so I'm a new car so um I'll tell you how I think really I think that really was part of that 20 years ago when the schools in the city were one more or less one and there was a you know boy parking's getting tougher 4th of July well let's use the high school softball field um boy we'd like to have we'd like to do touch a truck well we're not going to drive trucks out onto the rec field out on elm street and we're not going to put them down at dog river let's drive them around but let's put them at the high school so I think it's sort of just evolved over time so it's sort of been expected Tom Allen actually had a conversation the head of the head of stores with someone a woman who was pulling up onto the grass and said we're not parking issues why not it's like it's a field it's not it's not parking uh so it's it's really been habit and it's going to be quite honestly there's going to be some tough conversations in the coming year as we come back to normal when the city farmers the Thanksgiving farmers market the 4th of July uh touch a truck circus mercus and and and we're in a small town and we're trying to get away from driving a mile across town to park the watch fireworks and I know that's I know that's more out of towners but that's going to be a hard conversation that we're going to have with the city as as we go forward if we're serious about this I mean I want people to look at how open our campus is and it's it's one of the fabulous things about our campus it's so yeah but go to any other athletic go to any high school middle school you go to over the next couple of months and you will see there's absolutely no way anybody whether it's a fence whether it's boulders whether it's whether there is no way that you're going to no matter the how modest the field is you'll notice that there is a clear indication of the community you don't we don't use these for anything other than athletics yeah or related field related type activities I guess I'm wondering is there something you need from the board in order to start that shift or is that something that no I think that comes from support right so that would be it that would be a piece that we a call we would make that we would not be allowing to do it and and I would venture to bet that the board would hear critique of that decision although we didn't hear much from the mud lot and we expected the mud lot to have more critique from the community than it we didn't get any I don't believe Andrew at least I didn't so so but I would make a bet that that that's the board and that would just be supportive you know support of the decision that's made but yeah Andrew and I are both in agreement that we need to figure out how to how to stop the the parking on our facilities and unless it's a place that's meant to be parked on of course right okay the track and because it does mess it up and it does cause significant safety hazards that we then have to fix before our our soccer players can compete on it and our you know yep yeah before we we move forward with these last uh couple of hands is there any board members that do not support protecting the track from people driving on it and parking on it because I want to give our administration our unequivocal support here so that they can move forward and if we get a bunch of angry emails or calls it's on us to back them up so I just want to ask that question okay sounds good thanks everyone on also before we move forward in terms I just want to respond to two things from Mia because they pertain to that facilities committee in terms of scheduling a facilities committee Anna would you be able to help us with a doodle poll um it's Kristen Jill Andrew La Rosa and I believe Libby if I'm not mistaken who who are on that committee initially in terms of involving students the initial plan one of the bullet points pertain to the earth group and pertain to the the district's energy use in involving that student group so I think expanding that because we can clearly see that you know our facilities have many impacts on students beyond just their interest in energy and climate change so I think we can use something more general and we can involve a bunch of different student groups uh when we're looking at issues so when we're looking at this issue for example in involving this group and I'm sure there are other student groups student athletic groups that would like to weigh in so does does that seem reasonable Mia for sure okay um I'm just looking here Amanda oh sorry old hand old hand Emma um something that Andrew said about it reminded me this is just like quick commentary about broken windows theory and policing I don't know if any of you have heard of that but it's like basically in neighborhoods where there is already broken windows and sort of things are broken down then people sort of take liberties to feel like they can continue to trash that neighborhood so I feel like when our facilities send a signal like well you know this is no u32 fancy you know brand new track we can park on that you know so I think it's I think it will be like a little bit of us leading by showing our investment in the property to signal to the community too that no these are nice new facilities you're not allowed to use them that way um and then the other thing which is sort of piggybacked on Mia around like priorities I was also interested in that I was wondering you know something that Ezra said about wanting to have something tangible before he graduates and before Meg and Ben graduate um you know they call it slow democracy for a reason it usually takes a while to get stuff like a bond through and then construction planning and all of that so I was involved with the playground thing at Union Elementary School and none of our kids ended up getting to play on the new playground but it's a great community resource and I'm you know like that's we've got to start somewhere but I wonder if priority wise if there's anything you know that you could make use of next season like maybe the hurdles or something like that that we could pay for out of fund balance um you know just quicker maybe cheaper easier things to get um that would be something you might want to consider in your email to us I guess so not to and and actually mega mega absolutely for me now that people are actually running on that track the edging is the number one priority and it is going to be if the you know when it was just sort of deteriorating and and we were taking over it was like all right we'll go out and spend a couple thousand and we'll transition the edges and whatever but if we got kids out there really running we need to have that reconstructed properly and that is not going to be something that we're going to be able to just sort of take from other places like we're going to need to if this track program going to continue on that cinder track we're going to need to we very well may need to do that to say it's going to cost us thirty forty thousand dollars to clean this up and make it safe whether it's for one year or five years or however long um but that would for me now megs that that sounds that sounds reasonable Andrew yeah I think I think we should we should do a deeper dive on this with the facilities committee and get back to this later in the summer if that works it's not like Andrew what is the soonest that we could get those corners dealt with well I don't think we're going to be ideally we would have them so okay so we've got a budget already passed for next year right so that money's going to have to come from somewhere if we wanted to have it prepared for the spring for the spring meet um for the you know for next spring season um so uh if the funding if I knew where the funding was coming from we could put it out the bid and maybe tackle it at the end of the you know maybe catch a window between the end of the soccer season and the snow flying or at least have people lined up to do it right when the snow melts and and you know maybe there's some sort of some grass seed out there and some um you know straw out on some grass that's waiting to be um the mode if that funding doesn't come well then we'll have to build it into next year's budget and then so so that would be the next year I got my fiscal year is correct yeah I don't want to get ahead of ourselves though I think we I think we need to be looking at that the the field and the track and all the the campus in general and we need to really think what what's the vision here um because I don't think any taxpayer wants us to pay $40,000 to pay the edging and then tear that up the next year to put a synthetic track down so I think we're getting a little ahead of ourselves and and we need to think think about what it is that that we really want to go for and present that to to the board at a later date yeah I was just asking for to put it into context um you know so we have Beth I believe your hand was up and then Mia again yeah I just wanted to say we learned from Andrew that um equipment budget is Matt link sort of has jurisdiction over that and facilities um you know more permanent changes to our grounds or through the facilities budget so I think there is a distinction like Emma brought up could we get a you know lower hanging fruit like the hurdles or the high jump pit um and it seems like that that is those are things that with $10 or $20,000 we could we could do a lot and improve I mean right now we're not able to offer the events that compose a track and field team and you know thanks to the generosity of other schools we were able to have a meet but in terms of kids actually practicing those events that that can happen right now on site so that would be that is something that it sounds like it comes from an equipment budget I don't know if that makes any difference but decisions Matt makes for the athletic department yeah so if there were money that Matt could find I think that would be great and I'm sensitive to the fact that we're running 40 minutes over so on this particular topic though it's a really important one um so Mia do you want to just get in one last word on this and and we'll move forward yeah that's a really good segue um I was going to make a motion to send this to the facilities committee I don't think we need it but I'm happy to second it okay because we we did that I believe with the anyway I I think it's helpful for us to make make a formal like movement on this because the students have done a ton of work to um to give us the information and it feels like us that's us taking it seriously sounds good and Anna can you confirm that you'll send out a doodle to get us all on the same page that sounds good all right thank you so much okay I second that motion so I'm just going to go down the list here Amanda yes but can I still say thank you everybody including Andrew hi Emma hi Jerry hi Joe hi Kristen hi Mia hi excited to have this conversation started thanks again and I am an I as well so we'll refer that to that committee and that committee is going to meet in the next month or so here next on the agenda is world language and fine arts teachers and an additional 0.4 ft in world language and 0.2 ft in fine arts Libby is this you can you provide us with a brief description and ask yeah we have an increase in ninth graders and 10th graders from last year and our fine arts are um requirements for graduation and so right now we have too many kids and not enough ft for our fine arts so the ask is for the board to support us adding point or I'm sorry for the word language 0.4 ft for the world language and 0.2 ft in the fine arts so that we can accommodate the growing enrollment that's happening at mhs right now our bubbles are moving from msms to mhs and we're we've also gotten some new enrollments that were quite a surprise so last year in particular so we uh that's a good problem to have however we don't have enough teachers for those two areas right now can you tell us where that funding's coming from they come from fund balance it's a it's approximately $20,000 okay um does somebody want to make a motion any questions discussion looks like Mia has her hand up Andrew oh sorry Mia please go ahead I move to approve uh and I do have a question one it's discussion time well why don't why don't you ask why don't you ask the the question now um just to clarify Libby it would be fund balance this year and then just wrapped into the budget as personnel and staffing for the next next fiscal year actually be fund balance for next fixed or for this fiscal year for the budget we've we just voted on right okay so not the budget we're in but the budget correct start on July one yeah I'm with you and then we'd wrap it into the the budget requests for when we start talking about that in December yes you are correct FY 23 yes yes okay thank you and this won't be for that FY 23 budget um this is not going to be the only we're going to need more FTE at MHS in a couple different areas but right now the need is world language and and fine arts so just to prep the board for that during budget season that's helpful thanks for letting us know that because as we consider fund balance for other initiatives um that's something that we need to keep an eye on amanda that's what I was thinking I I wondered I know that we have some allocation like thoughts and conversation around the fund balance that could be used for some of the safety committee recommendations um like a few things I just can't remember what that is so like um I wonder if for the future we could have like a mini report on the fund balance and how we're using it when we're making decisions being like this is what we had it's in your board packet it's in your packet this time it's in the quarterly finance report okay yeah so if you look at the last page there um um yeah let's let's let's talk about that just because we're so far behind um why don't you take if anybody's interested in this if you look in the finance report let me see what the file is called here 240 I see yeah so we're taking out of that 240 yeah oh no that's fine balance transfer I can ask this question later um I mean I think we need it but I think so what I'm requesting is for the future um because you know the financial report there's a financial committee so like he gets a little bit multi-layered decision making we don't make this we don't make decisions on the fund balance in the finance committee we're just briefed no but we did make prior decisions of some of the allocation when we're talking about the budget in my remembering in my memory in my memory yeah we as part as part of the budget we talk about this and we talk about setting general plans for using fund balance into the future and that's reflected in the finance report but the finance committee doesn't doesn't make any decisions on behalf of the board with regard to how to use fund balance we'd come to the board if if we had a proposal so um have we in the future in heading into budget season happy to to look at fund balance talk about fund balance more and we can set up a time to talk about it too um and grant would really be one of the best would probably be the best person to provide an overview of where we are with that I just want to clarify Andrew just to have clarity on what I'm request what I'm requesting and the clarity that I need is like I'm being asked to make a decision on a fund balance money that is from prior so like I want to make sure whatever other commitments like that I want to understand it in my brain that whatever other commitments are not being taken away from that um even if things are not happening so that that's all the requests I'm making for the future we don't have to have a discussion I would love to learn more about the finance committee and its and the processes for later it doesn't have to be right now I just want to make that quick so right now based on our third quarter financial report the anticipated unreserved fund balance heading into next year is one million sixty thousand dollars and the proposal is to use about twenty thousand of that for this request heading into next year that's great and so the other part is how much of that one million has half we already said we were going to use um for other things like the request from the safety committee or other things so that's just it doesn't have to happen right now twenty thousand is a drop in the bucket in the millions that we have in the fund balance right now one billion but yeah yeah Mia I think just what I what I'm hearing is that we kind of got a like we have like a good timing a coincidence of timing here where we happen to have the q3 financial report in our board packet which has that um context but in the future we're anticipating that we will get other requests uh similar to this one whether they're personnel or not where we're saying yes we imagine we could use fund balance for this and it would be helpful when those requests are in our agenda to include the the most recent financial report possibly or some way of seeing that context because that is a lot to hold all in our brains sure yeah and and the unreserved fund balance is around three million and you can see all of the places that it's either obligated to already or that it's planned like you know some some some heat pumps at rbs that we that we talked about previously teacher bonuses um different different things of that nature so and it's all itemized there so page three of the financial report we can we can all see it there so going back to that motion mia do you want to restate the motion yes i move to approve the increase of 0.4 fte in world language and 0.2 fte in fine arts at mhs utilizing fund balance for fy 22 do i have a second a second all right uh christin hi mia amanda yes aniquette hi gel hi amma hi jerry hi all right and i'm an i as well all right so next on our agenda sorry i've lost the agenda because i wanted to pull that up to provide that detail answer to thank you answer to liby is this you i think there's just more time for the board to ask questions around us or two all right do we have questions well go ahead amanda clear that um to me that the questions were not really helpful in the process so i thought this was going to be more of like a process around all these communication issues that we're having in and um so i i don't feel um really welcome to ask questions around the answer to funds so one of the questions mia had last time that didn't get answered was the um feedback from the mia if i get this wrong correct me the feedback from the community and what how did that influence the decisions that were made um so from the from the community based on their feedback it the summer programming was drastically increased the money to spend on summer programming was drastically increased um and we made um commitments to our to our families who who are eligible to receive subsidies to pay the rest of that for part two in particular and we also increased the offerings to our community in terms of the sports programming that actually came from our staff who are who are also parents and from our community around um offering that kind of piece so that would that was increased drastically there was a lot from the community around um making sure that we had enough human resources for learners particularly our struggling learners um that just further bolstered uh the administration's decision around the interventionists um so those those two pieces were um either bolstered or increased the the amount we allocated for those pieces um and then of course the community liaison was was something that was supported by the safety committee as well prior to asking so those that was the main pieces that i didn't have a chance to answer last time with you for you and the interventionists just to refresh my memory from the presentation those are during the school year right those are not included in the summer programming no they're not included in the summer programming we um we taught as the principals and and the administrative administrative team talked a lot about learning summer programming and we really felt strongly that we needed to offer fun not not fun but um we needed to offer chances for kids to be together and outside and running and playing and all that good stuff um and also i'm not i wasn't positive we didn't try but my assumption and one of my beliefs is that our teachers need a break um and so i i was worried that if we asked them to do more some actually would and they need a break after this year so um there there are several different pieces to not offering the learning piece of it you know just actual summer school um if you will um there's also very little research that supports summer school as as something that's effective so sure what we want we know that kids running around playing is effective in terms of social emotional health and and just student well-being um so we wanted to really focus on that piece um i see jerry as a hand up i have some follow-ups but i can kick it to jerry and come back i've done a lot of talking tonight okay um so i listened to your podcast liby uh i don't know it was more than a week ago i guess uh and you mentioned that the community liaison position had been um put into i think it's called school spring the job area um so i'm wondering about that role could you talk a little bit about that role what they what they will do or just let me know if i missed it and i need to go read something oh no um so the community liaison role when the job description is to have a very small caseload of kids for our kids who are really struggling with engaging in school in our district it's very small it's a very small group of kids um however that small group of kids needs a whole lot of support and their families typically need a whole lot of support in terms of connecting with community resources um just being there getting the kids to school like physically driving to the house and saying let's go we're going to school you know building really one person to build a really high quality relationship with that family and those kiddos um so that's what we're imagining we're also imagining after um uh julia i think chavis spoke to about um mentoring services for kids especially particularly our lbgt plus community of kids that was as soon as you i read the letter that she um presented i was like well that's a great job for the community liaison to lead as well so we we've added some pieces onto it so really it's it's that connection to um to school and community resources for our our families who have the hardest time at it um and and kids need to be in school so of getting kids into school um we actually may have some success with our hiring which i will be so excited to announce if it all works out but we're working on that piece today hope for a lot so we i think we found somebody good really good that's great news thank you jerry hold him any other questions so yeah it felt like um it felt like there was a misunderstanding at least on my part and maybe others at the last meeting what and and i'll just say like i don't think that it was communicated very clearly to the board what our role was going to be in the process and uh decision-making process and um fund you know allocating funds so you know i thought at the last meeting that there was more of an opportunity to sort of like ask questions and understand better you know why decisions were made and it did end up feeling like you know maybe that wasn't our place that the decisions have to be made quickly and that the way that these funds are going to be managed it's an executive decision by administrators um which is fine i just want to sort of understand what the role is of the board moving forward if there's um i i think i heard you say liby in the last presentation that the next round of ester funding would require more community input and and process and um i just sort of want to clear the air around like what you know i didn't think that any of the decisions of how to allocate funds were bad decisions i just wanted to sort of understand the process and i felt like a lot of the questions that were posed um beforehand in the emails were thoughtful questions that it seemed to me appropriate for the board to be asking but i so i guess i just want to clarify like what the role of the board is in um in the process you know either now or moving forward yeah i the just clarifying questions before when we send out materials and i really appreciate getting the questions before so if there's numbers we have to find or whatever i really appreciate those but then the board the board member still needs to ask them in the meeting because because the public can't see the questions right or unless they do a public records request you know so even if you ask me them before i very much appreciate them i probably am not going to answer you in an email right or i'll say thank you for the question and then if you pose it during the meeting i can be prepared to answer it so that's just a that's just a process piece right in terms of grant federal grant money that is considered revenue to the district it's the same as title one money or idea money and that's an those are operational decisions as to how to spend those monies so um and i believe jim stated in his email to the board that unless i'm making decisions that go against policy um blatantly or go against some blatant value that we have as a community um then those are operational decisions for the administration to make so um by all means the board has to understand why we've made them you know and and that's my job to communicate why we've made them um but the board's role is not to to decide if they are the right decisions or not um unless it breaks policy in terms of s or three that's coming up anna and i were actually working very hard on that this morning um the agency of education is still trying to understand what the federal guidelines for that are because the feds have put in some extra requirements that have never been put onto federal grant money before um and it's called meaningful consultation so anna's actually designed a website already that if it's not up on the website it will be soonish around um that and the agency of education grant and i grant andrew and i were in a meeting this morning at nine with the aoe trying to get clarity as to what it means um what meaningful consultation means and the agency of education's definition of that that we just learned this morning is that the administration makes a plan and the and is required to go out and get feedback on that plan so it's not an open ended how do you want to spend this money this two point two million dollars that are coming in it's more of this is the administration's plan this is why we've decided to make this plan and then offer opportunities to provide feedback so anna and i were problem solving this morning as to how we could do that um and how do we intentionally get feedback from certain groups of people in our community so we're we're working on that right now and a website it's going to go up very soon or part of a page on our website it's going to go up very soon around s or three monies um and we were we have anna and i were in conversations today around surveys and around maybe spaghetti dinners and you know a couple things over the summer the problem is is that you have to have the meaningful consultation by august and summer is not traditionally a time that is that you get it's that you get a lot of input things over summer and except for last summer when we were making decisions about how kids were going to come to school um but so it does have a challenge when the feds have made the guidelines as july and august to get this information so we're still working out what that process is the agency of education is still working out what that process is um and so we're taking our guidance from them as we should because they're the ones who have to answer to the federal government thanks libby that's helpful emma do you feel like that answered your question i think the answer is that our only real role in this is to sort of check it against our policies and if the spending plan if we feel that the spending plan is in any way in a violation of one of our policies that that would be where we have room to ask questions or suggest changes yeah i'm sorry i'm kind of bringing a little bit i think a good way to think about our role is we're both kind of like a legislature and a judge so you know the legislature sets out a broad policy say like the american with disabilities and then libby's in charge of executing that like an administration is in charge of you know executing or administering that policy so say libby decides that they're going to put in ramps she could have put in elevators for certain places where there would be stairs she decides to put in a ramp she thinks it's the best decision so we judge that against the policy so now the legislature sets a you know a kind of a broad law that would require that some accommodation be made where um you know where there was their stairs or a need to go from one level to another so libby decides she's going to do ramps she could have done elevators we might think elevators would be better so when the question comes to us the question is not the question is like you know did she adhere with the policy which was to make an accommodation and then we asked is that accommodation reasonable and a ramp is reasonable if we might think elevators are better we might think both are better we might think there's a third solution is better but that's not the question we're asking and we're also not part of the decision-making process with her about whether there should be ramps or elevators we can ask about her what her decision-making process was in terms of what she chose but we don't make that decision with her and as long as it's reasonable we you know that's that's kind of the question we ask does that does that make sense you know i mean like congress sets the clean water act but the epa implements it and the epa does not implement it with congress it doesn't invite congress into the decisions that the epa makes when it decides to set a policy around implementation of the clean water but then a court can come in and decide whether or not that policy the epa implement it is reasonable but a judge might disagree that that's the best policy but as long as it's reasonable that's like the extent of her role so that's so we kind of play those two roles with liby being like the executive branch i don't know that's helpful or confusing sort of thing that should have a bigger conversation i think this is um there is a conversation around you know how equity is fitted into this relationship um how a the work um gets done in a way that is transparent that is um transparent to our communities who we ultimately are accountable to right we are accountable to the community we're accountable to the parents and we're accountable to those who elected us that's who we are accountable to so like just thinking of i don't think this is a conversation i think i think we're in a moment of growth for this board and i think having these conversations piecemeal knowing that we have a really really big huge communication issue right now the way that um i'm gonna talk for myself the way that i feel unwelcome um the way that i feel that is um attacked just like you know people may seem that the questioning is a line of question is like i am here to really ask questions about equity around kids who have been marginalized in this district for a little while that i want to see those results and those questions when we're talking about the impact of my of my questioning it's not is the impact that is happening in our kids when we don't really like if i am given a decision making authority and all these things on policy i cannot think of policy if i don't know what's happening and if i asking questions do not like are are being you know seen as an attack in the administration we have huge communication issues i think even having these conversations about board roles and the way that the trainings have been given to us from the school board association just like being without collaboration treating as like little kids treating me feeling like i'm being treated like a little kid of you know being told stay in your lane since december you know i think that there is communication issues that we need to solve as a board if we want to walk together in this path of like really thinking of all the kids in the district so i don't want to feel every single board meeting that i'm coming here uh and like asking a question around equity around what are we doing with the summer kids because those are the calls that i get from my community around kids that are not being whose whose needs are not being met and like that i want to brainstorm if my role is not to support leave your administration and thinking about those gaps that don't get to be seen then if my role is only to robber stamp we have to have bigger conversations about this equity policy and all these other policies that we have in place so i think interpretation of the way like in the agenda the next item the interpretation of the non-compliance that report is basically a slap in the face that's the way i see it like reading that beforehand without having prior communication is a slap in the face that i think that we really should rethink the issues that we have around the way that we treat each other and i think that is not healthy it's not it's a toxic environment and i think we need to be able to solve that so i i missed the last meeting and so i i don't know everything that went down though i i i saw the messages and and i i do feel like there has been a tense situation for a while on on the board and i think part of it from my perspective is that some of these questions don't come across as questions so much as sometimes they come across as expectations and accusations and i think that's where quite a bit of friction comes from from my perspective that's that's where i feel like i'm seeing some friction come from and i i hear i hear what you're saying amanda but i also you know you i feel like people do listen to you i feel like you you do have a lot of a lot of floor time which is great i mean you're a board member you should have it i don't feel like you're being silenced i feel like you're able to communicate and voice your perspectives i appreciate you being on the board um i do think we are bound by some laws that you don't like and i i've seen you become frustrated by that and i find it frustrating too sometimes um so i do feel like as as a board we do have lanes that we need to stay i mean we're a board of a school district and we don't i don't think we want to hamper and i i i don't think we want i think our administration has done a really good job on a lot of fronts so to the extent that we can set visions and expectations and and then work with our superintendent to meet those visions and expectations to me i feel like that's really our place and sometimes i i don't think there's any problem with questioning down down to the detail level but sometimes it doesn't feel like questions like although i wasn't at last meeting when i saw Jill's email i i could imagine where it was coming from so i'm just i'm just articulating my perspective on this i i'm also good yes i wasn't being honest too i mean yeah there has been several people have requested that there be more clarity around roles and responsibilities and when someone like the bsba is brought in i mean they understand i mean you might not love them but they understand the rules they understand the roles they understand the laws who else is really better qualified to at least give some perspective on that and i feel every time that there's a discussion about roles and responsibilities and even when like frankly some some clear legal obligations are communicated the response back is untalked down to i don't agree with that we're redefining ourselves so it's very hard to have kind of any conversation just conveying basic information without a pushback so there's this kind of like tell me what my role is okay this is this is this is the role this is the roles as it's understood these are some of the legal obligation well i don't like that i mean and that's a very tough place to work from i mean and everyone's signed up for this role there's other roles you can play you can be in the legislature you can be a parent you can be a parent advocate this is a particular role and it has particular roles and it has particular responsibility not of which were created by anyone on the board and we can certainly have you know there is some room to play within that role but if we don't like the role it's it's the role we signed up for there's a bunch of hands that have been up for a while i'm hoping yeah thank you yeah um i have a few thoughts slash questions i think related to esser but it feels like maybe this is a valuable piece of context or not but i'm really leaning into something amanda said about this being a growth moment for the board and um and i don't necessarily mean like well we have a whole bunch of new board members and so things have to change what i'm talking about is we as a board and this was even before i joined committed to working to make our district a more equitable place um we have an equity policy and the growth that i'm talking about happening right now is that we're at a point where we're reaching the some of the more difficult decisions that have to be made um in order for that to happen um and decisions about everything from how we communicate with each other to how we how we do collaborate at the the way that i put it so liby when we got a chance to talk last week was like at the edges of our roles with all of us still still being in our roles to the decisions that we make to allocate resources and um for those of us who've heard the fabulous podcast that liby did with hannah barton and ashley around equity hannah put it really beautifully that when we have conversations about equity that are about our own learning and growth that all feels really good but when it comes time to have to make tough decisions about how we allocate resources it's actually really challenging and we're in a moment that may last for a long time that is challenging for all of us and i think that might be where some of that discomfort is is coming from um and so i just wanted to share that as a piece of context for this broader broader conversation that we're having of which i see the esser funds as really just one component of it and certainly a big one because it's a probably once in a generation opportunity of funds coming in from the federal government that we can see there are myriad ideas of how to use this money and um i think we all really want to be true to to to having to serving our community in in the decisions that are made around this money and um so that's why i feel like this is one example of a place where it is very difficult to take any of the lessons that we've internalized around equity and actually put them into practice um and and it it's messy and hard and and terrible and in the end really really worth it to to work through it together uh so that's the the piece of context that i wanted to share around where i why i feel like this tension is coming up in in this moment and what you know how we all can really sit with it as as individuals and as members of this collective body um i don't know jerry if you wanted to speak to this or if i yeah to the esser questions that i i want i kind of want to speak to all of it because i did i had to leave early last time but i did watch the the video and i guess i don't really understand um what the issue is because if you attended the esser community engagement meeting if you listen to the podcast if you read liby's emails starting on march 26 asking us to um join the community being telling us what she was planning what she was going to do i think the process was relatively straightforward if you attended those and read the materials and looked on the website and and even uh you know about the library books i know liby had mentioned it before she mentioned it again to tonight in our finance committee meeting about um looking at all the library books and making sure that we are being um we are representing um what we want to represent through our books through our classrooms through our academics so i think it's to me at least it's it's i feel like the administration is is 100 committed and are basing the the financial decisions on equity diversity inclusion um so i guess i'm just not clear what what is missing and the one thing i will say is when i watch the video it it did feel like within the questions were accusations and that's not that that's not a good way to ask a question um you know we have to we have to assume the best about each other we have to assume good intentions and that's why i assume you know it was just it was just it was not intentional but the questions did come across in a in an accusatory way so um that's my perspective i don't i i keep feeling like i'm missing something because when i read the materials look at you know everything that's available the information is out there amanda oh no i'm waiting for everybody too that was my old hand i mean a general question that that i have mia based based on what you said before is can you kind of paint or amanda can you paint a picture of what equity looks like in this case because i did miss last meeting um though i mean i i understand where this conversation is stemming from i've been on the board it's not like just missing one meeting i'm missing the whole picture but can we like what in in this case let's use let's use the asset funding can you can you paint a picture of what equity looks like here yeah i mean um for me it's like an assessment of the kids who are needing things right now so like um for example kids with iep have been actually advocating for a couple of years now to have remedial programs through the summer um i have this summer they already have them it's okay i'm gonna explain a little bit about what that looks like for my son who has an iep um in the summer i have to take him to screw he has to have a speech therapy um he i have to drive from the preschool to the highest school this was before covid um to get his 30 minutes of speech therapy assigned um from a different from a private instructor because our lovely speech therapy takes the summer off which is just great and i appreciate and um and then you know he gets to know his speech therapy for like the first 20 minutes he's like who is this person so he literally gets 10 minutes of speech therapy then i have to drive him back to the preschool which is an easement failure i have a very flexible schedule uh so does my husband's is really great but for a parent who is a single mom um who has to have a full-time job that is really difficult right it's it's so it's like thinking outside the box around equity it's like if we have kids who are taking their private tutoring classes because they are behind in literacy for example we do have um now all of our greats now all of our students are proficient in some of the literacy um so like thinking about that it's like equity it's like and i've seen many districts you know like Essex uh Burlington and Winooski all have like summer programs that are like a little bit of that remedial piece of it so it's it's not something that's just like out of the ordinary of design you um and like so like for me like thinking around equity i think what the feelings that i had was that we had about what maybe two and a half days to be able to look at the reports before the presentation and and so like that literacy report that was in there and that is there is our funding report that we never really got a chance to look at that was a conversation from a couple of months ago so in equity like it's not only data driven but it's a needs assessment of what the families are going through right now we heard from Julia about mental health we help so you know my question was how was the mental health support included in the social emotional learning those are you know questions that were based on needs and conversations that have happened in this board and from other families that have come so um i just spoke with a family yesterday that was talking about this remedial car about that go i can actually relate and the relation around this equity piece why it's important is because i have a really great health insurance because i work for the state and my and i every summer like for this year i was able to put in his IEP that i was not going to take any services because he was going to get them outside from like his occupational therapy and physical therapy out of the very which i can make appointments at 5 30 in the afternoon right um so that he doesn't lose what his work that he's been doing um so i think like for that i have privilege i have health insurance that's really good i have a really good family doctor for him i have a husband that has very flexible schedules as well as mine so i think like that so when i'm thinking of that report i'm thinking of those families and that was the question of what what is the remedial program i also have a few neighbors who are teachers who do this every year these um tutoring for kids who don't want to get behind in the summer so it's like okay how are we placing those gifts and then again equity we were thinking about the summer program i was concerned my daughter my own daughter is in a mountain biking with Tristan at the elementary school i'm paying for it but then we like the poor thing couldn't make it because her bike is so old like and Tristan's like we need to get her a little bit better bike because you know that bike is too hard for her because it was a hand me down so i'm like oh my god how much are mountain biking they're expensive i got another hand me down from somebody else but it's like if we have a summer program that requires this mountain biking they're expensive it's like it's not like we're giving them and it's not for everybody so those are my equity questions it's like when we have this extra funding are we looking at free and reduced launch and like how we really impact those families if it's just like not to give but also like those who are behind um not necessarily COVID because the report said that we weren't behind okay but there are there have been disparities before so but if we don't have those data in the board at least now for the past six months i have not seen any of that so it's it's so that that is the question and that is the experience that i um hear from families and like my own experience actually around around those pieces of questions that i had um the answers three you know there is a lot of conversation that like what is the needs assessment um that is not just the base on the continuous improvement plan yeah that's great but there's an influx of money can we really look at that data and look at our kids with disabilities how they're doing you know like i think there is uh creativity to support some of our kids thank you um i don't know so yeah yeah so so amanda i think painted a really great picture of sort of like what equity would look like in the spending of the money and um i have some thoughts on what equity would look like through the process so one of the questions that i posed in for the last meeting was what work the district or the administration had done to bring in input from families who don't normally speak up um and how how were those how were those perspectives considered in the process and that's a that is rooted in the policy that we have the equity policy that we have to to i have it in front of me to counteract the present and historical impact of bias prejudice and discrimination that for generations across our nation has blocked access to truly truly equitable educational opportunities for all students and that's extra work it takes extra work to do that um and so i was asking how that extra work had been worked into the the decision-making process that the that the district um underwent um to make the decisions around the s or two funding so that's just one example of how equity is worked into the decision-making process just to help answer your question andrew about painting that picture and the other is you know i've i've heard from three board members now about how the questions land more as accusations and i think a way that equity works itself into the process is that when somebody hears a question as an accusation they look internally and they go why does that feel like an accusation to me how is that challenging this position of comfort and in in in my perspective it's a challenge and yeah i'm gonna have to disagree with you because the specific example i'm thinking of is when amanda asked how will the community liaison officer be chosen will it just be someone you know that has nothing to do with me and that's an accusation that's an accusation and jerry nibby said she posted it per our usual jerry i want to clarify because that's actually not factual what i asked was hiring the contractors like the consulting firms very different than from the community liaison position it's like when we hire contractors do we have rfps for some of the cons equity consulting work that is being done and um that's different than the community liaison question that i asked which was where was it posted because i never saw it because i would have loved to send it to other people that i knew and it was and it was and it was hard for me to i did not see it that that's just me i did not see it so but so it's it's not factual um that i never asked i said with the consultants are the rfps and yes no but you did say are they just people you know we have it you can look at the video yeah exactly it's it's it's accusatory people you know correct so that's a question so that has nothing to do with me i just want to make it clear that's nothing internal okay it's just it's asking a question that's also accusing at the same time i guess some more something like that i understand the clarification jerry thank you i guess what i'm trying to do in answering andrew's question is bring in some of the training and learning that we've had from the sessions that we've had with mara that where she i think has done a really great job asking us to to to get uncomfortable with with working through these things and and that feels to me like what equity looks like in this process is that those of us who hold a lot of comfort and privilege when we feel something like oh wow that feels off to me or wrong or or weird we we we stop and and rather than pushing out we look internally i'm not as good at this as mara is but i do want to i'm i'm challenging all of us myself included to use those moments as learning moments as well as being you know in order to help us all grow as as we do this work together i do appreciate the clarification jerry but i wanted to also bring it up to a bigger picture of what equity looks like through this process i'm on i feel like you know we probably need to set aside time to work on to sort of address some of the underlying communication issues and i don't know what the appropriate you know place or how to do that is it does feel like we should dedicate time outside of this meeting to do that because when i look around at all of the faces here tonight i see incredibly dedicated intelligent caring people that just want to help their schools become better places and everybody here has incredibly busy lives outside of these meetings and you all come and you all give your heart and soul to this role and you stay late for every meeting jim and um you know we all want what's best for the kids and what's best for the schools so for me it feels like it should be something that is that there can be a resolution to because it it does um you know it hurts it stings to hear amanda say that she doesn't feel welcome or safe at asking certain questions and that feels like something that needs to be addressed and taken seriously and not just sort of like well you signed up for this role so that's what comes with it like i don't want to be dismissive of feelings and same with jerry's concern about watching back and what jill brought up like i take those concerns to heart watching back you know tape of the video of the meetings and saying there's a trend here let's look at that trend let's see what is behind it and um you know what does this mean for our communication moving forward because i don't think that anyone on this board does not in fact i i feel like i know for a fact that everybody really supports liby and the administration and is very supportive of the schools and just wants to see the schools become the best places that they can be for the kids so nobody has you know some sort of hidden agenda here that is anything other than that so i just feel like you know it's sort of simple slash intense communication issues that need to be resolved but i don't see why we wouldn't be able to resolve them looking at all of the faces in front of me you know i think we can do this and i think we should try but i don't think it's going to happen in the next 10 minutes and that's one of the issues that i felt at the last meeting was like this sort of rush to be like and there was some misunderstandings and you know jerry my my thing was and maybe i will be the first to admit that i am very very busy and don't always listen to the podcasts in a timely manner and don't always read to the fourth page of a financial packet in the board packet so i'm not going to pretend like i had all the time in the world to do all of the homework necessary to be the best board member that i could be the other night but um but my question was more around just simple like board where does our where is our role because just tell me if the role is not to ask questions and the role is just to you know listen to the presentation and and you know accept it for what it is then then that just needs to be i just feel like that could have been explained um prior to the meeting the other night and maybe it was in some email and i just missed it um anyway i so i guess i would i would suggest that we carve out time and i know we did a little bit of that at the retreat but um to address some of these feelings and communication missteps um because i think that they can be resolved yeah and i'm i'm starting to jump in here i am when i talk about roles and when i harp on roles i am not trying to quell debate at all and i'm certainly not trying to quell the the type of of questions oversight questions that i think you know Mia and amanda and others are interested in but knowing our role and knowing both the limitations but also the responsibility is a role and when i say we signed up for it we did sign up for it we signed up for a specific role which has specific responsibilities which give us actually a lot of power to shape the district i mean the equity policy you're all pointing to was the product of work that this board did with people that understood their roles and it's a very effective policy and now our role is oversight or our role is to ask the type of questions that Mia was talking about about you know how did equity you know at what you know points to enter the decision making process you know what was the process like what did you do um how did you reach out to the community um but our role is to ask those questions from a point of gathering information and then exercising oversight so you know if if if we're talking about a certain program that we might feel is deficient i think our first question should be liby to like explain you know what are we doing in mental health can you explain you know what are the mental health services that the district has you know what are we doing now you know what went into that and i think a lot of conversations start with we need more mental health we're not doing enough and not starting at those initial question points and figuring out you know what's the work that's gone into it what's the decision that's gone there and then having the conversation go from there and i think that's when people are talking about they seem more accusatory than inquisitive that's i think where that's coming from i don't think it has anything to do with not wanting to ask tough questions and not wanting to delve into tough issues i mean the reason that the board put forth a very progressive equity policy is because we did want to delve into these questions and we didn't want to explore these but we have to do it from our role and that means understanding our role including the parts of our role that we don't like and and the more we understand our role frankly the more effective we're going to become because we're not going to have discussions like this we're at you have board meeting after board meeting you know bickering with each other about you know what our roles are but instead acting effectively within our roles to get the information we need from liby to exercise oversight and push change and that is and we're going to we're going to spin wheel we that's exactly why at the beginning i said that we can't have these conversations that there is a communication issue i've been in this board six months and every month that i had a problem i asked jam for that i would like to actually engage in a restorative circle with liby since the district is really engaging into restorative justice because i think it is a communication issue so every month i come charged with the succeeded that he has felt so you cannot tell me how i feel because this is how i feel right not like you don't see it but i feel it and that's important there's a there's a cultural dynamic also happening around the tone policing and around the way i talk the way that i move my hands um in the way that i ask questions um and so that it's you know things to consider and to think about i think is really important that um that we so what i'm asking right now is that i think that we need to engage in a whether it's um like a restorative circle around like what are the communication issues that no i don't think any of us here has the capacity or skills to facilitate something that what i'm asking for and i think that if we want to like move this board i am here for this role i got elected i signed up for it my commitment to this district has been shown i've been here for four years working really really hard for all of our families so like in all the hats that i wear in this district with the families that i work with it's like it's it's it's not i'm not here to be a politician i have no aspirations to become a legislator ever this is i am in this role because i believe in public education and i believe in working collectively to make this better so i think that what i'm asking is like let's make this happen let's make this work let's collaborate we could be like Essex you know like i feel like we're in the parallel world we have a racist one over there and then we have me here trying like fight to just be listened to in a way that dignifies um our our collaboration so um i i i think that you know i understand my role and i want to understand my role more but understanding role doesn't mean that you you know like i i understand procedures and i understand politics and i understand like what's happening right now and i think that there is a way to move forward that um he warrants more caring for each other and more building community with each other and if that's not what you want that's fine but that's what i'm asking all right thanks everybody thank you amanda thanks jim thanks me up thanks Emma thanks jerry appreciate appreciate this personally um i do want to move forward with this meeting i don't want to just leave this i think we can all agree that we need some more facilitation to work through some things i think we made progress with nathan previously so um jim what what do you what do you think about um you know we could do another another retreat where we just focus solely on communication um at some point in the next several months yeah i mean i i would be good with that i'm definitely open to suggestions i mean we need something to get you know i think unstuck um i mean it'd be great if we could find someone who could i think bring some restorative practices but also get help with with with board roles too and i mean i i do think that we're struggling to to figure out a way to operate within the board role if i could um with some complicated issues that are that are going on i mean we yeah we we can only redefine it to a certain point and i think that is that is an issue all right client survey i don't know who put this on here so um let me put this out here or maya did you ask for it to be on here well the board should have some discussion if that's the climate if that's the survey that need that they want to bring to the team you have one week so you're running out of time here to decide on whether or not this is the survey that you want to go out to to teachers and and i i sent mea and amanda some questions personally on this i don't know if you've had time to read them yet um or consider them i don't know if anybody else has responded yeah we got we got feedback from you and jerry i thought the process that we were following is that we would get feedback from board members individually and then incorporate what we heard and then andrew would send it to the teacher negotiation team so i definitely hear you liby we are running out of time um but that was what i was thinking the next step would be is amanda and i spoke this morning incorporated the feedback and we're getting it to andrew i am gonna venture to bet that with continuing that process you have run out of time because the teacher negotiation team would need to read it they'd need to meet and there's one week left i don't think you have time for that process you can try um but i don't think you have time for it to get the data that you want yeah and i i don't think that based based on conversations with teachers that i've had recently just where their heads are at in our district and other districts i'm not certain that any of that i'm not certain that this is going to be met with uh open arms from our teachers as oh yeah we want to we want to deal with yet another thing right now at this point in the year um that's just but i do i don't think it hurts to engage with them heading into next year for a survey i personally don't think that survey is quite at the place it needs to be um do we need to sorry anakit go ahead no i was just gonna ask um don't we need as in the policies and procedures don't we need to provide them with the survey so in the negotiated agreement in the negotiate agreement yeah yeah do we need to provide them a survey i mean if we talk with them if we engage with them about hey this is where we are frankly i could just reach out to to chris and and chris is leaving of course chris and joe and say hey we're trying to flesh this out as a board we want a meaningful survey how do you feel about us you know issuing something in the fall rather than trying to cram it in at the end of the school year i'm willing to bet that that will be well received but i'm not certain my we need to do it in another amendment to the agreement to say this to have a piece of paper or we just no there's there's no real teeth to that from what i can tell both parties are okay with it yeah you have to have a conversation with them about it yeah you should just ask them yeah and then say what do you think and well i think the way it's worded right now and by like i think that preamble is going to be confused um the way it's it's written right now i i personally what i was thinking back in april when we began discussing this was that i'd have like you know five to ten uh demographic space questions then maybe would would have some the rest of the survey ready maybe not and i could take that and say hey you know here here are the questions that would like to ask here's why would like to ask them here's why we think it would be beneficial to the district we want to engage in a back and forth with you about about including this in the survey um i mean i could essentially take those demographics questions you've you've drawn up put them in a document send it to them and just explain where we are right now with everything and i can i can incorporate you know some of i can reference the equity policy um and some of the you guys have given me several past statements and i already worked on that this morning andrew so i'll send you the updated one which has the draft and then it has we moved the demographic there to the bottom um and then took in jerry's recommendations can i ask another question timing related um if if let's say if we send it as is right now um to them they would need some time to meet and then hold on it or prove it or whatnot right and then the survey goes out and the teachers need some time to respond to that right yeah all of this needs to happen before 13th 14th is a monday yeah so i mean i don't know i'm asking what's what's what's the drop dead deadline where all of this needs to happen before i i'm right now if it's still in the form that i saw when you said let's let's assume that it's it's it's complete and then at the end of this meeting we send it out right so and it's it's very long and and you probably won't get many as many responses as you want because the length of it unless teachers are given time during the day to fill it out and yeah and what's that date i guess that's that was my question what's the date that they need to that that we think that they they will they'll have i think you'd want to get it in their hands by by friday this week Friday the thing is that doesn't allow for any kind of back and forth with the teachers about these types of questions that we had heard the union was not super fond of so my general thought my proposal would be reach out to the teachers this week explain the situation share the you know if we have a draft survey if you guys can get that to me tomorrow morning i can do this tomorrow evening i'm going to be out of cell service by like five p.m on friday so andrew i in my last union leadership meeting i meet with them monthly the last one i had was last tuesday i think and that we've come to an agreement around the demographic data so the district will be asking those questions in the beginning of the year next year as part of our mandatory reporting things that we have to do anyway in the beginning of the year so we will be gathering that information we were able to clear up that problem that challenge together so just you know that's i don't think that's the issue with this survey i think it's the length and i think it's it's it's a survey that is that should be created together i think and should be the same each year so that we get some really good information off of it each year it's valuable um about where our teachers are are feeling and so i think if you send anything to them right now it's short and sweet i mean do we want to see if they're amenable to i mean obviously we get the information for this year but if we want something longer and more complicated we'll run out of time so another option here i just want to throw it out is we could explain that we've been working on a draft survey that would like to work on with them would like to propose it to them get their feedback from on you know and we could set that conversation up for next school year um we've done a lot of the work already and we could get something out short and sweet i don't know what it would be before the end of the school year or we can or we could simply ask them you could just ask them is this something you want to do this year and if so what are the highlights you want and and just rate it real quick and send it to them it's not gonna be perfect yeah uh christen christen joe and the and uh um carol and and the others on the leadership team rebecca sarah how pine they'll be able to answer you real quick and you have the relationship with christen joe so just go there first the you think instead of just sending them this this long survey draft survey right now just explain the situation and tee it up for next year yeah and you can pose it to them you can say we have a draft of a pretty long survey to send you um and we're happy to do that or um if if you'd like to propose something else or you'd like us to just send something really short and sweet or if you'd like we'd really like to work on this with you for next year if we could put it off another year um what would you like to do put it give them the opportunity to give you feedback on that if i know anything about our teachers they're very good at giving feedback me and amanda um i'm how does how does that sound to you sorry i had to step away uh for a second but i think the gist is that we'd send them a request to see how they want to proceed yeah um i would really like to lean into the working out a strong survey with them in order over a hey we could pull together something short and sweet and send it next week because i don't i don't want to go backwards um i definitely hear that the what's there is long it we intended to whittle it down with the teachers um but i don't want to just like grab something and send it to them for the sake of sending it to them because i'd like to use use something that will give us the information that we're looking for um my hunch me is that the teachers will agree with you that would be my i don't want it yeah i don't want to speak to them that that's what i would i would bet they want to do but i don't want to speak for them either but it is actual so you should talk to them oh i agree i agree that we should talk to them i guess what i would say is let's leave with our preference would be to work with you and tee this up for next year rather than like offering it as like oh it doesn't really matter to us we could do either of these things when we when we um reach out to them yeah and i don't think i don't think it's an either or i think the suggestion would be you know we've been working on this survey we realize we're running out of time we we want this to be a back and forth we realize we don't have enough time left in this year so definitely tee up that conversation for next year and then the question to them is do do we want to proceed with something short and sweet this year or do we want to agree that you know we're going to come to the table and and develop something collaboratively that's meaningful next year that we'll be able to use year over year kind of thing does that sound like a plan yeah i guess i would just lean farther away than the way you just phrased it in the do we want to proceed to something short and sweet because i don't think we can pull off short and sweet right now what if they really want something we didn't promise them and we can send them the survey that we that we can we just can we just send them what we have and say here the thing that thoughts this is very long but you know i don't think that's fair to them to expect them to respond within the last two weeks of a really no i'm asking you for them to see what we have and and like ask the same conversations i mean i think that's i okay this is a little bit of semantics around like what conversations we have it's like okay so i if they want something short and sweet we can survey from last year that's if if it's required and you know like if what they wanted something now we can just copy and do that one from last year yeah i'll reach out to them after this after this meeting okay next item on the agenda sorry i dropped it again is equity committee update yeah so um i'm sorry i meant to send an email to help kind of point everybody in the in the uh not right direction but what the update is it is in the minutes from the may 11 i think the the minutes of the most recent equity committee that was in our board packet we have drafted a charge and put together a very rough timeline for how we expect to go about setting some goals and we just wanted to share that with all of you and get any input from you on both of those things how the charge looks to you if this is kind of what you all would have imagined the equity committee charge um looking like and see if you have any questions on the timeline or that kind of stuff um so that was that was the main purpose of this update and then also um wanted to toss out the the sort of question or request to the board we imagine that um part of this timeline to help us determine what our goals ought to be will include getting community input through a survey and we wanted to see if we could use some of the budget that the board has uh to translate the survey to provide to make it more accessible to um to our non um people who uh who don't naturally speak or for whom English is not their first language so that's the update slash questions for all of you so wait was this are you going to be providing the charge to everybody or have you already provided that because i didn't see that maybe the charge is in the minutes of the equity committee from um the minutes that were included in our board packet at least i think there were minutes included in our board packet i didn't see them they might be on the website somewhere i just saw the agenda you you're right i think we should move this to next meetings agenda since you all haven't had a chance to see the direct charge sounds good i apologize for that i should have double checked yeah you just want to send it out to everybody too i think that would work yeah all right thanks bia okay policy monitoring do we want to we had a little bit of discussion about this just before do we do we want to have more discussion about the policy monitoring reports i mean we could push it off for the next meeting to it's nine o'clock it is late i mean especially if you want to yeah it sounds like there were some concerns that we might want to have some discussion around and i'm not sure nine oh two is the the time to i think i think that's a good suggestion we don't need a motion for that do we all right all right it's nine o'clock do i have a motion to adjourn are we forgetting anything sorry my dog is having a dream let's see moving to adjourn it's off i move to adjourn oh all right um emma hi amanda hi anakit hi jill hi jerry hi christin hi me uh hi thanks everybody have a good night thanks good night everyone all right