 light to our guests. Thank you all for coming. We appreciate interest, community interest in the work that we do. So the focus of tonight's meeting, we're starting even though we do not have a forum, so we won't be able to vote until we have at least one more member arrives, but we can start by just with our Farm to School presentation. So the focus of the meeting is a review of a couple of executive limitations reports. Those are the monitoring reports that Lane presents us with. We have 2.1 and 2.2. We have a budget preview of 2020 and we have something about the Farm to School program. I've asked Rachel today to be our meeting evaluator. We usually start the meeting with an opportunity for public comment. We will have a second public comment period after, I believe it's right after the budget preview. So if you have something specifically about the budget, you might want to wait, but I've opened up a public comment. Is anyone have anything specific? Are you ready with the Farm to School presentation? Yeah. Okay, great. Missy Axelrod, our Farm to School tour guide. Nice to meet you. Thank you so much for having us to learn a little bit about what's happening at the SU level with Farm to School. So a little bit of a background of myself. I live in Roxbury. I'm a farmer and I've been doing Farm to School work for the last seven or eight years in central Vermont and it's a great passion of mine and I'm really excited to have started working with your SU last January. So I'm just going to give you a little bit of overview about Farm to School in general and a little bit about what's happening at the SU level and we have a student here to share a little bit as well. So Farm to School has become a national program really rooted here in Vermont first. Vermont has really been the leader that shaped the USDA program and in Vermont we have the Vermont Farm to School network and right now it is Farm to School month so it's a really great time to share with you. So the Vermont Farm to School network is about catalyzing change and through students, through the ground up. Food affects just about everything and really when we think about our students if they don't have food in their stomach they can't be able to farm. So that's really a huge piece of learning about what kids are eating at home before they come here and what are they eating here and how is it helping them grow. So just kind of one little picture of a global view of food to farms and farmers to our schools. About 75% of schools currently in Vermont are integrated with farm to school programs in one way or another. It could be as simple as having a couple gardens or even deeper and through the network we're looking at pushing that up to 80% 85% by 2020 so a really huge statewide effort both at the government level as well as grassroots for helping schools bring that to table at schools. So we focus on farm to school both here at the SU level and statewide on the three C's classroom curriculum and community and those three the three C's are really a great simple way to look at it because they're all connected but they're all really strong on their own as well but without one we can't really have the other. So with community we really want to look at not just inside the school but outside everywhere in our own towns at the SU level and at the state level and then of course nationally as well but most local to at home the SU has a great harvest dinner at Randolph Elementary School every year which I'm going to give you a little bit more of a plug at the end because that's coming up soon. It's really a great way to get parents grandparents non-family members to the cafeteria to experience food together as one huge community family and to highlight our kitchen staff as well as school gardens and their harvest. Community looks at life experiences getting kids to the farm and learning about work ethics and skills farmers and field trips and bringing farmers not only kids to the farm but farmers in the classroom and developing gardens and every school at SU has gardens which is really exciting. Currently at Randolph one of the classes are working on a new plan for expanding the current garden and they are going to be looking at a budget and material needs and then they're going to help write a couple little grants and ask for community donations to help build that and that's going to really be their project with community support and then the same thing is happening at all other schools as well. And so here's a picture of one community event that happened as a collaboration between several organizations as well as our farmers school program. This summer it was the first Friday of the first week of school and this happened at the library in Randolph and it was a summer supper where people signed up to bring brawl ingredients and then everybody prepared it together both seniors parents young kids and then we all ate it together. So it was a really great way to celebrate farmers and people's gardens and to be together in the community. So that was a partnership between the Farm to School program the library the Northeast Organic Farming Association stores a town supported it as well and then curriculum is a really important part because if we just bring them to the farm and say hey check out your farm and then they come back to school and then we don't talk about it again it's not going to have that deep connection to curriculum and so there's always work happening at the teacher level for integrating farm to school into the standards. One really great example that's happening currently at Randolph the school next class received an extra some extra funding through a USDA farmer school grant that we applied for at the state level and received and she is doing a farm to school know your farmer know your school project it's a pilot project first one in the country that's happening and she's going for an extended visit her whole class two siloed farms in Randolph center and they're going to be going there at least four times and they're integrating it with their Vermont history curriculum as well as many other parts of the standards but that's the main emphasis and then they also received a artist residency grant and they're going to be having an artist come in in December to kind of help compile their whole curriculum on the farm and then they're going to be creating an old-fashioned cranky which is like an old-fashioned picture show and they'll be performing it to the community so it's kind of this great way of integrating all their curriculum and then looking currently we're at the brain tree birthfield and at the high school level we're going to be applying for a collaborative Vermont agency of food and markets grant so they offer an annual harvest school grant so we're going to be working on that and that will help us really focus on our film as well here is it an example of a student dressing up for a cow while learning about dairy in the classroom and all the parts this is the tech center with their pumpkin harvest and they supply a lot of their food to a csa and we're really working on a collaboration with them and they're going to help develop school artists um at a deeper level so they have they're learning the skills and then they're going to get to teach it to the other kids and then the cafeteria um is another the the last 3c where we're taking the curriculum from um the classroom the farmers food and bringing it to the students place and we're lucky to have a really great food service here um Harris so it's really great at collaborating and bringing in local food we just currently worked on two forward purchasing contracts the USDA requires that we do treatments and a buy um on food purchases and so we just this week sent out for beef and maple syrup so they'll be um borne or washington county beef on the menu as well as maple syrup the way that works is we look at a geographical area and we say we really want to be able to visit your farm we want you to be able to come to the school we want you to deliver on these dates this amount and we have all these safety regulations you have to follow and then we go on the best price of how that bit is won so we've been working on that and we plan on diving a little bit deeper and congratulations to the whole SU do you want to talk about the compass a little bit I'm Abby Gershaw I teach here at brain tree school and also a parent of three kids that go to two of the schools in the district and the composting which we started this fall has been highly successful at our school the really exciting part is the fifth and sixth graders have taken a lot of ownership with it so we weigh the compost every day to track how much waste we're diverting from the landfill the kids from preschool up to sixth grade in our building compost very independently at this point so they know if it grows it goes right in the compost and it's just been pretty smooth sailing we actually requested a second five gallon bin because we were filling five a five gallon bin even at our school so under the cafeteria this is my son and he wrote something in support of farm to school so he's going to stand up here and read his letter to everyone behind him he's going to stand I said no nice try I am Mary Gershaw I look at I'm a third grader at Brooklyn school I think we should put good meat in our bodies we live in Vermont near not New York City we have farms everywhere and our school lunch comes from far away we grow small we grow a small garden in my backyard my favorite things to eat are tomatoes cucumbers peppers corn I would like to eat vegetables that are organic that means they don't spray chemicals but there are kids in my school that don't have that that don't have gardens and they don't eat healthy food so if the lunch had better meat and local vegetables my classroom could be better too if you want to know what a school ice tastes like please come tomorrow and try it thank you for listening and I hope you spend more time more money on good food sincerely thank you we're always working with the cafeteria and the students are hearing what they want probably be sending out a survey to students to get feedback if there are enough options or too many options you know what do they want to see because that's who we're feeding and we want the food to really suit them and there are all kinds of guidelines we have to follow USDA regulation wise and what we're serving and budgets and everything but the great thing that we're doing as a collaboration working with all of the schools at the SU is working on an action plan and saying what do we value as an SU in terms of food and farm and how how do we want that to look and then here's our actions here's our timeline and then we'll look at budgets and seeing how we can make everything work to meet everybody's values one way to really get everybody used to trying new foods is we do a monthly taste test where we highlight a harvest of the month from a local farm this month is kale minister and soup and the kale's been coming from Heidelberg farm and we have a class that prepares it and then the whole school including faculty and staff get to sample it they vote on it saying yes I liked it I don't think that's so much or no I really didn't like it and then it shows back up on the menu later and the idea behind that is they get this ownership of preparing it that hands on they're connecting to a farmer and they get to say whether they like it or not and they learn that's full food etiquette of don't have my yam take a no thank you bite um say I tried it but I didn't like it so we're really trying to enforce that whole culture of trying new foods as well as giving your hands out in the gardens and on the farms this is a picture of tele and compost weights so what is the impact of farm to school what's what's the point it's a lot of work we're looking at 30 less hunger when we're teaching the kids from the soil on up to their plates they're more connected with their food they take more ownership of eating the food and so then we're seeing less hunger on the statewide level we really have it's been really amazing and a lot of times as you may know some of the only meals kids are getting our school you know it's breakfast and lunch and if there's a supper program they're they're not getting a lot at home so this is really it so we want it to be the most substantial meal food service does such a great job they have I think one of the hardest jobs um I'm sure it's dirty um so you are invited this Wednesday at Brookfield elementary school from 5 30 to 8 there's a free dinner as well as a little bit of a learning session I'll be showing this slide show again um as well as working on our action plan at the SU level and focusing a little bit on the grant that we're going to be submitting the um beginning of November so Brookfield this Wednesday you're invited there's child care there's activities for kids um and that this is made possible through the Vermont harvest school network they gave us a little bit of funding to buy food and papers and child care to bring everybody from the community together and there'll be farmers there and there'll be teachers and principals so you're invited and then one more invite uh Friday October 26 is the Randolph harvest dinner and we're going to be featuring a harvest soup a beef stew um that's dairy's ice creams and a little cider and there'll be a 50 50 raffle and the funds from this help purchase the the more cost of buying beef so normally kind of the average beef that schools pay are three dollars a pound and Vermont beef is 450 a pound this pays for that extra dollar 50 a pound um and we're going to be working through our action plan on ways to purchase more Vermont food that might have a little bit of a more cost to it but more nutritional value and process not just in the middle school but everywhere um so that'll be part of Wednesday and then this Friday on the 23rd is big celebration. Any questions? It's kind of a big overview on some of the projects that's been happening in the farm to school. Are you going to be able to extend the composting to other schools within this time? It's happening everywhere. Yeah so we contracted with Bro Compost of Vermont out of um Waterburn? I don't know Waterburn. Moortown? I think it's Moortown. Yeah and they come and pick up and we have the big barrels at um Randolph Elementary and high school and we have small barrels here and facilities has worked really great with everybody to pick up pockets here and dampen air and wash them out and bring them back. They work in the 3.12 Christmas seats. Absolutely. In Louisiana they're all the best um best process best people in there. Yeah it was it was probably at least two years of their project and they got to see it right before they graduated so it was really all on their part that they really did the research and proposed it. You mentioned that there's a strategic plan. It's an act like an action plan. Yep yep that we so we started developing that as a team at the SU levels with representatives from every school um last I started last April and it's always a working document. So it seems like compost was is sort of a yeah check yeah that was what we had to check off the plan and then um looking at more local foods more local procurement um working on the bidding contracts so we've started with that and really just trying to look at what what can we afford with what we have we need to have more funds to be able to purchase more foods how are we going to do that what's that going to look like is it more harvest dinners is it asking the you know the school for more money kind of just weighing that out right now and seeing what's feasible um and those are kind of the big things and just farmer connections and then click on the integration. Remember last year you all know how exciting it is to have a beef the community the SU's action plan the SU's program and really what it is that everybody wants and helping to connect all those dots to make it happen thank you we've got a forum now so that's good the new proceed um lane you're next with the budget some walk over the purpose of this because we're very early in the budget season actually it was kind of funny I was talking to Robin the other day because most districts do start not over um but you guys kind of in the previous years had a ramped up system of getting things done um and the reason being is because you used to be separate districts and you'd have to get the the essential kind of school board together to figure out what their overall budget was before they could figure out how to go and kind of connect with with the other towns and pull them into kind of the money process so we're a little bit ahead of the curve which is kind of good but purpose of this presentation is kind of discuss a little bit and get an opportunity for folks that to ask questions um about what we're thinking about so the parts of the pieces that we talk about are going to be things that you've heard before um kind of along through the different discussions about ends and where the school is and and what you know we kind of think that the has to happen within the district to make sure that we're meeting the ends um but none of it is set in stone so this is the discussions that are happening kind of at the cabinet level um the first one a lot of discussion has been going on on Brookfield Elementary um they have had an increase this year which was a little unexpected in terms of their population they're projected to have another good one next year so we are looking to get them an extra classroom feature um and we're going to do that to make sure that we're hitting kind of the the sizes that are recommended by um toward policy um the other thing that we're looking at is a math teacher um to either be just that Brookfield or to be split between Brookfield and Granger um the math teacher would come in would teach all the math um have a person who specializes in that content area uh because most elementary teachers uh in terms of their preparation most are more on kind of the humanity side of things most are responsible for the kind of balance uh the other reason for doing this is to try to get away a little bit from the multi-grade uh mathematics instructions to happen still keep the the multi-grade classes that people enjoy for the social aspect in terms of the knowledge of students that's really kind of focused on the math because it's such a sequential um sort of subject so multi-grade so you have one teacher with grades two to three and they're all going to do the same thing uh depends on what subject you can get away with it with like in English and in social studies if you have a two-year rotating curriculum in a class like that um in terms of mathematics it's a little bit more difficult because you got to do this before you can do this and so for many years they've had uh mathematics taught to them in a multi-grade environment so the teacher will take the time that's available will teach one group of kids they go off they kind of do their their um their guided practice um and then they'll teach you the other good things they're getting half the time so you know one of the things that we also did kind of do address that the principles were great about it is they increased the time on the line for 75 minutes at the elementary level you can because a lot of it's project-based lots of neat little activities and things that you do so usually you know you start off with the direct instruction from the teacher at the elementary level maybe 10 minutes tops they go into kind of guided instruction with the teachers helping the kids with what they're doing getting set up and then it's kind of them on their own using what they like but again planning we recognize that there's some deficiencies in the math and so as part of the analysis you know it looked like maybe that multi-grade piece instructional coaches uh we have three instructional coaches in the district these are professionals who work directly with staff to help them improve their delivery of instruction to help them do some data analysis and go in and use what they've learned and looking at student data to adjust what they do with the classroom model for many years as I can look back they've always been funded under the title grant system there are a couple of problems with that um the first is that the title grants only like to see these types of positions for three years because at that point in time they figure either they've done their job or it's so vital to the district that the district should be paying for this under its regular budget right now these people are crucial and so the intent will be to move them off of title so that we don't potentially use them in another year to make sure that they're under the regular budget of those three one of them was already pretty much moved over last year so it's not as steep as it says again a lot of this I tried to put down the ends that we're meeting with these 1.2.1 and 1.2.2 that's the math and the English ends and then a lot of it it's really all geared around improving instruction right working directly with the districts so you've got math and ELA and what's the third one we've actually got two math folks one that focuses at the elementary level one that focuses at the high school level and then kind of a K-12 ELA okay and so those people are only working the staff tend to quit them and not direct instruction math interventionists now we have interventionists and ELA these again these are title funded positions these are people that work directly with students we've had them for a number of years again they've got that three-year kind of timeline of the title grant process where they may not be able to fund them again for us next year but we've got a problem if we don't have especially the math interventionists we realize that there are problems some in mathematics that we are working on but the problem is is fixing what's happening requires curricular changes which we're engaged in right now as those curricular changes come online we'll stop having the problems in mathematics that we are and have less of a need for the interventionists but the problem is is that we've got students that are in the pipeline so if they went through grades one through six in previous years before the curricular work was done they're going to have gaps in knowledge that need to be addressed and that's what these interventions so we've got the curriculum work that's going on that's going to help the overall quality of math instruction across the district and then at the same time the interventionists will come in for a couple of years to help those students that are in the pipeline get the skills they're missing and get them up to school so in terms of the interventionists in terms of math specifically we'd like to bring those over to regular budget the ELAPs the LA is a little bit stronger we'll still try to get them under the title but you know it's a it's a 50-50 shot for next year so are you thinking that we're going to continue to meet math interventionists then long term or is this just a short term? It depends I it's a short term again it's the kids in the pipeline I'm estimating three to five years depending upon how fast we can get the curriculum done what we'll talk about a little bit later as we go through the budget pieces is we don't really have the structure to do the curriculum work that needs to be done quick we can get it done with the structure that we have that will be kind of plodding along it'll be very small and so we'll talk a little bit about this and again all these things are what we're discussing it doesn't mean that anything said and stuff my question though is contractually is that a problem because you know for you know to take on these extra teaching staff under the contract aren't we committed to them for long term after the first two years we're we're we're as committed to them now as we would be with this change because they are now under the CDA that was part of the agreement that we worked out last year it means that they can get reft just like any other teacher and you don't like like to do that ever because of the impact it has on the round but the thing that they get that they didn't have before is if they do get reft they have seen your artifacts so in other words if they've been teaching with us for 10 years and another math instructor has been teaching with us for three years we can reft them then and as if this you know position does not continue yeah and one of the things that happened last year when we changed over the interventionist to being under the CDA is the fact that because they're funded under title we have to rip them at the end of the year anyway because we don't get the title funding approved until now literally today about four hours ago i got the email from the state that said more than consolidated federal programs were approved and available so how many interventionists do you think they need we're probably looking at three to four depending on how they're structured a lot of it is that you know sometimes they're shared there's such a geographic distance between the schools that lose a lot in travel typically you know Randolph Elementary is big enough that they get one you know you can try to share one between Braintree and Brookfield but the travel time is half an hour it's 45 minutes and that's a lot longer than i always always imagine it is it's one time up there again and i go wow this is really am this is really up there it's kind of out there so um that's part of it the other piece too is um you have to have concentrated time you know if you bring them in part time um they're not going to have as much of a impact i mean the the greatest thing that improves learning for kids is time all learning with a qualified instructor and that was one of the problems that they had in the past with some of these title funding positions is that the state would come back and say you don't have them for enough time we're not going to improve them because they're not going to you're not putting enough time with the kids to have a the impact of these things better off overdoing it getting the job done and then putting the money back in. So this is probably the biggest one on there and probably the most important um the reason for this and the importance of it is it's money up front um it's going to pay off big dividends bigger um a lot of the problems that we're having in terms of the rising cost of special education remember we had a three hundred thousand dollar jump last year um the two kids that moved into the district um we are looking potentially at another five point six percent increase right now in terms of special education with the students in the district we have one student alone on the plus two hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars so we've got this dramatic increase in the number of students that need special education services because of emotional disabilities because of abuse because of trauma that has happened in the home and when they get into the schools those behaviors are not compatible the behaviors that they've learned to kind of contend with the trauma that they're experiencing are not compatible um we've learned in school and so they usually end up on special education plans which are very expensive and the model that we've had here for years and years is an effect it gets the kids through the school day they have lots of pairs one-on-ones to help them redirect them during the day but at the end of the day the pair goes home and the student goes home and the student hasn't learned any skills of their own that is going to allow them to grow to something it gets them through the day but after that's done you know there is there is no learning that happens to help itself regulate so the goal would be to build a therapeutic program within the elementary school and then after elementary school the most of the students are concentrated um in-house program and the goal of it would be intensive treatment of these trauma-based behaviors so that over the course of time these students can slowly be introduced back into the regular curriculum the regular classroom environment with support until after a couple of years hopefully they've acquired enough skill that they can go back into the regular led environment completely in that unit. So it's a fairly comprehensive program that probably requires two individuals at the very least a counselor type a psychologist type and then a special education teacher to demand that program conceivably depending upon how long the students are in the classroom and what they have some that are there all day versus some that you know over there for the part of the day they can have if there's two people in there they can probably have 12 to 14 students 12 to 14 students that would cost a minimum of probably 60,000 a piece and so that becomes a question for discussion we had talked in the past and it's in the articles of consolidation about the internal school choice this would be one of the reasons to do that this is the place where we can provide the best services for these students we can't force a parent to do it but it is an option that the special education team can consider for the building accommodations for the child and it works out really well the therapeutic programs because when you're dealing with trauma based students you're dealing with students that don't have a lot of trust in them and so if you can get them in a situation like this where they're working with two main individuals all the time that trust involves and then they feel a little bit more confident a little bit more secure when they're starting their full raise out into the regular classroom environment you know they've got somebody they know if they go out in the regular classroom environment it doesn't work that day they come back in they can debrief with these folks they can talk about you know why it may have fallen apart and what they can do better next time and to have those conversations requires the trust if we're sending these students out with your expectation of getting them back that's problematic because if they go out for a while they develop trust there and then they walk in the door two three years later so in terms that you mentioned you know the range currently for individuals can be up to 200,000 is that because they're being pushed out uh so depending upon the severity of the disability you know if you have a student who's way over on the autistic spectrum highly autistic that's going to be very expensive so it all depends on what the nature is the cheapest if we send a student out is probably Eva or our Raven program we're talking 25 to 27,000 if they get a little bit more advanced you know it's probably in the 60s and then you know if they have to go down to the facility in White River you know you're talking hundreds of thousands so I think it's really expensive the other problem that happens to these students is if we can catch them early we're going to do them a great service if they've been experiencing trauma that is provoking these behaviors and nobody does anything extensive about it until later on down the line sometimes they're so ingrained it's incredible so the sooner we can get them in a program where you know they've got people that are local they can trust because they know that they can go to and lots of times they're just an outsider yes the teaching asks uh yes but all difficult all positions the other thing that I learned I had an opportunity to talk with Rebecca Holcomb she was at the the New England Superintendent's Association conference that happened a little while ago and it looks a fantastic individual absolutely fantastic lady that she's doing a bit of research on the trauma-based behaviors and it was funny because when I was talking with I said well I'm sure that this is across Vermont you know we're not just the only one seeing it and the response was yes it is across Vermont but for some reason it is concentrated right dead center in the state which is what we're at so we do have and she had the numbers to put back about we do have a much higher prevalence of this here the problem of course is that these kids these families move around a lot you know so there's there's not a lot you know sort of consistency in in our population I mean they come and go and so we shouldn't I mean not that I'm saying that this is not a good idea I think it is a good idea but you know it's not gonna end the problem because these these families move a lot there's we can probably do the numbers there's probably about 20 percent there is a core that is here the other thing that we're finding the recent cost keep going up is because they keep moving in it used to be until about a year or two ago that you know you have this balancing effect you know you'd have four or five moving before five and so things would stay pretty much steady state last two years that has not been the case they are moving in and a lot of a lot of cases you know there's six places to which is good because under the reimbursement system it's been a one way to go for two years and again like they said right now we're looking we're looking at a 5.6 percent increase it's actually about a 10 percent increase but five percent of that move we have to pull it out of the tax base to pay out front of the state you know because we're still under the old system is this lane in terms of your vision for this um is this the type of thing you're just informing like that other kids from other districts would be tuitioned in they could I mean it that if you go that route are we competing like Eva or some of the other resources here in central Vermont no um um we could we could tuition them in uh very much like the Raven program some of these students um ideally you know would function very well in a more academic based uh Raven program but the problem is is that the age band you know there's uh the younger you younger you are the more important uh being close in ages um because of the the social nature you know two years apart it's it's huge socially the students um he only takes students down to about seventh grade and that seventh grader is uh was the first time you got a lot of it is uh you know taking a look at taking a look at the ends and trying to find ways to to address them again this would be money up front we've got a enormous number of terrors right now working as well and one's that number has climbed because of the number of kids that have moved in the district three years ago it was 19 it's about 25 now we can't continue to do that um we've got to address the kids uh we'll always need terrors um but if we had a program in that was successful you know three three four years down the road you know we should be able to get those terrors down hopefully around five or six that's for the size uh working schools that were districts that were three times the size where you might have three terrors across the district with the people number of you know so all because of instructions you got uh information technology um considering adding a a 1.0 um to it there are three people from the entire district uh all support all the staff all the technology computers all the one to one every kid has a Chromebook now um we need another person who could come in and take at least the simpler activities off their shoulders so that our highly trained packs can work on uh the bigger issues that we've got um the other piece that this would be wrapped into is the discussions that we had about the the district website um Cambium Group has been talking on and off about going out of business um they are upping their rates a lot of the work that needs to be done periodically on the website you know they charge us $150 an hour to do they don't allow us to do it ourselves um so there is a possibility that we can buy what's called the source codes program um use that so that we can basically all the website make whatever changes we want but we need a person who can do it and manage the website right now we're paying Cambium and we're paying an outside person in the contract to be the webmaster it would be nice to bring that webmaster in-house get rid of Cambium and then use them also to take off some of the low level tasks off the tax so again um part of the discussion that's there elementary science program um not an expensive one um but potentially an important one I mean the recognition is is that you know preparing students for the next stage of their lives I mean where the money is it's in STEM uh right now um and we do not have a full-fledged science program across the elementary schools there are some teachers some elementary teachers that have a little bit of science in their background that do a little bit more um but for the majority of it this does not exist here um the other piece of the science isn't just preparing them for STEM but it also allows the idea of practicing these transferable skills right you're learning how to how to read and write um you're learning your mathematical skills some science gives you an opportunity to try those skills out in a new discipline so you learn that hey what I'm learning in in math and English translates really well so that would be a curriculum for is that elementary elementary level so elementary folks because they teach so many different classes during the day it's a little bit different than the high school level high school folks can usually they'll develop their own curriculum their own lessons in a lot of cases the elementary folks don't have time to do that even if they want it so usually you go out your research and you buy a program that would fit your ends in this case our ends expanded program offerings to make sure that we're hitting some of the board's ends we're in discussions right now about a life skills program I started that with the cad that about a week ago we're looking at a digital creation of a digital literacy program and then it's also a pre-tep program the pre-tep program is going to be something that we're going to have to do for grades at least five on but it would be nice to do a class that creates questions on those but those programs look like you don't know part of the discussion I'm talking with the cabinet they're supposed to be rolling those conversations down to their faculty and in the case of the life skills program out to the community and out to the students and then washing the backup so that we've got all the data collected in one spot to try to build it you know the question is is you know there's life skills has that become you know two or three classes across the grades or is it a program that's integrated into each grade level into certain classes you're saying a pre-tep program is going to be a mandated statewide the state's got a mandate out there Jason's been really good he's been kind of plugging away on it but we're talking about what form it went to what's nice is you know we'd like to get students connected with it a little bit earlier with the kids from the elementary school so what we're thinking is because we've got some space in the classroom he doesn't have any space that's left in the tech center is taking one of those classroom spaces it's on the books it's kind of moving forward last piece this is the one that I'll never fly but it would be a a pie pie in the sky sort of ideal as a curriculum director we talk about weakness and curriculum and we talk about the fact that when you try to address something usually the first thing you do is you fix the structure you don't have the structure no matter what you build it's just going to fall to the ground and we've got to have the structure to support the work we're doing it would be nice to have a k-12 curriculum director somebody who can see everything from top to bottom make sure that everything dovetails together nicely that supports the students as they move up through each classroom grade to grade making sure that the they would also manage the title funds and also be the person who oversees kind of the data collection and rolls that out as these discussions with the faculty and uses that for those discussions is an instructional practice this is a standard position in every district we seem to be missing two vital people we're missing an HR sort of person and we're missing the curriculum director so what ends up happening is those two positions are kind of spread out amongst the people in central office which is fine but that's what I said it'll slow down the curriculum work I can do it it's just going to happen like slow something that we talked about we suggested hiring the second principal calling that person the curriculum director for a high school and so that's still happening okay yeah and that's the work that's going on with it okay but you want someone to take on the k k8 k6 I want I want somebody to so I want somebody to oversee the whole curriculum k to 12 process and the title grant program that's typically what these people do because if we get some of the the personnel moved on to the regular budget where they should be that's going to open up that $480,000 that we get from the government each year to build programs that person because they have that k to 12 view and it's all they do we'll be able to tailor those grants to fully support everything that's happening across the district we do a pretty good job right now but it could be much better we're limited by by the manpower in the hours of the day to really tailor this technique and then the last piece which we talked a little bit about last year this one doesn't really cost anything it's just another bucket to put surplus funds in when we have them but I'm really really really nervous about the upcoming changes for the special education part of the state right now as as you know under a reimbursement system if I have somebody move into the district in the middle of a year yes I have to pay for the services but I know at the end of the year the state is going to pay me back for a significant portion but that will not happen after these changes go into effect in 2020 what will happen is a look at the total number of students regular ed students some in your school and they'll give you a block of some of the money at the beginning of the year based upon your student population that's all you get so if I had a kid that moves in we're got problems there because you've got to figure out where that money is going to come from and it takes away the predictability you can't predict these folks anyway but you certainly there's no way to predict what the financial needs are without the blockade system so it would be nice to get a bucket that's out there you know that we keep 100,000 or 200,000 if you could roll it up over the course of time so that if we get that kid that moves in in the middle of the year it's not going to decimate the rest of the district's budget then I have to give you a question yeah I'm just trying to understand it so you're thinking it looks like you're thinking so when you say a surplus account do you mean like like the facilities like the facilities you would have to approve the release of the money once it's in there yeah okay and that's we didn't check it out they said we actually went to the AOE business person to check it and so that bucket would be available yeah help offset any additional costs and we still do what we can with the block grant you know that comes in and hopefully because we don't even know at this point in time how much that block grant is going to be for people so we can't even predict anything at this point in time you know potentially the funding level is still weak but we still have to do our planning as best we can but this is in that case yeah we just had two kids move in 300,000 we've got a cover we've got a cover now and when does this new special education format of budget of the person again believe 2020 and this is a transition I mean 2019 2021 so this next fall or the following but there's a slow transition to slow migration and that's not just proposed that that's oh that's lies and that's not that much fun so that's your budget per preview and I can't remember what is our parameters in terms of when do we start kind of getting a census to so things should be you got to be ready for the vote in March you have to have time for us to do our own budget presentation to the community that I believe was February last year things should be fairly finalized what's going on now in terms of the other parts of the process is the the principals and Steve Kenny the special education director going in to meet with Robin and you know given given her the pie in the eye to figure out what it's all going to cost and then we're going to sit down and look at the ends compare and say okay this is this is reasonable these are things that we're going to have to come but it's good it's a good exercise for them to go through because typically with budgets as an administrator what you do is you ask for what you need to achieve the mission that way people know what the expectation is we're really going to do this this is what we need to pull it off doesn't mean we're going to get it at least so I found that usually if you harp on the same thing for two or three years you guys would have to approve the budget January January meeting in order to hit the warning time and town reports yeah usually by December we have a fairly yeah anyway what the yeah so leaner are you so all these new positions are you proposing to other positions in order to make the budget relatively flat or are you proposing that in addition to what we usually do we're going to have all these additional so we're rather increased it would be nice to just increase it but the due due diligence I have pulled all the enrollment numbers I just got them about two days ago so the next meeting that we have it might be appropriate for me to show you what the enrollments are and have that discussion publicly I just see what it shows us I mean the enrollments are up at every every school days the problem that I've seen so it would be a big discussion get some three year trends in there and then take a look at what it's like it sounds good and so just I mean I know we'll talk more about it later but I guess the question is still brewing my mind around the title grants and the title money is that sort of something that you as you work through the budget have other plans for or is that I mean if you're thinking about intervention positions if those are moving over to base or regular funding I mean I'm assuming that we will still continue to get title money yeah so it's a it's that'll be part of your budget it's it's kind of funny the government determines how much you get it's always it's like a block grant so we always get our four hundred and eighty thousand or whatever it is for fifty somewhere in there every year this whole grant application process that we go through that takes a couple of months is just basically confirming for the government how we're going to spend it so that they can say yes this is what our guide for that money comes every year in the province and so that money with that money would you propose that that money still be planned to use for their salaries or would you then use it to build some of the programmatic needs you might even might even be able to use it for three years for now what's nice what's nice about that is if we had the position for three years we could probably get 90 percent in place what we need to get in place and once that work is done then a more skeleton crew can maintain it and do adjustments for years just restart the track so we have scheduled another second public discussion opportunity so if any of you here from the community want to ask a question or reflect on something that we just heard from the same hi I'm David it was nice to hear some of the math interventions positions when I looked at the scores I mean how they're lacking like against the end so thank you for for putting that on the budget um I was just a question for you Lane is there any consideration for a resource officer I know there was some a question of what what would happen with the Randolph police and whether they could be responsive we still they have not made their decision yet on what they're doing so it would hinge on that I mean we do have the security upgrades I do have a co-facilities director who is a police officer who has access to acting that so that we do have but a lot of it's going to come down to um what ends up happening at the town level in terms of deciding you know are they going to have a police force are they not are they going to not have a police force but contract out to to Orange County um but I believe I had to date in my head I think it's it's in November it gets really they're they're having that final you make that final issue it's a good question any other public comment okay um next on the agenda is um to determine the board governance budget um generally we have set for ongoing training for ourselves at least adequate budget um previous years we put in money for you know it's equal we decided uh all Lane and I really that that's not an appropriate place to put that funding they just really you know it's it's not really board governance it really is has a has a different goal so if the schools do feel like they would like to fund a keynote speaker for the community that should be that month that money should have a different year mark really um in the board governance budget we think vice chair and myself we that's appropriate to have another opportunity to be trained by Val Gardner we can determine you know what exactly we want that training to focus on but perhaps you know either sooner you know November or perhaps when we get our board members you know maybe in january or something like that we have another um evening schedule for ongoing training but other than that the new board members you know we do have monies for you guys to get an additional policy governance training um and besides that um perhaps some written materials which we already ordered but so the board governance budget is going to be considerably less than in the last few years because we're taking that $10,000 you know speaker on the chunk is there could we actually need to vote on on what we I would want I would make a motion and vote on what I'm putting in the budget okay I think that would be what is in the budget so um currently this year because it was we we mimicked what was done the year before it's 20,000 I think Val Gardner we're talking about yeah I was thinking Miriam Miriam was 4,700 to come out Val is probably a quarter of that yeah just just for comparison and I think we had her in July so that would be this current budget we propose to have her second time this year yeah that can't that can't touch what Miriam ended up not being all that expensive anyway because we didn't invited the other towns that pretty much covered everything except for like 350 per person the only thing that I was thinking is you know given the turnover in the board and new board members coming on that um you know having Miriam come back maybe not until the early spring you know after the next election so that you know it sort of allows the next group of board members to kind of all hit the ground yeah that's a good idea it would be worth considering Miriam though did did a training for what 40 people or something like that um that was the one a couple of years ago this last fall yeah yeah yeah she um the other people that are other group is Rutland South they have some boards that are policy governance and some that are not so as they're consolidating they're trying to shift from all over so they have a dramatic interest in participating with us or us with them that they bring around so that has another option we could go down there for if they get some all right so how do we want to proceed do you have a suggested I think we want to vote on this when we propose the budget either either or just if you guys are comfortable giving me you know an idea of the number to put in I think 10 is probably more than enough and it sounded like the reason in our discussion that you headed up around 20 was that that was meant for a one-time speaker because of the opioid crisis at the time so that is enough and then we can adjust it from there if it ends up not being um I probably would I like to make the motion of setting the policy governance budget to $10,000 for the second second all in favor all right all right opposed none okay so that'll go in thank you all right next is an update on so this is basically because we haven't met yet and so nothing's been determined the date of the first meeting is october 30th at 4 p.m. in the Randolph elementary library Chris Armstrong is the chief negotiator for the union and then I have reached out to Pietro to ask him if he could be here a little early prior to that first meeting just so that the negotiating committee can kind of get their heads wrapped around the whole process that first meeting is just establishing ground rules so it should be simple the only other piece to add to this and this is probably discussion that the board should have at some point in time is that the PARA's contract the support staff contract is also up for negotiation they had put in a letter last week it was last Friday or so asking to start that process they were wondering and hoping that they could sit through the same process with the cba folks some other words that both the table there in negotiations I asked Pietro what his advice was he's often in Greece he should be back and should hear from him so my question was I saw the email were they simply wanting to be in that first meeting where we're laying down the ground rules or were they talking about right through the whole process I mean they're they're they're represented by the same state group they're represented by the same group however their contracts significantly different and so what they're not going to be trying to say we're going to propose one kind of be two contracts still but during the same period yeah the other thing that we could go back and tell them is yeah we'll do it on the same days because that'll save everybody travel but we do so long with this one and then we'll pick we'll do you you know for the hour after it's worth it right after that might be more appropriate yeah it just seems to me that it'd be really complicated to be doing in the same meeting two contracts because these usually take months to do individually and so I'm wondering together how are we gonna I'm not even sure how would we be able to do that we're sitting looking at two contracts but I'm not recommending it I'm just passing on it just seems odd to me the same day makes absolute sense the first meeting same ground rules for both groups makes absolute sense but after the ground rules it seems to me that it's just they are so significantly different but what might make sense is to save everybody time like I said there will be longer sessions but you know we work on the cba for the hour hour and a half two hours whatever then an hour and a half the support staff you know now you know it saves you know the lawyers making their trips and yeah that makes a lot of sense so if you guys are comfortable about I'm happy to go back so I went through our goals we had discussed in our last meeting that they no longer were sufficient just because a lot of them had already been met and so in status they all said met and so we weren't really discussing anything we were going to be doing in the future and so I came up with three goals that I thought I'd heard us talking about the one thing that was conflicted on was do we want to add in goals that we normally have on a locating basis that every year we do and just as like a checklist so an example would be the board governance budget do we add small things in there like that we know every year during this certain month we have to do this just so we don't miss anything or do we just want these kind of bigger things for example the board will ensure the ends are relevant values of the community and future oriented do we want to believe that as the kind of goals we want to set and just realize that Linda keeps a pretty good list that the chair and vice chair see on a regular basis right but you guys actually have to fix up right so do we want to add something like that to the goals but these are the goals basically the first goal board will ensure the ends are relevant the second goal board will communicate with its constituents and then the third is develop the board and so the first two goals are basically the two things that I still I think that we need to we have decided that need the most work that ensuring that we're relevant and reflecting the values of the community and future oriented not worrying about today but tomorrow those are the things that we need to stay up on in order to continue doing that that's not something that's one and done that's something that has to be repeated every so many years I took a stab and said a couple years not one year but four years so every four years really evaluate and then that way because Lane can't change his entire whatever the benchmarks are you can't change them every year because if it's a moving target he never reaches it and so we I thought four years is a good time I don't know if you want to go less three years two years Lane I don't know what your recommendation is for a time period but it needs to be future not this year because if we change it at the beginning of the year we can't evaluate anything and then change it for the next year just because nothing's done properly yeah it takes three years to establish a trend that's the so if we have a trend in three years the fourth year we're evaluating it and then making the new recommendations I guess is so we could probably hash out the actual schedule of what we should be looking at trend wise and whatnot especially where the data the data should be pretty telling you to get jumps up and down again the three-year trend lines are usually what I use that's kind of the standard in business right so I don't know if we want to say just next next year we want so 2019 or if we wanted to come to the next couple meetings started looking at that but the review of it do we say that what we have now is good to go or do we want to start the process of looking at what we have currently on record and then you know push forward with re-evaluating and adding the starting the next review process I don't know I didn't have an answer for that but I selected as an action step set date for the next review do you want to do that soon later a couple years here I mean I feel like we just did it yeah and I really feel like especially with the change in the report cards and there's a lot of change yeah and and board change that's that's why the only the only thing that's that's the only reason I would think about redoing it sooner than later is because the composition of the board has changed significantly it has and yet we've asked so many changes changes for the administration you know like the report cards and that are so intimately tied with um our board ends that it doesn't seem quite fair fair to to even start to you know monkey with them at all at least this thing right so I don't know I would I would propose waiting yeah I think four years is a great um sort of you know a period of time I don't think we can wait four years to begin that but I don't know what do you guys think what do you think is a realistic time frame to begin to evaluate our ends I was going to say I think um I don't know about the evaluation piece but I think that collection of information and you know sort of the input gathering piece yeah I feel like that's an ongoing process and I I would hate to say it ourselves that you know we're going to stop that process um in the name of not wanting to make any big changes you know in the foreseeable future um so I think I I would almost recommend that as a board that we focus on that now because I think that'll tell us I think it's there's always a nice opportunity I think to just check the pulse and make sure that you know we're not way off the face in terms of the end is whether there's not a huge gaping hole uh so well sometimes the the data I mean this is what we do with uh like with the principles and when I was overseeing the teachers directly there's gonna you set the goals and you put some you know pretty stringent timelines on it and you know what standard you expect them to achieve on that doesn't mean you they they always achieve it and there's a good discussion that comes up when they didn't because maybe we misinterpreted what the actual solution should have been uh maybe uh given the circumstances and the limiting factors you know within the community and within our resources maybe the standards to the crime but that's a valuable discussion just Johnson thoughts out there yeah so can you think about doing the evaluative process how would you envision going about that well I wasn't on the board when that happened last time so I guess I would be curious to know more about what that process looked like and because the board it would be valuable to talk more about what that process would entail um I mean I think so you know I but I do think I would say the second benchmark here probably you identify which is meeting with leaders and education and employment sectors I would see that as something that I think as a board it would be great to see us try to implement that over the next year and then sort of use that as a opportunity to kind of continue along our path but not commit to a full evaluation process that makes sense and I think for that one the action steps we need to help more for that is for example a we got done by who they are that we want to be meeting with but b how do we do it are we talking about are we asking people to come here to our board meetings in order to discuss it or are we talking about board members or simply going to meet with these people as individuals gather intelligence and bring it back to these meetings and then say here's what I've learned from this you say this is what I've learned from this in each meeting we just keep you know talking about trends wherever here some of the funding which we've got the board government speaks is for those discussions right bringing a train facilitator having to go for a protocol because it usually it speeds up it speeds up the process it gets you to the information you're looking for a little bit quicker and you can probably have you know multiple people or multiple views I think that makes a lot of sense I do have to say I appreciate like the farm to school discussion tonight I appreciate kind of these sort of more informal opportunities to just kind of hear feedback of either what's going on within a district or touching base with some of the key educational or employment sectors leaders in our community so you know I think I don't know how receptive they would be recognizing everybody's schedule is very busy and it may be too much of an ask but you know if there was an opportunity to deal with an IT year to identify a handful of individuals to ask to come to the board meeting I think I think if we're not like board members but I think for the community it could be a really interesting opportunity to have to share back so one that we currently have is the they always come so that was one I left out of the actual benchmark because again I thought of myself is that a checklist thing because we do that every year or do we need to make that a goal to do that so I left that out but the those guys that's about envisioning when I put that as a benchmark kind of something like that we're having a reoccurring date or dates that you certain people are coming that that we have identified whoever they may be you actually have them going on right now we're going to talk a little bit in the incidentals on having the solar projects in and around the town right but you've got the r3 group which is working which is formed together and has pulled the revenues from the surrounding towns and they kind of meet regularly right because those guys to come in and have a conversation the other possibility is I'm sure that Vermont Tech goes off to a summit where they pull in you know the business leaders to see what the trends are so that they kind of adapt so it's it's possibly the top of the president since you got them all together and you're going to have them all day can we scale them for it then the next one I will communicate with its constituents it's more about how we we have identified we need to work on this but these are just some activities and what those might look like for benchmarks and action steps that I've identified I don't know why this one box is off when I look at a computer it wasn't off but I don't know why it came to that way yeah it does I'm not sure what it says it's I'm sure public announcements are clear about what ends and other performance outcomes will be discussed and important so that's gets to what Kate was saying about you know kind of the simplified this is what we're going to be talking about announcement instead of the legal announcement so that people can understand like for example today I would say preliminary discussion of budget instead of legal after this meeting and here's our agenda which somebody looks at this agenda and they might be overwhelmed with but we just said here's the agenda and what's important to note is determining board or we're going to be discussing the budget preview that's probably the most important thing that you're going to see on there and that might just catch people and they go oh I care about that I really want to go listen to that you mean having that right on the warning when you warn it and or we could send we've got the new we've got the new email system that's easy enough to send out and we'll talk on the incidentals about the fact we're putting work with Ben to get the packets put up on the the website you know it would be not hard to make that email that goes out to parents as just a blurb in the herald that goes out on the Thursday before our meeting just says at this next board meeting being held in Braintree at 630 we will be you know have a presentation by the farm to school coordinator and you know a discussion about the upcoming budget maybe anything that has the public discussion thing underneath it yeah yeah you know especially stuff that's of interest to the community right because there's the farm to school was is awesome when they came because there's so much that goes on that people don't know about right you know but I think just highlighting sort of what may be of interest to people um outside of our parents um because there there might be community interest in some of these things that could be the focus of the meeting yeah yeah exactly and I don't think it would be have to be long I can shoot it I can shoot a paragraph narrative out prior to each meeting that's that's easy enough I should be doing it anyway now that that would be great talking about it yeah that's a good idea the the the rest of these are are pretty much what we're already we've we've talked about several times and I think we already kind of do um it's just some of the actions that need to be taken I think is to make sure we're doing it and making sure that it continues to be done for example we added in the public discussion after something that we thought people might want to discuss like the budget and just these are small steps we've started taking I think we need to leave that in as a goal to ensure we're we're doing that we're following through with something we've identified that may help um the superintendent's already changed the way he's doing his presentations and so I think what we could do is come up with I know Linda has the checklist but perhaps we publish this checklist uh so we know which year or in the given year which months the superintendent's going to be doing the data so we know last month that he presented some data we know in a couple months he's going to be presenting more data but just maybe we publish that schedule since we know what it is that that kind of thing it's just a smaller things just so if somebody does go looking it's there and they don't go oh I missed it those last week the schedule of topics and then that last one the board will direct superintendent prepare community friendly data summary so this happens every year he writes a or I know it technically it's us but you write the data that goes into that packet that we send out for town meeting day that's one of those I didn't know if I really needed to include it or not it's a checklist item but it is something that we have to do and beat beat if it fits too dense right I don't think it is no usually Ben I usually Ben I work with on it because he's the communications guy so he smooths it out pretty well yeah he usually reads well and then the last the board government or board development stuff so new board members complete a orientation that was I think you completed the packet I think it was supposed to have of Brooke was supposed to be in charge of that and I don't think that happened okay so we're that's still and it still says it's in process and so we'll continue working on that and then so we have one right here and so this is we need something in addition to it is that is that what it is and then we do have yeah I don't know whether Melody and Rachel did you get the board member books from Linda about the I don't know I didn't listen here last meeting no I don't think we did we do we do have them so we can we can get them in I got a whole lot of information from the not failure training that we did yeah I'm good yeah but we've got the round one of the Miriam or the Carver method which is good and then the Robert's rules the short short version so we'll make sure we get those in your hands yep those came in two weeks ago I think I'm pretty good thank you for the last meeting before the last meeting then monitoring the board performance we I believe we said Val Gardner had a new checklist that she had brought up in our meeting back in July and so we're still just waiting on that yeah I haven't heard I apologize I I just haven't had a chance to circle back with her yeah I mean so that's an in-process thing and then governance training is always in process we always need to be working on that and so I don't know I know we talked about do you want to do it every meeting or do we want to do it a couple meetings and so I think we just got to determine what that frequency is and go with it whatever that is we're doing it tonight right as I say I would suggest a minute you know and I imagine that she can share resources with us but I guess I think there is an opportunity especially if we're looking at bringing her in right back in for another training you know that may be not I obviously wouldn't be a full focus but that may be a part of right you know the time that we use with her I think is to develop something that meets our needs yeah a little bit better um are there any other suggestions for changes or additions to these proposed goals this is great thank you for pointing this out and you kept it to uh researches if it's more than six it's we'll get done yeah we'll get done it's awesome try to narrow it yeah thanks for doing that all right um um next is discussion and possible approval of um unpaid sabbatical it's part of our packet um it is a letter from Sonoma Palace who is a Spanish teacher I don't know if you guys got time to already read through it um so she's looking at uh second semester of next year 2019 2020 so plenty plenty of heads up I did get a chance to speak a couple of times with um both Katie and Elijah they're very supportive of it so my recommendation is that it's approved it's something that we offer and as part of their contract this is an unpaid leave and she's the only one um and she met the deadlines so is there someone to cover that that'll be the the more difficult piece but they'll be able to they'll be able to manage it yeah especially with the time frame that we've got we have a motion to um approve um the request by miss tallis motion to approve second sure I'll second it all in favor hi hi that is approved um next review and discuss ends monitoring reports oh let me get this so this is a we had a discussion about it uh was important yeah it was the last board meeting um on the critical thinking piece so this is the updated version and I'm assuming that you guys have to review and approve the ends different than the ones already in the packet the so we did we did do a change and that's yeah it is a little different um you're not going to see it unless I point it out to you we had talked about the critical thinking which is about the third page in yep third page in um there we had some discussion about you know the students everyone exceeding you know across all five measures I brought it back talked with the board um for a while and they said you know what we do want the students to revise and improve I mean that's part of the adaptability piece part of what we're striving for so how about we make it so of the five possible components that they could be exceeds on that we strive to get you know half of them to at least hit exceeds on one so they felt that was a more appropriate measure and it still preserved that piece I think that the board had spoken of of you know making sure that if you're exceeds across the board and you get that that that notoriety in the press that it still remains something special um so that was the adjustment that was made there are we already there don't they already do that they they all have to pass it but they all don't have to get exceeds oh in terms of yes we've already we're already in compliance with that this year but it's we haven't been every year okay um and you can 50 on the on the one yep yeah yeah that sounds like a and then what what we do with these two is what I'll do is if it looks like it's too easy you know we can always come back and discuss hey is it the standard too low that's part of that the conversation is this the only change to that yep everything everything else remain the same um in terms of the report but we wanted to take into account what the board was discussing so do we need to approve this now um it wasn't approved last time it was just a review so this would be you know approved to accept okay so do I have a motion to approve to accept the young ends monitoring reports um september motion to approve and accept the from september second i'll second all those in favor all right all right so that's um that one so these next el reports lane you will review today but then approve next time is that correct yep that way it gives an opportunity for discussion and if there are further things that the board would like to see um or add or then it gives us time to do then we'll see them again next next month to approve them okay great so do you want to talk about el 2.1 at all usually these um I usually just say what they are whether whether or not you know they were found to be in compliance so 2.1 was treat treatment of students parents guardians in the community and so it was in in compliance across the board um and so open it up to questions if there are my copy of these are a little easier to write because these ones were ones that I had started to adjust last year um a little quicker to get them out are there any changes in um the way treatment of of students parents guardians what community is is being done uh nope um let me see the big one was uh the security work so provision three um allow staff to be unprepared to deal with emergencies who i'm on 2.2 sorry about that 2.1 was was was pretty good I showed some different data in there on this part of the discussion to show that it was in compliance but so if everyone would make sure to read this um over the next couple of weeks so that we can approve it next time um that would be helpful since um we're not going to the office to review them one by one or two by two and the treatment of staff I know that I asked you know the staff surveys I was interested in seeing um because we haven't seen them in several years then I talked with Tina what she's looking for is she's looking for the data um so that we can get a trend line set um it looks like it's been about four or five years um since it's been done um in the the big long overly long superintendents report um the state of Vermont um as part of meeting its federal requirements is developing a school climate survey that will be administered in the spring to staff members or to staff and students um so that might be the more useful one so what I was hoping to do was to use the trend from the old one to see how well it matched up with what the state comes up with um but I can give you kind of an overview they don't have all the questions and whatnot are you proposing to just simply move the acceptance of this until after then no okay no um but I've also got the uh the safety survey that I put together last year that went out I can send you guys if you wanted it's about 180 questions long safety yeah we put together a survey um I went out kind of the research base uh to figure out some of the best questions to ask um it was done in two parts part of it was figuring out what the tolerance of the community was um for the security upgrades the other part of it was to get a feel for the climate within the schools from both the perspective of the students the faculty and the parents so all that data is there I can give you if you guys want it's a lot to pour through basically it was one of the reasons the the results that we got we brought in Calvin Terrell that was kind of a response to it and also the recognition that the students feel incredibly safe with the staff they always feel that they've got somebody on the staff to turn to I mean that was some of the highest ratings I've ever seen in any any district no I remember that and I remember that survey I guess I was looking more for staff satisfaction and yeah and that's what the administration and um just the quality of teaching life within our district I just think you know when we talk about treatment of staff I think it's really essential that we have some sense of how people are feeling as in this workplace and that's the that's the state I mean we can we can run one if you want but that's happening this spring yeah so and it hasn't so it hasn't happened this past spring they they're they're developing they're developing it as part of the federal requirement so it'll be an every it'll be nice because every school in the I can I keep almost saying commonwealth in Vermont will be administering it so you can do comparisons if you want which will be kind of nice so they'll take it in the spring and it the results will be usually if they take it in the spring it'll be kind of like the s back you know you would expect to have the results you know mid-september okay but if I can get the the copy of the of the one that we use like I said Tina's searching through the database to find it she did find it we did send a copy of it out last year to folks and it didn't didn't go anywhere in terms of the discussions the other thing that I sent out last year which I can send out again is the Marblehead survey I had two phd's that worked in metrics who've pulled the community together and actually did it this is a huge survey but it touches on every aspect that you could possibly imagine some of them the questions and there wouldn't apply to us but we could also adapt that as well so if you're interested I could send that out for a preview to see if it's fitting what you guys are have you seen the Vermont what Vermont's still in development I've seen the categories of what they're looking for and it touches on all the pieces that you've discussed there is a little two-page overview I'll email out to you but you guys know that'll help kind of inform what you're thinking yeah I think for me a stop gap just because we're talking about next year this time that we would be able to look at for for this spring and so I'm thinking between now and then I'd like to know how they feel if we haven't done it for years I feel like we've asked for this a couple years I know it's not you we've asked for a couple years but we've asked for this and I think this is something I would like to see even if it's just very basic do you feel like you're being you know you're being respected do you feel like you're you're whatever's value I can I can easily you're supported and you know right you know do you feel academically supported do you feel mentally supported you know all these kind of yeah I can pull together something easy enough that's 20 30 questions I guess and I get the research base I can do it in two three days I think that would be really helpful as a board for us to get a sense of helpful for me too you know and going into negotiations and and you know thinking of of what we need to budget for you know it just is really important information so let's uh let's plan on next meeting I can do a presentation like I said I'll try to I'll pull together uh hit the the base I'll try to pull together about 30 questions should be a good topic but on general general climate in terms of interactions with administration do you want it to go beyond that do you want it to all spin around okay no concerns around cba or anything like doing a survey like that I don't I mean actually because I can completely what was the I don't think I don't know that we can well no I just want to make sure that I guess my question is is yeah that's my question is is that doing a survey of staff are we as a board and as a superintendent is that allowable and or is that something that I'm just asking why it would not be to make sure that we're not we're not stepping into territory that is not within our purview that's the only reason I bring it up well with this I don't know if we can with the cba like we're not asking about the cba no but I guess we're not we're not asking we're not evaluating the staff okay if the survey were evaluated as the staff and right in some way then they would have should have a say yeah if that's the question yeah no I guess I just I just asked from a perspective of not necessarily yeah right you know knowing all the parts and pieces and just wanting to make sure that it's been considered and and that we're just not we're staying within you know I think and I think it's especially important now because we're you know starting tonight to think about you know renewing a superintendent's contract a new superintendent's contract I think it's important for us to be better informed absolutely yeah I know I I think the information will be really helpful and and as a board perspective I just want to make sure that it's within our purview right yeah so okay so um let's just make sure that everyone has done due diligence and read these two reports thoroughly so we can make sure that we're going to properly monitor our superintendent on these two policies so review these reports thoroughly for next meeting we can accept them all right advocacy um this isn't me so we've got um there's two meetings the vis-vit and the v-high meetings they stand for Vermont school boards insurance trust trust and Vermont employees um educators health insurance yeah health insurance so um and Howard has gone to these meetings um these meetings happen at lake moray um i think it's october 18th and 19th 18th and 19th um does anyone have interest in going they are annual meetings um school board members superintendents attend and we get a vote so if none of us is going um we will deliver give our our vote to another uh advisory union yeah i think the the proxy i believe is yeah right you're right like the advisory goes to the goes to the state board yeah it's to make the decision is anyone interested in going okay i will also ask and how are because she has gone um occasionally in the past um otherwise i guess we need to vote to um so otherwise give our our our proxy vote to the um the sba vermont school boards association um so kind of a motion to in the absence to either allow and how we're to cast our vote or to um give a proxy vote to the sba i'll make that motion linda do you need me to say it again no i can figure it out yep all those in favor so we get paul and we got melody and any any other discussion before we vote okay all those in favor any opposed all right great i will um run that by an hour to send her an email and just ask if she wants to go all right um the consent agenda we've got minutes from the september meeting um which took place in brookfield that's included in the packet we also have to approve professional contracts um that was uh our driver's education yeah um which are currently working this semester um we also have to authorize name changes of school representatives to people's united bank what's that about linda wasn't that where they had they had some old names people that don't work for us and on a scholarship remember that was robin had said okay so they're just changing the names for me it's like an old counselor just hasn't worked for us for a few years okay the bank's just catching up i guess okay someone move the consent agenda i can move the consent agenda there you go again so all right go okay second oh second there you go move it along all those in favor hi hi any opposed all right consent agenda passes um reports and incidental information we have lane your report which is enclosed here is there anything else to add a couple a couple incidentals and we've also got the the financial um finances look good um if you see the financial report in there if you take a look at the last two pages the last column is the percent um of what was budgeted for that still exists so like if it says 75 percent it means that we spent 25 percent of it so far what i usually do is um i pretend that our spending is linear and then i figure out how many months have passed and then i kind of divide it into there so right now um if everything is linear which it's not you would expect there to be 75s in each of those right now um if it's significantly lower than that then that's usually things i question if it's significantly higher i don't worry about it too so does anything stand out to you as being worry some as far as our finances no everything look good the the one that might jump out at folks is a negative 42 percent for the bus fund that's just because we haven't paid ourselves back yet we we paid money out of out of that account line and we were paying ourselves back with the money from the surplus fund that you guys approved if we don't have money left at the end of the year to cover so we don't do that transfer until the end of the year if we don't have money um in in our regular budget leftover that we can use to account for it so that'll look a little bit funny but that's just because it hasn't been reimbursed so it should drop each one of those lines if it were linear should drop 8.33 percent per month how's our enrollment you're gonna i'll do that presentation for you later yeah that'll be next month talk about like i said i got all the data usually october first around you pull the data because that's when you know the kids are kind of settled down you know who's actually coming who's not and uh water of this the brookfield school so i sent an update out to the brookfield community um research wise uh the plumbing is old um so the two pieces that you worry about then um are obviously lead solder um but the piece where they think that this contamination is coming from are the valves in the faucets um they sometimes use lead in the valves um so those faucets are all being replaced right now to see what the impact was they do the testing you know they they don't test every water outlet in the building they choose a sampling there was only one that tested positive it was a it was a classroom faucet and probably because the testing was in august you know the water had sat in there for a considerable amount of time um typically with faucets what most schools do is instead of replacing this stuff is they just have the the facilities folks come in and run the water for a couple of minutes in the morning and that that makes it fine but we're going to replace the faucets and we're also taking a look i should say uh wes and bob are taking a look at what the cost is uh to replace the plumbing um if there is lead solder there um odds are because the lead solder is on the outside you know it shouldn't be getting in but you never know so that should be resolved pretty darn quickly you'll do a follow-up lead test then yeah um we have a we have a copper and lead test plan that's in place so it happens periodically anyway but obviously um you step up the testing um as you're doing this work okay any updates on the well after the the work that was done it uh and again it's it wasn't the water fountains um it seemed to be okay there were kids that were routinely using the water fountains i don't think it's perfect um it still has a little bit of a salty taste to it but nothing like it was and there's no lead there's no lead yeah so we're waiting um we're waiting for the report i asked them to get another full sampling of all the dissolved solids in there um just to see what the change was so hopefully that'll be in for next month and you take a look at it together great um is the update is there anything else to add um finances uh so a couple things real quick stuff um so ben ben and linda um are working together um there is a a link up on the os sd board portion of the website that currently has the agendas in the minutes but they're getting the packets finding a way to get the packets up there as well ahead of time ken cadow is working with the students in the new maker space that we built this year to make the nameplates that a couple members of the community has suggested he's going to use the new laser cutter that they had to create those so hopefully by next month talk about this one first and then we'll go back to the r3 initiative um have been talking with the town about the rent for the bus garage we'd spoken about that about a month ago um we did do our due diligence we checked the two town garages bookfield it's not possible um they don't have the the space um brain tree does in the garage but they don't have the space on the grounds they've got eight acres up there but it's not a place that you can actually park the buses too easily and their intent would be to move out of that space completely if we were to take it and go build something else elsewhere and leave us you know you know on that space i don't know what the rep would be on it um the other possibility um that i've had two discussions with the tech center folks about is expanding the automotive diesel program would require a building a shell of a building uh to do but they've got enough folks that you know they could double the size of the diesel program it would mean bringing in a new staff member to do it because they're only allowed to have about 16 kids in class um but we could do that or more importantly the thing that came up in the other meeting because we've been talking about finding some sort of anchor program um developing a program to teach the students how to work on the electric cars um which is the up and coming technology right now that it's not out there so though that's kind of in discussions um building that building that space out there what it would do is it would give us a place to put the buses and the students would maintain them um as well but it would give us space to do other things but where would this be be potentially right out uh back behind the building um on the parking lot do we have space for that where would the have to have to look a little bit but they they seem to um enough to park our bus eight buses or five uh those what we could do is if you go to the side the raven building is on um there's a lot of space a lot of grass between the current parking lot that's there on the raven building we could just extend that a little bit that's where they park all the big big rigs that they're working on anywhere right now but we could make the space a bit larger um what they were talking about is if they you know we're maintaining the buses and it would actually help them in terms of the program that they have now is having a space where you can actually do a drive through um so instead of having to you know pull that big rig into a limited space then back it up out of which is a pretty tricky and dangerous to a straight drive through so is this would this save money or what is what is the goal so the the goal of this one is um I don't think it would save any money um but if it were combined with advancing academic programs and building new academic programs that might increase our enrollment um you get that balance um in talking with Adolfo uh what they came up with for rent is 25,000 a year um it's currently about 12 the reality is that's very realistic I mean we were paying dirt cheap you pay more you know that 12,000 a year is what people pay for a good apartment around here um and then the guarantee if we go for the 25,000 is that that will not increase for 10 years we're not signed into a lease we can back out at any time um but there there will be no increase for 10 years um and so that that sounds the most reasonable um to me and looking at all the possible options do that and and still explore the potential for an academic because since we're not locked into a lease you know three years down the road we find out it's more cost effective it'll really build a program that might be worth examining um so which was good so um the town initiative so you got the r3 project the the uh Randolph re-envision project one of the things that the group has been talking about is lowering the tax burden um by putting solar on all the town buildings um are you back there so Adam Adam was here yeah he's he's here Adam pulled together a proposal um for our most expensive school in terms of electricity per student um which is Braintree it's the building we're sitting in right now um so it's about 1700 a month for the electricity for the building um on a kind of a first glance and he does a pretty good job uh with his estimates uh the cost of the system would be 194,000 we've got a metal roof um you could get the system up there it would pay itself back in 10 years um and then after that for the next you know 15 years or so of the the good usable life of the system it would be free but from the day it is built um it would be a zero cost for electricity from that point forward um so ideas to throw out there and you know Adam I if you guys are okay invite him to to speak a little bit it might be nice to um set it up on an agenda for a future board meeting to have a full discussion about it's not really on the agenda I would like to discuss it throw it out the other to make sure community members are here to yeah voice the other reason it's pertinent um is a Randolph elementary um we're ready to replace the roof um and so if we decided to do something like this across the schools that would be an ideal time because it could be integrated in that repair right so would we have to do anything with this roof drill a couple of holes in it and and put the uh put the metal gritting up there there's actually a strong it's sturdy and strong enough to to bear the weight of a solar project yeah so what do you think we don't have time for a huge discussion but just as a brief yeah which is a much this is the right direction 80 percent and then the technology you know is advancing the the lifespan of the solar panels is now I mean they they they start to drop off over time what they produce but you know probably 25 years of useful life and lord knows that the technology will be in at that time and there's just a matter swapping out the panels it's not the full full work at that point in time so again I I think if folks are interested it would be worth having a full discussion about it is there currently any solar on any of the buildings in the district okay the other other piece this plays into is part of the um the r3 work that they're doing they want to get some charging stations in town you know one of the places they were looking at doing that is at one of the schools again so we start thinking about okay so we've got the electric cars that program here you know we can teach the kids a little bit about the technology and maintaining the tech that supports those cars so there are lots of possibilities there but you know if you've got them up on the Randolph high school you know we could support that program support those charges and pay a little bit into the electric I think Adam had mentioned that there's a limit to how much electricity you're allowed to produce and something like uh you know the high school um you know we would we would uh its usage would exceed what we'd be able to produce by law some interesting parts and pieces I'm learning a lot just to talk to you folks something for moving to electric buses anyway there's just not a news today electric buses yeah yeah we had we had some discussions about that if you know build a full charging station there's uh two people on that um committee that are going to reach out to like Tesla um to see if they can get a grant so it can be a model yeah try to try when you say we like state or are you thinking about district right yeah yeah we're talking about so there are some grants out there to be able to get those this free and the maintenance on them is you know except for the batteries the battery technology is what drives them maintenance on an electric motor is let's cool stuff I would like to see this put on an agenda yeah would you be willing to come back and present to us at the beginning of a meeting absolutely I have uh preliminary designs for for all the schools okay yeah that would be that would be great if folks decided that it would have to go out to bed just by state law but he's got a pretty good handle um on it and he's local which is nice and a graduate right yeah born raised right here and educated here and that's it mr. questions all right are we ready for the board evaluation so the back of this seems like true or false right like governor governor's principle seems like true or false it doesn't seem like you can kind of score that so right I think we've met all those um and then I gave threes for just about everything acceptable for just about everything um the agenda was well planned uh to focus on the work of the board the board followed this agenda and did not get sidetracked things took longer than we expected but it was all it's always my fault it was definitely your fault it was all a good discussion I think the meeting was well attended um the board was prepared for the meeting the meeting proceeded without interruptions the board's decision making process were understood and implemented appropriately diversity of viewpoints were sought out and considered participation was balanced everyone participated no one dominant dominated members all listened attentively as each participant spoke and avoided side conversations um participants treated each other with respect and courtesy work was accomplished in an atmosphere of trust and kindness thank you very much you can submit that to Linda and just check me all right um so we are going to move into executive session so um thank you all for attending