 All right, so we are going to talk about the continuous improvement planning process, my hope is to provide an interview and overview for you and then we can get going. When Carrie and Brian and I met to talk about this upcoming meeting we thought that maybe because it's not a typical SLO presentation that we could attempt a slightly different protocols so this is a modification of another school reform initiative protocol. It's a little more open ended so that you all as board members can just take a turn to share your reflections. These are some guiding questions, but it's just it's a little looser yet still focused. So, we'll take it from there. So, where to start. I see a lot of material in this presentation and, and there were a lot of links. I think in thinking about this presentation, I wanted to make sure that you had the information you needed as board members to understand what the continuous improvement planning process is. And how the AOE defines it what the requirements are for us as a school district and as individual schools. And so I put a lot of links in here I also really wanted to make sure that you had the opportunity to hear directly from our principals about this which is why I embedded those links. And recorded those flip grid videos but we're not going to take the time and this meeting to go through all of that we would never get done. So I think that you know I was searching for some sort of visual to show the manifestation of continuous improvement in action and this one while the language is slightly different than the AOE language. So what I like about it is that it emphasizes the idea that we're always doing sort of little cycles we want to try something small. But you know look at our data plan to do something do it check in is it working or not and then we're going to act the way that the AOE talks about action right now is either in the short cycles we're going to abandon an idea that didn't work we're going to adapt it tweak it a little bit or we can adopt it and that with each sort of PDSA cycle. We see little bits of improvement. I remember when I was getting initially trained in this sort of theory of thinking. We talked a little bit about ties and which is sort of that Japanese model of improvements sort of those small steps to ultimately making powerful changes and permanent changes for the better. So I, I just want to let you know that all of this is here the other thing is that the process can also be incredibly complex and we're going to talk through some of the phases of the work. So, when I had the opportunity through Dodie's designation as a school in need of comprehensive supports, when we had access to AOE resources and so we capitalized on that opportunity and invited the creators of this particular comprehensive improvement planning process to come and facilitate for us. So it was great, then it was nothing that seemed too overwhelming to us as administrators who have lots of work that we're doing in our schools. And for the AOE it was an opportunity for them to come to the field and really enact and experience this process so that was super helpful. I think the other thing I would say is as floor mentioned, we had probably all together about 50 ish people I think who gathered we met at Dodie we were able to meet twice before our period of school dismissal. And, and I'll get into those details and a little more detailed momentarily. As you were planning, Kari had asked, what is it really what what does it look like. And so the, the, the easiest resource for you to see and I clipped a little bit of it along the way and embedded parts in the slideshow is that CIP template that sort of the overall template for the phases of the process. So that link should work for you that framework is a 50 plus page document that articulates expectations. I'm going to move on and again because I'm sharing my screen I can't see everybody so if you have a question or you want to pause I think we have time for that so by all means just just pop in, because I won't be able to see everybody. In a nutshell, there are four phases of the continuous improvement planning process. And I took these visuals from the AOE materials so that you had an overall picture that's what's on the left there those four phases. And we last spring together as a district both sort of together as a district or an lea and in our separate schools did the assess needs and innovate part that's when we engaged in our comprehensive needs assessment looking at lots and lots of data and came up with some change ideas. We're now in phase two, we're testing out a few ideas and seeing what might work and what might need to be tweaked and what just doesn't work at all. And then ultimately we want to do more intentional implementation and then spread whatever that small PDA PDS a cycle was plan to study act. We want to grow it, and then ultimately make plans to sustain it and it's just it's another approach to sort of organizational change theory when we're in sort of early use and ultimately we want to get into routine use. There are on the right there to figures the first is again a little bit more detail about what is involved in a plan to study act cycle or a PDS a cycle. And I also included just that figure four up there, just so that you're aware, we are required by the AOE to have both a school district plan and school based plans. It was really important to me as the facilitator but I think to all of us in our district that there was very clear alignment between those school based plans and the school and that school district plan because it worked so hard to, you know, articulate student learning outcomes for all of our students to engage in PD that's irrelevant for all of us so if we had had vastly different plans, that would be problematic in my estimation so we did a lot of work together with them, where we were able to mix up and work in teams across schools and then when it came time to ultimately come up with change ideas to do a little bit more school based work. So again, this was essentially the work of our very first phase, the work that we engaged in together last year. So we looked at data I included the data for you in the slideshow coming up. And then came up with some broad areas of focus a priority problem. We did a lot of root cause analysis why do we think that this particular problem exists. And then we came up with an idea for a change around this theory of improvement. And then we got into about the second to last last stage, and then COVID hit, and I can't even tell you, you know, I found this pressure and urgency and need to get this work done. And at the same time, knew that people didn't have the capacity or bandwidth to get it done. Ultimately, we met via zoom in school based meetings. And by the end of May, and we, we did our very best to articulate an idea, knowing that we had no idea what school is going to look like when we all came back. This is phase two. I'm really thinking about enacting these cycles tweaking them thinking about the professional learning and the communication that staff members need. What are the sources of data that we need to collect how do we know if this change idea is working or not. And again, ultimately, adapting adopting or abandoning the change idea. This is sort of the highlight of phase three, right, that we want to go from sort of small scale change to broader implementation. And then phase four is thinking about, okay, things that are working well, how do we sustain them in the long term, how do we commit to them. I know for me quite honestly one of the things I worry about in my own practice an area of improvement for me is that part is sustaining it down the line. I know when I was preparing this, this work for you all tonight Kari asked, well, what's the timeline like is there a, how long this are each of these things that was the last and there really isn't a timeline it's an expectation that we're engaging in continuous improvement planning work and we have to update our CIPs at least annually, but there's no timeline like by the end of the 2021 school year you must be ready to go to phase three, nothing like that exists right now for the aoe. So again, this is more detail than probably you ever want to see. But these are highlights from all of the work that the 50 or so of us engaged in last spring so if you have and if you have questions about any of this stuff by all means, you can ask, but I wanted to make sure that you had access to all of this information. So the agendas and the slideshow the data and I see your hands raised I'll call on you in just a minute thank you. So with all the data that we looked at together last year, the roles of the folks who are there and then the aoe bless them created this voice over PowerPoint for us because we couldn't meet in person for our last meeting and so they packed a ton of information in that slide show for us. Anna, what's your question. So I'm just curious as we're going through this is this relating a lot to like proficiencies and kind of making that a real thing or is this different. So that is such a good question. What we hope is that it actually all is related right so that when we think about proficiency based learning and our student learning outcomes are graduation requirements personalized learning social emotional that it all connects, and it's meaningful, because if we do this outside of that or separate then it just feels like it's an act in of compliance, and there have been times when it has been that in this district I will be totally upfront about that. Right now we were looking at the data that we had we also wanted to do this now because, as you know the board is poising itself well to engage in a strategic planning process and I think our hope would be that when we've articulated a strategic plan, the CIP and the strategic plan will be completely aligned. So that we're focusing on one, one body of work, perhaps with multiple goals, right but that so there's coherence in the system. Does that answer your question Anna. Yeah, that's starting to that's good. Okay. So, here is where we are right now. I had provided for you just a quick video overview of phase two I also did that to model the expectation for the principles and when I sent this out and asked them to do it as well. So, you're going to notice a fair amount of redundancy with some slight changes or variation I guess in the change ideas and so really elementary, we wanted to focus on mathematics I know that has been an area of concern for our board in the past, as well it was really our performance overall and math and and we chose to focus on grades three through six as measured by the smarter balance and our change idea was that we needed to be more intentional about providing professional development for our teachers last year we adopted a new math program. We, we piloted I ready, which was the companion to ready math it provides both a diagnostic assessment and opportunities for individualized instruction. And this year we went full scale, I ready and we needed to provide more professional development that snip that I included here is just a blurb from our in service day so that you all are aware that one of the ways that we were meeting the standards of this plan were was to provide PD to, to all of our teachers of mathematics and that happened through the company curriculum associates in October, and I'm in dialogue with them now about how and when to do the next round of PD so that we can have our the results of our second diagnostic the winter window is opening for elementary now and middle and high school a little bit later, so that now we have fall data and winter data. How do we act on that to ensure our students performance. So the complication, not an impossibility but a complication is that we don't have another in service day that we can designate for this that's within a window so I'm going to have to get creative with them about how and when to do it. Because we have a shortage of substitutes right now during the pandemic so I also don't want to pull teachers out because I won't be with that classroom so I'm working on that. So the next number of slides are all elementary focused and. So I just want to make sure we're not going to belabor the details of the slides but my intention here was to share with you the fact that again, we're focusing on our students mathematics for us. Okay, I put the percentage in there of the students who are proficient or above in 2018 19 as you know we had no testing last year statewide. So those are our most recent results. The other thing to know is that the state, the state was seeking a waiver for testing the spring that they did not get. So we are planning to to test this spring and do the aspect. So in the period of school dismissal that we experienced. I don't know yet what to expect we also have been told that we need to test all of our kids in person and as you know, a number of our students aren't attending school in person they're attending school remotely. And so we're all of us administrators are just getting our heads around this this is relatively recent news and trying to figure out what the implications will be for us. Where you can see some variation is in what the change ideas were and in part those change ideas are slightly different as they should be because we wanted them to reflect the local context and what seemed most important to the teams of in the schools who were attending. So, again, the team the principles, some school board members, some parents, and, or community members and teachers participate and some para educators actually also participated. So that was Berlin. Hey Jen. Yes, quick, quick, quick question so looking at this goal it's, it's fairly specific, but I don't have a good sense of like the timeline again that you know the time. So how are people thinking about it is this like an every year we're going to make progress or five years from now we want to make some progress or. No, we, thank you. We want to make progress every year. We know that it's unrealistic to go from, you know, 40% to 90% in one year. That seems unrealistic but we would hope to see progress along the way every single year. That would be our hope and expectation. Okay, thanks. Can I ask a related question. This is Joe or Joe. So I was just wondering if I too was struck that the goal didn't seem time specific. And also that there isn't a particular target that you're shooting for other than just an increase. And so is that something you talked about in terms of setting something a little more specific than just more. I really wanted to have a little bit more baseline data for in on the one hand so that we could set realistic goals. We also some schools had more robust conversations about this than others and this is, we have these conversations at school like some. People feel really strongly like we have to say 100% because we are about each and every kid it is unacceptable to not reach 100% and other people are like, that is unrealistic right now over to and if we said like we need to set a goal that we feel like we can really achieve given the resources and the knowledge that we have and if we don't set it that's going to be demoralizing and that will set us back so ultimately, this is what the school teams had settled on. And then isn't it also it's a different approach it's that continuous improvement so it's if you go back to that plan do you know it's it's a hope is that you'll keep ratcheting it up as you're doing that that it's continuously. So it's that expectation of those short bursts of checking in not waiting for the SPAC only, but the short bursts. Right, and that's why you know you'll see ideas about the I ready diagnostic or formative assessment data or making sure that kid talk is happening. Those things that are smaller scale. Because we want to be able to check in you know there was somewhere embedded in all of these materials I think in that big video from the AO or the big PowerPoint from the AOE was an example of really small incremental changes even like okay I'm going to go in and I'm going to have this meeting and this is how it's going to go and then I'm going to take a minute to pause and tweak it a little bit based on my reflection and then it's going to get better and mean so smaller things to ultimately lead to bigger and better changes. Can I discuss a follow up question on that so I am fat in meetings, not at school boards but in healthcare settings where people have that 100% versus actually what are we trying to do right now fight so I've heard that one. It's silly in my opinion but whatever. But what is often helpful is it's really hard if you only have an outcome goal right because you only measure the outcome of a very infrequent basis so it's very hard to do true PDSA when the only thing you're measuring against is a big outcome. So it's more helpful it may not be relevant to education and the way that it is to healthcare, but there are actually, you know, evidence based process changes that can be made that lead should lead to the improved outcome, so that you can measure whether you're doing the process work along the way on a much more regular basis to see and then hoping that it works on the outcome but if you only measure the outcome, it's really hard to do PDSA it's just not realistic because the measurement is so infrequent. No, thank you. And Joe we're all getting, we're all getting smarter about this, trying to figure out what is working what doesn't like how do we make it relevant right because if it is only the SBAT right like that it's just not compelling enough or motivating enough when we've got our kids right in front of us every day and we're trying to help them make growth. So the rest of these ideas are similar I just I'm aware of the time and I want to make sure you all have plenty of time to speak so stop me if you want to otherwise I'm just going to keep going here. And again, where where it says phase two current state each of those things if you didn't click on it yet that's just a short video from each of the principles. And then finally, you 32 you 32 was slightly different we had a lot of. We had a lot of students who for many, many reasons last year had not met the expectations in their courses. We had a period of school dismissal and it was really important to us to not penalize our students in any way because of circumstances that may have been completely outside of their control. And so we had a lot of conversations with at you 32 about how to provide more flexibility and time. And at the same time promote our students growth. And so we ended up students had the opportunity to have in progress scores at the end of the year and then we wanted to make multiple pathways for them to resolve those in person scores. And so there were, you know, there were, we hired people over the summer teachers to check in with kids and do give assignments and have feedback. We had one remote summer school opportunity around financial lit as you're aware of. We had additional time and support as late as this fall. We also ultimately gave kids a choice like here's where you stand right now. If you're happy with this and you don't want to do more just that and so be it. So, so that's sort of what that change idea was so that we could resolve in progress and the idea of in progress scores. And just more flexibility around that time has actually been a really welcome conversation again in a proficiency based system where time should be there, you know, a variable. We're continuing to think about that. The next steps and this is an important part here. So we'll continue to engage in those PDSA cycles, we're collecting data we're analyzing it we're getting smarter even about, for example, a growth report that we can get in I ready once we have a third data point so we're trying to figure, you know, play around at some of our schools with what could that third data point be in order to make sure that we can chart you know predict our students growth. And then here's the this last bullet point is an important one. So the AOE very recently completed their annual snapshot and released data that indicates that we have schools that are in need of equity supports. And actually, all of our schools, except dodie have been identified as phase one equity supports, essentially meaning that we have performance gap, as we've known for a long time. And in some cases, marginalized is the fact that we have performance gap between students of various historically marginalized groups. In some cases it's free and reduced lunch and students who do not qualify for free and reduced lunch. In some cases it's students on IEPs and students who do not qualify for IEPs. In some cases, it's an amalgamation of that historically marginalized group because our end sizes are so small that it's hard to sort of publicly disaggregate that data. So what one thing that that means is that in this next revision of our continuous improvement planning process we have to dig into that data a little more deeply and we have to establish a goal and change ideas that are related to safe and healthy schools. And now all of our data are all of our goals are in the domain of academic proficiency. And so next time around we're going to need to pull it together and focus on safe healthy schools. So this is work in which we are already engaged right now. So, just so you have an idea. We are, you know, Kelly came in and talked to us about the annual performance review for the, for special ed that report and there are, we're doing some examination of the work of our students performance if they qualify for IEPs or don't we're engaged in that work right now. We are, there's a group of students and teachers who are deeply committed to studying racial equity and other diversity issues we're actually about to launch a class and two weeks which is exciting in the district. We're engaging in that work at in service days. So we'll, we'll make sure that that we pay attention to what we're doing and we think about other things that we need to do. And then finally, I think that the role for the board, I think from my perspective is to continue to focus on achieving that goal that you've set for really understanding our student learning outcomes so that you can take a really wonderfully active role in monitoring and asking us questions and supporting through the budget and everything else all of those goals that we are expressing for our students and just please participate actively in the CIP process and in the strategic planning process. The final two parts tonight and Kari I'll pass it to you in a minute is just to hear from each of you about what's on your mind right now. Those are some guiding questions related to what we just heard about and then I'm going to just quickly preview. You know, making sure there's time to figure out what we're going to share with the board and how and when you as an ed quality committee would like to receive updates about the CIP. So, Kari, do you want to facilitate this part of the conversation. Oh, I'm on mute. I was hoping you would. Oh, well I guess if it's open ended. It's open as long as we just make sure we hear from each board member. Okay. Okay. Well, maybe we should do a go round. Does anybody want to go first and just share their reactions using these questions as prompts. Let's take a minute each or so. I can go first. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, so it's very affirming to, you know, it's kind of that old adage of teaching an old dog new tricks kind of a thing that every year or thereabouts we have to go through this improvement process. And so it was, I appreciated kind of the new take on some of it and the connecting to as what Kari and Jill are saying connecting to that continuous really taking a look at a time frame. So even if the process didn't necessarily connect a time frame that making sure there is some way of identifying that, so that you know, like you're saying Jill if it's not the short little bits, then you don't you never feel like you're making the progress because it's too too long down the road so. And one of the wonderings was, as you were mentioning, Jen about trying to find that PD time to look at things and that that that's really it's always that balancing act as to how do you maintain that time of instruction with our learners, but then also finding the time to do that important reflective work so that you know you are on the right track. And so just wondering, once we get out of coven times how we plan for that, so that there's the support for the teachers as to how to best continue that reflective cycle to continue to do it. Thank you. Thanks Diane. Flo, are you ready. Sure. Yeah, I think I found my notes just try to remember the questions in order so what was affirming to me was a hearing from the principles. I think I got every principle and I didn't get to the you 32, but I listened to all of them and was affirming to hear everybody talk and then the excitement of everybody around the CIP continues to be really exciting so so that was affirming and the triangulation of data. That was also really affirming a what I what I wonder I had a couple of wonders one was it's, I think just two of the principles talk about creating a more formal way of talking about kid talk. Is that all across or is it just in one school or a couple of schools. As I wonder, and maybe I got that wrong and maybe you have the answer right there. Do you want me to weigh in or Yeah, thanks Kari. One of the things that we're talking about Diane I appreciate that you just talked about sort of post pandemic right like some of the conversations we just had where some of our schools, in part because of their size are well poised for kid talk because there are enough people to get around the table to actually do it and to create schedules where we can make that happen and in some of our smaller schools it's like one or two people would be sitting around one of the silver linings I think of this experience is that we've become really really good at meeting virtually and sort of so that whole idea of geography being an obstacle it's no longer an obstacle so if we can coordinate schedules so that the for example, primary teachers at Romney and the primary teachers at Dodie have a chunk of time to that that's available together for them to meet to engage in some of this work. That would be awesome. Those are the kinds of conversations we're starting to have. That's, that's great. And then the other wonder was a when I think this was back when we were doing the CIP process and I didn't quite see a reflect that and maybe I just missed it is we're, you know, we're improving every year. Right, and then we talked a lot about creating that multi year in, and I know we have to focus on something but one thing that we felt is that we couldn't just do math that it had to be literacy and math. So all of the data that I saw was just math so it just trying to bring that up. Again, and then the last wonder you, you talked about it you know I feel really committed about having the diversity talks and what does that really mean for a district and I feel like our CIP process has to have that umbrella overall for equity. Otherwise, we are really not not not moving forward as a as a society or as a group of leaders that we have that ability to have that leadership right now and that responsibility so I feel really, really strong about that. And the last wonder is not it is kind of related but you explained it a little bit but I still do not understand how we're gonna. It seems like we're involved in this process and now we're doing the curriculum assessment. And then when do we bring the group of community back together so after we get the assessment data. So, you know, it seems like the principle the buildings each building has set their goals with their, with their new information on what they learned from the last process but now. How does that all come together that's just my confusion and not knowing enough about and you explained it a little bit and I thank you for that and I know that you have a lot on your plate right now but I still do not get how we're going to be able to create a community is going to look like right because I see again that 50 people or whatever being able so that the community has some ownership. That's it. Great. Thanks. Joe, are you ready to go. So I think I asked Mike the questions that came up for me while we were talking. So, I guess I would just say what was affirming for me is it's really nice to see something that looks familiar to me from my day job because I'm always so like oh my god how am I ever going to catch up so that I think that's maybe the only other thing to add at this moment. It was familiar stuff. So that was nice to see. Thank you. Anna, do you have anything. Yeah, so it's really for me to kind of see the familiarity between proficiency and the CIP. It feels really really nice as a student to see how they kind of interconnect I mean I see this in school. A lot we, you know we learn something and then we, you know, have a lesson and we go back with it and then we go forward and then bring it back again. So it's really nice to solve that. I'm curious just in general with the, I guess testing and trying to get like the higher percentages with like the math scores, how are we going to actually go about that and what's within the other like subjects also is it, you know, training teachers like a different way of teaching or how will we go about that. Take a take a note to make that really clear or more clear if we can in the in the board presentation, I don't think we can take much time right now but okay anything else Anna. I think that's it. We lost you there. She said that was it. Oh, so that was it. Okay. So I'll go so to me, affirming like Jill said that the planning process this formal planning process included, it was familiar to me included rational steps it seems like it should generate good results. The focus on math makes a lot of sense based on my limited understanding of where, where we need the most improvement. It's going to pick one priority, and I really like that there's alignment across the district that that seems like a really positive step in the right direction. So on the closing side, this whole the whole presentation kind of reaffirmed for me like how slow it is to affect change across the district. You know, and, and we're talking about incremental progress in one specific area where we want to make progress, a lot of progress in a lot of different areas. And that leads to the questions one thing is I'm wondering about in and thinking of this as a warm up to strategic planning. It's like a sort of a first step into something bigger. A couple of things one is, it really makes me think think that maybe part of the strategic planning should be about identifying obstacles and seeing what we can do to remove them. And you touched on that a little bit when you talked about teleconferencing and you know that's something that makes things easier. I don't want to only focus on the negatives and removing negatives you know that can't be the only thing but it does kind of call this slow progress is like what's holding us back we got to really try to address those things. Another part of it is what lessons can we learn from this, this planning process that can inform our strategic planning. I feel like so much is writing on strategic this big strategic planning process that we're gearing up for. And a couple of things that come to mind are, we're going to need to prioritize we can't, we can't pick everything we can't improve in all areas we're really going to have to hone in on a small group of things and not take on too much that just seems kind of clear to me at this point so I had one other thing I wanted to mention. Oh, and, and it also kind of reaffirmed for me that as a board and as a committee, we don't have that many opportunities to influence the system as specifically as when we're doing planning and budgeting so as Jen was making this appeal like get involved stay involved, you know, that's absolutely right. So I'm glad we're doing this work and getting ourselves ready to be involved in a more informed way that seems important. So, I'll stop there did we get everybody did Brian did you, you, I don't know how much of you that you caught but did you want to say anything. I'm catching a lot of it but I also caught a lot of it because Jen and you carry are so involved in preparing for this meeting but I will say that the the other piece is the other. I guess I don't want to drop any bombs here anything like that but the equity supports there's an equity supports piece. You talked about that or not at all. Okay, I see Jen saying yes. Okay, that's a new thing that we came out of the Vermont ALE. And I have to say I believe most or Laura many I don't see most but it may be a large majority of Vermont schools fall in this range of equity supports. Now, what does equity supports ultimately going to mean they have different levels level 123, but they haven't really identified what that means but they're putting schools into these categories and one may assume that there may be state types of interventions coming down the pike, if schools don't do or show that they're making a headway in these areas. So I know that one of the things is with the CIP's that Jen presented to talk to talk to with everyone tonight about is we are going to have to start with equity goals, guidance into our CIP goals. And it's very it's I think our curriculum management review, which are going to be starting very shortly. One of the areas that they're looking at is equity. So if there could be we could get some real interesting information in that regards, and maybe that will help inform our CIP, our CIP process. Thanks, Brian. Did everybody get a chance. Lisa, did you want to chime in at all. No, no, thank you. It's very interesting to me. So thank you. All right, so if that's we've got just about 10 minutes left. So let's move on to looking, looking at our next steps. The key is what do we want to share with the board in a couple weeks what what do anybody. Does anybody have any ideas about what's the best way to present this information and ask people to engage with it. Any particular slides or anything like that. I thought that the presentations by each principle I don't I know that we don't have that amount of time, but each one was like a minute two minutes. It was not even two minutes and and those with the goals are just, I think they speak for themselves. So that would be, I don't know about 10 minutes or 12 minutes in, and then the rest could just go in the packet because I don't know that that people would actually take the time to look at videos with the full board package that that we have and and I think it's it makes not just a connection with the school but a connection with we keep hearing from people that want feedback from from the people on the ground and that that's super telling that's just one one thought to make it easy. I like that I don't know about all of them but but different different voices involved seems seems good. I mean I do think Jen it would be good to get an overview like we usually do from you but if obviously you're not going to be able to go as in depth is as this was. Yeah, I mean I think an overview with one or two of the videos and maybe one of the goals just to show an actual goal would be great. I think it's written in the written format. One thought I had about this and just tell me if this is off base but what if we posed a question or two for board members to reflect on after they've read the material so they can come in with some thoughts about it. Just to just to try to prompt them to engage a little bit more. And I don't think we'll have time to go around and have everybody respond to but maybe we could take one or two responses. Yeah, especially since we could send it out like, I mean, immediately, you know it's not like it has to go with the full packet we might want to spread it out so that it gives people time in between reading what's neat necessary for the packet. Okay. If that makes sense I'll work with. Jen and Brian on a question or two and see what we can come up with. Alright, any other thoughts about that. Okay. Let's see where are we. Future agenda items I believe next month we've got math, which is the big one right one of the big ones. So, I want one of the things I want to. I didn't have his hand up about something sorry, sorry, Brian. My was just just another plug here with the CIP is in general is I'm learning the Vermont way of things. The CIP is very Vermont. And I always what I so what I try to do is I as superintendent, taking my experiences from outside and trying to see what this is what Vermont does, what did we used to do in Connecticut or New Jersey and try to and I look at the CIP process and it reminds me very similar to like a school's school improvement plan a school's strategic plan. And so I know one of the big things with this curriculum review that we're coming out of the coming out in the next several weeks is we ultimately want to develop a strategic plan for the district. So I think that the CIPs are interesting templates that we may want to look at or consider for linking them they I mean we would ultimately want to see a strategic plan where the CIPs kind of feed into it, and a strategic plan feeds into them. So, that was all. We talked about that a little bit. I think that's that's very important. Okay, Carrie, it's sorry to interrupt. I just really need to think about one one thing when you guys are thinking about the questions and prompting the board and I think I was just having this conversation before is that what it, what is what are you guys as leaders need from the board to accelerate you know the way you're educating us right now but you know how do you prompt a question to to get from us what you need to accelerate this process right to to I hope that that helps it's just like you know it's sometimes that's more members is hard to know what what you want from us besides being involved and stuff but we can also not help accelerate the process. So sometimes it's better to have some clear guidelines if you know or just make this thing that way brainstorm and how can we make it better. That's an exceptional question. I like it. I don't know if we'll have all the answers for you on January and, but this is something we should be definitely working towards, I think, Jen, you have a point. Yeah, Carrie, the other thing I want to say is that I mean hopefully, as we continue to engage in this whole monitoring process around the SLOs, you all and the board will have the information that you have month by month about our performance so that it won't feel like such a separate thing or like so big right so when we're thinking about doing math next month. You're going to see that data in a way that's different than we just talked about it now even right so just bearing in mind as we're tweaking this process again and again figuring out what makes the most sense for you all to feel like you want to know as board members and you have what you need to do exactly what Curtis said. Good. Good. Okay, well, if that wraps up that I think we're at the end of our agenda is everybody have anything else. So why don't we adjourn at 555 and take a couple minute break. Thanks everybody. We have a quorum. So let's come to order then at 6pm. Just like to wish everyone a happy new year might haven't had a chance to wish yet. And I expect that tonight in particular, many of us will have our minds drawn in other directions. If I might at least be permitted a moment of gratitude. Brian pointed out yesterday that January is school board appreciation month. You know, I think that something is under appreciated when somebody has to designate a month specifically for its appreciation. But in fact, how ordinary all of this seems this school board work. And yet how extraordinary it actually is representative government in action. It's amazing. And it's extremely important. And from my perspective. When whenever it's in trouble someplace. The best thing that we can do is to do our work as representatives of the people as capably and as honorably as we can. And thereby to give life to representative government. As it is with us here. So that moment of gratitude includes thanks to all my colleagues. And as well as the people that we work with in the schools. And thanks to all the people of our of our district, who are the ones we're here for. And of course, our students. Sorry, I had to get off that that off my chest. Once again, welcome to all, and we can move to agenda revisions. Caroline, did you have one. I do. I would like to add superintendent evaluation. In open session. Okay. I would suggest putting that as 4.2. Board of operations. And I think. In terms of time, I think it can just be five minutes unless. There's a lot more unexpected comments, but. I'm thinking five minutes for my part. I'm making 30 seconds for my part, but five minutes allowing a little bit of back and forth. Yes. The day I see 30 seconds in that time column. Is the day we really hit peak efficiency. Thanks, Caroline. So we have 4.2 superintendent evaluation. I'd also like to add. I would like to add a little bit of time. I would like to add three point six. Just a quick check with the board on. A draft letter for the annual report just to make sure that I haven't. Disgraced us. With, with that draft. Love your. Your feedback. So the new 3.3. Six. Letter. For the annual report. If not. Let's proceed to 3.1. Towns and Anna. Take it away. Awesome. So I guess the, the first, you know, big noticeable thing is that we are, we are coming. You've come back returned from our holiday break. To a brand new, new year. It's, it's very exciting. And it's, it's good to see everyone again. And see everyone back in the building and really. Return to. Our, you know. A school life. It's nice. Yeah. So as we're going back to school. By the end of this week, I believe our semester ends. And usually what would happen is our schedules will completely change and have different classes. And this year because of COVID. And so we're going to, we're going to have, we're going to have, we're going to have, we're going to have, we're going to have to actually keep the exact same schedules unless we have. One class of the semester long. And then we just have a free band for that. Another very exciting thing is that. So the 10th graders. Traditionally. Do a project where they do a. A kind of. A virtual community. Issue. And they write about it and they create all these reports and pretty soon the 32 Chronicle is going to start publishing. Some of these. So that. You know, everyone can. There are a lot of really interesting topics that were covered this year. And pretty soon everyone will be able to. Read what the, those projects were. And then, you know, you know, you know, there are some issues that the grade that the, that class cares about. Another exciting thing that a lot of students are looking forward to is that the. Governor has now approved winter sports to start. So in the coming weeks, basketball is going to start hockey is going to start with masks and all of the limitations, but it's really nice to be able to have semester critically. That's not just. Hard core school based. I've ever heard the term. Hard core and school based. Together. But it's a good. Any, any questions. For towns and Anna from board members. If not. Thank you very much to both of you. And I'm glad that you're, that you're back and that you're happy to be back. We're happy you are as well. As long as the school board stays that way. So moving on then to 3.2. Superintendent 3.2.1. COVID-19. You're muted, Brian. Thank you, Scott. And thank you members of the board. I want to also just express my appreciation for the entire school board being a school board member is a thankless job. for your help and your leadership. And one of these days, well, hopefully we'll all be actually sitting in the same room together. And hopefully in the not so distant future, I'll keep my fingers crossed where I can actually tell you in person how much I appreciate all of you and your leadership during these most interesting and challenging times. The, my report on the COVID update is light. There's not so much going on, of course, but just only as recently as about an hour ago, just so you have an update, we do have a, one of our schools, we did get a positive case at Berlin Elementary School. So Principal Boynton may not be here right now. He's working to pivot his school to being remote tomorrow and on Friday. We do not necessarily believe that anyone else has been exposed and we believe everyone is safe. However, operating out of an abundance of caution, we just wanna make sure we're doing things above and beyond for make sure folks are safe, our staff, our teachers, our students and our communities. So Principal Boynton will be, he may not be joining us tonight because he's gonna be working, getting his school to pivot tomorrow to go full remote for tomorrow and Friday. Hopefully that'll be it. But if there's anything else, we will definitely let you know. The other pieces that are happening is the, one of the parts of COVID-19 update is the, we've been talking about early release days. We've been, our elementary schools have been, we've worked with our leadership team, talking, speaking with our principals and the need to, whether or not we need to continue to do early release days for our schools. It does appear that the middle school may need some, we were trying to figure out that the way their schedule was made, so we can staff the school appropriately. We do have some teachers who are doing teaching remote and also teaching in-person at the same time. And so that does create some added complexities and they had some difficulties. And I know November and December was very helpful for our district for a variety of reasons, but we're going to be looking at possibly, looking at that schedule moving forward for them. I'll have to make some decisions about assigning early release days, potentially at the middle school and perhaps only at the middle school. So we'll, I'll have more information over the next few days as we try to sort, if there's anything else that we can think of to support that situation without going to early release, because I do know speaking with members of our communities and parents at the middle school, parents are very happy that we're offering school on a daily basis. And they also know that sometimes it is challenging to do early release days at the same time, folks understand if it's necessary. And so we also want to make sure we're supporting our teachers and our students at that time. And that really is most of my COVID update. Those are just the two big things that have been happening was at Berlin and what we're thinking about at the middle school. Thank you, Brian. Question on this segment. I wonder if I could ask one, please, Brian. Has a statement in touch regarding vaccinations and the school as a site for vaccinating students, employees? No, we have not heard anything on our end. We did receive more information about the state's program to test our faculty members, we call it the asymptomatic, to see if anyone's asymptomatic. The last time we do that at least once a month with the state, that's gonna be happening next week again. The last time we did it, we had zero cases. So we were very happy to know that our faculty is really doing their part to keep our kids safe. Thank you very much. Excellent, yeah. Last chance for questions before we move on. Seeing nothing. Brian? So the next one is just the administrative searches update. There's a timeline in the packet for the business administrator and director of IT. These are two big positions, they're two big leadership positions in our district. And just as of right now, I have over 20 applicants for the IT director. There are, we're gonna be starting the process to begin screening those applicants, starting to develop an interview committee and hopefully identify a suitable candidate for our district. The other piece of it is with regards to the replacement for the business administrator, which is also a very big shoes to fill. As of today, we have six applicants and they're from in around Vermont, but also outside of Vermont, as we recall that that is a national search. So we're up to six. So we only had three a few days ago, now we're up to six. So, and that closes in at the end of January. And we will then of course begin that process for interviewing and identifying a candidate who is worthy of working here in Washington Central. Thank you, Stephen. I'd just like to take a minute to commend Brian and the administration on looking for candidates in untypical locations, particularly targeting two minority administrative organizations for their input or suggestions on possible candidates. Thanks, Stephen. Here, here. Thank you. Any other questions or comments for Brian on this particular segment? Nope. If not, I do have the class size update letter. I don't know if that just want to point everyone out that we pursuant to board policy, the board did pass a policy earlier this school year about asking the superintendent to work with the leadership team to develop class policy sizes. And we did do that. So it's in the class size guidelines. Again, these are guidelines, but we do have them now for this year. And this is what we have them based on currently. And this was a collaboration with our leadership team. And superintendent's office in developing these. This is something I think we're going to continually have to look at as our enrollment continues to fluctuate. Right now, we do know we have a declining enrollment. So the class size piece is something we're definitely going to be continually monitoring as our enrollment numbers change. Diane and Linda. So one question I have before we launch into the next portion of the budget, because to me it was helpful to see that agreement or the thinking around the class size. But what I was wondering as we look at some of the different changes that might be occurring, I wondered if there was any conversation or if there's any information to be shared about caseload sizes for special educators. So I was just wondering that would be helpful to me as a board member as we look at different options of how things are shifting. If I understood also what that vision is and the decisions around caseload size. I know Kelly, Bushie and I, we talk about caseload sizes, especially when we were doing this work around class size guidelines. I don't know if Kelly would like to talk about the actual, some of the things that we did talk about in the caseload sizes. Sure. So as you all know, and I'm sure can understand and appreciate that when we say that there's a caseload of 10 students that can range in terms of workload and intensity very drastically, right? So one student on IEP, that workload for that one student is very different than another student. And so we use what we call a weighted rubric and I work with the special educators to weight each of the students on their caseloads on a scale of one to four with some very specific criteria of what each of those numbers means. And we have said in working with some of my colleagues across the state, right? What is an average caseload? And many people use this rubric or a very similar one to determine what is an average workload or caseload size for special educators. And we say that that ranges anywhere from 30 to 35. But again, right? Schedules, small schools, a lot of those, all of those things have an impact on how it is we can create schedules and the workload for special educators. But that is the area that we try to target is that 30 to 35. And again, we are very close to that across this every school and it ebbs and flows and changes from sometimes from day to day. But we do look at that every year and we have trends of that data for the last, I don't know, five or six years. Diane, did that answer your question? Okay. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you very much. Thanks, Lindy. Excuse me, mine actually went back to the job search. I forgot to ask this. I noticed it says establish interview committees and I'm curious, change in leadership and whatever, what you're looking at as far as interview committees, what the makeup of those would be. Yeah, thank you, Lindy. Great question. I'm glad you asked it. My big piece is I just wanna honor the district's practice of formulating a diverse committee that represents different stakeholders across the district. That's the ultimate goal and following that district practice that has been in place. And so if folks are interested, definitely especially members of the board are interested, please send out a letter of interest to HR. That's Carla Messier. Thank you. Any other questions for Brian on, let us well be on his entire report before we move on. I see none. So that brings us to finance committee. Oh, sorry, Caroline, there. I don't know if I was frozen. Oh, okay. My apologies. I do have a question, but it's, do we as a board select who we would want to be representing on the hiring committee or do we just let board members send the letter of interest? Yeah, I would ask that the board never send a letter of interest to Carla Messier. Okay. Great. Thanks for that clarification. Good. Other questions? If not, finance committee floor. Do you wanna lead this one? Sure. Good evening, everybody. It's a happy King's Day today too, to your celebrations today. There's a lot of things that we look through when we're looking at the budget and I'm not sure that going through the order that we're having the agenda is the best way. I'm gonna summarize it as best as I can. In the leadership, I would wanna be not the only person talking, but I wanna put it three, you know, five reminders of what this budget is. I know that we all read the package, but the overall budget is a goal or five guidelines for the board, so for other members that are here, that the impact was less. The impact on taxes was less than 3% or 3%. Find ways to find three initiatives, the strategic planning process, the facility director and the health instructor in using fund balance if appropriate. And then to prepare a list of contingencies, if needed, establish a budget that is less than the excess spending threshold for equalized people and establish that we'll move towards supporting a strong multi-tier system of supports. So page six, we received a letter from the leadership team and Brian, and they tell us that it meets the needs of students, preserves programs that meet the needs of all students and the right size of school personnel and reduces expenses, supplies and contracts. I'm wondering if Brian or any member of the leadership team wanna cut or if that's the nation members? I know some of you were anxious to hear more. Well, I mean, I appreciate the leadership team drafting that letter and sharing it with everyone. Folks understand that it was, there was input from multiple folks. It wasn't just one person making the decisions or anything like that. It was a lot of different folks coming together. And I think the leadership team really wanted to do this. A lot of questions were asked by the board members at the last meeting. I think the leadership really wanted to make sure that all voices were heard and that we did follow the same collaborative process that we've had that the district is accustomed to in the past year, years. I don't know if anyone from the leadership team wishes to add anything. I see, so we have some members here. Maybe the letter speaks for itself. Okay, I see camera on. Okay, I'll go on. As a board member, I really appreciate it. And as the facility chair, as the finance chair, I really appreciated the letter that really showed that it was more of a, in a bottom up decision making that top down. So it was great to receive that. So if there's no questions about that, we move to page eight to review the budget. But before we got it, we have some logistics to talk about. We realized and had said that we were gonna have another informational input informational meeting with the community. Because can you hear me okay? I hear, I see something, okay. So due to the timing, when we need to put the warning out, when we were doing our plans and we really look at approving this budget tonight and moving into have informational, continue to have informational meeting on that team, but it will be more of an informational meeting rather than an input meeting due to timing. When you're having our discussions right now, I just want you to have that in your mind so that you're looking at the budget through that lens. So having said that, I wanna, yeah. Sorry to interrupt you. At what point will you want a motion to approve the budget? So I think I would like a discussion. I have the sense of front of me, but I think I would like to be fair to the board members. I would like to, instead of in our usual review third chair, to have Lori explain, not explain, but have Lori give us the highlights that we agree on about the budget, then make a motion and then have the discussion again just to be fair to, because as a finance committee, we did that ability. And I know that they all trust us, but otherwise I feel that it's not, since we're surprising everybody with this decision on Tuesday. Can I just eat thumbs up if people are okay with that? Caroline? Okay, you're asking a question. I was asking a question. If I have a question about the letter that was in the budget, did you want us to ask it now or to wait until the end? Whatever you prefer, but I did have a question about the letter that the administrator signed. I think you can ask the question about the letter right now because I was assuming that we were done with it and then move into the budget is ahead. Yeah, I meant the letter about the budget that gave the update and then had all the principal signatures. So wait for that one. After that. Perfect, thanks. Yes, wait for that one. So Lori and Brian, I'm gonna give the guys to just do a quick update, especially on the screen, okay. I'm just gonna ask Brian, did you wanna do your part first and then I'll jump in? Sure, absolutely, I can do that. And so, and I was gonna talk a little bit more about the leadership letter. So this is a, I know that the board, ultimately that what have we done since the last budget draft number two? So what we did, what I did is I met with each principal individually and then as a group so we could talk about and discuss how we could obtain the $300,000 budget reduction. And after meeting with the leadership team, we did decide that it was unanimous that we would make this reduction and there's four bullet points on here that are on the letter. I'm not gonna, you know, we can talk more about the letter if let's wanna talk about the letter, but the leadership team did put those pieces here and it talks about what those are. Then we also do realize that we are in challenging times and moving forward, there is a desire to evaluate programs and look at our structures for effectiveness, effectiveness need, use the findings from the upcoming curriculum review to ensure that we're meeting student needs in the most efficient way possible, planning for a steady decline in enrollment or developing ways to market our schools to new families so we can try to get more children and families enrolling in our schools moving into our communities. And of course, just looking also at addressing growing needs of families. I know Kelly, we talked about the numbers on the caseload, right? And the numbers and we do have a declining student enrollment which includes special ed, but we also have rising costs in special ed. And one of the pieces there is, why does that? Well, you would think, oh, well we have less special ed students, we would have less costs, but if the special ed students have more, if they have more or greater needs, sometimes that doesn't necessarily mean just because you have less means you're gonna spend less. And so looking at how to form strategic partnerships with community agencies, also as a way of being as physically responsible as we can be with our taxpayers funds. So that was really the big piece. We're looking at this budget again as not impacting services and programs to children. We do, again, I have to keep mentioning this and I sound like a broken record and I'm sorry for that, declining student enrollment, that is something that we are definitely continuing. That's the one thing that keeps me up at night is that number, because less students does mean less funds from the state. We also were very strategic in this budget. Since last spring, we did not fill every vacant position that was left in the previous year's budget that carries over into this year's budget. So what we are able to do is really continue to monitor and review every position before we post them and we have to align that to student needs as a result of this declining enrollment. So that's really a lot of the pieces here that I was prepared to talk about. I do know that we're trying to also be very physically responsible in this time of a pandemic where lots of our community members we know are going through some difficult times and we're trying to put our best foot forward here that's going to continue to allow us to offer the best programs we possibly can for our students in a climate of declining enrollment and declining revenues. And one thing I didn't, well, before I get into one more thing is I know the big hot topic from the last budget meeting we talked about was this $300,000 budget reduction. So how was that attained, right? So if you look on page nine of your board packet that was listed here. So I'll just go through them real quickly. We were not filling two vacant positions. Again, looking at that practice of if we have a vacant position, you may not have to fill it if you especially if you don't need it but it's in the budget. So we are not filling those positions and eliminating those positions from the budget. Restructuring special education services to include a full-time social worker that is considered eligible for reimbursements. And that will ultimately help us basically get some additional funds by making a special ed social worker who works with special ed students will help us get more reimbursable funds. So we're not, we're not, we're getting additional funds through that way. Utilizing fund balance. Looking at fund balance to cover the cost of early retirement expenses in the budget. And the good news, and Lori did provide me with some good news over, as early as the break over the holiday break that we learned that the transportation reimbursement from the agency of education we're gonna get some additional revenue. So that becomes some additional money that we were able to apply to the $300,000 cost. So it's, I feel like it's been a challenging budget. It's been stressful going through these reductions. I know there are folks have had a lot of questions about how this additional $300,000 was attained. And I hope that this really helps provide more clarity over that particular line item that we discussed. So Lori, I can turn it over to you. So I was gonna ask that you turn to page 12. And that is the page that gives the change summary from the current year budget to the future budget. So one of the things I realized was that the board gave quite a bit of feedback on the format the last time. So I'm sorry the last time the budget draft who didn't have a lot of clarity to it, but it does now I think I've received feedback not only from the board, but from the principals on how we could better tell our story with this budget and what has changed. So one of the things I wanted to let you know was anything in white means it did not change since draft two. Anything in yellow means it changed since draft two. Everybody with me so far. So the negotiated items didn't change at all. The other staffing changes I worked really hard with everyone to try to put in words what are the final changes to this budget? So you'll see that from the people accepting the early retirement program, we plan to have 4.4 FTEs of those positions not be filled that results in a savings of 391,000. As Brian mentioned, since the spring we haven't been hiring for every single position and we have a number of positions from even this past spring that were unfilled. Some of them we thought we still might need in the draft two budget. And by the time we got to draft three and the principals went line by line for each of their schools, we found that we had 6.3 FTEs that are currently unfilled and primarily due to attrition. So we have a savings there of 476,000. We had noted this in the last budget, but I put FTEs to it. We have staffing who are eligible for grant funding. So that amounts to 2.3 FTEs. The dollar amount didn't change, but I just wanted you to know that the note changed so that you could see how many FTEs are actually getting transferred to grants. The next item is more of a clarification and it had all been accumulated in the last budget draft. This year we've had a number of new hires that have not taken, for example, a family health plan. So we've saved money this year. We've also had staff turnover savings because we haven't always hired someone at the high end of the scale when the person that they filled was there. So this year we've saved 149,000 and that rolls into next year's budget as savings. The next two lines did not change. And then the last line, we actually added a social worker and special education. So there's 2.75 new hires. 2.75 FTEs, excuse me. And so we put the special ed position in and we anticipate saving money throughout the system to help pay for that in addition to getting reimbursements of a 56% from the state. So you can see what changed on staffing if you go down a non-salary items. Some of you had been asking for clarification on special ed and so I tried to break it out into two lines. The first line is the state play students who have left the district. So we lose 100% reimbursement. And so you wanted that separate. So I put that separate. That's a reduction of 238,000. The special ed tuition and professional services is still saving money. It's saving actually a little bit more than the last draft because of the social worker hiring that we're planning to do. So having said that, those are the expense changes right now. We are asking for 445,000 less than we did last year for the voters because the warning includes the expense total. So last year we had asked the voters for 35,430,502 dollars. If this budget was approved tonight, we would be asking for 34,984,949. As Brian noted, we had a few revenue changes and you can see in special education, we're still projecting less revenue than the current year, primarily due to the state play students. However, it's better news than it was last month because it was actually a larger decline last month. It changed actually by $63,000, excuse me, 71,000 to the good because last month it was over 100,000 for the special ed revenue reimbursement reduction. The other piece is the transportation aid. We had thought that we might need to reserve fund balance because last year we didn't spend as much on our busing contract and the state gives you a reimbursement for that two years later. The good news is everyone in the state spent less and they've redistributed the revenue to actually give us a higher reimbursement rate, which generated $11,500 extra for next year's budget. And then the last item that Brian alluded to was, we have about 144,000 in this budget for the early retirement program and this reflects the fact that we would use fund balance to support the budget for this year and we would expect to do that for the next year after and at that point the expense would come out of the budget and the revenue would go away. So it would have a net impact on taxes of zero two years from now. So all totaled, the net impact on taxes is 1% less than what we had this year. It's 355,000 less. It doesn't generate a tax reduction because of state components and factors, but at this time this is the budget that the administrative team supports. And I really believe it's probably the best we can do at this time for what we know for students' needs and programs. And I just wanna also piggyback off of what Lori said. You know, yes, we're asking for less funds from the local taxpayers, but I also think it's also important to point out that we're really trying to, we can only control what we can control, right? So there is only so much that is in our control with the way the system works. So for example, much of the income in the common level of appraisal, it does impact our local tax rates. And some of this comes from the state. So we're trying to work within our own, what we have control over and some of our expenses, but we don't control all the revenues that do come in from the state. That is a part of the state function of how our budget works. So we were really trying to do what's best to keep level services, which is one of the big parameters in this budget, while also trying to make sure that we were also being responsible to our local communities, especially during this time. I just wanted to touch on pages 13 through 17. At our last meeting, we had discussed the fact that our format for the town report had mirrored the old supervisor reunion format. So in the past, you would have seen like one line for curriculum services, one line for special education, one line for fiscal and the superintendent office. And what I did was I went back through all the years since we're a newly merged district and made sure we were comparing apples to apples by year. And you will see enhancements in particularly curriculum services on page 14. So instead of just seeing a grand total, you'll see the breakdown by salaries, benefits, et cetera, just like you do for other departments. You'll also see that on page 15 for the office of the superintendent and for fiscal services. We received feedback from the finance committee that I had talked to the COVID expenses as an aggregate under the board. And so the feedback I received was before we would print this for the voters, we would pull the COVID expenses out and put it at the very end of the report as its own like department, so to speak. So that it's easier for people to see what's going on with COVID. And then the last area is on page 16. On special education, if I had broken it down to the same salary and benefit level, it would have been several pages. So instead of giving you one line, I did add an administrative department like the other administrative departments on page 17. But on page 16, I tried to break it down into a format that we use for reporting to the state. And if you feel you need more detail, I guess I would like feedback on this report before we go to press. The finance committee looked it over and the only feedback I've received so far was about the COVID and pulling that out as a subsection. So I guess that's my report on the actual budget. Do you want me to keep on with fund balance floor or what are we doing next? I think I'm gonna wait on that if that's okay with the board. And at this point, I would like to make a motion so that we can now have discussion just as the board. So I would like to move that we approve the budget for year 2122 in the amount of 34,984 and $949. Thank you, Floor. Floor moves, is there a second? Carrie's second. Very good. I'll let you run the discussion floor, is that all right? Yeah, totally. Caroline? Thanks, Floor. I had a question. I think it's all directed at you. And then if anybody else is a better person to answer, that would be fine. But I'm curious if the finance committee had requested the letter that starts on page six and the signatures are on page seven. And I'm asking because if there had been a concern that the decisions had been top-down decisions or there wasn't a collaborative process, the letter to me would not be something that I would consider evidence of full collaboration and so of decision-making. And so I'm just curious how all the signatures ended up on the letter and just how statements about unanimous, was that something that we were asking for, it just feels a little, I just have those questions about it. Thanks. Yeah, and obviously I did not write that letter but I think the input that we did give, so we'll ask for a letter as a finance committee but we did give input back to Brian and say, we wanna make sure that this is a bottom-up decision and a top-down decision. We knew that they were still having conversations because we didn't know what, all we knew is that we knew what 90 of those 300K were. So we did give some feedback to them. So what conversations they had as a leadership team, I can't speak to that. So I let Brian speak to that. So I think he was just, they were reading in what our input was from the last meeting, but Brian or the leadership team, if they wanna collect on that? Yeah, so basically what I would say is from the last meeting I think there was a, what I was, I'm the new guy in town, I'm the new superintendent here and going through the first time budget process here in Washington Central during a very innovative, interesting, challenging time in our district's history. And one of the things that, one of the takeaways from the last budget meeting with the board was that was this a collaborative process. And so we brought this back to leadership team and I can let members of the leadership team I know talk about how this letter came to be, but ultimately this letter came from the leadership team. This was a, this was not an idea that came from me. I could say that I can't take responsibility for the letter. I can just talk about that where, why I can't, the leadership team wanted to put this letter and they had offered it in one of our meetings because I think the idea was we had heard that, it's important that board members wanted to know it was a collaborative process. But I mean, I don't know if Steven played a role, a big role, I don't know if other members also sat there and helped draft it and if anyone else wants to speak up. I just wanna add one thing just for the board members to know that Steven Dellinger did attend our finance meetings with a, just to say. I don't know, I see many leadership team, I don't know if anybody has their hot hands. It became the host of the meeting at a point. So I would just offer that, so the leadership team met after the last board meeting because I will be, to be very honest, we were not in full agreement on what we wanted from the draft two budget. But we, when we came together to talk about the draft three and what we wanted to place in there and what were some of the changes that we wanted to make, we came to a consensus on the cuts or the unfilled positions, things like that. And then myself and Gillian and with some help from Lori so that we had the right numbers, we weren't missing anything there. We put together a first draft of it, shared it with the entire leadership team so that they could make any comments if there was anything that they didn't agree with or didn't think that we'd expressed well enough. And then we forwarded that on to Brian for him to include with this packet from the whole leadership team. And so I think our goal was just to show the board that we were thoughtful about this process that we were concerned. I mean, anytime that you are reducing a budget from what started as a level service when we started talking to where we are now, there's always concern that there would be cuts that would be detrimental to any one particular school or one particular program. And I think that through our conversations, I felt comfortable that I wasn't harming any programs at my school, that these were some necessary reductions that we could do so through the attrition and that we could then present a budget that was fiscally responsible. And so that's where I landed and I had hoped that I expressed that through the letter in my part of the writing of it and then that the rest of the leadership team, there were no objections. There were a few minor changes from people and then you see it in that form. So everyone saw that letter before it ever got to the board. We would never publish anything from everybody with a signature without everybody having input on it. Great, thank you. Is that sufficient? Caroline, any other questions? Good, great, great. More questions before we give it back to Scott to vote with the motion on the floor. Floor, can I ask a question? This is Lisa. Will you tell me the amount again? 34,980. Yeah, and I said it wrong when I was at 30, yeah, 34,984,949. Okay, thank you. Sorry, I was trying to say it in Spanish before and that was what was coming. Jill, go ahead. I didn't hear you. So I think this question that asked the last time and I'm still just making sure I'm tracking because I do think this is something we're gonna get asked as we move into budget hearings. So we have unfilled positions and we have the early retirement from the teachers and I just am still not clear if it's a one-to-one outcome. In other words, Mrs. Smith retired and it's Mrs. Smith's position that's not being filled or Mrs. Smith's retired but we actually need to fill her position and it's really Mr. Jones's position that we want to eliminate. I'm not clear about that yet and forgive me if others are. Yeah, so I can, and this is like one of those, this is a very difficult question to ask, Jill because we don't have, we have till April 1st to let our teachers know what's happening and there are some positions that I could tell you, I'd prefer not to go through every single position because it could change based on what happens between now and April 1st with different needs that may arise. But one thing is we look at one of the vacant position for example was a physical education teacher position that was vacant from last school year and it was not filled this year. And so as a result, it's just a vacant position that was in the budget and that we're just taking out. So there are, we'll probably have a better idea around that April 1st time when we get there. We did discuss this concern. I do know you brought that up Jill at budget draft number two and I recognize that folks are gonna ask questions. We did talk about that as a leadership team as well. And we typically wanna make sure that we're, if we like the leadership team members would prefer to talk to their staff about any types of changes, like any cuts or anything like that prior to talking about it in a public forum, like such as this. Yeah, so I understand that. But it sounds like though the answer to my question, well, I have to remember how I phrased it. I think the answer to my question is no, it's not a perfect one-to-one. There might be, so it's a number of positions but exactly which positions is not actually clear to us from what we have before us. And I'm sorry if I wasn't clear again tonight. These aren't all teacher positions. So for example, there are 15 people, there are 15 people retiring, half of them are support positions and the other half are teachers. The other thing you need to know, for example, in the 6.3 FTEs, we also had a full-time administrative assistant at the central office that's unfilled. So it's not all teachers, please don't think that it is but some of it is all over. It's not in any one building, it is throughout the system. Okay, thank you. It's helpful to at least understand what we're looking at and how much we know right now versus what we may know, may hear later. Any other questions directly about the budget Jonas and then Lindy? So again, I think this is an extraordinary achievement. The bottom line number is breathtaking and the letter of budget support is a huge, huge benefit to me to see all of the names that are signed off on this. Hearing that it was, hearing floor say that the intent just to have it a bottom-up process is extremely encouraging to me. Brian, I wanna ask you, what is the long-term impact of this budget? Does this create opportunities to do the kinds of things that we wanna do when we're not in COVID? There's the curriculum review coming up that I think will guide a lot of the decision-making around how you move forward with improving student outcomes and how you reshuffle the deck chairs to get everything more efficient and get everyone in the right place. Does this budget create opportunities for that? Is this a step in those directions? Yeah, so that's a great question, Jonas. When I think about this budget in particular and what it does allow, obviously it allows us to right-size our school district according to this number of students that we had that we anticipate serving. I mean, hopefully we'll have a, I don't wanna say a baby boom or we're gonna have folks moving into our district or maybe we'll find out that our numbers are off and we're gonna have extra students come in. And that could be very helpful towards determining what we could use that funding for with that for. I think knowing what we wanna do with the, when we start getting to the strategic planning process following the curriculum review, we'll have a better idea of actually identifying what it is we want to do. But ultimately, again, the goal and the parameter that the board set was level service. That was the biggest parameter. So we're not really, I don't wanna say we're really changing any major things here currently in this budget as it was a year ago, except that we're just right-sizing it because of the declining enrollment. We did actually become a little more proactive in this budget with the addition of the pre-K position and the facilities director position that will allow us to take some of the load off of, quite frankly, me as superintendent and the load off of our principal. So we have more time for them and for myself to be instructional, working on instructional leadership which would hopefully help us begin to move the needle forward in improving our student achievement. Leindi. Thank you. The FTEs is very helpful because at our last meeting, it was very vague. It was just administrative cuts and we knew that most administrators are in one building and administrative cuts sounded like administrators, even though we weren't talking about people. We keep saying we're not talking about people. So when I see over 20 FTEs and I'm wondering what our total FTEs are in our district because we are a pretty small district thinking percentages and things like that. So I just keep that in mind down the road of what the impact is. I'm not saying they're not. We're a racing team. And I was very glad to hear Steven explain the letter because I was, I was pretty frankly not believing it. So it was nice to hear him because I had some misgivings or some doubts. And so thank you for saying what he said. I'm still concerned about that many FTEs and just seeing where the impact is or how the impact will affect services. We're actually not cutting 20 FTEs. Thank you, Cindy. We have 10.7 reduction at the top. So if you add the 4.4 and the 6.3, the 2.3 is a transfer of funding. The 1.9- And what grant is that? It's two things. It's Medicaid and Title II way. The nursing coordinators, we were expecting to pay for that out of fund balance. So it's not a reduction, it's a budget. It's not a budget increase. And we're actually adding 6.71 FTEs to special education. And we're adding the 2.75 FTEs in the yellow. So maybe you accidentally took those as a minus instead of a plus. Well, I think the way they're written there, it is confusing. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I'll work on that. Because we've also added the facilities and the early childhood and other things. So it's interesting to me that we're reducing as much when we're adding as well. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, Lindy, I think we're trying to be responsive to the changing enrollment of our district while also trying to be strategic in moving the district forward. And so the board can achieve its goals of increasing student achievement and every little bit helps. And our enrollment's been changing pretty much the same for many years as far as the changes. It hasn't been a drastic along, but it adds up. Yeah, the two-year average does, the way they do the budget, the two-year average. If I would love, again, maybe if anyone's listening from the state, maybe it's better to think about doing a five-year average during this COVID time instead of a two-year average. That might be more helpful with our revenues. I don't see any other hands up. I know, Caroline, you had your hand up. I mean, I go, but no, I don't see you. It's Scott. My question was similar to Lindy's. So I think I'm good. Thanks. Okay. Okay. Scott, do you have a question or a comment? Do you have a question? We have a comment, I guess. Comment? Do you want me to wait on your comments, Flo? I just want to make sure that board members are able to ask, let's just ask, make sure everybody gets a chance to ask questions about the budget itself after hearing Lori. And then I don't see any other hands unless I'm missing somebody in the next page. No, I don't see anybody. So Scott, go ahead. Thank you, Flo. Needless to say, I support this budget. I think it's, to me, it's like steering into a skid. It lets us keep control over our future that we might not otherwise be able to retain if we were to try to fight against the trends that we're seeing. From my experience in bureaucracies, these kinds of intentional farceing and controlled budget cuts are really hard to do. It's so much more common for there to be a kind of panic throwing overboard of whatever you can get your hands on when you're just faced with a situation that you can no longer ignore or avoid, which is a terrible way to run an organization. I mean, it seems pretty clear that it's not just state-of-the-art, it's not just student numbers. There are other factors that are going to be stressing us in the years to come. And I think as a board, we're going to have to take really a cold hard look at how to shrink gracefully. And I think everything is open. For example, we'll have to look at the boo that sometimes verges on article of that school closing are the ultimate budget cutting power tool that we have. We'll also have to look at reorganizing administrative responsibilities, maybe condensing them into fewer positions. And maybe there are other approaches that we can explore as well. But the main thing is, I think we're going to have to start on this very early, much earlier than our customary kind of budget discretion cycle in order to prepare the ground for a rational and humane and collegial approach. With time on our side instead of working against us. So that's one thing I think sort of a strategic look at the budget, which is why I support it. The second thing is the education spending that the $350,000 plus cut in education spending, which is the amount that comes from taxes, I think that would have to be my hard upper limit. I would not accept in this budget going above that. And part of the reason is actually equity. Just if you compare, sorry, I'll try to be quick with this, but if you compare, if you look at the annual report for 2019, 2020, which has the tax rates from the last year before consolidation and then subtract these from the projections that Lori has in draft number three, for say about five towns, town A has a projected increase over those three years. Of one 10th of a cent, town B, that's difference between 2018, 2019 and 2021, 22. One 10th of a cent for town A, half a cent for town B, 8.3 cents per town C, which is median, 8.5 cents for town D and 23.9 cents for town E. That's a big spread. And it can't help, I think, in people's experience of just their experience as taxpayers since consolidation, it can lead to very different perceptions of how much headroom we might have to increase the budget. And if you're in town A or B, you might think, hey, we're doing great. We've got lots of margin for maneuver, for a possible increase. If you're in town E, you'd be thinking just the opposite. And I think for us as a board, if we let ourselves be guided by equity, in the plain English sense, we would not allow ourselves to add to the burdens of the worse off in order to make things better for the better off. We would draw a line at some point and say, no, we just can't do that. And I think the line that has been drawn in this budget is the right one. Thanks. Thanks, Scott. Anybody else? Do you want to take it on, Scott, and ask for a vote? I don't see any other hands. Because we have a motion on the floor. Doesn't anybody want to say anything? It's 35 million bucks. I know you've thought about it a lot already. As the finance chair, I would say that I am really encouraged by the work, especially seeing that letter. It meant a lot to me. I think we have been doing a lot of work when we read the book and we were trying to become a professional learning organization. We've been doing a lot of work to really create the culture that we want to see in all our schools. So seeing that letter to me meant a lot. And knowing that the students, all the students' needs are going to be met. I'm not as concerned with the, I feel bad that the taxes are at disparity in different towns, definitely. But that's the CLA that is not us. I see what we're doing on investment on the next generation. I'm really happy for the work that Laurie, Brian, and the entire leadership team, and all the staff do for us every day. So I hope that this, as a board, we're putting the resources where they're needed. And that's what I feel this budget is doing. So I'm very excited. And it's taken a pandemic for us to do this. So this is great. Yeah. Thank you. That was very good. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I'll just say that I want to commend the team for their thoughtful and sort of diligent work on this. Last time when we met, I think there was a sense that maybe, maybe we're going too far. And now having seen the, the CLA and the actual extended impact on taxpayers, I guess I'm left thinking, are we going far enough? I, but I certainly support this. And it'll be up to us to, you know, explain, especially in, in middle sex and callous, why it is what it is and why this is a responsible budget. Thanks. Great. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Diane. So, so one of the things that I was very concerned last month with the budget that was presented, but, but it was because I didn't see guard rails. I didn't understand where some of the decisions were, you know, what the parameters were around it. It wasn't that I wanted the minutiae of it, but I had no idea and no understanding. So to me, what's helpful is seeing the class size. And also seeing also where some of those decisions are. So to me, that's the level of understanding I needed. So that as decisions get made, that's what I go back to, but wait a minute, is it matching up with what we had all understood for it to be. And so it was scary to hear all of those cuts because to me, there wasn't enough meat on the bones for me to understand. So I wanted to be able to explain to the communities where those cuts were coming from. And without getting so deep into the weeds. Thanks, Diane. Anyone else before we vote on the motion. If not, all in favor of. Approving the motion. Made by floor, seconded by Kari. The motion to approve. Our budget. For the amount of. $34,984, $949. Correct floor. Got that right. I hope. More is nodding. So I feel pretty good about it. Okay. Good. Good. Please. Click yes on your. Participant screen. Otherwise. Please click. No. For some reason. Okay. Seeing only. Is everybody able to click or. Okay. I'm seeing. I'm seeing all thumbs up. Show thumbs then from board members. I'm not sure if the clicking devices is working. I'm seeing all thumbs up, George. I can't actually. Is your thumbs up. Excellent. Thank you. Um, Gile. Great. Okay. I'm, I'm seeing unanimity. Um, Am I missing anything or anybody? If not. Um, the motion passes unanimously. Congratulations, everyone. This is an important one. Great work. Thank you. Look at Lori smile. Right on Lori. Do you want to continue with. I'm going to continue. And now what I'm going to do, because everybody had a chance to read the packet is just, I'm going to do a few motions and then you will get to discuss. So a move that the, that we do reserve fund balance for the early retirement program in the amount. 4,999. $136. And that is a one-time expansion. If you have those questions. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Caroline seconds. Discussion. I'm not seeing any. Am I missing? I'll just quickly scan. Scott, I guess it's worth pointing out that in case you didn't see that we've, we've basically have already done this by approving the budget and we're just formalizing the. As is our tradition. Thank you. Right. Right. Yeah. All right. So all in favor of a, of approving the motion as made by floor and seconded by Caroline. I guess show thumbs, if you would please. I'm once again seeing. All. All right. So. Thumbs up. George and Gile. Great. Jill, your thumb was up. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Very good. And I saw your Steven. Thank you. Scott. Sorry. Can I ask a clarifying question? Is the verbiage for this motion in the packet or can she repeat it because I, I wasn't following. Oh, okay. I didn't see it in the packet, but I haven't found it. Yeah. I'll forward it to you. List that to your email right now, but I can read it. I can read it again. Reserve fund balance. For the early retirement program. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Okay. Thank you, everyone. So. The next one is reserve fund balance for the COVID-19 coordinator and full-time nurses in the amount of 190,000. And four. With zero cents. Is that clear list? Yeah. They said, did you get that? Can you repeat it? Sorry. Reserve fund balance. Yeah. For the COVID-19 coordinator and full-time nurses. In the amount of. 190,000 and four. Got it. Yep. Thanks. That's one nine zero zero zero four. Yeah. Okay. Great. Any discussion. Linda. Yeah, I just, I need some clarification here. We're not budgeting for these positions, but we're saying we might need these positions. And so my question is. If we're saying we might need these positions, but we put them in the budget, we can't get COVID. But if we're saying we might need these positions, we're saying. We're saving this money for these positions in a different way. Is that not the same as having it in our budget when the government says. Here's money. If you didn't budget for it. I'm sorry. Thank you. I was wrestling when we were coming up with the wording for this to say another. Sentence that might say subject to a reduction in CARES relief funds. To add it to the motion. I wasn't sure if that was necessary or not, but. Linda had the same question was, should we put that in? Part of the motion. I'm just concerned knowing how federal grants and federal money are going to work. I'm just wondering if you could say you need it. Cause it's an unexpected expense. And then it's shown that we think we might need it. Right here. We're anticipating. I just, I am, I'm wondering about it. So I'm not an auditor though. I was wondering, so do you want a friendly amendment floor? Do you want me to type it up and send it to you or. It's an Alice in Wonderland world. For sure. With federal grants. If we have this, this fund balance. Anyway. Why do we have to put anything. In writing, wouldn't we as a board. Say in June, we figure we need another COVID nurse or whatever next year. Wouldn't we then say. We should look at our reserve funds to fund this. And then. I mean, I think the way that we were seeing it, Linda is that we want it to be prepared and it helps us to, to ear, to earmark the, the fund balance. It doesn't mean that we're going to use it for that, but it was quite what money we have without, you know, going into too much detail. It's not going to be a good idea. It's not going to be a good idea. But overall we, we felt like it would be a benefit for us to have it earmark. I don't know. That's just my question. You're marking to me as budgeting. Yeah. And because we don't know how long COVID is going to take. It could be two years. Brian, do you want to. But it could be two years. I just don't. Yeah. Tie our hands. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're going to be able to look at what the fund balance is trying to use to fund balance to offset one time costs. And so, you know, we're hoping that the COVID-19 coordinator would be, you know, would be the position like that would be one time cost, but, you know, we're not, we're still waiting for how many vaccinations, what, what, what the world is going to look like. You know, we might not know what the world's going to look like in April, let alone September. And so I think the idea was just to earmark it, hoping that this may be another one time expense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no. Maybe. There's a miracle. We won't need a COVID-19 coordinator in a, in the start of the school year next year. And, you know, try to be optimistic about 2021. So I'll keep my fingers crossed and be optimistic. But I think that was one of the big ideas there. So ultimately. Did we get anywhere with this? Do, do we want, would it, would it lower our, would it protect us if we were to have that friendly discussion? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we asked the board to do this tonight, Lori. And if we had to make a change later for some reason, based on some new information that we find out, could we bring, we would bring that to the board, correct? Yes. I did have in the original one that I had sent out. And then it got edited to say subject to a reduction in cares, really for other grant funds, just as a precaution, because I do believe there will be more grant funding. Yeah. I emailed the two floor if you would like to change your motion. And that's fine with me. Okay. Thank you. Let me go into my email. Sorry. Sorry. It just, I have to, you know, one sec. Thank you. So. Do you want me to reread that motion or forward this? Okay. I'll just read it. Reserve fund balance for the COVID-19 coordinator coordinator and full-time nurses. Subject to a reduction in cares, relief, or other grant funds. Is that good? Everybody okay with that? And still in the amount of whatever. Yes, I sent you all the amounts in the email. Did you get my email? Yeah, thank you. All right. And, um, who was the original seconder of your motion? I no longer remember. I believe it was Caroline. I was Caroline. Yeah. Caroline, are you okay with that friendly amendment? Okay. Great. Um, very good. Uh, thanks for that, Lindy. Um, and Lori. Any other discussion of this one? If not. We can go to a vote on the motion. Um, as we've been discussing mid by floor, seconded by Caroline and amended in a friendly manner. By both. Um, Please show. Thumbs. Prove them. Down if you're against. I'm seeing all thumbs up. Let me just make sure. Uh, Jael. Oh yeah, great. And. Um, George, great. Thank you. Uh, Winston. Um, I'm seeing unanimous upward pointing thumbs. Um, if I got it wrong. I don't seem to have. So the motion carries unanimously. Thank you again. Um, So floor, any more of these? Yeah. So the last one originally in your package, it just says review draft warning, but we would like to actually have a motion for the warning now. Because each of you are going to have to stop by central office to sign a Brian, I see your hand up. Yeah. I just want to make sure we get that change there on page 21. Uh, before you do the motion. I will get. Okay. Great. Yeah. Yeah. I have a language here, but a, but I just want to make sure the board members knew because on, on our agenda, it says just review, but because we're but voting in the budget, we're going to do the warning. And then a Brian and Michelle or. Yeah. So that we can get this sign. And that's really, really important. And if, and if, and we need to have it. It's really done no later than a, then Tuesday, January 12th. And so we're really helping folks can stop by central office. Between seven 30 and 4 PM. No later than January 12th. And if not, uh, you know, I may have to come knocking on your door to help you get the. Have you signed it? So you might see me for the, I don't know. I don't know if I'll be knocking on the door, but I'll have to find a way to get you to sign it. It's all. So if you go to page 20 or 21. In your packet, the only change is the location from middle sex. From town office to middle sex town hall. That is the only change. I'm not going to attempt to read the entire warning here because we don't have that time, but. I don't want to hear anything. So would you like to move it? So I will make a motion to approve the warning. Very good. Second. I'll second. Steven. Thank you. I saw. I saw Stevens. Hand up, but. Thank you for being willing to fill in. The gap. Any discussion of the morning. Okay. In that case, all in favor. Once again, please show thumbs up. Opposed thumbs down. And once again, I'm seeing all thumbs up. Wonderful. The motion carries unanimously. I think it's got. Yeah. Yeah. Can I just ask a question? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That clarifying question. So I heard Brian say he was going to hunt us down for signatures and I had. Left the video for a second and the meeting. So can you just tell me what I need to do? I just don't want. I don't want to be hunted. Sure. So. And hunting seasons coming to an end. I know that as well. So basically. We're going to ask board members. To sign the document. And we'll have to make a, if we have to meet you somewhere after some reason, we'll try to make something. Cause we have to have it done. And then we also have to get it out for the annual report. So I mean, there's a lot of other pieces. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry about that. Brian. I don't get back into town generally until six or six 30. And I leave town around six or six 30 in the morning. And I have to get it done. We'll have to get it done. So. So that's a great question for you. So. I will need to either meet somebody somewhere or if there's an extended night. You know, it's. If I have enough time, I can sometimes shift my schedule. But that's really only a few days. So there's, there's I have to say we have a lot of hard work in central office here as you're well. So there's typically someone here. or Karla or someone else, we'll be waiting for you. Correct? Thanks. And Brian, that's starting tomorrow, like we could do it tomorrow if we wanted to. Will you be ready tomorrow? Yeah, okay. Great, wonderful. So now, if we're done with the morning, which I believe we are, yes, Floor? Is there any more finance committee business apart from the new agenda item that I've asked for? We're all done. Excellent. Great. Do you want to just mention that we have an informational meeting next week? Yeah. Kari, you're on it. Go for it. Yeah, I had mentioned at the beginning that we were gonna make that one an informational instead of an input meeting. And we have a plan, Lori and Brian and Michelle have helped us do this lights again and we will have a similar share presentation of the budget next Wednesday. Is that good, Kari? Yeah. Great. Many, many thanks to all. Very nice. For 3.3.6, I sent earlier in the day a draft. There's some clunky terms of phrase in it, which I hope you'll ignore, which I intend to fix and just smooth rough edges on. But I just wanted to run it by you and make sure that you're okay with it, basically. I'm not asking for wordsmithing or anything like that, just as long as you think the tone is okay, the message is okay, all of that. We don't have to vote on it. I just want, if anybody has anything to say about it, I'll be happy to, more than happy in fact, to Diane. The only thing I was noticing, Scott, I like the parallels to what we're doing and how we take care of each other. My only question would be is around the statements of that this is our first step in a multi-year process of adjusting with our budget because I don't know what next year brings. And so if I were reading that as a community member, I might think, oh, okay, so next year, you're planning on making dramatic cuts again. I think it misses the point you're trying to make and it sends me down a different road. So I would just kind of, you know. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, watch out for that. And thank you very much, Diane. Any other advice? If not, we can move on to board operations, diversifying educator workforce. Yeah, Scott, I'm wondering, could we have like one minute so I can put the presentation and maybe just do a one minute break to the bathroom? Is that okay? Thank God, sure, we can, let's take five minutes. You deserve a break. Just to move the presentation up and yeah, and it's just gonna be for sure 15 minutes, but I just need to put some stuff up. I have all the minus. So just two minutes. No problem. How about a five minute break for everybody? So back at 7.35. All right. Okay, well, I'm excited to share this report with you guys today. So Diversifying Educator Workforce in Vermont is we've been trying to make the report come alive in Vermont in the past three months. This, oops, let me see if you'll let me, there. So a lot of people had asked this question who produced the report and it was the New England Secondary School Consortium and it was facilitated by the grade school's partnership and supported by the Nellie Mae Foundation and Ventura from Massachusetts and Jess from our own agency of education were the co-chairs. The report, you had a small but mighty team from Vermont. All of the other states had much bigger teams, but this was your mighty team from Vermont. The priority of the work really was educational equity with emphasis on Diversifying Educator Workforce. So we had a lot of really meaningful conversations in this and why I'm excited to present this is because it's not really because of the countless hours of research or discussion or going back and forth to Boston or actually we're doing a lot of this by Zoom, which at the time I really disliked and now here I am in Zoom world every day. It's because it represents a deep commitment and a lifelong commitment to equity and anti-resistant work in part of the members of the task force. So all of the research and all of the strategies that you're gonna see in this report, I emailed them to you and hopefully you had a chance to see it. It's all based on New England research and New England data. So it's not far from us. This is what the report looks like if you had a chance to see it. I can send this presentation later to you guys. I'm not gonna attempt to read the full report, but as you know, a growing, I'm gonna, sorry, I need to make this smaller here. This is what is important just to say that a growing body of educational research demonstrates a positive impacts of teachers of color on short and long-term academic outcomes of all students. We know what the data is nationally, right? So in K to 12, because in not all New England states they count pre-K. So by 2060, the number of, we'll climb to 66% of students of color in the schools. But we just have an 18% of the educator workforce is made up by people that look like them. And then this is my favorite part of the report and I'm kind of rushing, but the grounding principles was, I think one of the things that we were the most proud of it and what sort of grounds the report and the CC is not something that you have to read all at once. You can go into different sections of it. So the first one is commit to equity. Second, acknowledge the harm the system has perpetrated and continues to perpetrate. Honor identity in all its forms. Engage equitably. Be an anti-racist. Oops, sorry. Ah, how do I go back? Oh, sorry, it's supposed to have the go back. Sorry guys, there. So I'll just leave it like that because my cursor is acting up because my hand is shaking a little bit. So measure, share and reflect on the data and evidence of the progress and in a transparent matter. So in Vermont, we have formed a task force separate from the New England Cursorption still supported by the grade school's partnership. And we've been having a series of webinars which a lot of our administrators have participated in. And Carla has also our HR director participated on and Brian was really open about posting our, as you've heard our jobs in other, they were a little overwhelmed by the amount of places that you can post but they were open to it. And I've been so grateful to see a lot of familiar faces from our district really engage in this work. So why I wanna stop sharing. So the last webinar happening is in January 12th but in the website, you can see all what has happened in November 17, November 15 and November 12th. The last webinar was gonna be on cultivating the interest after sending a survey out. We're gonna continue to work more in the key strategies to promoting diverse educators and for retaining at the various educator workforce. And I'm gonna stop sharing the screen. For a minute. And why is it important for us to sort of dig into this kind of work is that as a board member, it's increasing the diversification of the picture workforce is, I think it should be part of our continuous improvement plan. We need to be preparing all our students to engage in a multicultural society. All our students must have the ability to effectively connect with people who are different from them and create classrooms that reflect the changing demographics of our country. Board leadership matters because we get sure that we put those resources necessary to support the people that have both positional and dispositional leadership in our organizations to do this work. And then another responsibility that we have is engaging our communities in this conversation is important to advancing this work not just in our school, but in our state and why? Because we don't need to only work towards equity in our schools, but we need to work in equity as a community, as a whole. And then have somebody else that is way more eloquent than me say why this is important too. And also help participate. And then we'll have room for some questions. And I believe I just had eight minutes. Hi everybody. My name is Mia and I graduated from U32 last year and Floor is also my mother. And I was a student representative on the board actually and I was also a member of BLAM which stands for Black, Latino, Asian and many more and is a club kind of a group for the students of color at U32. And we were also doing a lot of racial justice work in the district as a whole. We were doing a lot specifically in U32 but we were also trying to branch out into the elementary schools as well. And when I heard that my mom was doing this work I was really excited that it could be coming into U32 and into Washington Central as a super or as a whole because I think that it would be an important continuation of the work that the students of color started and that it would be kind of, I think that the students of color started this work and said, this is something that's really important to us and this is something that is happening to us and this is something that's present in our daily lives. And I think that it would be the board's duty to listen to that and to continue promoting their voices and by promoting this work and what this report is saying would be supporting the students of color in that. And I think that the board has a really unique, a good position here to make the conscious choice to be continually aware of race and how it affects education which is something that the students of color didn't have the privilege of. You guys have the privilege of having the choice to be conscious of race and that's not something that we had. And I think that that'll be great for the school as a whole. So that finishes the presentation and we still have five minutes for questions because I think we stayed on time. So Diane and then Kai. So thank you both. I mean, Floor, you're always very eloquent and your passion shows through. And I think you're exactly right in both of you with the fact that what we had said was it was easy and it was easy for those of us who are very privileged to jump on the Black Lives Matter bandwagon to say, yep, we're gonna fight for social justice and then we just merely go along our way. And so I think both of you for reminding us these are ways that we can really put it into action and that we are called to do that. And so I think this report helps to set that stage and to prepare us for the work. So thank you both. Thanks, Kai. I had a question and a comment, excuse me, and I'm sorry, I missed the first minute or two. So if you already mentioned this, I apologize, but do we have data for our district about the diversity of our employees or our students relative to the community, maybe? Do you know if that exists? I think it's not aggregated, but I think we all know and I would be looking at Jody or Steven and our principals for that, but I think we, it's pretty small, you know how the percentage of students is, yeah. Yeah, we should be able to, we can pull that off IC as well or data, we can get that if that's something that you're interested in seeing. I guess that relates to my comment, which is that I could easily see this topic being a thread of our strategic planning process. I would probably argue that it has to be, equity has to be. And not that we have a lot of time, anybody in this room has any extra time, but I think we have to make time to think about, if that's true, that's gonna be a thread, it's gonna be a focus. What can we do between now and then to prepare ourselves? We're preparing ourselves budget-wise, we're preparing ourselves in terms of academics, but there's more we don't know than we do know on this topic. And so what can we do? Looking at data might be one thing, hearing from BLAM might be another thing, you know, I'll stop there. And I can just say, as someone who has been attending the, one of the team members from our district who has been attending these, the trainings that have been offered over the last course of the last month, what's very interesting is looking at it from, not just from a thing, a way of trying to get in recruitment and diversifying and bringing different folks who don't necessarily look like you or I do, Kari, to Vermont, to Washington Central, you know, it's interesting learning that it's actually, some districts have been doing that in Vermont and what the difficulty is after two years, folks leave. So they recruit and it's not, it's the retention piece, so it's about creating that environment as well, not just trying to bring folks into the environment but also making that environment inclusive and that folks want to stay. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. As far as data, I'm interested in questions, but I can go ahead, Scott. Steven? Sorry, Floris, might fall more in the statement category than question category, but... I think that's okay, I'll prepare for Steven always. I guess I could frame this in a question, is... Empathy. This, I want to appreciate the need for input and the importance of reaching out and giving voice to everybody, but from my perspective as a board member, I think our board task is straightforward if we want to have anything meaningful and we need to give voice, a collective voice as the school board of what our expectations are. Now, that's not easy to do, that will require more discussion, but I think if we're gonna have meaningful change, we need as a board to decide what it is we wanna have happen, voice that, so that we can communicate that to our administrators. And this is an expectation of the board and this is what we want to see, whatever that want is. And you know me with data, I'd go right back to Carrie. Carrie, let's start looking at data and have help inform what the board's gonna communicate to the administrators of what we expect. Yeah, and I think to add to that data, I agree, we agree with that, but to add to that question of data, we know that Vermont is the second-wide estate in the nation, but the fastest growing population in Vermont is 65-year-olds and the only people... So by 2050, our state is gonna look completely different because we do have a little bit enough diversity that that is the population that is growing, that is in that range. So that's something us as a district, as data, that is not just the students we have now, but the students that we're gonna be educating in the future. Scott. Thanks, Laura. You've been thinking about data and I'm thinking about Saturday Night Live. I'm sure many of us, maybe everybody has seen that Adam Drew's kid at live. You're cutting off. I amend it. It's hilarious, it's funny, but it's funny, but it hits, I think, a really important point, which is that there's a lot of, there's a lot that's missing in our culture that is sort of necessary in order to kind of magnetize in order to draw the people that we're looking for. And I think that too should somehow be factored into the effort, how to make us attractive to other people. Jonas. So I think one of the things that does make us attractive and I'm glad to see Mia and I'm also glad that Anna and Towns are still on here. Mia and Towns, I'm sure you remember last year that some of the conversations we had about, you know, overt racism expressed in school led to us taking some action last year that I think the entire board was proud of. I think everyone, you know, a lot of people may have seen the recent coverage of the Vermont Student Anti-Racism Network that has representatives all over the state, including Montpelier and Harwood. However, you know, the board moves forward with this, however, the district moves forward with anti-racism initiatives, you know, those student voices obviously, you know, need to be included, you know, Towns and Mia, you know, started to drive that conversation last year, which was really encouraging. And, you know, making sure that we're platforming those people, I think may go some way toward, you know, helping retain those folks. So thank you guys. I just want to say one thing, I think, just, I appreciate, I think that it is very important to amplify and do everything that you can to support students' voices, but I would not rely on the voices and on the students of color to educate and to rely on them to do the educating for you. It's not responsibility as students and as just a person of color and a predominantly white state and a predominantly white institution to teach and to constantly be asserting their experiences. Of course, an apologies if that was, you know, apologies if that was how you thought my intent, you know, I know that a lot of the members of BLAM are white people, right? And, you know, we're in a community surrounded by, nope, then the allies and the advocates, you know, we don't, my point is that we have some impressive voices, that we have people who are committed to anti-racism on the staff, in the student body, on the board and in the community, making sure that all of those constituencies are represented and brought to the table when we're talking about these things. Yeah, so the last thing that I was looking for from the board if there's no more questions is that a lot of the school districts, you know, the feedback that we have been getting is that a lot of people feel really encouraged by all being, everybody in the state working towards something that has some structure and some ground in principles. So different organizations, not just educational have given their logos to the Vermont task force. As a, you know, I've been using my name as vice chair of Washington Central and I'm wondering, and we don't need to answer the question today, if it would be okay for us to share the logo with the organization as that is something, you know, it had a lot of administrations, the administrators and superintendent and HR attend this. If you'd be okay without sharing the logo with the support of the work. It just means that there's more people doing this work. It doesn't mean that, I don't know how to describe it. It's just about support. That's it. I'm a little bit confused. I'm not sure exactly what is, are you asking the board to make this or? We can make it, there's no action really. There's no, it's not like a formality, I feel, but if you wanted, we could bring it when we have our agenda prepping, we can bring it up and then we wouldn't have a discussion the diversified work force. We could just see if you would be okay with posting our logo as an organization that is willing to do this type of this work. That is working, I feel like we are, we don't have all the pieces, but we're working towards it. So we can bring it, I don't wanna take more time because now I've reached my limit that we had put in for planning. But I do wanna say that I'm really thankful for the work that has been done and continues to be done at U32 at our early schools. All of the principals have attended and it's been really impressive to see and not just our principals Kelly and Jen also attended and Carla, we have a lot to be proud of. So I just, I felt the board needed to be at that level too so that was the intent of the presentation. Thank you, thank you for giving the time. Yeah, that's great. So, okay, my sense is that the board feels positively about this initiative. Bye Mia, great to see you. Take care. So nobody objects to what Flora is suggesting, I trust. Okay, so thank you very much again, Soar. I think we're ready for 4.2, Caroline. Okay, so on my screen now I see Scott, Floor and Brian. If I get, if my sound gets broken up, can one of you just give me a thumbs down and I'll turn off my video? Thank you. So I just wanted to make sure that the whole board was aware of what's going on that the whole board was on the same page. I feel like it's important for us to understand our superintendent evaluation plan is not finalized. And to me, the idea that we would limit our scope to what we as board members observe directly and what artifacts the superintendent provides, to me, that's unacceptable. We need to put more effort into our superintendent evaluation plan out of respect for our superintendent and our staff and our students and our community. This really needs to be broader and more succinct and more clear. And so I really propose or hope that we charge the evaluation committee with drafting a plan and bringing it to the board for review. And I think the committee should start with the evaluation plan that was in place and existed under our previous superintendent and that way we're not designing it for a person, but instead for a position. And I think we can also pull evaluation plans from other supervisory unions around the state so that we're not wasting efforts trying to design something that currently exists. And I just, I really felt like what we ended up with did not feel like a plan. It didn't feel like a comprehensive strategic evaluation at all. And I really just want the committee or new members from the committee to go back to the table and get something that our superintendent deserves. Thanks Caroline. Jill and then Steven. I just want to express my support for Caroline's proposal to continue with the work of really trying to create a formalized and clear process. As I agree, I don't feel like we have that. And I also just want to be clear. This is a process suggestion. This is not related to the performance of our superintendent. So I really want to separate those things, but I feel like there's more work to do to have a process that to me feels like a true structure. I've been evaluated by a board many times and I definitely had more structure to it than I feel like we have yet. So I just think there's more work to do. Thanks, Steven. Um, it was my understanding and I could be alone in this that the work was ongoing. That what we have in place now was just the best we could do with an unlimited amount of time and no one desires to have this method and format going forward, but there wasn't time to develop a formalized plan. So if the committee needs a charge, you know, I think we can, I would suggest let's just quickly give them a charge and say continue the work. I'm not satisfied with what we've got. I think that was pretty clear last time, but it's just what we can do right now. So I say, let's just give the committee the charge. They want to continue their work to develop an effective evaluation program for the superintendent position. Flora? I agree with what has been, I think that we should take this on a retreat as a board. You know, we had decided on what it was going to be. It was imperfect. I forget the words that Steven used the last time because I was not... Hopefully inadequate. I think perfect. What he said? Hopefully inadequate. That's the word. Yeah, so yeah, I totally, it's really inadequate, but I think that as a board in general, we all have to be in really understand what that evaluates, what we are expecting then. And I think it would be worth it for us to spend a little time really understanding what we want from this evaluation as a group. And it could be a perfect retreat for next summer or before the summer. Lindy and Ocari, did you have your hand up or? No, okay. Lindy first and then whoever hasn't spoken and then back to Jill and Steven. I was listening to Caroline and thinking about in past years, we had a system of getting input from staff, administrators, community. They gave more information. I think some people talk about a 360 evaluation, but it was more informative as to what's going on that maybe we don't see or hear. And I think I agree with what Caroline was saying. And I think it could be done just looking at what we used to do. Cause we had a data system that we used when we were evaluating. So I would like to see that as well. Is there anybody else before we go back to people who have already spoken? I don't see anybody. So Jill and then Steven. Thanks, Scott. So the reason I felt like I needed to say something was because it's not clear to me that that committee is actually continuing to meet or it has even ever met. So I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page and explicit that there's more work to do. Well, I thought there was one. So I feel, I said we got to get clear on that. I don't agree with waiting for a retreat and I don't even agree with doing it as a giant group process. I don't actually. Evaluations are things that are, I mean, there's lots of tools that exist so we could review something, but I really think we need a smaller group to do the homework. If we wanted to set specific goals for the superintendent, then yes, we would probably need to do a full board process. But again, I would not want to do that from blank piece of paper. I'd only want to do that from some committee work, just process-wise, I think that would be really hard. Just for the, just to be clear, there is no formally constituted evaluation committee that the board has approved the creation of. It was thrown together ad hoc as a group of Caroline, Chris and myself. Stephen? Well, again, I would cast the ad hoc group of Caroline, Scott and Chris to continue their work and develop a proposal that can be brought to the board. I'm fully in agreement with Jill that we can't wait. If we wait till the summer to start doing this work, it's going to be another year where we don't have it done. I'm sorry, but not unique to this board, but large boards, we're very inefficient. We spend a lot of time talking about things and that's fine, but we're very inefficient. And if we want to get something done, we need to start it now. And it's impossible for the entire group to start it. Let the small group start it, get some proposals that they can share with the entire board. And that can inform our discussion going forward. All right, perhaps then, Caroline, since you've finished, oh, sorry, let me do, all right, please go ahead. I was just going to offer, since I was involved with two of Bill's evaluations, if I could be of service, let me know when the first committee meeting is, I'll be happy to join you. Thank you. I was going to ask if you would. Great. And in the meantime, Caroline, since you have ideas, why don't you set them down and then we can work from there? Because again, the difficulty is doing, the worst thing we can do is nothing, even if we might have the best sort of conceptual evaluation ideas ever, but if we don't actually do something, they're worthless. So this is why, woefully inadequate even, is okay if it moves us down the road even somewhat. So anybody else, yeah, are we good? Are we good? All right, then let's move to the consent agenda. Would anyone like to move to approve the minutes of December 16 on page 22? I'll move to approve the minutes of December 16. Thank you, Jonas. Second, four seconds, great. Any changes for Lisa? They look good to you? Great. Lisa does it again. All in favor, please show thumbs up, opposed thumbs down. I'm seeing George thumbs up, excellent, thank you. Very good. So unanimous in favor of approving the minutes of December 16, which brings us to the board orders and Lindy, thank you. I'm ready. I make a motion to approve the board order in the amount of $1,041,359.62. Is there a second? Oh, Diane seconds, thank you very much. Any questions, Jonas? Is that the correct number, Lindy? It's the total. The total, okay, got it, thank you. Last time she told me that was okay. Great. Thank you, Jonas, for checking. Good. Any questions about the board orders? If not, all in favor, thumbs up, opposed thumbs down. And I'm seeing all thumbs up. Motion carries unanimously, which brings us to personnel actions. And those are starting on page 28. Next, would anybody like to move those? Looks like there's just one, is that correct, Brian? Yes, that's correct. Okay. Would anyone like to make that motion? I will. I move that we accept the leave of absence request recommended by the superintendent. Is that how I phrase it? Yes, great. Yes. That was Caroline. Caroline moves, is there a second? Second. Steven seconds, thank you. Well, is there any discussion? If not, all in favor, thumbs up, opposed thumbs down. And seeing all thumbs up again. Wonderful. Thanks, everyone. Any other personnel actions, Brian, that takes care of it? Okay, great. So we're now at public comments. If any member of the public would like to speak, it would be great. Sometimes the name isn't always there. And today it doesn't seem that we have hand raising capabilities unless I'm just missing something. So please, if you're a member of the public and would like to speak to us at this point in the meeting, please just clear throat loudly. Maybe you're, make yourself known. I think the raise the hand is under reactions. So on that bottom list, if you click on reactions, there's a raise your hand button. So there is. Thank you very much, Diane. Yeah. This has changed since last time, for me. Yeah, I think we all upgrade it, update it. Aha, aha, okay. Thank you, Diane. Yes, you've opened up new vistas, Diane. So any member of the public, once again, if you click the reactions button at the bottom of your Zoom screen, there's a raise hand feature. And if you'd like to speak, please feel free to raise your hand. And if not, that's okay. We can move on then to future agenda items. We have a few chestnuts in here, the name of the district. At some point we'll get around to dealing with that. Maybe, are there any thoughts about this? When would be a good time to deal with this? At a retreat? Okay, we can, there's no urgency on this. We can keep it parked for now. And then really, it's quite a lot of thought about it. It's a bylaw issue, right? It's like an articles of association, whatever we call them. So let's parking lot it, because we have two other items related to that. One was the size of the board, which we never got around to dealing with. And the other one is the one that Towns brought up about pay, which I guess is not articles, but it is governance. And it seems to me we could maybe deal with those in a committee in some point in the future. That's brilliant, Kai. Thank you. Thank you, very good. No objections that I trust. Oh, Lindy? Not an objection. What is our union number now? Oh my. We are number 92. Thank you. I don't understand why those changed when they merged places. So that's, I was asking that because I was wondering who there is no 32, it just went away. So that seems weird. And actually is still there. It just is used for different reports, but 92 is technically the new number for the entire district. We still have town numbers, like Berlin is town number 19 and stuff like that. But thank you, Lindy. Yeah, learn something new every board meeting. Okay, building bright futures, assessment needs, Brian. I was just going to add, we're up, we've been, Jen Miller, Arsenal has been starting to, she has been appointed the lead facilitator for our curriculum management review to work with the curriculum management review team. And it was going to be, we'll have to have an update for you at our next board meeting. Great, okay. Great, okay. So that's a new future agenda item for the next board meeting. Great, that's great. Wonderful. Where are we with assessment needs for building bright futures? So I was thinking that's something that we should discuss as a board and be aware of. And it's basically, it's a report of how our Vermont young children's and family doing. I'll send you the, just similar to, it doesn't need to be at the next board meeting, but I'll send you a link to the report that is now live. And it also has a link if you wanna print your own, or you can also request one email to you. But it pretty much gives a picture of the children in Vermont age zero to third grade. So it's important for us to be aware of that data. There's gonna be a presentation on Monday, actually. So I'll send an email to everybody. So maybe that would be sufficient. Otherwise it would be like, again, like a five, eight minute chat on what it is. And it's data that all of our principals and administrators actually look at and use. So it's good for us to know about it. Great. So this is something that the agenda group can actually, at the appropriate time program for, great, okay. And board retreat, yes. That's another one that we'll be getting to. And Brian added what he was just saying, which is now completely flown through my, curriculum management review update. Right. Thank you, Brian. Are there any others from anyone? Steven. Diversifying the workforce. Diversifying workforce. Okay. No taken. All right. Any others? If not, we can go to board reflection, number nine. See if, if anyone has a reflection on this meeting or just in general. Diane. We are way ahead of adjournment schedule. So whoop, whoop. Sorry. We have to make up somewhere, somehow for all the times when we're not. So I'm happy that this turned out to be one of them budget approval meeting, no less. I'm feeling, I'm feeling pretty good about this board actually. I always do, but more and more with the passage of time, which I guess is a good sign. Others, other comments or reflections to make? Jill, Steven. Oh, I think you're muted, Steven. Jill was before me, that's okay. I didn't, I didn't raise my hand. So my reflection is I'm in agreement with what was said. I'm really pleased with how the board is working and I'm pleased around the direction we're taking in the funding and the budget. And my feeling is we haven't even touched on the difficult parts. So for those of you that were uneasy this year, I don't think we've even vaguely broached difficult discussions. So, you know, just, I think we just need to be prepared as a board and individually and mentally, that we're gonna have to tackle some very, very difficult discussions in the coming year. Thank you, Steven. We needed that dose of Caroline. I thought that tonight's time estimates were extremely accurate. So I just wanna thank the agenda committee and that is really helpful to having a successful meeting when the time estimates are so accurate, it's really helpful. So thank you to everybody who, I don't know exactly how it comes together. So anybody who has a part in that, thank you. It's voodoo. Thank you very much. Yeah, we miss it often enough. So when it's right and when it's good, it's a nice feeling. Any other reflections? If not, I would just extend my thanks and very best to everybody. Please stay safe and stay healthy. And look forward to seeing you next time when that is. Adjourned by consensus at 821. Thank you. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, everybody. Bye. Happy New Year.