 I only count five of us board members at the moment so we can launch in and if we if we cross that the quorum line at some point would you mind if I called to order. I don't mind at all and yeah I just have to carry and he's logging in right now so we are all set. Great. And I have a question about that because it's a forum. It's not a board meeting so I don't think we call the order do we we're just doing a presentation. We aren't making any decisions. No that's true. It's just that when we when we reach that critical mass. I don't know if there's a parliamentarian in the house. So it's okay that's the way that we, we posted at our meeting starting at five. And then we were going to use part of it so it's okay go ahead and toward I think would be the easiest. Thanks. Are you all set. Try good started. We just carry just got here so he's getting logging in right now. Perfect. Okay, so I'll get started and thank you Jim for and just leave us on that first slide for right now back to the picture sorry. Okay. So, welcome to our community budget forum. At first I again would like to thank start by thanking our amazing Washington Central. Unified Union told this team administrators teacher staff cooks custodians bus drivers and families thank you for all, continue to be the heart of our communities and thank you for all you're doing for our children during this challenging times. We're really grateful for you. This pandemic has brought into focus public attention to children and education, the inequities in our society are now on every community members mind, shooting security mental health access healthcare homelessness broadband income inequality, etc. Hopefully as a state and as a country, we will continue prioritize community and common good. And let that be the basic, the basic focus of well being for all our children, meeting children needs inside and outside of school. A strong public education is the basis of our democracy and the key and the key to equitable and flourishing communities. With that in mind, we can get started with the budget presentation. This is the final draft, not final draft is the final budget approved by the board. The school board makes decision on behalf decisions on behalf of the entire community that support the educational needs of each student, engaging our communities in this conversations helps us make sure that the community voices at the heart of our decisions and it also helps us ensure that we're not only working towards equity in our school boards, but also in our communities as a whole. We all want the healthy. We all want healthy communities and families and ensuring that each and every child has what they need to thrive and succeed sets the foundation for long term outcomes for that child, not just for that child but also for our communities. And we can move to the next slide. Jim, thank you. Good. Good budgets don't happen by accident planning and collaboration are key components of drafting budgets that are also that are not just a that are grounded and driven by data. Sorry, I'm trying to write on my notes. It meets the needs of students research programs that meet the needs of all students and right sizes school personnel through early retirement reassignments and minimal staff reductions and reduces expenses and supplies for budget purposes today. Equity is a school culture that supports educators and practicing effective and responsive instruction that meets the needs of the whole child. For example, everyone getting what they need to thrive and master our student outcomes. So you see right in front of you are our student learning outcomes, student learning outcomes are statements that specify what students will know be able to do or be able to graduate when they have completed or participate in a program activity course or project outcomes are usually expresses knowledge skills items and values are in alignment with the Vermont educational quality standards. The leadership team has continued to work on our proficiency based learning system with all the specific outcomes with assessments and and working on making it consistent across our schools. We still have still work to do, but the end result will be a system that flows from pre K through graduation. And you can see here trust our skills are at the heart of what we do to and you see them here I'm not going to read one by one I'm going to assume that I see that all our public is joined by video, so they can see. We have the responsibility to lead and make sure that we remove various and provide the resources necessary. Last summer, we said three goals as a board can we go to the next slide Jim freeze. Improving student achievement, building board governance and community engagement. These goals helps us take focus on student learning and collaboration and on monitoring results. The school board objectives for for the budget that you're about to see was establish a budget that is less than 3% net impact on taxes. Find ways to pay for three initiatives is strategic planning facility director and health instructor, using some of the fund balances where they were appropriate. And then establish a budget that was less than the ex expensive, ex expending threshold, a per equalize people. And lastly establish a budget that will move towards supporting a strong multi tier system of supports across all our schools. And next slide. We have much to celebrate a we are one of five districts in Vermont to reopen fully for live in person instruction from grades pre K to eight. We create a more robust, more robust and community center remote learning offering for students. We work to align our instructional approaches for teaching math and literacy, provided all students with increased access to technology. We also help our own personal care assistance and behavior intervention is the school bar is committed to the committed to the strategic planning process for continuous improvement and the creation of assessment plan to track students academic progress progress and this last bullet is a new bullet. So just last week we received confirmation that we were awarded a all the grants for our covert reimbursement so it and in the amount of $4.3 million so that's really commendable to all of our staff, especially to the Lori Carla Virginia Matt and probably Carla Michelle I'm probably going to forget somebody but you know who you are thank you. And lastly before I really let you go in a, you know, we hope that the financial forces that are probably coming to us in the coming year, or years one doesn't make the education for our kids, but will transform it. We continue to collaborate and continue to look for opportunities with the superintendent and the leadership team and we will monitor programs use findings from the upcoming curriculum and evaluation and, and, you know, engage our community as we go. Next slide, please. And I will give it to Scott to continue. Thank you so much for floor gets the words, I get the pictures. Before my speed. Welcome, all of you, I noticed there are a lot of old hands in the audience. And I'm thinking, many of you have not only seen these slides before, you may well have even delivered them. I'm, I'm really tempted to ask for you to, to actually say it, but instead, I'll just breeze through so that there's plenty of time for questions and discussion at the end. But as I think everybody knows this whole budget formulation process is extremely complicated, both technically and interpersonally. It's a highly political activity, political, both within the organization, as different units are jockeying for, for resources and, and trying to express their needs. And outside the organization, of course, it's political, when the whole question of how are we going to pay for all this comes up, and the question of what the impact on taxes is going to be what the legislature is going to do, what the feds are going to do, all of that. So, that I think you understand very well. Next please. Right, this is the flow chart. And again, I think, very familiar to many of you. In this particular cycle, what is what's unusual is that the board gave our, our guidelines are parameters for developing the budget, and because of information coming in about tax impact, the initial tax estimates that really changed the picture. So the, the superintendent and the administration went about actually trying to, I don't know, exceed the, exceed the standard, I guess, that we had set in terms of, you know, being being very thrifty, and we're even more thrifty. And this, essentially, I believe we draft three was the final budget that came out. So we went through this cycle, several times. Next slide please. Yes, this is the, this is the picture of our demographic decline, as it's referred to. The fall in student enrollment over the past as five years and projected into FY 22 the budget year, both the actual number of students and the weighted pupils equalized pupils, which is very important for the tax formula for those of you who aren't steeped in all of this. The tax formula starts off with education spending over an a fraction education spending in the numerator equalized pupils and the denominator. So everything else remaining equal, even if you have no increase in education spending. If equalized pupils go down, which they're doing, then the, that portion of the tax formula increases. So something that we have to take account of and work with. Next please. Right. I get some words. So this basically puts it puts the picture into into words. And, and rounds out the somewhat, maybe downbeat feel of declining enrollment with some of our assets, which I think many of you are also quite aware of that we have great people who work for us. We have fantastic students, which I mean, this is crucial to having excellent schools. The students are are the are the heart and soul of the place. And we try to, we try to live up to to their quality, both of them by offering as as new and interesting and educational opportunities as we can. And I do believe that is it for me. Okay, good evening folks. My name is Kari Bradley from Calis. And I'm going to talk a little bit about the specifics of how we plan to spend the money next year. So this first chart compares the overall size of the district's expense budget, starting last year on the far left with the four versions that we developed this year. So we did version one a back in December that was a level service budget no changes other than the normal inflationary increases. And since then you can see that we have been working to reduce the budget overall by about 600,000 net. And we're actually calling for less spending in the 2021 22 budget than in our in the current year. And I'm just, I need to point out at this point that expense budget is just one of several factors that will determine next year's tax rate we'll get back to the other factors in just a moment. Next slide please. These two pie charts show the breakdown of expenses by major categories for the current year on the left and then next year's proposed proposed budget on the right. The takeaway here I think is that the personnel expense the wages and salaries and benefits that we pay to our teachers our support staff and administrators. That really makes up the lion share of our budget it's about 70%. Otherwise we are looking at relatively minor changes in the relative proportions. One thing I want to highlight here is that the key driver in this year's budget once again is medical insurance. We're facing a 9.5% increase and that means that this portion of our budget, that wedge, big wedge just gets a little bit bigger every year. Next slide please. So, we're going to take a closer look at next year's proposed budget focusing on the items that most significantly impact the bottom line. These are the highlights so don't try to add up the numbers are not going to add up exactly. The key takeaway here is that our proposed budget has a net impact of a decrease of 1.0% over the current year. In the first section labeled salary and benefits. This covers the compensation items. We've been able to offset offset the increases in medical insurance and salary rates in a variety of ways, including by reducing several positions. So that in accounting parentheses mean negative in this section. And much of the savings here is accomplished by offering an early retirement option to our employees, and then planning not to backfill some of those positions and the openings that were created. So I want to thank, thank Brian and our administrative team for bringing us a solution back in July. And I think it's good to point out that there are new positions within this budget in particular for special educators, along with health instruction that was mentioned early, earlier in our elementary schools, and a new facilities director designed up to free up our principles and our superintendent to focus on improving education. The next section in the middle there is non compensation items. This is showing a decrease of 1.4% in that in that category. There are many changes both negative and positive rest assured we've really scrutinized each line and adjusted with an eye towards what's in the best interest overall in long term. And in the last section labeled labeled revenues I want to highlight two important points. One is that we are drawing on our fund balance where it makes sense to that's the accumulation of funds over time. We built up these reserves over time, and we asked our administration to look at where it would make sense to use those appropriately, in particular for one time expenses like funding the early retirement program. You also see that we are projecting a significant reduction in revenue from the tuition that we receive from students who come from other towns to attend our schools. And many of you know that for many years we've benefited from students mainly from Washington, Orange and Roxbury, primarily attending you three two. They have historically contributed a significant amount of revenue to our system and we are now seeing a decline in those numbers. And the number of those students and we're going to need to monitor this trend is just another challenge that's adding pressure to our budget year over year. So, I think if Chris McVeigh is not shown up I'm going to take the next couple slides going to get the next slide please. I mentioned earlier that our expense budget is just one of the factors that contributes to the tax rate. The other ones are the equalized people count and Scott talked about that and the trend there. There's the property yield amount that's set by the legislature, and that's, we don't have a final number on that until much later in the legislative session. I'm sorry, correct myself. We do have the yield amount but not the state tax rate that's set by the legislature. We will be using in their projection. And then there's the common level of appraisal for each town that is going to vary by town based on appraisal levels versus what the state thinks the value of homes are. So all of these factors come together into computing the actual tax rate. Let's go to the next slide please. And here is the breakdown for each town, and you can see that in the second column over from the left we've got the common level of appraisal. We've got the tax rate in our current year, and then applying everything we've got the tax rate in for next year with this proposed budget. And in the right hand side it's the actual impact on taxes and the good news here is that we are projecting decrease in tax rates across the board. It ranges from the least amount of decrease would be in middle sex where we're looking at 1.7 cents. And I believe the high is in Berlin where we're talking about a decrease of 15 and a half. And so this is this is significant this first time I've ever seen this kind of these kind of decreases across the board. And I really want to thank the entire team, which includes Brian and Lori and and the staff the administrators, principles and and and the school board and the finance committee I think it was an amazing team effort and I'm really looking forward to hearing your feedback. What's next slide please. I guess that's it for me I'm going to turn it back over to floor thank you. Thank you, Carrie. Thank you everybody. So as we, you know, as you, as you can see, we, we did a lot of work in finance this year and the only thing that we forgot to mention is this is just our second budget. So we're really proud of this is our second budget as a unified district. So there's a lot to be proud of. We have three questions for you as we open it up for the public what clarifying questions do you have a what information will help you support this proposed, you know, not proposed budget that has been approved by the board. And what ideas do you have for informing the community members about this budget. We unfortunately got the numbers a little bit later from the state so we updated the budget that was before posted on on the websites showed the show increasing the taxes in some in some for some communities but we actually have the final number so it's a decrease for every for everybody so we do need help and some of our town clerks have posted all the information but our school reports didn't go out until yesterday. So rest assured that you'll get the information at home and and you know please remember to vote so with that a what clarifying questions do you have Let's open it up. Do you want to monitor this is Scott or do you want me to do it. You're doing great for do you want to continue. Sure, I don't see and maybe I don't I don't see hands up yet. So if so much and I, and I, and we don't get to see with the with everybody's with the presentation, we don't get to see everybody so. No, that's, that's true. I don't see any hands up unless if somebody want to, you know, just in mute. Oh Scott, I see your Scott has please go ahead. Just a good question I know it's it's a statewide crisis, but the long range plans to address the decrease in enrollment that we're all facing I know it's huge pressure on budget and state but what's the thought process process on if it continues to go less enrollment every year. You know, I think there's a lot of I think we would have to see what opportunities are there to provide concentrating what would be best outcomes for kids so if we continue to see a, you know, a decrease in population we would have to figure out, you know, are we structured the best way we need to. Are we structured the best way to serve the student needs. So, so you know at the end of the day is like what can we afford to to give the best opportunities and outcomes to our kids and I think that Scott and Carrie both have some. You know, I just also want to thank, thank you all you do tremendous job and I know serving, serving on school boards could be the most thankless job but thank you so much for your, for your, for your hard work. Thank you, we appreciate it. I'll defer to Kari and go after. I'm going to point out that one strategy that would as potentially less painful in terms of right sizing is to is to try to attract more students into the system. So that there's a marketing element. And of course that's limited because we're talking about an overall trend trend in the state, but where there's opportunity to attract to attract the students from neighboring towns or even within our towns if they're being homeschooled or or going off to other places. So Brian has identified that as a strategy and then, then the obvious is your, your left with the challenge of how do you right size the system for the number of students you have. And it's not happening in an orderly way it can happen in, you know, in fits and starts and different grade levels. We don't want to approach it from a scarcity mindset we want to think about how can we actually improve our education as we're right sizing the system that's that's a huge challenge. And I think something that when we start the strategic planning process that we have in mind next fall I think that's going to be near the forefront. Yeah, just a second what Carrie is saying, it's very definitely a, you know, a long range strategic discussion. It's a, it's a great question, and it's much on our minds. The, the whole problem with demographic decline is that it's not necessarily something that we're just passively. We're trying to reckon with, we may also be able to do things that will help turn it around, because it's not as though, you know, we're doomed to extinction, and as Vermonters but that if, if, as a society we're able to create the conditions for families to not only to want to but to be able to have children, the children that they that they wish to have, then I think we can, we can probably help the whole, the whole social system attain a kind of equilibrium, but this is part of this is one of those discussions that I think all of us are looking forward to having as opposed to having to worry about the pandemic. Diane, do you have something to add to. Yes, and actually Scott was getting at it basically you know our schools are microcosm of our communities and so our decreasing number is also a comment about our affordable housing families are about our ability for families to connect and engage in the work that is so important for them and their families so again, it is that broader question of as Kari was saying how do we create a system that's just right while helping our students to gain and grow, but it's also about how do we help our community to stabilize and be strong and able to provide for the needs that we all have within our, our world. And I guess the last thing I would add is that as a state there's a lot of work being done to try to diversify our state and make it more sustainable for the BIPOC community to move up to Vermont and there's been, you know, a lot of money to try to get people to move up to Vermont and the demographics for you know Vermont continues to be the second white estate in the, in the nation, and the demographics for Vermont, the population that is growing the younger everybody is over 65, it is the biggest growing population in Vermont is over 65 except for the BIPOC population, who they are that for 2050 they are going to double. So, so that's something to keep in keeping in mind too as we make our communities more sustainable and attractive for for people for a diverse population in Vermont that will benefit our entire state. Okay, Alan, I see you on mood on mute. Do you have a question. Yeah, go ahead. I should not. I'm not on mute I don't think. Can you hear me. Okay. Just a quick comment I think the single most important thing we could all do to help our schools are and this area generally is to support the build out of high speed Internet in all of our towns. I think that is probably the most important impediment to any sort of renewal of the population pool and getting more people into the schools I think that's that that just cannot be understated. So the questions I have the first one. I wanted to know the, the 4.3 million and coven funds that Kari mentioned a few moments ago. Is that baked into the projected tax rates that floor you were you gave about 10 minutes ago. Yeah, I think we switched that I, Laurie's in the call with us too but that is not so we were able to take those those out that does not reflect that in our, in this budget that you're seeing right now so we, I'm going to let Laurie speak a little bit about those and we're going to go into detail and those in our meeting in our school board meeting too but Laurie, do you mind taking. Um, right. Um, the coven in the cares relief money was to reimburse schools for expenses that were incurred last spring and this fall that we're not in the budget. In addition to that it was to support food programs. Um, and our regular remote instructions and the third part of that that you'll hear later is that the good considerable amount of the money was used to repurpose staff that would then return funds to the education fund, which is what has helped with the tax rate reduction because the yield that the state is using assumes that schools will repurpose staff so that the state will have additional funds in their education spending budget. So Laurie, it could you tell me what what is what is in the budget related to coven are both expenses and reimbursement from either the state of the feds included or is it just the expenses. There are neither expenses nor revenues and next year's budget with regard to COVID. We have budgeted to have school and have business as usual next year. So does that mean the 4.3 million that Kari mentioned has no impact on either the budget or the tax rate. True. Thank you. The next question I had was about the fund balance. The fund balance. If you look on page 23 was it 1.9 million in 2020. And in the 2022 budget, it's at $144,000 has that much money really been taken from the fund balance, or am I missing something about the way the accounting has been done here. Do you want me to answer that floor or were you going to answer it. Yeah, I have it here so that that is not the right I don't know where it is what we have right now just go opening my finance notes that I was reserving for after the. So right now we are showing it one is 1.2 1,287,000 dollars in for fund balance and that would include us making a fund balance transfer to capital. So I'm curious in what page are you on Alan page 23 under it's in the top top block. That I'm remembering right now the three things that we use fund balance for this year were for early retirement for getting to health educators in it to have equity around our schools and for hiring a facilities director, but other than that Lori unless I'm missing something or Kari or Scott. One of the things that happened. I can speak to that Alan was that when we became a newly merged entity last year all of the fund balances transferred in together. And those fund balances have have yet to be reserved for capital funds etc. And that is the action that the board is considering tonight. The board did increase the budget revenue by 144,000 for the early retirement payments that are due next year. So they were trying to use some of the fund balance to have tax relief for those one time payments. So you sort of hit on what my third question was, I could not find any line item for a capital fund in in in this budget. Is that because that hasn't been created yet. Capital fund balance was created last year by the voters. There is $725,000. Just looking at my notes. Yes, there's 725,000 as a transfer in for this year. And if you think about the fund balance transfers in the past. That is not enough to sustain the capital fund. So the board is considering tonight. Moving the transfer in to the capital fund. Okay, I won't belabor the point but I'm really having trouble following where these things are because it doesn't seem to be laid out in the budget. And that's what I was relying on. So I'm sorry if my questions don't have the context that it sounds like you folks are dealing with. I can connect with you tomorrow Alan if that's okay. I'll just have more specific. I'll go online and and see what I can find on the website maybe there's another document there, other than the booklet that arrived in the mail today. The annual report that would help me out. I just looking what I'm trying to just ignore is I'm, I'm, I'm concerned because it sounds like there's some one time money that's being used to keep the tax rate down. And I'm trying to figure out where it's coming from how much has been used and what impact that's having on the budget because I think we all know what what spending one time money leads to. And I would be concerned about that, especially as the enrollment appears to be continuing to trend downwards. I mean that's what drives are per people spending up and that's what drives the tax rate so I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to get a fuller picture of what's what's going on in terms of movement of money and spending and taxing and so forth. Thanks though I appreciate your help. Thanks, Alan. I think Scott wants to answer. If I might, I expect the lawyer will probably follow up on this with more detail but we've actually taken great pains to use one time money for one time expenses so as not to create any kind of fiscal cliff of any kind. But when I, essentially, we're, we're, we're not, it's smooth that the curve is smooth. So that we're not, you know, going to clunk off the off such a cliff in our next year's budget and find ourselves having to raise taxes significantly in order to cover for the makeup for what we did this year. We're being very careful not to have that happen. But you could understand Scott why I might have gotten concerned when I saw a fund balance of 2020 at 1.9 million. And for next year it's 144,000. That's how it appears in the documents and I, I worry that when people see that they're going to think oh my gosh these people are spending, I don't know almost almost $2 million of money that is it that is in the bank and can only be spent once. It sounds like it's more the presentation of the information than it is a fear that that this money is being tapped for something and it's and the fund balance is going to disappear after next year. No, no, the fund balance is not going to disappear rest assured Ellen but that is really, really good input because it's something that we had, you know, we have the same beliefs that you were saying we do not want to create that and and the fund balance. Like I was saying a few minutes ago, even with the if with the bar approves moving it to capital fund, it would still be a, you know, the projected fund balances over $1.2 million. What we have to consider is that Lori is still working on finalizing a, a, you know, and increasing that fund balance because there were a lot of savings from last year. There were not field trips there were, you know, there were different things so we don't, we don't actually have the final number quite yet of what that fund balance is but rest assured that your input has been taken. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Any other questions. So exciting to see so many people we've been doing it for ourselves. Matt, you have a question you muted yourself. Yeah, I have kind of a budget adjacent question I guess it's really more probably suitable for the agenda of a future school board meeting, probably in March. I'm going to take a couple minutes and kind of explain what I mean by that but I don't want it to track from folks that may have, you know, legitimate questions about the budget that you presented. So, I don't know if there are other people sort of with hands raised I can't really see what the queue might look like. I don't see any hands up, and I will encourage anybody that is in the second page to speak up if they have but I don't see anybody. I'll just, I'll go ahead and comment comment here. Yeah, the mic for the moment but so I guess I just wanted to raise something up to the board the tension and again and what I'm really requesting is maybe hopefully 10 or 15 minutes on the agenda of, you know, the school board meeting that will happen after the reorganization so, you know, maybe March 17 of that that works and I can be in touch with the steering committee about that but. But essentially the topic is a program that you 32 has been piloting for the last two years so last school year and this school year, which is called the equity scholar in residence program. And for those of you that may not know about that. This was something that was created by virtue of a grant that was secured by a nonprofit organization, the Friends of Washington Central Schools, which provided an opportunity to you 32 to get a trained and kind of seasoned equity expert stationed in the school year on a day to day basis throughout the school year to do a variety of things like, you know, get a sense of where the staff may be at and the student body may be at with regard to equity issues and concerns to provide, you know, different ways of referring to help out and taking a look at the curriculum and reviewing the extent to which there may be any inequity kind of embedded in the way that topics are being handled. All kinds of different things basically relating to different equity issues. All reports from everybody's come into contact with the person. Shelly Vermillion who's been serving in that capacity. It's been incredibly positive for the school system. I've confirmed that with the administrators. And her work has also caught the attention of leaders in education in the state of Vermont. The Vermont principals Association and the McCleary Foundation are very excited by this and are working hand in hand with the organization that Shelly is associated with to try to find ways of evaluating this more quantitatively this model is impact on the school, seeing if it can be replicated elsewhere in Vermont as well as in New England and perhaps nationally so perhaps I don't know maybe board members are aware of this but it's also possible that somewhat. You know below the radar of the board you 32 has been really pioneering and approach to equity and supporting equity that is really garnering a lot of positive attention and cut to the point that car and and floor we're making earlier. You know, could be not only a great benefit to the student body that's there now but also as a sort of marketing and selling point to many people but particularly to folks in the BIPOC and in the community. So that's that that's the topic. So sort of somewhat of a budget question is that there is obviously the grants running out so there is some question as to how or whether this model could be sustained. The groups that are involved are very committed to raising funds to continue them all and I'm involved with participating in that just why I'm here tonight. And of course we'd like to come to the board and, and really sort of share with them what's been done what the outcome has been and, and maybe, you know have a conversation about whether there is any kind of commitment to the school community might be able to make to you know ensuring this can continue as well so that's the, that's the long and short of it, and happy to talk more about it if that's an interest. Thank you Matt. Yes. Yeah, I totally yeah I think we an equity director not just a you 32 I globally is for all our schools. So that to me that should be the model so yes you're I think that I all of the members of the of our planning agenda planning committee are here right now and notice we'll begin and we'll find the time in the agenda for you to join us and we'll give you plenty of time to. Yeah, and I should note that the director of the organization that Shelley is associated with would also attend the meeting and speak directly to the work that they're doing and kind of, you know, sort of how it works and what the, what the needs are and that kind of thing. So, yeah, thanks for the thanks for the time. Appreciate it. Thank you. So it's 1740 I mean 547. It's so Scott if you want to take it back and maybe give people a little break before we start, or unless. We have, we have a quorum now. So I can. We can come to order at 547 officially. And, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we have to, we have to shift gears right away. If, if there's anybody out there. Attending who would like to contribute I'm really grateful to to you Scott has Alan Matthew for for speaking up and for being here in the first place. It was lonely last time we tried to do this. And it's much better like this and budget adjacent, as far as I'm concerned, is this beautiful. So, before we go any further. Is there anyone else who would like to just say something. It doesn't even have to be about the budget, it can be adjacent as Matthew so beautifully demonstrated just now. I just wanted to point out in Matthew, I see your background there with the Chinese symbol back there so what I understand that Matthew has gone to China several times as lived in China and I have gone there several times and if I recall that correctly, and I could be I could be wrong but that thing behind you is basically a is a very is a Chinese symbol, it means many different things to different folks. I was told it helps with fertility and and childbirth so it made that might be the solution to improving our student enrollment situation. But I like it, I see it there Matthew I like it very much. Sure, I'm happy to buy into the, the superstition there. It's got us I have one more question since I have kids that are quite a bit older. Can the board give us some perspective on, I mean how is everybody doing through all this and how are the kids and the teachers and through this crisis, just a little bit of color because we're also concerned and wrapped up in our world at home. But I, you know, I'm just, you know, we're worried and concerned about how, how our community kids are doing and teachers if you could maybe just give a little insight possibly. Yeah, thanks. Brian, I think I would defer to you as having the overview. Yeah, I thank you for that that question I think we're doing really well in so many aspects of our children are in school 95.5% daily attendance rate. I was gonna say that in my daily report, my super intense report. So our children are in school. There, there is a lot of districts that don't have the opportunity to have their children in school like we do have our experiencing significant challenges with mental health. Students mental health and the COVID slide is what they're calling it nationally the number of the academic drop in academics. So I think we're seeing some of the slide because we were closed prior to the school year. But I think we're really making some strides and we're looking at the test data we're going to be looking at that more closely in the coming months to make some further decisions about what we need to do for our kids. But I think our children are, you know, are in school they're doing really well. I think the teachers and staff who have been the unsung heroes of this pandemic, especially in our district are doing are doing well I think the I think the challenge is they're also really tired when I think we're really looking forward to this we come this upcoming break that's coming up. And we're all really tired. My staff, my administrative team and leadership team we've worked weekends, we haven't taken our vacation. We haven't didn't have a summer break. It's so it's been it's been challenging, but I think it's also been very rewarding and I think we're going to have one of those situations where we look back one day and I think we're going to say that you know we did we did a heck of a job here at Washington Central. Thank you Brian. I hope that gives you a sense. Scott. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Um, anybody else who would like to to deliver some parting remarks before we maybe take a bit of a breather in advance of the of the regular session. I can get it to unmute. I just like to say one silver lining of all of this COVID because there is one. It's the first time I experienced as an educator in the state of Vermont not going into February break with every school so sick with flu and colds and respiratory diseases. And we don't have the colds because we're masking and we're keeping distance. So, for once the schools won't have to be fumigated because of the flu going around the schools for the COVID cleanup. Yes. So there, there's one little silver lining. Let's take all the silver linings we can get. Sorry, floor. Did you ask me just to remind people that we will be having a March 1 presentation of the but an informational meeting to so before we leave and March 2. Again is town meeting please vote. And hopefully everybody, you know, every single town agreed to send ballots to all of their voting of the voting register voters so we're hoping that you have your ballots and be able to, you know, call us if you have any questions reach out to any of us in the website there's the phone numbers and emails of everybody or if you have any questions reach out to whoever you're more familiar with so and thank you for coming today. Amen. Many, many thanks to all of you took the trouble to join us tonight. And you're welcome to stay of course, but I'm not asking you to because that would be a bit much to ask. In any event, if there's no objection, we can recess until 6pm. We can pick up again and in regular session. Thank you very much for putting it all together and seeing. Thank you. And to the rest of you as well. Have a good evening if we don't see you later. We'll see you next week.