 It does not appear that we have any guests except for Megan. Megan was our one applicant to replace Paul Putney for Randolph School Board. We'll talk a little bit when we get into the OSSD meeting about the process for the pointing. Megan, there's some quirks that are happening in terms of the law right now because folks were so focused on COVID that they didn't re-up an amendment that they should have during the normal session of the legislature. So we'll talk a little bit about that. So it doesn't look like we have any guests to hear petitions from. So the first order of business would be to nominate and then have the board vote to potentially put a new chair into place for the RTCC board. I nominate Ashley Lincoln to be the chair of the RTCC board. Second. So we have a nomination. We have a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say, yeah. It looks like it's unanimous. I don't know, do I have the ability to vote? I haven't scantled around all day. I'm just getting my head together. So I'm gonna turn things over. Great. Do you have a copy of the? I do. You have it all in front of me. Thank you. And I'll actually introduce Felicia. We'll talk a little bit about the enrollment report. Sure. So I think I've met everybody. I'm Felicia. I'm the new director of RTCC this year. Kind of a big year to start a new role as an administrator. I was an administrator last year, but I was the assistant director at Stafford. So it's kind of a big step to come into a COVID year and open up a school. But I'm really proud of my staff and how our reopening went. I think it went really, really smoothly. I think we planned our contingencies quite well and we've had a good start. Good first week. So hopefully that will keep on going. Would you like to tell you a little bit about myself or? Yes. Felicia, please tell us about yourself. Okay, so I'm a Randolph native. I grew up here and Randolph went to this high school. My parents are both educators in the district. And it always was my dream to come back and eventually be able to serve my home community. So I'm super excited to be able to do that. But I've been in technical education since 2008. I was a media arts teacher for most of that time. And then last year I was the assistant director at Stafford. So I've been in, this is my third technical center. So I've got a pretty good view of what's happening around Vermont in the other technical centers. That's me and Nutshell. Great. Well, thank you Felicia. We are really happy to have you here and welcome. If you could go on and speak to us a bit about the enrollment numbers on the packet. Sure, sure. So right now our enrollment has gone up from 108 in July to 115 as of today. I do know there's a couple of applications in the works. So I think that number is continuing to grow. You know, ideally that is still a low number. I think our budget was built on enrollment of 127. So we're still below what I think has been past precedent over the last few years. But my goal all in all is to raise enrollment to a minimum 140. Probably won't happen this year, but we're working on it. And we've established a relationship with TFS, which is, let's see what that stands for. Actually, I can't even remember what that stands for right now. But it's with Mark Perna. He's a national recruitment, enrollment, and retention specialist. He's awesome. So we have got a new online application system that's going to be starting or be ready for students to apply come November. We have worked with him to change our timeline. It has been past precedent that we weren't even recruiting until February. And therefore, I think we have some issues surrounding that we're seeing play out kind of this year. But to have our numbers pretty solid before contracts come out, I think is critical. So that was my number one goal. My other goal in starting early is that it gives us a lot more time to really be specifically recruiting for programs that might have low enrollment in that later window. So we've had some time with him. He's actually going to be doing an all day PD with a select group of staff members and administrators from the building. And that's going to be in October, October 9th, and we're going to really flesh out what our enrollment or recruitment strategy is going to be. A lot of it really centers around the timeline, but some of it centers around direct mailing and reaching kids in different ways than we've tried in the past. A piece of it is also starting our outreach for middle school and really bringing that to kind of the forefront. So kids would think about technical education long before they're ever thinking about the application process. So. Hello, everyone. We're outside trying to get in. We're by the main office. It's awesome. Okay, we'll come get you. Gotcha's coming down. So yeah, so enrollment, you know, I feel good sharing some kiddos here at the end. And I think we're still getting that at this point. That's great. Are there any questions for Felicia about enrollment? I think COVID really impacted this year's numbers, you know, just because I think we missed that recruitment window because it happened right in the midst of recruitment. Yeah, I know that we had the discussion last year. I know that a lot of students last year were a little bit nervous about what the fall was going to look like. And they were afraid, you know, if I'm coming to a technical center, I want to be in person if I can. And they were afraid that that wasn't going to be the case. So I think that had a pretty good impact. That was a big part of our reopening plans. You know, as I was looking at how we were going to make sure that we're offering a really solid program, it was important that, you know, we remember why kids are in technical education and that's the hands-on piece. So therefore, we ended up making sure that when kids are in the building, they are in their program hands-on and that their remote days are more for academics and other work that they can do for their programs remotely so that they get that I think once they knew that, that helped their members through the lab's latter part of the summer. So what programs are struggling as far as numbers go? Sure, let me just pull up the mic. So I'd say right now, pre-tech is really probably not going to happen this year because we can't get out into schools. So that's an unfortunate thing, but at the same time it's kind of a blessing because as I was looking at the program that was developed, it really wasn't developed well yet. And when we start going out into the schools and trying to get folks to be a part of this pre-tech program, I think we really need to know what we're doing first. So I'm having Craig Fuller, our instructor for that program, really look at the program and develop a solid curriculum. The other piece of the puzzle is right now that's very specific to STEM related careers. And I think that given our enrollment issues, I think we need to broaden that to be a bit more broad to the center and different career pathways. So I've asked him to kind of think about how he develops that curriculum so that he can address the multitude of pathways that are available at RTCC. The other piece of the puzzle is him looking at the outreach to the middle schools. So really that's gonna, it's gonna be a year of development for that program. So that's one program that has zero students in it right at this time. We started out electrical this year, that was a new program. It's kind of a success story because when we started this summer, we had four students, we now have eight and another student looking at it today. So I see that program growing without a whole lot of effort. I think it's a needed field and I think there's gonna be a lot of interest once kiddos know that we offer it. So that is doing pretty well, but at this point, if you're looking at the numbers, it's one of the lower programs. Right now, graphic arts has only four students in it. That along with film, which has zero, has led me to really think about how we are going to move forward. This is the last year of graphic arts. It will be closing at the end of this year. Historically, film has done well. So we're gonna give one last good faith effort with one arts program. But what I've asked Carlos to do is to diversify his program. We've had a couple of inquiries about broadcasting and how that might play into it. We also could potentially roll in some of the media arts that happen within the graphic arts program into that curriculum. So that's another program that is in development or redevelopment, we'll say this year. Let's see here. Advanced manufacturing at this time has five. It started out the year with four. It went down to three and then went up to five. And again, that student that was looking at electrical today is also looking at advanced manufacturing, so I'm not sure which direction that student might end up going. I think advanced manufacturing, a piece of it is just that when kids think manufacturing, they don't really understand its relation to STEM and making things. I just think it's a perception issue and that we just hate to kind of get out there and show them what it really is all about. And a piece of that is also just getting kids in to see what is going on there, the tools and the 3D printers and all of the awesome pieces of equipment that they would get to use in there. So we are looking at possibly re-titling that program. I don't have a title for you yet because we've thrown around a number of ideas, but I think that we need to kind of think about how it's branded and how kids perceive it based on the name. And those are the programs that really right now we're just really kind of looking at. I would like to start a dental assisting program next year. And that is a high demand field. There is no other program in this area. The closest one for high school is up in Essex. So I feel like we would draw in a wide variety of people from beyond even our sending area for this program, kind of like diesel does. So that's sort of short term programming changes at this point. So I just have one more question. Sure. You talked about students looking at the program as recent as today. How long do people have to enroll within the start of the school year? You know, I think we have a, that's a good question Linda, I might defer to you on this one. Being new, I'm not really sure, but I would say that once we really start getting into the meat of the content, it gets more difficult. I think we probably have about a two week window. That would be, that would be where I would say at that point, you know, we've kind of started to do safety work and it's really not possible for our student to come in and not do that safety piece. Okay, so that was, so I think that with your enrollment discussion, we also touched upon the agenda item of transitions from 20 to 21. So almost you had anything else additionally? In terms of opening or like the reopening or in terms of just like sort of programmatic changes. So I'm not sure, I'm not sure either. Yeah, I'm sorry. On the agenda, it just says transition to 20, 20, 20. I took that as sort of the reopening. The program, yeah. And so I think I have covered pretty much everything that is sort of on the horizon at this point. Okay, yeah. All right, sorry. That's good. So the next is the Perkins v. Approval if you were, I have to say Perkins v. Perkins v, I would love to talk about that one. That was fun, wasn't it? If you would all mind. She knows what I guess, go through the title. This was my first time actually writing the Perkins grant. Jason did write it before he left and was required to do one revision before July 1st, which he did, but it came back to me for more revisions. And at that time, I really took a deep dive into what was written in the plan and thinking about kind of our potential, the potential things that we want to change programmatically and looking ahead to how we're gonna deal with our recruitment. And so I made a significant amount of changes to it and it's taken about four different rounds of revisions, but as of like, I don't know, four o'clock this afternoon, I got the final, like it's been approved. It's just gotta go through a couple more signatures and we're good. But I did include in your packet the budget over the next four years. This plan, what's different about Perkins five from past years is that it requires us to do a four year plan. And so over the course of four years, we're talking about $552,000 approximately, or 553 if we wanna round up. So it's a significant amount of money that really supports our center. My goal essentially is I really don't wanna have staffing in that Perkins plan. Right now, we're not in a position to have that. So over the next four years, you're gonna see some staffing. For example, we're gonna phase out and include in the local budget, the math and the literacy after 2022. And then I have put in there a science integration salary with the idea that we are also being held accountable for how students test on their science exam. And at this point, we don't have a science specialist. And I think that would be really important for us to add into the mix. And you'll also see that there is some funds in there for the new programs that I talked about earlier. And I actually really only talked about dental assisting. If things go well the following year, I would like to open plumbing. That would be I think a really well rounded center with a lot of opportunities for kids that are in high demand. So you'll see some of that in there as well. And you'll see a lot of consult with TFS which is the Mark Perna work. He actually was, he worked with Rutland, Stafford Technical Center where I was last year. And they were in a similar position with low enrollments. And at this point, they have a waiting list for every single program. So I think his process works and we have to sort of trust it. I will be bringing him to the central Vermont community in November. He's going to do a virtual presentation that can have up to 5,000 people. He's an amazing speaker. And he talks about the shifting paradigm in education and how kids learn today. So we'll have a lot more publication on that to come. And that's included as well in the Perkins plan. So what's the timeline on the Perkins grant? In terms of like, it's a yearly, so it's a four-year plan, but every year you have the opportunity to, or you need to go ahead and say what your yearly budget is. So although I've made some choices here, that can be amended throughout the year. So it's approved for four years? So this year is- It's approved yearly. Okay. So every year they're called investments what we want to spend the money on. So she decides, she's kind of outlined here what the investments are going to be. And then the application process is providing the justification. And then it sits back and forth. Oh, we didn't like the fact that you use the word and instead of or in this location. I mean, it's that detail, but it'll bounce back and forth a bunch of times. But it's some substantively approved at this point in time. Which means we may need to still work on some of the wording, but we have access to the funds where we should be able to use the funds for what we have at plan. And at this point, I think I'm beyond substantially. I think I saw approved tonight. So I was definitely- The last person that goes through is the business manager there. And that'll, if it's not to the penny, the summary page doesn't add up to the penny of the street pieces then you might hear something. Absolutely. But the thing that's different also about the purpose by plan is that it requires us to do a local needs assessment. And that really drives everything that you put in that plan. So our local needs assessment really had a lot around the enrollment piece and access. One of the big barriers to, I think students coming to the tech center today that didn't exist years ago was school consolidation. What's happening is if you looked, for example, at Rochester students, some of those students might select Randolph as their school, but a number of them are also selecting Middlebury or Woodstock. And those go to different technical centers. So you've got that and doing that. And then we also have the Chelsea and the Tumbridge, who a number of those students are electing to go to Thetford, which then is another career center. So geographically, and this is something I've pointed out to the state AOE is that what the breakups were at the time that they were creative might have worked, but at this point the school consolidation has really hurt us. So we need to re-look at that. I think it needs to be by hometown, maybe, instead of the school of choice that the student makes in those schools that have school choice for my two cents. So are there any questions from Felicia about the Perkins Five branch? Okay, great work Felicia. So the reports are enclosed. We have director, superintendent and financials. Do either Felicia or Lane have anything to expand upon what we have in front of us? She got all the good stuff. Sorry. At least in terms of facilities this summer, they did a pretty good job. I think they painted most of the hallways. You guys did a little bit of the work yourself. Yeah, the hallways, only we have, if you haven't walked in the tech center, I would highly recommend you come when allowed to or maybe we can do an evening there for one of these meetings if that would be agreeable to everyone. The facility is really tired. There's a lot that I see that needs to happen. I know we have some reserve funds, but I'm being very cautious because I know that we might potentially require those reserve funds to float next year in a really tough budget season. But it's everything from, there's wiring and equipment that's in there from 20, 30 years ago that is no longer hooked up to anything that just needs to be removed. There's ceiling tiles that I haven't seen, that look like they haven't been replaced in a very, very long time. So the hallways are looking good, but we're in the midst of, we need some significant changes. And I think that's a piece of enrollment too, is our space needs to look inviting to kids. They need to say, hey, we've got a top notch facility. And I don't think it's crying that out right now. So it's kind of on the radar. And my hope is to kind of come up with a five year plan for how we go about tackling some of these things. Yeah, we talked a little bit, touched on the idea of a renovations plan because you pointed out some areas that do need some major work. There is surplus money. Again, their RTCC budget is separate from the OSSD budget. And they have surplus money at the end of every year. We're only allowed to keep 3% of that surplus. The rest has to be sent back. But what we talked about is if they get a plan in place and then they can go out to bid on the next step in the plan and have that bid sitting there so that come around April, we know what we have for surplus. We can use that money to actually do that renovation and do a piece each year instead of always giving the money back and reinvest it back into kids and reinvest it back into programming, which I think is a really good way to get things moving. Yeah, but they did a little, they did the paint, they did the lockers that they were looking for, but there is quite a bit, especially in the machine shops. Those are the ones I think I... The core is where this really, like we just need to really go through it and figure out what needs to happen there to get the electrical and equipment out that is no longer in service. And the science piece that she mentioned is critical. If they can get their own kind of integrated science person at the tech center because as we start looking at trying to improve student performance on that, the LA in science, the quirk with science is that it's the only exam that the final year of it is still in 11th grade. And so when the majority of our juniors are coming over and participating in the tech center, they're potentially missing out on a year of science, the year that they desperately need it to perform well on that Vermont science exam. And so that piece may help significantly in that work. So it's a good time. So the consent agenda is also in the packet. And if I could have a motion to approve the pieces of that. I look to approve the consent agenda. Second. Great. Any other comments? So all in favor of approving the consent agenda? Say aye. Aye. Oppose. Great. Any other correspondence or other items to discuss? I did wanna ask if there's, if you need to do outreach to other ascending schools for representatives on this board. Is that something that? Yes, that's a really good question. I was somewhat surprised when I came here to find that the school board was serving as the RTCC board. I think it's really important that we have industry partners and representatives from every school. So I would like to work on that. One of the things that I tried to do this summer but didn't happen just because I think everybody, all of the other administrators were so busy trying to prepare for reopening was to get at least the regional principals together to start building that relationship. It's on my radar and it's something that I'm gonna continue to do. And as I build that relationship, I hope to get representation on this board. Great. Well, I would like to again thank you and welcome Felicia. It'd be great to have you on this team. And we certainly hope that the year continues to go well and smoothly. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here. Appreciate being here. Thank you, Linda, for joining us. Actually, I was scrambling and taking notes but I forgot your take on them so I didn't need to. Yeah. So that closes. Yeah, there's no executive session needed, as far as I know. Not that I'm aware of. And then you can close out at, I'll let you make the call. Looks like it's. 626. There you go.