 Rochester Campus by a Google Meet agenda. And we are here present is Justine Kavakis, Bill Edgerton, Pat Hudson, and Ethan Bowman with guests, Jamie Kinnerney, you're not a guest, you're like supposed to be here. And on the, what's your last name? Adam Adams, A.A. A.A., and on, sorry, I'm gonna test my brain. So, Justine's agenda, we'd like to maybe dive into, let's put celebration of learning after reports to the board. That won't sound good, so that'll be seven, eight will become seven, and seven will become eight. Yeah, I wanted, Mr. Chairman, we were gonna have have a brief discussion of the results of our board scorecard on our protocols. And that's not here. So I don't see that here. No, I'm just gonna be requesting whether we could find some time for discussion on this, and I don't think it'd take a long time, but I think we committed ourselves to follow it and commit ourselves to it and evaluate ourselves. The other team, do we have the core bonus core? That's under 9.5, so. Okay, 9.5, thank you, yep. Put it all in the bookstip. Yes, so how about a 9.6, or do we wanna put it, yeah, it should be discussion, 9.7. Yeah, gotcha. 9.7 will be scorecard, board scorecard. And I think we were encouraged last time to get back to setting some times on this. Let me get my watch right here so I can see it. Consent agenda, five minutes at most. Public comment, don't know, board comments. We'll see. Silver, Shalene, do you know the time on that? Yeah, I think it'd be about six minutes. Six. Superintendent, report five. Yes. Principal, he's not here, so I will say five minutes. Well, we got the data report, that's gonna go out. Oh, that is part of that, that's why it's doing it. Okay, so. Gotcha. No, no, no, that's 15, yep, at least. Probably 20. Business manager, five, sound good, Tara. And that's not including draft, right? Draft two. Yeah, so five, policy committee, five, full board update. Oh yeah, volunteer, let's give that 10 just so we can explain. So Chair, I think the fall academic benchmark might take more than five minutes. So that. Oh no, we have 15. Oh, you got 15 minutes. That's right, change that 15. Gotcha. I would even maybe say 20. Gotcha. That does take, but let's do 15 for now. So let me just. 20, 25, 30, 40. So we got 40 for forward and forward, so we're good now. Jamie, what's here? EI needs 15 tonight, 15. Student support budget, I'd say that's gonna be 15. Yeah, I figure about at least 20 to 30 between both documents. So. And then use the universal instruction budget. 15, and then he said, oh, it's got you in the jittery. Got you. I wasn't. All right, down with funds update. Don't know what Amy will say, let's give her five because that's a report. Hope study 10, or is that too low? Well, let's see, whether it's. Okay, let's try 10, 10 boards, guard, guard, 10. Let's see if we can, because that's getting us. I would, so originally I would just make friends and you know those comments. Okay. It isn't weird video, you heard that? Yeah, we usually talk on it a little bit. Okay. Okay. Let me just see, we're now at five minutes in 15, 30, and 40, 45. So that's about 630, 630. We should be around 630 by the time we get done the reports and 45, this helps me if I have a time that I don't look in. The 45, 25, 27. 630, oh yeah, that's about 740 is by the end of discussion. Okay. Let's go ahead, because sent agenda 421, improve the minutes of Monday, October 3rd, 2022, and 4.2, move the minutes of Thursday, October 13th, 2022. The first was the regular, the second was the retreat. I felt like there was some more things we talked about in the retreat than were totally in there, but I couldn't remember. So if that's what we've got, I think that's, is there a recording of it? No, it's fine, okay. Good. Well, I'll entertain a motion to approve as a slate, if you want to approve both minutes. All right, second. Who approved it? Who's moved it? I move it, okay, approve. All in favor, signify by saying, hi. Hi. Yeah, I want to. Justine, hi, okay. So what do you need to know? I was just going to concur with your email to us about the retreat that it was well worthwhile. It was really the way we could communicate to get better acquainted, exchange, views, passions, and just perspectives on what's going on and what's important to us. I'll commend you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting that, and I think you were talking about having more of them in support of that. I have to, and I'll have to remember that, because that's a tricky one for a member, but I threw in my calendar, that would be good. Yeah, no, I have to say that I thought part of the success was sort of jettisoning our agenda and letting it be freeform, which I think is really not having an agenda. Yeah, we sort of will let it go, and I thought we got some really great stuff from Lindy as well out of that. So thank you. Is there, and then there being no public on, I assume there's another contract. So let's start with the superintendent report to the board. No board comment? Did anyone have board comment or that was? Yeah, that was his board comment, that was about, sorry, they ran into the notes. I was like, you're still under notes. Yeah, I was, I mean, that's it, all the ways. The, so you have my report in hand, I, it's hard to believe it's November with this weather, huh? Yeah. But we're in the thinking of it. One of the things, and I just wanted to highlight, that was in my report is that we will be rolling out a newly revised SU elementary report card here in the next couple of weeks. And so that's tied to our current elementary proficiencies. So that's exciting news. We're gonna have a feedback loop on that report card to gather feedback from faculty and parents. The idea being that we probably have to do some revisions. It's also spearheading the kickoff of our work around refinement around our curriculum, right? And so we're going about that. The high school is currently focused on some work that's happening with the agency of education to redo proficiencies at the high school level. The elementary, this revision of the report card and saying we're actually gonna report out in the report card to the proficiencies that we have at the elementary level is the idea of being that we're shining the light on what our curriculum does. I can't even say for ends. Let me move in so you can get right. Interactive, yeah. No worries. So I'm excited about that. That's a few years in the making of that work. And then the other thing that we, Anda and I met with our community schools coordinator, Mary Schell, and that grant was originally received at the middle school, right where we're at in middle school, but the idea is in your two and three of that grant is that we start to do more work SU-wide. We're in your two of the grant right now. And so we're gonna have a monthly dinner and conversations. We're calling it community conversations. You'll see a flyer come out about that. That will be up around towns. Those conversations are gonna happen on the second Wednesday of the month. And essentially be facilitated and led by mostly WRVSU teachers, staff and administrators, but it'll come with a dinner too. We're hoping I set it up hybrid for the conversation part at least. And also have some high schoolers provide childcare is the idea. So that will be rotating across the districts of the SU. So that's something that we're hoping to gain some momentum in throughout the rest of the year. And so other than that, the state board meeting, Lincoln is gonna be a week from Wednesday. I intend to go. What's the date? That's the 16th. 16th, and what time? And where, if you will. I have not seen the agenda yet on the location. They rotate it. Probably same time. Yeah, they tend to meet at that around that timing because they typically go to a location, have a tour of the school, and then they hold their meeting in the afternoon. As soon as I know, I'll share it out. Okay, thank you. I mean, do you think it would help if we show up again? Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, because I really think at the end of the day, it is as much a political decision in regards to the state board as anything. I don't think legally we can't argue against, right? And so I think that what we can do is speak to them about the rules that they have. I think the heart of Act 46, the financial impacts for our SU, and I think also they, them hearing a unified front in regards to why we oppose a possible decision of Lincoln coming into the SU certainly strengthens our case. So anybody can make the time to feel you know, I do feel this is a big one to show up for. So my question of clarification is that legally, I can't find it, but you read Act 46 and what Lincoln's asking for is contrary to Act 46. So to me, that's legal. So just to remind you to the idea that the board has the ultimate decision. Act 46 is no longer on the books. Okay, that's the legal. Yeah. But we were all together based on Act 46. Just to remind everyone, that's the problem, right? The legal document Act 46 has sunset. That is no longer a law. Mark and the state board enforce it. So what is the law for that, for mergers and acquisitions? Yeah, it's voluntary. Remember, Act 46 was all about force merger. Wasn't about voluntary merger. I missed that whole history. Anyway, that's not about this report, but that's... Yeah, so we've spoken to two different legal councils now and both have been really clear. There's no legal grounds for us to oppose. There's one thing we can legally do or say to the state board that would stop their ability to place a district within ours. Their ability, but they're still educators. Right, so that's why I think it's a political decision as much as anything, you know? I mean, and I feel quite strongly that there might be a point where we'd be saying no. There would be no legal grounds for us to say no. But at the same time, are they going to enforce it? So I work at the... Just so the board remembers, the superintendent works at the leisure of the secretary of Ed. So before you could hire me, you need the secretary of that approval. So in statute, the SU boundaries are drawn by the state board of education. This is why it's important you want to work. It really is. This is, where is it? Wednesday, we don't know yet, but it'll be a week from Wednesday, probably in the afternoon. Yeah, so there's all these nuances. That's why I appreciate... Yeah, and I appreciate you being on the conservative side because we don't know. Well, I just talked to Tara, you know, before the SU meeting and she was like, and it didn't help that I'm being asked to prepare an entire budget to bring this school in because the three possible SUs. So she's got that on a plate, along with the audit and by the season. And I mean, this is really serious. That's why I put this liar out and I ordered my letter so strongly. I just don't want to leave it to chance or if there's something, oh boy, I wish we'd had more people show up. Anyway, sorry, I don't want to... No, no, you're going to show up. I think definitely there's strength in numbers. If we could put out a thing to people to show up, we could show up. Okay, sorry. Anything else? Are you done with your report? Yeah, I want you guys to have other questions for the superintendent for the board. Oh yeah, I have none. Is there... Oh, sorry. There's a way we can get a button to that. Let the Google button. Sure. Yeah? That'd be great. That'd be a very good idea. Well, yeah, so that you could, even if you couldn't be there, you could be on and your name would be taken. Yeah, as soon as the agenda comes out, I'll send it around, but I'll also put it in, right? Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it's a lot of sense. A lot of people would probably be willing to... Right, a lot of people could show up, then they'd be counted. And be counted and probably even speak. Okay, okay. Very good. Yeah, they don't use Google. Are they? Yeah. Yeah, they are so hard. At least they were last. Any other questions for our superintendent? Looking for a phone number? Not at all, Robert. You got it. Very good. Are you handling the principal report? Did you all see the email? What? Yeah, we'll tag team it. Yeah, okay. This is false. Before we go to the data report, does anyone have any specific questions about the principal, the written report, before the, you know, aside from the data report? One thing I was gonna ask her about is that we had spoken the other day about doing a round table discussion with parents whose kids are currently in various different middle schools. And so the other parents of rising middle schoolers could come and ask questions about the experience. Obviously, Dave and stock. And she said she liked that idea and that we were looking to making that happen. I think that's a great idea. And I know that, you know, when we were searching for, where my daughter was gonna go, I didn't really feel a strong presence of the Bethel campus or the South runs. And I just didn't feel like, I don't know, it was just getting started, but that would probably be a good idea. And I think along with that, if the campus has one to send representative to that meeting as well. Yeah, that's a very good idea. And I think we would push to have a B for fifth and sixth graders. Yes. Yep. I think that's a really good design. Yeah, because by now, I mean, you really need to already kind of know where your sixth graders gonna go because by the time you get a chance for us. Yeah, it's really tough. You've said choice, course choices were happening in January. Right, they were signing the kids up for the seventh grade courses in January. And so, yeah, you don't realize that you can't wait, you don't wanna wait as long as you think you have. I'm in complete denial, but I'm not. Justine, do you have a comment? Yeah, I had a question in reading the section about enrichment. I wanted to ask Lindy about music and if there'd been anything more with getting any music into the school even through that segment section. So we still have two music folks doing instrumental lessons, Justine, that we're offering students that we're contracting for. And we've reposted the music advertisement and refreshed it once again with the hope that we could still secure someone through conversations with Principal Stetson. I think that part of the concept that she's gonna try to implement too is continuing to increase artists and residents as an opportunity too for performing arts throughout the rest of the year. John Gale Moore is a definite and there's one other option. So that's the approach that doesn't take off the table, the fact though that we are still trying to search. Yeah, no, I just meant with the enrichment, music wasn't mentioned in this report and I knew John Gale Moore was coming in February but I just wanted to know if anything was happening before then. No, and just so you know, I have officially said I would like to teach a drama enrichment on Friday afternoon. And so there she's gonna talk about schedule with the faculty tomorrow afternoon and then get back to me about when that can fit. And I'm very excited about doing that with kids. And I'll be here ending the stockpiles. Two points on that, Justin. One is the summer music for kids program that was initiated this year, this summer at Rochester, part of Rochester here, but Rochester Stockbridge, neighboring towns, which we basically had 16 kids, instrumentalists, they had a wonderful concert at the end of August and we decided to continue it. And we had instrumental lessons, I think for the same 16 kids and free renal of instruments and that sort of thing and we're gonna be providing, I think free instrumental, so not the classes, but through the winter. So that has happened. And I just wanna say also is that I can't speak for the Stockbridge trustees of public funds, but I know the trustees of public funds have in the past, financially supported, special arts, creativity, music programs that were brought in for the school. So I would think that that's another source to tap if there was need for funding to do that. Cause we all around the table are talking about the importance of music and the arts and getting that young and getting kids excited. And so that's just another, your budget for a music educator. So those funds certainly can cover what we're spending right now with contracted services and our brain artists and residents. And hopefully for next year, we're gonna give you some tips. That's the goal, absolutely. There was some talk about a change in, we're unaware that they might be some change in the state as to certification rules for music teachers, art teachers, things like that, because they're having so much trouble getting them. Have you heard anything about that? I think there's been talk in general at the state level and certainly at the state board around what could be some of the barriers right now for us in regards to finding licensed educators. And other states have done some creative things to assist schools with licensure. Thus far there, other than talking, I haven't seen any momentum in that direction. Certain, other than what we always had as tools, which were provisional licenses or emergency licenses. But they're wrapping up the issue. Yeah. All right, we should, if there's nothing else on that, thank you, Justin, for being on that. We're also gonna be talking about this, obviously when we go get our budget as well, because we wanna make sure I already have some comments on point two in jib and point six in jib and all that kind of thing. So let's get to the meat of this. What is the report? Benchmark, universal healthcare is essential. Yeah, if we can. Remember, you just read the text. Read the text, forget about the text. Oh, forget about the graphic. Well, I was, this is a new graphic though. There's a little bit of new graphic. So we do have a new assessment system that we are using for our kind of universal screener and benchmarks that we use over the course of the year. So over kind of mostly in three seasons, sort of fall, winter, and spring. So some of the graphics are a little bit different, but we can talk through that just to say that we have all of our, just give the background, all of our first through sixth graders here in Rochester and Stockbridge took the track my progress assessment in both math and English language arts. They're computer adaptive assessments. They take on average about 24 minutes a piece and you do one one day, and then the other one another day. They're usually like a week later, all depending on sort of schedules. For folks that were at our SUY board meeting at the end of October, we talked a little bit about sort of information that we had from kids about this new assessment, which was, there's sort of their reflection on it, which actually came from students here in Rochester and Stockbridge, the assessment was easy and hard. And as I sort of explained at that point, that that is actually a really good way for kids to sort of identify what a computer adaptive test is. So there are questions that are going to feel easier. And then the computer says, okay, they got it. I'm going to give them a harder question within these standards. And that's because it's going to get hard. And so that's the way to get sort of as much as you can, as much information about what kids know in about 30 questions without having to, you know, the test take forever and after. It changes the question. Yeah. So not, you know, you do have, if you have 15 kids in the classroom, they're all taking a different test. Wow. So that's anyway, but yeah, it's helpful for folks to do that. That's fascinating. So that's the base. So we'll look at some, you know, what we'll be looking at mostly today is the track my progress data. We'll look at one graphic in each map in DLA that tries to compare this year's data to last year's data. And we'll just talk about there's just a lot of caveats and be able to do that comparison. I think it's helpful to at least get in front of us just because there are two different assessments. Last year in these schools, we were using star 360 this year, we were using track my progress. So it just, we're not the same assessment. Okay. So in general, this is our percent of students at each grade level meeting and exceeding expectations. So blue and green are the general colors. Focus that, it's a little fuzzy. I think it's the way it comes off the website. I've got it. So yeah, blue and green are generally meeting exceeding expectations and red and yellow are sort of students that are below and beginning towards those expectations. This is by grade level across the whole district. Nice chart. This one comes right from track my progress. So in one way, just from a, this makes it a little bit easier. I think it's a little more off-test time doing hand calculations with this program. Sorry, but we just filled in the first graphic. Yes, I guess we are, yeah, we're, yeah. All right, so we'll go down to the second one. So this is one, this one is a little harder because this is the easiest, this is a way to do it. And I will take feedback on it. This is basically looking at last year's data and this year's data, same kid. So that's why we use class of, okay. So for math, we tested with first through sixth grade. So those are our second graders this year through our sixth graders. So the first two vertical lines are this year's second graders. The next two are this year's third graders, this year's fourth graders, this year's fifth graders, and this year, very, I couldn't figure out how to do a different color. I'm glad you're asking. I just, if you put a grade number above the two. Well, it could be, but it's a different grade, right? So it's on the class of, yeah, yeah. So class of, class of, yeah. Four dash five, three dash four, something like that, just so we could, because that was what I was looking for. I didn't know what year they were graduating. This is from first grade. I corresponded it to these grades underneath. So maybe they were just spaced up like that. Try to do that. And maybe that would be more helpful if this is second grade, third grade. Yeah, I didn't notice that. I picked that up right away. Yeah, so you know the math first. The numbers, the parallel numbers. Again, you are comparing two different tests. Yeah, right. We changed, so the assessment changed and the timing changed a little bit based on the feedback that we got. That there was too much going on in September. We were walking our kids into our buildings. We're really trying to think about setting those expectations, making sure kids know routines. And so we moved this assessment to October. And so it's just, it's a little bit different. I still think it's, you know, it's baseline for the year, but it's just, I, for a lot of reasons, I just like to make sure we know all the things that could be affecting how things look. I'm sorry, I'm gonna ask again, just to make sure. So were these the same tests these two years? No. Yeah, so we are looking at results from one test and our results from a different test. Okay, so that's a little hard to keep. Yeah, exactly. We could have left this out. And I think if we had left it out, the question here would have been, how does this compare to last year? And then you would have said, well, you can't compare it to last year. So anyway, that's, yeah. I will have, I think when we get together in February and look at our fall and our winter and start to see that growth, I think we'll have a lot of other chance. You know, I think we'll be even richer to conversation about, you know, what information are we getting from this and how are we acting on it? Okay, good. All right, so the next one is you all have heard from us a lot over the last year and a half about scale score as being something that makes, there's a way of looking at the data that helps us really think about, you know, what are kids learning and how are they progressing for us? What the ideal way that this graph will look is really even steps sort of between each grade level. So the scale score kind of grows, the expectations each year grow, they even grow during the year. So you see grades two and three are meeting expectations for this time in the fall. Grade one is just like three scale four points below that, so that is almost below. And then the other one you start to see a little bit further off of that where you want. This is looking at the whole grade as an average into one sort of one score. When we're looking at this data in the school level, we're looking at the individual students and seeing all right, how far off of they, where do we wanna make, you know, are they really close to meeting expectations? Are they further away? And that's how we start making some decisions around kind of instruction, are we changing, you know, how are those kids learning, what kind of groups do we need, those sorts of things. Sorry, in this bar graph, how do we know what is the number for proficiency? So right, if you look at the chart that's right below it. Yep, so these two go together. So in the fall, those numbers on the far left, those are the expectations for the fall. So you can see that grade one, just barely making, missing it. Grade two is a little above, grade three is flat on, it's a 707 and then you see the other grades. And then, just so we start to see where we're heading, the numbers on the right-hand side are the expectations for the winter and then again in the spring. That's just, yeah. But the number, I have to say, the numbers are not far off. No. Or proficiency at all. Yeah. That's, I mean, if, you know, I guess just my visual level, if there is, if you are taking feedback, just that the number B on the bar, you know, if we could see it, but I guess you're right, I can just know the numbers down here. Because then you might get confused to what their number actually is. But the fact is, this looks very, this actually looks pretty darn good. That we're a lot closer to the benchmark than we should. And then you might think, and as you say, oops, thank you. And then one more graph format. Now this is really, this is where we really start to think about what is, what are we doing differently in the classroom and what's, you know, what's working and what do we want to change? So this is looking at all of the domains that are included within sort of the content area of math. And this is sort of how we divide up. And you can see some of those domains are tested across almost all of our grade levels. And some of the domains are not tested. They're only tested maybe in this, in the schools in the sixth grade, like there's six, seven, the eighth grade. So where you see that only 13 kids were tested in that domain, that's a state, that's a domain that's only for six, seven, the eighth graders. And so in this, you know, in this district, that's just gonna be that, you know, that your sixth grade is here. Something like, you know, yeah, base 10, operations and algebraic thinking, that's almost all of our students. So these proficiencies are for the overall population and you don't separate those first grade? We do when we start looking at, yeah. Oh, you do. No, this is a good ending. What we do when we're looking at me for presenting at the district level, we don't, yeah, we don't get to do it out by all individual grade levels of structure. We could do it, but when, yeah, when the, so when we, so we meet as a, as we got in here, we meet as an MTSS leadership team, that's the interventionist, classroom teachers, myself and Lindy were sort of looking at this level and then we're diving deeper. And then they would be as a staff in each building in data teams and they're looking directly at their own students at their classroom and looking at sort of where these things are. And that's where when you see the analysis narrative at the bottom, it's really looking at, what are the strands that pull across? What are the, what's the work that we want to be doing? Sort of school-wide, district-wide, what are the things that individual classes need to be working on? They are finding that it's, some of the questions that have been challenging are, there's questions that ask you to sort of check all of the right answers without actually telling you how many right answers there are going to be. And so some of our kids are more ready to just being like, all right, there's one right answer. I'll check that. And then they only get the question one-third right because they're actually three, like three correct answers. All of the shapes that are, you know, are equilateral or, you know, those sorts of things. And so those are types of things. They're both, you know, test-taking skills but they're also kind of life-taking skills. Like, you know, there's not going to be one answer. Are they forewarned that there could be multiple? The weighted question is asked. It's sort of in case they're checking all, but if they're not used to it, they're not. So also when we think about a baseline, both their baseline and their skills in knowledge and also their baseline is how these questions are asked. And so part of the reason is that it's not sneaky. Right? Well, I was going to say, it's kind of cheating. Well, they have, it's always sneaky. Yeah. It's preparing them to read closely. It's preparing them to understand that there might be more than one answer and it's getting them ready. Next time they take it, they'll be like, oh, I saw this before. I know what to do. Right? So that's where we see, you know, we'll see some of the growth hopefully in January that is just familiarity and then also growth around knowledge and skills. Yeah. Two things. Oh, oh, oh, don't forget anything. Oh boy. Yeah, what's going on? No, do the type of question that you ask on this test, does it do all those questions end up in the classroom as well? They could. So one of the great things about Track My Progress is that you can see every individual question that a kid gets asked. So the teacher can. The teacher can. And then they can see. Yeah. And you can see what they answered. Great. You can see sort of what the right answers were. Those are not the same. You can see how long they took to answer that question. So you can see whether it was like a four second answer or like a three minute answer. This takes a lot of time for the teacher to have to look at all this. It's a lot. It is a lot. So I think, you know, you really tend to, you don't do that with every single kid on every single question. Obviously this is struggling. You want, you look more in-depth depending if a kid or the kid's. And then you also need to know what to do with it afterwards, right? Like you've done to say, all right now I've got all this data from this system. How does this map onto the instructional material they have? And so folks like today, you know, are really helpful in helping our teachers learn that. They're also, you know, there's ways of these things map on, but it is a lot of work that our teachers do. Without a question. Any other questions on math? We'll flip to English language arts. I don't go over mine a lot of times. Yeah, good. Thank you. All right. So this is going to be exactly the same. I have a question, but I'll have to go through both. Okay. All right. So English language arts, the report is like exactly the same. So this is our percentage of students reading our teaching expectations for this year. So, you know, I would say we do have a little, we're a little bit wondering about what's happening in third grade there, but I think we will, you know, I think that's a place that we can certainly, when we see something like that, we know, all right, so universal instruction, those students in our third grade, of course it was going to be across two different buildings. Need more support. And then we can look at which domains it is. Is it in foundational skills? Is it in sort of their vocabulary and conventions of standard English? Those sorts of things that we can get and be able to focus on that. Yeah. The next graph down again is the comparison from last year this year. Again, changes include the actual assessment, the timing, and for this one last year we did the English language arts from third grade up. And this year we started with first grade doing it. So we don't have the comparison cohort data for what would be this year's second and third graders. So this graph starts with fourth grade, is the first two columns, fifth grade is the middle two columns and sixth grade is the last two columns. And again, we're comparing two different tests. Two different tests, but I would say one of the things that I value about this test in literacy especially is, I think I'll make a brief, yeah, I haven't shared this with you. I think that this assessment does a lot more in regards to encoding. So spelling and star 360 did. I would also say that it definitely digs into vocabulary more than star 360 did. So in terms of analyzing or asking questions. And so with that, when Lindy talks in the report about foundational skills and us spending more focused time and resources in regards to phonics and phonemic awareness universally, that is an area that we had identified as a weakness, SU-wide. And I would say that the track my progress data is certainly speaking to that. I crossed the SU. So we may be seeing things that were getting missed in the previous test. Seeing where- I definitely, yeah, there's definitely more questions focused on those foundational skills within this. Where star 360 tended to be much more focused on reading comprehension. And you'll see that when you go down to the broken out components within ELA. You'll see that some of those foundational skills or some of the areas where we're struggling the most based on this assessment. No, I appreciate that. I think I've also, star 360 is the first year I've used it. And so even just trying to understand what it was asking was not always easy to do if you're not actually the student taking the test. So actually, I appreciate some of the historical perspective on sort of that, you know, what are some of the changes? So this graphic is again showing us the, using this scale score against the state expectations. And I have said this before, but it's worth saying again, we have, our state has high expectations and the bar is set high in Vermont and regionally in New England for students. If we were to select the national average, these colors and numbers would look very different. But this is, right, these are where our kids live. These are where our expectations are. I know that sometimes it can feel frustrating to see your kids in red given how hard we know our teachers work, but we also know that we've got gaps that we have to help fill for kids. And so it's better to have the information rather than just say, we're just gonna have low expectations for kids. So that's where we are here. So this is, again, on the bottom chart is really showing that that color column is where we are in relationship to those expectations in the fall. And then also where, and these numbers are the same for math and ELA, the scale score don't change across the content area. I gotta say too, I mean, we're in the hundred. You know, we're in the hundred of expectations. You know, it's not like we're the expectations 770 and we're 500, you know, or 400. With it, right? You can see where the difference is if you look sort of vertically between the grade level, right? Between first and second grade, there's about, what is it, a 94 point change, right? Like we're expecting, you know, the kids to grow almost a hundred scales score points from first grade to second grade. So if you were a hundred, I'll give you an entire grade level line. Yeah, okay. So that's one way. So those, that number, that difference between grade levels gets narrower as the years go on. So between five and six, that's about 45, testing my public math right now. I'm also comfortable. So, you know, those, yeah, anyway. So those, that's... Well, I just, you know, because I think it's so easy to look at color coding can have a lot of emphasis to it. And the fact is minus 35 is pretty darn good, I think, for a low class cohort. Because, you know, they're gonna be handing me a class. These assessments, these benchmarks have not decreased due to COVID. These are the same benchmarks we had prior to COVID. And you've read the National Literacy. And, you know, to see our third and fourth graders struggling literacy right now, like... Yeah, because they were first and second graders. Yeah. Which is like the meat, potatoes. I truly believe we are now finally in recovery mode. Yep. Last year was not recovery mode at all, right? But we kept saying we're in recovery mode, the state, right? Like we're using SR funds to recover. Last year, we had... We're making it work. SBAC, yeah, SBAC, sorry. COVID had more of an impact, I believe on educational operations last year, as far as attendance, teachers ability to be in the building than the previous year. So I actually feel like this year, we're starting to get into recovery. So the last graphic for English Language Arts is that proficiency by the domains assessed. So again, we've got six domains. Foundational skills is assessed first through fifth grade. And some are just on the later, I think vocabulary. Oh, the rest of them I think are all students. So it's just... The knowledge of language. Yeah, all of those are... So the rest of them are all assessed all first through sixth grade and foundational skills is just this first grade. But you can see that sort of foundational skills is what we're talking about. This is what we had already identified last year. We've got all of our reading interventionists who are students spending a lot of time to really growing their skills and how to address this. We've got a number of teachers who are taking it. We've spent Title I funds to get materials that are aligned with what we know about how students learn to read. This is something that has changed dramatically in the last 10 years and probably even in the last five years in terms of what we're really learning about how kids learn to read. You think that we would have figured this out a hundred years ago. But it is just there's dramatic changes around this and we are really aligning our practices to that work. And so I'm fairly confident that we will see some really good progress there. I think the other thing just to note me overall and I know Bill's got some questions is that you can reference the national data. The national data again is obviously is national the biggest hit towards a math. And it makes a lot of sense for that because I think in general kids probably experience less direct instruction on math if they're not in a classroom. It's just our world is sort of oriented around literacy. That is not the case here in Rochester and Sacramento. Those math scores really have stayed pretty well. I think there's a lot that has gone into sort of keeping that keeping that and I just think it's a call out to sort of the commitment these buildings have made to saying we are committed to math. It's not saying they're not committed to look like ELA but they are actually fucking sort of the national trend in math and the ELA is certainly a place to work and I'm not I think they have worked hard too. It's worth calling out on the math that we're seeing something different here than what we have seen nationwide in terms of math in the last couple of years. Bill, you had a question? Yeah, first the headlines on the national test scores and the word from the secretary the national secretary of education. The experts was pretty gloomy. They tested nationwide fourth graders and eighth graders. Math and reading and in both cases they had substantial decreases in proficiency since the last time which was 2019. They didn't test or didn't include tests for during the COVID period. So this is kind of a first pre-COVID but I wanted to ask if you could kind of translate the national results in reading and math for fourth and eighth graders with what we're looking at here at Rochester and Stockbridge. How are we doing there? Well, I think, yeah, I mean, as I said, I think the math looks different here and I think it has been a place of, you know, in the year and a half, I've been here continuous growth in that area. There's a lot happening around ensuring that students have really strong number sense and get sort of the progression from sort of addition to multiplication where like all of that weight that they're heading and I think we're seeing really good growth there. There's some pockets that we want to focus on but there's all positive signs that what is being done here both in classrooms with the support of some intervention is that it looks really positive. In terms of English language arts, I think that, you know, certainly in the graphic showing as Jamie's had that third and fourth grade cohort, it certainly, you know, compared to the peers in the other grades is probably the lowest down and, you know, miss some foundational time with teachers. And then I think this kind of shift to really think about the role that phonics and phonemic awareness play in students really being able to, you know, decode words and then encode them and to become proficient readers not based on being able to predict, you know, what the pattern is or, you know, using picture cues, which is a lot of some of the reading instruction that has happened in kind of previous years across the country. You know, there's a lot stronger ways to teach and I think that's what we're seeing right now is starting to see that take seed and I think we will see that sort of push up through. We've got sort of students who are receiving intervention getting a lot of that right now in the upper grades and then all of our, you know, our younger kids are gonna be receiving much more of that focus, what we call the restructure that is the approach. I was under the impression when we set our SU goals for academic performance that the goal for reading was to exceed the state standard by 2025 with math that was to get there. And that was based on the fact that we were lagging more than math that appeared in reading or that we felt more optimistic that we could move quicker in reading than math. As it turns out in this test, I'm not comparing with last year, just this test, is that math is considerably outperformed reading. And so that's true for all of SU or just us here in Rochester and Stockbridge. And what's going on? Yeah, I mean, if we can say yay yay and I say yay yay on the math side, I think that's to celebrate here. Do we, do we have some signals here that we need to change our approach or our resources or our time, whatever energy on the reading side? So I think there are two questions there. One, the data, don't look the same across every district. When we look at the SUI data, you will see it aligns more to our English language arts. When we set those goals, we're higher than that. So we had the expectation that we could continue to grow on that. And I'm hoping, I mean, 2025 is still a little bit of a reason why, but I do think we have seen some setbacks that I don't think we were expecting after last year. In terms of changing, of course, here in ELA, I think that's exactly what we've done, right? Like I think we have really, if you look at sort of where our resources have gone over the summer and this year, we have not taken anything away from math and we have really rethought what we're doing with literacy in terms of making sure that, yeah, we are kind of changing our approach to instruction there and not relying on those things like predictive text and QQA. What's the impact of, I go back to spring training and baseball or any training, and it takes time to get into shape. Okay, so you do your wind sprints and you're jumping jacks and you run suicide and everything else. And so would we expect, and looking at our test scores and just things that the January results would show some change from what we're seeing here in our fall test? Or is it? I think you just can't say. We've identified that foundational skills as an area that we needed to grow. And so we've done, again, we haven't done a one-size-fits-all approach to how we're going to teach foundational skills, meaning finance and phonemic awareness. So many of our districts are approaching that through something called Fundations, which comes out of Wilson Reading and a program called Heggerty that does phonemic awareness. Your district is going to have their primary grade teachers engage in professional development and utilize resources in direct instruction, which Jamie Feinberg does. So we'll have a district that's going to be using that universally. And so with that, the plan is to really have launched in DI at the first of the year built. So I don't think you're going to see those foundational skills take off, at least until we're seeing next fall here. What I would say to you is that I'm with Honda. I still believe that we're going to meet our goals in 2025. I think we have an assessment now that is really highlighting what we were believing was an area of concern around our universal approach to reading instruction. So I would actually say it's been a bit affirming. I think for some of us that we had these foundational gaps and we now have an assessment that I think is helping us highlight those gaps. You can all talk more about that when we get to budget. I just want to, we've got three minutes to be on 6.30, which was the end of our report. I know. I know. It's a paper, so. I know. I just want to write. Thank you. My job. Thank you very much. I have to, I do have to run to that. Yeah. Just the last question, and I think you have the answers. One of the reports I read about the national exam talked about the decline. And they were just really draconian words used about the decline in math and reading for a nation one. And then the question was, well, gee, it only went down five or eight points. This is a question that relates to Ethan's comments. They only went down to five or eight points. And the reading I had was that's dramatic and it's very hard to regain that three and that five and eight points sometimes over a series of years that it isn't like, oh, it's only down 25 points, 50 points. They're talking about the norm going down or up. It's like three points. And so I'm looking at this thing is that really speaks to our challenge because I'm taking that three points and I'm going, we only have three years to reach our goal. And our goal for reading is exceed the 50% in math that's to get there. And I'm looking at these things, I'm saying, wow, I take three for each year, three, six, nine points. Well, we're behind more than nine points. And we're going to decrease the percentage of kids in the red. So my point is, and when I get into the budgeting is I really want to focus on it's like doing everything we can to get the kids with math and music. I mean, in music and arts, are we doing everything we need to do as a board to make sure that we get the resources to our budget so that we can achieve those goals. Because I'm reading some of this and I'm looking at our graphs and it's daunting. And I don't want to be in a position where, oh, I didn't know, but we were asking you to basically do the impossible. That's not our job. Our job is to give you the tools to make it possible. So I just, I'll pass that on to when we get to the budget. But I think it's very important. It's like you said in an earlier meeting, I'm ready to make sure that we spend whatever it takes to get the job. And I feel the same way about literacy and math. And so we need the guidance from you and from Jamie and do we have everything in our budget? And we've got the thing on special ed and classroom teaching that we're going to be reviewing tonight. So that's one of the questions I'll be asking. Then do we have what it takes? And it doesn't necessarily mean more teachers might be different or training curriculum to explain, but if that's true, we'll leave you three to five points change in a year. How do we do more than that if we have to? Well, let's see, I have a slightly different approach to it than you do, Bill. And that is that all this is based on faith and trust, that we have faith in you and trust in you, that you are doing the best you can with the tools you have. And that there's only so much that we can do. I think you're right. I think this is where we do both, that we harp on while that isn't going toward 25, our goals are 25. And the other part is that then there has to be a part where we go, okay, yes, we're giving you what you need. Now we trust you and we support you, go do it. And I think that's got to go hand in hand. And the nice thing we've got here is a team, administrative team and a conference team that we have trust and confidence in each other. So we're not asking as we mistrust, it is like we don't believe, you can do it, we don't believe your numbers, all that sort of stuff. It's a deeper one, which is how do we do it? Yeah. Do you have enough resources? And what are you doing? And if not, let's give you more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the resource situation is going to be changing. We've had additional resources that will run out next year through this recovery planning. And so some of the things that we are able to do right now this year and react, what I think is react fairly quickly to things that we identify, that we will not have that luxury. We're trying to use it as strategically now to make sure we're getting those resources. But what I realize and I'm not like, our classrooms is we have more of these texts that are like all about prediction. And I was like, well, that's not teaching anyone really to read. So we have to go get these things called decodable readers to make sure that everyone's got something that they are using the skills to decode action to learn to read. And so it's not something we just didn't have that many. So that's the type of thing we're using resources now because they won't, it doesn't go away. Like I said, they will be here when they have their money is gone. So those types of, those are the kinds of conversations we have. Just spend the money now while we've got it. Wait, so I was also saying 20 years in education I have worked around the world. I also never got a pandemic before. So I also think we know, right? No, we don't know. We didn't know what last year was gonna look like. We have an idea now. I think we are, I agree with the superintendent that we're heading in the right direction. And this year feels calmer in some ways. But I just, I think we also, if we think about our goals for 25, we have academic goals, we have some other goals too. All of those are important to all of us. Our students having choice and agency is really important because that's how they become really contributing members of our society. So I think these goals are important. I want, when we were talking about goals, I want to make sure we're always talking about sort of all the goals that we set because I think all of those are important for how our students come out. And I think the last thing is just to think about, thinking about the asset language, our kids have learned a lot in the last two years that are not captured in this report at all, right? And they have learned how to persevere. They've learned how to be resilient. They've learned how to go with the flow. They've learned how to learn, you know, on computers and stuff. And some of that, you know, some of that is captured. But I think it's okay here to think about all the hard questions. And when we talk to our students, we also have to say, you're doing a heck of a job. And we're really proud of you. Yeah. Absolutely. Good point. Further questions on this academic report? If we're ready to move on. Thank you very much. Thank you. That was very articulate, and I appreciate it. Business manager, Tara, are you awake? Sorry, that's the only question. I don't see it. Oh, great. We'll jump over that policy committee. Yeah. All right. Splash, splash. Yeah, so we had a discussion during that. We tabled it. We are, we even have a conversation with the lawyer regarding it because what we had discussed basically, you know, this is something that we want to go through with. Do we, you know, not even, you know, have it just allow the US flag and the monstay flag. So that's something that other boards were also discussing with us. And so, I think we, we do see the value and the need to make sure that kids are, their voices are heard and that they can express themselves. So we did agree that if we go that route and say no, that we should also have something implemented that does allow them to, whether it be a wall in the school, outside the school or something, same concept, make and hang a flag banner or something like that. So essentially do the same process, but just for that, our flag bulls are our flag bulls. Like, you know, the guy that mentioned some schools only have one flag bull. So how it's not even going to be relevant. So how do you tell one school, oh, well, we don't have a flag bull for you, but in our school we do. So we want to talk to the lawyer though and also just discuss the policy that we have written up so far and just see like, you know, we just feel that there's just so much room for a complex to arise and as a board, we don't need to, it doesn't need to be our focus. So, yeah. We trust you to do a good job. What's your opinion? Any, oh, Robert? Well, it's certainly blown up in the face of a joining supervisor union on the horizon problems with trans kids. Is that going to be a future discussion for policy committee? Trans policy. I think that's a good question. Certainly, Randolph has done, well, been forced to have right into it. Good question. If you could bring that up. I won't post. I think that's a really good point. Okay. Good. Anything for the policy committee? We do have a standing, excuse me, Mr. Chairman, if I can just say this. The SU, he does have a policy that was adopted by the SU and this board on prevention of harassment, hazing and bullying of students. So that could be one thing that's in existence that we would provide as guidance. Oh, of course. There was the argument that was the, one of the arguments that was on the policy committee against the anti-race What was it called? What's our policy? Anti-racism policy was that we already have, you aren't allowed to gather. Why do we need one specifically for this group? And I think that would, and I don't remember the argument for that, but I think that would say that there is specific issues here with that. But there's also more, I would say, trans policy than just. Oh, absolutely. The one I just mentioned was what, you know, how, of course, there's a whole lot more to it than just bullies. That's C10, but on C28, we have adopted both the SU and our district policy, a policy called transgender and gender non-conforming students. So I think for Robert, if we can all ask a tap the list of policies on the SU website. And the one that you were particularly interested in that is ours is what would be called C code C28. So maybe we should review that 24. I'm just about to go to the full board update and one of the board, just to say that board retreat, one of our board goals was to review all our policies and to see if which ones need updating. So that is a goal of the SU board. Why don't we make an effort to review one per unit? I think that's a great idea. And why don't you start with C28 and see if it seems adequate. Bill, the condensed spreadsheet that you have, did you put that out somewhere or did you create that yourself? I created it. What? I'm sure I could feel like a share of that. Are you in my mind? You are just, my mind is like a sieve. I can't remember if you're all in my mind. Are you willing to share that? Oh, absolutely. Because I think that would be the one. I think the one we're talking about is kind of like that way of thinking. You can just make a copy of your binder. Yeah. Well, we aren't talking of no, no, no, no, no. Because those are setting up a mentor program. We all need to be. Even if we've been here a while or even if we're ancient in age. So, no, and I love the idea about, if we do have a small increment. Yeah. And it's an educational thing, not as well as a review thing. Because I think a lot of us. I mean, sometimes I might just be as simple as reading it together. And say, yes, that's great. Because that's the only guy who could allow me to move on. Okay, so that's our homework assignment. Mr. Chairman has already done. All of the policy. C28. No, no, no. That's the policy committees. But should we? Yes. No, I think we should review one per meeting. You were talking about one, so once a month we'd review a policy. Yeah. What do you want to get out of your meetings here? Just curious. Here? Yeah. No, no, we can move. We're assigned between now and the next, we're assigned between now and the next four meetings. We're assigned between now and the next four meetings. Read C28. And if we have anything to discuss about it or want to suggest to the policy committee, hey, we'd like you to take this back and review it. We have some concerns that are really appropriate, such as we don't change policy. We need to bring it back to the policy. I think it's actually a really, really good idea. I think just reading it before. Correct, but we wouldn't really discuss a lot of it here. We would more say, yes, this needs to be reviewed. These are my opinions. Absolutely. So I'm going to jump right in. I realized one thing I should do is I should send you all the SU board goals. And I worked on them, yeah, that's right, with Andrew from the high school. And you should all know what they are. We had a really good retreat, by the way. It actually turned out to be, it wasn't, you want to retrieve the SU board of everybody who's an alternate or whatever, but I thought it was a very good meeting anyway. It ended up being similar to ours in the sense that people got talking, but we did set some goals. But one of the big things we went for was this idea of a mentor program. And that any new arriving, our new board member, arriving, anywhere in the district, would be assigned a mentor, almost likely not from their board, but from another board in the school in the SU. So there's someone who they would possibly talk to before a meeting to talk about what are the policies, what are the things, what are the protocols. And, but this is all that's all hypothetical. What we want tonight is volunteer, who will be on the committee to create this mentoring program and create this, how it happens and what it does. I think it's an interesting concept. I think that in the learning curve to be on the board is like you. Oh, yeah. To figure out what you're supposed to be doing sitting here. So, I think it's a great idea. I'm not volunteering right now at this moment. Well, I am, I am looking at you Robert. You wanna come in? Could you, could you think about being on the mentoring committee? It sounds like something to be after, Alec. Well, I just wanted to know. Don't interrupt when he's about to make a commitment. I wanted to allow Robert to make a commitment after he'll guilty because he's along with Patrick, our front lines on building and the whole capricorn program and the high school and everything else. So, this guy's been putting in a lot of time and that's my colleague to the left. So, given that. I will definitely think about it. When do you need an answer? Well, I'm supposed to get it to him. After the board meeting. So, how about 20 minutes? I'll talk to you in 20 minutes. I mean, the one thing I will say about it is I don't think of it as an ongoing committee. I think it as a set up committee and something that you come up with a presentation and then basically the board takes it over from there. So, it's not something, I don't think it's something you're going to be mentoring through the thing. It's gonna be no, give us a, give us a. The guidelines. Give us some guidelines. And then we will, it's probably the board chairmen's will be instituting it. Yeah. We'll have a pool of people who want to do it and then I will pull, you know, Stacy from Grandville when whoever comes in, you know, Kerry McDonald comes in if that's what it is, something like that. Yeah, my hesitation is whether my skillset is appropriate for that as opposed to, let's say, building some capital improvements. I don't have a lot more experience from that. But then there is an area where organizational, fully second, just team. Well, there's such an advantage to a point. I knew you, I knew you. I was like, I'm next. I think I would be good at this. I don't think, I'm a little hesitant just because I still feel new, but I think that might be helpful because. Exactly. Because you could actually be asking the questions you might want me to answer you to just be like, I would like to know this. This could be part of the. I can see both sides. I don't know, but I have, I also had to go through it recently. So. Oh, am I writing your name down? Sure. Thank you, justine. Good job. Robert Barrett, thanks very well. Thank you, Robert. I think, okay, that's basically what we have to do. So, I will send you the report. If you have a chance, read the minutes of that. I thought it was very interesting. If I may just say one topic that came up that I thought was really interesting was how do we make our middle school, Bethel and our high school, South Royalton, a viable option for every person leaving. Right. Our elementary school programs. Even though it's a school choice, you're saying. Yeah, even if it's a school choice. Yeah, then why shouldn't our flagship, as Bill likes to say, why it should be at least the consideration? Well, I think ask, you know, ask parents. Yeah, that's it. You know, like ask me, he's not here, but like why did we, what made our choice for what we decided to choose? Yeah. And you know, maybe that is something that could not be addressed at all with it or maybe it is something. Well, like there's certainly an, Andrew spoke to this, sorry, I'm not remembering his last name, but he's the board chairman, I think, of the WRUD, thank you. But he said they are actively looking to promote their school, that that is part of their goals right now to do that. Well, you're nodding your head too. You remember that? Okay. We are 15 minutes. Do we need to wait for him to come back? Is E.I. here? Yeah. Oh, how are you guys? How are you doing? What you're doing? Yeah, let's keep this efficient and to the point. Do we need Jamie here for this? No, I don't think so. Nope. Great. I'm going to be super quick and super efficient for everybody here because we're not voting on anything today. So, what's new? So what's new? Hold on one second. I'm just trying to share my screen. Can I share my screen? Is that an option here? You should be able to, now it's disabled by default. A tab, let me do that. You need to get up here, roll up a little bit. Yeah. It's an old scheme. Oh, yeah. It throws it back at me today. I'll still do it. You still jump in the leap and do all crazy things on that. I'm sorry, I remember. I don't regret it, but I regret it. Okay. So, just for updates for everybody. I've been spending a lot of time in Rochester and Stockbridge. I'm going to get back there again tomorrow. Overall, everything's shaking out pretty well. We've been submitting concept approvals to the state for their ESSER applications, which went in, I think a week ago or so. We're getting subcontractor pricing back right now. We have drawings that are about at 95%. And overall, I feel really confident that when you guys meet again in December, I will have all of the numbers laid out, but so far, everything I'm seeing coming back so far is looking good. So all of these preliminary numbers that I shared with you guys a couple months ago are starting to come to fruition. Some numbers are up, some numbers are down a little bit. One of the big things that we've seen changed in the last few months is rising interest rates. So you'll see down here at the bottom for Rochester Elementary School, I'm still looking at a total budget of 1.221 million. I feel good about that number. I think overall, there might be some opportunities to actually that number to lower just a little bit, maybe not a whole lot, but maybe by 10 or 15,000. And I should have kind of all those final numbers for us for next month's meeting. Still looking at getting the grants from the state of Vermont for the Woodjip Boiler and actually probably getting some increased rebates from Efficiency Vermont as well. I'm still showing the same rebates we had before, but I'm hoping that number is gonna go up a little bit. And I'm actually in discussions with them right now to see if they can contribute a little bit more money. Eric? Yes? Good question. Can you just tell us how do rising interest rates affect the overall? Just because I don't know this kind of thing. Yeah, so it's right down here. So that's how, so before we were looking at Rochester Stockbridge responsibility of around 572,000. So the reason why interest rates affect your project is because we use the energy savings to pay for a lease for the equipment. So obviously when lease terms go up, interest rates rise, you don't get as much capital upfront money for, but it's really not that bad because we are really figuring at roughly like a 3.75 interest rate before, which on 40,000 a year of energy savings was getting you about 450,000 of capital funds, which still leaves the district responsibility of 122,000. Now with the rising interest rates at 4.5%, that district responsibility jumps up to 143,000. So it affects it by about $20,000 in that initial upfront cost. So I'm sharing this information with Efficiency Vermont and I'm trying to see if they can help close that gap to keep these projects viable. And at the same time, so one of the things at Rochester that's coming up is this asbestos abatement right here, this allowance. That $50,000 actually is coming in pretty accurate. I'm meeting with another contractor over there later this week to look at the abatement. But where you guys have asbestos is some of your original steam piping in your building still has the insulation that is considered hot. It comes up at the elbow joints. So in your guys gymnasium, I know you guys are at Rochester right now, but you'll see where the steam piping picks up some wall-mounted radiation. And if you look closely enough, you can actually see from the wall of the building as it goes out into the gym, there's kind of two different types of insulation, about 20 feet into the gym where that pipe enters into the space. You'll see that insulation change and it goes from a fiberglass insulation to this kind of corrugated insulation. And that corrugation along with the mudded joints is what has come up hot in your guys' facility. So in the other area that's hot is if you go into your boiler room and you take a look up at the ceiling, they have this asbestos ceiling that's over the original ceiling. Asbestos was really good as a flame retardant, which is why you really see a lot of the boiler rooms are kind of covered in asbestos, including the doors. So one of the things that I'll be bringing to you guys next time is that there's a certain amount of this asbestos that we don't necessarily have to remove under this project. It could stay there and we could still get our work done the way that we wanted it to. But the question goes, I just want to bring all the information back to you guys and let you make that decision if that's something that you want us to abate or if that's something that you guys want to push down the road and take care of it at another time. So that is something that I'm looking more into right now. When would we make that decision? Would that be whenever we do the final budget or is that in the process of the construction? I would like that decision to be made for next month. So when I come back to you guys next month, I'm going to give you guys essentially, this is your base amount that gets you away from steam, gets you guys new hydronic system. And then I'm going to have a handful of ads in the project, like ad alternates. And one of them is going to be like, remove boiler room sealing asbestos, which is, it's probably about $10,000 worth of abatement. Then there's, you guys have this mechanical room. If you first walk into the school off to your right, you guys have your steam heat exchanger in there. There's quite a bit of pipe in there that I need to abate. It's like, it's not a question. I need that space to be able to connect up my hot water lines. So that abatement is going to be part of the base bid because I just can't get around it with incomplete the project at the same time. And then the same thing with the gym. So I'm going to try to break it up in as many ways as possible and let you guys make the decision that you feel is in your best interest at the end of the day. So overall, we're in the process right now of finalizing the location of the underground propane tanks, which we're looking into potentially maybe putting it in the easement land. If that doesn't work, it might go on the backside of the gymnasium. So that's in development right now. That's going to be required for state of Vermont permitting. We're about 95% complete on the mechanical and electrical designs of the project. Those are out to bid. We're getting pricing right now. And then we're just kind of waiting on this last civil piece. And then my goal is to come back to you guys in December and say, this is where all the numbers came in at. This is what my total cost is. I feel confident that I'm going to be at the cost that's presented here or hopefully just below it. At that point, I'll have all the final rebates and grants solidified with efficiency Vermont, you know, everything I tell them that the job is on the, on the cusp of going or not, any money that they can throw in helps the project. So we're just going to continue with that narrative. And then we still have the ESSER contributions, which like I said, concept approval has been submitted to the state. We expect to do project approval here very shortly once we have final permit set drawings. And then we're back to that responsibility of what Rochester and Stockbridge has to bring to the table, which hopefully will be covered by a lease agreement towards the energy savings. So right now, like I said, before we were looking at district responsibility of around 122,000 with the current numbers and not changing efficiency of Vermont's rebates. We're looking at now around 143,000, which is specific to the interest rate change, but I am working to close that gap and then provide you guys more options so you guys can make a decision of how much capital funds you really want to dip into at the end of the day. So that is Rochester Elementary School. Does anybody have any questions about Rochester? Yeah, Bill. Yeah, Eric, you said coming, this is very helpful and update in the specificity and also just all the hurdles that you're going through to pull this thing off. And I appreciate your optimism because it's nice in this day and age. I guess my request through the chairman is that before you meet with our full board in December that you are a capital planning and high school team, have a chance to meet with you and listen to and read all your material and ask all the questions they need to do before our meeting this December. I'm not an expert in any of this. So I'm gonna be leaning on it and the people I'm gonna be leaning on, I wanna be fully briefed before our December meeting. So is that gonna be something that we can set up together? Absolutely. All right, more than happy. And if you guys wanna do it onsite and we can walk the job and I can literally point to you guys and say this is how I expect the pipe to be run. This is what's gonna be exposed. This is what the cover material is gonna be. Honestly, that's the best way to go just so that there's no surprises at the end of the day of what that product I'm giving you is gonna look like. So. Well, the questions I had, I can steer towards these guys to ask cause they are specific to the product. So. Cool. Good. Talk to Stockbridge. So let me jump into Stockbridge. So Stockbridge, same thing. Looking at updating all the classroom ventilation. So right now you guys have two units that sit up in your kind of mezzanine area in your new addition above the kitchen. One of the units is dedicated to the gym. The other unit is a direct outside air unit that feeds makeup air to all of your classrooms. So what you guys do now is you guys essentially bring in 100% outside air through this gas-fired air handling unit. This air handling unit burns propane, heats up the air and then supplies fresh air to each one of your classrooms. It's about, I'm guessing the unit's 30 plus years old. It works off a digital time clock. It's had lots of issues. The proposal under this project is to eliminate that unit up in the attic. We would go with a new rooftop mounted unit that would be located right in your, almost, if you guys are familiar with the school, you walk straight into the school. It's your front lobby. There's a little corridor that you stand in the middle and you can see four of your classrooms in the front principal's office. The unit would sit essentially right in that corridor. This project would remove the ceiling in that corridor space and then we would put the new unit on the roof. We would provide new ductwork to each one of the classrooms and then we would install a new drop ceiling in that space. So in this case, you guys would be picking up energy recovery that you never had before. In that point, we would integrate the web-based control. So this is an internet-based control system that would pull in your guys new hydronic system that you did a couple of years and it'd also integrate your new energy recovery unit. So essentially everything but your gymnasium at that point would be on this web-based control system. And even the gymnasium, I would probably put a new thermostat in there. The only thing is I just don't wanna put controls into another unit that's 25, 30 plus years old. So you guys just wouldn't necessarily have control of the gym unit, but it would give you full web-based control of all the remaining system. This project also had a lighting update with it. So total cost of 306,000. Agency of Education had an indoor air quality grant that was awarded to Stockbridge of temporary award of 200,000. We're anticipating that money to come through. You're also gonna see some efficiency Vermont rebates. So after taking into account the grants and the rebates through the AOE in efficiency Vermont, that leaves you guys with responsibility of approximately 81,000. White River Valley Essar contribution of 35,000, leaving your guys responsibility of 46,000. You're looking at roughly $7,800 a year in energy savings. And these are straight utility costs. It doesn't include any maintenance expense. This is strictly what you pay for your utility expense. So on a 10 year, this is our old one. So before we were figuring on a 10 year lease at 3.75, which was running you guys roughly $5,600 a year in lease expense with guaranteed savings of 7,800 with the revised interest rate of 4.5%. We can still meet these so that they're net zero to the school, but you're looking at what was 5,600 a year now jumps to 5,800 a year on a 10 year, 4.5% note. And then I wanted to just show this because we did a 15 year at Rochester. So at Stockbridge, you'd be looking at 4,300 a year for a net savings of roughly $3,500. So in both cases, Stockbridge, you can see that where you have that zero impact to the school district. Rochester, I'm still working on it. I'm hoping to have some different alternates to hopefully get these two numbers lower, while not necessarily affecting the student learning experience in there as well. And if that, I'm happy to discuss that more in the direct facilities committee, if that's what you guys wanna do on site on a later date. So overall, I feel good about where things are coming in. It isn't easy to be honest with you. Like anything, we get some pushback from the AOE. There's hoops to jump through, like with collecting any type of government money, they don't just hand it out. There's a lot of different people that we need to satisfy and a lot of different questions that we need answers to, but I feel like we're progressing on those things and they're moving forward in the right direction. If it was easy, anybody would do it. It's not so, but I do feel good about it. And I think overall, I do feel confident that come back in December, I will have final numbers for you guys and hopefully a motion for you guys to be able to move forward so we can order equipment. And then ideally, April break 2023, we're in there starting some work. And if all goes well, doing some underground prior to school getting out this year, getting propane tanks in and anything we can do to help expedite that schedule because it's gonna be another busy summer 2023 to make sure these projects go well. And you guys have heat starting October 1st of 2023. Great. Good. Any questions? Thank you. I think we're good. Hey, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you guys. Talk to you soon. Eric, just a quick question. Would you, the committee who's gonna talk to, who's gonna make this happen, this committee meeting? You have to put an email out like I did last. Okay, good. Thank you. Let's make sure it was our work. Yeah, I just wanted to be on site. And ideally during the day, I promise next meeting I will be in person for the December meeting. But if we can find an opportunity to meet on site somewhere in those hours between like 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., that would be awesome. And I'd be happy to run through the whole project with you guys and point everything out and lay everything out for you. All right. Excellent. Thank you, Eric. All right, guys. Good luck with the rest of your meeting. Thank you. So, draft number two of student support budget 2324. You might hit Tara's. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. She's back. Yes. Let's jump back to business manager. Good evening, Tara. How are you? Good evening, everyone. So you have my business managers report. It just goes over all of the due dates that are happening right now in the business office, November's a very busy reporting month for us. A lot of our first quarter reports are due plus with all the new federal guidelines. We have a lot of our reports due on the federal emergency funding into the agency. So that's primarily what it shows in my report. Lastly, on the discussion items, we are still missing a substantial amount of residency verification forms. So we have sent out here from the business office a letter from me and a copy of the forms requesting that they get signed and returned to us as soon as possible so that we can make sure tuition's paid in a timely manner. So that's my report. If there's any questions there. Ready? No. I think let's move right on then. Thank you. Now on to draft number two of student support by the 2324. So the only change on the student support draft two, you'll see on my notes there. We received from VE HI, which is our health insurance and dental insurance carrier that we got their requested tax or their requested insurance rates that they sent in to the Department of Financial Regulations. So I have updated the budgets to reflect that request. So that's the only change that's happened on the student support draft two. Yeah, it's a $26,000 increase. Yeah. It is what it is. Yeah, that's one of those things. We just read it. But it's a significant increase. Yeah, it is a very substantial increase. That's fine. I mean, that's final. Well, we're waiting on... Not final. This is what they have requested for rates for the Department of Financial Regulations to review. DFR can either accept those rates or reject those rates, but we won't know that until probably January, which is getting late in the game for budgets. So we go in with what they project and have requested. Where are we? I subtracted it and I found the difference. So what it is, what it is, is last month, I have a copy of what was given to us last month, and it was $115. Yeah, I'm like, oh no, good, oh my gosh, it's so good. Amazing. You're rather under $141. What? $115 compared to what? Oh, to the $141. Yeah, exactly. It's about the same size. Yeah, that's the house. That's what she's explaining now. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt you. No, no, we're just looking for it. That's good to know. And I think that's what we have to do is budget for it. And it was kind of a worst case scenario, but it could be a potential scenario too. Okay. So the second half is your first draft of your general education. You can see from the notes, the changes to this in comparison to the current fiscal year is that there's an increase in the outdoor education from 0.4 FTE to 0.8, and there is also a- I'm just wondering, are there any staff still in the, I don't know. Okay, can we just close the door? While we're talking. I mean, it's public. Just so, just so the board knows. It's public information. I guess that's true. I just, just so the board knows, this is to better equate to the FTE that's currently happening within this position. So this is a 1.0. We have a 1.0 teacher that does outdoor ed in pathways. This is still a 1.0 teacher that would do outdoor ed pathways. It's just this budget better communicates the actual FTE percentages that are happening in those areas. So the contract doesn't change. You currently have a 1.0 outdoor ed slash pathway teacher. We would stay with a 1.0 outdoor ed slash pathway teacher. And as I understand, she, the outdoor ed was initially funded by us, sir? Funds? Yeah, last year. Yes, that's what I was just saying. So where is this the year we're taking it into putting into our budget? Well, there was, you're not gonna see a huge jump in the budget because we've hired some new staffing as well. So while you're not seeing your salary lines all of a sudden jump up, is that we've had some folks who have left us who were at the higher part of the salary schedule versus what we've currently hired. And so that position is gonna be completely locally funded and you're not seeing it have an impact on your budget. So can you speak? And the other thing that's in the budget still in general ed is you currently have a position right now that's not filled here in Rochester. We had a three-year how we were teaching because we couldn't find that teacher was a late resignation. That position remains in this budget with the expectation that we'll fill it. Because I talked to those two teachers who are taking on that and it's a lot of work. And they're doing a really great job, but it's a lot of work. So I hope we can find that. So you were just talking about the outdoor ed and pathways and I mean I don't know what pathways is. And what does that reduction mean? I would say to you, I don't, it's not a reduction. What you're seeing here is what's currently happening. Okay, so what is pathways? So the pathways program at the elementary school is to help support our teachers with the implementation of a capstone project. And if you remember in those SUI goals, it is that we would have a capstone slash passion project however you want to title it at the end of the sixth grade for Rochester Stockwoods. All students would engage in an authentic learning experience that would have some type of celebrational learning that would be public. That would be focused on their passion. That's a senior project. So yeah, some schools call it a senior project. Exactly, yeah. And so there's pieces of that underway in our elementary schools. We are working toward this idea and concept that all students will have the opportunity to engage in that type of learning and demonstration of learning. So how does the pathways money gets spent? Is it going to different teachers? It would be going toward this teacher spending a day a week as supporting that work when I just spoke. Okay, gotcha. Question around that. Will that involve mentors from the community? Ideally. I think how it's going to look at each building could be different, right? And that's part of what this investment is into is designing it. And so we're at different levels of it across the SU at the elementary level right now. As far as students engaging in passion projects, we have some, I would say, more than one district and the teachers out right now due to medical reasons. So I feel like we've lost a little more there. But yes, that's the idea. And ideally, they would have mentors. And what we've done is if you look at my SU board reports, we are currently, we've invested some of our community school grant in a platform through Big Picture School to create a database that's nationwide, but also low of folks who are interested in serving, excuse me, as mentors for kids. I was just gonna, that was my next one. Yeah, so that we are building the infrastructure now so that's easily accessible for our teachers to be able to look and see. I have a student who's interested in X and this database didn't allow us to access folks both locally, statewide, but then nationally who are already background checked, vetted and willing to support our kids. That's great, I like that a lot. That provides a lot of opportunities. And do you have folks in, this Pathways team has its own professional learning collaborative now too. We have folks that are either doing work-based learning or teaching pathways now in all of our districts other than two. Yeah, sort of all the districts that have full middle schools like that are kind of our, and they are, you can think about sort of this work and came to have it earlier about sort of starting at the high school and doing some work. So they're really thinking about those flexible pathways sort of from sixth grade through 12th grade and knowing that our goal is to get this really strong in elementary schools. What are we learning at that age group? What are kids coming in with as their skills? What do we wanna make sure that our elementary kids have so that they're prepared to access pathways when they get into those upper grades as well. And so we think sort of similarly how we did the flexible pathways professional learning group this year as we move towards this goal for next year having elementary folks who are engaged and catch on to do some of that work across together. In most of our school, I guess in all of our elementary schools, no one has it as a one point on job flexible pathways. It's just, it's not in our elementary. So it's just a lot of people are doing other pieces of it. And so I think that that's what we're just trying to sort of stage these things out. So we're not asking anyone person to be in 10 places at one time. But I think we'll be in a good place in the next year to start bringing those folks together to share what's working in different districts. Yeah, I don't know if you wanna, if Chair has more to present or if we should continue asking questions. I've noticed that on the bottom it says increased art from point two to point four and increased world language from point two to point four. But if you go across to the FTE on both the four language and the art, they're still at point two. Those are typos, cause if you look. Is the amounts, is the money right? The money's right. So that, those should see. I'm getting it at one place and in the other. Okay, that's fine, I just want to. Yeah, because I was, I was going to point you to that. Increase in art is double from point two to point four. To point four. Yeah. I mean, the number that you always talk about that the budget is a statement that I'm glad it's increased to point four. But I do see, you know, point four art point eight PE. And that's a statement, you know, that running around is very important. But I believe we've, we've made a very clear statement in this board and our retreat and other places that art and is a, is a big deal for us. So this is the time to. Yeah, the, I would tell you why I think point eight PE is in the budget. No, it's, it's because of the school quality standards. Yeah. No, no, no. I just, if you say, yeah, so the school quality standards state that students need to have PE twice a week, where that is not specified in performing or visual arts. I just wanted to make sure. It's just, again, it's the first time I've ever, ever thought that I've talked about mentoring and I've been in this board 17 years now, or 18 years and 20, I don't remember. But the idea that you look at this number, and of course it's not presented as neatly as this in our budget, in fact, just, this is a statement. And I just, and you know, and I don't know, what am I saying? I don't know, Justine, what am I saying? We want art. We want art. We want art. We want art. I think you're saying it. I think it makes sense. It is a statement, but I wasn't surprised to hear what Jamie's response was. No, it's with the ratio. And do we want, you know, 0.6 music? Of course, we can't find a music teacher. So the point is sort of, you know, now avoid it a little bit. But this is the time right now, is literally the time to say, what do we want for art? What do we want for performing arts, visual arts, music in our schools? This is the time to say. Well, and the issue we have as an administration, and what I think Wendy would say to you, is, and what don't we teach? I think that's where we struggle right now. Well, we've already talked about this, so we encourage integration. Yep, absolutely. And that you look for a teacher, an art teacher, a music teacher, whoever, who is an integrationist. I'm not certain on that. I mean, we try to be creative about it too. And, you know, we already have an after school program. Is there any way to incorporate the arts into after school program? We can, but I, you know. That's not me. I mean, I don't know if there are. Justine, what? I don't think that would fall into any sort of, we can integrate, but not every kid goes after school. That's what I'm saying. I guess it's, it's, you know, there are only so many things we control. We can, we can say we want 0.6, or we can say we want full time music, which maybe will get us a teacher because it's a full time job as opposed to just a 0.6 job where they've got to share it with something else. I mean, these are the kind of statements that we can make at this point. And yes, the administration has to figure out scheduling, but that is, you know, then we ask them to be creative about it. And how, how can literacy be taught? I mean, Amy Brown is constantly talking about how you can mix how you teach a core subject. You know, there doesn't just have to be in the classroom with a book. I don't know what you feel about that statement. I think integration is great, right? Like that the world is set up to be integrated. I think when we think about the school day, the more you try to integrate, the more time you have to have, the more time you need to have to plan that to do it well. And so trying to try to find the time when you've got sort of not, you know, not very large staff, it's got to be somewhere in order to create two teachers to have the same time to plan together. So those are the things around the scheduling that we just had, you know, just to write about. I'm just a director. Yeah, no, no, no, I mean, we talked about this. We talked about it in our retreat. This is, I'm just remembering this. We talked about the idea of hiring somebody who would be the coordinator. And maybe it was more of the community coordinator, but it was- But it's also integration. Yeah, I think that they see that work these way and that they, you know, then they, you know, they can sit with the teachers so the teacher doesn't have to do all the legwork and they're doing some of the legwork of communication. Amy, go ahead. Well, looking at, we have point four for art, we have point four for library and media. So is media also kind of like graphic design art types of, but what is media? Does that fall into that arts category at all? And what does point four look like? Is that, that's one day in the, that's one class in the library. And so art is one class and just kind of, what does it really actually look like? It's one class. It's one class. Yeah, it's one class, every grade one class. So it's a one day in, start for one day in Rochester. And what is the media part of it? You know, I think as we look at- Different person here. What's that? It's not a shared position between the two buildings. The library media is not a library. But it's still one day at each building. It's one of the great things about the library. So what I think about a library, I think what we should be doing is, is looking at how do we teach students to use the library as a tool? Right. So I think immigration, I think library media like is absolutely integrated. If it's working well, it's not the one off, let's go in and have the read a lot and just check out books. Like I really wanted to be, especially in those upper elementary grades, that teachers are pushing into the library to do research, to help support informational writing. As we think about expanding our capstone project, how is the library in team teaching with our other level ELA slash social studies teachers who call it humanities in certain places? Around helping support that capstone project. You know, I think ideally at some point, like I would love to have all of our upper elementary students engage in some type of rigorous research project that really becomes their capstone project, right? And there's a reading and writing tasks that's in alignment around that authentic assessment. The librarian's gonna have to play a piece of that too. And so that that's the vision for library media. I think that we're working on that vision across our schools. It's the library media specialist position has been changing, I think, across the nation and certainly in our state now for some time. I think there are places where, what I'm describing is where we're at. I think there's places where there's a lot of growth in seniority in there. That's right. Just wait a minute. Bill, how'd you get this? So going back to PE and that's at a point eight. So I have just a question regarding that. So say like this winter. So point eight, I'm just making an assumption. So that's two hours, right? An hour of PE, two days a week. So two hours? No. It's probably between 30 and 45 minutes. Okay. So my question is, if we're doing a ski program, that would be PE? No. That doesn't count in place of it. No, not in school quality standards. Well, now why is that a physical question? Because I mean, really the PE teachers lobby the state board of education around quality standards to make physical education twice a week for a healthy, physically fit person. If you want to do this, but you really can't. No, no, that's a little bit. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of logic. You can ski and you know this. It helps you in shape. And so a lot of PE is this physical fitness and they're stretching or yoga or many whatever cases so that you can participate in exciting things like skiing without getting hurt. And so I think they kind of, they kind of love each other. I think you see the one go. Well, I guess my other, my follow up to that was, okay, well, if we're doing the ski program Friday mornings, you know, they're gonna come back after around lunch, whatever. I already get the sense that it's not gonna be a very productive afternoon in the classroom after skiing all morning. Because you're gonna just not really focus that thing. I also want to emphasize so when I put the 2.2 versus the 0.8, it actually was saying nothing about PE. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm not saying we should take PE away. It's not what I'm saying. I'm actually, and now I'm actually going to, I think, I mean, look at how much emphasis we're putting on literacy. And look, it's, and I have to say it's been my big issue for many, many years that the library was not being well used as a support to literacy program in Rochester School where it is in Stockbrook. It's one of the real divisions between these two schools. And I think we have a chance to rectify that now. And I'm wondering, is this a point six, library media point four, is do we need a point six? Do we need more days? If this is a foundation, this is the place where the books are. This is where the kids can get excited. My wife is a librarian, she would want me to push for this. Well, so it's just interesting, my wife and I were discussing recently that we both have fond memories of at Stockbridge when we were children. And that was developing our own book, you know, creative writing and fictional writing. Exactly, that's what I mean. You're being artistic, you're drawing, you're also creating a story that goes with the drawing. I put it out as a very serious proposal that we look to our literary library, goes up at least to a point six, if not a point eight, and figure that and come back with numbers on that. You know, and this is your time to tell us how you wanted it. Well, that's it. I just want to ask you, as administrators, if you're telling us to increase FTEs, is it just a straw of rebound? What do we feel about that? As administrators, if you're telling us to increase FTEs, we're not going to tell you no. Well, it's just about what we're going to tell you is, like the school day on the classroom time, but when you're talking about a library, that's not taking, that's just a glow. And it seems to be, a library is concerned about reading and writing, but art, and I just get people excited. Yeah, and as has been my point, as I say again, it's been my point for, that literacy is such a big deal. The place of literacy is the library. You know, it's where you want kids excited, and you walk into the Stockbridge Library, and it's a colorful, vibrant place with media all over the walls, and I want to be there. I want to be part of it, and that's what I want. So I am making the suggestion that we increase our library. As I've said before, I'm willing to raise school budgets to pay for things we want. So you want to give us a 0.42, what, 0.81? What do you want to look for? I think we've got to be there for the points. Library needed 0.4, I would go at least at 0.6. Okay, well, let's ask staff to niggle that and see if that makes sense. Then I come back and say it's better as 0.5 or 0.8 and here's the cost and the implications, right? I mean, it can't help us now, but we like the increase in art from 2 to 4, right? Like 2 to 4. Music is, if we can get a teacher, 6 we like, but the library media, we definitely want to go up to a 6. I want to make the caveat on the art, and I'm proud of my mom as an art reading teacher back in the day, but I don't want, if there's a X number of classroom hours and we've expanded math and reading, and we've got huge challenges, we don't want to reduce this time on literacy and math because we, to spend more time on that, libraries and we can do without doing that. So, with that caveat, I'd be curious whether or not we can expand art and music without taking away that classroom. That's what you're trying to say, I mean, you can bring art and we can, and I'll support you all the way on this right now, but I don't want to, I'm taking away from reading and math. It's just, ooh. Well, the rules, yeah, Justine, go ahead. Well, I think that goes back to what Pat was suggesting about finding a way to have someone facilitate the integration because we could have an arts program that was intended to be integrated into the academics and that you could then beef up library, literacy, math with that concept. It wouldn't necessarily be taking away from anything, you would just add more arts, but then with the themes connected to academics. Great. Yeah, yeah, let's see what we can do. Okay, yeah, I want to go over things like music without having it be a licensed teacher necessarily. I mean, we have skiing, there's no license, that's not PE, it doesn't count toward PE, but it is movement. Outdoor education doesn't count toward PE either. Just be careful of that. Thinking because we have a collective bargaining agreement and any licensed educator position is a bargain position within that CBA. Right, but if it doesn't get filled, what is the point? Well, if it doesn't get filled, then we can contract, but we show- Yeah, well, that's what I mean, yeah. No, I get it, yeah. Can we go back right to student support? We're talking about, can you show that up again? Parker. Draft two of student support. Draft two of student support, right. And this question is to Jamie and Honda and we started looking at the academic performance review in this fall and we have huge challenges. I heard from you that you're not throwing in the towel in any way that you think you can come back in the second half of the third period and we can make progress. And I also heard you say that we're not out of the woods, but you still think we can meet those 2025 targets. And my question is, given the fact with the results of that we've seen this fall, do we have the manpower or the technical power, the personal power, we're sorry, excuse me. And I would draw that term, the person power to be able to make the increases in performance is our students that we need here in Rochester. I'm looking at an increase of a half of FTE for intervention and one FTE for the Paras. Sorry, Amy, is that? The interventionist we were told last week was for the current math interventions that is under Esther and Title I funds and we're pulling that into that. So that's not an increase. That's just a movement of federal funds from our funds. Yeah, that's fine, but it's math, that's not an increase. So that's just to be able to sustain our level of effort. And my question is, is sustaining a level of effort gonna be enough? And if not, help us because we're talking about art and we're talking about music, which are dear to my heart in more ways than one, we still need to be able to have our kids be able to read and write. So I was jumping on it, so help me here. I don't think you're gonna intervene your way out of your test scores. And so what I mean by that is intervention's not what's gonna fix this. It's gonna be universal instruction in the classroom for teachers. And so I actually think you also have a special educator that works across your two buildings, which isn't part of this budget either. So within your district of having just about 125 students between your two schools, I could be off a little bit. That's back of the napkin math. Might be 130, that's counting your pre-cater in your building. You have a full-time literacy interventionist in this building. You've got a part-time literacy interventionist that's social librarian in your Stockbridge building and a full-time math interventionist across both buildings and a special educator. So I have not heard from your faculty at this point in time of your principal that we don't have enough capacity to serve our students. We do a lot by just filling the position that's empty. The universal instruction for the students in other classes. Yes, we're getting over a year without. What I would say to you is it's going to be beefing up our universal instruction that's going to address these concerns. I do not believe that interventionists, remember, are double-dipping kids. We don't wanna take them out of universal instruction just to get an intervention, right? We wanna double-dip it so that they get literacy instruction twice in the building. So how do we fuck now? So I'm telling you that it's just improving our approach universally that's gonna do this. It's not gonna be. So you're not gonna throw money at it, it's not gonna help necessarily. It's just not as if more people. Yeah. They're certainly money. Yeah, you can open up. I think the alumni that sort of connected back to the data report is to think about those graphs and think about the yellow, right? Those are students who are, the distance might be a little bit different but are just missing the mark. Those are the kids that we are really gonna capture with universal instruction. And then you think about the red is, that's where intervention might be most effective, but you've got some really, you've got some pretty wide yellow bands. And so that's where the work around it. So is that professional development? Is that? I have one of the key things that I know you've really done a lot. It's PD, it's materials. And I know this is hard, right? But we are dealing with living being creatures, right? Both as students and faculty. And what I think it shows is the payoff of math has been significant. I believe we've got that right in regards to our PD approach in the tool we selected. We know there are limitations to the work that Fountas and Penel can do, right? We invest in Fountas-Penel, we train folks in Fountas-Penel. Many years ago. But there are limitations to what it can do. I think what you're starting to see is we've identified what those limitations are around our foundational skills. And so that's where we are now saying we need to have a different approach to teaching those foundational skills. What you're seeing is that our data has flattened in many places in literacy because we've gotten to the place where we can get with Fountas and Penel. You know, I am making this point. Publicly, I hope you're listening, Janie. Because Janie didn't tell us this when she first heard the Fountas-Penel was coming in. Before your time, Ethan, she was like, this is not the program you want. Just, I hope she gets some taps on the back. And there's tools of it that you know are good. I guess, no, no. But it's not, it's not, it's not going to solve everything you need. Does this answer your question, Bill? Yeah, and I find it hard to be, because we're basically investing in our team. And it makes sense to me. And I think the professional development initiatives that you've got going, as well as the tuning and picking the right methodology or programs, whether it's math or reading, you combine those two things with continued teacher morale and good leadership by our principals and support by the administrative team and hopefully the board. And it would be helpful that we can keep that, that the bottom line. Yeah, the attention is huge for us. Yes, yeah. I mean, I sort of talked earlier about how proud I am of our students. You know, our teachers need as much of that, sort of that credit as well. And it has been a trying number of years for them. So maybe to make one more connection between the staffing pieces. And I'm sort of hesitant to say it without, without living here, because she knows the bigger picture. But the one place where teachers who, you know, what we call special teachers like art and music may be helpful in even increasing that FTE as you already have planned is to be able to create a schedule that really works for our students. And so when I was looking at the schedule of one of the schools today, I noticed that literacy for some pretty young kids was fairly late in the day. There may be a lot of number of reasons for that, but you might think that if that could move earlier in the day, they might also be doing a little bit better. They might have a better focus. That may be driven by a couple of other things. I haven't had a chance to talk about it, but when you have a little bit more specials, you have a little bit more flexibility to say, we're gonna make sure our K through second graders have all of their core content in the morning when they're tend to be freshest. I mean, that's for anybody, kids and adults. Right, but no, and you know, they have fewer of the strategies they might use to regulate themselves where as our older kids can do a special early in the morning and still get into their classroom and do a great, so there may be places like that where you don't wanna actually put these two budgets against each other, but think about how they work together to say, okay, an extra .2 of art is gonna actually help us move literacy earlier in the morning. What time of day are you teaching in the subject? Yeah, and there are other pieces. Again, Lindy is really good at these pieces. There might be something I'm missing. That's where we trust our administration. That's where I just wanna make sure we don't put things against each other when they don't actually need to be in competition. Now, you did say, oh, we could always use money. So what area were you thinking in particular when you say would you use money? Like, where does the programming, so who does the programming? Well, I mean, if salary's there, then we give our instruction to our SU board and our negotiators and say, this is time to give them some money. That is our right to say, we really believe in our teachers. We want to invest in them. I mean, that is something we can tell them. I know negotiators might be like, oh, I don't know, I don't know. Well, where would you think? Well, as we said before, the money that we've had available through the federal grants related to COVID has really supported us being able to expand professional learning. So we have these courses that are running on these five SU Fridays. A lot of those are being run externally from a math initiative, from an institute of natural sciences, the VPA is coming in. We've got lots of different ones. We won't be able to do as many of those. We also are building capacity internally to be able to take over some of them. But that's the type of thing that we talk about professional learning and making sure that our folks are using them. Well, I think it's just huge. The best information's out there. Science of reading has changed dramatically in five years. We couldn't have known all this five years ago. So the only way we're gonna get on top of it is to be able to access all that. So that's the kind of thing where... So what do you need to know? Money-wise, the way I'm saying is the SU, is that that's an SU, right? For BD, where the money comes to... I'm not concerned about that for next year. Right? Yeah, I don't know. Because you won't tell us when... Yeah. We need to do all the investment. And we're going for it. Yeah. And remember, I mean, I know there's time setting it on. We still have a lot of unknowns with our budget. And what I mean by that is we're still gonna come up with this fund we just saw, right, to... But we need to talk about the things we actually do. And you're gonna have to eventually budget for a 1.0 map. And so you're only seeing 0.5 in this because we can carry in an S for one more year. And eventually you're gonna need the budget for the full. Gotcha. Right? So there are still things that we're gonna be adding to your budget, but we're trying to add it to it strategically. Yeah. So that it's not... Yeah. It's not the clip. The answer clip, which I'm sure some schools are facing where it's like, okay, we're not doing any of this anymore. You're just, you can't, the free money is gone. Yeah. So we need this slowly. What's that? It's a lot of work for this money. And there is that. It's not free money. So we have to slowly look to add this into the budget. Good. Okay. Do you think we're being so great to the top of your... Do you think we're being reasonable in our increases so far? Yeah. I mean, I think Ter and I will have a lot better sense. When we get a sense of the yield. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. I think we have, but this is, as you say, this is where we put our last one. And last year, I think we've always said we want it with zero growth or come back later. Yeah. And it's like, no, this year, I feel that we very much in our board or treaty made it clear that, no, it's time to expand. It's time to maybe even raise the budget and be strong and say, hey, we're doing a good job, but show that to the community. One thing to keep in mind is, I think if we're going to start raising the budget, we really need to think about capital improvements too. Because as a community, people are going to see the budget increasing and the school not physically changing. Well, we're hopefully doing something... It's like looking at a cover of a book, you know? I mean, people see the school, they look at the building. The community, that's what that is. They're not apparent. They don't see what's going on inside the school. So they're going to feel more comfortable with the budget increasing if they're actually seeing a difference. What are we going to see next month? We're going to see building maintenance budget. That's okay. That's good to keep in mind. I think that's a very good point to keep in mind. What are we talking about? Building in a capital, isn't it? Every year, and it's not necessarily, we're going to spend it right away, but we're building a capacity. We're going to look up paint on it. Well, that's what I mean, window replacements, doors, you know? Here's the thing too, is that I really think now what we do is we ask for what we want, and they come back and they say, okay, if you want this, this is what it is. And then we say, okay, that's too much. Now we bring it down to here. We can take off at one point here, one point here. That's negotiation. But I think at this stage, and next month you'll get your chance. We say, this is what we want. And then we make it real. Well, we do keep mentioning, you know, you need to do a walkthrough with EDI. Keep it, keep it with us. Do you have something to say? Yeah, we need to do the walkthrough with EDI, but I think it's very important that we set up another walkthrough, say, with Plial. And, but the trim, the trim over this. Oh, so we can separate from the EI to go over a capital. As we were talking about in our retreat, about like our long-term plan. We need to go to the school. The way the trim, the water just is running, the trim in the front of this building has looked terrible for years. And I mean, it was like such a simple little plan. Right, that's a long-term plan. Yeah, and I think, you know, with my background, I can, without putting too much thought into it, I can kind of say, hey, this is what this would cost. This is what this would cost. How do we have a sense of it? And be like, all right. Well, you know, we have all these capital improvements. Outside of the, outside of EDI. And I think if we're showing that we want to move in that direction and put money into the building, that's what the community wants to see. Well, so we're not gonna stop on me, but you know what I mean. Yeah, right on, right on. Okay, well, I know what I'm saying. This is where we ask for what we want. And then we negotiate. And we figure out what we can get and what we can afford. Okay, give me your move on. Thanks, Tara. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Dominant funds update. I'm just gonna put this on and we just based off that email. Do you have anything for us? Oh, sure. Like, yeah, I mean, just to kind of start talking about it. It's a meaningful moment too. With everything. Well, I, you know, I kind of just hope when I talk a little bit more about what I was gonna talk about. I don't know. I don't know. You can also. That's okay. You can talk about whatever you wanna talk about. We, I've been wanting to talk about our endowments for a very long time. So, I think it's really important that Rochester has endowments that someone has specific requirements and some do not. But I think we as a board are the ones who are supposed to be managing these endowments. And about a budget time, I think we need to decide how much of these endowments do we want to put towards the budget that we, you know, like I said, some have specific things that they can be used for and others. But I think it's our job to say, okay, well, let's look at this fund. Let's see how much it's grown. Let's understand the interest rate. Let's say we feel comfortable taking $5,000 of this fund and putting it towards whatever, you know, the administration finds appropriate for the budget. So, I don't know how the best way to go about doing that is I would, may I make a suggestion? Sure. Let's save us time tonight also. And I think allow us, would you have time to do a little primer for us of this budget? And this is the stipulations and this is the current balance. Yes. I definitely could. And then send that to us, like email it to us. So that then we come to the next meeting. Knowing and understanding. The other thing I would really like to tap Bill's knowledge, though, of investments in general, you know, because the other thing is we are supposed to be managing these funds. Yes, literally managing these funds. Literally managing these funds. Are, should they be in a growth thing? Should they be in a, Well, I- Da-da-da thing. I don't know that that's a- Should we hire somebody to do that? That's a second piece to this. It's also something that I want us to discuss. I think that's a very important thing. I don't think so. So your recommendation is that I put together a little thing for you guys to read, think about, and talk about next. Then we know what we're talking about. Maybe you want to- Do we have an idea of what the total amount of the endowment funds is? It is in our- Budget. Budget. Ballpark, even. Just general ballpark. Okay. One of them is 190. The other one is 140. There's one that is specific for scholarship so that one has good money in it, but we're- That's for sure. So we're talking two or three thousand, two or three hundred thousand dollars. Right. And like I said, there is specific caveats on some of them. You know, like this one I was going to talk about tonight cannot be for capital expenses. They believe that the community should pay for the brick-and-mortar concerns with lack of opportunities for learning and recreation. Also the poor or poultry-pride families in the area and that the principal knows best who could have as use of these funds. Okay. Yes. Is the- Who's managing these funds right now? They are- I would essentially say they are on autopilot. Are they in a- They're growing. Why is it not touching? I'm there. They're growing. The question is, is if we had somebody to- Absolutely. Institution. Right. And yeah. Maybe the party- Go ahead, brother. Yeah. The trustees of up-of-pounds and you know, they actively manage their funds. So we can also- Because that's the only thing they're tasked with doing. Right. Right. But I'm just saying- That is an option, you know, some town elders who counsel me were not impressed with the performance of the trustees of up-of-pounds. I don't know. That was just a- But there are some members who have a lot of information that they may be willing to share with you. Let's start with knowing what these funds are. Okay. If you feel good doing that, we'll come back with that. What I do have that might be really nice is that the name on the- One of the endowments has our old treasurer. So just to switch over the names who are new treasurer and wanting to borne off of it. And it's Lindy Stetson. Yeah. So I don't know if we- Lindy's not here. I don't know who would fill this out as a corporate resolution on NW9. We can take care of that. I'll pass on this. Okay. Chris, you're all coming to me, ultimately, Amy. What? Last year, I'll be coming to you. Right. So you would be the one at every year when they- So you were on the- Aren't you- I was not put on when I requested to be put on previously. That's why every year at audit, I have challenges on getting this information for our auditors, because I have no oversight and no access to these accounts, and I should. Okay. Who said no? Okay. We won names, dates. Okay, we really need to move on. We're working on two and a half hours here. Do you want to- That's me? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Amy. Thank you for introducing us. And also, thank you for- You've taken this on for a long time. Get, pull this together. Throughout the murder, I appreciate that very much. It was a fun investigation. Okay, we have a book study. I would say for tonight, just because we're all working two and a half hours, I would like to table four goals for tonight. Is everybody okay with that? I just think we're good. Okay, let's table that. And let's go- So, we get our time with book study and then the scorecard. And then we have our celebration learning stuff. Oh, man, look. So, guys. Well, we just do the celebration learning. Well, but just, you know, I mean, we've still got about a half hours worth of stuff. I think it just- Between book study, book study, scorecard. It's all about yourself. It's all about our celebration learning. I think it's more than a half an hour. Well, I mean, right now, we have book study is 10, scorecard is 10, and we were saying 10 for table nine, six. Right. So, I think it'll be longer than that. We're all in Russia. No. Bill, how would you feel about the scorecard being tabled one more time? It's fine. I think that one is probably the easiest because the score is the scores. Yeah, and we all had a few comments. So, I think that one could be done the quickest if we wanted just to be able to check that off. I think Justine has a good point, which is, you know, this is just some time figuring out how we want to conduct ourselves. And this is an evaluation of how we conduct ourselves. And we want to learn from that and just see whether we need to make any changes. So, that one, which probably helps not to be rushed. Well, I'm managing. Well, I was gonna say, I've done my best tonight, but we're pushing two and a half hours. Sometimes you can't. Is this celebration of learning a video or watching or something like that? It's a video. Could you watch it on our own? Or you could table it the next month. As long as we don't have somebody on here that's been waiting. No, no, no. Okay, let's table the rest of the meeting. No. I mean, that's my, you know, I think we've done a lot of work and a lot of work to get at. Let's just put these, you know, jobs at the beginning. Yeah, okay. And that's a good answer. I do think next time, when I was done. I was really excited about it. I think we should discuss this first. First, the poke discovery. What? Oh, no, the board goals and the housework. I was really excited about that. And there's two sets of goals. This was our goals, our set of goals. What Ethan was talking about earlier is that we helped lead it out for two sets of SU board goals. So there's two sets of goals that I had. I think we want to... I gotta say, I think my brain is done. Mine is too. I think we should table the rest for two. No, I'm just terrified for... Yeah. No, no, no. I'm glad for agreement. I think we've done a lot of really good work. I think it is really important to get our celebration learning in when we're fresh and it gets us motivated to do the rest of the work. Yeah. And I think we should not move it again. So we did it, we actually did it intentionally just so we all would miss it. Thank you. I have a question. It is our call. My call. I just was a chairman that we asked everybody to sign everybody in chapter two. I mean, what answer are we going to read? What answer are we going to read? This was going to be chapter one tonight. Oh, I'm sorry. So read two and we'll do it all the way through. Read two then and we'll... Yeah, read two and we'll be thinking about one as well. There are like 15 pages. So that's like one page every other day. So it's good stuff. New hires and resignations. The second... We have one new hire. Oh, yeah, that's right. We're able to hire our teacher. Yay. So it's Nicole Milley. Yep. Who's actually a parent of Greener District as well, but teaches at the South Rolls Island Interior Schools and our teacher. Very good. I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicole in the summer for the South Rolls and position. And I just... She has proven to be a really nice fit there. And so anytime we have a position come over within the district and we have a person filling a part timer, we try to link those positions up the best we can to create more desirable positions. Excellent. I'm within ASU. So Wendy was able to interview Nicole and offered a position for her. And so we're excited to have Nicole joining us here at our set as well. Yeah. Hey. Do we need to accept that? Yep. I'm going to send a motion to accept Nicole Milley as a new hire, as a party. Hard to move. Second. Second. All in favor and signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. You guys have it. Welcome. Next meeting date, Monday, December 5th, 2022. Stockbridge campus by Google Me, regular. Future agenda items. We will be E-I-E-I-E-I-E-I-I. Probably between that, the budget and your other goals of book studies and scorecard. You've got another full agenda. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And Amy, we should revisit. Well, Amy, we should revisit. We also have the endowments. Yeah. I'll send that out to everybody. Why is timely is that we may get when we get into our final negotiations on the budget. We want to know this information. Well, I'll send that out to my suggestion and we can have a quick feedback on it and hopefully we can. And maybe ask, can we get this much more information or something like that? Correct. Yes, please. I think maybe we should table the question of how to manage it until the budget season or after further end of budget season. Though I think it's a really good point that we should have some good managing. Good. I recommend it. Will we have any information about how much these endowments are building? Sure. If you'd like, I can give historical data from all that I know. Just the ballpark. Yeah, OK. No, how much money would you expect clearly? Right. You can see the up and down just recently between even last month and this month will the change in the market. Oh, yeah. How far back to your reference, guys? How long? One question. One question. Stop. OK, entertaining motion to adjourn. All in favor, sit right there. Say no. Aye. Without that, we're out of here. So thank you for your work tonight, everybody. Thank you. Support staff.