 have us begin. So tonight we've got a couple of things and we actually didn't narrow it down. We had our agenda meeting to say exactly what we were going to be focusing on but we do have a support staff request and a flag policy discussion that are going to be probably the main focus of the meeting tonight. And I need to have one of the members, I know we're remote, it makes it a little bit harder, but can I have someone maybe raise their hand and say they'd be willing to just give us a little feedback at the end of the meeting on how our meeting went? Do I have a willing meeting evaluator? And in the packet of information there is the little evaluation that you can refer to if you want to pull that up. Do we have a volunteer? This is Ashley. Okay thanks Ashley. So that will be Ashley for tonight and so we're going to roll right into public comment just as a reminder. Linda who's taking notes needs to know who's speaking so if you can please state your name and your town or your position that would be helpful and we're going to try and keep the public comments per person to about three minutes and so we'll I'll be trying to monitor that. Katja if you can help me out on that as well as other board members too in terms of just keeping track of who might want to speak just because that's kind of hard to follow. So I'm going to open up for public comment and again we're just listening so if you have something new that's great if someone's already said something just for efficiencies purposes please don't repeat too much. All right so do we have someone who would like to speak maybe raise your hand. All right looks like Marie. Hi there I guess I'll break the ice this evening. I have just a few notes that I wrote down here that I would like to read. My name is Marie Dunwoody. I work as a 101 paraprofessional at RES. I've enjoyed working there for the past seven years and I've been with the district for almost 14 years now and I have a little bit of a story and I'll keep it really brief and I have it written down so it'll keep me on track. I have a passion for working with children. I enjoy working with educators. I love learning being amongst friends just like the kids and school is my source of income and when support staff sign their contracts they are committing themselves to challenging work. We are promised sick days, personal emergency days, family, sick time, vacation time and support staffs are negotiated for us by our district union reps who put in tireless hours because they know that their support staff and paras like myself are a vital component to the functioning of our schools. I recently was sick with COVID for two weeks. Two of these days fell on COVID snow days, January 13th and 14th. These two days were legitimately sick days for me. When catching up on my time sheet I wrote 6.5 hours sick with COVID, added my hours, signed my time sheet and submitted it. When looking at my last advice slip date of February 1st, something looked fishy to me and in thinking that the checks that I wrote the day before and dropped into mail weren't going to be covered because I was short 13 hours. So I went back to my time sheet and it had been authored the leading hours that I had typed in and I didn't receive a notifying email that I was being rejected from using that sick time. So this totally didn't make sense to me. School was closed for COVID. I'm home sick. I don't know if anyone else had gotten sick with COVID but you know how I felt. Denied 13 hours of sick time compensation for some outdated pre-pandemic rule. My scenario was already in motion before the COVID snow days were called. The decision did not make me feel rewarded or appreciated for all my years of dedication. These are tough times and it resonates in all of our heads. And if it doesn't just step into the classroom which most of us on tonight are in classrooms and you know how difficult it's been. I strongly feel myself and other support staff who are out sick with COVID on those COVID snow days or sick with COVID and have exhausted their sick days that they should be compensated from another source. In conclusion, I feel my 13 sick hours are legitimate to use for those two COVID snow days that I was not able to attend school. I feel closing school during a pandemic to me is not a snow day and that's my story that I would like to share. I did not expect my paycheck to be short 13 hours and this is a pandemic issue and I think whatever the rules may be they need to be readdressed and changed to accommodate our pandemic times. Thank you. Do we have someone else who'd like to speak? Nora? I guess I would like to just ask a clarifying question. I think there are some people who would like to speak to the issue that's coming up later on the agenda and I think folks are not sure if they should be speaking now or if they should be waiting. Okay so clarification. This is public comment time and there is public comment allowed. Well actually it's the rules are that public comment is allowed when if the board's going to make a decision on something which we are but that's going to be done during the executive session because it's a labor but we're going to have a I guess my question is are will people have a chance to speak to that issue? Under the support staff request. Exactly. Yeah because that's our agenda item right and we're not I would I would say we could do that then but it means folks have to wait for us to get to that to get to that agenda item so we have a few things to go through before we get there so if folks don't want to wait they could speak now and if they don't mind waiting you could have them speak shortly after Lane speaks to to that agenda item later on. Dana. Hi everybody I'm a special educator at RTC and worked 11 years at the high school as a special educator and supervised over 13 different para educators in my time at Randolph and I am here to advocate for us to sit down and tune in tonight in order for our para educators to get paid. We went off of an 11-day holiday where they didn't get a paycheck into a COVID unpaid and then we met with Lane and came up with some stipulations and then when we put that out to the para educators through the union they weren't happy with those stipulations for many reasons so I hope that we can hear their stories and their experiences tonight and then we had a half day which got canceled for the Paris to make it a full day and then we had Martin Luther King day off and now we had to day off and many of my para educators don't feel comfortable speaking tonight but they also can't live on the pay that they're getting right now and need to use their sick time in order for them to live and buy groceries and in order for them to afford gas and oil right now and we are in these times where it is really hard for them. I had one para crying to me that she couldn't feed her family a five. I had another para say that she doesn't drive anywhere because she can't afford gas. I had another para say that she's looking for another job because she can't afford to work for us and I had another para quit last week because they got a five-day-a-week job that paid them more than we paid and they were my para I depended on doing geometry and biology and all the math and sciences went into the classroom like we're really struggling right now so I need you to take this into consideration laying in the board and just we have to come up with an agreement because we're going to lose some really dedicated workers that care about their students and care about their parents and care about our school and I'm really afraid. Lisa? So I'm also speaking on behalf of my daughter she works as a para one-on-one at the school. She is a single mom so when we had to close for those two days as COVID snow days it was it's really hard it was really hard for her. She depends on that money she buys her groceries she does her shopping and she takes care of her own son and as for me I don't depend on my husband's check so when I have to end up not working because the school decides that it needs to close because of COVID which I understand but at the same time I didn't ask not to be able to work and that that gives me that takes away for my pay so then I can't buy I can't get gas I can't buy groceries and that's what I basically use my check for is to do that. I realize that COVID is really hard at this time but I love my job with all my kids but it just makes it difficult in wanting to stay because you don't get the pay that you feel that you know that you deserve. Thank you Lisa. Do we have any other folks who'd like to speak at this time? Hey Ann this is Brian yeah I just have a somebody asked me a question over here um over this last week I just thought probably the spot to put it out there but it's probably really towards Lane. The person asked me about if the district had any plans of putting the mural back up in the gymnasium kind of they were under the assumption that it was going to be done in the design of the original ghost of it and they were wondering if there was any plans on putting that back up. I think my understanding the question should actually be put to Lisa and Katie I know that they've been working on it I know that they've acquired an artist to actually do the work but they will have the details. Okay I will if I hear about it I'll push him to talk to them. Thanks Lane. Thanks Brian. Do we have any other comments at this time? Tev? I just want to say that I saw both Marie and Deb Chamberlain raise their hands earlier and I'm not sure if either of them wanted to speak if they don't I do also have something to share but I wanted to give them a chance to go first. Okay Marie or Deb? I just wanted to comment that I'm sorry if I spoke out of time but I don't have an agenda in front of me and um sorry if I just jumped in with two feet with um with my little story so I was just wanted to clarify that sorry that's that's fine. Deb? There I can't click in my mic um I think I'm just going to hold off when we come on to the agenda and okay bring it up at that point thank you. Okay so seeing no other comments or please flag your hand really fast if you want to speak otherwise we're going to move on to a short discussion about just new board member orientation because we are going into an election season in March and we're going to have a couple of new board members and um I wanted to check in with the board to to just uh think about sort of what what happens currently a number of you all came in recently as new board members and um I'm just thinking about as we have some potential new board members coming in what might be helpful to go over especially since some of you are still fairly new and a couple of you are retiring off the board and as you think about how we operate and what we do if you have suggestions of things that might be helpful for us to think about to have in place for orienting new new members as they come on board so I was going to give us some a little bit of time to kind of brainstorm some ideas or or just have a little discussion about that. I have um a couple ideas about that I think it would be helpful um for the new board members and even me as being here almost a year um just to go over what happens in three years like in the three-year term because I know that there are um like negotiations that happens every couple years like big ones or every three years or or like what it's going to look like for the next three years um and what that process looks like and that would be helpful I think a little explanation of what policy governance is because not everybody knows what that is and how that works um the dos and don'ts of the board meetings and the roles of people as board members but I do think a meeting is a really good idea to do that and I don't know how that has to happen if it has to happen in executive session or if it can be separate from this meeting because there's a lot to do in these meetings it would seem like that could be its own separate thing but I don't know how that would work. Right so we we yeah we should find out if it I mean if it's just a board orientation meeting but if we have a quorum do we have to mourn it and all of that so just finding out the legalities of how we might do that if it's just sort of helping to orient someone if that yeah all of that so just find out the the rules. It seems like and it's this is Rachel it seems like if that was done um in a special meeting and done publicly and warned that would be potentially beneficial for anyone who wants to know how our board works not just for our new members. So that would be your suggestion that's the yeah that's an idea um any any other ideas for that is there are there are a couple of board members who would like to be involved maybe in and again we have to be careful about how we uh because we can't if we had like a committee working on what we want to do for orientation. I have a question for you Linda in the in the office do we have like a packet of stuff that goes out to new board members? I think there's a pretty old packet we should definitely review it um anyway yeah and I'm sure some of the stuff doesn't apply anymore and some of it probably is not in there that should be in there so if we could review that that would be okay yeah I think it's I don't even think it was laying it maybe it was laying but it would be when he was first here it might even been when Brent was here that that packet was put together. So and we are in February so we have our March organizational meeting so and that will be with the new board people um so uh in my perhaps we should have thought this through in terms of maybe um having having a committee to maybe work on this together and come back with kind of a plan do we do we have some folks on the board that might want to work together to maybe get something together work with what Linda has in the office and what do we think about that would that be worth it or and are you this is Rachel again are you asking if well are you asking for are you asking for volunteers who would who would kind of develop the the orientation for the new board members yeah and then bring it to us and present it yeah and then we'd need to yeah move on it next meeting yeah yeah yeah time keeps flying by so I'm wondering if there are a couple of people that might might be interested in in working on that I could do that it's Rachel again okay um I would be willing to help you out as well um Chelsea would you be willing to just sort of especially as a newer person having come on to kind of guide that a little um yeah sure I can do that okay uh so we so we probably need to um have have a motion to have Rachel Chelsea and I work on creating an orientation packet and process to present to the board in March for new board members so moved this is Cacha second yet we got a second from Chelsea any discussion on that this is creating a subcommittee yeah so then if we meet we need to warn our meetings I don't believe so not a subcommittee I think it you know as long as you don't have the majority of your board you don't have a quorum so for you guys that would be fine and the reality is is um part of it is in establishing what the charge is for the committee what you're expecting them to do because all they're doing is bringing that recommendation back to the board for the board to consider and it would be the full board that would vote on it right we're not acting on the board's behalf okay yeah good enough okay so all those in favor of having Rachel Chelsea and I work together to create a new board orientation packet and and a process for new board member orientation please say aye hi okay looks like it has Linda okay so moving on to the next agenda item um Linda we just were wondering because you're you've been in contact with the with the town clerks who we've got um running for positions actually the ballots came today so I'll be distributing them to the town clerks um we're doing it through the tabulator again this year because of COVID um we have Anne running for one of the Randolphs on three-year positions we have Sarah hop hopped uh running for the other three-year Randolph position Brookfield did not um have somebody that made the deadline although I hear that a Devin Cropley is interested he'll have to be a write-in person uh because he did not have his things in there is a thing he can um actually uh write to the secretary of state um to ask to have the deadline extended that's a COVID thing that came up um I don't know if you'll do that um he has to have 30 votes write-in votes um or 1% of the voting population in order to be elected but I don't think 30 votes would be too hard to get if he wants to run so anyway okay okay thank you very much so and I reached out to Devin and I sent him some things um we didn't quite coordinate a phone call but I did send him some information about from the VSBA about what does it mean to be a board member um and some policy governance uh information and our board policies um and I've left it open to him to to reach out to me as my phone number um if he'd like to follow up with phone call so good yeah he just wanted a little yeah yeah hopefully um maybe he'll he'll take us up on it we'll have to see um and Brian have you been in touch with any anyone any any no okay I haven't heard from anybody that would be willing to I've mentioned it to everyone I see but no one wants to jump in oh great all right well it's tough I think it's tough for a lot of people uh I think people are are a little stressed out in many ways so all right so moving on wait I just wait oh yes Chelsea one question about that what do we do if there's not another person just there isn't another person um well there there are rules about how so if someone if we can find someone um there there are rules where we have to have um we have to have them sort of looked at by the select board of the town and and sort of they sort of lane is it that they're doing an approval or they just sort of say okay that that would be all right or they've altered it a little bit um during the covid piece but uh what what we've gotten at this point in time is that you can appoint someone um if you have someone that's interested but one of the requirements is that they have to we have to hear from the select board um you know as kind of an advisory um and so that's an important component of that so as long as the select board has uh is able to talk to our board about how they feel about it then our board makes the final decision okay by understanding I'm going to make a recommendation um just because we've got Pietro here and I know that we've also got the folks here um that are waiting for the support staff um request um to maybe put things a little bit about an order maybe to jump ahead um to section four um to and then go back to section three um afterwards it would take a motion by the board to do that but I think if we've got folks here to to value their time that might be worthwhile okay so in order to do that I believe we have to have a motion right um so does someone want to make that motion moved okay so Katja Katja Evans moves and Brian Baker seconds uh any discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye aye all good it looks like it's unanimous um okay so we'll move on uh to the support staff request so Lane you're gonna explain to us sort of what what's um taking place and what's going on yeah I'll uh can try to at least provide a little bit of background I'll try not to be too long when I did um the district I think is is most of the folks in the district know the district had to have a number of what we call these COVID snow days um and they happened because um either we were going to be below the 50 threshold in terms of student attendance or we weren't going to have enough staff on those days to safely operate and these all occurred during the um omicron surge you know that that we experienced in the last three weeks um the big thing is that since the support staff are hourly employees it means that they are unpaid on those days um you know on the one hand the days are generally made up at the end of the year so their overall pay doesn't change but on the other hand it makes it incredibly difficult for them to be able to manage their finances because these days when they hit it's kind of unpredictable when they're going to occur they did ask me to meet with me um to kind of come up with some ideas about being able to use sick time to be able to cover these COVID snow days and I was able to pull together a plan from those discussions for the board that I felt comfortable recommending in order to try to assist the support staff. In essence it allows the support staff to use sick time to be paid for COVID snow days. In the union I give them a lot of credit the teachers kind of stepped up for the plate and suggested that it was possible that the professional teaching staff might be willing to donate time for their sick bank to cover any sick leave used for this purpose. Just to kind of outline where we're at in terms of our COVID snow days so far. They happened in January during that omicron surge and the number of days was different depending upon the school and what was happening in each school. RUHS, RTCC, and Randolph Elementary each missed four days due to COVID brain tree and Brookfield each missed two days. What kind of a synopsis? And Lane so um and and what are you are you um are you willing to work with so what it what exactly is the proposal what or we can't talk about that until we go into the executive session? You could I think for deliberation about whether the board wants to you know accept the recommendation or other ideas that folks um you know if when it's opened up to talk with the union to consider but the basic recommendation I had provided an outline for the board. Basically I can read it for you I know it's hard when we're all meeting remotely but support staff may use sick time or personal days to be compensated on days when school is canceled because of COVID. Support staff may use the professional sick bank if they have exhausted available paid time off on exclusive of vacation time. Support staff will not need to donate any days to the sick sick bank if it is depleted the regular procedure is laid out and the professional staff CBA will be followed. None of these provisions will be construed as precedent setting under any conditions nor may this agreement be used to establish past practice so that's kind of what we're looking at. Okay and that's what you and the support staff so far have sort of agreed upon is that correct? Like I said they weren't legitimately so they weren't in agreement with everything that you know I was thinking so but what I tried to do was pull something together that at this board meeting I could go to the board and say you know what I can wholeheartedly recommend this. Okay that was the purpose of this at this point in time. Okay thanks thanks. Okay so it looks like we have some comment. I see Laura has her hand up. It's actually Nora sorry. I mean Nora sorry. No I know it's I'm reading the name off. I realized after I joined that I was on Laura's account and so it's her name there. I'm so sorry about that but anyway and they're so similar so I just want to to clarify a couple of things so I think Lane you have a really good summary of kind of how things came about. The union does have a slightly different proposal and in terms of what we're looking for because there's just a there's a couple of issues that we were I disagree on and so I'm happy I can put the link in the chat to our proposal and I can read off and or highlight what the differences are on between the two. That works for everybody? Yes I think that would work. If you don't have chat it's not available. I can't put it in the chat. The big big thing is we usually shut that off because in a normal meeting people wouldn't be talking in the background. See if you can do it now normal. There we go okay there is the link. Thank you Lane you can shut it off now if you want. That should get you everybody to it and I'm going there myself just so I can have it in front of me. So I think Lane as we're in agreement that the professional staff is willing to have the support staff use the sick bank if they don't have any sick or personal higher emergency time left that doesn't include their vacation time support staff we're proposing that they use their sick time for any of the school closures or for if they run out of sick time that they would have access to that sick bank and the reasoning behind this is there were there are some support staff who currently do not have any sick time left and the reason that they don't have sick time left is because of the beginning of the year when we had to quarantine for 10 days in some cases they had to quarantine in some cases there I think I believe there were support staff that had to quarantine a couple of times and they were not sick but they couldn't come to work until they had the negative covid test so they now no longer have sick time so our concern is that if a support staff person then it's ill and they don't have any access they don't have any days that they can use even though they had to use their sick time previously because during when they weren't sick does that I'm hoping that's clear I feel like I'm not very articulate tonight the other thing is that the the date I think in Lane's proposal he would like it to end April 15th we're proposing that this go to the end of the year and the reason for that is that again somebody could get ill in April and then because they had to use all of their sick time up previously either for these covid snow days or for quarantining or because they were sick now they have no days left and because of the pandemic they might have had to use more days than normal on its unusual circumstances so we agree this should be non-precedent setting we're not trying to negotiate the number of sick days for the future but this year given the unusual circumstances we feel like we should have the same access to a sick bank as the professional staff does I think trying to go through and make sure those were the two I think really big differences between the two proposals so Ashley you had your hand up all right yes thank you so can I can we ask questions right now I guess just logistically yeah okay so I have a few questions um so the sick time does that accrue and roll over year to year for the support staff yes it does but we have a lot of new support staff people who have had who don't have a lot of time accumulated and how much is and I just don't I'm sorry I don't know this um how much do so there's sick time and there's personal time for each support staff member correct and Deb could probably speak better to the number of days because she's more familiar with the support staff contract so I'm going to turn it over to her when we start off I believe it's 15 days of sick time it is three personal emergency days and for people that are starting is one vacation day the vacation day is not you don't have to use this according to what Lane is saying and he put that it's not us having to use our vacation day first before we use anything else up um typically emergency days are used for snow days like today maybe tomorrow um but yes I think the big thing is that the folks that do not have any sick time left that you know have just started and have used it because as Nora said that we've been quarantined or they've been sick or they've been sick with something else but we're told in the beginning that they needed to take a longer time because of COVID even though they were tested negative because some of their symptoms were the same okay so Deb it's 15 sick days three personal days and then one vacation day when you start okay and then um this idea of a sick thing does that exist for the support staff right now or only for the teachers only for the professional staff yeah all right thank you there's a differentiation between you know how many days a full year um person gets as opposed to a school year most of our folks are school year which are in the the range that Deb is talking about correct um so I guess if I could add just a couple more quick comments I think there there's two issues well three three kind of big points I want to make one first one is um we well we would really like to to settle this item tonight I want to make it clear that there are some other issues that are still outstanding in terms of a side agreement or MOU that um we're not discussing tonight and I'm not proposing that we do discuss those tonight but I just want to make it clear that this is separate um there are still some other unresolved issues um so that's the first thing the second thing is I think that there's two issues that we're trying to address in this particular side agreement the one is the these COVID snow days um and the other is the fact that um there are people who don't have any sick time left support staff who do not have any sick time left now that because they don't have any sick time left that impacts them during these COVID snow days as well but it is somewhat of a different issue um because the primary reason that they don't have that time left any of those sick days those 15 days is because of the COVID um pandemic and having to quarantine um earlier in the year does that I hope that makes sense to everybody um the other thing I wanted to just mention is that um I think Lane is correct that that there's a big issue when you're when you're on such a tight budget when your salary is is I'll say as low as as many of the support staff have and you're trying to make ends meet and you go through a period of time as Dana I think really clearly articulated with the story she was telling from people who she works with um and is supervising that your budget is so tight that you having to choose between do I pay the rent or do I buy food and now I have you know four more days without pay that that is a major problem um those days may not in fact be get made up at the end of the year it may not come out in the wash and in terms of at the end of the year because if my understanding is is that a waiver can be applied for and if schools were closed because of staffing shortages I think it's highly likely that that waiver will get granted if a waiver is granted those days will not be made up so it's not like we're paying people extra um that they isn't already in the budget for um their salaries okay I see uh Deb you've got your hand up again yeah I guess and making clear the point about the folks that are either close to being done sick time or already out of it is that if it's having to be used for these COVID snow days what are they supposed to do come April May if they just you know get a really bad sore throat or get the regular flu or or get COVID again it's not just about getting paid for those days it's that as people have said people are using their time for having to be quarantined and um you know that leaves everybody short so I I totally agree I've talked to many folks that are in this position um and it's a challenge when they're having to make a decision because we love our job we love our kids we wouldn't be doing it now you know our pay is not great especially for folks that are new and um kind of broke my heart when I heard from Dana that somebody has gotten done but I totally understand that and I have heard from people that are you know questioning whether they should um so anyways but I also have a letter I have you know we talked to people about the meeting but yes some people are uncomfortable about sharing so I have something from a member I'd just like to read um she says I took a job at OSSD with the understanding that I could earn x amount of sick time x amount of PE time personal emergency time at this time we are now being forced to use up those banks a promised time due to unprecedented COVID situation a few months back due to what I had known was a sinus infection I was told to leave school sacrificed my bank of sick time and come back when I was tested the loss of multiple days personally I feel I may need I'm sorry I don't have my reading glasses on I may need my sick time due to a multiple of medical issues because I'm a frequently ill I have now been forced to use my sick time in ways that I have not anticipated and which brings a feeling of insecure insecurity about my employment due to due to my low rate of pay I already have taken a second job which is actually why she is not able to be on this meeting tonight because she's at work um further deductions in our pay and our workdays and or benefit use only exasperates my situation thank you for your consideration okay thank you Deb uh Tim yes hi thank you uh I just wanted to make one point about the idea of um you know these days will be made up at the end of the year uh as actually Deb just mentioned one of our um hourly workers um has to have a second job even during the school year I think many of them uh have second jobs that begin as soon as the school year is over so this is a loss of earning opportunity um to people who are being paid by the hour and sometimes not that much um this this idea so I just wanted to answer the idea that these days will be made up at the end of the school year uh many of them might have other jobs that they have to postpone so that they can do these obligated days okay um Marie hello good evening my camera is not working for some reason um I have some statements from support staff that aren't able to be here this evening um that I would like to read I'm a special educator at RES um support staff are already not paid much per hour and do not have as many hours to use during the week the past couple of months have been difficult financially because of the lack uh the the days off the past couple of months have been difficult financially because of the lack of consideration towards pay for support staff particularly those who have run out of sick days due to the pandemic we had a one and a half week break martin luther king day half day on top of all of the unexpected covid snow days this creates much further financial stress for staff support who are not salaried responding to the current two concerns of staff who do not feel safe or financially secure at the school due to covid with use your sick days off or if you quit sooner then you'll have to pay it back makes me feel like I am not valued at a time where we have an unprecedented number of staff quit since the pandemic started frankly I was hoping for a response that shows gratitude to the support staff who are important key players and fostering the educational and growth and development of youth that need the extra support giving incentives to us to stay in an unsafe environment high covid contraction risk and to continue to do the difficult emotional labor of helping students pass their courts courses catch up and deal with their mental health challenges at an unprecedented time is the least that can and should be done if the school administration values the labor that support staff provide and want to keep them it is a disservice to the community as a whole to not value support staff by giving them additional pay for covid snow days rather than forcing them to use their sick days during a pandemic there are staff and teachers that have been quitting left and right from the past couple of years because of the lack of incentive and financial support necessary to make them feel like they can work here there are other opportunities for jobs that are safer consistent and pay and pay more but I decided to go to the school because I care about the students telling me I'll have to pay back money if I quit only makes me feel unvalued and more motivated to find employment elsewhere with higher more consistent pay and safer conditions I strongly urge you to use the relief funds existent to pay staff support staff snow day pay for every covid snow day that occurs or to find a way for support staff to have financial stability I feel that there should be money in the budget somewhere somehow to pay all support staff for days that we personally don't ask to take off if we are all under contract to be here for a certain amount of days anyway then why is this a thing last year there were many days we were remote and we still got paid in the beginning of last year support staff were still getting paid even if they were not able or willing to come into school school and then another quote as a para no one can typically give me an answer about how to submit time sheets so I think I have used the PND section when we were forced to close at one point I was also forced to leave school due to what I knew was a sinus infection told to quarantine and get a covid test this resulted in more time lost Paris also lost time for the half day on Friday that was cancelled and lack of pay from the holidays the situation is very upsetting and I'm grateful to the help of the community through go fund me but disappointed that they were made to do the job of picking up this slack the situation is greatly affecting my decision process as I think about whether to return to OSSD next year if my contribution is not value to the point that that is that they are fighting against my ability to pay my rent and survive then I may need to find a new workplace where I feel respected and I do not have to live with the constant anxiety of never knowing what my paycheck will be from one week to the next forcing us to use our personal emergency days first is unacceptable there are a couple of a couple of more I think it is completely unfair to ask staff members to use their contract secured personal time sick time emergency days for school closures that they personally did not have illness or emergencies or plan to take those days off we only get so many times off during the school year we should decide when we get to use that time as a support staff I felt I feel that under the circumstances we should be paid it was beyond our control that COVID hit the schools and had to close why are we using up our sick time and personal time when we might need it later we are already underpaid for the jobs that we do I used my personal emergency time so I could get paid plus use sick time once those hours ran out I would love to just be able to use straight sick time and not have to use up all of my personal emergency time to be able to get paid when schools are closed we are overextended and last week I had direct exposure to COVID five days in a row it's a miracle I've not caught it yet we deserve better the district should have our backs better than this we are taking chances with our health every day support staff should be supported through these times or we will lose our excellent people to other jobs okay thank you very much Marie Tev can you make it fairly short and concise I can try to stay in my three minutes yeah for sure I wanted to speak a little bit as a classroom teacher I teach at the high school I must have said as an English teacher and just to like the the work of our support staff and para educators I'm going to speak mostly about para educators because that's who I work most closely with but you know the these are folks who work with kind of by definition this the students who need the most support who are often the hardest to work with who you know and that can look a variety of ways and I think that in my experience these are people who although they are sort of regarded as you know as the term support staff suggests you know auxiliary extra they're not they're integral and I could not do my job without having the 101 para educators for the students who need them you know not to mention you know folks like the ways who work in the man office who are you know Lisa Jacobs is like covering people's classes because we can't find enough subs and you know on top of a zillion other things right so I just I don't know that I don't want to make assumptions that that folks know the jobs that these people do um and there's a lot of people observe the the pay is not great you know it's between 14 and 16 dollars an hour I think is basically the range somebody correct me if I'm wrong no it's is it higher than that land I think most of the folks that are here are $20 and above starting salaries are in the in the 15 in the range that you're talking about but most of the people that are here are 20 and above okay so but but I think the starting salary is relevant here and I think you know I just observe is the starting salary that is technically a living wage for somebody with no kids um but far below that and we're not here to negotiate the salary but I think the context is really important as people pointed out um I also think it's important to understand that during the pandemic because of the lack of the ability to get subs right which is clearly a structural issue our para educators have have been the glue holding our schools together these people have sub for my classes numerous times while they are somehow simultaneously providing IEP mandated services to students and IEPs um they're also as far as I'm concerned the experts when I'm trying to figure out how to accommodate students with special needs in the general population of my classes and how to meet their needs um I think because of the turmoil this year often what that's looked like is them helping me to create an alternative curriculum for students who you know who you know because we're a small school and short handed we're trying to meet everybody's needs with what we got um and I think you know something that I think does not get recognized enough is that special I'm sorry that um support staff are often the people who come from the communities sometimes literally the families that our students come from that's usually not true of people like me right like and and and that's you know most of the professional staff I think not that we don't have a close and respectful and you know deep connection with our students but um we don't talk the way that the people in their house talk in a lot of cases we don't have that that connection but you know who does our support staff and that means that again for some of the toughest the kids for whom school is the toughest you know get through the day it is the toughest thing in their lives the support staff in our in our building and again I'm especially going to raise up our power educators are the folks who who connect with those kids and who are I think in a lot of cases the most significant adult you know outside of their family in their lives um so and I think as you heard in some of the comments that Marie spoke a lot of them feel really disrespected right now um I you know I think um that I want to be honest it has been a long-standing thing you know I think you talk to any power educator support staff in any school they're going to say they feel like second-class citizens I think anyone who's worked in a school will will know what I'm talking about um but I think in this instance for the reasons that have been articulated a lot of people feel really wounded and I'm worried about our ability to do the work for our kids especially our neediest kids without those people given that they're all with somehow so many of them still are and there's a lot of support staff as as Lane observed who have been in in our district um for a lot longer um you know than than me and it's true that those people are not earning $15 an hour they're earning a better wage um but it's not but I guess I want to lift up that it's not just about the money it's not just about the idea that like we don't want anybody to miss meals um because of a snow day or a school vacation which obviously we don't but we want these people to feel respected and like they are equal partners in educating our children because they are and if we don't make them feel that way um then they'll leave and go work at Shaw's and you know make more money and that's that's a real shame because like I've got so much respect for these folks so that's what I wanted to say thank you hope I wasn't too long thanks okay Lane um I think um a couple of things here I think we were kind of off the topic a little bit you know my my recommendation tonight was an attempt to fast track a solution because the support staff had approached me with a problem so I figured we might be able to have a fast consideration by the board and turn this around for them right now it's really starting to feel a little bit like folks are trying to use this as a labor negotiation session which is not what this is about that's not what this form is for so at this point in time I am withdrawing my recommendation to the board and I'm going to suggest to the support staff that you make an official request to the board um for negotiations and see if the board will entertain that okay uh at this point I guess uh Laura I'm going to give you like uh Laura Laura that's Laura like one minute and maybe uh I can do one minute and then and then what we're gonna we're gonna move on I can do it in 30 seconds I want to make it clear we are not trying to negotiate a new contract we are not trying to negotiate anything except for what we have put into our proposal which is the use of sick days for um snow days and the use of the sick bank for support staff if they run out of sick time that is what we're trying to do this year due to circumstances in COVID and that is all we are trying to do the stories tonight we're going to point that out the reason why it's needed thank you okay uh Dana same thing can you keep it real quick like sure I'm just asking to reconsider the reason why I talked tonight was to prove a point of we're it's detrimental to our district if they don't get paid that we're not going to have our support staff and I cannot do my job if I don't have my para educators and the fact that this is going to be taken off the table because someone read what para's wanted and because Ted and Nora talked I never wanted this to be a negotiation I just want my para to get what they deserve that's it okay thank thank you uh laying your hand is still up sorry about that I didn't put it back up I apologize okay okay um so I'm gonna close off our discussion of this um we still are gonna have an executive uh session so we'll we may be talking about this a little bit more but it's going to be an executive session uh so we're going to move on unless I do any board members have any questions before we go I don't want to say anything okay so we're going to move on to the flag policy um discussion and um phro you're gonna explain to us um what what possibilities we have as a district in terms of creating a district flag policy yeah so and do you want me to talk now or is this something that you're going to do an executive session because typically legal advice is given in executive session um well I was under the understanding that you are going to sort of present a possible policy or two and the board could ask questions but is that so that's something that we are supposed to do in executive session not in a public session well so look I mean I'm happy to tell everybody about the law having to do with flags and that that's fine but if you're asking me to give you legal advice there will be no attorney client privilege if I'm doing it in open session okay um so board how do we want to manage this discussion do we want to move it to executive session or do we want to have some public discussion about um just understanding the the legalities of flag flying um just so that the public can can hear that and then we can move into executive session to get guidance from Pietro um what would we like to do as a board we need to make a motion uh we need to decide what we want to we we need to decide what we want to do so we can have some discussion about what we might want to do if we want to have a just a public discussion about the legalities of flag flying and then if we want to maybe move into an executive session to get advice or guidance on what we should do as uh so and the way I've done it with most boards is that I I meet an executive session with the board and discuss the the you know the potential areas where there might be a litigation and exposure for the district in connection with any practice or policy having to do with flags um and then the board can in open session without me talk about you know what their feelings are in terms of what we ought to do and why you think you ought to do it you don't need me for that and that's a totally appropriate public conversation right but but but you know the part about where I tell you you know where are the areas where you can run into trouble and what you need to be careful of so that you don't get sued or you don't get put into a situation where you have to do things you don't want to do I'd prefer to do that in executive session okay understood so I make a motion that we go into executive session with our legal counsel to discuss the flag the potential flag policy I'll second that cacha okay that's seconded by cacha uh all those in favor say I okay so we will head into executive session um to get legal advice so again I don't know I don't have a link for executive session could somebody send that to me I just emailed that um what into executive session I'll also shoot you an invite from in there thank you okay great okay we are back um and we are going to um be having a uh on the agenda next uh at the next meeting of a draft flag policy that folks will be able to see and give some public comment on and so now I'm going to move us back to um actually back to it was section three of the agenda that we um moved away from so um lane that you are going to fill us in on the student behavior plan collaboration and staff training yeah so um hopefully discuss about this and we can close it out um what this was about was that during our regular special education audit by the agency of education we were asked to create two components as part of our special education documentation one was how we collaborate with the community and the second one was how we're going to train contracted workers to ensure that they promote a positive learning environment for students um the problem was is none of this was clear and so when we question the agency of education on this requirement and ask them for details they weren't able to provide us with any they weren't able to provide us with any examples and so I ended up reaching out to Heather Lynn district council um to have them connect with the AOE to see if her expertise would be useful in trying to get out of them what it was they were looking for um what the AOE did was they came back and said no you you're you're in compliance they said as long as the board has a policy in place um that says that we're going to follow the agency's special education manual then we're good to go and I presented that policy to the board in October of this past year and you guys adopted it in November it's policy d7 and it's been immediately um added to our policy manual and it was immediately put up on the website so we are covered and there is nothing currently more that we need to do and I'll put in this nice little humorous aside here is that the AOE has not yet developed and published their manual that we're supposed to be following so hopefully that will be coming out soon but we are we are covered we can take this off the agenda um for the future okay great and then we have the first review of financial conditions and asset protection and uh board members remember you can go down to the central office to see that evidence and um and read through and just look at the interpretation and make sure you're feeling like it's a reasonable interpretation so do you want to talk about them at all lane policy 2.6 I should say a few words um 2.3 just general for folks that are watching um EL policy 2.3 kind of relates the financial conditions and activities probably the best way to describe it is that um in general it's making sure that we're ensuring that we're using monies for the intended purposes right we we set out what the purpose is when we create the budget it's making sure that we're using it for that it's also making sure that we're paying our bills on times and that we're collecting any monies that are owed to the district and so I do report compliance um at this time um on that policy policy 2.6 is about ensuring that the district's tangible and fixed assets are protected tangible assets are like cash fixed assets are like our buildings um you know our vehicles uh you know equipment anything anything that we own in that sort of term um one of the things that I'm going to point the board to look at between now and the next meeting is that to review provision five um when the board wrote that provision it was written in a way that it was designed to ensure that the district was following the law by going out to bid on any projects um and purchases that were over $15,000 the board put that in there as far as I can tell because that's what the law says but the law has recently changed this past year and the bidding threshold is now $40,000 when using our budget funds and $50,000 if we're using federal funds so my interpretation has always been that we follow the law in terms of bidding um so I'm recommending to the board that it either changes its policy so that the dollar amounts reflect the new bidding thresholds or reject my interpretation and say no we feel more secure with it staying at $15,000 so that's that's worth taking a look at in between the two based upon the interpretations that are in there I do report compliance on that okay next up is the the COVID operating plan and that is for us to just feel comfortable in terms of your communication with us and what's going on and also um just uh the global executive constraint I believe is the other policy that falls under so how how I looked at it looks like you've made a few changes following the guidance that you've gotten from yeah we it's um the the only things that are in there when that changes the guidance is either from the CDC which is then interpreted by the agency of education the Vermont Department of Health so that guidance is always added the only other place that it comes from is the Vermont Principles Association because they oversee athletics and so they put out guidance in terms of of what they expect us to do in terms of athletics last major update to this occurred kind of right in the middle of our omicron surge that we were experiencing in the district and the plan was updated on January 17th basically the changes that went in there they shifted the responsibility for the test to stay program that we were using from the district on to parents prior to the guidance changes you know the kids would show up in the morning you know we'd we'd run the tests for them if they tested negative they were allowed to school if they weren't they they went home at this point in time what the major shift is is that those test kits go home with the parents the parents test them at home and if it's negative they don't report it to us they just send the kid kid into school I think the biggest piece especially because there's a significant health component attached to this that parents should be aware of and that has to do with athletics and it's this idea that if an athlete does test positive for covid so this isn't for close contacts this is an athlete that is actually tested positive the league rules are that they must be cleared by a doctor before they can return to play and there's a reason for this infection with the virus has an impact sometimes on cardiac function and so the purpose of this rule is to keep the students safe and ensure that they're ready for the stresses that returning to their sports going to place on their bodies so that's why that's in there there were some questions that came up but that but that's why that's there and that is the actual policy from the vpa which they pulled from department of health so those are those are the major ones at this point in time financial report is on there as well we are six months in the 2021-22 school year because our fiscal years run differently than every other business on the planet and that means we should have spent about half of our overall budget at this point in time but because of federal reimbursements that we've been receiving any inability to hire some staff we've got some open positions we are well in the black in terms of the budget we've only expended about 40 percent of it so far there is a line on there that I'm going to check with our special education team that jumped out at me when I was reviewing things not that there's anything wrong with it but we have a support service line that we have always appeared to spend more than we budget for when I look back for year to year so figure out why that is and then the appropriate thing in terms of transparency is just making sure we're budgeting for what we actually need so I'll talk with them about that my guess is it's just probably do the difficulty in predicting you know what students are going to move in and out of the district that have high needs but other than that the the financials look really really well same thing with the tech center finances at this point in time board members any questions on on the financial reports okay moving on then uh we need to I'm moving to uh the consent agenda so that's um minutes from the last meeting and um uh Lane did you go ahead and approve the maternity leave is that this uh this is a board approval um one um and I am happy to recommend approval of it this is a request um the teacher wants to extend her maternity leave beyond um the normal leave time um so she'd like it's gonna pretty much start at the beginning of next year her fmla time when that runs out she wants to be able to stay out um through the remainder of the first semester um and so I do recommend that the board board adopt that I can't go into more details because it's it's a medical yeah yeah so um I'm gonna have us uh approve this uh consent agenda as a whole so can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda from a board member please I move to approve the consent agenda okay this is Hannah Hannah is moving to um approve and Brian are you gonna second Brian's seconding any discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye or show a hand okay beautiful okay uh next we have our superintendent's report um and the principal's reports any um any questions for Lane on any of those seeing none um I'm just gonna recap so uh Chelsea Rachel and I are gonna um hopefully get together we'll we'll send out an email to um work on an orientation packet um Pietro is going to be drafting a flag policy for the board to consider in the next meeting um and we will be going into an executive session to deal with the labor agreement after this uh this portion of this meeting um and then meeting evaluation was Ashley it was me so I don't have a form so I'm just gonna kind of give my opinion sure um I would say that we were um respectful of conversation this evening um and with the majority of folks uh participating um while we definitely deviated away from the agenda um I felt like it was out of respect for our um those that joined us in order to hear uh them participate as well to hear all the conversation um so we didn't do a great job on following our time on the agenda but I think it was uh for a good reason um and I thought that basically it was a again a culture of respect of hearing um what folks had to say and responding appropriately okay thank you very much um so now Tev I see I see you have a hand up um but because we are a little bit behind schedule and um we have heard a lot I'm gonna continue on and can you keep it to 30 seconds or oh you have a question well I guess a lot of us are on I think because we're expecting the maybe command executive session you all are gonna make some sort of decision on the issue that a lot of people came to was was that incorrect that was incorrect because we haven't had the executive session on that issue yet we just we we didn't realize that we needed the legal advice to be done through executive sessions so we're now gonna go into executive session on the I see so okay so we should stick we should stick around for that is that yeah what people who are sticking around for that okay I just want to yeah sorry about that yeah thank you all right I thought you were wrapping up sorry no no no we're moving into that executive session okay okay all right so we'll be back well I moved to enter executive decision executive session in 2017 to discuss uh what's on the agenda under executive session which is labor agreement with the support staff okay do we have a second second by Ashley all those in favor hi all right let's head out and we'll be back looks like it so after careful consideration of of the two proposals do we have a motion from the board as to what we want to do do I have a motion from someone on the board can you guys hear me I think you went out there for a little bit and I'll make the motion that we approve the agreement between or they propose a temporary agreement between the district and the union proposed by lane do we have a second I'll second this is Megan okay any further discussion all those in favor please say aye and it looks like the motion passes so again thank you everyone for coming tonight we really appreciate our support staff and we appreciate our professional staff supporting our our support staff so do I see one do I see Tim Moynihan did you want to say one last thing no no I'm just asking um was that the same the this one is the one that was copied into the chat at one point earlier no no this is the one that was in our board packet that was drafted by lane and the support staff together okay I I just don't know if that's exactly what I'm looking at is there any chance that you could copy that into the chat please uh lane can you do that or just share out well lane you're you're um you're muted uh Tim I can if you give me a few minutes I can probably email it directly to you sure thing that sounds fine thank you you're welcome okay so that uh that concludes our meeting um so do we have someone who wants to uh make a motion to adjourn I'm right right that was everything I make the motion that we this is Brian I make the motion to adjourn okay uh Laura did you or Nora did you have a quick question yeah I'm not trying to stop the meeting from ending and I can ask you afterwards it's procedure question okay so go ahead and and then and I'm happy to stay on and talk for just a moment okay sure um all right so Brian uh made a motion to adjourn the meeting I'll second all those seconded by Katya and Dana's hand is up as well oh Dana did you have a quick question well I could ask I could ask afterwards too but I'm wondering about the sick bank because that wasn't part of if people run out of sick time if they could use the sick bank and I I could stop and ask after everybody they could get off if they need to get off because I know it's been a long meeting and I appreciate all of you to listen to us and hear us so I thank you for um being here and being a part of this but I'd like to Lane are you gonna are you you're gonna send that that that agreement out to folks so that also I'm sending it right off to Tim Nora has a copy that I sent a week or so ago okay I'm just trying to find it mm okay all right all those in favor of adjourning the meeting say aye hi okay thank you everyone it was a long night we did well and a couple of Nora do you you wanted to ask a couple of questions yeah so I'm gonna confess and I don't know if anybody knows the answers to all of this but I've never done negotiations like this um before and and it's my understanding to for side agreement I don't really know how it works I guess is my question and and so I I assume that so the board is voting on on Lane's proposal but there was it was it wasn't a negotiation you guys came to me with the problem what I tried to do what I tried to do and maybe it was an error but I I did check in with legal counsel I tried to take as much of what people wanted and put it in there that I thought was going to be acceptable to folks and tried to fast track it because we were trying to get people paid because they missed a bunch of days I was trying to get it in front of the board so the board could approve it and say yes and then you guys could approve it and then we could just get it done and get people paid that right right right right I I know I I get that and I appreciate that that's that's um again but to to do a side agreement well I I think at this point the membership has to vote true and and I and I okay I just trying to try to figure figure it out um but but because of your saying it's not negotiations um yeah I'm just let's let's talk tomorrow when I'm fresh yeah no I mean my understanding is you guys could vote for it or you could reject it and then the ball is in your court you know what path you want to take next right so I'm because I guess because there wasn't negotiations there wasn't an ability to come up with a compromise between what you proposed and what we proposed no one asked for negotiation negotiations you do have the right to do that we were just trying to solve a problem was my understanding in the process people came to me and said hey can we sit down and talk about this and try to figure this out Lane I that was my understanding as well one one thing that for me muddies the waters a little bit is that the initial proposal that we received from you which is admittedly is different from the proposal that you yeah I adapted more of what you guys wanted right which there was a provision in the initial proposal that was asking for people who left before that was removed I know but I think the fact that that was in there and that that was what we initially took to our membership felt to people like I don't know I mean it like like was like that wasn't a negotiation tactic like I guess that was confusing to us is what what I'm trying to say and I think you know I'm not not sure the question to have I'll answer what I can if you can get specific um yeah maybe Nora you can do a better job of no no I say I just want to say I think I think at this point I just got a we got to kind of go back to the to the executive board I mean we got to put this out to the membership is what I think we have to do and then they're voting yes or no on on this um proposal could I ask a question Lane what um changed from the original and then it went to the all of our please stop what changed from the original that we discussed in our meeting and then when the board got it they came back they came up with the writing and what has changed because I'm really confused right now all I want is for the parent again yeah I've been trying to email it out but I can't do it while I'm talking but I'll read it for you okay so um basically like I had told told Lauren I told folks I was going to run it past Pietro um to just make sure that you know either side isn't inadvertently putting in something there that we didn't intend or that might surprise us all later um and so what we came up with um Orange Southwest School District and the Orange Southwest Education Association agreed to the following terms this agreement is in effect beginning on January 10th and following approval by both parties and expires at midnight on April 15th so that piece is still in there support staff may use sick time or personal days to be compensated on days when school is canceled because of covid support staff may use the professional staff sick bank if they have exhausted available paid time off exclusive of vacation time support staff will not need to donate any days to the sick bank if it is depleted the regular procedures is laid out in the professional staff cva will be followed none of these provisions shall be construed as precedent setting under any conditions nor may this agreement be used to establish fast practice and that's the entirety of it so it incorporated the two pieces together the ability to use the sick leave for um covid um as well as the idea that that the support staff not the support staff professional staff who were so gracious in presenting was this idea of being able to use the sick bank so combine those two okay thank you for the clarity because i was like what is going on i didn't know what what we were adapting and what wasn't so okay thanks yeah like i said nor i'll send this to you too again well yeah i have it but that's okay yeah send it to me again then it'll be higher up in my email before any more discussion takes place i just want to be really careful here and because we did adjourn the meeting so if this is like a meeting with his staff no no no that's that's that's fine i really just needed clarification so all right okay thank you thank you good night everybody thanks thank you good night