 Can everybody hear me? Okay. If I'm here, I need to have it closer. I think you need to have it closer. Okay. Okay, so I'm sorry for the rest of this and I'm the chair of the board and we're going to have to order. I'm going to do some adjustments to the agenda so everybody has a little bit of an idea of what we're going to be doing today, and then you'll welcome our guests. I don't know if the board has any adjustments to the agenda, but I want to suggest a couple to add a 4.2 for both congregations on the budget and then a 4.3 to a board member to the principal search committee. Board member to the principal search committee. 332. Okay. That's part of the budget on page four. So we just got an approval and so that would be all right for discussion and action. Okay. Could I have a motion to accept the agenda as amended? Thank you. And second, I see a hand down there, but I can't. Did we get that? Right. Okay. And the motion carries. So welcome everybody. I want to start to go to just sort of describe what makes an effective school board and how do we build hope or framework and hold ourselves as hope doors and possibilities and environment that we want to see a show for two hours. So I brought, I just came back from the National School Board meeting. Those are a lot of lectures and resources, so I brought some lessons for everybody. So I'm going to pass them to both sides. I think I still have that many. And I thought we would take just a minute of the board, even before we go into our comment to just, you know, remind ourselves of whether good habits and some good habits as a school board. So if you would indulge me, I would just want to just try to keep this up and effective today. So, you know, just regard for gender classes and change of command. Confusing the rules with those of the superintendent and the staff. We're going to be taking micro managing. Personal interests, having to personal conflict with other board members or staff committed to limited time. So I think that you have to improve governance and not inspecting the leadership of the district. Those are ineffective ways for us to be effective school board and some characteristics of effective school board members which we are really good at being tools to commit to a vision of high expectations for student achievement and quality of instruction and define clear goals, those are vision, which we have been doing. I'm not going to read all of them, but I wanted to, you know, because I know you guys are, and I know you guys would do a lot of governance and learning together. So, but I just wanted to remind us to go in effective school board meeting to put our heads and trying to do as best as we can effective leaders today. And let's try to be a team, and we also might have teams. There was a graphic that was very telling and not going to put it out and I were trying to show this video but I was not working but they also put up a graphic that show like a school board on the top of the precipice. You know, holding a rope in the like sharks on the bottom and those crocodiles in the bottom and then the rope is trying to, you know, split away but by all of us pulling together as students, we would be able to stay in mission of what is best and I know that we're all here including the public here for what is best for students. So, with that, and then we'll listen to by yourself. We'll pick up to two minutes, depending on how many people are here. We might be able to have quite a bit of people with 73 participants online so I think we can go beyond two minutes. So, coming should be respective and civil, curious, not furious, regulate, and rather than debate, listen to hear, not to respond, acknowledge, knowledge, build up rather than tear down and challenge and do us and don't attack people. So, with that, we're going to open up to public comments and, like I said, strictly, the time is strictly enforced just in the book and those work tonight. So, if there's a number of how much you're pressing that means to make a comment please raise your hand. Okay, we have two please come in. Students has the week. And then we'll go online and I see one hand ready. Word members, you received a letter from me last Tuesday and I've heard from a little down the following night expressing how such a large cut to art with relatively affect our students and our art program. To be clear, I do understand the difficult situation we are in and the need for reductions. I wish they were known but unfortunately that's not realistic. My point tonight is that shaving the road point eight FTE from art is too much and will damage our art program. Even though the proposals from our leadership team states that no services will decrease with this cut. I'm here to say that they will. As I can technically teach all of my students in 45 minute classes, but with a reduction of point eight FTE, we will be spread so thin that we risk burnout. We will have little time to prep and clean up and our students will not have the same opportunities that they have now. That to me is a decrease in services. We are no more than a point for reduction to our FTE. It will be more equitable across our teaching staff and buildings and more importantly, we will be able to maintain a high quality art program for our students. Thank you. Thank you. Larry. Hi, everybody. My name is Larry Gilbert. I'm from East Montpelier. I sent you an email this week asking you to reject the 8% proposal that's in front of you. I believe or will be in front of you shortly and to go with something around 5% instead. Three reasons for that. I just want to reiterate number one. I just think it's too much of a tax burden on too many people in this in this district. I think you should do everything you can to minimize that. Number two, I don't want to be in the same position. Five weeks from now that so many other districts are in getting a having to do another re vote because of the budget was rejected. 5% is a is a. A small increase, a large decrease from what you're talking about, but I think it is appropriate in the circumstances and thirdly and perhaps most importantly. I'm hopeful that in a few weeks we'll be having a community wide discussion about what you guys are calling reconfiguration and consolidation. And I don't think that you can expect the voters of any community to say, yes, it's okay to close our school. It unless they believe that the budget has been as streamlined as much as it possibly can before that. So those are the three reasons that I have for suggesting the 5%. Just two other very small or minor items. Number one, the survey that was compiled by so many of the people that participated in that survey talked about communication. I believe I feel like you guys have not done a great job about communication about the budget. My, I believe there was one public pronouncement between last week's meeting and this one and all it was was a notice on Facebook saying, Hey, there's a meeting at 615. And I don't think given the circumstances that we're in that that's the kind of communication that the people of this, this district need or want. So as we move forward into the much more difficult thing of selling a new budget communication must be better. So towards that end just one quick thought this is the budget document that was circulated to to all the towns about about the. I'm sorry, I think that this would be a really good time to give people a little bit of slack. I have one more point for I'll sit down if you make me. Okay, that's okay. Go ahead. I see that we just have three hands. So we're gonna. It's kind of an important meeting tonight. So just one, just one very quick thought. So, in this budget says, for instance, under expenses instructional service, it says salaries, small item $9 million. Okay, I as a voter would love to know a little bit more about that and how many teachers is that how many staff is that what kind are they one year, two years have they been serving serving the district for 30 years that makes that makes a big difference. And here's my favorite one here says miscellaneous benefits it's only a small 3 million dollar item. Okay, when you're doing a budget miscellaneous is for the little stuff. Three million dollars is nothing miscellaneous about that. And so more detail on that those two items and really all of these other items I think would be appropriate. Thank you. Thank you, Larry. Okay, we have two people in line Kyle go ahead. Oh, oh, sorry, Kyle, I was before you. I would go ahead and unmute yourself. Can you hear me. Bearly me. All right. I'll do my best. Hi, I'm Ali Mayanny, and I've been teaching and managing two libraries in our hold on one minute Ali because we can barely hear you hold on one minute. Yep. Can you stop the timer to. Can you hear me? Is that better. Okay. I'm Ali Mayanny and I spoke last week. I've been teaching and managing 2 libraries in our district for 6 years. I'd like to speak a little more about the importance of school libraries and the impact of reducing the library program on students. To only to on students if we have only to only 2 days a week in our smallest. Sorry. And the impact of reducing the library program on students if if our program is only 2 days a week in our smallest schools. There's a big difference in a library and media services when you have a librarian in your building 5 days a week, regardless of the number of students you have. The school library is open only 2 days a week. Students lose access to the just right book at the just right moment. It takes time to get to know the students, their interests, their reading levels to gain their trust. There's a lot of time that goes into knowing and building a library collection so that it represents everyone's interest and needs. And you have to have the right books for the students in the building and that is ever changing. The school library. Impact studies which represent 2 decades worth of research conducted in multiple states. Consistently show a positive correlation between the literacy achievement of students who attend schools with full time professional school librarians. And have well stocked libraries compared to students whose schools do not have access to such resources. The library is open only 2 days a week. Management is a big headache. Books can go missing and they are misplaced. This makes online catalog less accurate and frustrates both students and teachers. There's less time to work with community volunteers who help shelf and keep a space organized. The library is only in a building 2 days a week. It makes integrating research and technology skills into classrooms and other collaborations nearly impossible. Students and teachers don't only have library media needs on certain days. They need the right book at the right moment. They need help with their computers or learning platform in the moment. Small schools do cost more to operate. But it doesn't mean that students in these schools deserve less because of their zip code. All students deserve daily access to their school library and an updated diverse collection of books. Thank you for letting me speak about my experience. Thank you. Kyle. Thanks Laura. Can you hear me okay. Yes. Yes. So I couldn't believe when I saw that all the proposals included every cut that was made that was proposed last year and rejected after there was enormous public comments from all 5 of the communities about the importance of keeping library in positions for all the reasons Ali just mentioned nurses art and the Spanish program at Romney. And these 3 proposals are all incredibly problematic because they contain those cuts. Some people have been I looked at the notes from last meeting there's discussion about whether you could do a la carte. You are the board. You are our elected officials. We expect you to do a la carte not just take the 3 options that were brought to you options that the communities resoundingly told you a year ago were not acceptable. I have 3 kids in the schools one in the Romney one in the middle school you 32 one in high school. The most important parts of their education have been the Spanish program at Romney the art teachers the librarians the nurses the roles they play in our schools go way beyond what shows up on a spreadsheet. I have a very specific proposal. I think it's the only proposal parents would actually accept. That's that you add back in the Spanish the art the nurse the librarian cuts that are proposed to be made in the 10% proposal. The total of that is $274,000. Take that money from the fund balance you're still way less than the amount taken from the fund balance and the other proposals. And then you keep what keeps our schools. Relevant and meaningful. Please change. Thank you Kyle. And we have honey. Hi everybody. Can you hear me okay. Excellent. As you discussed and shared the options in the reconfiguration report you asked, is there a full time nurse and counselor listing it as a configuration priority. The board meeting on January 17th you amended the school budget to include full time nursing and counseling in all schools. Do you continue to stand by the knee for full time nursing and counseling in all schools. I'm speaking directly to the cuts proposed to our two smallest schools. This is on page nine of your packet. Please note that there are additional cuts beyond page eight. It's a little unclear you have like page eight is beautiful and it shows cuts but there's more on page nine. And they're directly affecting our small schools. Lower enrollment at these schools does not mean lower need for everything that our counselor and nurses provide. In addition to their assigned roles they act as social workers. They coordinate outside mental health care providers for families. They collaborate with outside mentoring programs to support students. Plus they work together to meet the basic needs of students including clothes, shoes, food. Please remember that you set this priority and the community has echoed the priority. I'm going to go off script from my own what I wrote earlier to also say that this process is so hard on so many levels. And I can speak for myself to say I spend so much time thinking about what I want to share with the board and I pour my heart into it. And I share it and I get a nod. Thank you. And it's really hard that there's not more connection with the board more back and forth. I'd love to ask about you know why we're not cutting transportation costs over nurses when you said last week we know we can cut two routes and we can probably cut more, but we're not looking to move that into the first column. So thank you for your time again again this is a hard process and I appreciate the chance to share my thoughts. Thank you, honey. Yeah, I see one more. And up. Dana. Yeah, please introduce yourselves. Dana. Are you there. Am I saying that name correctly. Yes, I'm here. I'm so sorry. Hold on. It's on my phone. Hi guys. I'm I'm Dean Brown and I am currently a para educator at Palace Elementary School. And I was going back and forth about if I felt good enough to come on and talk and in my heart I feel it's really important that as a employee as a parent and as an educator and a taxpayer of this wonderful town we live in, I feel that this is scary just like Ainsley said the other day with all the cuts that could take place. And what the scary part about it is the quality of care that the children are going to not get because everything's going to be rushed and pushed away. And when you think about good education, you think about Vermont actually. We currently moved here from California four years ago. And the school system in California is not as progressive as everybody thinks it is it's 37 kids per class. There's no art. Science is maybe once a week. PE is cut down to once a week. And you know who's actually performing those duties are parents, the dedicated parents that do believe that the quality of care is really important. And I feel as a select board you guys have a duty to prove to us that you guys can be more creative in coming up with ideas to save our beautiful community and education that we provide our community. And I really want you guys to think with your hearts. Not your minds, but your hearts to think what's the best for our children and our future children that we have here in our in our community. Thank you. Thank you. We have Catherine. Hi, my name is Catherine and I'm a student at Casa elementary school. I just wanted to say we rely on the support of our counselor. And I just feel that we really need our librarian and our art teacher, because they just they help us so much with not only tech issues, but helping us learn more skills. And I just really think it would make them so sad to just cut them. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. Have one. Did I say that right. Can you introduce yourself. I'm a 10th grader at you 32. I just wanted to say it's really important to me to not cut library services. Today I was a part of I was one of the student ambassadors for team that mob, which was an amazing event. We helped to host at you 32 with students from all across Vermont, supporting libraries, talking about books, meeting authors. It was a really amazing experience for me. I got to meet lots of other kids. And I just want to say the librarians always help support me with my academics and helping meet new people, helping me learn a lot through books. So I think it's really important not to cut libraries. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. So anybody else in the public before we move. Okay, we have four more hands. Please introduce yourselves. Hi, my name is Ainsley. I am a mother, a teacher and a community member within this district. I voiced last week that I was disappointed with the creativity of the cuts that you are considering. Allied Arts, Romney Spanish, counseling, these are all proposals that we as a community as community have denied and you as a board have overturned in the past. And so like others, I'm confused why these things are back on the table and we're not thinking about different cuts. Ed quality has come up a lot in this conversation. And I would reiterate what others have said that quality is affected by these proposals. And that equity is, is different than just Calis should have the same as East Montpelier as Romney as you 32 equity is something that I've been thinking a lot actually and have been considering in terms of the inequity and cost of the SU level versus our six schools. I think maybe I did my math wrong but I think the increase at the SU level is 46%. When we're considering 10% at our schools. That seems really inequitable. I understand that this is due to an increase of a new position, but I'm curious why we need this position when our enrollment is down when we have when we're considering a decrease in staffing why are we needing to add new positions as you. I value your work and I really appreciate each and every one of you in the effort that you put into this conversation. But I would reiterate that I'm disappointed in that these cats scare me. I'm worried about the quality of education for my child and the kids my class so please reconsider. Thank you easily. My name is Callie Weller. I'm a teacher here at Calis preschool, and I'm a parent of two you 32 students along with the resident in the district. I'm here tonight to talk about the 1.0 teaching position at Calis. I would like to ensure that everyone is aware of the ramifications of this cut. Should we lose a teacher based on our dwindling dwindling population. We will need to combine kindergarten and first grade next year. I'm a 14 year teacher of both kindergarten and first grade. I have serious concerns. The difference in curriculum alone should give us pause. First graders are learning to write sentences using verbs, conjunctions and possessive nouns, while kindergarteners are learning to write the matching letter sound that they hear to make a word and identify punctuation. Actually, and emotionally, five years are very different than seven year olds, five year olds are noisy, verbal and active. They learn best through play. Seven year olds are quieter, specific, passive and sometimes tense. They hone in on what they do and practice it over and over again. I have announced that these two groups of students need to succeed are extremely different from one another. I believe that we will be unable to meet the learning and social emotional needs of our kindergarteners and first grade students next year. We'll have to make these cuts based on population dwindling, but it's not what's best for our kids. Thank you. I'm Tracy Leibowitz. I'm a parent and a resident of Middlesex and I just, I've been to a few of these meetings now and I'm here because my family is directly affected by the proposal that nobody has mentioned. It seems like all of the cuts that were included in the original budget that failed are just sort of baked in and not up for discussion. I would just like to know more about what seems like a really significant change that's going to affect the youngest students and it's, it's the eliminating the kindergarten program at Romney and combining the Romney and Doty pre K and kindergarten. It seems like the proposal on the table is to combine two years of those classes, one of them being located at Romney one of them being located at Doty. It just seems like a lot of instability for for kids that young. I don't think it makes sense to split the programs up between two locations. I just want to see this board, you know, make make progress towards something that is sustainable. And this just seems to be the opposite of that. I don't know what the plan is. After those two years, like, are they just going to go on to first grade, and they're going to be separated like are the Doty kids going to go back to Doty and the Romney kids going to go back to Romney it just, it seems short sighted I don't know what the long term plan is for it. I want to hear more information about it none of it hasn't been discussed at all. So, that's my comment. Thank you Tracy. We had Michael. My perspective on this is very different from all the other ones that we've heard tonight I think because I am not an insider in the schools. I don't have children in school I'm going to not a teacher or a librarian, but I am a taxpayer. What I'm talking about all of the proposals that have been made that are in front of the board now is that they all rely on drawing down money from the fund balance the reserve fund. To me that seems like it's not being honest with the taxpayers because all that's happening is, you're giving the illusion of reducing the tax increase this year by essentially forcing. And, and even larger tax increase in subsequent years because those funds have to be replenished at some point. Okay, so from my perspective, what you should be doing is in order to be honest with the taxpayers about what you're really spending is to consider these reductions actual spending reductions without the drawdowns on the fund balance. And if you take the 6% option that you've got the actual reduction in spending is not 3. something million it's really 2.5 or 2.3 but eliminate the drawdown of the fund balance that ends up being an increase in the net educational spending of about 8.7%. I think that is much better, because it simply doesn't push the problem to the next year, where you have to somehow replenish that fund. And that just is baking in but hiding the fact that there will be larger future tax increases. So I think it would just be, you should be honest with the vote with the voters about what you're really spending. Thank you Richard. Mike. Okay, anybody else. Seeing none, we're going to get started with our meeting. Oh, there are two online. Jay Campbell. Can you admit yourself please? Hi. My name is Jen Campbell. I teach art at Rumley and East Montpelier elementary school. I just want to let you know that some of the ramifications of having 1.4 FTEs, visual arts educators teaching across 5 elementary schools. Are with the proposed cuts in the art program, we will be teaching up to 6 art classes per day. If this is the case, the reality is that students will not receive 45 minute classes. With little or no transition time between classes, cleaning up from the previous class will still class time from the next. Furthermore, having students waiting in the hallway for the previous class to leave, because their class ends at the exact same time the next one begins, sets students up for a far from ideal class situation and is not fair to them. Teaching 6 classes a day will not allow for engaging and robust art curriculum, such as offering lessons in a variety of media, clay, sculpture, printmaking, etc., and is not sustainable. Teaching 6 classes a day does not allow for the amount of prep time it takes and the amount of cleanup after these classes. Even the most simplistic form of painting and drawing requires time to be fully prepared for students. With these robust and engaging art classes, we practice the transferable skills that are really important to our students graduation. The artistic expression is an SLO. I'm teaching in multiple schools amplifies the difficulty of providing a rigorous curriculum. I just want you to reconsider where you shave and cut and leave the direct student contact programs the way they currently are, including the world language program at Romney. Thank you for the work you're doing. I see we have one more. Talita, do you want to get on it yourself and introduce yourself? Hi. Thanks for listening tonight. I know that Vermont's got an aging population. But I keep going back and thinking about how we moved to middle sex for the school. We loved everything that it had to offer. We visited all sorts of places and schools and this is why we came here. There have been so many cuts since then 11 years ago that I wouldn't actually recommend to friends that they come to my town anymore. And now there's even more being proposed. I think of my cousin, my nephew, who lives in Woodstock, Vermont, and his kindergarten class has 50 kids in it. His grade, not his classroom, but his grade has 50 kids. And I personally would love to stop writing letters of recommendations for my very favorite teachers. And I would love to stop losing these amazing teachers and I would love to see the schools value the education enough and value the idea that as these aging populations move on. Young families are going to come in and we want to have schools that will actually attract people to our state, to our towns, to our communities and have it be the vibrant place that it could be. Thank you. Thank you. I don't see any more hands so we are going to move on now with the presentation. I think before talking about what comes out of it, so thank you George. Well, thank you. Thank you. You also sharing that. Can you hear me. I'm not even good enough yet Mark, I like a robust microphone. Would you go to the first slide please. Okay. While we're waiting for that I just want to say welcome to call us for some of you this your first time coming to call us. There were some bumpy roads on the way here I bet for some of you. I hope that if you didn't get a chance to sample some of the food from our kitchen, it was all food that our chef Dina pulled out from the kitchen that didn't cost extra other than her time and her love. And I will remind everyone that May 3rd, the first Friday in May is school lunch hero appreciation day. Make sure you thank Dina for tonight's meal and for folks, please help yourself. And the next door is the lunch hero in your life. And if you need a bathroom. They are right outside. I will start this conversation by saying, being asked in these tense times to talk about all that is awesome at callous about social emotional behavioral learning is hard. I want to look out at some of the folks who are here to support our school system and ask us to think about all the things that we want the board to consider. I want to ground myself and there are some really awesome things that are happening and I think a lot of what I'm about to talk to can still happen with some of the changes. And I worry that some will be lost, but I want to celebrate what we have going and going well right now. And I'm going to talk about some of the basic components to social emotional behavioral learning here at callous responsive classroom, which is that's okay responsive classroom, which is our approach to social emotional behavioral learning for all students. PBIS which stands for positive behavior intervention system I got some PBS folks there is an intervention or is it, I don't know, restorative practices, which is our. This is a piece that is shared across all of our buildings in some capacity. So we have some protocols to approach how we come together trauma informed approaches, and counseling, and our students support system. What you'll see is in the next three slides. These pieces are components are embedded in every layer of instruction, similar to the layers of instruction that we have for math and reading and writing. The universal level meaning it's accessible to all you will see that responsive classroom looks like a commitment to really teaching explicit instruction and coming together in the first six weeks of the school year. You'll see that as reflected in morning meeting every day and identifying hopes and dreams and identifying classroom agreements that tie to our schoolwide agreements. One of the things that I feel like I want to call out that I think is pretty special about callous because I think that you can now read that slide. When I talk about responsive classroom PBIS, our counselor, our students support and our restorative practices. These are all guided by high quality classroom teachers, educators in our classroom. For universal instruction this includes our counselor who was here full time and she engages in guidance class every week along with our health educator. One of the other things I think that is really important at callous around some of the professional development that we do sometimes I just had this learning recently in a refresher course for PBIS. Our ESP staff, our parents, our BIs, our personal care assistants, they spend the most time with some of our most vulnerable students and they do that oftentimes during those less structured times, and we offer them, I think arguably the least amount of time and training. And one thing I'm really proud of this year is bringing together PD for our ESP staff to help them really understand the connection between responsive classroom and PBIS, as well as how all of these elements apply to our discipline plan, our comprehensive discipline plan. You go to the next slide. In addition to what is already happening in all of our classrooms universally, I would add that there are components in each one of those same pieces that tie into targeted instruction, meaning something that we're going to zone in on. One of the pieces I want to highlight through targeted instruction, we use our behavior data from through PBIS and responsive classroom to really make data driven decisions about the school wide behavior and where we need to utilize our resources. We spend a lot of time, probably not as much as we should, because it takes a lot of work, but a lot of time calibrating our approach to PBIS. And as recently as today, our staff meeting was all about how to really recommit and think about those evidence based practices with and apply them with fidelity. We also use what is called the equity dashboard in available to us in Infinite Campus, which is our student information system that tells us important information about students who are furthest from justice and how they perform in terms of academic achievement, how often they show up in our behavior data and their attendance. And that is really important information for us to be able to hone in on. If you could go to the next slide. Last but not least, and this is something that is, it's not, it's not well built yet, but it is coming. One of the things that you've probably been hearing about for a while now, our district has been working really hard towards implementation of Act 173. And one of the big changes that happened with Act 173 in the past you've probably heard about kids who were experiencing challenges and struggles to be successful in school, but not necessarily showing an impact in their academics and that meant a lot of time supports were not put in place for students who were struggling. And one of the things that Act 173 brought aside from a lot of work and learning for all of us has been this category called functional skills and one of the things that I'm really proud about is that we've taken the structures that we've had in place for a while now and have really honed in on with our work with Ellen Dorsey and Kara Holden and works on our intensive intervention workgroup. It's a lot of learning for our special educators and our interventionist. We've applied some of those same strategies the same framework that we use for reading and math and writing and applied it to functional skills, things like the social emotional behavioral learning. This is maybe putting the cart before the horse because I'm saying hey we have this really great thing put in place. It's not quite there yet. It's coming, it's coming close though and I want to make sure that we notice that one of the ways that we can help them not just at Calis but across our system will need to be thoughtful about how to support is how do we make sure that kids have the skills that they need to access their education. And the Lisa will love this because she's the queen of, let's talk about castle. The, but what we are doing is we are designing some skills group for students around the interpersonal and the interpersonal and I'm trying to think if there anything else that I wanted to add. No. I appreciate the time that you have all taken with me to talk about social emotional behavioral learning here at Calis. Thank you. Thank you so much get this board members have any questions for cat. Only if you sing for us after after we're done. Okay. So, we're going to move. Guys, I just moved my agenda. So we're going to move to our board discussion, approve the revised budget in some page for what I thought we could do. Oh, you can't hear me sorry. So what we could we could do is just again, go around the around the table and just discuss if there are any clarifying questions first. And then let's just discuss which budget are you ready to support. So is that the 6%, is it the 8% or is it the 10%, but we're going to start with any clarifying questions because you had given us some clarifying questions first, and then we will move on into deciding which budget we can support as a board and raise your hand. I don't think we need a presentation today. So it's more about the clarifying questions, unless I'm getting. Yeah, exactly. So, so it's just we're going to just open it up for the clarifying questions that the board ask. Do I raise your hand. So the clarifying question I have is that I don't think we have to pick one or the other or the other of the three options, but that we can go with an ala cart. Putting together of the budget. I don't think we're bound by, you know, option 6%, 6%, 8%, or 10%, but we can combine things. And I hope we have that type of discussion, just because there's merit to each of the categories and percentages, but combining them can achieve, I think a greater breath of what we hopefully want for our students and also realize some economic savings and fully recognizing as Richard noted that we are using fund balance. And I think we struggled with that decision as to even get there with great concerns by board members about whether that's a good option. It's not a good option, but seems like it may be necessary one this year. And I shared some thoughts with an ala cart menu tonight. And that menu would have a savings of $1,228,889. So it would fall somewhere between the 6%, I think between 6% and 8% is my guess. So I hope we can have that type of discussion about what we want to see in terms of moving a budget tonight. Any other questions before I attempt? I have a clarifying, a couple of clarifying questions. So one, and perhaps it was just the way I was reading it, but the equitable distribution, I don't quite understand that. So that would be helpful. Then the other part is clarity around what is the actual percentage increase in tax rates, because even though it's a 6% increase, you know, like the 10, 8 or 6 is actually greater for each community. And I'm just not sure what those percentages are. Perfect. I'll take the first one and then I'll probably turn to Suzanne for the tax rate. Equitable distribution of resources is just a, it's a check. It's a way to look at how our personnel related resources are distributed. So the first thing to know is it's just personnel. It's not supplies and all of the other pieces. It's the, it's teachers and staff in our buildings. And it's a rough calculation of the percentage of students each building serves and the percentage of personnel that they have in their building. So on the left hand side of that chart is this current year. So if we're looking at, say, Berlin, they have about 13.4% of the population, those numbers are also weighted to take student to take poverty metrics into account. So just know that that 13.4 is weighted. And they have about 13.6% of the personnel resources in their system right now. That happens to be one that's relatively even. And then the column on the right is just that same calculation with all of the proposals up to 6% because we needed to pick a place. So that's what that chart is. Does that answer that part of the question? Well, it's, it's, I understood what the concept of it is, it's, I am confused because I know our numbers are going down but it didn't seem to me that they would be dramatic enough that even with cuts Berlin would stay at 13.4, but the resources would go up. And the distribution that changes. So, so essentially it's because there's reductions in other places in the system. So if you look at Calis, excuse me. If you look at Calis, they have in the current year they have about 9%, just under 9% of personnel resources. And next year, with the proposed reductions, they now have less of a percentage. And so that redistributes those resources. It just moves the pie around. That's what it is. It isn't Berlin isn't receiving more they're now receiving a bigger percentage of the share because someone else is being moved in a different direction. And that would be one of those areas when we're communicating out, we need to be ultra ultra clear on because if it's confusing those of us who have a better understand as a community member, I would not have any clue what this is telling me. Yep, and that information is really for the board. It does not mean you can't choose to say that's also I think that's important for the community to have and if it is then absolutely but it's that's being given to you to sort of answer the question about resources. So that's a piece I might have Suzanne. Mark, do you have the April 3 presentation? I can share. I'll share through the zoom slide. Slide 25. Take me just a second to share. We do have a presentation. You meant the April 3 right this one. Yeah. No, no, you did say it. I was making sure I heard it properly. There you go. Okay. Thank you Spencer. These are the tax rates for each town. I do have a column in here for the warned budget that was voted on that's the 16.14% increase. Let's look at the 10% increase the 8% and the 6%. The dollar amount is the dollar change in taxes on $100,000 home and then the 26%. For instance, next to Berlin is what you'll see what we saw with the 16.14%. 20% is what you'd see with the 10%, 17% with the eight and then 15% with the six and so on. Lots of numbers. So it's a little bit. This is really helpful. Any other questions from board members? Maybe just the, the one thing. Sorry, Natasha. The one thing that I had asked Susanne about for Berlin specifically, but I think would be helpful in, in ongoing communications is if there's a 0% increase in the level of education spending, what is the increase in the tax rate because it's still quite high. So, I think that that's just a good point for communication going forward that reinforces that the school budget is only one part of, of this equation and so we have control only over the spending which is what we've been saying but I think having the number there is really helpful. So, for instance, for Berlin that's 9% was zero increase in spending. Do you mind if I go ahead? Yes, I can get that for you. If you would put it to slide 20 while we have this up. I did do another visual for you today. I thought it would be helpful in showing you the per pupil spending per long term weighted average daily membership. The 16.14% was 15488 per pupil. The 16.14% would be 14669, 8% 14402, 16, 6% 14136. And so when you're looking at percentage increases per pupil, your 8% that you were discussing at, at the last meeting is a 0.7% decrease in spending per pupil. So if you're looking at the last line, that's the percentage increase per pupil that you're seeing or rather decrease in two of the versions. Thank you, Suzanne. Thank you. Natasha. Yeah, I was just wondering there's two positions that the back and say that people who are going to be leaving the district are those positions that we're planning on filling again or any of those positions going to be cut the budget. So currently, we're not hosting and hiring for the administrative I have to remember what the second one is who's the. So, we are hiring for the director of student support services we can't operate without one that's that statutory, we are not currently posting for the vacant assistant principal position. We're not being proposed as a cut it is not a recommended cut we talked about that last week we showed the ratios we explained why I understand the board can have a different opinion about that we explained why it's not on the list. But because we are not just looking at what do we do in the 1086 we're also looking at what happens if it continues to fail. That's why we're not posting for it right now. Do we have an estimate of how much that would be if we didn't fill it. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions before we move into deliberation. I'm going to get a monetary value for that position. Can we talk about. Yeah, we, they shared it at the last meeting, but why don't we go ahead and share it again. I don't even speak to that. Ursula is asking. I said, I said that if we're going to have the monetary value for the assistant principal not being filled like if it didn't fill, and we consider that as part of our cuts. What would it do to the education system. And the school that it would affect. I think what we can do is read. I'll let see. I'm not going to speak for Stephen, but reiterate what we talked about last week, which is why it's not being recommended for cutting. So, at trying not to go into too much detail, although I could, you know, we have, we do have five administrative positions at you 32. So the assistant principal position is responsible for a great deal of teacher supervision, student supervision. And in fact, the supervision ratios. Those are the ones that are up there for you 32. Are are at what we would consider educational quality standards. So what would have to happen is the, the responsibilities for supervising teachers and for supervising students would have to be re. Distributed amongst the administrators that are there, I would stress that 1 of those positions is our student support position, the director of student services. That position supervises some teachers and also has a caseload of students for school counseling. And so increasing the duties of the other administrators reduces services to students as well in that area. I mean, I don't, I guess it's hard to say exactly how many different duties there are for an administrator, but it would mean that your supervision and co-curricular activities that that administrators do would have to be reduced. There's a list of things. There's a reason we didn't propose it is because dividing up the responsibilities of 1 administrator in a school that is does not have a declining enrollment for next year. Seemed it didn't seem prudent. It's really, I mean, I can answer specific questions if there are. Thank you. Oh, yeah. So, Sam, you have the number. 149. And that's just salary. Not benefits. It's everything. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to give you the staff. Otherwise, the virtual audience. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions before we move? I do have a response for crit, not a response, but a suggestion for you, Chris. So the suggestion was, can you hear me? Kind of, but it might be my ears too. You're fine. Okay, it's going. No, but ears wide open. So if you're pretending that you can't hear me, please hear me. I don't have my pen when I don't want to hear. Okay. So, because the decisions made closest to the students can best be tailored to individual needs. If we empowered our principles, which is what we did, right? We empowered our principles. It's what Megan did. We are supposed to have autonomy and control of their budgets subject to accountability, which is what we do when we monitor right as a board. The resources will be moved wisely, will be wisely spent and then supports and approaches will be customized to raise student achievement, which is our ultimate goal, right? What we're doing here. So if we, I'm a little afraid to tell you the truth that we are just going to dismantle the work that the, the our administrators have done that are closest to our students by trying to do this. So, I'm going to go back to the card mode. What we, what we did is like we hired the best people. I'm absolutely sure that, you know, Megan is the best thing that has ever happened to this district to tell you the truth as a superintendent. We have Suzanne that is also, and I know that we all believe that we have the best principles we have the best leadership team. And here we are. We have a lot of strategies are in monitoring and setting goals and setting and setting priorities and setting parameters and we put all those restrictions on them and I will think creatively and they came up with these three proposals, right? So, I don't understand why we can't look, let's say, look at the 8% for example, we are reducing our costs, we're being responsive with our community members, we're reducing our costs, half of what we had presented before, right? We had 16% before a half reduction. They're telling us that I know it might not feel perfect for I am hearing our communities to we have, we are being put in a very difficult position, but we're going to be serving our students. And that puts us a little step forward to be able to look at reconfiguration and move into a more sustainable future once we're able to reconfigurate a little bit too. So, I would like us to speak to each, we can do is the pleasure of the board, but I would like us to stay concentrated in one of the three options that the leadership has brought over to us and decide as a board and stay behind so that we could move on in how we're going to communicate this plan to our community so that we can have the support of our communities to do what is best for kids. So, if we could speak to that, that'll be wonderful. We don't necessarily have to start with you, Chris, but we can start with whoever wants to speak. Since you're directing your comments to me, I'm going to respond is that we are also the liaison between our community and our administration and our school system we represent the community as a whole. Okay. And I agree that we hire great staff members to help us in moving toward those policy goals that we have set forth. You know, if you look at these cuts, they're almost exclusively for direct service providers for our students. So it sounds hollow to say this is what's best for students while we're reducing almost exclusively in the direct service realm. Now, I know it's probably necessary because, you know, staff makes up 80% of our budget. So if we have a budget cut that's where it's got to be. Mostly, but we don't, you know, we haven't considered other different stuff like the central office. Untouched, untouched here. And what I'm trying to do is balance things where we still maintain direct services for students, especially in terms of nursing counseling. And we've always been focused on maintaining resources for the younger staff, younger students, because those are foundational building blocks for future students. And we're cutting that's where our primary cuts are. They're not at you 32. They're in elementary schools and that just seems to me that that is a disservice to our students. So I'm, again, my job is to give the board information, answer questions, tell you how we made the decision. So I'm going to give a couple bits of information that are related to some of the questions. The board can take a different action. So I'm not, I'm not trying to defend the position but I am trying to explain it. Okay. So one of the questions that we've gotten. And, and heard comment wise, sorry, it takes me a minute to share administration. So central office has reduced we're reducing an administrative position, a position that is the director of technology it is not a position I would normally recommend so we are reducing in central office. We've gotten a couple of different comments so I just want to explain when you look at the functional area of central office it's actually office of the superintendent and it looks and it is a 45% increase year to year and we did answer this last week but just kind of reiterating. That is because we did the board approved us to add a position. We absolutely do not recommend reducing that position that is why we're recommending a different reduction so central office is absolutely giving recommendations the reason that looks like that reason that is a 45% increases it was a smaller number to begin with so they percentage wise it looks bigger. I also just want to illustrate and again. My job isn't to debate you on where you where you land if if the board take makes a motion and votes that is that is what will happen but so that you have the information you need. This chart shows the distribution of our resources so we hear quite a bit. We're not cutting enough in the area of either central office or administration proportionately we can't there isn't enough money there. So the blue the light the, I don't know lighter color non navy blue that is instructional programming that's all of our teachers all of our support staff all of the people in front of students and the red is special education so it's the same functional roles but but under the special that is the vast majority of our budget which is why it is the biggest proportion of staffing reductions that is not because we are selectively choosing to cut in other places we've talked a lot. And it's does not mean that these feel good. It does not mean that we they don't have impact, but it is the approach that the board asked us to do which is can we serve the students in the system I understand there's lots of different feelings about that. I'm just explaining how we got there that green line that is the functional area of administration so it has seen a reduction in partial fte's and in a position that's also this that category includes the board's budget area so everything that you do your legal fees all fits in that part of the pie chart so we actually are taking proportionate reductions because all of those areas central office administration it's a smaller piece of the pie. So I just want the board to have that information as you do your deliberation, and I would, you know, we've given you the recommendation, we think that this is what we can do to meet the needs of kids. If the board puts a different motion on the table and it passes then that is what administration will do. So, but that is also why we're not coming to you with a different recommendation because this is our recommendation so our job is to try to give you information. Your job as a board is to discuss it and see where you land. And I can't remember if there's something else I was going to show you I think that was it. Are we ready? I also maybe just, I don't know, is this working? Yeah, yeah. Okay, I just want to clarify because Chris, I think did you say that you thought there were not cuts being made from you 32. You know, I didn't, if I said none. That was I said the line. I think I was saying the lion share or the direct service providers. To an in the elementary school, and I know there are some of you 32, but they're, I think, given size, they're better able to absorb cuts than elementary schools are because there are much fewer staff members in the elementary school. And so I was not saying that you 32 hasn't taken cuts because they are absolutely are administration yes and actually distinction between not filling a position, then actually cutting someone who's in a position and so there are a couple of things here like you 32 in number six, saying we're not going to fill certain positions. So that's not cutting bodies. That's just not filling what may have been budgeted. And, you know, the directive technology is now a vacant spot. So it's not cutting that position. It's just not filling it gives an opportunity for not filling it and not spending that budget. And I see that is slightly different than you have people in these positions, performing the services for our students, especially the younger students, they're actually losing time and they're going to be cut. That has a big, big difference. And your cat, I'm going to put you on the spot here and say, but I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I am. But when you're giving back the social emotional, you said what a great thing we have. You kind of said, I hope it sticks because of the personnel changes I'm assuming. Am I right there? It's tricky because the web so many cuts. Please sing. I don't know how to answer Chris because there are so many implications for when you cut in one area it because we are a merged district that causes cuts across the district. And what I have started to build here is based on the people I have here now. But I don't know. I'm not saying that we can't still makes functional skills groups work. I'm going forward. But I, it takes more than just a role or an FTE it takes the right person takes the right skills. It's magic. It all has to come together. Magic maybe isn't a good word. I do believe that magic should be broken apart and figured out what made it work magical. And I do think I've got something pretty magical here with the folks that I have. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I was not actually. I understand what you're saying, but I also know that there are many people maybe online or that are going to listen to this that aren't looking at the numbers. And so I don't want that to be the narrative because there are almost $400,000 of cuts coming from positions at you 32 that are not just unfilled vacancies. And so that actually is the lion's share of the cuts when you compare that to the elementary school. It's just that people aren't. We're not hearing about them. So, I mean, I can do the math quickly. It's kind of close, but I think that the you 32 teachers are actually more than elementary school teachers. If you want to do that do that because that will help with the debate. I mean, if you want to do the calculation. And I have to calculate if you want. I'm going to take a little bit of a pause in this conversation. I want to start by reading from one of the letters weeks. We got this is from a teacher at EMS. She said she was disappointed in some of the response to the budget, particularly around. Discussion about being all the cart and commented that, you know, are you speaking about our administrator said they spent hours and hours coming up with the three just like you asked. I appreciate the conversation, but to hear you say that we can just take them all a cart and pick and choose was so disrespectful in my opinion. Do you not think they went through each item and thought very carefully about how it impacts students first the impact on each school. They are the experts in the schools. They know how each school functions. They know how one thing will impact the other. I'm worried about the direction. We're going here. I think, I mean, yeah, these cuts are hard. Yeah, there is there are questions about, you know, which, which school bears the brunt. This is what, you know, we weren't present for all of these conversations. You know, Pete, you know, when I trust that our leadership team had the conversation about what comes out of elementary schools versus what comes out of you 32. And what makes sense and what makes sense with our enrollment. You know, we, we heard last, you know, last meeting that. You know, once the scheduling actually happened, they discovered that, you know, they could, they could change, you know, how many sure they had 32 and that wasn't known before, you know, that's a real. That kind of decision doesn't have to be dependent on, well, who else got cut that that's a decision based on what works. And so it asked that we trust that are, you're, you're mean. Hopefully trust my verify, but your trust, your trust that our leadership team thought really hard about what was going to work for our students. Okay, any other questions. So can you get started at the end? Yeah. So certainly, I mean, I think. For, for myself, I also want to take back a narrative of what I've had pushed at me repeatedly at board meetings and in conversations with community. As one of those members last year who voted to increase the budget and move that forward. It was not because I was swayed by the emotional responses. It was because I took additional information and I looked at it. No one of us at the table said we don't want to consider cuts and we're not going to look at cuts and we're not even I don't even hear that now. What my narrative is, is we requested an opportunity to start these conversations early. We requested the opportunity to really explore how deep we needed to go and have those conversations. Maybe not to be distrustful, but is there a way for us to engage our communities and responding similar to when Zach was talking about telehealth or different things. It was the opportunity to explore that early on. Those of us who voted last year on the budget. That's what we were requesting. We were not requesting to put our heads in the sand and not consider the cuts that are needed and the reality of where we are. So I am taking that narrative back that to me this is a ripple of consolidation. We don't understand the true costs for each one of our communities and that is what's creating this sticker shock to what we're doing. We are impacted by consolidation because it changes the role of this board. We are not the individual boards. So therefore that transparency or that ability to interact directly with our board members looks different. And when we try to have those, I'm being told I'm mismanaging, micromanaging, and I am demonstrating ineffective board. Asking questions to me is not being disrespectful. Asking questions is how I learn. It's how I taught my children to learn. It's how I worked as a teacher. Questions and dialogue are how we get to a compromise and to an understanding. And so, you know, I, we don't really understand the true ripple. So even at looking at that chart and understanding exactly what you're saying about the shifting of resources. I still don't know what that means for Doty. I still don't know what that means for callous. I don't know what that means for Berlin. There's, we have to work on that part of the transparency. We weren't kicking the can down the road. We're trying to figure out what we needed to do in that moment. What I am also concerned about, and I don't know which way I'm going yet because I've heard from a variety of community members around the different parts of these budgets. And the frustrating part of the financial system that still is going to, no matter what we choose is going to have a huge impact on our taxpayers on myself and on our families. But we talk about ed quality standards. They're more than just the ratios, the ed quality standards help us set up our librarian expectations of direct, you know, the little mini directors of technology within each of our buildings. So I'm very concerned that we're not only a couple of years after a major hack, we are, you know, we're not going to rehire the director of technology and we're looking to reduce those hours of our librarians. And in this day and age, it just concerns me. So I just want to say that the reason why we might be kind of bouncing around on these numbers. We all are trying to figure out what our real role is as members of the community, and what these ripples mean, because we're it's just not clear even to me. Kelly, are you ready to share which Yeah, I mean, I this is really, really difficult. I think we, we hear a lot and of course we care deeply about student needs. And we also had a budget that was voted down a few weeks ago. And the operating on an 87% budget if this happens twice more just really, really scares me. And so I think that we really need to take this opportunity to balance what we hear from many people in this room with what the voters told us a few weeks ago. The tax increases are not small, even with the 8% it's, you know, it's a 17% increase in taxes in Berlin. That's huge. Just, it's so much. So, I, I'm leaning toward the 8% I think hearing from community members I, I'm not hearing that the 10% is is viable necessarily. And yeah, so I will, I will stop there. That's where my head is. Thank you Kelly. Given what we've heard from community members about their ability to shoulder the cost of our budget increases. And the very thoughtful process that our administrators and leadership team has put into coming up with our three alternatives here and they've talked about it. Last week and in this week's packet. I would support the six or the 8%. Thinking about where sort of what is uniquely our responsibility, our responsibility is to make sure that we get a budget pass that can support our kids and to recognize that that I really am not comfortable with gambling on, you know, a, you know, on a tax increase that's too high that could leave us in a position where even if we don't pass on this on the next try and but have to go again, then we're looking at, we're probably not just looking at the cuts that are on this page. We're probably looking at what, what else can we take out that are that our leadership has said, you know, this is really going to start, you know, hurting programming. So when I think about like what I think about both the things that Pete the that we've heard from the community and, you know, and the things that we and the things that we, we see here I think with the 8% I think I could look someone in the eye who says you know what you can down to 8% and I could say, you know what, we have, you know, you know, our average daily membership went up 8.6% last year that's that we change the system that's an empirical statement that the, you know, that we got that students should cost more to educate and so saying, you know, taking that increases I think valid. And I think that, and I think to be able to look someone in the eye and say, you know, in terms of the the education in terms of the component that comes from the spending education, we kept you at a little below zero. I think I could really defend. I, I think it would get really hard in that situation to look at someone saying, I can't afford this, even keeping it level. I can't afford this. If we're if we're leaving things on the table, where that are really based on enrollment that are really where we're saying are, you know, where we don't need as many FTEs because we don't have as many classrooms to teach. And the last and the last thing I want to say on the, on the public feedback we've we've certainly received a lot of feedback we've received receives a certain amount of feedback from from the general public we've received received a lot of feedback from people who are directly affected. And I think that is absolutely, absolutely valid that is important to learn from people about what the what these positions mean. I think it's also our responsibility as a board to recognize that that is that that is not necessarily representative of the community at large and we need to think about that as we think about this feedback. We need to think about the feedback we received from the survey where the, where the largest group of people was saying that this is unsustainable and from the vote where almost 1900 people said we can't keep doing this. Thank you, sir. Jonathan. Yeah, could you floor or somebody just remind us again the three proposals here are are built on the all previous reductions. Again, that we've already that are essentially on the table but somewhat okay going to share this life. So the community is aware of that as well. Yep. In the 10% column. Yeah. These are the, these are the previous. So these are in the January 17 budget proposal, and then the three column chart in your packet is in addition to these. This chart's also in last week's packet just to be clear. Yeah, I mean, I don't have really a whole lot to say other than we are in a really, really difficult place. And, but as I mentioned that our meeting last week. We need to make the best decision with the best information we have available at the time. And right now, and I still think that looking at the three proposals here one of which includes using a significant amount of fund balance. That was presented in good faith. So in my opinion, we ought to, I would be more comfortable with the six with the 6% using as much fund balance as possible, fully understanding that we may have a significant cost for asbestos remediation at you 32. But as of this point right now that's an unknown cost we don't know what that is. What we know is we have to pass a budget. So, so I would be inclined to use as much fund balance as possible, and have as few staff reductions as possible, because when I look at what we have. That was what was presented to the voters on the screen there. There's three counselor positions there. You know, and so any of these additional three proposals include except for the 6% includes significantly more staff reductions. So, I know that I'm on a limb here a little bit but that's okay. That's kind of how I live. So, I would say we use as much fund balance as we can possibly stomach and get the and get the increase down as much as possible. At the same time, we're living in as many staff reductions as we can. Thanks Jonathan Michelle. Okay, well, I have to say that this is so hard for me because I also have worked with all these people for a lot of years, and I care about them all. But I feel like I don't agree with using as much of our fund balance as possible, because, again, the PCBs at you 32, and that that'll just put us in the hole somewhere. And the fund balance is just a band aid, and we've heard that multiple times from many community members it's just a band aid. The fiscal cliff was really high last year. It didn't go down we knew this was coming I sat in the board meetings last year when all this we knew this was coming. So, I am comfortable with the 8% I'm also comfortable with the 8% including the positions in the 6%, which would then put us at like a 7.5 or something like that percent. There are other budgets, other schools are already voting their their revotes and they're going down. There's four school districts already that have gone down, and as it's just there's for the first time and it went down again. We can't. We can't put out a budget that they're not going to support that our, our towns are going to support. And then the tax impact is getting higher and higher our increases it was almost 10% last year to do another 10% this year is people aren't getting 10% increases in their pay. They can't afford that. So, we really need to try to figure out how we can pair this down as best as we can. So. Thank you, Michelle. Daniel. I appreciate the updated memo and the extra information provided tonight so thank you for that. There's seems like there's pain in every direction. With these options in front of us. I'm reluctantly trying to focus on choosing a number because I. Well, I appreciate the thought that goes into these options. Like these positions being cut. Doesn't to me represent. No reduction in service to our little customers. So I just, I don't want to acknowledge that I, the reduction in service to me feels pretty visceral. Again, I'm trying to focus on choosing a number and and keeping my eye on that, but I also think there's some important messages. That we're learning through through this process. I'm on board with what Diane was saying I think it's sort of like the Socratic method of budget development is sort of what we're going through and that's maybe a silver lining of having a budget go downs. You know, more learning about what's happening and what the repercussions are of all these cuts. I, I liked Zach's idea. I'm interested in exploring like creative ways of, you know, covering what I see as a shortage of nursing staffing with, you know, sort of supplemental telehealth if that's if that's something we can do for an affordable price tag I would like to explore that. I'd like to not be as focused on the proportionality of resources in schools like this. I mean, we know that our elementary schools use more resources that's one of the main reasons we're exploring really configuration as seriously as we are and I don't think that's something we necessarily have to fix with this budget. I'm really concerned about the allied arts positions and all these sort of specialized talents that people are bringing to the schools and then sort of trying to cram that service into 45 minute, 45 minute boxes for students, because it's a live with an art teacher, art is sort of a sprawling thing, and to, to try to compartmentalize that and then the whiplash that students and teachers are going to face with, you know, going from one 45 minute section to another. It strikes me as an incredible challenge and I'm sure that same is true with the library services we offer I'm so sure the same is true with the music services, and with the P as well. One last thing is I think that the ed quality standards are statewide standards and I continue to be frustrated with our focus on them in these budget proposals. I think an action step for me I know we're going to we're going to vote on adopting the sort of final version of the strategic plan after this. And one thing I'd like to come out of the strategic plan in terms of a specific action step is to create a Washington Central lens that we look at the ed quality standards through. As honey mentioned in her, in her comments, you know, a previous commitment we had made or, you know, we looked at the reconfiguration option through this lens of, you know, will there be a nurse in every school will there be a counselor in every school these are the types of things that we need to stand up for with the strategic plan. And, and look at, you know, I don't reject the notion that a statewide ed quality standard is going to apply for this district. And I don't want to keep doing that. But I think we do have to focus on a number here, we can't. I don't think we can or should debate the budget. In the same way we debated it in January. I mean, in many ways, the voters tied our hands here. I think 8% is where I'm landing for now. Thank you, Daniel. I have all kinds of thoughts. I'm trying to figure it out. I think I want to start with, you know, we always talk about the three pillars that our district uses to set an expectation for a standard of what we want our students to receive and I think that these cuts are going to greatly diminish the ability to provide our students with something from all three of those standards are all three of those pillars. And I think that we have heard from the community last year and this year that there is a want and a need for those services to remain intact. I also feel strongly that those are services that need to be remain intact. When we had our community conversations at the last board meeting about reconfiguration. One of the things that came out loud and clear is that community wanted opportunities for these are their students. And all of these cuts are impacting the opportunities that we're going to be providing for our students next year. I also hear from the community loud and clear that there is a concern about how much this is going to impact them financially. And I am trying to be incredibly thoughtful about that and conscious of that and I'm really struggling with weighing those two things. Education costs a lot of money and if we really want to provide our students with the best quality education that we can that's going to cost money. And I and I agree with some of the public comments that I don't think we've done a very good job communicating with the community about the importance of what it costs to educate our students and have our students to become the individuals we want them to be when they leave our district. I'll just leave it at that. I am not ready to say when we're another which of those three I can I can agree to right now but I'll just leave with that. I also I've been quite torn these past couple weeks, thinking through this again and again and hearing from the community from both all sides, really passionately. You know, I so appreciate what Diane said about previous budget cycles. And this wasn't, you know, I disagree with that narrative that we just kicked the can down the road and now we're stuck. It's different this year from prior years was prior years. We had the support of the majority of the community. And this year, I, you know, fought to add some stuff that I felt was very important back into the budget. And I had hoped that the community would support it and, and they didn't. Now we're in a position where the majority of the community did not support our budget, which is a completely different scenario, and one that I don't think this district has ever been in. And the, we need to pass the budget. I mean, that's, that's the most important thing right now. It breaks my heart to rain back the full time nursing and counseling in each school. I think that's so critical long term. I think there are lots of ways to get creative. I have to just put a quick sidebar as the family doctor in the room that telehealth is great for many things. But, you know, when a kid falls off the slide and breaks his leg and the nurses not right there, like, it's not helpful. So, but, but it will, you know, we can talk about lots of creative options with next year's budget cycle. But anyway, it breaks my heart to pull back the nursing counseling it breaks my heart to shave away at all these amazing teachers in the allied arts and what that might mean for our students. But again, I think we're in a position where we where we need to pass this budget. And so if I had to pick one actually I'd go with the 6%. Because there's nothing because what breaks my heart is in the eight and the 10 column and not so much in the six. So, if we're picking one, it would be six. If we were doing all the cart, it would be six and adding back in the nurses and counseling and allied arts, but I, but I'm not sure we want to go down all the cart route so. Thank you. Chris. Okay. Yeah. So, I don't have a problem with the 8%. I have a problem with the allocation and it's the allocation I think should be up to debate and moving around. I realize we're in a tough budget year, but and the board does have a role. We're not mere rubber stamps. And we can speak our voice and reflect our community's desires for certain things that they want to see in their schools like librarians which have an exponential effect across the learning community. They're not just shuffling books around it's technology it's integration with many different classroom events. So it's not a it's not a singular. Roll it's a multifaceted role. So I'm supportive of the 8% but not this configuration. And I think we have it within our abilities to re alter the configuration and it's not disrespectful I agree with Diane it's not disrespectful, not disrespectful to answer questions or ask questions and have a different opinion. So this is what are we even doing here. Why would we why would we even have an elected board. If you're asking questions of the folks that we hire and ask them to explain things and then come to a different conclusion. Why are we why are we even here then. I mean, this professional people come in ask your opinion they go, ah, you know what, we love your opinion but we're not going to accept it we're going to go somewhere else. That's that's the way the expertise works. You can pick and you can choose and it again it's not disrespectful just seeing things differently because our administrators do come from a vantage point that they have, which may not necessarily resonate with the community. I mean there's anyway, I support the 8% not this allocation and I wouldn't vote for this 8% allocation as it is. You can you can take it out Amelia to the scoop. First of all I just want to thank everybody who made a comment. And in last meeting. I really appreciate the energy and the care and the discourse I think that everybody in this room is passionate about public education. And in a perfect scenario we wouldn't be making any cuts or if we would we wouldn't be putting any of the allied arts programs. And at the end of last meeting I said that I would. I was leaning towards the 10% ideally without any cuts to the allied arts. And I'm appreciating the complexity of the financial cliff that we're all facing. And so I think that it's not so much an either or I don't think we're really against each anyone's against each other I think it's a both and I think that we're trying to figure out how do we get all the needs met to the best of our capacity. I'm convinced that the administrators and the principles who made these recommendations for the 10 and 8 and 6% cuts are the experts we need to really trust and confide in to lead us in that decision. And so I'm thinking about you know if we if we go for the 10% it doesn't pass and we've got kicked back to the 80% of last year's budget. We're jeopardizing the sustainable solution which is reconfiguration. We're jeopardizing quality education for our students which it was stated has the intention of giving the students as good of a quality education that they have now without any of these cuts, if not better. And so beginning with the end in mind. I think that the recommendation that Richard made actually, if we can go for the 6% and not use the fund balance, and we land somewhere in the 8% range. We can preserve what we have to the best of our capacity with the vision of the sustainable solution for reconfiguration. Thank you Amelia Joshua. Hi everyone. My apologies for being a little late. The speakers not too loud. I would support either the 8% or the 6% budget proposal I know in the past I've been really critical about infrastructure spending not like, you know, not taking money away from fund balance or our capital plan. In the spirit of, you know, coming together, I will totally moderate those views and, you know, no matter how we get to those numbers, I'll support that. Even if that's in areas I'd rather not see that money come from. So again, I will support the 6% or the 8% proposal. Thanks. Thank you Joshua. So, are we ready for a motion. So that we can discuss motion pending. Yeah, well that's true that we passed the other motion so we had a motion by Ursula. Second, which I'm forgetting right now by sack. So, what was that motion to approve the 8% budget. Well, it was more than it was 8% budget. As presented here as presented 8% budget as presented. Yes. That's what we're doing. We're talking. Yeah, that's where we're talking. Okay, so we have a motion on the table. By Ursula second by sack. Any discussion, are we ready for a vote. I have one question actually for administration I know that we've heard some, you know, some support for each of between the 8% and particularly. I've heard a lot of people who are concerned about taking too much fund balance. I also heard some interest in potentially taking the staffing reductions from the 6%. And I know that trying to kind of respect the activities, but also know that we're talking something between two scenarios. I just sort of wondering for administration is when you thought about this, you know, if you were going to go below the 8%, do you say, Oh, the first thing you would take would be fund balance. And you say the first thing you take would be the positions. That's not as Steven. Well, the cops are in his building. Answer last week. So I just wanted to say that I would start it by saying, I can't just lean into this. Oh, there's one right there that we didn't think about it that way here what we thought about to get down to the six is the most judicious amount of fund balance, because we two were concerned about going all the way to the 923 so we really would say hold up those two things against each other. I don't know Steven if you would weigh in I mean it. That is an impactful reduction in the six. Yeah, I mean I think, as I said last time Chris, we really were concerned with what were enrollment decisions, the 10% reductions, what were program modifications which would have been 8% reductions, and the 6% reductions were were a loss, and for the and I said that for for you 32 I couldn't speak to every detail of the elementary schools, but those positions are definitely you 32 the biggest one in there. And I would say that I'm actually hesitant more so today than I was last time because of some staffing issues that we have in our building grounds right now that we didn't have as double the last meeting. And so I just I would be I would be actually looking to see are there other ways to go about that, even at this point in time. I think for me it's the the bottom line number that the board gives me these are my recommendations. And I will do the best that I can to meet all of those. Just at the point of application. What I see number six is just personnel and not programming. Unless person I was so intimately. Well, I would say programming. So programming and services is the way that I hope that I express that so this person we did but in this number six I only see personnel. Correct. And that would affect the services that we can provide within our school. So if we had the building and grounds position was cut, that would be a reduction in the services that we could provide to our school. Now, as you said, those aren't necessarily the person in front of a kid teaching, but keeping our building open is probably an important part of teaching kids. Thank you, Steven. Any other questions. Natasha. Yeah. Can you use the mic just for the people online. Yeah, this is just a clarifying question. When you put up the positions that were being cut with the previous budget included to ESP positions that were unfilled. And the 6% also has to ESP positions that are unfilled is that to additional. Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Yep. Thank you. Yep. Okay, any other clarifying questions before we vote, Daniel. Maybe there are comments more than questions. There's sort of a question in there. I was just going to reiterate a point I made last time around, which is that the use of the fund balance gives me pause. The amount. 485,000 is a lot and I. I don't want us to not use fund balance next budget. Because we're going to have, we're going to have to basically make up that entire, that entire amount in cuts next time around. If we don't use fund balance. So I am voting for the 8% and the use of $485,000 in fund balance with the full expectation that I'm going to also advocate for 200 and whatever it is $42,000 in fund balance for next budget. So it's a graduated step up in terms of dependence on that. That one time. Those one time funds. I also wanted to just say that I. I also support. The reduction to an 8% spending increase. But I don't necessarily support the way I'm not, I'm not endorsing this. List of cuts. I'm endorsing the 8% spending increase. And I think it's, you know. If, if the, if the situation changes, if the landscape changes. If we've learned things, if our administration has learned things through this process and. Feels like changes should be made to this list. I hope they will come to us with those changes. And I, for one, would be very receptive to hearing about changes to that list. One clarification is that if we vote. Yes. On the motion that is currently pending as it is the administration has no obligation to come back to us. And we will, we are endorsing these cuts. And so let's not fool ourselves that we're not doing that. Because we're endorsing cusses that are on this paper right now. If we vote on an 8% budget cut and I would be stunned. If, if that was reconfigured in any way, just because this. At least what I've heard is delicately balanced together. And if you pull out one of these pieces, it falls apart. So I would be stunned if there's any retooling of this because we're not voting on an 8% increase to be then reallocated. We're not voting on this proposal and these cuts. So if we want something different than that, we can say we're voting for an 8% increase. But we're not being, you know, and ask the administration to come back with a different allocation. Otherwise, I think we're voting on these allocations. Go ahead, Daniel. I understand that. And I think our, our opinions while we, we have the same opinion about not endorsing this list of cuts. I'm just leaving the door open for them to change their mind. I would not be stunned. That would not be the word I would use if they changed some, some version of some part of this list. It's fine with me. If this is their professional judgment and this remains their professional judgment as to how to use that 8% spending increase. I would also be okay if it changed. So just to be clear. Yeah, just, just Natasha. Well, yeah, go ahead, Natasha. The motion that is on the table is 8%. To support the project presented as, as is written. The administration could not make any changes. No, no, no, but yeah, as written, I just want to make sure that I'm clear on what as written means, which is what is listed here. I hope this answer doesn't sound like I'm trying to just split the difference because that is our recommendation. So your motion is to accept that recommendation. And so yes, that is our intention to do just that. To Daniel's point, just like we would come to you in August if we had an influx of kindergarten students and needed to add a teacher, we would come to you and ask for that. Or if we had a mass shift in something related. And I can't even think of the example, we would come to you with changes, we do make changes to what we do based on the circumstances. So I guess I am kind of threading the middle. Yes, I just, I just want to make sure that if it's if we vote yes on the motion as it is stated, that there is flexibility to make changes. If the administration sees fits, because the way it stated is we are voting on it as it's written. Yes, and the, yes. Yes, there's flexibility and I don't want to over promise like I don't want you to think like we have some plan behind the scenes and right. That's all. Thank you. Or so, so Megan pretty much covered what I was going to say is that we are language our budget language goes out with a dollar amount. They have showed us how at this point in time that what they know how they plan to allocate that money so that we can understand the budget and make our decisions. I was not in any way with my motion trying to say they have to spend it exactly this way they need to be able to make their decisions as the time moves on from here until September, August when they start seeing actual enrollment numbers should change something spike should something change. I fully expect them to use whatever money you go on in a way that is judicious for our students. Thank you. I wanted that clarification because again, the wording of the motion, the wording of this motion is that the intent that I didn't want to allow current. Yeah, got it. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, any other question, Michael. That's my question is common comment. You can comment. Um, okay, I know I think I said 10% at last meeting and then this meeting I said six I'm a little worried with the 8% that we're not going to make anybody happy, because most, most of what we heard was either. This is far too much money we need to get down closer to 5%. We heard, don't cut the allied arts and it with 8% we're cutting the allied arts we're cutting nursing and counseling, but we're still not getting it as low as a lot of people would like it to be. I didn't hear any, and maybe they're just not talking, but I didn't hear anyone in the community saying, please don't cut the buildings and ground director. I understand Steven that it's not ideal. But I guess I just worry that by treading a line in the middle, we're, we're going to lose people on both sides. And again, I think the most important thing is to pass the budget so I'm still advocating for the 6%. So go ahead or so that that's 6% includes the cuts from 8% and 10% they are inclusive. That's my point though. I think I think we're cutting what some people don't want us to cut, but we're not getting it low enough for the people who need it lower. But I think if we made them or cycle first and we were also with that 6% using $864,000 of our fund balance is not a lot a lot like floating your household expenses on your credit card. Yeah, which is very hard to recover. Yeah. We're doing it across the board. Go ahead sec. I think we've had a few comments. So we've had a few comments about how we need to really up our game in terms of our communication and I absolutely agree with those. You know, we've certainly had some just straight up, you know, six comments in in favor of the 6%. I think we've also had a number of comments that I think are reacting to the numbers but aren't aware of what's in them and what I'm specifically referring to are the people who say, we need to use the 6%, but don't use fund balance. And we've heard a bunch of that. And so I think, I think there is also an opportunity there to really go out and talk to people explain what we what we did and why, and to say, you know, yes, we heard you we heard that we need to really cut this down. We also heard you say where, you know, we don't think it's responsible to use all this fund balance. And that led us to the 6% was a whole bunch of the fund balance that you didn't want us to spend. And so that's, you know, it gets to it's definitely going to be a bunch of work for us to do to really get that message out and get that message crisp and clear. But that that's where where I where I am less worried about being at the 8% and needing and being able to sell it. I agree with sack that if we are able, and you can go next, Chris, we're able to to to approve, hold a minute, approve. I've just let me finish. We, if we're able to approve a budget move to amend the motion. Let her finish. Let me finish. I was just not done for, can you hear me. Oh, I can't. Can you hear me. Yeah. Okay, so what I was just saying it following what sack was saying is that if we right now are able to agree in a budget boat in the motion of the 8% we can move and really, you know, split ourselves up to mobilize and informer community and be able to all move to pass our budget be able to have a post get ready to send be able to have a flyer frequently ask questions like really spend some time talking about how we're going to pass this budget together. So if we could move it if we can spend more time in that part right now so let's try to finish this deliberation. Go ahead, Chris, I have a motion to amend move to amend them. Sorry, thank you. I'm going to move to amend the current pending motion to accept the cuts in the 6%. But then restore the nursing and counseling in Doty in callous. That is my motion to amend to the currently current pending motion. So taking the editing cuts from the 6%. The buildings and ground and to ESP positions that are on build, and then restoring the point nine nurse and callous and Doty and the point eight counselor at callous and Doty. That motion will need a second. That amendment. Okay, okay, so we have an amendment by Chris second by my Kailin. Is there any discussion or people are ready to vote. Can you. It's not my vote. You mean you wanted land. You want the net of that to be eight, or are you saying six. No, I'm not saying six. So you're saying eight and moving the cut. Correct. Thank you. That's all I just wanted to know. And, and not the fund balance from six. No, absolutely not from six. And then do you know what the money in money out is different. It's, I think the money out would be about. Can we have Suzanne do that for us. It's a new number. It's a new number of 41,640,348 dollars. And it actually is still 6% because it's a percentage thing. I'm not messing with the numbers I swear. Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no. Essentially, Chris's motion gives you a 6% budget. I hope not. I added the buildings and grants. It's 110,450,460 dollars. The two ESP positions of 143,674 and the total there is 255,134. And then adding back in the nurse. And that's a total of 185,222. So there's a net reduction. Additional, the reduction of about $75,000 or so. You wanted the fund balance in there. No, not the 800. The fund balance is connected to the 8%. So he wants to use the 480. The 485. I just want to make sure with Chris's key, they're still going to, and they actually are adding back to the school, but the 8% is already 0.2 nurse. That's in the 8%. Well, I was specific to Doty and, yes. I was specific to Doty and house. Yes. This is the motion to amend the current. It's to. Yeah. Any motion for the second. But. Which would be in reduction. But that was when she thought, you know, to be recalculating what that number will be because the fund balance is not being used. It's listed in the 6%. It's okay. Just for now, let's just try to get the number. And I also want to, just as discussion just reminded us that we, we looked at the equitable distribution of resources. And I know that's not what everybody's thinking right now, but in the current we were trying to make it so that is more equitable across students and staff. So this would undo that. Ursula. Two floors point. Can Chris discuss how he thinks that these adjustments that you're making will affect the schools and the entire system. The entire system. Yes. Within the pillars that we asked them to explore when making the budgets. It would certainly help two of our schools. That would have. Their current level of nursing counseling. Maintain. And certainly that would be a helper of the students in those schools. That would be great. And that has a ripple fact across the. The district because if they're down and nursing counselors. Does the district just ignore the needs then in those two schools or do resources come from other places to address those, those needs. And we had a doctor saying, you know, if you have a kid who gets hurt. Like telemedicine is great for some things. Probably not really great for young kids. And you know, there's, there's using the resources we have in the way that makes most sense within the circumstances of. And again, young kids. So that's. That's why I think it's beneficial. Effect without being a negative to the district as a whole, because this actually lowers the budget. By $75,000. Is it equitable? Of course it is. Can you define equitable? Is it going to be. It's not equitable. It's still cut and Rummy's nurse and Rummy's had a 1.0 all along. And they're still here. Right. So you're increasing. And Rummy's bigger than both callous and Doty. Does that mean cows and Doty shouldn't have. I'm not saying they shouldn't, but where's the equity. To me as well. Store the point two for the room. There's two and then we'll reduce, we'll reduce the overall benefit to the budget. I think the lowest wage is not equal to, you know, not equal. That means giving each. School what they need. And Worcester is the lowest. Economic. Town and our district, which does not always carry a heavier burden from mental health, but. Certainly isn't where we, I would recommend maybe. I have a number. It's a $41,640,348 budget, which is a 7.76% increase. So lower than 8%. Yep. Okay. Yep. So I'm going to move to amend my amendment to include the run the nurse, which has another $22,016. If we have a second. Do you have it? I'll back in it just for 41,662,364 dollars. And it's a 7.83% increase. 7.1. I'm sorry. 83%. Thank you. So now they each have one. Correct. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Are we ready to call the question on the amendment? Oh yeah, go ahead. I was just going to call the question on the amendment. That's all. Okay. We can vote on Chris's amendment. All those in favor of the amendment. Do anybody needs to be read again. The complicated amendment or you're ready to vote on the second amendment by. Chris to include also the Romney nurse. Okay. So I'm just going to make a roll call to make it faster. So. Well, maybe not faster. Let's do a voice call first. All those in favor of the same fight by saying aye. Aye. Any, all of those opposed, please say nay. Nay. Okay. That's going to be complicated. So. Amelia. Nate. Chris. Hi. Hi. Hi. I'm Kayla. Hi. Natasha. Hi. Daniel. No, Michelle. No. Jonathan. Hi. Sack. No. Ursula. No. I. Hi. Joshua. No. Just give me a minute. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven eyes, one, two, three, four, five, six, nice, the motion carries, but well, I haven't voted. So I meant the motion to amend carries. Okay. So now let's vote in the amended motion. Could you read the amended motion? Lisa. Could we just also cite the new percent in the amendment? Yes. Or in the amended seven point 83 is right here. Everybody's clear. No, sorry. Are we voting on the amendments or voting on the amendment now? But that is the new motion. Yeah. So we are voting on the motion as amended. Okay. Any questions? So I'm just going to go around. I'm going to start here. Diane. Hi. Okay. Kelly. Hi. Ursula. Nay. Zach. Hi. Jonathan. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Daniel. Hi. Natasha. Hi. Micaelyn. Hi. Chris. Hi. Amelia. Joshua. Hi. So the eyes have it. Yeah, for the warning. For the warning, 41,662,364 dollars, which is a seven point eight three percent local education spending increase. Sixty two thousand. That's right. That's right. Sixty one. Sixty six. Okay. So you guys have the. But should we do that? Should we take the ballot? Yeah, yeah, it just did the number. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Okay, so yeah, just to make clear that everybody knows the warning is being approved like that. And then we'll need the signature for everybody. I between the warning is that this is this approves the warning. So this would be the warning for the vote. The amount that Suzanne just read. The six is was it forty forty one million six hundred and twenty two with three three hundred and sixty four dollars. Sixty two. Okay. There's no need to approve the warning separately is what you're saying. Correct. Correct. And you will need to sign it once it's filled in because the one in your pocket was didn't have a number. So Melissa will have to reach out to folks about signing. In probably pretty short order. No. So let's let's move now into the budget communication. Yeah. So we the finance committee and the steering committee met this week in to try to come up with a. Budget outreach and communications plan. And there were a lot of ideas that floated by by everybody there. So what we were hoping is that we would have we've been working with Ben Miller who's our does our report and helped us with the postcard together. So we were hoping to have a we will have a multi page a flyer like we had a trifold like we had the last time but have it be two pages so we can include more information there. The. So the introductory message the overview of the budget the tax rate projections and frequently as questions we're still working on on those and everybody's going to contribute to that. The annual report will be also a posted and updated and the in the website. We're not going to reprint the big annual report. We're going to have the annual report in the in the in the website. Yeah. And we would like to have a standalone and I let Megan talk about the frequently asked as questions in a minute. And the next the next part of it is that we're going to have the informational meeting with we all agree to in April 17. And this is when we will be presenting there. We're trying to do it before everybody goes on vacation right. So we would do this together and now we own the budget. So the board will be presenting the budget. And then the reach meeting we this is an idea that the both the steering committee and the finance started the finance committee had is that maybe on May 1st instead of we're scheduled to have a meeting we would reschedule our quality committee meeting and instead of that we would have representations to split the board into five basically and have a meeting in but with representation across town. So not just middle sex go to middle sex and East Montpellier to East Montpellier. So we would have representation and have the steering committee members that each one represents. That's one of the ideas that they could schedule a time or we can just split up in five representational groups and that use that May 1st like a carousel kind of thing. And we would facilitate a presentation of the budget by April 17. We would have talking points. And we would have separated our roles. So we would use that same information for each of us to go. It doesn't have to be in the school if that community decides that the best place to meet is I don't know the one me but you know like you tell me it can be the school you decide. We were thinking about an informational video that could be in the website. So it's just it runs the budget and just have a short presentation of the budget and then you know still try to do our best with the social the social media and other ideas. But before we do our ideas, I want to make them to talk a little bit about the frequently asked questions. Really just look for the board's input. The concept is that that we would just have an available frequently asked questions space on our website. We would also push it out so that people are seeing it. This in the printout are just some ideas from questions that we know people have asked in the community. I'm not asking you to answer them will answer them. We want to make sure we have all the questions. So we know that people want to know but in consensitivity and they want to know not only what that looks like but also how would they access that Suzanne has some good information about that. So we will have that in there. Obviously just sort of that general question. If the budget's going up by 7 point whatever percent how come my tax rate is different from that. So basically just information about why that is. How can I better understand our funding system. Obviously an explanation of the reductions including where they come from and functional area. Why can't consolidation be considered for FY 25. That's a questions that comes up. So we know that these are questions and we'll include those what other questions have board members heard that you think this document should include. Two possibility one is it was very helpful to see that per pupil cost and so I think is there a way to have that as what does this mean per pupil and that the other thing is what is the impact of using fund balance. Because I know that's a big question that's out there. Go ahead. Michael. I think he only mentioned including what the tax rate increase would be on the level. But I don't think many people understood that. What was the last part of what you just said. I want to make sure I was just saying the people I spoke to didn't really understand first and round that taxes are going up significantly kind of regardless of what happened with the budget. Any other ideas you can you can email you can know as if you have sex or I didn't see your hand. This is related to be and I think also related to the Kalin's point. But I think it's important to have to walk the April through what the different components are. So like you're going from the actual total increase was actually less than the 7.8 selling percent that we've been talking about to net ed spending to what does that mean per pupil to to then sort of what is the bottom line increase impact on the tax rate just from the ed spending and to then be able to speak to what impact is the property values have on it so that people can sort of get using people sort of take people through it step by step. So if they could feel like they can get some grass with the complexity. Is this still only about the any other any other ideas that are done. And you're done with the quets. So the ideas of communicate. Hold on a minute. Daniel, I think it's I think we have to balance. The amount of good of information we give with the necessary amount of information we give and what my overwhelm voters. So I think we need to be careful. I don't have I don't have an answer to how to do that. So I'm sorry. That's not helpful. Maybe can I respond to that real real real. I totally agree. I have some colleagues outside. But as you know, lots of districts are selling their budgets right now who have really good plain language answers to these questions at a readability rate that's very accessible. And so we're going to I'm borrowing a lot of their praising because even Zach, what you asked as a follow up is really complex. So I have some good ideas. I can't say it will be perfect. But I do think plain language is really important. This is complicated. And I'd rather make it simpler and understandable than get in the weeds. Someone can always ask for follow up. We can always bring someone into the weeds if they want to go there. But will this document will be aimed to be really accessible. And we can have the other point. Sorry was in the in the budget mailing to see tax rate projections. I think for me, I guess I'll say the $1.46 per whatever is less helpful than the percent increase by town. And then we would have in the mail air we would send some of the frequently asked questions. And then we can have a longer document that is in the website. So to that end, so one of the things we've heard in multiple places at the meetings and that is basically the frequency. So like wondering about more frequent postings in front porch forum. They might be shorter, but it's really the information to get out there. The other thing that Keeley and I were hearing over the weekend was I think this is a lot of pressure on our principals to be talking with staff about this who are community members as well. And I'm not sure how we as a board help with that in terms of being the front facing of while, you know, we realize the cut. I don't know what that looks like, but I'm just thinking that we as a board need to take that on as opposed to our principals having to go in and shore up their staff while also talking up this budget that could be very painful and stressful. And so that's another thing. And then the other what we also, what I heard from somebody was that, you know, now we have had the discussion, we have had the discord now is our time to move forward as a unified board to really sell this and get it out there. Yeah. Amelia. I'm curious along the lines of kind of emphasizing the contribution of the increases to the CLA and the property values. People might be left sort of feeling like, well, what can you, like, why don't you do more? You know, or sort of like, well, what do we do with this frustration? And there might be questions about like, how do we, what impact can you make? I'm wondering out of the board, if we could have sort of agreed upon language that we could use to end and even resources to refer people to if they wanted to get involved in like advocating for changes on the state level or if you know, the national level and sort of like a reading on how we refer people to get involved in that they want to be. Yeah, two answers. One is that the further explanation about Vermont's Ed funding system is where we would connect them to different resources, different ways to learn about why it is and all of that. And I would also say it's pretty easy to add a link to your legislators. I mean, just today, I sat in front of the Senate Finance Committee, we had a conversation with the Ways and Means. So there is a ton of advocacy and I think this board is quite well represented in that. And we can maybe talk about that in our FAQ, not only give people the resource, but also let them know that we're trying. The hard part is the universal answers is not going to be fixed for this year. That's the hard part. But still, good suggestion. Thank you. Any other? Thanks, maybe just to echo Diane about moving forward as a board and also frequency. I think in the communications material, it'd be really great to have like, if you have one sentence, this is what you say. If you have three sentences, this is what you say. If you have a paragraph, this is what you say because the more that we can talk about this as a unified board and the more this message can kind of stick in the heads of people as they hear it more and more and it's the same thing, I think the more likely we are to get people out to vote and that people are gonna vote with us. So this answer connects that with also the social media frequency. I would recommend that the board, and right now it could be the steering committee because you don't have an active communications committee. I think the board would need to organize itself around this. If we leave today with just, we're gonna do more frequent social media posts or there's three different versions of the messages, I think it will get lost. My suggestion would be whether that is a short meeting or I think you'll want to organize yourselves a little bit. So who's doing which front post porch forum and when, who's that type of thing. So can we form, or I don't know if there's a steering committee or there's a steering, there's a steering committee and we can have the steering committee, the steering committee meet. I think we can't quite wait for the steering committee to meet before putting it, I will write an update of today that the steering committee should post, right? And at least just for today and then have a meeting of the steering committee just to go through all of the other parts. And then I agree with you Kelly, having some talking points for everybody to have the same especially when we go to each of our communities so separate and then we would still need to partner because as board members we can say vote yes and I hope that everybody understands that, right? We can give information and ask people to come to vote. It could be parents and other people can go out and say please vote yes for the board so you would need the partnership of other people. But I think if we are at the forefront of putting information out and communicating when the vote is and remind the people to go and vote this is a special, it's not when people regularly vote. Right. So maybe just I would love to be a part of that. So Diane just said that I can especially for her or I don't think we can both. So yeah, you guys could switch. Yeah, it'll be great. Michaelan. I'm just curious, I know we have front porch forum but does the district have Facebook and Instagram accounts? The district that certainly does. We do not have an Instagram post. We have a Facebook post and the district gets four or five front porch forum posts per month because of our accounts. So we do use those and push them out. The I would offer that the board needs to lead in addition to that particularly because you also want a network with community members who can help you network that. So we just use our personal ones, right? Yeah, no, no. We can't. Well, you as individual community members and I would say anyone who knows anyone in a school and his friends with them on Facebook, I see lots of administrators saying please vote my vote. Like as a citizen, please vote for my budget. So right. So yes, people can as individuals. Whether or not I would want, I would think you would want your, you would want to think about whether or not the board wants a Facebook and Instagram page because you would want to think about who monitors it and who sets it up. And I mean, we even so. We can't right now because the Facebook page is it's a little complicated. So don't think we haven't tried that. It's really hard to get it. It was created under a previous employee. Facebook locks it down. You then anyway, it's complicated, more complicated than you would think. And what gets and you know, I am hesitant to put a board a Facebook account because other districts I got in trouble with that is really hard to manage. But you with your own individual account, you can always repost what is posted on the district account. And that's what most of us do. So like for example, Melissa post, there's a board meeting repost that there's going to be over me and there's a board vote. You know, you don't, you know, you can say please, you know, and then your friends will, will see that. Ursula. I was going to say, I also take the district ones and share it to like Middlesex as a Middlesex families group. I'm blanking exactly on the name. I'm pretty sure Worcester has something like a community group on Facebook. I haven't checked all of our towns to be fair, but I will take any of the district posts and share them over. And if sometimes when I do it for mobile, it gets wonky. So then I just cut and paste. Okay. So I'm going to move us along in the interest of getting us out of here, hopefully before nine o'clock. We need to appoint 4.3 a point of board member to the interview committee for the 32 principle. So who's interested, Michelle? Yeah. Yeah. I'd be interested in it. You'd be interested in it. Anybody else that would be interested in it? What, how many do you want? No, I'm just asking one. So I'm just asking. Yeah. Amelia, you'd be interested too. Okay. So you want? I'm interested. So can you guys check the dates? Yeah. How about I send the dates to all three of you and we'll start with who can, I don't want to be the one to pick you, but... Yeah, I mean, throw many. Okay. So I will send the dates to the three interested folks and it is something where we would need you to be involved in all of them. So if you're not available, that would pull you out of the mix. And then I will ask, I don't know how you want to pick from there, but we'll take it from there. Well, I think if from there, just like everybody else, if it works for the three of us, I would just let the consultant pick from the three board map because I don't know how. If she has some context. That's true, she has stuff. So I think the easiest way would just be to have one person. Yeah, but I'll step down. Never mind. You guys can battle it. Yes. No, I thought that would be me. What did you say, Amelia? I wasn't sure if you need more people, right? But if you just one. Just one. Okay. So could I have a motion? I know we're going with Michelle. Unless Michelle can't do it. No, I have. You saw the dates. I can take. You saw the dates? I don't know what the dates are, but I have time I can take. So I'm not worried about it. So we're going to push out. There we go. Okay. So can somebody make a motion? I make a motion. Okay. Diane makes a motion and Ursula seconds it. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Thanks. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you. Okay. We're not quite done. A personnel. Page 12 to have a volunteer Ursula. I move to accept the resignations of Jessica Wills, assistant principal and Carol Holden, director of special services. With many thanks for their service. Second. So moved by Ursula and second by Natasha. Thank you, Jess and Cara. We were going to miss you. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any. Oh, can we vote no. Any. Can we kidnap them and hide the start questions? I know. Loan them. Any opposed? I assume none. Any abstentions? Okay. The motion carries. Okay. So a consent agenda. Approved the minutes that we didn't approve the last time. So could I have a motion to approve the minutes? I move. Okay. So moved by Chris, second by McKellen. All those in favor, please signify. Any discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion carries. Okay. Future agenda. Items is pass our budget. Just kidding. No, I felt like work on passing our budget. Daniel. One thing that came up in the steering committee after you left was board vacancies. I want to. Yeah, that's the, that's the other one. So now that we have the budget, we're going to post Melissa has already contacted the town clerks and we're just going to ask for letters for recommendation. We have somebody interest from call us and we still need to find somebody from Doty from Worcester. Okay. And a motion to adjourn. Second. Daniel. And second by Natasha. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Good evening.