 Hey, and there's Dorsey too. And Lindy. Hi, everybody. Good evening. So Diana's on the phone, but it's six o'clock and we have a really packed agenda tonight. So welcome everybody. I'm gonna call the meeting to order exactly at six o'clock. The first order of business today is an executive session. So I will take a motion for executive session and you have a right in front of your package for legal negotiations and personnel. So if you could state that, that would be very helpful. Any volunteers? Flora, before someone makes a motion, can I do an agenda revision? I'm gonna- Because we have- Yeah, I am. So hold on a minute. I am gonna come back and we do have an agenda revision. Do you want me to do that now instead of- Because we haven't really done reception of guests or anything quite yet. It's just that the piece on superintendent evaluation is a five minute, but it should be part of executive session. So whoever makes the motion, I was hoping they could include that as well. It's just an update on the process, but I did want it to be executive session. Sure. Okay. I thought we could do it under personnel, but that's- Instead of- Is that okay? Sure. Okay. Then I guess I could make the motion to go into executive session for personnel negotiations, superintendent evaluation. And we will be inviting Dan Richardson to start with the executive session. One second. Thank you, Chris. All those in favor of going to executive session, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, let's move into executive session. Thank you, Jim. Thanks. Hello again, everybody. Sorry it took us a little longer, but here we are. Jonas, do you wanna go first with our first item from our executive session? You got it there. Floor, do you want my motion first? Yes. Is that okay? Okay. Yeah. I move that the board approve additional compensation in the amount of $1,000 beyond budgeted expenses to each current contractual staff for additional duties performed during the COVID-19 pandemic outside normal expectations per operations one. I second. Thank you, Caroline. All those in favor of approving the motion as read by Jonas, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Aye. There was a little delay there, but all ayes. So for the town of Berlin, Chris, you're muted. I move that we hire Dan Richardson, a monthly attorney to provide counsel to the board in discussing the town of Berlin's proposal. Jonas, if he could put the first motion into the chat directly to Lisa, so that, or if you put it to me, I'll give it to Lisa so that she has it for the minutes. I believe, Jonas, can you email it to Lisa? You guys have a good system. Yeah. Lisa, I've emailed that to you along with the motion coming out of executive session. Thank you. Sorry. That's okay. Thank you. So Diane, staff, I appreciate. Yes, so we would like to just note for the record that our schools and all staff have worked hard to provide for the social emotional development and learning of all students during this time of incredible change and stress, the connections could not have happened without the dedication and care of all staff. We thank you, thank you are two very simple words for the life-changing work that you all do, but they carry our enormous wishes of gratitude and appreciation. And to that end, we ask, we move that $1,000 be, I should read my thing, that we approve up to $1,000 to be expended for items for a staff appreciation. Thank you. And Lisa, I'll send this to you. Okay. Chrissy, are you there? Okay. Caroline seconds. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the motion as read by Diane and with deep appreciation to our staff, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any oppose? Hearing none, the motion carries. Okay, that's all to do for executive session, moving on into our regular meeting. Welcome, everybody. We have 60 participants in our meeting, including board members. So thank you for being here with us. We have a agenda, we have one agenda revision and I will wanna hear from other board members. Chris, go first. I would like to revise the agenda so that we can address the public comments issue that we've been dancing around for a couple of meetings now. And I will, I will- I will put that on the- 5.0 on board operations. I think we missed that one so that we can have an action. Okay. Thank you. The committee. And then the only one other change is we're adding a 4.27. We just missed that. We did talk about an agenda planning for music and the approved recommendation by the board. It's just part of the report out from Brian. And with that, I'm gonna give it to our students who have been patiently waiting for us. Student report. Assuming they're still here. Oh, there she is. Yeah, we're here. All right, towns, you wanna start us off? Absolutely. Okay. So as I'm sure most people are aware, the students from our district just came back from April vacation. It was last week, week long. And was both a very welcome break and just also our final vacation before the end of the school year, which is very quickly approaching. I think we have seven weeks of left, three more in person, which is a little scary. So also AP tests are next week. So a lot of the seniors and some of the juniors are in such AP Spanish, APUSH, which is like an advanced US history, AP stats, all of that. So that's all next week. And so a lot of us are preparing for that. Yes. So there were some students at U32 who won, were Vermont History Day winners. And that means they qualify for National History Day. And basically Vermont History Day is a program where students create history projects and share them in this annual state contest. And so winners from U32 will qualify for National History Day and it will be competing there. We've had a lot of just winners of a bunch of stuff in our school recently. The Lincoln Essay Award was the top three in our region were awarded to U32 students. So one, two, and three, that was really, really great to hear. And our school was doing great in terms of getting involved and other. Anna, you're cut out for a bit, but I'll continue. I'll continue and maybe you'll rejoin us, hopefully. I should be back. I don't know if you can hear me anymore, but. Awesome, you're back. Okay, cool. All right. Yeah, U32 has a Vermont coding team. And in fact, this coding team was the only team in Vermont that qualified and went to a competition in New England. If any of you look at the newsletter, and if you don't, a bunch of eighth graders have like a cell unit in science class and they created a bunch of models and they compared a cell to meals and they had like factories and stores and there's some really cool visuals. If you go to the newsletter, it's really worth it to check out those pictures and it brings learning to a whole another level of hands-on. And even though we've had a crazy and sometimes remote school year, the library has still been functioning incredibly well and providing great resources for kids. 77,000 books have been checked out since the beginning of the school year. Which is very impressive considering that there are only around 20,000 books in the library, but lots of books have been checked out and the library has continued to provide great student support. And to close out a report, Spring Sports have also really taken off. There's a track meet this weekend, La Crosse seems to be going, baseball seems to be going and there's students from U32 that are participating in Ultimate Frisbee and there's just a really good mix of being able to go outside and be active and see your friends again. Thank you very much to both of you. Thanks for being here. There's somebody that needs to be muted. Thank you. Any questions for our students? Scott? Not so much a question as an expression of gratitude in public for the really lovely profile that Anna and Towns did of me. Just very generous and warmly appreciative. It was like reading my obituary, but it took, I think, it takes a lot of talent to make me look good. So obviously there's a lot of talent over there at U32. So thank you both. Thank you, Scott. It was our pleasure. If any of you guys actually want to be interviewed or like Towns is leaving next year for college and graduating, I'm still, I'm going to be the senior editor next year of the Chronicle and if anyone wants to be on the Chronicle and have their story told that, let me know. Start signing them up, Anna. Okay, thank you. So let's move on. If there's, I don't see any other hands up for questions. So let's move on to the superintendent, Brian. Yes, and I'll start off with Elizabeth. Anything, where is Elizabeth here? Our COVID-19 coordinator. You're muted, there she is. Yeah, I'm not Kate, I'm Elizabeth, but that's what it says, something different. I'm trying to do two computers at the same time. There's a lot going on tonight. Yeah, so a bit of an update, you know, things, coming towards the end of the year, it's pretty remarkable how this year has gone in my experience. We just had our last staff surveillance test today. We only had 16 people because they no longer want to test the people who have been vaccinated. I think, you know, I don't have a number. We haven't asked, but I think a good proportion of our staff has been vaccinated. And so they're moving, they found out what they needed at the state level for the staff, because all along there's been a very low rate of positivity in those surveillance tests. So that's good news, and there's no, not really any longer need to do that. So they're gonna move towards doing some testing, surveillance testing of students, and they're gonna roll out a pilot project this spring and summer, and then in the fall, it will be more widespread in the districts in the state. So we're planning to be participating in that, if we can. And I think that will also give us a lot of good information as well. So rates in Vermont are lower, and that's a really good thing. You know, I think nine days straight, it's been less than 100 cases a day, and they're projecting that by June, it's gonna be in the single digits per day, which would be wonderful, you know, back to where we once were for a good bit of time. And we had several cases before the break, and again, there were like four different cases in different circumstances, different schools, and not one case of transmission from those. So that was also really good news. You know, we've not had to close too many schools for very long, but occasionally we have, but it's worked, and despite the fact that there have been students and there have been staff in school while they were positive and infectious, nobody has contracted the virus from that exposure. And that goes to show that what we're doing in the schools is working. You know, the distancing and the masking, though never perfect, it's really, it's done a major job. And I think people are now looking forward. The spring feels really good. People can be outside and they just released new information for the end of the year celebrations. And really by June 1st, it looks like if we could have things outside that, you know, there's really no limit to the numbers of people. So hopefully we'll be able to celebrate in the correct way with students who haven't had that kind of celebration in a long time. So no more drive-by things. We can actually celebrate in person. So I think that's all I can think of in the moment if anybody has any questions. Happy to entertain them. Any questions from the board? Seeing none, Brian, go ahead. And I just want to reiterate, I think that our success rate is really tied to our teachers and ESP folks who have been just so diligent every day coming to work and just doing, doing above and beyond what they've been doing this year. So, you know, my hats are off to them and my hats are also off to our principals leadership team. And I got to say, you know, it's Elizabeth Worth, not Kate Worth, but she's just been absolutely amazing this school year. So thank you. I also had the last week I attended a meeting with Governor Phil Scott and Senator Bernie Sanders. They were with along with Vermont superintendents and we were both of the, both the senator and the governor were extremely excited about the prospects for expanded learning opportunities. What does this mean? Additional extra time, adding time to the day. Of course, I think there, I think there is a large conversation happening around the state and how does that impact different districts around the state? And I will say that the first thing is, is many of the districts around the state haven't been going to school every day like our children have and our teachers and staff have. But I think that there is a big conversation happening. And I know Jen will talk more about this when we talk about the recovery plan in just a little bit. However, I just want to let you know that there's a lot of folks that are very excited as the more folks get vaccinated, funds are coming into Vermont from the federal government to really look at programming for the future. And one of the things that we started to talk about and we're just again in a preliminary phase is if we're looking at our school day, looking at the school day, how many hours are children in school? Is there, we're looking at our transportation and our busing and seeing if there's any way to add additional time at school. I think mostly looking what it could look like possibly at U32, for example, a lot of the children were out of, we had the rotation so they weren't all in the school at the same time. So if there's a way of trying to get them all in and ultimately have the children attend school for longer and we're looking into that. But of course, transportation is a major challenge in that. But there could be additional funds for this money thanks to our Senator Sanders and Governor Phil Scott. Thank you, Brian, keep going. Okay, so the next, so just moving along then, we have the 2021-22 school year calendar. Typically it's my understanding that the superintendent can issue the calendar. However, I understand it's a tradition and I'm still learning the traditions and the history and the culture of our district. And I know that's probably causing me some gray hairs, hopefully not any gray hairs for anyone else, but I'm trying to learn. So one of the things is, I understand it's a past practice in our district for the superintendent to ask the board, school board to accept the calendar for the year. So I have a recommendation for the school board to accept the 2021-22 school year calendar. I can let you know that we did reach out to association leadership as well to get their input, get some feedback. We reached out with the leadership team. We worked with Winooski Valley Superintendents. It's a very challenging process when you're trying to get as much information as you can from different constituencies and trying to make it work. And of course, we also have to align our calendar to the tech center. Okay, can I have a motion on page four to recommend to accept it? Any volunteers? I'll move to accept the 2021-22 school year calendar as presented by the superintendent. Second. I second. Go ahead, Diane. Thank you, Diane. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the calendar, not approving, accepting the calendar as presented to us. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Okay, Brian, recovery plan? No, the last day of school. Sorry, last day of school. Yeah, on page six. On page six. So basically what we're asking for here is to set the last day of school for the school year. I think we're, I'm not gonna say anything about snow days or remote days, but we're hoping that that's all passed us. However, we would like it right now, if we follow everything, we would actually have to have everyone come back on a Monday after a very long year in our, and I think it's what we're trying to do is ask, I'm interested in asking the school board to forgive the one day at the end of the school year so we can actually finish the school year on that Thursday and Friday. So on a Thursday for students on June 17th and then the last day for staff on June 18th. So I hope that you'll approve that recommendation. Could I have a motion? I see Dorothy's hand up. I move that we accept the superintendent's suggestion for the last day of school. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. And just checking in with you, Lisa, you have that motion in front of you? Great, okay. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the motion as submitted to us, could you say aye? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? I'm not ginning this one. The motion carries. Brian. Yeah, so I'm not gonna talk too much about this one. I will say that I'm gonna turn this over to Jen Miller. I just wanted to say that Jen Miller has been working as our recovery facilitator leader. She's been absolutely just amazing. We were talking earlier today about how tired we are, right? It's been a, and how our staff are tired and everyone's tired, but I know Jen just keeps coming along and that she just keeps doing it. So I just wanted to compliment her for her leadership this year and especially in this recovery plan work. So I'll turn it over. And I know it's, I know Jen will also correct me and say we're using moving forward. It's not recovery plan, but the rest of the state is calling it the recovery plan. So, Jen. Yeah, thank you. Language means a lot. And, you know, we've talked about the curriculum management review versus an audit and working from our strengths. And in this case as well, although the statewide term is recovery, we really want to talk about moving forward and not just recovering. And there is some recovery to do, but really reimagining and redesigning and capitalizing on the strengths of this community and the experiences. So we're calling it our plan for moving forward. Again, in a nutshell, the AOE has articulated three pillars. Social, emotional learning, mental health and wellbeing is one pillar, engagement slash truancy, really sort of more about attendance and participation than what we think about as engagement. I'll talk about that in a minute. And then academic achievement and success. And I think that it's important to let you know that just like last spring, when we had to write a continuity of learning plan, we took time to articulate sort of our guiding principles and beliefs as we engaged in that body of work last spring. And we're thinking about that same approach this year and thinking about how do we ensure that school is a place where kids want to be even if they didn't have to? We're talking about engagement as joy, not just on the compliance end of the spectrum. So the timeline has been tight. The state required the needs assessment to be performed by the 15th of April. We had a few weeks to do it. And we've been doing through the Ed Quality Committee presentations of student data for a number of months now, student learning outcome by student learning outcome. So with the heroic efforts of Michelle Sepka, we put that together for a needs assessment. We also looked at some other data. We looked at some more recent attendance data, behavior data, we had some reports from our school counselors. I talked a little bit with Elizabeth about some school nurse stuff. And we put that together in the needs assessment. That really was done just among mostly the leadership team. I have to say with a few other people, it didn't seem to me particularly prudent to cast a wide net for that first part of the work. Now we need to submit phase two by the 1st of June. Phase two is more about, so what might we do? How might we address the needs that are coming up in the data? And so it's an opportunity really to think about new ways of being, to think about leveraging what we've learned and to think about restoring practices that we've known have worked and that we haven't been able to fully implement because of the times in which we're currently living. So I just had office hours, open office hours to within Washington Central, within our employees to invite them to come and look at the current draft of the work, what we submitted for phase one and to invite folks to make suggestions, ask for clarification, ask questions, dream. And I had three sessions and probably about 15 people or so came either in person via Zoom or submitted some thoughts and writing so far. And I would say that for us in Washington Central, at this point, the feedback that I've received has mostly been focusing on our students, social, emotional learning, mental health and well-being. And again, as Brian said earlier, we have had the privilege in this district of having our kids present so much. And so there's not the immediacy around some of the engagement and truancy issues that some of the other districts are facing. And there's also not the immediacy around academic achievement and success as much knowing that that's always a work in progress for us, obviously. But SEL and wellness and mental health are surfacing right now. The other thing that I think is important to know is that these plans can be implemented as early as summer. And so far, I've heard much less about the urgency of robust summer programming. Again, I think because our kids have been in session and I've heard a lot more about thinking about bolstering supports both during and maybe after the school day so far. But this is also preliminary, although it's due June 1st, it's only April 28th. Maybe that's why I'm so tired. We have a lot of work to do. And I guess I'd say a couple of things. I've also invited folks to join the team for the phase two work and have had a few folks express interest in that. I'm still looking for broader representation across the district. And I put that invitation in the board packet and not a single board member has knocked on my door yet to sign up to join our phase two team. And I know you are all busy, but we would really welcome some, at least one of you. If you have the time to devote to the work, I'd really love to have a board member again, just to emphasize that this body of work is in place of the continuous improvement planning work. We will need to identify the address the issues for equity supports in phase two. We talked about that a couple months ago and Dodie has to continue to do CIP work. That's all totally awesome and workable. We can do that. But just a reminder that this is in lieu of the continuous improvement planning work. And if folks have questions, I am open to your questions. And again, if anyone's interested in joining us, I haven't scheduled the time in part because I've been waiting to see who's gonna step up and join us. But I promise the meetings will be tight and facilitated. I can at least promise you that. Any questions for Jen? Lindy, I see you. I was curious about the phase two because I think I just kind of forgot about it. Will the meetings be during the day or at night? Because that would make a difference on my being able to volunteer. I would anticipate, Lindy, maybe afternoon. I mean, again, it depends on if a classroom teacher to step up, I am not gonna disrupt the day for that work. So I think I'm gonna say it depends probably right after school. Possibly a little bit of subgroup work on those three pillars, but I'm not 100% sure yet. You can put my name down. Thank you. That's awesome. Thank you, Lindy. Any other volunteer? I would volunteer again, but I'm over. But, you know, it can be a backup. Thank you, I get it. Thanks. Jen, I would volunteer. I'm only nervous that I think I will have the opposite availability of Lindy just because after school is my toughest time. But I'm fine putting my name down and then we can kind of maybe coordinate and plan from there, if that's helpful. That is helpful. Thanks, Caroline. That sounds great. Hey, any other questions for Jen? Otherwise, I'm gonna give it back to you, Brian. We still have. So thank you, Floor. And thank you, Jen. Thank you, Jen. So moving along, I'm not gonna talk about this one either. I'm gonna let Kelly talk about this. This is, I just wanted to preface it though that the AmeriCorps VISTA update, Kelly Bushy, what she did, this was a very innovative opportunity for our district. Very proud of Kelly's work in this area. And I just want Kelly to talk more about what's been happening with the AmeriCorps VISTA program, which I think is the first for our district and potentially I believe a first for the state of Vermont. So thanks, Brian. And of course the cat jumped in the camera. So yeah, we've been awarded the VISTA and actually just today heard from the director of the VISTA program that we have applicants already that are interested in taking on this project and working with us to better serve our homeless population. And so I'll be working to help recruit. I'll sit on the interview committees and try to help recruit someone to take on that role with us for next year. You'll remember that that costs the district $6,200 for the year and it is a full-time position. And we'll be working with the McKinney-Vento law and helping us to increase our supports to students who fall into that category. So more to come. Thank you Kelly. It's a district position. It is for the district, yes. And this is one of the first positions that have been associated with public schools. So there's been many VISTAs across the state but never working directly with public school systems. But board members are excluded. I take it because McKinney-Vento is my jam, but I won't lie. No, but we'll tap into you for sure. Sure, great. Any questions? Scott, go ahead. Thank you, Flora. I just wanted to say that I love this kind of thing where we're able to leverage a small amount of contribution on our part, taking advantage of resources that are out there. And I just like to applaud the initiative and the imagination that it took to make this happen. And I hope it works out really well. Yeah, it could certainly be the start of a new partnership and creative projects going forward. Any other questions for Kelly? I don't see any other. And I agree with Scott. Kelly, this is just really wonderful for our district and especially the opportunities that it opens up for a partnership for the future. Yeah, and to grow it. So, Brian, four point six. Yes, so moving along, we've been doing this throughout the year. So extending and giving teachers and staff an opportunity to have a leave, which was under the emergency paid sick leave, emergency family medical leave, under FFCRA. So what we're asking for is to continue to support our teachers and staff because they've been just doing such an outstanding job in our district. So what we're asking for is to volant. We don't need to do this, but I think this is the right move to do for our staff is to voluntarily extend the benefits of the FFCRA and CAIA to include benefits as defined in the American Rescue Plan for qualifying reasons for the period of April 1st, 2021 through September 30th, 2021. And if the board will recall, we've been doing this throughout the year. It seems to us that when the federal government does reissue a law, we have an opportunity to work in lock step. It's not always lock step, but we'll make it retroactive to April 1st. Scott, sorry, I had a time. No, thanks. May I move that the board approve to voluntarily extend benefits of the FFCRA and CAIA to include benefits as defined in the American Rescue Plan for qualifying reasons for the period of April 1st, 2021 through September 30th, 2021. Thank you, Scott. Can I have a second? I second. Chris, you guys are quick with Carl. OK, I'll give Chris time. OK. Any discussion? Any other questions for Brian? All those in favor of approving the motion as read by Scott, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. We have one more item, and then I will give us a little break before we go into quality because we've been sitting for a little while, and I see everybody's faces getting ready. So 4.27. Brian, I'm going to turn this part of the report to you too. Thank you, Floor. So ultimately, in a recent board meeting, there were some concerns that teachers had raised about the music positions and the arts positions. And so what we did, the leadership team did come together and did write a response. But I really want to, instead of having me talk about it, I'd really like to have the principle of Berlin Elementary School talk more about the response. So folks understand what has transpired. Aaron, and the leadership team is here as well. Everyone. So Marin Boynton, principle at Berlin Elementary School. And yeah, like Brian said, there has been some concerned questions, discussion around the arts, the allied arts, specifically music, and art as well. There's been more concentrated concerns, more concentrated concerns at Berlin. And I'd be happy to answer any questions specifically about that. But I've been asked to talk publicly about our response to the letter from music staff that was addressed to the board on April 5th. First and foremost, we all appreciate the dedication of all of our allied arts teachers and staff. I know that in hope that no one would ever question anyone within our professional learning community that the arts are not valued. They absolutely are. And we all understand the importance of a well-rounded education that include allied arts and other facets of what we all believe creates a well-rounded education. This year in particular has been, obviously, challenging for everybody, but our music teachers, our allied arts teachers have stepped up, have gone above and beyond, have exceeded expectations when it came to what they had to adjust and really deal with in teaching during this pandemic. I would even say they had even more challenges than a regular classroom teacher. We recognize that and we appreciate it. So to speak to some pieces around the thought behind the shifts in staffing, in terms of specifically to music, it has impacted some changes. But some of the factors that we presented in our response is one around student enrollment. We are seeing, as everybody knows, a downward trend in student enrollment across the district. And with that comes implications for staffing. In terms of specific music programming in the elementary schools, we obviously are remaining committed to general music classes. We've come together to make sure that nothing is changing in general music classes. And in fact, the elementary principals have even worked to create equity to ensure that students are receiving general music class programming equitably across the board. The challenge and the changes, and specifically for Berlin, have been around instrumental music. This is an area that we definitely need to come together to talk more about and really come up with what does a comprehensive K to 12 music program look like? Instrumental music around specifically meaning band and chorus. We recognize as principals, as elementary school principals, that we are all over the place. And that is something that we have to address. And I will say specifically for Berlin, that is the change that is in this going into next year. We also have worked to look at our overall elementary school schedules to, again, think about equity across our schools. We also talked about a bit of the timeline, a bit of the history around arriving to this point. And if we think about back in 2019, we were in the process of merging. Some of us trying not to, but we were still in the process of merging. And it really started to spark conversation at the administrative level around equity. And what are we offering across all of our schools that are, again, equitable? It led to discussions around how much time students in one school compared to another are getting in the arts or in math and in reading and health. How much time down to the minute are students receiving for all of these? During the budget work in fall of 2019, we, again, continued to examine our student experiences across the district. There were some changes around intervention being provided. As we got into January of 2020, there was some discussion with the music department in our district around starting the conversation around a comprehensive pre-K to 12 program that didn't get much further off the ground than some initial discussion. So that's an area that we would, again, still need to come together to talk about. During the budget process this year, we were given direction to focus on working toward equity in student learning opportunities within a fiscally conservative budget. To that end, we mapped out student contact minutes for all teachers built within and across schools. During that process, the differences across buildings were more apparent. And in December 2020, the draft budget included changes in FTEs in three schools. And we're recommended as a path to equity well-being financially conservative. These decisions and this approach going into next year has been difficult and challenging. And hopefully this paints a more accurate picture of some of the history leading up to this, but also, again, recognizing the work that still needs to be done. And like I said, I'd be happy to answer any questions specifically about Berlin. But I know this is a bigger picture. I see a couple of hands up already. And I have no way to tell who had it up first. So I'm going to go by the way, do you guys are on my screen? So Diane, Vera, and then Chris. So I just was wondering, clarification. So we know COVID has impacted the arts in terms of really limiting what the ability was to do and for scheduling. So when schedules were looked at and considered, it's kind of two parts. Was it a COVID year that was considered or was it previous to COVID? And then the other part of that question is has it been mapped out as to what it will potentially look like for a person to go to more than one school in terms of maximizing the opportunities for our students? I can speak to that to start. We didn't base this on a COVID year. To answer your first question, it was not based on a COVID year. And I'm not sure the answer to your second question, if anybody else wants to chime in on that. Brian? Yeah. OK, Diane, can you repeat the second question? That's what makes sure I understand it. Yeah, so as it can often look great, that a position can be shared, but what does the actual schedule look like and what is the ability to really make that happen? Yeah, and I know we have some other principals here who have been working on their schedules. I don't know. I know we just talked about our. I can chime in, if that's helpful. Sure, thank you. I can't speak to music in this situation, but I can speak to other arts. This year, Romani and Yismont player share an art teacher. And so Casey and I worked last year around the master schedule to create a schedule so that it would work in the past. Callus and Yismont player have shared a number of different allied arts teachers, guidance counselors, music teacher and art teacher. And we just work together when we start to develop the master schedule in the spring to make sure that there's not a lot of back and forth and that the majority of the time can be spent each day in one building, if not all day in one building. Thank you, Alicia. Okay, Chris. No, no, Vera, you're first and then Chris. Okay, so I have several questions, but I'll ask a few and then give somebody else a turn and then if we have time, it can come back to me because I have lots of them. Erin, you can confirm that band lessons are going to continue for the fifth, sixth grade students, which was the case pre-COVID, along with whole band lessons when they're getting ready to perform at a concert or something. Yes, we will still have a level of band course and lessons, but it will be less than other years. So it won't continue as the same? Correct. General music will continue and I will also say that art, I've had a lot of, I've had some people ask about art, particularly that that's being reduced and it is absolutely not, art is still the same for all students. Okay, but my question was specifically band lessons for five, six, for individual group lessons, for example, like all stocks of phones would have a lesson for 30 minutes during their allotted scheduled time. So that will stay the same. That is still something that we have to plant with how much time that would specifically be. Okay, so when the statements being said that that option is staying the same, that is not what's on the table. Right, I said band and chorus instrumental music for Berlin will be less than it has been in years past. And then, so another question I have is my understanding as of right now, the leadership team or administration team, however it's titled, has no representation currently from any of the allied arts? Is that accurate? Well, let me interject here, trying to understand the question. The administration represents their schools. So we have, we have folks, the principals are from their schools, assistant principals come from, ones over at U32 or from U32. So I think they represent their buildings in that regards. But if you're saying that, is there a leadership team with a teacher from the arts on it? The answer is no, it's a group of administrators. Okay. And I have one more question that I'll pass it on to Lindy, because I think she was next. Hold on one minute Vera, I think Alicia is trying to respond to your question. Okay, sure. I'm just wondering, it might help just to give a little context when Erin was talking about, there's a lot of discrepancies between buildings and that the individual band lessons is one of those areas where our buildings all look very different as far as individual lessons and needing to get on the same page. And I totally respect that, but I guess the one thing I keep coming back to is I would hope that we would be lifting the other buildings up to meet where, where Berlin was at Berlin, whichever school was high, like had more opportunities that we'd be bringing the other schools up to meet those opportunities, not decreasing in one school. And then my last question is, and this is probably nothing anybody has in front of them tonight, but I would like the numbers, is over the last five years for student enrollment at Berlin, because it seems like Berlin is the one that's going to be decreasing time. What is the student enrollment from 2016 to 2021 and the projected for next year for 2122? Thank you, Vera. We'll have those numbers at our next meeting. Lindy. Oh, no, sorry, Chris and then Lindy. Okay. Did the leadership team know that there was going to be a recommendation of reducing teachers when they met in November when they were preparing the budget? Brian. I'll let the leadership team answer that. So I can speak to some of that for you, Chris. I would just say that specific cuts in November, probably know for the leadership team, but we were having discussions about where some of these programs would be, what size they would be, things like that. But in November, I can't recall us having specific teacher cuts during that time. Let me clarify then, because I don't want to tie myself into November. When was it known that there would be cuts proposed? So I can't really speak directly to that because I don't have any of those cuts at my school. So I can't recall exactly when. So I'd have to turn it over to an elementary principal. Well, I can say that December 20th, I believe at a board meeting, it was mentioned, the budget was presented and there were cuts that were mentioned in that December 20th meeting. Okay. The second question that's going to kind of follow up on Vera is does equity in this instance mean diminishing opportunities for students at some schools? Sounds like there's a race to the median as opposed to enhancing the music program at schools that may have a lesser music program. And if that's true, why is it a race to the median as opposed to increasing opportunities at all of the schools? Yeah, so I don't believe it's a race to the median. I think the, and I'll say this, that as a person who really wants arts and supports the arts, I think that I would love to have a pre-K through 12 program for every single instrumental, every single, I would love to have world languages from pre-K through 12 offered at every single school. I think the challenge comes down to is, where do we want to plan our money and use our limited resources and do that? So I mean, there's a lot of different ways we could do that and that could be a part of a larger conversation. I know we're gonna be talking about strategic planning in the future. I know that we're gonna be talking, Chris, at a future policy committee meeting about school choice and does that mean providing families and opportunities to send their children to different schools because we offer maybe the very best band program at a certain school, but we also, we offer a very amazing language program and another, these are all questions. I think we still have to explore, but I would definitely love to have the best programs from pre-K through 12 at all the schools. I think the challenge of course is, how do we do that with the limited resources and also within the schedules, which are very different. Next question is, was the music teaching staff consulted in an ongoing way when these discussions about cutting staff positions was taking place? And I'm talking about the music teaching staff, the staff members involved. I can't speak for each individual principal. What I can say is, we have a collective bargaining agreement and ultimately, there's a notification of when we have to let teachers know about RIFs and that is on April 1st and the transfer period is April 15th. So operating within the collective bargaining agreement, I think that's when teachers were notified of the changes. Regarding consultation, I can't speak for that at each school. And my final question is, what harm would restoring these cuts cause? Chris, can I give Lindy and Jonah the opportunity to ask a question? Yes, certainly and hopefully they'll ask one of those questions. Lindy? I can't word it as eloquently, Chris. I have so much, but I think one of mine was, when you say limited resources, a budget was brought back to us that was much lower than what we had asked for and we were assured that it was agreed upon and also that the costs, and I'd have to look back at the minutes, we're coming more from administration, not from student programs. So that's one of my concerns. We're getting quite a bit of COVID money that can be put toward us creatively looking at what will help children move forward, as Jen so eloquently said. And the arts is one way of moving children forward because there's all kinds of resources or research that proves it helps in math and reading and everything else. So I think this should have been a more thought out, long-term with more input. We've always had input from the community. This came at the last minute. If I was an art or music teacher or whoever's getting cut or their time is being changed, I would have wanted to know in January, not when I had 15 days, so that I could be applying for other jobs because I might not want to transfer between schools or I love the school I'm in. So I'm just a little concerned with the timing and why we can't look at this long-term and use some of that COVID money to fill this until we have a better long-term look at what our programs are and how it affects our children and our families. Yeah, so thank you, Lindy. And I think I can respond to you and Chris's question. Is here, you're right. We have a healthy surplus. We do have funds. We've been a physically responsible as a school district. I think that if the enrollment goes up or we find a need that we could definitely, I'd probably be the first person to come down here to the board and ask for additional arts teachers. Should we need them to staff the classrooms? Jonas? So Brian, you mentioned a discussion of cuts at the December 16th meeting. And I'm looking at the packet for the January 6th meeting that has the minutes from December 16th. And in the minutes for the section 4.5.4.1, draft two budget. There are a number of comments from board members that discuss potential cuts. Caroline said she understands but is unclear about the impact. Jill says, Chris says he's having a hard time understanding how we are cutting the budget by over $600,000 and yet not having a reduction in the level of services. And would like to have a better understanding. Jill says it's hard to understand some of the implications of positions not being able to discuss. I said, I would like to know the total impact on FTE positions across the district will services remain level? I'd like to understand what the downside may be even if we don't know for certain. Jonathan said he would have a hard time supporting cuts to the critical positions of teachers and all who directly support students. And then also in that packet is a letter from yourself and the entire leadership team. The second to last paragraph, and this is rolling out the draft three budget. And the second to last paragraph says, the leadership team has worked together with the superintendent to create a budget that is fiscally responsible and adheres to the vision of our district. Further cuts to the budget could lead to reductions in programs or services in the event of further cuts. We will need to prioritize our programs and services. Decisions will need to be made about what is required versus what is wanted. This will be a need versus want discussion. Additional substantial cuts could necessitate rifts. It's my understanding that this is the budget that we passed. So I think that the idea that somehow we discussed possible rifts back in December as a board, I'm not seeing that conversation. It's been my understanding and that we would not have rifts. And the discussion from December 16th and the letter from the leadership team on January 6th does not indicate at all that rifts are on the table, only that rifts might be necessary if further substantial cuts were made, right? So the board learned about this the Friday before that Monday special meeting when we received the updated board packet that included a note about a reduction in FTEs, I think is what it said. So Brian, if you can point me to where we discussed possible rifts as part of this budget, I'm not seeing it in the minutes. Yeah, and I think this is part of the, when I think about rifts, I think about the opportunity to talk about reductions in force. When we were talking about the addition, if I recall correctly, and I think you're asking me, if I just wanna make sure I understand that in December, there was discussions of rifts, but there was no specific rifts that were going to be mentioned. And if additional cuts were gonna be happening, then there could be, there would be rifts. Is that correct? That's right. My understanding is that the indication from that letter and the indication in the minutes from the 16th are that no rifts would be needed with this budget, but that further cuts might necessitate rifts. So I, again, I will speak for myself, but as a board member, I was not under, I did not have any inkling that there were any rifts on the table until that Monday meeting. Okay. So what I- And I think that's part of why the board is asking a lot of questions here, because if anyone on the board did expect this, if anyone on the board had an inkling that this would happen, I would love to hear from those board members. And Jonas, I think what I'm hearing you say is the expectations and communications around the expectations we need to have some work on as I, as I, as do I with, with particular two rifts. I think when I think about the, there's like three questions that I think of here. When is it appropriate to notify the school board about impending rifts and or transfers? When is it appropriate to notify staff about impending rifts and or transfers? And when is it appropriate to notify parents and families about impending rifts and or transfers? I think, you know, following the collective bargaining agreement as the superintendent, I try to make sure we follow that. I know that again, I'll say it again, teachers need to know about the rifts noted in April 1st, and teachers also need to know about the rift, any transfers by April 15th. I do know that the process that we followed was talking about rifts during the December 20th board meeting. The button we waited for the budget passed in March during town meeting day. And typically then you informed the board about rifts sometime around, sometime after that, you know, when you need to figure it out. So from December to March 29th, when we were talking about the rifts around arts, it was determined that those positions in order to, for the reasons that Aaron and the rest of the principals had discussed in their response letter, that those rifts were necessary because of those reasons, the equity reasons, the scheduling reasons and that we may not have to, we may not, we're trying to align the buildings so we can have more equity across the district. So I think there's some work that from what I'm hearing from your saying, is that there's some work that I need to do. And I think there's some expectations around, when do we do, when do we, and how do we notify folks about rifts? And what is that communication process? Thank you, Brian. There's something after I could. Who was speaking? This is Lori. Yeah. One of the things I wanted to point out was in December, we had had a bunch of employees hired at the last minute, last year and in the fall. And in December, there was a belief that we had temporary contracts for people and that there wouldn't be the need to riff because of that. So I just wanna go on record as saying, we learned of that in March when we started to analyze the contracts more in more detail. And that was a timing issue. So I think that's another concern was that we really thought we weren't going to have to riff and that's why the principal statement in that December memo was based on the belief that we had temporary contracts that would just not be renewed. Okay? You're muted, Floor. I thought that was my internet being unstable. Scott, please go ahead. And then I wanna wrap it up. So. Thank you, Floor. I know I can tell you're watching the clock tick away and I'm so sorry. I'm old and my memory is going. So I'm less interested in what has happened than I am in what will happen. And I don't want to lose sight of something I thought was very important that Aaron talked about which is looking at the music program in a more comprehensive context. My memory is still good enough to remember the effort that we made in a year ago to add $50,000 for a strings program. The problem, as I recall, was not money but time. And that by doing this, we put the leadership team in a difficult jam because they just couldn't make that work. So I think looking at music and arts in a global sort of way with all of the rest of the programs, I think we have the institutional machinery now as a board to do that with education quality and other sorts of formations that we can make so that we can move in the direction we wanna go now that we know where we don't wanna go. Thank you. Thank you, Scott. I just wanna say one more statement on the record for sure. For 13 years that I have served on the Berlin Board, the Berlin Board had worked continuously to increase the music and arts opportunities for kids at Berlin. And I just, I understand the sharing of the position but I still think it would be beneficial at some point to re-look at some money that could be allocated to make sure that those opportunities at Berlin can stay as they were pre-COVID and still bring up the other schools to have the same opportunities. And that's it. And I think we should restore the cuts and then talk about a comprehensive evaluation of the music program because it sounds like even though that was talked about in January of 2020, nothing has happened since then. So it doesn't seem like it's a front burner issue even though I know COVID really was dramatic and maybe it was hard to do, but we should restore and then move from there is my preference. I think if we're really listening to our experts in our buildings, the changes are intentional and the purpose is for equity and it's for student needs and what they're doing with the scheduling on their buildings. I think that what we're hearing clearly from everybody is that the transparency and communication was an issue. So we do need to do better for our next budget season but going backwards right now would just undo the work that our leadership team has already done. So it will set a really bad precedent as a board. So I think that either we can take a straw poll but this is not an action item. This is something that we already voted on and we have to respect the leadership that we have in our buildings. I completely agree. We did a terrible job and partly on us is in all of us to do better at communicating. This is not the first time that it's happened in our district, it's hard to do this work. We should have done this in November so we could have been having this conversation since November and then with the budget passed everybody would have been informed. We would have been able to maybe not have everybody in green but understanding what the changes are but the changes that are being made is for best outcomes for students in a holistic way. We can't talk about music isolated from the other things in there and we are not the experts on education. So I think we all received that letter from our principals and I think by seeing them all here I believe they all stand behind that letter and it's very clear that those changes were intentional. So I'll be worried of going backwards. I don't think we'd be going backwards and we shouldn't use equity as a race to the median. Equity should be a lifting of all boats and we should maybe have a clear definition of what we mean by equity because it's a word that's thrown around a lot and in this instance it means reducing services to students and that's exactly what is being used to camouflage here which is unfortunate. Jonas and you haven't been able to speak and then I want to wrap this up and move into our next item because we won't be able to talk about quality. Thanks just very briefly. I just wanted to say that it certainly wasn't my understanding back in the fall that there would be pending riffs anywhere. And secondly, I certainly would not support cuts in the arts particularly really almost ever or particularly in the middle of a pandemic. It's just way too important for all the kids to have arts to be able to play or record or whatever it is, have some paint and paint. I mean, get on the stage. So it's really, really important that we look at this very carefully and make sure that we support the arts across all of the schools. And it sounds as though that unfortunately our school in Berlin is taking more of a hit that way than other schools and that's really unfortunate. Thank you, Jonathan. Lindy and we're wrapping it up. Is that an old hand or a new hand? That's a new hand because I was a little upset by the feeling that we're going backwards or that we were informed properly. And I do feel it's an action item and I do feel if we have the money that it should be reinstated and then a systematic look at what we're doing in our schools and stop saying that our numbers are dropping like they're plummeting because we have our town reports, we can look at our numbers. And I just, I'm really upset that we're not listening to our constituents and I don't think our leadership team feels comfortable speaking out. That's my understanding. So I'm gonna possibly be inappropriate but if Jen feels comfortable, I'm not, this is not planned but what I share just momentarily, I believe strongly, we can't go backwards, we would be setting a terrible precedent and we have to respect our leaders. With just a specific question to Jen, this change that we're doing, it's intentional and allows us to be more flexible in the schedule for student needs is that you can just say yes or no on that if that's fair and don't feel like you have to answer either because we were not prepared for this conversation right now. Can I have clarity on the question? The question is more about, I think I try to explain to you that arts is not isolated from the rest of the schedule of the kids every day. And I guess we could simplify it by just doing thumbs up if there's a great uproar on the board that this needs to be changed. Maybe I need some guidance but I'm sure we can't go backwards. The straw poll might be helpful with that floor. So Jen, sorry about that. I'll do a straw poll. If I could have thumbs up in supporting the intentional changes that have been done and recommended to the board with the information that you have right now. Thumbs up. And if you do thumbs down, you have to give a... Thumbs down means what? Thumbs down means that you do not agree. So what? With the recommendation, with what we already voted on. Is thumbs up meaning sticking with what we've already got? Carrie. Can I, Flora, Flora, sorry, I think maybe we're framing this straw poll incorrectly. Try this on for size. Thank you. Maybe the question is, does the board want to revisit this? Do we want the superintendent leadership team to take another look at this and provide another recommendation with what's the savings we're contemplating or what's the added expense of going back and what are the benefits? What are the impacts pro and con? Rather than taking a vote on what we've already done. You know what I'm saying? It's a forward act. Yeah, that makes sense. Like Jen said, words matter. So that makes sense. You do not need to do it. So is that clear for everybody? So thumbs up if that's what you want or thumbs down if you don't want that. But thumbs up if you want the leadership team to relook at this. Yes. We want a new recommendation. Oh yeah, I go down too. So one, two, can somebody help with the counting too to make sure one, two, three, four, five? So we have five up thumbs and I know six with Vera and Caroline, I can't see you. So I don't know what it is for you. Vera, sorry, Caroline, can you hear me? Caroline, are you a thumbs up or a thumbs down? Senator Manchin, we're waiting for your vote. Diane, were you a thumbs up? I don't see Caroline. Caroline's unmuting, but we can hear her. So I don't think that the thumbs up have majority, but if somebody could help me count, that would be helpful. I think we need Caroline's vote. Okay, Caroline, I'm gonna text. I had six for thumbs up. Is that what others got? She's in, she's coming in. I had six. Okay, so Caroline, thumbs up or thumbs down? Can I ask if Caroline was part of the discussion? So she voted, she was the only negative vote for the risks? Yeah, I don't know. I was to just. But she said, I agree with you, we can't go backwards. So that's what I have from my text. So I believe we're okay. So the thumbs sideways. Can you hear me now? Yes, thank you. Okay, sorry. I don't know, it's something to zoom. I think I'm thumbs up if that means they look and come with a recommendation. The way it was phrased was come with a new recommendation. My thumbs up would mean I give support that they look at it. If they stand behind the recommendation they made, I think that's still okay. I don't want to give a thumbs up to say they have to change it. Also, it's really hard because I voted down the riff in the first place and I stand behind that vote. So this was sort of the place I didn't want to get to. And then my Zoom troubles are making it even more sticky right now, but I do support. I guess I do a thumbs up, but I just want to be really clear that I'm not insisting they have to come with a new recommendation. Does that make sense? Yes, so I guess it's a tie. So I will send it back to you, Brian and the leadership team to just get back to us. And as Caroline said, I believe the same thing. It doesn't have to be a new recommendation. I believe you guys looked at the student numbers and on your letter, but please come back to us and we'll make this part of our future agenda items. And I apologize that that was so painful, but the conversation needed to happen. So let's have a five minute break. Yeah, before we break, I just would like to say thank you though for allowing us this opportunity to have this discussion because while it was lengthy, it was an important discussion to have. And I appreciate the leadership team coming as well and presenting that information. Thank you. Thank you everybody. So let's take five minutes at least. I don't know if you need it, but I need five minutes. So you have four minutes 20, 45 back here. Okay. I wonder if Jen could start the conversation, I think. No, Kerry's there, but he's still muted. He's probably, yeah. Jen, do you wanna get us started on quality and while Kerry comes over? Yeah, my understanding from the steering committee was that you were not interested in receiving a presentation today, that instead you really wanted to talk about the implications in terms of your observations and what you saw and how that carries forward to strategic planning and in the future. So, and Kerry is back. So he's welcome to take over. Thanks. Thank you, Jen. Sorry. It's okay, Kerry. Yes, it's okay. Okay, well, thanks everybody. I take it that we should do sort of the abbreviated version of this. Yeah, we've got just 30 minutes, but if we could abbreviate it, I think it's too late tonight. Sure, so we'll leave it to the one question. So I just wanna give a quick introduction here. So hi, everybody. We're continuing our process of reviewing each of the student learning outcomes that make up our mission. So remind us we have this mission as a district. I think we may be down to the last four and this one's topic, of course, is science. And we wanted to have more time for discussion. So there won't be a presentation. I think many Jen was just explaining that. We, of course, do hope that everyone comes away with a better understanding of the science standards and the curriculum and some of the instruction and achievement data. So that's the presentation in the packet. Hopefully helped you with that. And if you've got a chance, again, we use the Jamboard. So if you've got a chance to look at the Jamboard entries, you got a sense of what the committee's discussion was like. And if you need a refresher, I wanted just to share with you a few of the headlines that we came up with at the committee level. So for one thing, it's important to know that we have new standards in science that are being rolled out and these offer more flexibility for instruction and learning. We observed on the committee that the hands-on and the project-based learning seem to be a real strength of the instruction. And if you haven't, please do take a look at the Hunger Mountain Science Project and Science and other things that are covered there. It really seems to be an excellent project that the eighth graders do. And then the other thing was that proficiency levels are at or above the state average, according to the assessment that we have, but there are stark differences in achievement amongst different groups. And that's something that we will want to address as a district for sure. So that's a bit of an intro. Maybe we'll just take, see if there's any clarifying questions. Was there anything that was not clear from the packet materials that we can help answer? Maybe there's a couple of those and then we can move on to the strategic question. So any clarifying? So we'll just move on to our one big question. So again, what we're trying to do with this project is build our knowledge base so that we have a better understanding of our mission and where we stand relative to achievement of it. So, and that this will help us hopefully inform our strategic planning, all right? And figure out what do we want to prioritize when it comes time to make hard choices? So in that spirit, the question we have for you is what information from this review, the science review, do you want to carry forward into strategic planning? So what's the, where are the things that we want to note from this that don't get lost when we get into it next fall or winter? Scott, please. Thank you, Kai. There was one Jamboard entry that just shot an arrow through my brain. It's the one on page two that says, what are the strategic opportunities to improve science and math and or literacy proficiency at the same time? And for me, it made me take another look at the student learning outcomes for science. And I wonder if they're not in some way pre-outcomes as opposed to what we actually want our students to be able to do once they graduate from U32. What they want to do with the training and education that they will have had in science. And the idea of actually breaking down departmental boundaries or compartmental boundaries and recognizing that mathematics is really to a great extent the grammar of science as is English. And that in order to really have a strong science program that strategic opportunity to work those in, weave those in together, I think is super important. And not just. I mean, we've just talked about music and the Allied arts. I mean, music and physics and mathematics and physiology or arts and engineering, drawing and perspective and geometry. There are so many opportunities. I think this is where the real value added can be and the ability to make the best use of the limited time that students have and teachers have during the day. So that's what I will retain from this. Thanks. Thank you, Scott. Those are great points. Anybody else who want to respond to that or something else about science? I agree with that. So I second that that was kind of my post of doing more cross curriculum is really important. So how do we keep that? And then the other that was not one of mine that was up there is that how are we addressing from pre-K all the way up the achievement gap in science? How do, what information do we need? So it's not just that the high school but we are doing it across. That's it. Great, thank you, Floor. Anybody else have a response to this one? Okay. Well, thank you. I know it's a little late to be thinking strategically but we keep at it, right? So just a reminder, our next review is next week. It's gonna be health and phys ed. So a little bit different. And after that, I guess in June we're gonna be talking about post graduation plans and outcomes. Also next week, if there's time I'm hoping the committee can go a little longer than normal and then we'll spend some time looking at the rest of the committee calendar and also talking about updating our student learning goals based on the retreat discussion that we had earlier. So as always, you're welcome to join us. That's it. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kerry for facilitating that and thank you for all the work. So let's move on into the finance committee discussion. And Scott, I'm gonna lean on you in doing some of the motions but let's just start with the four point for one. Is that the federal grants? Federal and state grants? Federal grants, yeah, page 37. Wonderful. I move that we authorize the superintendent to submit consolidated federal program grants and to receive and expend federal funds. Can I have a second on that motion? Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Any discussion or questions? Okay, sounds like the package was clear. So all those in favor of approving the motion as read by Scott, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any oppose? Any abstain? Hearing none, the motion carries. And then 4.42, let me just get to my 4.42, the audit report. Let me move to here. So there is no, there's, we have to accept it. Laurie, do you wanna speak to it? I have my notes from my last meeting. But we can't really hear you. We've had no real audit findings. We had a couple procedure recommendations. And so I just wanted to let you know we had another good year. This was after all of the adjustments for the CARES Relief Fund and other grants that were retroactive to last March. So this is the final audited fund balance. It's exactly what we discussed back in I think February. And so I guess that's the highlight. Typically this board does authorize and approve the audit report. Yeah. So can I have a motion, Scott? May I move that the board approves, accepts and approves the audit report as given in the board package. Can I have a second? Seconded. Thank you, Diane. Any discussion? I just wanna say to Laurie's again, that this is a lot of work. Oh, sorry, Kari, you go ahead. This is probably what you were gonna say, but I think we've become used to audits of this caliber. But I think we need to recognize that this year was extraordinarily complex. And to get a clean audit like this is really a testament to Laurie and her team. Thank you so much. That is what I was gonna say. And the last thing that I was gonna say is that Laurie also recommends that in the fall we'll be going back out to a request, a different firm for audit as a recommendation. So- Clarify that, please. Actually, I believed that I was asked to go out into do the bid. So we will be getting bids for audit firms for the May 18th meeting. Oh, for the May, okay. Right. So all those in favor of approving the motion? As read by Scott, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any oppose? Any abstain? Hearing none, question carries. Vera, I just wanna make sure that you voted. I didn't see your mic on mute. You did, okay, good. So 4.3, the stormwater, could I have a motion, Scott, and then we'll discuss. Or anybody that wants to make the 4.3, the 4.2 Berlin, 4.3, sorry, Berlin stormwater. It's on page 153. Can I ask a question, Floor? The board had authorized the finance committee to award the bids. So I don't believe any further action is needed. It's more of an FYI about the projects because they had authorized the finance committee to award the bids. That's true, that's absolutely true yet. So 4.3 and 4.47 are just FYIs. Yeah, so I can do that. My brain is a little fright right now, but I have it right here in front of me. So the board, the finance committee authorized the bid and it awarded the Romney, well, let me not do the Romney first, but do the, I'm sorry, it moved everything around. The Berlin stormwater bid, we received three bids and we approved the bid from DuVois Construction for $157,950 and you see it on your packet. Bill Ford advised that the town of Berlin request to move the buyer retention fund and this incurred a little minor extra cost. So we added a 10% contingency. So the number that I just gave you, we are adding a 10% contingency for a total budget of 173. $745,000. It's just for you. Information. It was part of the, of the package. Any questions. Vera. I just have a quick question. And if somebody doesn't know this tonight, you can just send it by email probably to everybody, not just me. For the stormwater runoff. We had started looking at that project before my, the end of my term last year. And I just wanted to, I just wanted to, I just wanted to, I just wanted to, I just wanted to, I just wanted to know what you're doing in the city. Okay. So that's it for my, the end of my term last year. Did they continue the project in the same place? That was proposed originally. Or did it. Did the area get moved? I would have to ask Bill because I believe it's staying the same area, but I would have to ask Bill or. And that's, that's totally fine. If you could just get back to me on that. Aaron seems to be able to answer. Right. Do you know where the new little app Lord shirt is? Yeah. Did you do the walk when we met with the engineers and the other natural resources department? I don't remember if I did the walk specifically, but it'll be on that in that area. So towards the fire department. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. So the next item, I don't see any other hands for questions. The next item is the electric charger for so Jim provided an update regarding the cost of security cameras, which is what we had asked him. And it's there in your package too. It was $3,000 to install the cameras. And we have several options to do that with our investing the cameras and keep the charges in service. Yeah, or we do the service and remove the charger. And that also comes up with a cost. We leave the charger in place and no changes or we fully invest in the charger. Yeah, the team, the town of Middlesex is not interested in investing in the charger, but we'll like to continue in some capacity. And now I'm going to pass it to Jim, because he said he might have more information for today. Well, you did a great job. That was that was perfect. That that's, you know, it is from a from a recommendation perspective. Those are the three recommendations. That's correct. Okay. So it's some discussion. What would be the pleasure of the board? Yes, Chris, Chris. More information about what the cost of removal would be. Yes. So the removal of the unit, there's a couple options. One is to remove just the the electrical line that's that's that's that's buried along with the circuit breaker and and they cap off at the cement, the the conduit. There is another component which which is baked in there as well for another couple hundred bucks to actually remove the cement pad that the that the unit sits on. And so it would be it would effectively look like it was never there. And so those are the two elements of the cost or move. So is does the board have any any preference for what to do to what to do next? Or do you need still more information, Chris? No, my preference would just to leave it in place with no changes. I don't think I don't see a need for cameras. And, you know, it's it just would provide a service as long as it lasted. And then if it just went out of service, then we close it down. Any any others? Lindy. Well, I remember the report we got. It was barely used and people, I mean, said they didn't even know it was there. But so I would agree with Chris. OK, so is somebody prepared to make a motion with that? It's got I just want to ask is there is there a strong reason not just to get rid of it so that we don't have to deal with it anymore? In other words, option three, Jonas. Because Murphy's law says that as soon as we take it out, someone's going to buy an electric car. Or we'll we'll interview, you know, a principal candidate who has an electric car and we don't have a charging station. And Jonas, that's exactly who used it last time, one of the principles and electric car. It's a good interview question. Yes. So, Chris, are you saying basically option two but without the cameras? Actually, the third bullet point, which is leave the charge in place with no changes. Just let it be with no cameras. I wouldn't invest in cameras. Just let it be. So I don't hear. I don't see a lot of hands up. So would you want to make a motion, Chris? Sure, I'll move that we leave the charter or run the school in place and make no further changes to it. Good, Jonas, Chris, Jonas, any more discussion? Yeah, can I just clarify? So so this option is if we leave it in place and we don't do anything about it, the the service is going to be lapsing, right? Right. Is it at correct, Jim? I just wanted to make sure. It is on the last year on May 27th. If I remember the the the document correctly. And so on May 27th, it'll lapse. Now, what that means is, you know, no longer connected charge point. Nobody will know it's there. It's not marketed outside of everybody who comes to this meeting and potentially those who socialize it to the community. And and there's a thing we'll do with with charge points so they don't disable the charger from being able to charge a car. So there's a component we have to do on May 27th. But the unit will continue to to charge. But it just won't be connected to any any service. So that's the way we work. Now, the one the one consideration, Brian, just to kind of complete your thought there is that we'll want to have somebody in facilities maybe once or twice a year that is going out there to ensure that the efficacy of the unit is still in place, meaning that it does charge still and be it doesn't create some sort of safety hazard for the community if if we're not going to continue with that with the maintenance. OK, any any other questions? Everybody ready to vote? All those in favor of Chris's motion? Please say aye. Hi. Hi. Any opposed? Here none, the motion. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Floor. Thank you, everybody, and thank you, Jim. So the next one is four point four five is the annual fiscal questionary. Floor, can I ask you a question? Didn't I thought at the meeting we talked about the other project that run me? Is that already voted? No, no, that's next. Oh, it is next. OK, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was in different order than what we did it. So we're going to do this and then run me. But I bring it in. So the actual the annual fiscal management thing is what Laurie put in your packet. For you, what you're saying to us is that this document is completed every year. I know that we have some new board members, so I wanted you to be aware of that, too. And the difference with here is that is that a staff person is handling the process. And that I don't know if there's any questions on that. I know that I'm trying to rush us through the finance part, but you guys got to see the document. Laurie, do you want to clarify anything that you authorize the board chair to sign on the board's behalf and we have to keep it on file in case we're asked to present it to the auditors or the state. So I was going to let Scott do that. Yeah, go ahead, Scott. Thank you, floor. So I move that we authorize the board chair to sign the financial management questionnaire on behalf of the board. I second it. Thank you, Lindy. Any more discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor of letting the chair sign the questionary, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Then we have the answer grants update. And again, I'm going to try to rush us through this, but I'll do my best and Laurie can correct me as I go. So we receive over 1.1 million grand in answer grants. We use basically to free up our fund balance. And we were able to use two hundred and forty three thousand of that money for remote instruction, nursing time and covering coordination. The answer to grant is for possibly nine hundred and twenty three thousand dollars. The numbers are being recalculated right now by Laurie. And I'm going from my notes, Laurie, so please. And then she also shared that she was able. They were able to use five hundred and twelve thousand dollars of this for current staffing. And now in S or three, as when we met that time, we still didn't have the guidelines of how to spend that money. But the grant is over two point five million dollars in. But like I said, we haven't received guidance that might be different. As I know, they were meeting in the state just last week. But I don't know if that has changed, Laurie. What's changed is the nine hundred twenty three thousand is now one point one million. OK, and. And what's changed is that S or three basically there's really no change. I should say I was told the amount is identical. That the calculation change at the state was the same for S or one and three. S or two was the one that there was a mistake. And so when they recalculated, we received an extra hundred and eighty five thousand. As for three, there's still in the process of figuring out and learning from the federal government what we can use it for. The start date is retroactive to last March and the end date is September 30, twenty twenty four. So you have the opportunity to utilize this money over multiple years. Thank you. And then, Laurie, do you want to talk about the fund balance? What you share at the at the meeting with us is that is over a half million dollars and your recommendation for the future to reduce. Go ahead. OK, so on page one, sixty. I summarized what we've learned in the last few months because of the increase in the S or money and the ability to use the S or money to pay for things that we previously thought we'd either use fund balance or we would charge against the current year budget. We were able to significantly increase the fund balance projection. So right in the middle there, you'll see that it's one point nine million over the two percent target. I put an underline there so it would make it more obvious. That's even after I moved to one point five million to the capital fund that the board had authorized in February. The reason being is that we were able to charge off some of the retirement expense that we're booking in June to an extra grant and we were actually able to get reimbursement for some special ed revenues for forty two thousand. So in total, we saved seven hundred thirty seven thousand and payroll. Five hundred twelve of it is that amount that I was able to charge to S or two. The other two hundred twenty five thousand is savings, primarily in substitutes. Our staff has been troopers. You guys have been hearing this all night. Rarely calling and sick this year and never using subs. It seems like anything that I did have a sub for I was able to charge off to the grants. We've also saved money in professional development, athletics and co-curricular for three hundred twenty two thousand and in special ed. You heard this during the budget process that we have a decline in students. And so we actually saved money due to students moving out of the district. Additionally, the state had less spending for special ed last year and it triggered additional reimbursement for last year, but we just received it this year. So all totaled. The fund balance is looking good. I'm hoping it's actually going to increase even further. And we will have to talk before June 30 on what the board's intention is to reserve it in May. You're going to be having the curriculum management review information. It sounds like there's a lot of ideas that we could charge to S or three. So we're right in the beginning stages of trying to map out what what would go through S or three that two point five million. What might you need the fund balance for? And I've promised to leave you in a good financial position with a plan or some type of a roadmap for the future. Other great news. Kim Bulldog has applied for grants and for community connections in total. She got nine grant applications because they were site specific and program specific. So Kim kudos to her. She got 111,000 in grants. It's going to span a different time period, which is this April to December. So community connections might still need some fund balance to help break even in addition to what we've already earmarked. And the same thing happens for the food program. We're starting to see the grants didn't it covered a lot of costs. But it was very restrictive in nature. So you could only charge off things to the grants that were related to covid. We weren't able to submit things to grants for the loss of revenues. So, for example, you 32, even though we have three meals, only has 7% of the students eating breakfast and 23% eating lunch. And it's because several reasons. One is we have remote learning every other week for half of the high school. The other is that in the past students were familiar with having a la carte. And so these reimbursable meals have to have a certain amount of different food groups, and it has it's kind of like a canned lunch meal is what I'm calling it canned, meaning it's the same for everyone and not specific to what they were used to. So anyway, my current projections show that we are costing more than the federal reimbursement for our food program. I'm working on collecting more information for June, but you might want to transfer some fund balance to the food program and community connections will know better as the year finishes. And the only other new information on food programs is that the state and the feds just sent out a notice today that this same type of free meals could take place next year. So we need to work on what would that mean to us? Because honestly, that's not enough revenue to cover the cost for our programs. Thank you, Lori. Is there any other questions? I don't I don't think so. I think you covered the last part good and spare me a little talking there. So I'm going to move to four point seven, the Romney ERV bid. And again, I'm just doing a report out. So Bill, our meeting explained to us that, you know, we broke the the bid into into three parts, the mechanical, the general construction and the and the controls in your packet. I'm not going to read it to you. You had on page 164, the amounts that we authorize for for for the bid. And we approved the total cost was one hundred and ninety one thousand since one hundred and ninety dollars. And we were seven thousand dollars seven hundred and seventy above the projected over budget. When I get some questions from from different people, if can you hear me? OK, yeah, from different people on what has been done is this is something that didn't was not done right in Romney before. So I just want to clarify it sort of kind of that processing case. You guys get get questions. So in two thousand nineteen, we replace the oil fire boiler and upgraded the controls. This controls have nothing to do with with that. And it was because the equipment was at its life. The work that is going on right now has no connection with the bond that passed that passed before and is not being done because something was not done right. Basically, it Romney took a, you know, when out for a smaller bond in order to pass the bond and this are things that needed to be happened. So this summer, what is being done and it's not totally spelled out there is that the two ventilation units that serve the primary wing and the ductwork was the carpentry and all that that needs to happen are being replaced and then we're replacing their handling unit in the gym. So that sort of explains in a more down to earth conversation, besides the money, what is going on in case you you you get questions, because I know some people are feeling like there was a bond, but those were things that were not addressed before. And any questions on that and other finance committee. Lindy, I'm just curious if any of it can come out of COVID money since it has to do with vents and air quality. We're hoping that this is going to be able to come out of. And that's what Laurie is working on. And Laurie, I see your hand up. Yes, the efficiency Vermont allocation ended through December 31st. And currently, the legislature is appropriation appropriating more money to efficiency Vermont. We don't know the specifics of their program. We don't know if this qualifies, but both this project and possibly the central office project might be eligible. And the third piece is the storm water division is also has money. I don't think it's cares related, but it may be. And we may be able to apply for Berlin storm water and the U 32 storm water when it comes up. Thank you. Thank you. Good question, Lindy. Any other questions on this or are you guys feeling OK with that? And let's move into the social studies. I guess that's the next one. Yeah, it could have a motion to join us. Yeah, do we need a motion to approve the bid award for the ERV project? No, no, it's just a report out because we you guys authorize the board in order to keep this projects a moving and to get the funding. OK, I'm just just looking at the bottom of 164. Yeah, so yeah, and that's what confused me the first time. But yeah, we we have ready authorize the you gave us the ability to do that. So the finance committee did it and and the ordering and everything is as we speak, being processed and the bids have been awarded. So any other questions? So have a motion to approve the high school social studies position, not previously in the budget, Scott. You said it, Flora. I move that we approve a high school social studies position not previously in the budget. I'll second. Thank you. Thank you, Lindy. Any discussion? Stephen is here with us if you have any questions. Diane, just wondering an explanation as to how we think it would be able to be funded under Esther's Lori. Esther would be the remote learning was charged off to Esther this year. So that would free up money so that it would cover this job. It's kind of like replacing it with a position that we would be charging to the grant that's eligible. OK, sounds like it was clear. Jonas, yeah, I just love to hear from Stephen about what your plan is to move staff around, not to, you know, not to get involved in the details, but just because I think 30 seconds on that would be interesting. Yes, so I think the quick and dirty of this is we're trying to do some more self-contained work in the middle school and not have teachers crossing over. But we also found some really good intervention processes that we can do with kids in the middle school. Just takes a couple more, a little bit more teacher time. We also we have a higher demand for classes this year as well. And so that's another piece that we're seeing is that we just have more kids requesting classes for next year in the high school. And so this just really helps us fulfill some of those needs and provides some classes that we weren't able to do. You know, I think part of what you see here is that we're not asking this to be a permanent position yet. I think we need to make sure that the numbers continue this way before we make any final decisions. But we have some excellent teachers in our program right now who have been serving with us for a temporary basis that we can move forward. So I think there's a lot more to our middle school organization that we'll probably bring at another time to kind of describe some of those pieces. Thank you. Thank you, Steven. So are you guys ready to vote? All those in favor of approving the motion as read by Scott? Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. the policies that he's presented for us for computer safety and computer, just technology work. So with that said, and Jim has been just great help and enjoyed a work with, but I would like to, we have a number of policies for first reading and I'd like to move those all as a slate at one time in the interest of time since we are now past the witching hour. Is there a motion, Scott, to move all the policies from F40 to C2 as a single slate? And then we'll open it up for discussion. Sure, Chris, and this is first reading, correct? First reading, exactly. Yeah, I'll certainly be glad to move these policies as a slate, as listed on the agenda. Thank you. Is there any comment or question on any of these policies that are being moved for first reading? I guess I'll second at first, Chris. Oh, I'm trying, thank you. It's usually what I want to do, but go. You can put my name in. I'll second it. Yeah, you second it, just as the chairs can be. Go ahead, Chris. Okay, hearing none. All in favor, well, I don't think we need a vote actually for the first reading. Okay, so then we'll move on to the second reading for the flag raising policy, F46. Is there a motion, and this would be for adoption. Is there a motion to adopt F46 as our flag raising policy which modifies our previous flag raising policy? I'll move it. I'll move that we adopt F46, the flag raising policy. I'll second. Thank you, Jones. Any discussion? Chris, it's the one on page 193 with all the red marks or the one with the red marks, which one is this? It's 193, the page on page 194, Bernie Landbeck who helped us with this just showed what was being taken out and changed. So one of the three was what we're voting on. Any other questions or discussion? Floor, will you call for the vote, please? Yeah, all those in favor of the motion as read, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any oppose? Any abstain? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you very much. Great, thank you, Chris. So now moving into board operations. In the curriculum, the 5.1 curriculum management report, I'm gonna give it to Brian, but basically while we were looking for Chris, yes? We amended to 5.0 for public comment. Oops, sorry, yeah, you were right. I put it up, yeah, I see it. Let's do 5.0. First, I was going for an easy one, but okay, 5.0, let's do public comments. You know, if you want to read the 5.5 and save it till the end, if you want, that's fine with me, just to get through it. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Yeah, that's okay. I'm gonna put it, I'm gonna do that and put it as 5.5, if that's okay with you, but just in order to get the meeting into some time, done. A curriculum management report is really quick. We wanted to not experiment, but suggest is that we form a small committee in how we're gonna do the community engagement. I'm gonna give this to you, Brian, so we can talk a little bit about it. Yeah, so we're expecting to be getting the curriculum management review sometime in the middle of May, possibly the third week of May, maybe the second week of May. And then what we like to do is start thinking about how do we actualize and understand what's in the report and what is our plan to move forward with that document. I think one of the original intents was to start thinking about strategic planning, but I also think another piece of it is how will we use this report? And there's gonna be a lot of things in the report and a lot of suggestions and recommendations. And the question is, what is going to work for our Washington Central School District? And so when looking at it, we wanna make sure we don't pick something that we don't really wanna do or need to do, but looking at things that where we're gonna be able to get the biggest leverage in working to improve our student achievement. So I think one of the ideas, there's different various ideas out there about how to do it and looking at how do we start linking it to strategic planning, but also looking about how do we use this report and spread the word and understand the report as a board, as a school system. I can say that speaking with some of the members of my leadership team, we also are looking forward to seeing what's in the report and then identifying what areas really speak to us in the report that we can use for planning purposes. One idea that's out there already is the lead reviewer who came out here and went to all of our schools and did the interviews and met with everyone. There could be an opportunity to bring him back, excuse me, we can bring him back and have him present to the board, maybe even present to teachers and our leadership team at some point in the near future. And that could also be something where we can actually at least get ideas and people can ask questions and we can learn from that opportunity. So that would probably cost some money, not a, I don't think an overwhelming amount of money, but the person could either do it via Zoom or we can have them come here, but I don't think we're ready to have someone come here while we're at the end of the year and we're still limiting folks coming to the building. So it could be something we could do over Zoom, like a Zoom meeting or invite him to a board meeting and make a presentation. And this just to be clear, this won't be in isolation from the leadership team, right? This would be all sort of all the pieces together. So what you were hoping for us to have a couple of volunteers is that to not have to start a process or we could just come back to you with some ideas once you and the leadership team are able to discuss it, what is the, that's what I'm trying to get. I would prefer to, at this point, is to just get the board thinking about that the leadership team is gonna review it and start looking at what parts of it makes sense to us so we can then propose, make a proposal to the board about it. Okay. Okay, great. So it's just a report up. We did, Caroline, I know that she can hear us, but she's having a hard time getting the speaker off. She was having internet problems and Dorothy also had to go. Caroline, are you listening to this? I think mine is fixed. Oh, yeah. Okay. So we did superintendent evaluation already. Correct. So the table like this. Yep, I have nothing else. Thank you. Yeah. And we already took care of staff appreciation. Coming on to that. And so appointments of new board members, Dorothy unfortunately had to go because she had another meeting at nine, believe it or not. So she is, what we discuss at the agenda planning committee and I think she's put one email out and was hoping to put another email out shortly and we'll put it in all our towns too is we would be receiving letters. By May 12th, and we would be appointing somebody at the board. She's intend to leave in June and we'll appoint something at the board, somebody at the board in our May meeting and we'll have some time set aside at the beginning of that meeting to have a, to interview the candidates, but we would get all of the letters in our. The week, can we, everybody froze. Could you hear me? Everything froze. Was that clear? It was a little spotty though. It was spotty. Yes, I think I've lost my window of trying to keep everybody off online, but I'm gonna give it another try. So we will be getting letters by May 12th and it would be in our packet for the meeting in May, the third week of May. Is that okay with everybody? Thumbs up? Yes. Good, okay. Now we can talk about public comments. We had a committee. I don't know if they have any report back. I think the committee reported out a couple of meetings ago. Steve Look did that, I believe. Yeah, and Scott, what's on it? Scott, go ahead. Yeah, it's, is it not in one of our minutes? Is it in this package or another package? But I can very quickly go over the four possibilities that the group raised. One, a public forum separate from the board meeting, maybe on the first Wednesday of the month. Second, to just extend the board meeting by 15 or 30 minutes and have public comments at the very beginning, say at 5.45 or 5.30. The third was to invite comments, the third possibility I should say, is to invite comments throughout the meeting before the board takes action on each agenda item where someone wishes to comment. Four, keep the current arrangement whereby public comments are at the end of the agenda. Those are the four sort of options that the group came up with. Does that jive with your memory as well? It does. Okay. I think that's accurate. And we also talked about having just certain just forum type for special occasions as an adjunct, but not a regular thing, not a regular scheduled thing, but as an adjunct to soliciting community comments. Right. And I think if it helps to narrow down the options, I think number three was pretty much, even though we tried that during the period when the Supreme Court, the Vermont Supreme Court hadn't settled the issue in consolidation, we sort of kept that open, that possibility. I think the general consensus was that three is no longer viable. That is inviting comments during the meeting, public comments during the meeting. I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth, but... Yeah, hold on one minute, Vera. No, I don't want to cut Scott off if he wasn't done. I was just going to give my input on the options. See, good Scott. So I would prefer a public forum style for community input for any added big agenda items. Otherwise, for our regular meetings, extend the board meeting to start either 15 minutes to a half hour earlier and add it on to the very beginning of a meeting rather than an end. That would be my input. Okay, Chris. I would agree with Vera. And Florie, can you look, are you able to see who is still participating in this meeting right now? How many participants we have? 51. 51. 51. Because we started out with 60 and so that's a still pretty good number of folks who are hanging on and who are waiting, I'm assuming to comment publicly because there's only 15 of us. So having the comments at the beginning of the meeting, I think engages and signals that we are interested in hearing public comments before we have our own discussions. And it makes it more convenient, I think for most folks to be able to comment and participate in our meetings because waiting till the end, even oftentimes it's just, people fall off and they get tired and we get tired. And I think we really do want to encourage as much public participation as we possibly can and by making it easier for folks to comment at the beginning does that. So I would favor moving it to the public comment section back to the beginning of the meeting, even if it means we start 15 to 30 minutes earlier because we don't have to use all the time. If there are no comments, we can just start into our meeting. Thank you. Thanks Chris, Kari and then Lindy. Yeah, thanks. I hear that and I also feel like our agendas are so packed and it's just exhausting to have these super long meetings. I actually favor the first option and would love to see some kind of calendar with say four forums through the year quarterly using a mix of open-ended, whatever people wanna tell us and maybe some specific questions that we have or prompts to spur some discussion around topics that we're interested in hearing from the public on. Thanks. Thank you, Kari. Lindy. Yeah, I think the forums are important for budget and other things but things crop up as has happened and for forums a year, it might not be when things crop up and I feel it's extremely rude to have people waiting for these long meetings to share their opinions. So I really like the start 15 minutes early and even if it ran 10 minutes longer, we didn't start the next part of the board until six, 10 or something, people had a chance to talk and then we moved on because you can go months without any public at a meeting. So when we see we have 60 people at a meeting, I just, I can't wait to get it back to the beginning. I think it was very rude to move it to the end and I've said that, so that's my point. Caroline. Jonas was first. Oh, sorry, Jonas. Jonas, go ahead. I can't see that. I'll be quick, I agree with Lindy. Thank you, Jonas. Caroline. I was wondering if people who like it at the beginning, if there would be any opposition to having people like sign up ahead of time so that we could budget the time and kind of know a general sense of the content, does anybody feel like that would hinder public comment at all? I like the, I feel like that maybe that would combine the structure and keeping it a meeting for the board but allow for public comment when issues come up. So that is sort of my twist on it. Thank you, Caroline. Any other comments from any other board members that feel one way or another with the options on the table? Laura, I think Chris has a question. Yeah, I was just not ignoring him but I'm, yeah. So Chris. I think Caroline raises a good point but not as an exclusion but just as a supplement because it probably would be helpful for us to know if people can have comments what they're gonna be commenting on just to give us some notice of it but not as a prerequisite to being able to comment. So I think it would be helpful to have that if an opportunity to register and say I wanna comment and this one I'm gonna comment on but not use it as a gateway to say if you haven't done that, you can't comment. Thank you. So I think what I would propose is that we've been having this conversation for a little while. I agree with Carrie. I would like to have the, just as my personal I would like to be more like for real have a community engagement where we can really have that conversation. But we can still do some of that when we have some issues but I think what I'm hearing from the majority of you is that you're ready to do something a little bit different. I don't know that it's necessary to know ahead of time because I would hesitate to do that and feel that people will think that then we can add that item to the agenda. So I think public comments we can have 15 minutes before the meeting and move the public comments experiment and see how we do, like Carrie was saying and I know Jill has commented on this before too. And we just have a lot of work to get done as a board. And this is the only time we have to meet. But I agree with Lindy that we don't wanna make people wait the entire meeting. So let's experiment with moving the public comments at our next meeting to the front and we will start our meeting 15 minutes early. I don't think that we need a motion for that. I think that we can all agree that when we do our agenda planning all of the people in our agenda planning are sitting here. Is that sound reasonable? Yeah. I think we need to limit the time. I don't think we should leave it open-ended. I think it should be 15 minutes. And I think it's really important for us to be disciplined about not letting ourselves get thrown off from the rest of our agenda by whatever we hear in public comment, which is how it worked when we had public comment in the beginning. We got thrown off every time. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. We'll give it a try and if it's not working we will redesign, okay? All right. So let's hurry up so we can move into public comments. So let's approve minutes. We're finally in the consent agenda. Could I have a motion to approve the minutes? I move to approve the minutes of March 17, March 29, April 7 and April 14. Thank you, Jonas, a second. Seconded. Thank you, Diane. Any discussion or any changes to the minutes? Lindy? Or yeah, on page 202, page 202, I was commenting about Mark and I didn't make it clear when I included Kathy and I was talking of Kathy topping wife and it says Mark's wife, Kathy. So it just needs to be fixed. Mark's colleague, Kathy, or something like that. Work wife is what we used to call them. Yeah. Thank you, Lindy, those are my notes. I appreciate that. Thank you. All those in favor of approving the minutes as modified, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, it's the minutes. Okay. Board orders. Lindy, you're on deck if you have them out. No, okay, who has them out? I don't, I'm sorry, I don't know where they are. Can I have a volunteer? Jill, Lindy, Jonas? Anybody? I have them. Brian? Yep. So I have two board orders for a total amount of 995,236 dollars and 29 cents. Can somebody make that motion? Unmove that. Thank you, Scott. Second by Chris. Any discussion? Hearing. I don't see any hands up. Caroline, your hand is up, but I don't know if it's an old hand or a new one. Oh, no, that's an old one, sorry. All those in favor of approving the board orders as submitted, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Don't forget to send your email. I'll be sending after we are done tonight. And now to personnel, page 209. Lindy, do you have that out? Or is somebody else wants to have them here? Hold on a minute. No, I have it open. Okay, thank you, Lindy or Jonas, whoever wants to take charge. And can we do it as a slate or should I be reading out all of these? I can't ever remember. Yeah, do it by section, if that's okay. Okay. Do the names. Yeah. I make a motion to accept the new teacher nominations for 21-22 school year. Kevin Richards, Alan Heferan, and Sandra Wetzel. Can I have a second? All right, second. So, Lindy, Caroline, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All right, Scott. Yeah, this is just a postscript. I noticed that, I think it's Kevin has been involved in exchanges with school exchanges with China, if I'm remembering correctly. And it seems as though we're, this is something I hope that we can develop. That's it. Okay. Thank you, Scott. All those in favor of the new teacher nominations, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. We have no retirements. Could I, Lindy, do you have the rest? Yep. I will, I make a motion to accept resignations of the following teachers. Kelly McMartin, Hunter Hedenberg, Kelly Bushy, Jody Emerson, Len Spencer, Casey Probost. Could I have a second? I second it with words of gratitude and also just sadness in losing some colleagues that I worked with. I agree with you, Diane. Yeah, I agree with you too. I agree too. Just a lot of them, especially Kelly and Jody and Casey, who I know more, but I guess I can't talk just about one, but they have devoted their career to us and it's a really huge, huge, I don't know how you feel those shoes. We really wish you well. And if you have any, you wanna share anything, I see you all here today and we accept your resignation, but with the appreciation for all you have done for all our kids and for our growth too. So thank you. So I wanna say particularly Casey Probost that he did a wonderful job at Romney and just making everyone feel very welcome and engaged and he came into a difficult situation and did a wonderful job. And thank you very much, Casey. Thank you, Jody. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you, Irikari. And Hunter, I wanna say that my son is very hard in giving good recommendations or good approval for PE teachers. He has very, very high standards and he was really sad to see you go. All those in favor now I will take for real the vote of accepting the resignations, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? We're now on the motion carries and one last thing I forgot to say, Jody, we're looking forward and continue to work with you at the career center. Hope you were copied in the emails today. Thank you. Next. The next is to change in FTE. Yep. Patty Abraham from 0.8 to one full time. David Mathies or Mathias, maybe it's Mathias. 0.5 to one and Jessica Abisla, 0.5 grants. Funded. Can I have a second? Second. Thank you, Chris. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Oh, good. We have an echo. Any opposed? The motion carries and the new hires, Lindy. Oh, new hires and I'm noticing the nurses have the hardest names for me because the change one did. Maria, I always say that wrong. Malicos, Malicos, I don't know. And for the COVID-19 coordinator and Mahala Largent. Thank you. Here we have, can I have a second? Second. Who's gonna have it? You guys put it at the same time. Or Caroline. Diane can have it, it's fine. Diane. All right. All those in, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Right. So finally, public comments. Let me see the participant list. I see you. I see Matt and I see Chris Winters. Matt, you were waiting before. Do you wanna go ahead? Sure, thank you, Floor. My name's Matt Levin. Sign in under my wife's name, Allison, who is here with me but outside of a camera shot. Given the hour, I won't read my full statement. I will email that to you shortly. We're hoping that you will consider using one-time funds to restore the positions in arts and music in the district and take a one-year pause on this and have a more in-depth, inclusive discussion about equity throughout the district, all five elementary schools and the middle school and high school and the allied arts. Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your discussion at your next meeting. Floor, it would be helpful. I think if you would tell everyone when your next meeting is, since that is not posted on the website as far as I could tell. So again, I will email you our comments. I appreciate you taking the time to look them over. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, Matt. Our next meeting is May 19, let me have it right here, May 19, and I'll make sure that that's on the website, sorry. Chris. Thank you, Floor. And thank you for the chance to speak tonight. It's very late and I appreciate how hard you're working tonight. I'll try to keep it as brief as possible, no more than three minutes, I promise. My name is Chris Winters. My wife, Sarah and I are Berlin residents. And we have two in school, one at BES and one at U32. I'm a former Berlin Elementary School Board member when that still existed. And as part of my day job, I advise citizens on meeting law. And in my office, we advocate for transparent, open and inclusive government as a way to ensure that our government remains accountable and has plenty of public participation. So you might imagine this was kind of troubling to me that this issue regarding arts and music programming is playing out like this. And I still feel like I have very little knowledge of what is actually going on. I got a little bit more from coming into your conversation tonight, halfway through. I didn't realize that that was happening. So I caught the end of it. But all that I know has been gathered through kind of hearsay snippets of what I can decipher from agenda items from the minutes and some carefully worded emails that I've received. And I completely understand that you as a validated board are going through a lot of growing pains. And I really appreciate the work you do watching you work so late tonight and have difficult conversations. I do appreciate that. I saw from your retreat video a few weeks ago that tension that's still there, that push and pull between what's a board responsibility and what's a superintendent responsibility. And I think someone along the way here on this issue underestimated the importance of what you're discussing. Not just music and art itself, but what's being characterized here is a scheduling issue I think is much, much more than that. And if you wanna worry about setting precedence, this could be a big one for how this board plans to do its work from here on out. You wanna do it with or without adequate vetting or communication with our community. And I was really glad to hear you talk about public comments and community forums tonight. I think that's something that's needed. Shame on me for not participating in more meetings before now, but it seems like the public input and participation in this particular issue is really lacking. So this issue as I understand it is removing something from one school in the name of equity. I think that's an example of one of the biggest concerns that we voiced in our years of painful discussion led up to consolidation. Where are we gonna lose local input? Is a big old consolidated board gonna have time to deal with the individual concerns of six different schools? Is the board because of that, because of that huge workload you all keep talking about, gonna have to cede more of your decisions to the central office. And our important discussion's going to be moved behind those office doors and into the hands of administrators without enough public input or sunlight shown onto them. My perception right now is that the answer to that is yes, but that's just my perception of knowing what's going on. And I'd also like to quickly mention another concern that came up through those long, painful consolidation meetings is what does equity across the district look like? And that came up tonight as well. And I know you're all grappling with that. Does equity mean that you raise all schools to one level of service being provided or do you lower each school to the lowest common denominator? That's a really complicated question. Not an easy question, especially when you factor in student population and the budget that you're struggling with. And I don't pretend to have the answer to that, but I also don't think that our community's been asked for input. And I wonder if the administration is interested in what we have to say. So when you're talking about something as important as how much music and art we're gonna offer our children, I would urge you to have a community-wide discussion about how we wanna define and achieve that equity. So please do that publicly with maybe one of those forums that were suggested just a little bit ago. Please do it with community input. The program reductions were not apparent in the budget vote. And I don't even think that many of you as board members were aware of what was happening in the way that it was presented to you. So please press pause, please shed some light on these issues, invite district-wide public comment before you move ahead. And I do wanna say, I think it takes courage and wisdom to acknowledge that you've made a mistake and reconsider a position. I don't think it's going backwards. I think it shows that you're listening and you're responsive and it does not set a bad precedent. If you wanna talk about bad precedents, go ahead and make this decision behind closed doors without a lot of information about it. Cut a program without clearly disclosing what the issue is in getting public input. You'll be setting a precedent about how you're gonna work in the future. It's sending I think a bad message to our newly joined communities about how district-wide issues will be handled in the future. It sounds like they're gonna be handled without a lot of public input and with some poor communication from the superintendent and the board. So I hope in sending this back to the administration for another recommendation that the administration will publicly disclose all of the details and the rationale behind this next recommendation. So the public can understand it. And I would urge this board to reject any recommendation that upsets the status quo until you all come to a common understanding of how you want to implement equity across all of our schools. And I would love to be a part of that discussion. And I know other folks in Berlin and I would imagine in the other towns would love to be a part of that discussion. So thank you so much for your time and thank you for your service to our communities. Thank you, Chris. Thank you for coming tonight. We appreciate your input. I don't see any other hands. Am I missing David Lawrence? I just wanted to say as a member of the public who has come to many, many meetings, I am very much in favor of, yes, please give the public, there's say early in the meeting time. And I do think it would be, because I can tell you that it has impacted my general participation. Those of you who've seen me around the board meetings for a long time will know that I've generally talked more before these changes to the end of the meeting went in. And by the same token, while I appreciate the, well, it'll be a good idea to have a sense of what people are going to say. If that, if needing to register to speak before the meeting were to be a thing, that would sure be a dampener on my participation again. But I do think that we need something more than just a quarterly forum to cover things. So things come up when they come up and they need to be discussed when they come up. Thank you, David. Yeah, I don't see any other hands up. If anybody else could help me make sure that that's right. I don't, your hand, I see your hand is still up Chris, but you're done. Good, okay, you're good. So that brings us to, you know, I was trying to at least end at 10. Board, any future agenda items that we wanna add besides the arts? Brian? I just wanted to, do we have a letter or anything? Do we have to go through, public comment? Oh, sorry, sorry, yeah, you're right. No, I have it, I have it right in front of me. So we received a letter and we were asked to read it tonight. So I'm gonna go ahead and do that and you just have to work with me. But to the superintendent, the principal and the school board of U32, I'm writing today to ask the U32 consider converting all or most of the restroom facilities in the school to gender neutral. I'm sure many of you are aware of HR5, the Equity Act, which passed in the House on February 21st, 2021 and it's awaiting action in the Senate. This bill will instruct schools across the country drive to create a sustained, inclusive, supportive, safe and non-discriminatory communities for all students. U32 should not wait until this bill is taken up by the Senate to begin looking at the discriminatory practices currently happening. By U32 regarding restroom use. According to my research as of 2019-2020 school year, only one gender neutral restroom facility was made available on the entire U32 campus, located a floor down from any upstairs classes and on the opposite side of the school from the physical education department. It is a single style, so there is usually a line. It has cost my son and most of other trans students to be moderately to very late to class. U32 is a large campus and one bathroom is grossly insufficient. Of course, no gender neutral local rooms or shower facilities exist for students attending PE. This is discriminatory and according to the school's mission, students at U32 exist to nature and inspire in all students the passion, creativity and power to contribute to their local and global communities. As the parent of a transgender student at U32, I cannot convey strongly enough the urgency of this situation. I would like to see a summer committee form through to truly investigate this issue. With its mission being to propose a simple, cost-effective solution to end discrimination against transgender and non-binary students at U32, starting with the very simple need of gender neutral bathrooms and changing rooms. It is vital that transgender students be part of this committee on a regular basis. Implementing gender neutral bathrooms was done successfully at Montpiler High School years ago and I encourage you to reach out to the administrator to see if they can help the committee understand Montpiler High School successful process. And I'm not reading any name to make sure that we, you know, just follow the law. I don't think it's necessary. I know that you all received that letter, but I'm just for the privacy of the student, I think is best. So that was the last part of the meeting. And they're meeting tomorrow with Stephen and we'll add it to our next board meeting, really just a report back by Brian in your report. Yes, I was just gonna say adding the future agenda item U32 bathroom facilities report to support transgender students. Thank you. Any other future agenda items besides the two that we highlighted? Thanks, Floor. This is part future agenda item and part board reflection maybe, but I have a very strong sense that much of the stress and anxiety and sense of being at sixes and sevens is related to kind of difficulty in adjusting to what it actually means to be consolidated. And there still I think is some ways to go before we quite have our heads and the rest of us wrapped around what this means for us. So I wonder if we shouldn't make space at some future meeting just to talk about what consolidation actually entails since so much of what I'm hearing by way of complaint is built into the nature of a consolidated system. And there's a problem if we don't kind of have a clear sense of that. Jonas, do you have something to add? Yeah, as someone who was never a member of one of the boards, I can't speak directly to what Scott says. I do think that that reflection in the future is a good thing, but I think it needs to be paired with the other sort of operational and communication related pieces that we've discussed at different parts of this meeting in the last one. Thank you, Jonas. So I think if I'm really my takeaway is that we still, again, I'm gonna say the name retreat, but we're still working on how do we are a better team, how do we set systems? So we make informed decisions and we're more proactive rather than reactive in the way that we're able to govern as a board. So we're still learning and creating this team and working with Brian and transparency and communication is really important for our district and our board and our community. So I think it's, to me, it's more a retreat on that than just in what it means to be a consolidation. I agree with you, Scott, that we, things are different, but I think we're ready to move as a team. So we'd say that we still need to work on that goal of governance and we can just add that to the future agenda items which we've had for a while, does that do? Yeah, okay. So that brings us back to board reflections and I think we just had a couple and because there is 10, 11, any board reflections that you wanna share for tonight? Otherwise, I will take a motion to adjourn. I'll move that. I will second that. All right. Or I sent you my board reflections, so. Oh, you did? Yeah. Do you wanna say it publicly? If you send it to me, I haven't checked my email. So. No, that's fine. I can just put it in an email to everybody, but I sent it to you so we can adjourn. Okay. Let's adjourn. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Good bye. Good night, everyone. Good, thank you. Have a good night. Good night. You too, bye. Thanks.