 Director's regular meeting Tuesday, June 1, 2021, 6.30 p.m. via Google Meet. Adjustments to the agenda. We wanted to add, I would like to add a discussion of Suzuki. Would be discussion items, so 8.7. If that's acceptable to the rest of the board, please signify by a thumbs up. If this is Suzuki being in the elementary school introduction to all of you. Justine, are you okay with that? Yep, absolutely. Bill, are you okay? Thank you. Amy, Amy's a thumbs up. Good. Do we have Patrick on? I don't know if that's his phone number. I know he's joined by phone. That looks like a familiar number. Yeah. Patrick, is that you on phone? Nope, I guess not. Okay. And was there another one, Jamie, that I sent to you? There was. It was the vacant board position. I didn't receive any exactly. From the article in the hero. Yes. Yeah. All right. So those two items, are we good with that, Amy? You could be talking about that. Justine, good with that. And Bill, are you good with that? I can't see you. Thank you. All right. Real quick, we do not have a celebration of learning tonight. We had a beautiful night. Spring's in the air or summer and Lindy and Bonnie struck out, they said. Well, they're doubt doing things they should be doing. That's great that they're outside. All right. Any further adjustments to the agenda, aside from my two, anybody has? No, no. Okay. Assigned timekeeper, Amy, are you willing to take this on again? Please. Thank you. I think approved consent agendas will be five minutes. No celebration of learning. So board comment, let's give that five reports to the board. 15, does that sound reasonable? Boards? Yeah. Or let's say 20 just to be safe. And then discussion items. When are we going to talk about the anti-racism policy? Is that during the discussion? Under reports to the board. During the report. Okay. All right. So that's at least 20 for that because I could take some talking. And then discussion items. What do we think? Let's say another 20 is a little optimistic. Let's say half an hour for that, please. And then do we have any new hires or resignations? We do. Okay. So we'll give that 10. Does that sound fair, Lindy? Yep. Good. And future agenda items, a public comment will obviously take as long as it takes. And we'll see how that goes. Okay. Without further ado, we have four minutes of 4.1, approve the minutes of Tuesday, April 27th, 2021, a special meeting. 4.2, approve the minutes of Tuesday, April 27th, 2021, special informational. 4.3, approve the minutes of Monday, May 3rd, 2021, special informational. And 4.4, approve the minutes of Monday, May 10th, 2021, regular. Are there any comments on these notes? Justine, I see your hand up. Yes. I was present at the April 27th meeting and I'm not listed in there. Very good. And I seem to have a recollection of there being some board comment on the May 3rd, but I could be wrong. I didn't take notes on that meeting, but it doesn't say in the notes that there was any board comment. I don't know if anybody else remembers. This unfortunately is not my strong suit. I would look at my notes from that night that I do not have in front of me. So. Justine, I did see on May 3rd, board comment, there was several things listed in the notes. Okay. I guess I'm looking at. Talks about. Yeah, I had it mixed up with the next, with May 10th. Sorry. Yep. You're right. I have them all up in front of me right now and I had it. I just noticed that as I was flipping through. You're right. I take that back. Okay. But I was present on the 27th. Good. We can make a motion. Well, let's deal them in order. So can we have a motion to approve the minutes of Tuesday, April 27th, 2021? And let's do the second one. Approve the minutes of Tuesday, April 27th, 2021. May I entertain a motion to accept those? Make a motion to accept the minutes of April 27th, 2021 special and the special informational. Can I have a second, please? I second that. Patrick, thank you. All right. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Good. The ayes have it. So we've approved the first two. Sorry. We should have done three because it's the third fourth one that we want to change. So approve the minutes of Monday to May 3rd, 2021, a special informational. Make a motion to accept the minutes from May 3rd, special informational meeting. Second. Somebody second, please. I second. Thank you, Patrick. And Nicole, sorry. Do you know who this is? We have who's present here. Bill Edgerton is at board and Patrick Hudson is the one who's on the phone. Thank you. All right. So approve the minutes. Oh, sorry. All in favor. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Bill, did I hear you? Sure. Good. Thank you. All right. Now, so we're going to approve. First, we have to amend the minutes of Monday, May 10th, 2021 to include Justine Kavakis. Could I have a motion to do that, please? That was the 27th. Sorry. I guess I've never, I thought it would just be included in our, what we were voting on. It was the 27th that I missed out on. I'm so sorry. I did not hear you. I thought it was the May 10th. Oh, well. Okay. Well, let's approve these minutes. Approve the minutes of Monday, May 10th, 2021 regular. And then we'll go back and we'll have to redo the 27th. I make a motion to approve the minutes of May 10th. Second. Thank you, Bill. I'll approve. Say by aye. Aye. Aye. Good. All right. So I think we'll go back. We've approved these minutes, but I think we're going to go back and approve them again. Let's, to amend the minutes of Tuesday, April 27th, 2021 to include Justine Kavakis as present. Could I have a motion for that, please? I make a motion to amend the minutes of April 27th, 2021, a special and regular, special informational meeting to include Justine Kavakis. Yes. Second, please. Second. Thank you, Bill. Any discussion on that? There being none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. The ayes have it. Thank you. Might not be a totally kosher, but we got the point across. Thank you. So we'll move on now with no celebration of learning into board comment. I just want to make sure everybody has a chance. I'll start with you, Patrick, because I can't see you. Do you have any board comment to make tonight? I don't at the moment. Okay. Very good. Bill, do you have any board comment? No, other than I've really appreciated a sunny day in Vermont today. Very good. Yeah. Amy, do you have any board comment? I do. The Rochester Scholarship Committee is pleased to announce that all the ball poster seniors who applied for scholarships received scholarships. And I kind of wanted to announce those names here. And their scholarships, they wanted, if that's okay, they have been informed already. Chris Christensen won the Sleeve Memorial Scholarship. John Sterling Sitaway was chosen for the Martin Farms Award. And maybe hold them up just a touch longer so Nicole can actually see spellings and stuff. Thank you. Jillian Sherwin was chosen for the Patrick Memorial Scholarship. And Nick Stevenson was also chosen for the Patrick Memorial Scholarship. So we're very excited that they applied and we were able to, was very excited to help further what they're doing next after high school. And Amy, I want to have appreciation to you too to making this happen and organizing this so it's doable again. Thank you. Congratulations to all of them. I just, obviously I wanted to make a quick comment. Two things. One, I wanted to say that there is a book fair coming up. I believe at both campuses, I know because of my wife is running the one in Rochester and I will be there with Amy on Friday afternoon. But please come by Friday during school and then Saturday from 10 to 1, I believe it is. I think that's correct. Great selection of books. Bear Pond Books does this. The Selecting Forest and they really pull out some great titles. I think it's a great time to get reading for your young reader in the house. But it is all ages. It goes up through sixth grade. So please check it out. And then obviously the Herald captured my enthusiasm at the result of the vote with the LionFast final line. I was very happy. I just wanted to thank all the people who gave, listened to the information to make up their mind again. It feels good to go forward with a strong vote of support from Stockbridge. I also want to thank the people who perhaps don't support us, but you show up and you challenge us and you make us a better board. So I appreciate your input enormously as well. So thank you to all. Without further ado, let's move on to... Oh, I didn't check. Sorry, Justine, do you have a board comment? No, thank you. Very good. All right. I think that's everybody. That's right. It's hard to get used to five. Five. Reports to the board. 7.1. Let's start with the superintendent. Good evening, team. It's hard to believe it's June. So it's June 4th. And I'm pleased to report that I'm looking forward to the next week and I don't have any budgets ahead to prepare a vote on. That's the first time for Karen and I since July 1. As you know, we had multiple budgets when I came on, not approved. So that feels good. Tara will talk to you. We're starting to wrap up your end. We're working diligently to ensure that we have at least slight surpluses across the SU. Some districts are looking larger than others and that's good. And the SU is looking to have a surplus for the first time a long time. So that's positive news as well. We're in the thick of navigating SR1, 2, and 3. SR3 is getting held up mightily in regards to just the... Now that we're getting the criteria and specifications coming down from the feds, we do know that it can still be used. Can you just... I always think it's good for us to spell out what... The elementary, secondary, emergency relief act around COVID. Something like that. It's pretty close. And so the SR3 money is... It's sort of on hold for us. So we know what we want to apportion it to. I have set aside $2 million for capital improvements across the supervisory union, which is a big chunk of change to look to do upgrades as we've talked about across the member schools. And so we're navigating that with the agency of education around when we can look to move forward. We look to act on those projects next summer is what it looks like. So those are my updates. We're in the thick of hiring. I'm really excited about the summer plans. The more that I meet with Onda Adams, our new chief academic officer, the more excited I get. I think she was a really good hire. I think she's going to support her SU well and moving us forward to the next phase of continuous improvement. And I'm also pleased to let you know that we were able to focus some of those funds that I talked about, those recovery funds to increase pathways programming. And so we were able to bring a full-time pathways coordinator for our SU. And that was out of those funds. And so that's exciting news. I'm sorry. I don't remember what pathways is. So pathways is the focus on students' personalized learning plans. And we think it's really important that we're starting to individualize and focus on personalized learning plans in the upper elementary schools. I'm also hyper-focused on this idea of place-based learning around personalized learning around passion projects. And so the goal would be that we would have some type of passion progress that has rigorous reading and writing occurring at the upper elementary grade, specifically in sixth grade. And that we would have some type of defense of learning and be able to bring our communities in and have our community see what our sixth graders are truly capable of. And so that's going to take planning and efforts to get and to take place across the SU. And so we're looking to start to plan and launch those at least some type of pilot next year, but really have those take hold in the school year 2223. The expectation being that we have those types of projects happening across the Supervisory Union at certain grade levels, like the end of eighth grade and the sixth grade, depending on the district. Any questions for Jamie on his report? Amy? Just a question about this program you were just talking about. You are using the current ESSER funds for that program. What about going forward into the future? What funds will be able to fund that program? We'll look to utilize consolidated federal grant money. And so I also hope that as our system becomes better, we have a lot of intervention in the consolidated federal grant. I'd like to see that start to decrease. If you look at the number of interventionists we have across the SU, it's pretty high. And so I hope that we can use some of that consolidated federal grant for more of these types of positions that service all students around pushing our rigor forward. And so I would look to keep those positions in place. But I think if you look across the SU, we should see intervention numbers start to drop over the next few years as their universal system increases. So that will free up local funds and also title funds. That's a great question. I actually appreciate you letting me expand upon it. Justine, do you have any questions for our superintendent? I'll get back to her. Patrick, do you have any questions for our superintendent? I don't. He explained everything really well. Thank you. Bill, do you have any questions for our superintendent? No, I'm all set. Thank you very much. Good. Jamie, just two things. And you may have said this in a meeting before. When do we think we'll be getting the estimates for the energy efficiency work on the elementary and stock bridge elementary buildings? So I can't put that out for requests for qualifications until the AOE does prior approval of the concept, Ethan. And they notified us literally on Friday that they're not going to be ready to do prior approval until August. And so I don't want to put that out to bid because it jeopardizes our ability to use those federal monies. And so with S3, the AOE has to provide prior approval to any project concept before we can go out to bid. And so we don't want to jeopardize that. So what we'll do is put this concept to them. I don't see any. We've talked to them already about the concepts. Most of them have to do with our heating system, HVAC systems, fresh air around windows, all those things. So I'm positive as positive as I can be that they're going to allow us to utilize that 2 million, but I need the prior approval before going forward. Are we, do we have or have we had identified any critical issues as far as facing next winter, if all this? Not at Rob Chester Elementary, no. Okay. Okay. And stock bridge neither. Nothing. No, our subs actually, I mean, I've got a couple other districts actually that we're going to have to do some work on this summer. No matter what, because I was concerned about their ability to, to remain open next winter if we didn't, but that's not, that's not what we're facing for your two buildings. Okay. I know last week at the SU meeting, you discussed the lack of applicants for support staff, I believe it was, that there was, was that, was that the correct, and I just think I'd love to, for the board to just hear what's going on there and your, your take on that. We have several openings. Yeah, no, we have several openings for paraprofessionals and also school admin positions across the SU. And I'm concerned partly because we're competing right now with the public sector here locally. And by all accounts, the information I'm receiving is, is that folks are doing signing bonuses and that they're starting rates are significantly higher than we're able to offer. And so we're competing with the same type of worker. And so I remain concerned about filling, filling some of those support staff positions. I'm also worried if you go on school spring, there is a zillion interventionist positions right now because districts are looking to leverage their recovery funds to get more interventionists in front of students. And we're also in the market for math interventionists across the SU, but also on special educators. I've also heard that some folks are deciding to leave the special ed field to do intervention. Because with that comes a lot less paperwork in case management. And so that's a concern for me too, is the special ed market. So we're trying to act fast when we get high quality candidates in front of us in those areas. You know, I remind myself it's only June 1st, but know that, you know, we just refresh ads again. And I know there's an actually an interview for a special educator tomorrow. So we're hopeful there. You guys are pretty well staffed in regards to special ed. So we're in pretty good shape in our set right now. Good. Thank you much. If there are no further questions for the superintendent, we'll move on to our principals. Yeah. So you have our report in front of you. There's quite a bit going on as there typically is in the end of the year. And I should say typically, I think we kind of forgot what the end of the year was like COVID and being virtual last year. At least that's what I keep reminding myself as so many things come so quickly. I just wanted to reemphasize a couple of things that book fair with Courtney Bowen's help is coming to both Stockbridge and Rochester, which has been great. She and Donna Gallant have been working together on that. So that will be Friday in-house. I don't know about Saturday in Stockbridge, but I do know it's Saturday in Rochester as well. A couple of grants, Stockbridge received a federal food service grant to replace the freezer in the kitchen, which is always great to give us a head. Not have to try and budget for those sorts of things. And then just really active, we're trying to be creative around things like end of the year music concerts because we can't fully open those up to families. So we'll be streaming those using Facebook Live so families can watch at a different time. And then before you know it, the end of the year will be here. The 17th is the kids last day. And it's a half day. And yeah. Good. Questions for principals. Amy? Yes. Is there any announcement for the public in regards to sixth grade graduation? I don't think anything has been put out there as to location and times and who is allowed to attend? All of that's going home in the parent newsletter tomorrow. Okay, great. I don't know. Okay, we'll look forward to that. And I think it'll be in like the class newsletter, Amy, but also the school one that gets emailed out in Rochester. Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Justine, do you have any questions for our principals? No, I don't. Thank you. Bill, do you have any questions for our principals? Yeah, on the graduation. Is the public invited to the graduation ceremonies at either school? Currently, we're just keeping it to family members, Bill, to comply with COVID guidelines. But if something changes, we will let you all know, because it's ever evolving. Okay, so those guidelines don't include board members, board directors? I'd love to attend. I don't know off the top of my head, but let me get, can I get back to you? Absolutely. Yeah, let me find out. I don't want to make a hassle or whatever. No hassle. No hassle at all. It suddenly reminded me of the image of the drive-by last year with the school buses going around the green. I loved the innovation we came up with. Which I think was very exciting. And if the public is not able to attend, I know that students would really enjoy that type of support. And some of the extended family and friends who are not able to actually physically attend would would enjoy that. Yeah, maybe we could do that again if that's a possibility. Patrick, do you have any questions for our principals? I don't. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, principals. Let us move on to our business manager. Hello, Tara. Hello, everyone. So you have my report, highlights of it. Later on in your meeting, you'll be hopefully reviewing and approving your tax anticipation note for FY22. Budget collections for the agency of education started today and we have to file for anyone that was already met the 30-day wait. And then once each district stops their 30-day wait, we then file that with the agency of education. And on Thursday, I'll be working with our software company to complete our fiscal year rollover. The pre-audit is done for FY21 and we're scheduled for final audit the first week of September. And school food authority, we continue our monthly reimbursements. Wendy shared that Stockbridge was awarded the food service equipment grant. And then we are also continuing to work with our auditors and the child nutrition program on the ins and outs of what we need to do to complete the centralization of food service. Our child nutrition program team is working very hard to get a collaborative menu together for the start of school. So they've been working, doing a lot of work on that and going over special events that they do in each building and how they can incorporate that. So they're all working really hard on that part of it. And then the next round of the PEBT benefits will be due soon. So we've got some additional guidance on some additional benefits that I'm reading through now to find out what we need to do to get that information out to families. And then on to your revenue and expenditure summary. On the expenditure changes, I updated your COVID expenses from 12,461 to zero, updated your legal services overage from 10,794 to 11,344, updated field trips and transportation savings from 3,500 to 2,913 because you've done a couple of small trips in there, updated your book savings from 21,148 to 23,829, updated tech hardware software savings from 16,725 to 20,250, updated tech supply savings from 5,095 to 5,315, updated contracted service savings from 26,779 to 44,152, updated the general supply savings from 29,887 to 31,031, updated tuition, your budget versus invoice to date savings from 45,750 to 10,131, we received a couple of tuition invoices that have come in since the last report, updated the tuition reimbursement professional development savings from 17,457 to 6,785 as your teachers get prepared and get their files in for their summer professional development, updated trash and snow removal savings from 4,992 to 1,812, added dues and fees savings of 8,468,468, added equipment savings of 2,500, added fuel oil savings of 8,380, added long-term interest savings of 1,504, and then added your staff travel savings of 2,458. On the revenue side, only change I made was to update the COVID side of it to match the expenses and the reason why the COVID expenses have been removed from your general fund is we received the accounting requirements from the agency of education on how we have to track the revenue and expenditures in special revenue and special expense funds outside of your general fund so that's no longer in your general fund. The changes that I just outlined increase the expenditure surplus from 110,443 to 120,552 and increase the revenue deficit from 98,637 to 111,098 resulting in an overall projected surplus of $9,454 which is a slight reduction from the May projection which was 11,807. Any questions on any of that? Bill, you want to start with you? Any questions? Sure. Tara, so we've got a basically 9,500 projected surplus at the end of this year, that's a projection. When combined with prior year surpluses, where are we ending up? I don't have that figure, Bill, but I can happily email that to you. Thank you. Any other questions, Bill? No. Patrick? Nope. Good. Thank you. Okay. Justine? I don't think so. Nope. Amy? Hi. Yeah, a couple of quick questions. So as Lindy had said and knew as well that Stockbridge was awarded grant money for a freezer, which is wonderful. So how is that accounting expense through a special fund along with the grant money that was received or would I see that in through the general fund? That's in your enterprise fund under food service. So it's not included in your general fund at all? So it's not on my spreadsheet here at all? Okay. So both the revenue part of it and the expense part of it would be in the food service? Yes, that's part of your enterprise fund. It's tracked separately because it's a grant. So the expense has to match the grant award. So that basically washes the revenue and expense out in the enterprise fund. Okay. And I'm assuming that that is the same with the removing the COVID into a special fund as well. And they will essentially they will cancel each other out essentially because the amount of expense will match the what we received back in reimbursement. Yep. Okay. Great. And could you tell me what dues and fees are to the tune of savings of $8,400? I can get you the detail, Amy. I don't have that with me. Okay. I just didn't know if you had if it was like one thing or if it was you have dues and fees in every function code of your school. So every department, meaning function has its own dues and fees that are allocated to that in your budget building. And they just haven't been used this year. Some of the typical uses of that can be field trip ticket items of that nature. Some of the principal accounts have dues and fees that they're responsible to pay each year. We've seen some reduction in some of those dues and fees because of COVID, but I can't give you specifics. I don't have access to that report from at home right now. And you don't need to send it to me. You answer my question mean is essentially spread out throughout the entire budget. And that's the total amount. Okay. That is wonderful. And I think that is the only questions I have for you. Thank you very much. And Jamie to answer your comment. Yes, I will send it to the entire board. Good. Thank you. Any further questions for a business manager? All right. There being none, let us move on to the WRVSU policy committee anti-racism policy draft number three. So Ethan has joined the SU policy committee in this policy started back in the fall. Originally, what really started back in the spring of last year, the admin team put out a letter around equity for WRVSU. And so this originally started off as an equity policy. There were community forums. We had about 50 people participate way back in the fall. There was a couple of different evenings that we offered just WRVSU wide virtual forums. And based on that feedback, there was a decision to move toward an anti-racism policy. And this is draft three of that policy. The policy committee provided feedback on this policy last week and then decided to put it out to the local boards to get additional feedback. So this is really the second reading of the policy. And we would look to move it to a third reading in August with potential adoption after we get feedback this month from all the local district boards. And so I've already received some feedback. I've been gathering that information. It goes into a folder and we'll go to the policy committee for their June meeting to talk about if there's any revisions they want to make for draft four. And then tonight I was hoping to have a discussion and see if there's anything of substance that folks are looking to change or provide feedback on. And if folks feel like they want to go ahead and mark it up themselves and then send it to me, that's fine too. Some folks have done that. And that's helpful because I put it, like I said, in a folder. That's a working folder for the policy committee. And then the policy committee uses that to inform whether or not they want to make any additional revisions. Ethan, did I miss anything? No, no. I think that's, there was general feeling among the policy and among the SU board that this was going in a very good direction. There were some itemized notes from some of the board members moving forward. So obviously, you know, we're going in the right direction was the feeling, but we're not there quite yet. I also think it's appropriate to mention that there was some strong pushback during the policy committee meeting from some people who felt that and I want to get this right, that this was institutionalizing sort of, well, to some extent political activism, which they felt was inappropriate for the school, that they also were curious about instances being proving that this was needed. And I put this out there, not as my opinion, but just what I heard for further details. You could check the notes minutes of the policy committee meeting, which was held, was it last Thursday, I guess, Wednesday, Wednesday, from five, five, five to six o'clock, if you're interested in what some of those comments were. I have some comments myself just about language. I think a really good way for me to think about this when I was looking at it was, okay, you hand this to a teacher. Does he or she, or they have a clear roadmap of how to move forward or does the administrator have a clear roadmap? Are there any confusions? Are there any contradictions? So I would really appreciate all of your, as a policy committee member, but also, I think this is our job, is to really take a look at this and anything. I really think any instincts you have about it is important. And then, of course, now if there's further discussion at this point, that's certainly open. Anybody have any comments for Jamie at this point? Oh, Bill, go ahead. I just want to say it's, in my opinion, this is totally appropriate, necessary policy. I think I commend the policy committee working so hard on this, as well as our under Jamie's leadership. And by going through this and articulating these in the level of detail, and Ethan, I agree with you that so that it can be usable when it gets into the classroom, just brings out questions and concerns and issues that are educational in and of themselves. So I think that's why we have public schools, and that's why we deal with issues. And not every issue we deal with is not necessarily popular, but they need to be articulated and dealt with. So I support this effort very much. Good. Further comments? And I understand study. Patrick, any comment yet for Jamie? Not as of right now. I've still been looking things over a little bit. But yeah, no. As of right now, everything looks really good to me. And I strongly support this as well. Justine? I don't have any questions. I'm still digesting it. I would like to spend a little more time with it. But I am absolutely in support of it. I think there's a lot going on in other places in the country, whereas perhaps our students may not have experienced the extent of what is outlined in this very detailed document. They hear about it and they learn about it and they see it on Facebook and they hear their parents talking about it. So this is a really great way to teach children about the climate of the news and how to deal with that and teachers how to deal with that when these topics come up. So yeah, I really love it. I think it's great. I do have a quick question actually. I guess, so you would mention like this policy is something that will be placed in the teacher's hands. Now, is this something that is going to kind of be addressed with the students themselves as a whole? Or is it just if something arises or just trying to understand as a student what does it look like for them? So the procedures get into number one. We need to continue to do PD around this topic with our teachers. PD is professional development. With our teachers and we've got a group of about 40 teachers right now in the supervisory union of which I believe both your principals were part of that have been doing this work every Thursday night. And so that works happening. The idea is to have teachers and administrators across the SU who can be teacher leaders in this area, Patrick. And so once we have our teachers feeling comfortable around what's in this policy and the procedures of it, then what I think it is, it's about following the procedures and the procedures are accompanied the policy because without the procedures, I don't think that the policy means much. The procedures articulate that roadmap as we move forward on how we go about addressing the concerns in the policy. And in this third, what I like what I preach about about the third draft is it's really focused on creating a safe school environment, which is what we were focused on to start out with. And I think it addressed some of the concerns folks had around the SU originally with draft two around feeling like it wasn't focused enough on how do we go about that work. I think how we go about that work is creating a really respectful and responsible safe learning environment and just educating folks so they understand what racism is and because what I think I see often in our SU is that we do have racist acts, they do occur, and that a lot of that has to do with us not having educated folks about how those acts could have been a violation of our harassment policy. I think that at times it was due to a lack of us helping folks understand how that action was a clear violation and resulted in us substantiating harassment. So that's what I'm looking at is how do we go about teaching that and how those acts could be defined as such. Okay, no, that makes sense. No, I guess the main reason I was just kind of curious as far as the students is because obviously in some homes there is racism, you know, and so how to kind of navigate what a kid is seeing at home and what our policies are and what we expect and how to try and navigate a situation where a kid may be getting different information at home. Well, of course, that can also apply to reading. You know, apply to what? Sorry, to reading or to other to doing school work in general. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is, I think this is part of, you know, we make decisions and the board is very much a very much a part of this, that we are the policymakers of our district. And we establish in some ways the guy some of the guidelines along with the SU for how we believe our school should sort of approach our students and should educate our students. And this might not have been a policy that was part of education 30 years ago. But today it's a different time. Yeah, absolutely. Good. Amy, Patrick, you're all set. Yeah, thank you. Amy, any comments or questions for Jamie or me? No, I do not. I agree with everything that's been said here so far. I'd like the direction that this is going and I think it looks good. So good. I would I would just I would really encourage people to to study it, you know, take a look at it with this idea in mind. I think the guideline that you know we're trying to create a safe campus, safe campuses for our students and our and our faculty and our staff. And also, as Patrick points out, an educational document that will bring everyone into an understanding. Good. Let's move on. 7.5 WRVSU Energy Committee. Jamie, back to you again. Yeah, so the Energy Committee has been working diligently to analyze the usage of energy across all the member schools. And so that is just about complete. I mentioned that at the SU meeting. And so you're going to get probably later this week, I just got to check with the chair of that committee, a document to review between now and the June board meeting, the SU full board meeting. And I'm going to ask Chris Riley, who's been who's chairing that group, to put together a report and talk about it, the full board. So what you'll see is energy usage at each building, both in heating fuel and electricity, and how that compares to the other member buildings of the SU. And so that will also help inform us as we look to go, excuse me, to pursue a performance contract, whether they're projected savings that they're projecting make sense to us. So I think it's our own data point that we'll have. That group meets on the second Thursday of the month. It's a working group. We've accomplished quite a bit in two meetings. I will also let you know there was a lot of talk about solar. That group discussed that we shouldn't pursue any other solar options until we finish our energy audits and see whether or not that's a recommendation for us in regards to finding further efficiency as part of that larger plan, which made a good deal of sense to me because right now we just have multiple solar projects in different districts. And so we're looking at analyzing that data as well. And so Chris also pulled that data together to see whether or not the results of those partnerships have been playing out to what we hope to. So I'm going to send it to you, look it over, and then Chris will give a full report at the June full board meeting. Oh, June full board meeting. Thank you. Yep. So later this month, yep. 28th, I believe it is. Any questions for a superintendent on this committee? Bill? No, I don't. Thank you. Amy? Justine? No, thank you. Patrick? No, thank you. Okay, good. Move on to our discussion items. 8.1, results of the reconsideration vote for the decoupling of our SUD. Who would like to take the lead on this? Woohoo. I'll say again. I don't know. I mean, I guess I'll say that it was, you know, the numbers for me were encouraging that it was a clear, you know, vote to stay in. I don't think it's a, you know, I think we've got our, well, things are very different. I have a feeling like since they were a year ago, for many reasons, not only because of this vote, but our board is different. Our focuses, I believe, are different. And obviously with the, with Jamie coming in, the change is happening at the SU level as well. So I'm very positive going forward, but I'd sort of love to hear some other comments or feelings about where we are now because of this vote. I've got a comment. Yeah, no, I was actually, I was really, really happy with the results. I thought it actually went even better than I was expecting considering the first time around, which is really good because in my eyes it meant that people that were really getting the right information. But there are still people in the community that really think that they were kind of gypped in a way. And they think that people were lied to and kind of forced to vote this way. And so I'm, you know, as a board member, I'm trying to handle and figure out how to navigate conversations with some of these people when, you know, I don't necessarily think that that's the case at all. I think that people did get the right information and better information the second go around. So I'm just kind of interested in what your take is on that as the rest of the board. Yeah, my sense is that it was truly a team effort. And I don't use those words lightly. I like to see myself somewhat as a coach. And our job is to bring together a team. And in this case, I wasn't the coach. I was a member of that team. But we pulled together a team that really made a difference. Not only were we united, but we each played vital roles in getting the facts of why that the merger and keeping the merger is so vital for these two communities, not only the educational communities, but also for whether you're a taxpayer or a property owner. And that's that's very heartening. And I think one of the lessons learned was the power of being together in a team, whether it's the principals, the teachers, the PTO, the superintendent, the select board of our community. They all pulled in the same direction on that. And I think, Ethan, you're right. And this is a time to kind of say, we can do it, Stockbridge, and we can do it in partnership with Rochester. And together, we're going to be stronger and more successful in creating genuine educational opportunities and greater outcomes for our students. And that's why we're all here. That said, I think we've got a challenge ahead to keep that team going and to keep the education results moving in the right direction. And I'm looking forward to our discussion about the third quarter test results. The articles of agreement talk about five years, and then we're going to take a look at what's taken place over those five years. And I think we all need to, and I'm sure we're committed to, but we're going to need to deliver on those those outcomes. So it's clear that the merger is working for everyone. And hopefully with those outcomes, then we can pull together and communicate those outcomes to all the vital members of our community. And I'm very hopeful that we can do that. And so I'm pleased and hopeful. Thank you. Ethan, you're muted. I'm muted. Yeah, sorry. Justine, any comment? You lean forward. I thought you were going. Yeah, I mean, to piggyback on what Patrick was talking about, I've certainly experienced the same thing, not so much after this vote, but generally having the same types of conversations as he was describing. And one thing that Ethan pointed out is it is a different group of people there's different people doing different things. And the work that we're doing is a little bit different than it was when everyone felt lied to a long time ago. So I feel hopeful. Moving forward, we've done a lot of work on the articles. We've studied them. We've talked to the community. We've opened doors that were not necessarily open for dialogue and questions. And I look forward to engaging in those ways, moving forward so we can build a good team that does include community members. And maybe some of the community members who might not be super on board right now, we can talk to them and try to work with them and do our best to make it a strong team that's not just a small pack. So I'm hopeful and excited. Amy, any comments? Amy? No, I don't really have any comment. Thank you. I'm happy to be through it so that we can not focus on that anymore. We can focus back on our kids and their education. Well, I just want to reiterate what I said earlier that I believe that the people who challenge this merger have actually been some of the people who have fomented some of the change that has gone on and some of the new openness. So I've always been one to welcome a critique and someone who disagrees with me. I've always tried to be straight with people about my point of view and where I stand on it. We basically ask people to believe in this merger and to go forward. We've obviously, that's a challenge. We've got to make it work. And I believe it will. I think with Lindy and Jamie's leadership, we're in a good position. But yeah, obviously, keep tabs on us and let us know how you feel, how we're doing. I hope we continue to earn people's respect and support as we go forward. Good. Any other comments? Administration, Jamie? Are we good? No, I just, I, you know, as I said, I'm really looking at us working hard as a team to focus on delivering the promises that were put out early on. That's, you know, better programming, better results for kids at a fiscally responsible manner. And that's, that's what I'm going to look for us to try to do and to prevail with that. Good. Let's move on then. 8.2. Spring academic achievement date report. Achievement date report. I'm not sure. It's supposed to say data. What's that? What? It's supposed to say data report. Data report. That makes more sense. That was a test, Ethan. Achievement date report. We're not going to get, no, I'm not even going to go where date report should be. Principal is born in Stetson. We'll review the 2021 academic report. Yes. So we just finished several testing windows, one of which is our aspect testing window, which you don't see here yet. We'll have for you in August. It's still embargoed, which means results are starting to come back from that on our students in grades three through six. So we'll be able to share those results in August with folks. And students also were assessed using star 360 in our benchmark assessment assessment, excuse me, with Fontes and Penel for literacy. So as you can see, we kind of throughout the course of the year, you know, starting with our fall data and where kids came back from in the fall. And then we've talked about the winter data as well. And we're seeing some great gains when you look at our younger group in the winter. And then in the spring, we're still about 50%. So we're right around where we were in the winter. And then we did see quite a bit of growth in our third through sixth graders in their fluency and comprehension skills, which is what's tested in that benchmark assessment and continual growth in our primary grades. What's different this report that we really want to emphasize is if you scroll down right to this reading growth by scaled score. So that comes from our star 360 score. And the idea is that we're trying to show you, you know, how much growth a cohort has in a year, because when you have such small numbers, when we do percentages, all it takes is like one or two kids sometimes to flip flop that percentage. But what we really need to see is some of our kiddos and our cohorts sometimes growing more than a year to be able to close gaps. So when you look at Sorry, just a question. What do you mean when you say cohorts? Like grade three, we're going to track them all the way through or fourth grade. Okay, so when Yep, absolutely. So when you look through at this first, you know, at their reading growth by scale score, they should grow X amount a week as a reader and taking this and you can see this tremendous growth specifically in sixth grade, how much they grew from winter before we shut down pre COVID to now spring. So we've seen great gains in our sixth graders and a lot of the gaps they've closed as well as in that fourth grade group. That means they've grown over a year in their reading ability. And then some so to speak, can I just jump in? Yes. So another way for you guys to look at your scale score growth. And this is something we're going to educate folks on and use more and more because I think it's a better way for us to measure growth in our smaller schools than just looking at percentages is that your current third graders in our said are performing this spring where the current sixth graders performed last winter as fifth graders. So your current third graders are performing essentially two grade levels better than what we were seeing just last year. So those are the numbers you want to start to track. If you can look your fourth grade, your fourth graders currently were scoring well under last winter, what the current third graders did. So they scored a one on one last winter. And now they're up to a five 65. So that's good. That's huge game. So we have a tremendous gain and rebound fourth graders. Do you think that's due to COVID or No, these scores were prior to COVID Patrick. Yeah, I think the principles can talk about why that is. I think part of it is we're really focusing on improving our universal instruction. I think that's starting to pay off. There's a ways to go. But I do think that the intervention with fidelity and the high quality universal instruction ensuring that we're providing instruction five days a week that we're seeing that pay off. And this was the second year of the reading work really. So it really takes two to three years to take hold. Last winter, you had just started that work and that work didn't stop due to COVID. That work continued. Patrick, this is Bonnie. I would add to something that Jamie and Lindy said is I think a large amount of this growth can be attributed to exactly what Jamie said. The district has taken a focus to reading. And when we say with fidelity, we mean the things that are supposed to be taught are actually taught for the amount of time they're supposed to be taught. The teachers are much more attuned to looking at what is it that I'm responsible for specifically. Teachers always worked hard. Teachers were always very creative. I think what happened to us is that we sort of started to diverge away from maybe some of the essential skills, particularly in the early grades. And the professional development work we've been doing has brought a much more specific focus on that. So I think you can anticipate seeing these scores continue to improve. The others that I'll say that we're seeing is that we're seeing those upper grades that fourth, fifth, and sixth grade group, especially in both buildings are really closing a lot of gaps with just the universal instructions of the classroom instruction happening with a literacy block containing everything that it's supposed to. And they're closing gaps that way, which means we can in turn take our interventionists and really start to focus on our primary grades, like our kindergarten through second grade, and catch kids early. And the earlier we can catch and add additional supports, because maybe there's just one concept that's not clicking for them. The sooner we can close gaps instead of before we started this literacy block, there were kids, they were going extended periods of time, kind of trying to do the same thing over and over, and it was never really closing any gaps, which is. Did you notice with them before this was implemented, were they having a hard time, say the sixth graders moving on to middle school? I'm trying to think. I don't have quite enough to speak to that right now, but I will be curious as something for us to watch for, Patrick, as we start to move forward, like how each group adjusts the longer we've had this. That's a great question. Lindy, I had a question. Sorry, Bill, go ahead. What is protocol? Do I raise a hand or push a button or just? Yeah, raise a hand is best. Yeah, it just keeps the meeting organized if I can sort of focus each time. And then we know the person, the presenter is done to this or anything. Go ahead, Bill. Thank you. Lindy, you talked about the key focus going forward is the K through the primary grades. What's our strategy in accomplishing that coming up this fall? We're still working on it. And the reason I say that is because we're about to spend some professional development time this summer because we have some people shifting in what grade levels they're teaching. And Raj has some new teachers, so we're going to have to build on that and train those newer teachers up with the same thing that everybody else has received. And then one focus will really be on phonological awareness and decoding skills and being able to break those down for kids to help with. That's definitely a point. I'm sorry, can you just define what those are, please, Lindy? Sure. So phonological awareness or decoding, some people might know it as phonics. It's how we all learn to break down. So when we say see the word cat, it's how we know what sounds to make in our brain to make the word cat. And that comes through a lot of structured teaching and explicit instruction. So it's very clear on how that works. Some kids grasp it fairly quickly, and some students really need it broken down. So that is a key area of emphasis. Oh, Bonnie, were you going to respond? Yeah, I was just going to add one thing. I think another thing that Jamie has brought to our district that is critical is I know when I first arrived here, there were way too many youngsters who just weren't making it in terms of literacy and mathematics. And there didn't seem to be a human crime necessarily about that. Jamie has helped us in a really non-threatening way look at the data and say look, with good tier one instruction, which is the tier one instruction is instruction delivered by the classroom teacher, about 90 percent of our kids should be being successful. And we were quite a distance away from that. So part of it is this philosophical belief that most of our kids should be being successful in school. And Jamie referenced that when he was talking, Amy, when he was answering your question about about how the pathways position would be paid for in the future, we do have a significant number of interventionists. And what that means is we have a significant number of youngsters who have some lagging skills and need additional support. And our focus or the focus moving forward is going to be to have fewer and fewer and fewer youngsters who are not successful from tier one instruction. Or another way to say that is more youngsters who are successful from tier one instruction, fewer youngsters that need intervention. Thank you. Jamie. Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, when we look at literacy, my goal would be is that we start spending a lot more time explicitly teaching writing in the upper elementary grades and that students are reading to write. And so that's where I got into when I talked about that pathways coordinator. I think when we want to get our students to read and write, we need to engage them in what they're interested in and also around high quality nonfiction texts. So, you know, what I'm looking for in those upper primary grades is that at the end of the grade three, we know that kids are reading to learn and that so they in grades four, five, six, we're not still teaching kids how to read or teaching kids how to comprehend how to look at complex vocabulary and how to write. So that they can convey that they convey their thoughts and ideas. We know that's a critical skill for success. So I think right now, we're still playing that catch up bill, where we're still having to spend what I believe to be too much time on explicit teaching and reading in those upper elementary grades. I'd like to see us spending more time on teaching students how to be really strong communicators via written expressions. So that's the work ahead. We know we're not there, but that's what we look to get to. Oh, thank you. Amy? Oh, you're muted, Amy. Okay. Did you hear my first part? No. No. Thank you, Jamie. That's very exciting for what you're saying. I think this is a wonderful direction to be going and this is just wonderful to hear. My question is on the reading growth scale score. Looking at these numbers, in grade three, should they be scoring in the 300s, in grade four in the 400s? How am I comparing that? I mean, I understand what you're saying that the third graders are scored higher this year than what the last year third graders scored at the end of the year. So that's wonderful to see that they're so much higher. And it's wonderful to see the improvement. But what should the numbers average be, I guess? Well, Andy, do you want me to answer this, Lindy? If you know it off the top of your head, go for it. I have to look it up. I think I'm pretty accurate. And Lindy can look it up and correct me if I'm wrong. Is that, yes, you're going to want to see the upper score in the hundreds based on the grade level. So the upper 300s, the higher up you are, the higher percentile you are. So I bet you that grade three score you have there is right around the 50th percentile. Not percent, percentile, meaning that they score, if you look across this norm reference assessment, they're about at the halfway point as compared to peers in the third grade. When you look at your sixth graders, that's well above the 50th percentile. They're probably more up into the 70th percentile, which is where I'd like to see us. That's actually, your sixth graders is a huge celebration. Yeah, that's my daughter's class. So contribution towards that. And I'm very proud of that class for working hard on that. Sorry, I just wanted to make sure we got to everybody first. Justine, do you have a comment? No, thanks. It's very interesting. I'm just listening. Thank you. Obviously, my only comment is obviously the individual teacher understands, you know, this is a curve of the sort, you know, that we've got so many kids are doing so well, but obviously there's, you know, the two or three or whatever, depending on the class, who aren't doing as well. And this number sort of looks at the overall, as you say, cohort, not at the individual, but you know, you know from your reporting, your work with the teacher, who the individuals who are struggling are. Right. I'd say the biggest mindset that we're working with teachers on right now is to not, one of the reports that Star gives you is great equivalency and teachers often get themselves caught up in looking at that as a data point, but instead we're trying to look at how much kids have grown. Like, you know, based on the size of our schools, we know some kiddos that may have started behind, especially the beginning of this year, based on what last spring was like, to see some of those kids grow almost two grade levels over the course of a year is a huge celebration. But then also that same chunk of data gives us really deep dive specifics into those areas that they're still, they have, they have some understanding of, but it's not necessarily right at the tip of their tongue as they practice it independently. So that's what we can analyze this in a lot of different ways, but that's one we're really trying to work on with teachers. Very good. Thank you. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Let's just say we can't forget about math. Bonnie won't let us. Oh yeah, you're right. Yeah. No, happy. So as you can see from our math, this is grades first grade through sixth grade in this data. And at the fall, we were about 25, 75% split. We made a little bit of a jump in the winter. And then if we scroll down, Ray, we've made some more gains in our proficiency. But again, going back to our mathematics scale, so that scale score again, you can see we've made some great improvement, some steady improvement, I would say, not quite as much a growth rate as we saw in literacy. And our students, especially considering we haven't really taken a deep dive into professional development around mathematics instruction. And that's where one of our focal points that's going to be this summer in our professional development is really focusing on our universal. So every classroom instruction, what are our norms, making sure every kid gets the same type of explicit instruction within a math block is probably the biggest and Bonnie can speak to this more than I can. But it's the biggest, it just depends which classroom you walk into right now, what comes out of a math block, and we need to make that more universal or the same for all our students. A question going back a little bit, you mentioned we are going to have a lot of new hires in Rochester and some in some significant ones in Stockbridge as well. Are we do you anticipate a loss because of new training, people coming in taking on new programs? We already have it arranged for folks to meet with Amy Toth for a literacy coach so they understand the basics of our literacy block. And that falls on me as an instructional leader to make sure that those folks are set up so we can hit the ground running and it's going to take some time and it's exciting but it shouldn't come out of loss to our kids. Those are just the expectations when we walk in the door and we've got to meet them together. And even one of the things we look for in hiring when we sat in hiring committees to hire new folks was their their sincere interest in learning their sincere interest in wanting to roll up their sleeves, delve in and learn more about about literacy about mathematics. So it will be a big change. We are bringing in a number as Lindy said of new people but she's already on summer planning and there will be continued support for folks throughout the school year. So certainly the the strong desire is that that we won't see any loss from our youngsters. Good. Any other comments about math numbers here? No? Okay I think we're, I think we've told that. Thank you very much to all of you. Oh sorry Amy sorry I didn't see the hand up. Go for it. No this has been wonderful conversation and I do not want to take away from it but you assigned me for timekeeper so I'm just being conscious of this job that you assigned me. We're planning to talk about you a lot of 30 minutes for this entire discussion time and we're at 30 minutes already. Excellent thank you so much. Well I imagine looking at the other ones I think this is perhaps our weightiest topic in this section. And we still can talk about more again it's just since you assigned me in that position. I very much appreciate your diligence, your diligence in this. Excellence. Good let's move on then to 8.3 Stockbridge Generator. For those who weren't here last time we had requested that the administration come back with estimate and some financing possibilities for this so I'd like to hear that we'd like to hear their report. So the report is it's been we've put an RFP out for three bids and they will be back by the end of June so in August we will be able to share those bids for you guys to make a selection from as well as funding choices. Do we have a ballpark? Are any ideas what we're no okay okay. We felt like we yeah we had the original bid I um we, Lindy and I met with Lyle Smith who's been doing some consulting for us across the SU. He felt like it was really important for us to go pursue three folks to bid so we get a sense of what we're dealing with and just to make certain that the scope of the work makes sense. And so I'll have Lyle come to that August meeting too to talk to you about the three bids and to make a recommendation for you to consider. And do we have a funding strategy at this point or is that okay? My hope is that we can cover it locally in the local the current budget based on the fact that we've been able to find some additional savings based on how we're utilizing recovery funds to cover some intervention. Um I want to talk that over with Lindy and Tara and Lyle about that. About whether or not that makes the most sense. I don't foresee this isn't a ticket item that we shouldn't be able to figure out the funds for. So we do know we're going to have some savings in personnel next year due to the way that we're able to leverage recovery funds for intervention. So I think that we should be able to then take that money and invest it into our facilities. That's the plan. Great great. Good questions on this. Amy any questions? Justine any questions? Bill any questions? No none at this time. Thank you. Patrick any questions? No thank you. Okay good thank you. We'll look for it. I just want to repeat to everybody in case you aren't aware of this there will be no July board meeting and the reason for this is that any meeting any district in this SU has means that the SU has to be on full guard and up and doing all their work and Jamie really feels it's important for the SU office to get a break um after the work this done and we've talked about this as a board and as a full board SU board and we all agree that it's a very good idea so just just a little bit of that. Good all right moving on storage for both Stockbridge and Rochester schools. Um I I asked for this to be put on um I I remember myself and was also reminded that Stockbridge has basically been storing everything in every corner they can at building. Is that not true? Okay it's one spot and we have a purge plan which basically means clean spaces out and if it doesn't get used over the course of a year then there's conversation we we could whittle it down smaller and smaller each year we are there's still some stuff over there but it's not in every corner of the entire high school building. No this is I mean this is certainly been a discussion item ever since I've been on the board the idea of some extra space um that you might have more classroom space or the multi-purpose room might be a fuller if there was some exterior storage. The other part of this is that Rochester with whatever the result of the high school building is is going to quite likely need some storage space for if nothing else the tractor and outdoor equipment so the idea I was I wanted to present tonight and I think it's in the early stages of discussion is the idea of a new exterior storage space for both places and how we would go about that and even if that's something our administration wants and if and if you don't care about if you don't think that's wrong I think you're on the right check Ethan I just think still trying to wrap my brain around what exactly is in the Rochester high school building that needs to be stored like the tractor like that which you know as well as other pieces and part you know chairs tables things like that um so I agree we'll need something at some point and we do have outdoor storage space at Stockbridge which has worked pretty well though my feedback would be don't go with one that's got slanted ceilings because that takes away a lot of space um but I think we just need to we're not quite at the point other than the outdoor equipment of like figuring out what needs to be stored from the high school that the elementary access is does that make sense yeah I believe so um yeah I think Ethan as Lindy said we have to do a we have to do a purge of the high school too and when I mean when I say purge I mean two things we have to identify the things that can simply just be thrown away and then we have to identify those uh good serviceable pieces particularly furniture that are uh meant for a high school population not for elementary size kids because there's no use storing that type of equipment because we won't be using it so um I think right now though I certainly some storage space is going to be necessary I'd be hard pressed to tell you how much storage space we're going to need until we do more cleaning out of stuff okay I I wanted to bring it bring it up and and I certainly I'm willing to accept your yes Amy go ahead oh I I do understand what you're saying um I do know that there is urgency in us um changing the uh ownership of this building and so that does kind of create urgency to have a plan in place for where we are going to store this important um assets that are worth a lot of money we don't want our tractor and all all the equipment that we have to to get ruined because of this you know so it's kind of a catch 22 I don't know if we can um talk to if the town you know does end up um going forward with taking the building can we have a conversation with them about renting that space back uh for the tractor where it currently is um that could rather than us spend extra money building something you know that might be a way to go um but I am concerned that we are not that we do need to think about this soon um with as we're trying to move this sale as fast as we are you know it's it so well and and the other part to what Amy is mentioning is we have a dead we have a deadline we're approaching and that is the september 15th mothballing that we have currently set and I just think we need to be aware of of moving forward along with that uh is there anything in the high school that is usable educational material for either the stock for both rochester and stock bridge campuses um I think I had the feeling that the addition of sean lennahan might be useful because he obviously having taught in that building knows the building and knows what's there and knows what the upper grades and will be teaching the upper grades um and certainly could work in um with his cohort at stock bridge to see if there's useful material in there but I I want to emphasize what Amy is saying is that we we have a deadline approaching and um and we need to make sure this stays a priority well no I completely agree with you trust me it's I was over there today getting rid of you know no I I know you've been there no I just I guess what I the first steps I really need clear approval from the board that it's okay to move forward with cleaning this out and getting it sorted you know what is for elementary space and then once we've gone through and done that then we can definitely figure out storage a little bit quicker but I have felt a little like okay we let this one group come in and look at textbooks and books to see if we could purchase but now we're at the point where I need like the go ahead to do the purge so to speak and contact great you know like the historical society to come in and look at trophies and score books and things like that so we can move forward with this process and I just want to make sure I'm not I don't want to be the one I don't want to move forward and assume that it's okay to just move forward I would like some clear direction that it's okay to move forward with this process we have started purging the elementary as well to figure out what storage space is like in the building because sometimes people just don't need everything in their room the whole time they're teaching but they need access to it at a different point in time um I another question yeah go ahead Patrick uh no I guess as to what Lindy's saying one of my question is is I mean it's almost like the doors were just shut on the high school and every classroom still has you know paper pencils pens whatever uh in stock and then I guess with that do we try to you know organize something where we can get some volunteers together to kind of help you because it's I mean that's a lot of work for say one or two people but if you you know if we had a group of people that had the direction of say Lindy um and we really try to you know whether we get a dumpster and just start shuffling things that need to go in the garbage in the garbage and then consolidating what is say at that time possible to be reused or utilized in a way do we try and consolidate it into one room and then from there discuss what we need for storage at that point or or maintaining a space in the high school to to keep it for the time being wouldn't be thinking yeah I think it's I think but I hear you hear you Lindy I think you're asking for some action tonight um and I feel ready to instruct you to um to do the purge to do well I mean I think purge is a different I don't think we should use that word I think there's probably a better word for it yeah um a sort of a final dispersal how about dispersal as opposed because that sort of sucks about getting stuff to other places and I think um I I'd be ready to give you that permission to move forward I think the one issue for me would be whether we want um you know well being Rochester or mothballing are the two options really on the table of we will talk about in our next article um agenda item uh you know the real estate sale seems to be not realistic at this point what do we hold I think we need to know what we want to hold on to that Rochester may want and hold on to the last minute you know to see if something happens in Rochester um so anyway permission right now even would be the high school high school educational related items and what I mean by that is like uh there is a classroom library worth of grapes of wrath and any other book we probably all read into English on class so like exploring options to be able to work those and and get those out and shared and move forward I would I want to clarify I will not throw away history that's like the historian history teacher in me I would there's a greater population that understands all that and then there's this stuff like can like school supplies that can definitely be reused again that we've been finding as we've been organizing and then there's the stuff that is really truly high school or just a bunch of extra tables and that's a different conversation but it's kind of in phases and there's some really clear phases that can be done quicker than others but I just kind of need the yeah I think why don't then ask ask for what phase you need now okay we'll give you that approval Amy what let me just get to Amy as quickly um yeah I uh I hear what you're saying Lindy and I think that is the best approach I do think that um you know everything in that building was purchased by the town of Rochester so we definitely don't want to be purging even high school tables and chairs that could potentially be reused for a senior care center or or a classroom for this next group who might be coming in teaching an adult education class in some in some aspect so I guess I just want us to be cautious that we're not throwing that that type of stuff isn't just getting thrown out I do think a phased approach does make a lot of sense um and like you said that the history will will be preserved that is important um you know so there's two there's two two types of things maybe the the board could weigh in on tonight too Lindy would be the we definitely have some musical instruments that are high school level musical instruments our youngsters are probably not going to be elementary youngsters you're probably not going to be playing them and then there's some science equipment certainly we would want Sean Lenahan to take a look at it but it's primarily high school science equipment so um if if the board could give us their thoughts on that we could at least start with those two things those then both the musical instruments and the science equipment would be more fitted for for a high school you know in our high school being the white river uh you know the white river valley high school union high school so um if they would have an interest in that equipment is that something the board would support or would they prefer not to I would propose our entertainment motion that we direct the administration to move to the next level of dispersal of high school contents by removing our asking for interest in the historical items and high school educational items okay does that sound appropriate yep okay good are you including the science equipment specifically in the musical instruments in that high school appropriate stuff yes I think high school sort of covers I think she has a clear idea of what that is and we'll certainly be working with Mallory I imagine to our music teacher to identify what's useful to us and what isn't um the only the only thing of caution and Ethan maybe you could guide me maybe and justine as far as the white river valley players and you know their intricate with the theater and I don't know um how musical instruments stuff goes along with them that their ownership of well I know um Lindy you're you're arranging a meeting that I sort of set up uh Lindy sitting down and Bonnie I believe is sitting down with um members of the white river valley players just sort of go over where we are what they have there what the future is about that so I hopefully if Lindy if you can make a note to address that if I don't even think we will get into where their space is there's plenty of other spaces for us to go until that meeting happens yeah I got you right but I just I mean is the piano uh is the school piano actually uh half purchased by the players because they use it for productions you know and is that something you're talking about getting rid of is our school piano and I don't know if I'd that would be the right thing to do I think I would say Amy that we would have Mallory organize what's the high school stuff and then before we just disperse I would reach out we've already started conversations with the players like Ethan said so if musical theater is in their repertoire which is what it sounds like then we will make sure to connect with them as well okay good the the other group we connected with just so the board knows this is we've connected with um the Rochester rec department and and quintown because both of them had equipment that they had purchased stored either in the high school or the elementary school locker room so we made sure that they have their equipment um as we're trying to whittle this down here good um again I'll get back um do we feel do we feel with those caveats that you feel ready to move this direction yes okay uh could somebody make that motion uh making sure we use the word dispersal and not purge yeah I'll just I'm gonna quickly add to the board what what I would suggest we do is once we figure out who has what and we're getting ready to disperse of um items that we also provide an opportunity for community members to come take what they'd like and I've had good luck with that in the past um in my school and around in regards to dispersing tech equipment um I mean folks to have drop-ins to pick stuff up that they may find useful so I think that that should be part of our plan of action yeah like is there also I mean is any of it worth trying to sell or take donation for where like you know I mean obviously there's an issue with storage is there any way some of it could be uh sold to bring in funds to support storage oh it's nice it's like tables chairs and stuff I mean there's gonna be so many chairs tables and right back yep go to your Emmy I have two goats that just ran across my lawn so I'm I'm very sorry I will be right I'll catch you later I would like to have this conversation that that part with the the community I think that the the town and envision should really be part of that group with with what they're yeah they're trying because they're trying to do something and I don't want us to to to get rid of something on the right hand that they were thinking so okay sorry well maybe we're not there then um I mean it's just there's so many stakeholders in this um it's it's a hard I feel personally that I think we can go ahead with the height the educational parts I I think you get the message Lindy um that's I'm gonna and I I would personally I would hope you guys understand that if there was a question I wouldn't do anything with it I just we have kind of been in this holding pattern and we I mean other than obviously kind of need that we also can't you know to some extent we can't wait for all these different party holders um because we as the school board have a responsibility to take care of this building for our constituency and um that ultimately has to be the top priority for us okay that that they put their interest out and they tell us what they want um we communicate with them that this is happening I think that should be part of this but um it really can't be up to us to divvy out in the best way we need to get this done sorry justine well I was just suggesting that maybe we could have another special meeting where it was after it was decided where things would go if we could then approve it before it goes or something like that so we could give the go ahead of the first steps of just you know the next the plan for dispersal of the high school appropriate materials but if we got had a special meeting where we could vote on it you know I don't know I just wonder community members like Amy brought up that things were purchased they might be you know concerned about what we're doing with it I don't know yeah but but we also have you know there's been a lot of time that building's been closed for a long time I sort of like the rule of my house if something sits in the same place for three years you don't need it anymore to some extent I understand this is all new for everybody but we can't be second guessing what what envision is going to want necessarily that can't be that can't be our job our job is to itemize and to move on it really is I feel very strongly with communication but you know I don't think we can hold this back where we've only got three months to we're supposed to be mothballing this building and that's a lot of work in three months I agree with you I think it would just be I would like to see another meeting where we could at least know what was decided what do you mean decided like what we decided that we're going to give the grapes of wrath to Ethan to spy studio for his bookshelf we're going to get donate the old musical instruments to Bethel school you know what are we you know what we're going to do with all that stuff the old chalkboard erasers that are piled up in the you know there's a million things but I don't know that's part of the communication in my opinion it's not just you know oh now the school's empty we're going to sell it there was no no no so there's a great inch between that and we're giving very clear direction to itemize and disperse and I trust our administration I trust our administration to do it wisely personally and I say that's why we're saying we're giving them the the directive to disperse these two areas you know high school level uh material and and historical data um and I think that's pretty darn clear disperse means that they take in these considerations which I trust they will and I don't know that we need to a little bit micromanage that um I think we can trust them to do that work that's my point of I completely agree with you I think too like from what I'm understanding what Justine's trying to say too is we don't want to have a situation where in two months we get a group of community members from Rochester that start to to have faults or problems with how we disperse and so you know in the next month while say Lindy and whoever is is you know trying to figure out who to disperse to and for what maybe it's not promised but is it something that they're interested in if so we we pass pass the motion at the next at the next school board meeting as far as where things are going and maybe large large ticket items you know like I mean and like Lindy said obviously there's going to be things that she's not going to feel comfortable with until until we all have a have a say in it um but also in that aspect I mean we've sounds like we've given Rochester ample time to you know make a decision on what they want to do with the school and if they're not really willing to answer that question then you know we need to do something we you know we can't just sit back and and watch everything in their rot well there is there there is another way to think about this and that is that that mothballing also might include the final dispersal of contents or a further dispersal that that is part of the mothballing process that mothballing is not just draining pipes and boarding windows but that it is also part of this that would give us a little more time that the september 15th wouldn't be because basically you're saying at the next meeting we vote on it well the next meeting because we don't have the july one is august that's a month you know less less a month and you know six weeks before we're supposed to start the mothballing process which does give our administration very much time to complete this process just and there's a there's a couple section of the high school that are pretty uh lindy and i i think are not going to have the expertise to deal with and that's the shop the shop is filled with welding equipment plumbing equipment carpentry tools um i don't know what we would begin to do with that stuff and then um just the amount the volume of high school materials that's in there sewing machines and the the automated dolls that talk to you and there's just uh there's just closet after closet filled with high school materials that we need some at some point some clarification for what is it that you want to have happen with those items and i would say disperse yeah you know as i mean yeah i'm gonna disperse i'm gonna interject okay i really think we need to quantify what groups in the community want then from there i think we should publicly announce that things are available to the community who purchased them and you allow the community to access some of those things and what the community doesn't access we then take inventory over and then decide what we want them to do with them because you know there's a lot of those things too that high schools don't want anymore right and so just because we had them in the high school then doesn't mean that other high schools in the area are gonna want them and if they do then they should come the day that we announced those few days that we're gonna have those things available to folks and they can go through it and decide what you know they may want to access i really think that that is part of how you disperse some of these materials is that once you figure out what a community groups want and what do they find value in whatever's left that you allow it to be accessed by the community so are you thinking kind of like a community estate sale yeah that's what i'm picturing patrick so maybe to have lindy you know we can organize the collection of the things that can be used within within our school our schools now and then what's left can be we can hold an estate sale on a weekend um for for the community to come to and and you know go take you go through the shop people like myself can you know who are contractors can go through the shop and if there's tools or anything we can sell them to them there was an issue there was an issue with that um blonnie you mentioned i remember several meetings ago and that is liability yeah taro knows about taro and i were talking about product liability because some some individuals have told us that the power equipment in there really doesn't have the appropriate guards and this that and the other thing i mean i think i think that be fine as long as maybe we just have them sign us a waiver you know uh let's get to justine and then amy i i just wanted to say i had i have no doubts in how uh lindy and bonnie would disperse the things my point was basically to encourage transparency so it wasn't like oh all the stuff is gone where did it go that's all i wanted to that's the point i was making not that i i think we should definitely go ahead and get rid of all the talking dolls and things i just want to make sure we're doing it in a transparent manner and and jaymy you didn't want the talking doll at your house justine come on that's i have enough talking dolls amy i think what jamie said i is very correct that we need to engage this community group that is looking for for potential repurposing of the high school um because the shop is one of their biggest draws for repurposing and they want all the things as in that shop um and so kind of like what pat had said doesn't make sense to me is to kind of uh get a handle on what is there or what the community groups want potentially and then um right get disposition the rest of it that that that doesn't have a need um and i think that we're going to know pretty soon the viability of of this community group i mean soon being you know months but um this is not a multi-year process so i think it's important to engage that that community group so let's get back to the machines that they're they're talking about having adult classes in there and you know sewing machines might be something that they were hoping that would come along with the purchase okay lindy i just totally fine i'll follow your direction i think that's a great idea but i think there needs to be a deadline like they walk through they make those community groups by this date and then by this date we're pulling it all out so anybody who would like to come see what is left can come see and then we can you know we can't wait four months for someone to come and make a decision about what they want or what they don't want um i just feel like this is a huge thing on folks minds in both communities i'd like to bring some sort of closure to it so we can focus on other things like what sort of storage needs to be created for the elementary school to be able to focus like you know what i mean like it's all a domino effect and summer gets short really quick when you start to think about that so we gotta like and i i feel like we're handing you a bunch of unfunded mandates to some extent because you know you've got it you've got a whole you've got staffs to retrain and things like that which is your priority work um inventorying really is not um and so in some ways i think i almost feel like the board should take this on and we should all show up down there and and start working through a room and inventory and come up with an inventory because if we have an inventory then that's that's a lot easier to put out there to people what they want um but i really don't think well i don't think we should be asking our administration to be sitting there going through closets pulling through bags of paper and stuff i i just think that's a waste of their time and our money um so if we want volunteers to do this or something like that i think i really think it's if it's if envision wants to run this um that's great but i i really i'm i'm now feeling like this is not something i want lindy to be doing spending a lot of her time doing her body no no i agree i i think that you're right that i mean i i kind of assumed that we would help volunteer through this but i do think a little bit of direction from from lindy and her staff would be ideal well we i mean you know we could all take a room and yeah two of us two of us could do inventory a room in probably a couple of hours i would imagine and give you a pretty good idea of what's in that room and that you do that with all the different rooms does that sound reasonable lindy that that's something that could happen or do you think it's going to take days to go inventory each room so i think it's twofold there's still filing cabinets with stuff with kids names on it so like that's got to be hold out as well not the filing cabinet but the stuff that that's a process in love itself because of what we have policy on that we need to follow yeah and so we're trying to work our way through that i mean it depends how detailed you want this inventory to be do you want to start with the rochester envision rochester group and just let them do a walkthrough and talk about what they're looking what types of things they're looking for so we can pull those out are there a community group that you're thinking of let me let me go this first then what i think what we direct you to and what i think i think you should be spending your time on is specifically school related issues that you know the policy of and you can deal with when it comes to sewing machines and baby dolls and stuff like that i think that's something that any community group can uh can can can can deal with um but obviously we can't be looking through those files right that needs to be administration only right so that's something we can give you instruction nobody's gonna want that nobody's gonna want that in the community nobody has a right to it in the community so that's the kind of thing you should absolutely be doing i believe um so we need to give you that direction um uh it sounds like where this board is not ready to um approve um uh a further dispersal we're just not there yet so i but i do believe we can give you direction as to um removing i think we can give you direction tonight as to removing educational um files and folders is that what what's the term you want i don't think you even have to give us direction for that because it's a policy that we already follow so i think you're good on that um i think you have to decide other next steps about the other materials that are in there how about this you make that we give you a motion tonight to allow you to make these spaces safe for outsiders to come into okay does that make sense because then that's really about the educational it's also about you know i don't know safety issues or stuff like that um if there's anything like that and then then we can start uh because i really don't think you should be doing this you know you should be doing the the the baby dolls i'm gonna i'm gonna give one of those to lindy so she can demonstrate it to you next time oh i remember them i remember them carrying around these things are awful they're wet i passed that class in high school i'm good i don't have to do yeah and along with that i would like to encourage lindy to bring stuff to the elementary school or identify and and set aside stuff that could be used for educational purposes for elementary students because i don't see why our sixth graders can't be using microscopes that we have in the high school i mean there's no reason why we should we shouldn't be able to offer some maybe you know more middle lower high school stuff too because we have it why not use it absolutely we can do so if if we're gonna have um so can we direct that can we make a motion to direct the administration to remove i don't think we need a motion do we oh if it's policy right okay then you know that's your next next thing and can i just add i i do believe there's a lot of stuff that's this trash can you please you know i think we can trust that lindy and the maintenance staff knows what's trash and what isn't and that we can get a dumpster and throw out the trash because there there is stuff in there that's just trash and again it'll make jobs easier when you go to start inventorying not talking about anything that's a value do we want to set a date where the board can help remove some of the trash and help organize yes i think we do i think i think um you know we we get otherwise we're asking our administration to take on all this while we sit back and i don't that's not yeah you know one of you could handle this if the whole board's going to be there as wanted as your board retreat and then just on the time i like that idea um justine i know you're the most time sensitive person um in terms of the work you're going into um how do you feel about i imagine this would be a saturday or a sunday for a number of hours um um it depends on when are we talking in like june or july i think it needs to be june june would be better for me than july yeah okay um let's i would prefer during the week because that is when my child would be at camp um i don't have any week time off right now yeah um why do we do two different days one week day and what weekend day and as long as everybody picks picks one of them um are we asking our administration to be there or are we just going to go in inventory or road can i at least get in the right direction like i'm sorry i'm having trouble hearing you lindy i'd like to be there to at least get you guys like started in the right direction like hey we've got all of this ready for you can you come look at all this great so maybe we should actually wait for lindy to get to that place i like deadlines let's pick a day yeah i think we need to pick a day sorry it'll help because then i can get everybody on board so uh there are there is the 12th as far as saturdays there's the 12th 19th and 26th as far as sundays there's the 6 13th and 20th and 27th and then a midweek you know i i i can make my you know i could do something with you amy on a on a weekday uh bill can you do a weekday yes okay um so thank you ray uh 6 19 is how how soon lindy do you think this would be 6 19 tsa graduation thank you um how soon lindy do you think these bill rooms will be garbage free and um sensitive document free can we think for the weekend of the 19th and then the beginning of that next week i think we could get a lot done by them okay so that's trash though too i mean and we i i mean we a lot right i can i don't have and we shouldn't go into i mean if we just know that this is not an area to deal with but i like your dating i the the week of the 21st would be very nice for me um so saturday the 19th who can make saturday the 19th i can justine could you make saturday the 19th um maybe after graduation half my niece half graduates on the 19th ah got you that's right we just saw tsa graduation should we move it to the sunday i would like that sunday afternoon amy could you do sunday afternoon uh that is father's day weekend and also i have a baby shower that day so i'm sorry that's not going to work i could do the monday july wednesday thursday or friday of the next week though well uh then if if you can't let's let's see how many uh patrick what's your schedule for saturdays and sundays patrick are you there i suggested an idea ethan yeah i could put out a doodle poll tomorrow uh and you because you can do that as a board to decide your meeting dates and we could see when you can get the most people so you don't continue to take time tonight trying to figure this out i agree okay let's do that great thank you um the one advantage here is that i think we've kind of taken care of 8.5 um to some extent um so i just want to get clear lindy you don't need as far as sensitive documents you're on top of that please put out to us anytime you do need to help hauling trash um out of the building and i think some of us might be available on a day um and could just do it you know so um let's let's put our hands into this to make this happen um i uh i had one further comment on 8.5 as far as the uh uh sale of the hutch high school building i did hear back from one of my real estate agents basically what i expected which was that uh this was a very difficult property to sell it was going to take more time and money than it was worth to them to invest and so they're very busy and it was not a practical position to take up i think that's probably what we'd hear from other people but that was certainly what i heard from this one so um i i you know i don't know i guess we can keep i guess we need to decide if we're going to keep pursuing a private sale um uh either i'll just add that david david reached out to just to see if he could help generate any more interest and on top of what you just said um the indication that i know he got from a couple agents is that the timing is just not great based on the real estate market right now uh again that the effort right now in vermont to pursue this building when real estate's just popping still um that it doesn't seem worth their effort at the moment so i guess um you know what's the board's will on this do we want to keep banging the drum and trying to find a private sale or are we down to our you know basically our two last options which i was mothballing closing the building um uh and potentially transferring it to rochester town i think that's the reality of where we are i don't want to completely lock the door on a private sale but i don't think we should be spending effort and money pursuing that at this point um maybe at down the road if if this road keeps getting long then maybe we need to revisit this um later is my opinion justine i think we've done our due diligence and looking for uh realtors to take it on so i think waiting and and working on cleaning it out and putting our energy toward that i think is more important than um just knocking on realtor stores right now the real estate market is it has picked up again and it's summertime so it's it's not gonna slow up for for a while in my opinion so patrick patrick are you still on do you know about star six to unmute this is gray it was can you hear me now yeah oh yeah yes uh uh yeah no i uh i i agree that um i think it's gonna make more sense to to move forward with inventory and figuring out what's going on inside the school um because that needs to happen before we make a sale anyway and if we can't find a realtor right now then i think we put our focus on that good and bill yeah i agree with justine's and and patrick's um thrust on this i think they're right i correct i support that good all right i think that's our clear direction um uh as far i just wanted to um uh say i i i sent an email to board members of the select board um asking if there was any intention to hold a vote anytime soon um with rochester or what their intent was um i i hope to hear back from them with with some information about that because i think that would obviously um give us some confidence in that in that particular future but we'll see obviously they're waiting for their grant um which amy told me june 10th they will hear whether they got the evaluation grant um and then of course that process will start at that point if they do get it any other comments about the sale of rochester high school building no uh patrick i can't see you got anything on that no i'm off that bill no i don't have anything good okay thank you moving on 8.6 tax anticipation note okay so we will continue to use community national bank another year for our tax anticipation notes the interest rate on borrowing is 1.25 percent and the interest rate on the investment is a 1.35 percent so i just need you all to make a motion please if you are in agreeance to accept the fiscal year 2022 tax anticipation note from community national bank and then i will send you all the loan docs i need a majority of the board to sign also the board clerk not the clerk of the board but the board clerk and then the treasurer needs to sign all the loan documents prior to july 1st any questions on the tax anticipation note bill no oh bill go ahead i'm fine okay good thank you i make a motion to accept the tax anticipation note for the fiscal year 2022 2022 as stated uh from community national bank as stated by tara second second by bill all in favor signify by saying aye so i have a question we do not have a clerk of the board so who's going to sign that you appointed a clerk of the clerk when you did your board org if your actual clerk not the clerk of like chair vice chair clerk who's your clerk i think it's pat is that right me so that pat pat has a special place that he has to sign on the loan docs okay good great how will that be coming around to us tara is that like it's the majority of you can sign an electronically i can do it that way i can send it out via email but if you need to sign in person if you want to identify a common place what i can do is i can get it printed or i can send it to one person to print and then i'll need your signatures and then we'll need to get it like i said to rebecca the treasurer for her to sign in her sections um what works for you i can do e doc i can do an electronic so pat and ethan can sign electronically yes so can i i can too and justine ken how about you amy are you good to sign electronically does that mean printed out sign it scan it back in and send it back to you that works because i can do that okay so what i can do then is i can send it to one person they can sign it when the ones that can do it electronically so pat ethan and justine if they can sign electronically then it can go to you for printing and signing and then if you don't mind when you go to sign because you're still signing ap warns right then you can bring it to rebecca and have her signature and then it just needs to get back to me okay perfect thank you all thank you very much darum all right so we've taken our nine action action possible items we're onto 10 new hires and resignations you had some additions yeah we added tizuki and vacant and board position to the discussion oh sorry sorry sorry i did not write those down sorry what's us oh gosh okay so tizuki for those i don't know pat or bill if you know about this but for several years of the past several years the rochester school has been rented out in the summer months one one week in the summer to a a rather large uh uh school education program a susie susuki music program and they take over they used to take over all the buildings of the high school and the elementary school and many of private homes that have uh pianos in them as well they would do their recitals in the auditorium it was a pretty good it's it's a a moneymaker for the town in terms of rentals and people you know in the in the town yes there the question is they would like to use parts of the high school and lindy's shaking her head on that and uh it's it's it's just something we need to i think that it's it's appropriate for the board as a whole to talk about because it is board um property and we need to make a decision about that so lindy go ahead well so i just want to be clear when they first approached about this year it was under the understanding that things are different like that building the high school building is not being used we didn't know what covid guidelines were going to be so the original request was for the elementary school building and all the outdoor structure slash tent spaces and now there's been pushback to access more the high school and i've tried to explain that it's not just a matter of like sending someone in to clean those extra spaces like it's it's a safety concern it hasn't been used for over a year and a half now like it really i would not recommend i understand how important it is but i'm just really concerned about the liability of opening up some of those spaces um for their use for that week ethan the other issue we have too is some of the some of the some of the ancillary services you need if you're going to have folks in there you know some of the water has been shut off to some of the toilets um there were little leaks around some of the faucets not major ones but certainly not ones we're going to call a plumber in knowing we were probably going to be shuttering the building so we just don't have this the building just doesn't offer the support you need to have to have people in there we've got ceiling tiles down where we've been monitoring some issues and um i have a question yep so now now it sounded like um the the main focus for the high school was the use of the auditorium for this is that correct or and music room in the music room i'm just wondering i mean as far as is there a possibility to have the auditorium available to them and bathrooms and water would have to be used only at the elementary i don't know that they're going to walk from there over to the elementary school to use i mean unless we lock yeah i guess but one of the sets of rooms that we'd have to have a plumber come in and work on is the one that's right outside the auditorium the ones where they typically use those bathrooms when they're using the auditorium it sounded like though and lindy if i'm wrong correct me it sounded like uh she might have been looking for more than the auditorium am i right on that or wrong on that or is the auditorium the music room and the um fax room right the homec room yeah yeah so the rooms that were the last occupied by when we were in there right and so there is a bathroom off of that used to be included in the home back room it's a single bathroom now one's fine amy that one's in fine shape so that one's fine so the the two um stall bathrooms you're saying are both shut off those are the ones that partially shut off those are the ones we need to get a plumber in to make to do something it's a sink or it's a toilet or is it the entire bathroom that's i believe it's two of the toilets in one of the sinks but i i would have to check that to be certain okay and then um in the music room those bathrooms are shut off as well no those bathrooms where those bathrooms are fine okay i mean they haven't been used in a couple years so that would be the other thing we'd have to flush them and see what we have here well as far as i know those would be fine it's a safety issue too that we have to give some thought to i personally go ahead justine i was wondering what the safety issue was can we talk about that other than the bathrooms um yes we have some ceiling tiles down we have some wires that are up sort of away from you know people who aren't looking to climb around on things and stuff like that and we can close that up i guess but i was a little concerned about youngsters being in there wondering what kind of you know mischief they might get into i personally feel like this is not the year to um be second guessing how to use the auditorium um we've made our position pretty clear about the high school building and what we're trying to accomplish with it i think if it was initially offered as the elementary building i mean you know maybe we if they want to pay to move a piano from one place to another and retune it i can understand that but uh i don't know i just i just feel like after all we just went through about inventory and the mess we want to make in the next few weeks to get this stuff cleared out that's the exact opposite of what we're trying to do to make this space usable for for one people coming in for one week um that's my opinion that it's not the year to approve this that we should stick with what was offered the elementary and the outside buildings outside structures i agree with you yeah i think egress is something just to consider two ethan the more you guys were talking as i'm listening you know i just worry about egress around fire safety and if we got ceiling tiles down and i do have him wired like that's just i i support it believe me i support it shizuki i support what they're doing but i think it was very clear to them this is a different year i think it's already i i i just don't you know what we're just talked about i really feel like we're going in a different direction right now i hear what you're saying i just want everybody to understand that the little kids are not just running around as part of shizuki is a parent is required to be at every lesson at every function with a kid so you know just it was sounding a little scary with just you know random kids running around and climbing things um and this is not that definitely would not happen because there is it's a one-to-one every child is required to have a parent with them at all lessons and all performances all right well um i i brought this up because i want us to talk talk about it i think we should you know i don't know if we need to move on this because it's basically already been per side but do we want to open up do we want to make the effort to open up parts of the high school to the shizuki for one week all right i think i i have a question for them patrick um now if the initial agreement was just the elementary school this this year i mean is there a chance that they're going to want to back out and find another um venue and if they do does that mean potentially losing them in future years when you say that this is usually a really good moneymaker for rochester i mean i i can't speak to that all i can speak to is our situation knowing our school and our buildings um i certainly don't want to jeopardize it i would think there was too short a time for them to find a whole new venue um uh it's i just don't think they quite understand the picture the only thing i could add to that patrick is when i talk to to p.m she's the director of the institute i must have been in february january february um i had shared with her um the situation around the high school and that the board was looking to sell the high school and she had asked um you know if i had any idea who might be purchasing it or if it would go to the town and i told her i i certainly did not know that but depending on what happened to the high school um you know and who the owner was she might very well have to look for another location if she wanted the institute to be the size that it had been um if she if you know the owner didn't allow access to the high school so i think that's in the back of her mind that that's a possibility because they literally they literally used it's safe to say they literally used every inch of both buildings it was a very very well attended institute um and there were few spaces in that building that weren't used what now what's the time frame for this uh in relation to us as a board meeting there and and starting to clear things out is it before or after uh let me just check that after it's it's after now is i mean can it be kind of left open like as a as a discussion and see where we're at after we spend a day there and whether it's realistic or not well the only thing i could see is i guess i assumed that the music room was still that that mallory was still storing instruments there and probably was using the bathroom every once in a while over there so it seemed reasonable to me that that room was was more um in more of a possibility than than other locations in in the um high school i think the other thing about the music room amy that to jamie's point um is that it has its own output it has its own outside so there's no need to you know we could we could deal with the egress issues just around that just around the music room it's more difficult when you start talking about the home act room in the auditorium well maybe maybe i mean could we offer just the music room to them then and say that we're just really can't do anything else but the music room is is a music room it and that's what this institute is about is music and um you know maybe they say no or you know they're looking for as much space as possible i don't know that's sort of our decision you know we we've made a clear decision already as a board um what are you know where we're headed with this building is to not be responsible for it um i i it's too far away it's everybody walks around the town got you so i i mean you know i that's my my view is i don't think i don't think we have the time for this i'm but i'm if you want to put this off um and see where we are you know two weeks before but i i don't know if they were going to be that's going to change for them because they obviously have to decide numbers of staff to bring in i mean i don't know they may not care they may need an answer right now i think at this point if um they're scrambling to find locations in rochester to be able to hold these classes these that would be the the the music the whatever's the music room and the the three that they would like to do in our high school they're they're looking for other venues in rochester that um they can use and you know they're already using most of them so um you know okay well you know that's why we were talking about it just to get it out there and i'll know what's happening amy do you know if they're using uh like the pierce hall and the park house they're probably not able to go into the park house this year right i would say they're probably not able to go in sorry i said chaneler earlier i meant pierce hall and i'm sorry no i i do not know um i do not know all the venues that they are using i was just wondering if they were at a shortage because of covet and that's why they're being persistent about the high school building um but in my experience it is a tremendous economic boom for the town of rochester every year having worked in all of all of the establishments in the center of rochester that serve food it's incredible income for the town and it probably will be uh make a huge difference um with regards to covet so whenever we can do to be flexible i would i would support the susuki institute because they've been coming for a very long time okay lindy and then let's make a decision i just want to remind you though that we haven't allocated any funds to keep the electricity on in that building or any of that because it comes on july one so we reset at the fiscal year so that becomes another piece of the puzzle but we're obviously going to have to pay something to till september 15th what do we want what's our will here we need to make i think we've talked i believe we talked enough what do we want um just for it here can we make can we make the music room available to them and then when we are there two weeks before we at least try to get through any issues that may need to be addressed in order to make that safe and um and usable for them i i just i don't i don't want to put this on our administration right that's that's my that i trust your your opinion and i i'll stand with that that's fine i i hear the arguments i believe me at the economic i would hate for them to go somewhere else i just um uh you know if if if we had a whole volunteer committee that was here supporting suzuki that could get in there and help us with this i just there's so many unknowns there's just so many unknowns for us right now so i i that's my opinion and i i really think we should take some sort of vote on this because i don't think just um my opinion you know swaying and i think the question is do we do we hold out the and i what is our question here our question is do we open the building to suzuki or not because i don't think they want an if or when maybe they need a yes or no and i think we need to give them a yes or no that i think we say no as of right now and you know if if for some miraculous reason we can offer them the the music room we you know it'll be a bonus justin yeah yeah i agree with with pat um i guess we have to say no if there's no other way to get it and you know up to par um yeah i'm not super happy about it but i agree with pat amy uh yeah i guess so um sure bill yeah i support the staff's approach to this and in this case it would be no okay i think that's clear um that we let them know that it is it is not an option um and that it's tough it's tough call nobody's called me about spy studio by the way so i'll approach them about that that's under the space with a piano well um we'll see what we can do but i think it's good the park out of the piano yep well i'm not gonna want a bunch of kids in there right i know i know um good uh moving hey nine o'clock moving on yep yep yep yep uh eight eight eight was um rochester board member i i i don't think there's a lot to say here basically we're we're looking for somebody i may have a lead um that i'm pursuing um but uh i think anybody who knows somebody in rochester who might be interested please get the word out have them talk to me or jamey um um i i think there's some people i don't know that we you know that the herald is good but i don't know that it necessarily got the word out there so um um any any any way we can get the word out um to get a good qualified board member from rochester would be appreciated those of you who are listening who live in rochester if you can think of people um please send names i'd be happy to make calls myself and i think that's all we have to say on that unless somebody else has a comment nope good now let's move on to new hires and resignations yep so we have um two resignations this evening uh mallie mallory fagoras has submitted her resignation um music teacher and outdoor educator for next year and uh meghan donahue our long-term sub for sixth grade and she also taught some four or five literacy um submitted her resignation she will not be finishing out the school year we will place joni wisdall our interventionist and certified classroom teacher in the classroom space to finish out the year with those kids um who is more qualified and we have some new hires um um ron hall has been has interviewed and has accepted the um like the four five six literacy humanities position for next year in rochester elementary so he'll be paired up with shon lana han for next year which will be great and um natalie hillman will be the third great teacher next year in rochester and we have some others we're finishing up the interview process with so we're making really good progress working good so yeah good work i know this is a lot to take on at the end of the year so appreciate all the effort good um any questions about um hires or resignations can i just add that uh i had a really enjoyable conversation with ron just like with shon prior and um and with the um oh i'm sorry it's late natalie yes good and natalie uh you got some really good candidates coming aboard um i'm sad it's good can it folks go but and natalie's from uh norwich university and uh had a really delightful conversation with her um and i just want to say i personally i accept and do we do we need to accept these resignations i believe as as a motion um i just want to say with regret for both of them i heard very good things about megan i know for various reasons and i'm very sad about mallory um i personally worked with her um in in a couple different ways and uh really liked the program she created and um i'm sorry i hope you know hope it's a positive step for her but uh i i accept i will accept with regret in both cases um uh entertain a motion to accept the resignations as um as directed by our administration i move to accept the resignation resignations as directed by our administration uh second please i second that um all in favor signify by saying i and can you guys move the two hires too uh yes thank you uh to accept uh ron hall entertain a motion to accept ron hall is a four five six in rochester and natalie hill as a three in rochester to make a motion to accept ron hall as four five six in rochester and natalie hillman as grade three in rochester second second by justine all in favor signify by saying i hi the eyes have it thank you very much thank you for administration good and we open this up now to public comment please when you identify yourself and i'll go down the list um please state what town you're from and uh and let us know if you have a comment and i'll start with charity colton do you have a comment for the board good evening um charity colton stockbridge um jamie and terra are probably already all over this but patrick made a comment about accepting donations to be put towards storage i just wanted to raise the awareness that when you accept donations with a specific intent you are limited to only ever use it for that intent so you may want to be careful of how you accept those donations if you want to be able to have a little bit of flexibility i only know this from learning the hard way so i just wanted to mention that thank you thank you charity much appreciate you uh nancy willey comment for the board i got you got you nancy i saw that no thank you uh tim pratt comment for the board yeah i've got a couple uh about the suzuki that's a little bit disappointing it doesn't don't they rent uh don't they pay something to use the facility yeah 15 so so why can't we use that to fix the little bit of plumbing that is an issue the southern half of that building is not in bad shape and you can isolate that southern half from the northern half very easily my second thing is uh i was looking for the bases for the town's field and i had talked to jeff mills and he thought they were up in mezzanine and i went up with bonnie now i think it's a good idea that you uh go up and look at that mezzanine there is some stuff that can be purged is the politically correct way to say it too uh without any discussion there are filters up there for the air handlers that you know they're just piled up there's stuff up there that's complete junk and uh in the past what's happened is bring the dumpster to the back door and make a chute down the back stairs and and just toss the stuff three people upstairs toss the stuff down those chute three people down at the bottom walk it over to the door and throw it into the dumpster so you don't have to lug stuff up and down the stairs all the time so there's there is absolutely junk up there now the the funny thing is is i was looking for those bases in the library old library room common room and uh then was told that some of the stuff had been put into mr mulch's old room so you know i was walking around that building uh looking around for stuff and really the classrooms are pretty clean you're not going to be spending a lot of time up there you're purging is going to be up in the mezzanine and to use administration to do that would just be so too much cost and to there's nothing personal up there that needs to be uh uh you know kept confidential so there are tons of uniforms tons of old textbooks that nobody i mean science and math textbooks that are 30 years old science and math is changing all the time throw those down the chute get rid of them and then you'll you'll see the microscopes and you'll see the babies and you'll you know you'll see the stuff that might be worth saving and somebody might historically want some of that stuff 70 percent of it is completely crap so uh you know it really you guys as a board should just go up there and look at it and then uh say you know this stuff just has to go but as far as the Suzuki i hope you change we'll rethink that because that southern part of the building if it only needs a couple little plumbing issues and i didn't notice that there were that many tiles down you know somebody can put those tiles back up in two hours and that's not even that's not even the southern part so you know and i'm not big into the theater stuff but it does generate a lot of new people coming into this valley that's all i got good thank you very much tim ethan i think i'm going to regret i ever mention those babies i'd like to retract that statement now too late i think i think there might be an auction for them at this point uh karen rubin do you have a comment for the board hello and good evening to everyone ethan i do have a couple of things that i want to address um first of all i i just want to say that it's pretty big business to run a school district and you guys are doing a great job you have a lot of stuff that you need to cover you have a lot of opinions that come your way i know that i give them to you fairly enough um so i just want to applaud you all because i think you're doing you know a great job despite all of the adversity that comes with running the business of a school district um so that being said i do have a couple of questions i have a couple of comments i'm gonna fire them at you and um we can take it from there the first thing that i want to throw out there is um patrick you had questioned earlier and and i just want to say excuse me because i was tuning in while i was at work i was tuning in while i was in my car on the way home when i was tuning in when i got home so i had a couple of places along the way where i lost connection with you guys but patrick you had asked the question when lindsay was talking about the academic scoring that she presented earlier this evening um as far as how that relates to previous uh i'm gonna speak on stockbridge's behalf but stockbridge is alumni i will tell you you guys have heard it from me before my son's graduating class struggled more than half probably three quarters of his class struggled so lindy if you can show us that the kids that are in that school right now are getting a better education than my son got then i'm all for it and i appreciate that um that is our experience and um i don't want to speak on behalf of other families but i feel confident that i've had enough conversations with other families that you guys are in a positive projectile at this point in time so um that i just kind of wanted to make comment on speaking of which my son is graduating this year so whoo-hoo two things i'm wondering if um our son has any intentions of acknowledging their student alumni's either this year or in the future or even moving forward you know are you interested in maybe putting something out there publicly congratulating the Rochester and Stockbridge students who are graduating and moving on to whatever the next phase of life has for them um i think it's a pretty important thing and i think that our community will actually gather around seeing the accomplishments of our students and where they're moving on so i'd like you as a board to consider finding a platform somewhere this year and moving forward where you can um just give kudos to those kids accomplishments uh so that is that now on to my next item and i'm going to throw this out to bill which bill you can actually um reply to me via email if you'd like i know that Stockbridge Central School has or excuse me Stockbridge Board of Trustees has scholarships available to these kids we've gone on to the website myself and my son to look at what he needs to do in order to um capitalize on those scholarships by the way Board of Trustees thank you from a parent who's trying to figure out how to afford the next four years i appreciate that um but i want to make sure that these kids have some kind of follow-up as to what they need to get to the Board of Trustees so that those funds can get appropriately um put on to their financial aid packets so bill again if you want to follow up with me privately on email i'm perfectly fine with that why don't you email me and um and i'll try to answer your questions um and Stockbridge is celebrating the seven kids that are graduating from high school this year from Stockbridge through the first year of our Stockbridge Graduate Award and they'll be receiving a check for their accomplishments and they'll also be receiving information on the Stockbridge scholarship that if they want to move on in which we encourage them to do so that process which is going to be a very simple one but excuse me is that going to be mailed to those students yeah that's correct okay well again i really appreciate it because there was it was it was touching go as far as college was concerned but we're go now but email me am i uh the town website has my email and uh and we can talk about it further i don't want to take more time tonight but i'm more than happy to discuss and answer any and all your questions that's fantastic i appreciate that um you know when we had the last informational meeting um i think i was like maybe the second person to talk and i asked a lot of questions about the um high school building um i feel at that point i had a pretty good handle on the academics which obviously was a concern to a lot of people so i just want to put it out there that these meetings are public to everybody so that you can get the information as it's happening live in real color color um it's not just about the high school building that concerns me the academics and i know lindy and even you and i both all talked about this um but it was a concern and i'm glad to see that you guys are taking that seriously now to the distribution piece of this um first of all community volunteers i know that you don't want probably too many people involved in that but i also want to throw out a couple of things to keep in mind you have high school students that through a requirement of their graduation have to give community service hours so just keep that in consideration too you have kids out there that cannot graduate without a certain amount of community service hours in their in their perspective high schools so between them and other community members you could have a lot of you know manual labor people to help you with that lindy um i also want to throw this out because i do show up for these meetings and i you know i do ask hard questions and i you know i i kind of you know throw things at you guys to to hold you accountable i'm more than happy to be one of those community members that shows up to say let me help push a broom clean a cleaner room help you with inventory so you do have communities of members out there that are willing to help i'm sure of it as well as your alumni who need those credits to graduate um i would strongly encourage jamie's consideration that he threw out there that you let the community know what is available and you let the community have an opportunity to either purchase those items with a donation to the school or an organization um but i'd also like to maybe ask you how do local organizations get on your radar i'm a lead mentor for our local robotics team our local robotics team is a high school team it's made up of middle and high school students throughout our community we've had 22 to 25 members on a regular annual basis guess what i teach them how to do i teach them how to sew and i teach them how to sew on a sewing machine that's total crap so um you know just how does a local how does a local community organization get on your radar to say hey we have a need for an item that you might have to distribute from the high school another uh one that i wanted to throw out there just because i did not hear you guys say it is your after school programs your after school programs and your summer programs i don't care how old you are i started learning how to sew when i was seven years old so you do not have to be a high schooler and i'm just throwing the sewing machine out there because that's one of the areas that our robotics team is definitely lacking in is a solid good sewing machine um but also consider your after school programs and what they might be able to utilize from the items that you're distributing um so that were that was my comments uh lindy i would like to put archetypes six nine three three on your radar when it comes to items coming under the high school because we are in desperate need we borrow tools we borrow machinery we pull sewing machines out of the trash dumpsters to be able to try to utilize and we service anywhere between like i said 22 to 25 kids on an annual basis and we are only going to continue to grow in that organization so thank you all um bill i will follow up with you and i appreciate that you guys stick to it and you do the jobs that you do because this is not an easy one thank you very much karen much appreciated um especially the comment about acknowledging students i think that's something that having a young student i i leaves my radiar so i appreciate it i think it's really important um do we have i'm not sure if we have another caller on do you not see anybody else i don't see anybody else i does anybody else see another number at my screen's having trouble so i don't see anybody else okay i think that's it very good thank you um future agenda items well obviously the high school building is going to be there um i think we should have another meeting before the end of june personally um i just uh i i think we need to get out that this is too much for our administration i'm thinking about susuki and if and if there is a public grounds swelling of people who are ready to get in there to tim pratt's thing but i'm also you know i already pushed it one way i should just let it lie because that's probably the best thing to do um no uh our next scheduled meeting is not until august um but uh anybody else have a future agenda item i know bill you had a whole list of them that you sent me a week ago uh yeah i'm a one of two newbies and but i'll only speak for myself and i think it would be helpful at least annually to get together uh jamie used the term retreat where we talk about you know why why are we here what do we want to do what are our goals as a board going forward um how do we make our board meetings as efficient as possible um uh how do we keep the separation between board and policy with administration and carrying out the operations of our schools um so i think that's important to me and better since i have and can be part of where we're going i think i could be more effective uh as a school board director um and i was under somewhat of an impression that that may happen this summer so um i guess my quest is to question or request that um uh ethan you uh and jamie consider how we could get together now maybe we don't have to get together um but we've got enormous challenges going ahead and it just seems to me that it's helpful to build that team and that chemistry not only within our faculty and faculty um and principals and the staff but the board in and of itself and i can't say i really know you um and i think getting better understanding where we're coming from and how we can move together forward is is worthwhile so that's my that's my request let let me take on the idea of a board retreat um because i think in some ways that might be a great thing well let me let me let me i wrote that down let me take that on that it might be good and also just for us that maybe we don't you know bring in our administration or staff we let them take a break and we just sit down and hash it out obviously it's got to be a public meeting that people can attend uh because we always have to be public in that sense but i i i think it's something that we haven't done in a couple of years on this board and i think we're overdue for especially as um it is a little easier to gather in public or at least outside yes each other so i i will take that on and and and see how i make that happen thank you good um so our next meeting date is official meeting date is august second monday august sorry tuesday august third um at 6 30 i assume it'd be virtual though we probably should be talking at that point about going back we can discuss that via email to just everyone knows because you're yeah we can talk about yeah we're going to talk about sort of the change in the status of that and how we feel about that but um i would say for now it's safer to say it will be virtual um and then we'll we'll if that changes we can talk about that as it approaches good and anything else uh i want to give vsba i i miss vsba code of ethics uh we were on the agenda tonight so i want to bring that back up on august again okay got you good um uh entertain a motion to adjourn thank you motion to adjourn second great um all in favor signify by saying hi hi hi thank you all for your time much appreciated