 to order. Welcome our guest. Welcome to the agenda. How about public comments? Sorry, November 7th. Carl, a second. Carl, any comments? I have a couple. So 3.2.1. The last sentence, the last part of the last sentence, it says it's more a matter of teaching practice. I think I meant for that to be a little broader. I would just say it's more a matter of how we deliver education, the fair. I don't want to put it on the teachers, but it's more a matter of how we deliver education. And then in 4.5, I just wanted to clarify the first draft of the WCSU budget. That's in 3.2.1. The first paragraph, the last. How would you say? How would you deliver education? Anything else? All those in favor say aye. Why don't we do the student report first and then you win your stomachs first. Okay, so, basically not a ton has happened. Winter sports have started, but I think we mentioned that at the last meeting. Also today and in the past couple weeks, my mind creators have been doing a virtual museum, which is part of those, a part of global studies class. So they're like presenting on different cultures in the atrium and like everybody's going around and checking out their presentations. That's pretty cool to see. Stage 16 has started rehearsing for their production of Annie. Last week in my pottery class, we had this group called Shida and we did and learned about Bonnie and culture and we did this like printing thing and learned about like all these different symbols and like these, this style of artwork. And then the middle schoolers also took a, yeah, two different classes. They were in drumming class and dance class. Obviously it was Thanksgiving break. We all enjoyed the snowy yesterday. Pretty awesome. Well, as I know. That was like the easiest thing to create in snow. That was so simple. I mean, the guys out in the world crews were great. They just said go to school. They just said go to school at 3.45. They said don't even get out and you don't even think about the roads. So everybody was pretty happy about that and then some of you might have seen it. But last week, a WCAX piece was aired about our school and EMES about restorative justice practices in the district. I was in it to other U32 kids, Rina, and also a bunch of students from Ismaquil, Rina. And it was just sort of talking about our new approaches to problem solving. They'll set up later. They'll be on there. I hope I said something. I knew I said that. Yeah, but that's all that really happened. Mia's not here because she's at a vigil, that BLAM planned. I forget what it's for, but it's happening right now in the city hall. So BLAM's been great active in our community. Do you have any questions? Just one. Did you talk to any of your friends on Student Council after their presentation last time? Yeah, so they didn't really have a ton to say because our main purpose was to just sort of voice our concerns. Right now what we're in the process of doing is writing stuff for the Chronicle about sort of where we stand with proficiencies because again we're trying to create transparency among the student body. We're doing all that work to figure out like okay, like how many times to stay in their talk, do we met, let's deal with GPA, and we've gotten a lot of answers. So now we're going to communicate that back to the students through mostly Chronicle articles and we're trying to figure out other ways that are more accessible to students. Community engagement. Yeah. It's everywhere. Yeah, it's a tough one to do. Figure out how to do that a lot of times. I bet they kids don't read from books for them. I read from books. Do you? Is that what you're saying? You're talking about the weirdest stuff? Just don't read from books. Thanks, Lucy. Yeah, thank you. Are you here for the budget or just, do we want to do that for the first time? Okay, okay, okay. Student hearing, we bypassed that one. So budget draft number one, page six. Yep. So we looked at this last whenever it was couple weeks ago. Yep, yep. So a couple of things I wanted to point out here. You'll notice this is the same budget in dollar amount. One of the things that we had talked about at the finance committee was realigning it so it's in alignment with the student learning outcomes. So you'll see that. And on page eight is a table that takes the wife was in the old expense categories and shows it in the new expense categories. So that it's linked with the student learning outcomes. So I thought that was a really good idea and a way that you can see it. But we haven't changed much from there. Nothing's really changed from last time we said we bring this one to make sure it was here. I want to make sure Karen gets one of these. I also handed out to all of you a copy of the function budget analysis sheet that's based on the current level, the current budget draft one budgets from across the SU. I will remind you, and it's one of the things I've been reminded that for two years I need to update that I haven't put lines on this. So just a quick reading of it is that you see all the functions in the right hand column. Then you see the school name as in Berlin. You see that column. Next you see the percentage of the budget. And then you see the cost per equalized pupil for the budget categories and the other statistical information about operation of plant is done by square foot. There's a little tagline there with that. After that what's under what says by EP there should be a dark solid line right there that separates Berlin from Calis. So that's all one building. So everything, all the budget figure amounts for the function. And then it goes two columns to the right belong to that school. Every year I look at this when I come to I think the first board meeting and I say why didn't we do this? So to put some dark lines there. One of the things you'll notice is that we've realigned this with the Handbook II code as you've been hearing about that for the past month. You'll see yellow again is the low and green is the high. It doesn't mean if it's high that it's bad or if it's low it's good. It just means it allows us to ask other questions. It makes it easy to kind of get the frame. One of the things you'll notice is that the SU assessments we actually can do. There are a couple categories we didn't do highs and lows on because it's done by equalized pupil already. So like the SU assessments go that way across the SU. I think there were a couple others like English language learners. We didn't do that because they're just so small or curriculum assessment because U32 is the only place where there's a curriculum assessment, a curriculum category kept in the budget. But generally we kept the same format as before. And you'll see down below some of the things about plant, operation of plant, food service. We want to have a discussion more about food service and Brian knew that wasn't we. Brian said he would be glad to be here tonight so it's great to have him here tonight. But before we get into that I want to ask if you have any questions or Stephen did I forget something I should say for tonight. We had this discussion just two weeks ago or three weeks ago so I didn't feel like you needed a lot of talking through this. About budget. About the budget. About the budget first draft of the budget. When are we expecting a second draft? We're hoping to do something next week. It's going to be a tight turnaround. It's a one week turnaround so if there's any direction you give us then we'll be doing that work really by Friday. And if you wanted to delay that to the second meeting in December that's fine too. In terms of draft. No, draft two. We can keep this and keep talking about it. But we do have a food service issue we want to talk about and support. And I'd like to talk about if we still would like to do a forum on that. Yeah. Discuss that. So does anybody have comments on the budget or questions? I heard the sharp intake of breast as you were about to say. I was just realizing was there an announcement by the State Board today? I think, I think Krista Hewley was supposed to present something in Montpelier at 2.30 according to the jungle telegraph. I frankly have decided not to watch. Who are the two? Do you know David? Matt. Thanks. Does that have an impact on budget or are you just curious? Oh no, we're mildly curious. I was just asking a question about the budget and you said. If you want to talk to you about a merged budget what that does I can talk to you about that. We had talked about this before that. So now that shifts us from being the creators and the advocates for this budget directly to being the people that are sort of drafting the budget and recommending it to the transition board. Right. But you were here for the bill was missing once. Got what? That was missing once. Yeah. So do you want more? You want to go into a little more detail about that? What we had talked about was just maintaining the processes is all brand now. Maintaining the processes that we've used in the past to get, you know, gather the information, share it with the public through at least one forum and however else we want to do it. And, you know, and then basically turn over our findings, our recommendation to the transition board, which makes me think that if we do have a forum, we should invite transition board members to it. So the transition board are the chairs and the clerks of each of the individual boards right now. So I can tell you, we started, I'm going to be more interested in talking about a merge, but all the budgets, once we get to Monday, when we get the tax commissioners recommendation for the base support pre-tubal, we start running some things this week, but we don't really, they're all speculation from if it stays level two, if it increases. We ran a 1% model and 2% model of increase on the base per pupil, which doesn't look that bad on tax rates. Our spending per pupil, as you see on the function budget, when you look up top, we're pretty close to the threshold in places and some were over. So if you look at the sheet that I just gave you, look next to the expenditure budget, like if I read Berlin's expenditure at 3.5 million, I won't read the whole thing. You'll see their spending per equalized pupil is 17,081. So you can see some of those and you can see a couple that we've got three that are over 20,000. Is 20 the threshold? No, I'd have to go get the target. And I deliberately didn't bring that sheet today because Lori and I were both agreeing that we were still in draft form. I'm trying to give you some foreshadowing without giving you direct numbers because it needs to be checked. It needs to go through the processes we have in the office to check everything. But the snow day a lot, I did a little bit of work that fast-forwarded. I do have just a few questions that are probably just a result of my not having been here last time. So please forgive me if they've been asked or answered on there. One is on the categories, the instructional school-wide. I know that that represents middle school but not just middle school. Is that? Oh, yeah, it represents the whole, that's everything in terms. And I would say that let me see. Instructional school-wide. I'll get the breakdown on that. But that includes even what we pay to tech center and all of that as well. So it includes a variety of things. Supplies, that kind of school-wide supplies. I was just curious, because the numbers seem to jump around a bit between actual and budgeted and projected and between, I think, two years ago, a year ago, actual and next year budget draft, there's a pretty substantial... So that's the line where we would have purchased things like our Read 180 program and our Math 180 program, which are big tickets first year. And so that's where we had transferred money and done that. So when we bought into some of those programs, that's the line where it came from. So those have been some of the intervention programs. And in subsequent years, I mean, once you buy it, you've got it? Yeah, so there's a renewal each year, but it's up towards $50,000 to buy all of the original stuff and then it's less than $5,000 for the ongoing. Yeah, so... So why is it going up? I guess it's from two years ago, isn't it, Scott? From FY 18 to FY 20. Yeah. Yeah, it's the big jump. FY 18 actual FY 20 budget. And I know if there's lots of stuff grouped together and if maybe it's being redefined, is that part of the redefinition? I didn't see that in the redefinition. No, that's not in the redefinition there. But it's... There was one thing that was in there. Yeah, because I want to say that the tech center would have been in the other instructional programs but I could be wrong. He's let them bring it up. Let them bring it up. No, that's why we bring these things because the only way we remember it is if it's written down somewhere. Because I'm sure somebody will ask me. You want to ask something else, Scott? Actually, one of the questions you had was about bond. You know, when does that in FY 20 one of our bonds finishes but not all? But not all. And that one, is it a fairly healthy chunk? It's about 430,000 to 450,000. I'm estimating it off my memory. I remember coming across it in the audit report. Yeah, thank you. And then the rest of the other bond is another year. Yeah, we had the Pope Lawyer's email because we had that question as well. I was trying to buy you some time. So the $3.1 million bond will continue for two more budgets, 2021, 2022. And that's about $135,000 payment each year. And then in 2021, it will increase to one, this is the one that has the balloon, that had the tail end be higher. So it'll be $155,000 and then $159,000. And so yeah, bond budget, bond budget for 2020 will be almost $600,000. However, the bond budget will decrease only to $442,000 for budget 2021. So you really just have a decrease. It's because of the schedule and how that's working. There's always that last year of payoff for a bond isn't always equal to the equal amount for the principal. I don't know, I couldn't tell you I'd have to ask the bond bank why that works that way. That's fine. Can I just get a quick clarification? Yeah, go ahead. So are you asking about the instructional school-wide or the other instructional programs? Well, I would have a question about that as well, but either one. Okay, so I can get you the other instructional programs is the, so the tech schools are, that's where that expense is and that does fluctuate. Some we had, we had a pretty decent actual to budgeted difference on that a couple of years ago. Is that other instructional programs? That's the other instructional programs. The instructional school-wide, the biggest change was in some of the salary and I need to just go see. I got to jump over to a different report. I just wanted to make sure I told you that part. Yeah, it's not urgent. It would just be good to know before we have to actually... Make it to. I think it's bringing it, it might have been one of those, our middle school people. Georgia Jonathan, do you have questions about this? No, really. Appreciate it. We talked a little bit about it last meeting. And the other thing, last time we talked to you about it was that there, we had the WCSU assessments, but those are estimates. Carrie's seen them at the Executive Committee how those change with the new Equalized Pupils. That's not in this budget. That will hit the next draft. And what's happening is, I can tell you what's happening in enrollment across the SU. We're decreasing enrollment. We're decreasing Equalized Pupils. And the decrease in enrollment is happening at the elementary school. So the percentage, although we're losing students at U32, it's not as fast as happening at the elementary schools. So the percentage of students at U32 is going up. So as a result, our relative share of the assessments is going up. Yeah. I have an answer. Yay. So one of the salary that's in there is the pilot program. So it wasn't placed within one of the others, and remember we made the pilot a full-time position a couple of years ago. And so it doesn't fit into any of the other categories, and that's where it was placed. So that was the big change in the salaries there. That's great. It came from somewhere else. Yeah, we had shifted things around, but that was... The pilot used to be in the English department. Yeah, we used to be split between English and art and some others. Why would you have to put it in the new category? So I think we're trying to... Yeah, that might be one that we consider... I don't know. It's not an academic service though. How about instructional school-wide? I don't know. It all depends upon... It relates very closely to the learning hours. The categories also may not allow... It depends on... Yeah, we have a bit of... We have some that we can do. We don't have everything we can do because we do get some dictate from the Handbook 2, which is the Vermont accounting system. Because one of the things that's happening, and Carrie's heard a lot of this executive committee, but we're really being forced to code things across the state the same. And that's one of the reasons why the law was passed for us to all go to one financial system and one coding system. Yeah, actually... We had two, so we moved Pilot there, and we also had the mentor coordinator position. Both are in that slot. So that was a big part of its change. Both are very good things. Yes, they're very important for our multiple pathways. Yeah. Scott? I notice also just that on both the SU assessments for special education and the local U32 education expenses are also increasing faster than the overall. And I know that is just... It is. What's happening? That's what's happening everywhere. But we are taking into account some of the things that came from the DMG report to see if there's ways that we can manage some of those expenses a little better. So the DMG report was the report that came from the retreat that we had. Right. Yeah. You noticed that? U32 is the lowest cost for equalized people, and I think we also have it on here as special education at the bottom, second from the bottom, you see education costs per special ed student enrolled. It's not the lowest, but it's not too far from being the lowest. Yeah. Yeah, it's right in the middle. Right in the middle. That's great. One more Adrian? Yeah. There was actually a decline and I think it was the technical category, I forget, technical services, wasn't it? Instructional or really technical services. Right. And I'm just curious did you begin to tell it? Yeah, frankly. It's level. It's level. With the actual budget. This year's budget, it's level. But sort of declining over the two-year period. Yeah, I'd have to go pull the two reports that Steven was just looking at. I'm just curious. You must have bought something that year, huh? No, that's I want to make sure before I speak about what's in there. Let him look. Technical services. Technical services. Let me look over here. He's doing that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really, it's just some of our hardware expenses went down that's great. I didn't think that a better deal on the lease for our top years. I know that. How about the capital budget transfer? So last time we talked about having a capital budget transfer, that your general fund balance is as you know we're trying to put away for the track and the general fund balance right now is about it's at 7.4% or about 500,000 over the 4% target we usually try to shift for. I'm on page 13. And so we're recommending I'm sorry I noticed that we didn't put an action agenda but I think you could add one if you wanted to as a board. Why don't we just do it next week? Do it next week too. We need that money and that's been the plan to support the track work that's the designs happening. We're going to be talking about that in a minute. Questions on that? And that of course is just a portion of the total expense. We don't have the estimate yet. We're putting the lion's share of next year's capital budget also towards. We've saved from this year's capital budget we're asking to add this from the fund balance and we're putting the lion's share of next year's capital budget and that will hopefully get us right to the research fund. Right. We might only have three core strike. Are you talking about GrantsBring 2 or GrantsBring from? Two from the general fund. From the fund balance to the capital fund. Questions about that? Next is the track project. Do you want us to talk about the food service in the budget? I was just about to say that. Why don't we do food service first? I'm going to kick this off to you because you've been doing so much. I'll give the parameters of what we've been doing. Adrienne asked back in August I believe she was noticing some of the end of the year last year and the amount of support and where we were landing with the food service budget. One of the first things I want to say before we get into this is Brian's done a really good job and you've all commented just on the meals he provides us here. Here I also want to give him kudos for he's done a great job of really sourcing the resources of food and really bringing that in line and that's under his management it's really really helped. The thing that we're facing right now this year we were we had support program from the school budget to be about $31,000 from the budget but we also had a deficit Yeah, 31 from the food service program. The amount needed for FY 18 was $74,000. We're starting to look at some of the same similar projections for this year and looking at next year we could be looking at what's in the food service so we thought we wanted to have a conversation when Steven and I talked and Lori we said this is important enough to come to the board because there's some decisions and Brian's got some good thoughts I know Steven does and I'm going to let them take it from here but we need some input about where the community because to have a put $100,000 from the school budget into the food program and that's a big difference from the $30,000 that's in the budget right now and so that that would really affect draft too So we've been depending on the fund balance that accumulated years ago we've been whittling using a little bit each year in addition to money that the school board has added to the budget each year Yep And so I think that when you look at the long term trends and really I'm kind of looking at page 15 is where that information is you'll see and I think what Bill pointed out was really important is that in physical year 13-14 we spent $197,000 on food costs and now we're down in the $140,000 range so that was a significant savings and that's been as a result of the work that Brian's done and so we reduced our food costs but at the same time we've had a pretty drastic reduction in the number of students who buy meals and so we still have the same labor costs because we have not reduced our labor and Brian can speak to this a little more and actually took me on a little tour of like what everybody did in the kitchen so what we have is we have a kitchen that is doing mostly on scratch cooking now and so we have fresher ingredients we have things that are prepared almost exclusively on site for us and so there's a fair amount of labor involved in that the reduction in those food costs is we were at the time we didn't have I don't think we had quite the same staff size about 13-14 you had I believe eight, eight and a half and then yes and then it reduced by one that the following year and then reduced by the half a year after that so we were down like to six, we're down six since I started and so the six staff, not including myself yeah I was going to say it's a seven FT it's on the bottom of that report that you look at page 15 you'll see the FT and so I think what we bring this to the board is that we subsidize the food program for the quality of our food right now is really what it amounts to so when you have a higher quality food there's a higher labor cost in preparing it from scratch we can cut more costs right so there's two options we can try to increase revenue that's the difficult side of it by getting more kids to purchase lunches to buy reimbursable lunches so that's been a big push and Brian continues to work on that how do we make sure the kids take the full lunch so they have to take a certain set of items to be able to qualify for the federal lunch reimbursement and kids don't always take that sometimes they take one item of all a cart and it doesn't constitute a full lunch and so we get reimbursement for the full lunch it's a small amount of reimbursement it's not a huge number there but he's been trying to do that the other things that we can do in terms of increasing revenue is we can sell more things that are of higher interest by the kids but not necessarily of higher nutritional value so Mountain Dew Kickstart is a good example of that kids will buy these and we can sell them to the high schoolers we can't sell them to the middle schoolers but this is a decision that Brian and in conversation with myself we've agreed that we don't want to offer foods that aren't necessarily healthy for our kids but that means that we're dismissing the opportunity to get that revenue because we know kids will buy those things in quantities we don't know how much overall and so that's the first option is trying to increase the revenue the second one is decreasing our expenses right and the number one place to decrease an expense when you have personnel is to actually cut a person from the food service and if we did that then we changed the way that we serve and so we would reduce the amount of grab-and-go which has been a pretty popular item and they're actually complete meals so when a kid does a grab-and-go it qualifies for reimbursement and so those are things like a grab-and-go salad we have grab-and-go we've had noodles and raps cheese and fruit grab-and-go cheesefruit crackers there's all kinds of stuff and so those would be reduced in number the menu would shrink there would be more of a rotational menu of like every two weeks you've got your taco Tuesday and your burger bar your potato bar those would just rotate probably within like a two week rotation so it would reduce some of the more we do a few do we want to call them specialty meals I mean yeah there's some unique meals that come up in the rotation every month that the food service does we would have to eliminate those kinds of things just as a cost piece and our breakfast program would have to be reduced as well because right now one of the positions that we have in the mornings is we have somebody who runs our grill who once they go through like the pre-fixed stuff kids can actually come in and order a breakfast sandwich or an omelet and they can do so until about 10 o'clock in the morning but if you eliminate that would probably be the most likely position to be eliminated in a hole which would be once we ran out of the grab and go stuff out of the convenience store they can go up and grab under the hot lamp breakfast sandwich and once those are gone that would be it for breakfast they would have to get something else now you can order one and still get it and so there are things like that that we would have to cut the first option increasing revenue doing some of that stuff is not going to close the gap fully the reducing by a reduced worker and reducing some of the hours there that will get us closer because the labor costs are so much higher than the food costs and what we would make in the end of the month it's not necessarily the labor or the hourly wage it's the benefits that's been our biggest increase we've had a lot of actually well it's not a qualification of your department Brian but it is that there were quite a few folks that opted out for benefits when we switched benefit programs we got everybody on and so that was a big change benefits were the largest driver of the increases and our costs and there are other schools that have to deal with that issue one of the elementary schools had to deal with that issue of benefits driving costs I have something if I might yeah go right ahead so something I thought about for a long time is what about the idea we just roll the cost of food service into our budget and just pay for kids to eat for everybody I've actually got so the kids don't have to pay anything to eat I've actually got a meeting on the I think it's next week or the week after I don't remember which day where there is a committee from Hunger Free Vermont meeting specifically about Washington County and how they can help us to try and get us to a point where we are more subsidized and we can offer free meals to everyone and that's one of the meetings that I've got to go to in those next two weeks Hunger Free Vermont in the next five years is really trying to push that statewide how successful they're going to be I have no idea but it is something on somebody's radar and there's a certain percentage as Brian knows the community I live in actually was on it for the past five years of free food throughout their elementary school just because the poverty dipped low enough just this year you have to get to a whole school and the whole school gets free food and I think what their conversation is is a different qualification not necessarily the poverty lines so they're going to try and figure out new avenues to go to try and push sort of new legislation or things of that nature into that realm I just want to make you aware Jonathan I'm not saying no or yes to your idea you're looking at a $490,000 increase right well we have a what $14 million budget yes but your last year you were about that far away from the threshold for excess cost well I understand it's expensive but to me food is a need I know the kids need to eat and particularly kids that aren't eating well at home if they can come to school and get a meal and not worry about do I have enough money to pay for this meal even if it's reduced if it's free they're going to eat that's what I think what percentage of the students they're going to eat free meal right around 30% right around 30% is where we fall so when they say free and reduced lunch is now it's all free there's no reduced there's two programs but everybody in Vermont qualifies for free if they're either free or reduced and the trick is that the parents have to sign up for that in order to get them together so if you qualify but you don't sign up you pay for your lunch and so if you don't have to qualify for anything you can just come to school and eat and parents don't have to sign up for that either they just come to school and eat well and I'd like to speak to the the thing is shame and I mean embarrassment and being a middle school or a high school kid it can be very embarrassing and you can maybe make fun of for being the kid that gets the free lunch honestly and so the more equalizing it can be that which don't get food you know if you bring your food or you get the food it doesn't matter can be very uplifting and equalizing honestly and I think it's an incredible incredibly awesome social idea and if there's a way I be supportive of that you know it's a financial cost but I do see that there are kids who probably don't they qualify and they don't do it and so they go without because they don't want to be the kid that's getting the free food because that means I'm poor I actually had a student today he came up to me and you know said hey listen I know I'm in the hole I just want an apple juice one of our policies is I won't give him an apple juice for free you want something we're going to give you a whole qualifying meal then you can have your apple juice and your sandwich and then I asked him you know have you guys filled out this form and he said we just missed it we just missed that cutoff so he's stuck in a relatively hard situation the financial cutoff so it's really kind of one of those man these kids I want to feed them I don't want them to go home hungry I don't want them to experience this shame because he came through and we had to say I can't you know what I mean those are hard things to do even if I did take that student again he's $30 in the hole so we add that up and then we have X amount of students who are the same way and then we're running into an additional deficit for ourselves in the food service program because we won't be able to collect that those funds because they just can't pay one of the things we talk about is closing the gap you know in terms of performance you know in classrooms well if the kids that need the food the most are not eating they're not going to be learning either very well and so that gap is not going to be closed as well unless they go to class they have a full stomach, they eat what they want healthy food primarily maybe only that's what I think is certainly best so I see a whole lot of reasons why it makes sense and I thought that for a long time and I know it's expensive I get it it's an expense worth incurring in my opinion I'm so glad you raised it Jonathan it's a very important point and a great goal to strive for as usual there's the balancing act but if there was some way to make it possible I don't know if obviously there's the federal money I don't know if there are grant programs typically they're not very paid I mean they don't close gaps so most of our grant program we even apply to get the equipment every now and then it's matching grant so when we've got some equipment they match as half and a half and so those are about the only grants there's a little, we've talked there's some farm to table but you've got to there's a lot to qualify for those grants that we don't necessarily have in place but it's also not a huge sum of money Brian, what percentage of kids run a deficit? that's really hard maybe at the end of the year at the end of the year it's very small most of the kids who will run a deficit we usually try to keep them within the $10 your negative $10 we need to contact mom and dad and we actually have an automatic email that sends out that number kind of you know what I mean on a regular basis but I'd like to say out of the students that we feed maybe 10% run a complete deficit for longer periods of time that's just what the kids we feed not the entire school and so those are probably kids that are on the cusp not necessarily not necessarily so I would actually I would actually Adrian from my experience it's across the SU it's not one that you can say there's a demographic pattern with it's more about bill paying pattern how do the federal food dollars and commodities and all that stuff work and then the second part of my question would be if we had a merged budget would that push the threshold of those free lunch kids to a point where we would qualify as an SU for more federal money well so the way that the alright so there's multiple parts in your question so federal dollars for reimbursements only qualify for meals that are qualifying so the number of students that we have qualifying we get a direct reimbursement from then there's the commodity and fresh fruits and vegetables program we get a dollar amount assigned to us from the federal government based on the number of qualifying meals now because our qualifying meals have been going down slowly so has the dollar amount for our commodities so if those were 100% qualifying meals because we were funding this what would that number look like however now keep in mind the foods that come from the USDA and the fresh foods and vegetable program are very limited so the USDA will go out to bid and I'm going to give you this year for an example turkeys we wanted turkey breasts as a state we said we want to have four trucks worth of turkey breasts in order to feed the state well the USDA went out and bid on that we were shorted two trucks of turkeys so we're a little short on what we were allowed to get and go ahead and take those dollars and find something else to buy now a majority of the items that are coming in from USDA are ground beef pre-cooked chicken pre-cooked pork and then a lot of frozen or canned vegetables and fruits I can turn those dollars around and take a chunk of it so this year we got 19,000 so I only spent 15 on USDA foods which was mostly proteins so they're a little higher in price and the other 5,000 I went ahead and I'm using it for fresh fruits and vegetables well this week kind of stunk because the fruits and vegetables that I buy is romaine lettuce that didn't happen so and it's very seasonal too now some of those fruits and vegetables I can get sometimes are local so the apples that I can get are local right now the potatoes though, they're from Idaho the beef that's from, you know, Kansas so forth and so on so you don't A know the quality of the product that's coming in until it's here and you don't know what's in it and then you don't know if your actual order is going to come in or not so this year we were shorted turkeys luckily I have enough to get through my planned menu cycle for what I want to serve for hot turkey dinner so we're okay but any other year I could have been in really a big jam so the USDA and the DoD programs I don't like to lean on very heavily I'm trying to see what we can do about purchasing more local things from, you know, more independent people around here it doesn't necessarily need to be farm to table but more items that I have a little more control over what we're receiving another aspect of the programs is you just you were saying that we wanted to merge the budgets well if I went ahead and did that for all the schools we'd make probably a better consolidated purchase so I would know that DoD needs this many pounds of burger and U32 needs this many and you know all the other schools and it would be a lot easier to consolidate all those purchases into one delivery it could cut our costs down from Reinhardt because even though those items are free we pay Reinhardt storage and delivery fee so we would have it come in once at a time fresh fruits and vegetables we would be able to have a little better control over and consolidating purchases and cooking could help considerably and that's one of the options is thinking about centralizing cooking and centralizing our food system we haven't done that I have not been told this but the pride I think is the best word of all our different kitchens in the SU has made me not even think of that as an option even though I know it's an option we have other school districts that have done that we have other school districts that have gone all the way out contracting out which I wouldn't support either just want to let you kind of know the gamut that's out there the other thing George you asked about free and reduced lunch what's the average for the SU 30% is about the average we have one elementary school which is Berlin that's a 50% we have two other elementary schools that are below 20% one almost 15% free and reduced lunch we're very low on free and reduced lunch compared to our contemporary towns in Vermont so we're not going to get a lot of subsidy because of that and when you talked about grants we're not going to be the front line we're not going to be getting free meals they were over 75% free and reduced lunch you have to be up in the 75% range it's actually 55% it may be now but that's where they were 55% because Berlin's right on the verge of qualifying some years they're right on the cusp and it's back and forth each year making the Berlin elementary school free meals throughout I've been looking at these ratios it's pretty insightful and one of the things that caught my eye is that percentages of eating lunch each day has gone from 54 to 31 but then when I look at the top two lines it looks like there's been a shift between in the last five years between daily sales and a la carte so a majority of students will a la carte doesn't just include chips and beverages we sell slices of pizza burgers, salads all those things that they can get to get a qualifying meal however a lot of students will come in just get the slice of pizza and move on to their day unfortunately I can't charge them as a qualified meal I think I gave Stephen a number today of how many meals we were short we were right now we are short as of today for this year we will be short 14,275 qualifying meals that's based on the number of just burgers or just pizza or just salad that we've been selling lately so student preference is kind of driving the reimbursement part exactly right exactly right it very well may be an educational mindset it may be a personal preference and it may be influenced by peer pressure you just don't know so one of the things that there's always an administrator in the lunch room during lunchtime but one of the things that I do when I walk around and look there aren't kids typically sitting without food that's the thing about when you walk around kids just sitting there not eating something so we have a fair number of kids who bring their lunch or get an a la carte item so when we've talked about this what's the perception to really increase the revenue you have to get more people not bringing their bag lunch and buying school lunch but that's not necessarily the kid that may be the parent that's saying I don't want you eating school lunches or and I gotta say Brian credit for this is that he accommodates gluten free vegan he accommodates and we make that clear so so kids can get a meal there's not a problem with that but it's an education piece that's probably larger than our student body one more point it looks pretty straight forward to me and I feel your pain but the revenue is declining and our labor is not matching the decline and that's driving the cost and I know it's not pretty picture but I think we have to adjust I'm all for more support but I think we have to adjust over time that labor piece is we serve this everywhere right but if we want to meet in the middle and do something very high end and say everyone gets to eat then we have to do something like cut a person less options yeah I want to get into a downward spiral like it's $300,000 because we cut a person there's only five days of the week options I mean I'm not dictating it here but everyone eats and bring back the Asian chicken wrap because that's what my kid loves I'm not dictating it my kid he has not taken lunch since he started he loves everything you make I know Tim you talked about the total money that was coming in on food but what is the total total money coming in on Alucard and all the extras I'm sure that's not in the Alucard is $154,390 and the daily sales the whole lunch is $117,425 and that has dropped and they've like switched places exactly the total of the two is almost exactly the same so if you stopped serving Alucard what would happen well first of all $154,000 would be gone but would those kids buy a full lunch? so some of them would yes but if we stopped Alucard we would have to stop Alucard completely so I wouldn't be able to sell the potato chip or just the french fry or just the whatever it is just the bagel so a lot of bagels and those students would no longer purchase and I bet you they would probably bring that food from home and I think that would start it would continue to spiral except on an accelerated pace you might also see food more increased food waste they'll take the meal I was just curious my question so what would it look like if you had only two options of meals per day that were 100% qualifying and then is there an option for something like a snack machine where those chips or those Alucard items could be purchased that wouldn't affect this or the qualifying and I looked into vending machines we've talked about that extensively we can purchase a vending machine that would sell those snacks and additional items and we could get it so they could use it through their infant and campus where you can just go in and type your pin and it would deduct from your account so they wouldn't necessarily need to bring cash with them the problem is that that vending machine costs $30,000 plus a $5,000 set up fee maintenance fee and then because it's technology and it's a vending machine those things break down on time so we're going to have an additional cost for repairs and maintenance and there's no lease option no unfortunately not I can't really lease vending machines anymore I got two vending machines from Coke to dispense beverages however some of the beverages that we're getting which are no calorie, no sugar or anything according to the USDA I still cannot let them operate between the hours of 7.30 and 3 o'clock so there's that huge gap where those vending machines aren't even on so would you even be able to allow would you even be able to let a snack machine but I would only be able to fill it with items that would qualify through the USDA which are the same items that I'm allowing now right yeah looks like a drink machine that allows you not to do that Powerade Zero Seltzer I can't even sell that to middle school it's flavored, carbonated water, I cannot sell it to the middle school I'm being big trouble you started this up by giving us some numbers about so we're looking at let me get back to these notes so the current school budget that you have in front of you with this draft includes a $31,000 support for the food service program and at FY18 the amount we needed was $74,000 the difference was a shortfall of $43,000 all the fund balance from last year was used to cover that to offset it and we have a little bit we have like a $1,500 shortfall which that's easy to find I shouldn't say it's easy but we can find it the latest projections for this year right now see that we're going to go beyond the $31,000 that's in this year's budget the latest payroll projections which are subject to a little bit of change but the additional amount Lori says is anywhere from $62,000 to $73,000 this assumes the program revenues are equal to last year's fiscal year and looking forward into budget 2020 we're looking at that minimum increase of $62,000 to $73,000 above the $31,000 so total support of anywhere from $93,000 to $104,000 so you know this was to come with you I don't think there's anyone in here tonight that doesn't value high quality food and the nutritional value so is that money in the first draft? no it's not the $31,000 is there that's why we came to Unite with this on top of thinking about draft 2 wanted to know some direction that you wanted us to go and thinking about the food service program because we want to properly represent that in draft 2 I did tell you that my predecessor did not use his labor as efficiently as he could have or should have and that was the major issue that I had seen in that budget and tried to adjust it I can lower the food cost by buying raw ingredients versus further processed products however if we did cut staff we would have to go back to more further processed products because I wouldn't have those individuals in order to process them are from scratch products anymore so therefore your food cost might take a spike even though we eliminated labor and because processed foods are more expensive they are, they're value-added they are created for companies, restaurants whatever to save money on labor that's what they're created for so it really doesn't save money no it saves money but what I'm saying is it's not going to be a comparable trade-off but there will be a trade-off we'll still have an increase in our food costs some increase but it won't be a dollar for a dollar but at the expense of healthier food correct fresher food additional $70,000 in this budget would be another half percent or so yeah I mean $144,000 about where we're at for percentage we're at 3.1 yep I'm in favor of supporting it and I also find Jonathan's vision very appealing I think at this point we have an aspirational goal rather than something that we can look at factoring into the budget any time certainly this year and after this year oh that's a wrap yeah are you in favor of that 3.6 I'm in favor of supporting the food program and then are there planning savings elsewhere yeah what other people feel about that absolutely and I think that's an easy one to bring to people to say we need to support our food service so that kids can continue to eat and keep prices reasonable um and I don't know too many people that would argue against making sure that happens again it's a need is this for a lot of people similar to the other schools in the supervisor union that are needing more and more support to say no no we have some that have risen we have some that have closed it and we've had you know we've had some that have been up high and they took two years to close it but we've done some of the same things Brian was talking about ways to close it some of it has been bringing in waste and some of it's been you know looking at the food that's being used um you know I'd want a good comparison that I don't have right at my fingertips right this second but would to be looking over the overall support you know 50 about 50 percent you know it's always we know this is about 50 percent of the kids in the SU are in this building so what's the overall look like for the other five buildings Doty's the only one that basically breaks even but there's a lot of community support they go out and do a lot of community work and organic meat and other things that they have fundraisers to do that I think the highest support of any of our elementary schools might be $25,000 to $30,000 well you can look it's uncomfortable to right well that I and I'm doing that from memory I want to I'd be glad to get you all those figures well if you look at the food service transfer her pupil we're in the lowest in our food service transfer at $42 per pupil for our budget I mean that's I think that's a bigger conversation we're not talking about the quality or the menus on those other schools we don't know what they're doing whereas we know what we're doing I was just I was just there's one thing that we do know about the elementary schools is there's not an a la carte service service right or chocolate or chocolate well I think we're going to bring it up well you have salad bar you can just get the salad bar and bread no it's gone at least my pupil you're pretty much yep we had to close the gap there do you have a good Samaritan fund that's like your discretionary for no no we just needs to be a little well what eventually happens is if kids are in debt we the board has voted to transfer money over to cover that debt or to wipe that out at times we've usually we watch for that yeah I wish Lucy were still here it would be very interesting to get super insight we could ask her another time is she going to be here next week do you think it is? I think tonight was just tough for both of them she was taking dinner nobody had power at her house right so I guess we have a decision to make whether we want to ask them to put this in the next draft of the budget and find savings somewhere else or have us look at that whole budget and think about where we are for next week for next week I'm still looking for savings by next week I would be in favor of including this and then so can we just be clear I think let me ask for clarification if you're going to say include this do you mean the difference between the 31,000 and 104,000 yeah I think we should be thinking about other places to turn the budget I'm feeling about 3.6 so I'm going to and I want you to hear my warnings for you we're getting close to a threshold here folks we're getting to the penalty area we're going to be paying $2 in taxes for every dollar you have to raise when you go above that you're getting close so that's what they're saying when 3.1 is better than 3.6 a lot better we're getting close to the threshold of 3.6 both I don't have the exact numbers but we're close to this past year so can we say that we'd like to see the next draft include this additional funding but with some options for reducing getting back closer to 3 across they could include food service they could include other things and I say that sensing there's support for food service we want to provide quality to recognize we're in a tough position and I personally would say this needs a longer term plan we need to figure this out those projections are based on holding where we are and these numbers don't indicate we're going to hold where we are the numbers are in decline so we need to address it all three it's revenue, food, cost and labor expenses the big three for any food service operation speaking from experience it's a multi-year effort and part of that could include efficiencies from merged SU we heard that in the efficiency study frankly my intuition from the board is that there's not support for that so I would need your help as a board if that's a place you want to go to talk about that with all your fellow board members currently I have staff that could feed easily 800 people easily I have enough staff but unfortunately we could feed 300 you know what I mean that's the problem is that reasonable yeah are you guys comfortable with that are you clear so I'm going to repeat it back so what I hear from the board is that in our next budget draft give the increase to food service but options for where we can reduce so that we can get back closer to what I assume is actually 2.99 that's my idea great assumption so just to paraphrase things that I've heard there's options to get there but and I think I would like to just clarify with the whole board including those reductions even showing what a reduction in food service costs would be to get to that same side I was going to say that there's this superintendent my recommendation there's going to be some reductions in food service I think that ought to be part of the list of options so while we put in the increase subsidy we also show how we save as well in food service and then let us choose get some input can we go back to the forum idea yes are we committed to doing it okay are we committed to doing it I thought so I talked about it today so should we model it on last year's version we basically provide the context and I got a slide show that can be updated you include some macroeconomic stuff or do we need that again you can update it that would be great are you willing to do that do you guys have a finance committee meeting still we weren't going to do another one actually you just do it here okay do you need help doing that do you want to wait until next week okay I'll put it on I'll put that on the agenda discuss forum and I do think it would be great to invite the transitional board since it's going to be there and you I know we did not vote for you know run for this one thank you thank you very much Brian I really appreciate you being here your dinners are delicious I really appreciate that thank you very much okay track project contractor pre-qualification criteria yes both going to their computers yeah well I had it up here so I did talk to John but he was pretty busy no, John Hemmelgarten from Bloggerware Design John Ray Hill is working his way to retirement I think so John Hemmelgarten has been the one who has been working with us on this we have already put out the request for proposals on this because we just wanted to make sure we weren't missing any timelines with this track to try to get it done during the summer period tight but there are pre-qualification criteria and did you bring up I didn't I was just looking through the packet to turn out I didn't see it in there so that's why I was worried about it I've got it here to read to you but I don't know that that actually suffices can we get copies of it oh it's used no I give you the one pager can we get a copy of the one pager I can send you this email why don't we go onto reports to the board Jody if I send this to you center of my career center we heard about the meeting that was the week before last that you attended and then there's one on 12th it's the big on December 3rd is the big open housey thing right so Steven filled you out on that yes he did I don't want to be the second one I don't want to be the third only people are the second's contract we go to the Monday thing that's Monday yeah Monday December 3rd 445 I would be attending and I'm hoping to be there but I've got negotiations that night I'll start 3rd I'm working I'm in a state administration report or can you do it Steven are you doing So let's go finance, can you map since last week? No, and the same finance report you saw the last time. Yeah. It hasn't changed. Executive committee. So, the last meeting we did review, dropped to the SU budget. Our main priority focus of the last meeting though was talking around the budget in improving math instruction and hearing a debrief of the leadership team's discussion. How do we improve math instruction? And this is to be continued for sure, but it was a pretty in-depth conversation for the executive committee anyway around the sub, I mean I've definitely sense that there was basically leadership team is preparing to ask the boards for support in various areas, including how do we help the community value math instruction and that math learning? How do we continue to support with resources and some other things? And it's not a fully fleshed out conversation I don't feel like, but it was heading in a direction based on the leadership team's. We came to one thing, if you remember, we had been challenged, on what supports do you need to help improve math and it was really a two or three week turnaround. And one of the things that I am reflecting on my years here at Washington Central, one of the things I've learned is if you go out in front with the boards first and the staff isn't part of it, that can cause issues. If you go out in front with the staff, but not the boards, you know, in front and you have simultaneous conversations. So, I wasn't willing to come back with a number to the executive committee because they asked me directly challenged to come back with a number to support. And I said, we came after spending a lot of time together, we came with four big key areas that didn't need work. And it's really not just in math, but it's in all instruction, but there are some things, particularly in math. And one of the things that we did, we had a nice, I think we had a really good day, Steven and Jody were there so they can add in. Please add in. One of the things that became a real hot that wasn't there at the beginning of the day, and I don't think any of us expected it to, but came out of our discussions and we used some protocols to get there, was that we need to do a marketing campaign for science, math, engineering, technology. And that we hear our communities valuing literacy and valuing the arts, but we don't hear that in science, math, engineering, technology. And we actually hear people make excuses why they can't do it, including staff, people within the staff and outside the staff in our communities. So we need to do some big educational work. If we expect to have support in those areas and prove it, it needs to be a value that is important. And it's not just because for computation, but math is a way of thinking. It's a way of problem solving. There's beauty in math, Steven did a great job of that one. Being the former high school math teacher, we can both say that a little bit. I can say it a little bit, it's more mainly a science issue. You said you were the science side. I was a science teacher most of the time, but I did teach a couple of courses, pre-calculated in algebra one, so. That's astonishing to me that that's, we really, we really drought down to it. It was like, here's the thing. Our communities don't really value science, math, the perception we're feeling. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I went to my sister-in-law to have a eighth grade math at Twin Field, and I went to work last and one time and did a whole like, in the day in the life of what I do, how 10, 20 examples of how I use math every single day. And it's not, and some of you being guys drilled down to algebra, like, you know, drug doses and you know, reading my reading graphs, and like, I mean, just like, stuff that you're like, I'll never use this, like every single day. And they loved it. So we were trying to think about like, when does the community celebrate engineering, science, engineering, technology, and math? When's it called for with our businesses around here? That we hear our businesses calling for it? We don't. And it's not that it's every one, right? It's just the general culture that we feel from inside the school is that there isn't a, I'm not pressured to, by the community. I'm pressured by some individuals, but I'm not pressured by the community. We've got a small vocal group of people who are interested. But nowhere near if we dare to take away art. Yeah. Everybody would descend upon us, you know. Right. I'd say 80% of the course chatter that we've had in these meetings since I've been here has been based around art. And this wasn't the only thing we did. It wasn't, no. We're just talking about being a-ha. This is a big a-ha and became our number one on-ha. The other place is the one you've heard of, which is increasing our professional capacity of our teachers. If you think about it, an elementary teacher can take one class in mathematics and have their elementary endorsement. It doesn't even have to be a content in college. Their last content could have been Algebra II in high school. They take lots of letter Cs. Adrienne can tell us more about that. I'm waiting. Example. Yeah. We've got a master's degree in teaching science and I never got beyond Algebra II in high school. It's really bad to see. It's really bad. In math courses, how low-teachers? We need to put our best math instructors with our most needy students. And that's not acceptable in American teaching culture. American teaching culture, as you become more experienced and more adept, you get the better students. That's at high school level. That's also at elementary level. Some of our math, and this is not, I mean, general. I'm not talking Washington Central-specific. Who are math interventions? Just because you've done a lot of really higher level math courses doesn't mean you don't have to teach it. Bingo. That's true, too. That's true, too. But you do need some higher level math. Yeah. Yeah. We need to, we've talked a lot about social-emotional learning. We know we need to tackle that and we need to tackle the amount of time for instruction. We really have an instructional deficit, time-wise. We need to extend the school. We need, you know, we have six and a half hours for instruction, and when you look at the number of hours that are actually spent in instruction, it's very low. We're not even close to six and a half hours. Recommendation is an hour a day. Hour a day of math, and we are not doing that for every student in math. Every morning, an hour a day in elementary school. We don't even have an hour a day in all our elementary schools. Wow. In U32, it's half that. Half that. Oh, because it's not every day? No, it's not because it's not every day. It's just because we don't have an hour a day. Even if you say it was a block schedule, we don't mean two hour blocks. We don't have that. So, to be continued, but it seems like what we should be talking about. Yeah, definitely. So this is gonna go, just as we were talking about food service, what you're gonna hear from me is, I said this to the executive committee, you know, here at SU board me on the fifth. I need to know your priorities as a board. I need you to be able to say when it gets tough and when the budget time gets tough, what are your priorities as a board, collectively as a board? Because we're gonna have to make some hard choices. That was a good point. It was, yeah. That was a two hour discussion. We have a, you know, the Articles of Agreement Committee is plugging along. We've resolved to take a full day next Friday to really try to plow through, because it's been slow going. Well, it hasn't been that slow going, but we're getting into the tough ones now. See, it's kind of grinding through it. Slow roll. Well, we spent three years and didn't do it. Yeah, right. Okay. They got it for the last time. Yeah. Let me just keep going down here. Policy committee is meeting Monday. Yeah. And I can go. School quality committee. So we will be on the agenda next Wednesday as SU board meeting. We're recommending adopting the goal that was in the monitoring report that was created by the teachers. And then there's some additions to that, including having the staff come up with a comparable literacy goal. And it's a one year goal. It's based on this school year. But we like the fact that they created themselves and it's ambitious and it's specific. And it kind of meets our needs, at least for the shorter. We'll discuss that next week. Negotiations. We're in swing. We met Monday. We've started getting issues up on the board. Started discussing options. We had a board team meeting this morning. And we meet again Monday as the full group. Thank you. Administrator, do you want to do this and we'll just finish this and go back to the contractor? Okay. Yeah. Well, I don't have a huge report. We've had a couple of snow days of vacation. We haven't had a whole lot of school time actually, since the last time. But, yep. So we have a group of teachers and students and parents, right? That are looking at our schedule. How are we using our time? How do we want to use our time in proficiency system? The great thing about being in proficiency is we do not have to build our schedule around Carnegie Units, which was the credit-bearing system, which said you were in class for 120 hours in a year and that got you, you were educated. And so now they can look at some new options and they've been exploring just right now, their first bit was we set the parameters for kind of what does the box look like that you do have to live within and then what are the things that you can look outside of? And so things like contractual language for school day for teachers and bus schedules as they stand now and those kinds of things are all some of the parameters of what the schedule should fit within. But we have a lot of ideas. There's been a lot, so we go all the way back to our October 5th in service day when we did a lot of brainstorming around what we thought we could do, right? And so that committee is gonna take some of that information as well and we're gonna start really playing with it. But things like more time in core subjects, you know, like a math class or things like that, how do we build those to kind of look at best practice and look at need and how do we build in time for intervention and for extension, you know, any of those kinds of pieces. So they're on their way. Jody and Alden Byrd is our, they're co-chairing it. And so Alden is part of his role at work. This is one of his big pieces that he's taken. All right. What else has happened? Start talking about criteria for graduation just to pinpoint that. So we have some early drafts of what does it look like to be a graduate under the system so that we can have clear pathways for students and families to see. Trying to make it, we're trying to actually look at everything that we're doing right now with our proficiency system under four different lenses. So the transparency is one of the big ones. Clarity and transparency really kind of together. Is it sustainable? Is it relevant? And is it, I'm not forgetting one, is it slight? Let me go through it. Oh, is it equitable? Oh, geez, is it equitable to all kids? So those are kind of, we try to look at all these things that we've been working on over the last two and a half years now, putting it back through these lenses of, okay, are we doing this right? And so the graduation criteria, the transparency and clarity are really big on that one right now. Just trying to make sure that it's clear to everybody. Sounds like you've got some help from the students. I would say right now kids are involved in a lot of stuff that three years ago they were not really involved in. They're on every committee, they're making their voices both heard and then we're getting a good cross section of the kids involved, which is nice. Question? I think we should recognize JB Hilferty for getting the Outstanding Teacher Award. What that means? Doesn't matter right now. Well, and I would say that just, that was prior to the other piece that you saw there about the World Peace Games, which was not just JB, but all three of our social studies teachers in the middle school, but JB was a big influencer on that as well. But that was incredible. Honestly, that was one of the. I think I spent four, three or four. So you see a picture in the packet. I would say one thing that was really, I do have to share like the story, like I was in the class one day and the kids have to solve for 23. 23? 23 crises. And so they got this huge game board that kind of illustrates all of it, but the game board isn't really where the action takes place. There are four countries and then there's also a UN, a World Bank, there's arms dealers. And then we got the legal counsel, right? So, World Court. Yeah, the World Court, that's what it's trying to take. And so they got, I was in this class, the kids were solving one of the crises. And so the group each country presents, here's what we did. They said, we signed a treaty with this country to sell them this island so that this species was protected and it takes care of this oil well problem that's going on on this piece. And so we've solved, we've come to agreement. And the question was, UN, did you approve this? Yes, law. Did you guys get this? Yes, World Bank, did you get the money for it? Yes, everybody signed it. We have a treaty, yes, it's like that. They were all done, right? It just, it took like a minute to do this and they were all excited. They've solved this crisis. And one of the kids in the group goes, yeah, and can you guys get your attack helicopter off of the island, too, for me? And one of the other kids, the kid in the other country's like, it's not ours. And they're like, no, no, no, I know it's yours and he's like, no, it's not ours. And the UN, UN's like, wait. And so they're all going through their paperwork. You see all the kids around them, they're all going through their paperwork. Who's helicopter is this, you know, on the island? And I hear a kid on the other side of the room, he's not even a either country, not UN, nothing's just another country, he goes, it's yours. And he just, he pedals out and the kid's like, no, it's not ours. No, it's yours. And like, and you could just see like this negotiation that goes on, like in this instant. And all the teacher did at that moment said, it sounds like you guys have something to resolve. He goes, we're moving on. And so now the kids are like, well, how are we gonna do this? And so it was just such a great indication of like one kid thinking that, oh yeah, by the way, just do that. And the implications around the whole room were incredible to see. And I just laughed watching them. It was so fun to watch. But they all three, all three cores achieve world peace. And so they were able to solve the crises with the helicopter. Yeah, I'd say it got moved somehow. Somebody figured that out. But it was really, it was great to see. And they, one of the things I debriefed with another one of the teachers about was that the kids while doing this project never opened the laptop. Like the whole thing was much more built around. And we talked about the transferable skills of communication and collaboration and all of those things and a teacher who, not one of the social studies teachers, but one of the science teachers who was in on it for when the cores were doing it, said, I went into the parent teacher conferences really knowing those kids. Like I could really tell their parents, this is what I saw because I watched them in that game for two weeks. And it was, I mean, I think we, our seventh grade has a really strong start to the year because this follows after the elevation study. And so I think when we talk about the middle school, the game is being up down there. And so it was a really, it was a great thing to see. And they'll do that, they wanna make that part of every year in the seventh grade, so it's a lot of fun. Okay, so now we have in front of us pre-qualification criteria for the contractors. So this is pretty, yeah, yeah. And these are pretty standard pre-qualification standards that we've used with most of our renovation projects, the three that I've been involved here. So we, this list is one that Black River Design uses with most of their school projects. We're looking, it really narrows it pretty quickly to the contractors in Vermont that can do this. We're gonna be in the EF wall size contractor because you want someone that can, first of all, we need to bonded contractor then that's not that hard to get. We can get smaller ones that do that, but it's the ability to pull it off really in a timely, in the time we're gonna have, which is about eight weeks max, maybe a little more depending on how we press school sports schedules. But this list and most of the contractors that do this type level of work are used to seeing a list like this, but it's really important that the board see this list. We can have an approval for the next meeting next week to say this is the list of skills that we're looking for because this project's over 500,000, we have to pre-qualify the contractors before they even bid. And then as I said last time, we'll have to take the lowest bid unless they're within 1% of each other. And then we can start to look at qualifications. So this is the point where we get choosy about the contractors before they even put an amount in a bid and that's under statute for any project over $500,000 in Vermont schools. Do we expect them a lot of contractors bidding out this to this project? We could, maybe they would sub out the track part of it, but there's a significant amount of ground landscape work here. And we're gonna go down pretty deep out there under that track because the frost problems we have, we've gotta go down three or four feet to redo that track. And there's drainage issues out there as well. So it's not just, last time we did, we just resurfaced track. This is not that. We're going down the whole sub. So in this big, we would get responses to each other. Yeah, evidence from them. That's how they'll write, they'll write that their narrative towards it and show it and we'll have references and other projects of similar scope and design. So those sub, there may be, I don't remember, Steven, you might remember how many different track surface contracts, there's not that many in New England, so they'll sub that part out. They'll sub out a lot of parts, but they'll sub that me, when we've seen this in other projects, like when we did Berlin Elementary School, that three lowest bidders had the same two electrical contractors, the first and the first alternate. So they may use some of the same subs, but. Yeah, he'll be one, yeah. Don't choose one of the, we'll see the same track surface. Surface provider, yeah. Provider probably in multiple bidders. So we've used this before? So we've used something like this very similar to for our renovations at Rumney and at Berlin because this comes from Black River Design, because you know the size of the project. So when you say evidence is successfully completing bid project of similar size and scope, so we're looking for something that's a million dollars and in the time period, like one of the questions, one of the things we'll be looking in there is, you wanna see it's a sufficient size company, so if we have to go to 12 hours a day or double shifts, they can do it and they can work night time. Because we, you know, it says in the RFP the scope of the schedule of the project. What is the establishment of commitment to this area? To this region. To this region, northern Vermont pretty much. So you're gonna get GCs that go into New Hampshire, a little bit into New York, mainly Vermont lines, but that they're not gonna, this isn't their only project and they're coming 250 miles to get here. So let's think about it and I'll put it on the action agenda for next week. Yeah. Okay. Approve the board orders. Do we have four signatures on those? Yeah, I believe so, yes. Is there a motion to approve the board orders? So moved. Second. Karen, do you have a number now, Lisa? Do you need one? I guess I need a number. I've got two sets. We've got 10, 19 to 11, 7 and we've got 11, 8 to 11, 21. This is the first one, the 10, 19, 769,247.42 cents. The 11, 8 is 281,000 dollars, 769 and 38 cents. Any questions on those? All in favor, say hi. Hi, hi, hi. Future agenda items. I have capital and pre-qualification to the action agenda. And discuss community forum. I'll email Lisa Krista, also. Okay. Invite the transition board. Board communication, should we wait a week? I have a future. Yeah, we just did one. Maybe the articles committee can talk tomorrow night about some communication regarding. That's a great idea. Yeah, it could come to you. Obviously people aren't going to hear it from us first, but we shouldn't wait too long. No, but Dave's been doing a great job in the paper for people that read the paper. I would think that people would want to hear it from the board. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. All set, we're adjourned.