 can start opening the meeting of the Roxbury Montpelier or Montpelier Roxbury Board of School Directors starting at 631 and let's do roll. Remic family. Oh, no. Here. I'll fix that. Boy, we have some emeritus members tonight. Amanda. Key, here. Jerry. Here. Anakin. Here. Mia. Here. Kristen. Here. Andrew. Here. And Emma. Here. Anyone I missed? Excellent. And thank you to everyone who attended the community forum. Public comment. I can't. We definitely have some members from the public. The way we do this is there's if you hit the participants button down at the bottom of your screen, a list pops up. And in that list there at the bottom, there's a raise hand button that you can press. If you can't figure that out, feel free to either physically raise your hand on the screen. I can see all of you. Or just take, take mute off and give a shout out. Tina, see your hands up. And please introduce yourself for the orca folks. Pardon me? I said, please introduce yourself for the orca folks. Oh, Tina Montpelier. Montpelier resident. And I came today to say that I have been waiting to see an item on one of your school board agendas that would allow you to discuss the discrepancy in costs to educate a student at the Roxbury Village School compared to the rest of the schools in the district. And unless I've missed it, I haven't seen it come up. And I did notice on this agenda that it says you're discussing the May retreat agenda. And I had heard that perhaps you were going to begin this discussion at the May retreat. And I just would like to ask the board to consider instead beginning this discussion at your next school board meeting so that it's a public discussion. Because it seems to me if you're going to change the education of the delivery system or organization of any of the schools in the district, the people in Roxbury and certainly the people in Montpelier would be interested to hear your deliberations and be able to take part. So if you weren't going to discuss it for the May retreat, then I will ask you please to consider discussing it at your next school board meeting also. Thank you for considering this. Yeah, thank you, Tina. And I do want to let people know that while we are referring to the May retreat, the word retreat, it is not really retreat. It is a public meeting open to the public and it will be available via Zoom for anyone who wants to listen into all or some of it. So there should be a warning of that and then the agenda posted although it will be at an unusual time. It will be during a workday. Well, that's what I was going to say. Is it in the evening or is it during a workday? It's during the workday, but it should also be available for viewing later. Great. Anyone else for public comment? Amanda? I just want to reject Tina that for your comment and I know that this is something in your mind and I really appreciate it and we are here and I think the conversation around like for me, public and community input is really, really important. So I think that any conversation that we have about those big topics, I will certainly make sure that there is a conversation around how to get public input into the conversation. So I just wanted to say that that is really important to me. How do we engage with people that care about these issues and specifically in Roxbury. So I just wanted to affirm your point that we will take that into consideration and thank you for bringing it up. Thank you. Jim, do you just want to provide just like a 30 second overview of what was discussed kind of a year ago on this topic because we were talking about a robust public process and because of the pandemic and everything going on last summer, we put this discussion on hold. Yeah, I can give a quick overview. We before the world turned upside down, we engaged the creative solutions. I'm trying to figure out how to describe them, but they're a group that works on facilitating collaborative processes among other consulting roles to put together a community visioning processing around the district in general, but Roxbury in particular, to bring the two communities together to figure out a path forward for that school that would be in the best interest of both communities with input from both communities. And we started out with some listening sessions and then the pandemic kit and that work largely got put on hold. So one of the things we will be discussing at the retreat and at future meetings is restarting that visioning process and kind of what we pick up a year later. So that's something that continues to be a priority. It got put on hold and we're also hoping that that process will benefit from us being able to meet in person as well because I think having this in a situation where we can be in the room together as two communities and form the type of relationships that I think will lead to a good process for it and also the type of relationships, frankly, that were formed and I think helped with the merger at the first place, that process of community members from both Montclair and Roxbury coming together and talking these things through in a series of meetings and in person was valuable and we will pick that up again. All right, excellent. I'm not seeing any other hands. So I think we can move to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move we approve the consent agenda. Thank you, Mia. Do I have a second? Second. Thanks, Andrew. Any discussion? Yeah, I just want to say the the assistant principals in the consent agenda, correct Libby? Yes, that's correct. Yeah, I just I just want to say welcome to Jess Wells to our school district. She's someone I've known for a number of years who has talked with my wife and I know she's very well respected in her current school district and I'm very excited to see what she does at MSMS. So welcome, Jess. Awesome. Yeah, thank you, Andrew. And welcome. Yeah, welcome, Jess. I'm excited to have you on board next year. Jill. Wait, Jim, Amanda just raised her hand for a discussion. Yes, Amanda. Oh, I'm sorry. I think I did it by mistake. Okay. All right. Well, you're up next for the vote. So Oh, yes, I'm voting on the consent agenda and the consent agenda. Yes. All right. etiquette. Hi, Jerry. Hi, Mia. Hi, Kristen. Hi, Andrew. Hi, and Emma. Hi. And congrats, Libby, on your promotion for coaching coaching the middle school basketball attitude, vaccine clinic coordinator COVID pandemic relief basketball coach. And I can guess which one is your favorite. Great. For discussion, we have, I know it says Kate Stevenson, but she has recently vaccinated family in. So she is spending time with them. So Ken Jones very kindly stepped in to give her some time with her family. And I know Ken is not only a former board member who it's good to see again, but has been deeply involved in this project. So I will turn it over to Ken for a discussion on the district's role in Montpelier's energy audit. And the agenda says Andrew LaRosa, but I'm not seeing him on the screen. Andrew's here. Is he? Okay. Oh, there he is. Sorry. I see him now. Okay. Ken and Andrew. Yeah, I'll start off. I am here representing the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee. And I am a poor substitute for Kate. Kate's been incredibly effective at leading that organization for the last few years. She has, now it's Amy Gamble, just so you know, who's the chair of the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee. We were formed as the Montpelier Energy team many, many years ago, probably somewhere in the 15 to 18 years ago. But it was in 2011 that the city provided us or it was, we have a charter with city council to provide advice on energy issues. And in 2011, that was around the district heat plant. And since then, we've helped facilitate the construction of the two solar fields, one on Log Road, which is in Montpelier and the other is in Sharon. And together, that's a megawatt of solar and the school district participates in the use of that. It's a net metering project. So you folks get a little bit of an economic or we, the subset school, we get an economic benefit from participating in that solar project. Another one of the big projects underway now is the renovation of the wastewater treatment plant, which just recently has geared up so that it now takes additional fog, which is fat soils in Greece, and makes a lot of methane. And we're hoping that, so that that's in place. And that methane is used to substitute for all the fossil fuel use at the plant. And then some, and it's the end, then some that we hope we are able to generate some electricity. That decision probably is going to be made in the next few months. But the reason for my being here tonight is to talk about our overall goal for the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee and the city, the city council has agreed to this, which is to be by 2030 to have 100% of our energy resources be renewable. And that's, of course, quite a challenge, but we've made great steps. And we would very much hope that the schools can participate in that discussion and the decisions necessary to move that forward as well. So I have some slides and other, I don't know if I have the ability to share my screen. Yes, you do, Ken, you can share your screen. Where it says share screen, you think that they might do it? Yeah, be a good place to start. I'll start there. So part of this, this is just to give us a little bit of history, because I need to acknowledge the schools have done a great job in terms of energy. But this is the overall, this includes schools, this is the overall energy used by the city of Montpelier. And you can see it's in those essentially three categories where we'll start at the bottom and the bottom that orange part is electricity. And you'll see that there's been some significant decreases there. The fleet, which includes a lot of the municipal vehicles, I don't know if it includes the school buses. It may or may not, I don't know that. And then blue is thermal. So that's the use of fuel, oil, propane to heat our buildings. And it includes the wood of the district heat plant. So this is total use. It's not broken down yet by fuels. So this then identifies the where that energy is being used, again, in terms of those three categories. And you can see the schools is there to the right, where the big one, this is why I don't think it includes school buses, because there's no little gray bar. But you can see there's electricity use and the thermal, the heating of your buildings, the large buildings. And you can see the wastewater treatment plant that's, I think WRF is Water Resource Recovery Facility. And that's history or fiscal 20. And the thermal part of that is being addressed again through this methane generation. So what you saw there just in a different form, the terms of energy use, and this is on a sort of BTU basis, you know, electricity represents less than a quarter, it's the thermal, it's the big piece. And then here's, as I say, this is some evidence that there has been some great progress. So this is electricity use over the last 10 years. And you can see that all the schools have seen significant reduction. And I've lost track of what some of those were. I think there were a lot of control systems put into place, certainly lighting. But maybe some of you folks know even more of the details as to what was the basis of some of those reductions. But that's great. But also you should know that electricity in the state has made some great progress. In terms of climate issues, electricity in Vermont is pretty clean. I'm not going to say it's perfect. And hopefully it gets better over time. But electricity, we've done a great job both in terms of the efficient use of electricity, but also in our electricity supplies, so that it does not provide the lion's share of contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. And then this tells the solar story where fiscal 16 and 17, we brought on the Sharon and log road plants so that even that reduced use of electricity, we have a significant portion that is at home renewable. The blue is still, you know, the state's use of iso-new England sources still has a lot of renewable in it. But the green part is ours. That's the part that Montpelier has taken responsibility for generation. Ken, I'm just going to, Ken, can I jump back in on that one? I don't want to disturb your thing. Just want to let folks know by the end of next year, that should be 100 percent, where we've got net meanery accounts now for Main Street, Middle and Roxbury. And those facilities are just being ramped up now. So they should be fully online by the end of 21. So that solar portion should be 100 percent by the end of the year. Yeah, a big pat on the back. I mean, you guys are doing great. And I'm proud of the little role that I played when I was on the board to kind of encourage this, but you folks are really following through. And we all thank you, the world thanks you. And then here's thermal where you can see, Union Elementary had a significant period where there was, where we did some renovation work and saw some significant reductions in the overall thermal load. This isn't, this isn't again looking at the energy sources. This is just what it takes to heat that building. And you know, especially Union and Main Street being older buildings, it's some challenges to eat those buildings. They weren't designed necessarily for heating efficiency in mind. The high school is a little more recent. And so it's a little harder to get those gains. But still, you can see here the trajectory. We saw some significant improvements at Union and some improvements both at high school and at Main Street. And this then looks at the source of that thermal heat. And this is, this is the story of the, of the district heat plant. The district heat plant is a wood-fired plant. It is, it connects to Union Elementary. So as we brought that online, fully online by fiscal 15, you can see that the portion of the thermal load is being addressed by renewable sources. So, so that's this, that's, that's our history. And again, what we at the Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee and the city council is signed on to, we want to aim for 2030. We want to get all of these, both the electricity bar and the thermal bars to be renewable. And the piece again that I haven't included, which is an important discussion as well, is transportation. And partly we, we haven't had a lot of success at the city level, but it is going to be a focus as we move forward. The availability of vehicles, especially large vehicles for renewable fuels is harder, but, but, but I don't, don't want to think that we've forgotten it because note it's a, it's a significant part of the energy use. And we need to look at some creative solutions for providing renewable sources for transportation as well. So, a little while we've been having discussion with the superintendent and with some of the leadership of the board about what you folks can do. And I know the students have also stepped up to say, you know, what, what can you, how can we formalize, how can you formalize the actions of moving towards a more renewable energy future. And we have, you know, a couple of ideas that we're moving forward on. One is we want to have a student on the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee, and I'm working with some folks in the district to help identify that student. Another is for you folks to have the discussion about signing on to or having your own version of a long-term goal for renewable energy use for reduction of greenhouse gases. And the third, which we're making some good progress on is just to make sure that we can maintain the communication. So, and especially, you know, this year, there's some, there's some resources out there. We all know there's federal resources that the state is distributing to do, to take on some activities to help make for a more resilient future, which largely, which can address some of these energy issues. So, again, we want the city to work with the schools to say, hey, there's some opportunities here. Can we work together on some of these? What is our progress towards the goals? So, again, that's my purpose tonight is just kind of tee this up to get you folks to identify what it is that you can do to continue this discussion and strive towards some policy goals that help us achieve a cleaner energy future. So, Ken, this is Andrew. I just want to chime in here. Just so you know, a couple meetings ago, the board referred this issue to the policy committee, which is going to be meeting after our retreat next month. We have a bunch of, we're just wrapping up negotiations with every one of our labor unions, wrapping up SRO work and a bunch of other time-intensive work. But this is an important issue to the board. So, it has been referred to the policy committee. We also created a facilities and energy committee that's going to also begin meeting this summer as well, which will meet with the student earth group, as well as we'll have a representative who will be a liaison with the city's energy committee as well. And Andrew, I know is also, I'll kick it to Andrew, but I also know that, you know, we want to be involved in the energy audit. That's going to be really helpful to the administration and also to the board making decisions moving forward. Yeah, I did forget to mention that piece, right? We've hired VEIC to help us look at each of the buildings to identify sort of a menu of activities that can help move each of those buildings to a more renewable sort of thermal fuels. And yeah, and we're working with the schools on that. That's great. Excellent. Andrew, do you want to add anything or should you have enough questions? No, I mean, I think that I am, you know, I'm excited for whatever direction I'm given to take with the buildings and the goals that you want to achieve. I look forward to continuing. We've had some communications with the VEIC regarding our energy usage so far primarily around transportation at the moment so far. And it'll be great to get that report to see what their suggestions are or what their, you know, their ideas are on meeting that goal. And I think that's a document that we should all read and digest to see what we're up to, you know, the challenges and opportunities that we're facing us before we make any, you know, too many bold grand gestures to wait a month or two because if I understand correctly, that report's due in June, correct? I believe so. June or July, yeah. So we're pretty close to getting that report. So I think that the timing seems to all be falling in line. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Andrew. I mean, if you'd like, just for your own knowledge, I can tell you a little bit about some of the energy things we've been doing and we've been looking at. If anyone wants that, or if we want to wait until that group is formed and we can formalize these, sort of give a more formal presentation in a month or two. I wouldn't mind a quick preview. You have to get into detail. But yeah, so some of the quick things. Let's say the net metering, where we've got all the buildings are all lined up, should by the end of next, by the end of this year, everything should be fully in line. That the indoor air quality grant was a great opportunity. We spent nearly $170,000 dollars on our mechanical systems, having a contractor or go through them all in our controls contractor and our engineer and we were fortunate that we had our buildings commissioned retro commissioned by efficiency Vermont last last fall. So when it came to doing these indoor air quality work, we had a running start at it. Everybody had been in our buildings, which was great energy. One of the biggest things we've got is not only where the energy is generated, but how it's used in the buildings used in. We are doing our beta tests on window renovation and replacement and or replacement. This summer, we've got the contractors lined up. We're waiting to get the final pricing on a couple of mock-up windows that we should have at the end of the week. We've got a contractor all in. So by the end of summer, by August 13th, we will have a sample windows for a group, whatever that group is to go in and look at and open and close and shut and see what we can think is the right solution as well as having a better cost estimate and timelines available to us to look at. One of the things that Grant put in front of you guys a couple meetings ago, a few meetings ago, I guess, with regards to some fund balance was looking at variable frequency drive pumps at the high school. These are the big circulator pumps that move water throughout. Right now, they're on or they're off. Our engineers are specifying eight new pumps that will cycle up and cycle down and they'll be high efficiency and that's going to save a tremendous amount of money. I think I'll have some final estimates of what the savings will be. Those reports are, the final reports are due to be this week. They've been kind of busy. I told them it's okay. They can wait another week. So that we'll have that information. We should have those. We will have those in place for the next heating season. The Roxbury heat pump project, that one's kind of, it's unfortunate. We don't have a clear winner. There's we can do something that's relatively simple and easy and kind of right off the shelf and will it be as high performing and as all-encompassing as a more comprehensive project? No. But can we get our hands around it and operate it very simply and get it going right this summer without rebuilding a mechanical system that you don't know what you're getting into? Yes. So that's a conversation. When I get the formal report on that, I'll have to be able to speak to that. But unfortunately, a sort of a clear winner did not jump out of that one. And the controls, our controls contractor, current controls contractor and our engineers have got a very good handle on two different scopes at the high school. One is replace our interface, our computer programming and rewire to old controls, add CO2 sensors in the classrooms and then phase in kind of controlling or replacing the actual little motors on the dampers and things like that over a rollout period or doing it all at once and hitting it all at once. That's going to be huge in that it won't save us energy. It'll save us energy in that right now Tom, sort of Tom Allen, sort of back doors, the control system at the high school is relatively old. So he has to kind of trick some things to do things. So we'll have a better handle on that. But in fact, we'll be bringing more fresh air into our buildings. So that's a good thing. So we'll use more energy, but we'll use it wisely and we'll get more fresh air into the building. So like I say, that's getting formalized and that when we really just have to, we'll have a cost estimate on that. It's clearly an estimate, but it should get us in the ballpark and we can start thinking about what's the best way to attack that. And again, one of the things I think is the most important is that we've we've reestablished a controls or a mechanical service plan with a very good firm with Honeywell and even better, the individual who services our building really enjoys working in our in our buildings, enjoys working in schools and has done a fabulous job for us and will continue. That's already built into our budget. So it's, you know, we've got $25,000 worth of service on our mechanical systems next year. So there's never a sort of, well, let's wait until, you know, let's wait until the spring or it's like, it needs to be done. It's going to be done. So big picture. That's some of the things that we've been working on. Awesome. That was super helpful. Questions for Ken or Andrew. Okay. Thanks, Jim. Thank you for the, thank you, Ken and Andrew for for walking us through all that. It was extremely helpful. And Andrew, you went into the the Roxbury items and things. One thing I was wondering with the presentation, we got to see the comparison between the different schools, but Roxbury wasn't in the mix unless I missed it. And I was just curious where that fits in. Yeah, from a Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee perspective, you're right, that that's that's something that that it's not in our arena. Okay. We aren't a part of the school district. So we're therefore not a part of month of Roxbury. So that says, as we move forward, how to integrate the Roxbury schools into the overall discussion is something we are going to need to discuss. To do in our report that we get from our engineers, should we should have a pretty good handle on if we go to heat pumps, how much oil are we going to save versus electricity and how that with it. So we can, we can at least be able to see, are we going to be able to do better than that building? Andrew. On that last point, I just wanted to clarify. So the the facilities and energy committee does have a representative from Roxbury on it. And the intention is certainly to incorporate Roxbury into this discussion, definitely at the school level, but that building also plays a key role for the municipality of Roxbury as well. I know that's where town meetings are held. So yeah, and just so everybody else here is aware, since we've had for the past the past two meetings, then this meeting, that's three meetings in a row where facilities and energy has been front and center on the agenda, our crew decided that we were going to wait until after we got through this period to convene for the first time. So we will be doing that at some point and probably May or June for the first time. Thanks Andrew. Other questions? Great, I have one. I noticed in the presentation that kind of city-wide there was a gradual reduction in the use in pretty much all energy sectors. What's driving that? Is it all efficiency or are there other factors at play? It's mostly efficiency. So we've also established a revolving loan fund within the city to provide some resources to the various departments so that they can invest in buildings. We've done renovations of the windows at City Hall. We've worked on the garage doors at the fire and police station. The fire and police station had some control issues and the wastewater treatment plants, the largest user of energy and we already put some significant effort there. So it is, yeah, I don't know if there's a way of measuring sort of municipal activity to see if there's a change in municipal activity that may have led to, but I don't think there has been. We haven't changed the number of buildings, the wastewater treatment, water treatment, and the drinking water facility are pretty constant in terms of their utilization. So efficiency. I also noticed, and this kind of a question for Andrew there, so that all the trends on thermal use and the three schools were down kind of overall, but I noticed MHS had kind of seemed to plateau and pick up again. Do you know what the cause of that is? Which slide were you talking with regards to electricity or heat thermal? So one of the tough things, tough, difficult things about that is these calculations, thermal usage is based on fuel delivery and when you get it. We sign up for oil contracts. I've already bought next year's oil and what we do is depending on where we are and like Tom and I just this week said, how much oil is in our tank? Do we fill them up? So we start the next year full. So it's sort of you can kind of, you know, you got to look at it as a long, long, you know, year to year. It's a little tougher to say, are we doing better or worse because it really, did we start with a full tank of gas, a full tank of oil or did we have to load up with, you know, an extra 10,000 at the beginning of the year. So I'd be careful about sort of year to year on oil usage because that one or two deliveries can kind of throw that, I think. Ken, does that seem that? Yes, that is true. There was a bump in particular that I just sure was a delivery scheduling piece and then, you know, the year to year changes are also influenced by degree days. 2016 was a year so things go down and there's going to be a rebound the next year. But yeah, also it is, that is based on delivery dates and that is hard to normalize. You could use a moving, you could use a moving five year average or something like that. Last year at this time, you guys probably would have wanted me to pick up the phone. We bought heating oil for 98 cents a gallon. So we didn't, you know, we were done with our heating season, but they picked up the phone said, you want 10,000 gallons for $10,000 and we said, yep, we'll top off our tanks. So yeah, I know the trend is definitely downward. Kristen. Hi, thank you. Thank you, Ken. Thank you, Andrew. I was hoping to get a little bit more information about the BEIC process and the report that would be the outcome of that and curious if it involves analysis only or if it will also include recommendations and just what we can expect to come out of that. And I was wondering if that was something that was generated by the city, is it going to include and it's kind of been extended to the school district and if it is going to include the Roxbury School, I happen to be the Roxbury member that will be on the buildings and other facilities and energy committee. So I'm interested to hear about that. Yeah. So I'll try to characterize their work. It is essentially a multi-building audit to identify the status of the buildings and to identify the strategies necessary to replace the existing use of fossil fuel. So I mean, it's going to be a list of actions and I'm not sure if the word recommendation will be in there or not, because the extent to which we look at cost effectiveness is going to be after that work and how we can fund the things, the source of the funds for it. And it is my understanding that does not include the Roxbury School. Again, we started the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee to deal with Montpelier and it will include the Montpelier schools, but right now I don't believe and Andrew might know, but I don't believe it's going to include the Roxbury Builder. It does not, let me say just but I can get you the, you know, if you want to build your knowledge base of the Roxbury mechanical systems, I'm happy to give you a tour, but we also have the retro commissioning report that was done last year that kind of talks about the pros and cons and the good things and the bad things as well as this additional, you know, report that we're going to get on heat pumps and all that. So we do, it's not on an island all by itself without anything actually, it just wasn't part of the scope when the city put out that RFP. But we, like I say, we have done those. We did not, let me change that. Let me, let me, let me re-think about that. Because of the size, actually we had, we had our engineers audit the building. It was not part of an efficiency Vermont retro commissioning, I believe because of the size. It was just, it didn't really fit into that retro commissioning program that they had, where they go in and tour the buildings and, you know, poke and prod and take readings and stuff. And the Roxbury did not receive that because, again, the size of the building did not qualify for that. But our engineers went through and did do a report. So I can, I can share that with you. Great. Other questions? Well, thank you so much, Ken and Andrew. This is super helpful. And, you know, obviously an under discussion that, that, you know, the board is going to delve into more deeply. And, you know, Andrew kind of stated the, you know, what we've decided on after the students presented. Yeah. And it's good, it's good to see the progress that's been made. You know, thank you, Andrew, and all of the facilities, folks who contributed to that. And, you know, with, I think, an infusion of some federal money that has come upon us, I think we'll have the opportunity to accelerate some of the progress in the next few years and build on that. So thank you. The next item in the board discussion is fundraising policy. Oh, was that a hand, Andrew, or are you just waving? All right. Is the fundraising policy. This came out of an issue that came up a couple of years ago that the policy committee had been pursuing. I'm not sure what exactly we need to do on this tonight, other than kind of give an update. I think there had been a placeholder for this discussion a while back. So I don't know. I know we've got a reconstituted policy committee of which I am a member, a new member. Before Ryan left the board, he had asked to put this on the agenda in the spring for the board to decide if they wanted the policy committee to take this up again or not. Well, I can say that we talked about it before Ryan left, and there are expenses now. And Emma can also jump in. But he did write a memo so that there are two possible ways of going about this. So there is a memo that I can send. I think so because it wasn't in the agenda. I think maybe we can talk about it next time. But there is already a process in place that Ryan and I talked about. And there's a memo about it about how to, like, walk into decisions. Basically there are two ways to go about this conversation. One will be creating a policy. There are, we have some resources including the UES committee and the UES Caregivers Alliance created an equity focus document that lays out some of this fundraising conversations about what to think about when doing fundraising within the UES Caregivers group. So I think there is, and there was extensive conversations that Ryan and, I don't know, Emma, if you were there, had with the principals and the MRSP PI last year as well. So basically to make the answer short, there are notes, there is a memo, but we shouldn't discuss it today because nobody had the chance to read it. And so I can put it out in document and send it for the next school board meeting. I wonder should the new policy committee maybe take this up and I see you, is there a chance to look, Jill, or did you take it down? No. Would that be another avenue just to have the new policy committee take a quick look at this and come back? I feel like there's, sure, but it's work that was already done. I think it's like, yes. It's worth the idea. It might just be easy to give it straight to the board. Jill? Emma? I changed my mind. I appreciate Emma giving the update because I remember being a parent that was really concerned before I was a school board member about a particular fundraiser that I felt was really inappropriate in the sort of guilt trip that laid on our kids for raising money for certain field trips and the message that sends to students who may not have the means to participate in the fundraiser safely. So I'm really glad to hear that there's been work done on that. And I do think that the Caregivers Alliance and the parents group seems like they're really have made a lot of progress in the last year or so to sort of facilitate those. I think in this case it was in the case that I experienced it was not really through the parents group. It was just a direct to the school fundraiser. So I'd be happy to help if there's something I need to help. But it does sound like there's been a ton of work done already. And I definitely do think that once we're on the other end of COVID and kids are back in person, that I think it'd be helpful for the board to be really clear where it's appropriate for our role to set expectations about what is and isn't asked of our students for fundraising. Thank you. Good. Thanks, Jill. Emma? Yeah, I'll just sort of chime in with Amanda's update from the Policy Committee. So Bridget, who is a lawyer and a former board member, she had spent a long time, many months researching what a policy would look like at the district level and trying to draft something that was appropriate. Sort of where does the district, where does the board's policy arm, where is it sort of an overreach and that sort of thing. So it became so much more complicated. This is the report back to me from Bridget through Ryan that the whole process became a lot more complicated than you would think at first blush, trying to write a district policy around fundraising that would basically it sounded like legally we don't have control over parents group fundraising activities. And I'm not going to get into the history too much, but I think that I know the fundraising gift card thing that you're talking about, Jill, at the middle school, and I believe it actually was a parents group fundraiser, but they were providing school time to promote the fundraiser. Anyway, it just gets very complicated, so we can control what the school does and we can make a policy to control sort of what the school is allowed to do around fundraisers. This is what I understand anyway, and I didn't review, I wish I had reviewed the memo before coming tonight, but and then we can make recommendations to the parents groups. But there's been a lot of work done, like maybe almost two years worth of work done on the fundraising, on the drafting, a first draft of a fundraising policy, and we still don't have it. And when Ryan left, it sort of fizzled out. So I think Jim's right that it's probably time to revisit all of those notes and see where it stands. I think we're pretty close to having a draft, but every time we sort of dug into it and started talking about it, layers of complexity arose. So that's where we were at last I checked. Yeah, I'll just add so just because I reviewed the memo this morning, when I saw that that was what it was. So basically our path forward is that there are two primary ways to do this one is creating a consulting with a legal team. So both the Vermont School Board Association basically say there's there is no real fundraising policy that it's good you could you could do a good luck with that because there's a lot of layers and it's very complex. So they said you like the South Burlington School District has like a fundraising policy that is like very detailed. So that is one way to do it to consult a legal team to do a comprehensive policy that would clearly articulate what would happen in the district related to any fundraising activities. And then the other alternative is that the board could do a global statement in like of intent regarding fundraising activities that leaves most of the decisions for the administrators of each of the school district. And then until then we have to know that the stakeholder participation and inclusion in the process of drafting the framework itself will be taken into account. And then you know we have the reference of the UES equity event policy which is what the UES Cagraves Alliance created and then the South Burlington policy which is like hand in hand. So those are kind of the two ways to go about. And and so there is that the memo I think that so for next steps I would my suggestion is that I just make this into a document send it to the board for our next school board meeting and then kind of going that decision then it will fall into the policy committee if we decide together that policy is the way forward. So where should we have the policy committee we take it up or my suggestion is that I just send this document of the work that was already done to this full board to help in the next school board meeting. And then if the full board after that discussion decides that policy is the way forward that then the policy committee can take it up. All right. Good. Thanks for clarifying. Mia or your head went up. Does that make sense everyone? Perfect. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you, Armada. Anything further on fundraising or can we just do a quick overview of retreat planning? Great. We'll do retreat planning. So I've talked to I believe everyone I'm just kind of generally about the retreat. I would just love to kind of get some thoughts about how I'm thinking we've got two days. I was thinking of taking one day and just talking about kind of, you know, the board as a cohesive unit. You know, we've got a lot of new members. Unfortunately, most of our time has been virtually instead of in person. So I was thinking about potentially getting a facilitator to just talk through, you know, our board roles, board expectations. Also just how to, you know, build a really collaborative, you know, process where we build trust where we can, you know, disagree and have and have robust conversations in a, you know, constructive, respectful manner, just getting, you know, just getting a real sense of kind of what this new board wants to be, how it wants to operate, you know, the expectations around it, etc. And then using the second day to kind of hone in on some priorities for the coming year. And I also think part of the first day is just talking about how we kind of focus as well, because I think we've got a lot of big ideas and the district has a lot of challenges and opportunities. And then using the second day to focus in on kind of a work plan for the coming year. Some of the things we want to work on, how that might build with a longer term vision of priorities and things that we want to advance in the district. And I think for two days, that's more than, more than plenty. So I just wanted to kind of give thoughts if that all seemed to make sense. I've been talking to a few of you about potential facilitators for that first day. I think there's a consensus building one that I definitely share, that while the VSBA has provided us some nice information that we want, a facilitator that I think is going to be more in tune to kind of our unique challenges. And I think also some of the vision to be a board that's maybe a little less traditional than kind of the VSBA model and get a facilitator that can speak to that and plug into that energy. But definitely further suggestions from members about who might be good in that role would be fantastic because we don't have a ton of time to kind of reach out and get someone down. So we'd just love to open it up to kind of any thoughts about whether that general structure makes sense. And then as, you know, if it does, as we kind of get more details, we can, you know, fill in at the next meeting or two. Well, we don't have that many meetings. So yeah, so just want to open it up from there. Amiya. I had a couple of visitors. So I just want to make sure I heard correctly and I understand the first day is focused more on really just building relationships among the board and, you know, getting to know each other a little better. And then the second day, we'd end with perhaps some goals set for the year. Some kind of like priorities and work plans. I see Tina looking, my guess is Roxbury will probably be one of those, but I think setting a couple, a couple more to, you know, just to focus us because, you know, the year can go quickly. And, you know, said it's kind of setting priorities, obviously other things will come up, but kind of like what what we want to accomplish this year. And, you know, I think frame that a little in, you know, some some other priorities too and kind of like how we might want to stage, you know, stage priorities and stage initiatives. Yeah, that sounds good to me. I think with three hours on day two, it would be hard to come up with like real plans, but I think prioritizing, prioritizing our priorities. Sorry, I think of a better word than that. But thinking about like what is it that we want to be or what accomplished by the end of the year and get very clear about that feels both very good and doable with three hours on day two. Yeah, that's my hope too. Amanda. I hate to be negative, but I just think that we need more little more time to like, you know, like I don't think three hours is enough to have these big conversations. But I think that maybe if we could do some free work, I think in terms of transparency, like I think coming into the retreat just like really thinking about what is everybody thinking so that everybody can have their thought organized. I think we and so and I'm willing to support and doing a survey that, you know, we can compile around big ideas, little ideas and so that before the retreat, we really have a sense of the global picture so that it's easier to dissect and that we can all kind of be transparent looking at what like what those ideas look like. Because this is also like a three year period. So, you know, I would see, I would, I couldn't vision like thinking that way as well as like, you know, here's a long term vision, here's like what we can do in year one, year two, and year three as well. So that you can spread, we can spread our brains a little more. So when you try to focus just one year, then like you have all these things that might be left. So. Yeah, no, no, absolutely. And I did have conversations with all you kind of about those parties, kind of get people thinking in that perspective. And I can, I can kind of, you know, summarize those and send them around before the next meeting and maybe, you know, if others kind of figure out how to do this without tripping open meeting laws. But maybe I can summarize a document and then we can spend a little time with the next meeting after the surround presentation, just kind of talking through that. But I totally agree that giving a lot of thought to this beforehand is going to make it make it go better. And also, you know, this is, I see the retreat is the beginning of a discussion, not the end. I kind of agree with Mia that we can, you know, find some points in the distance we want to head to, and then, you know, map that out a little more clearly as we move forward. Mia again. I just want to co-sign Amanda's point about pre-work for us to do before we get there. And I think the, the work that you've done, Jim, to hear from each one of us is really good. And I also think about like, how do we, how do we think of ourselves or how do we act in this moment as the, in one of our roles being sort of like the representations of the community and how can we have community voice in, in also thinking about what those priorities ought to be. So I don't know if, you know, Amanda's idea of the survey goes more community wide or we look at, you know, Libby's just begun surveying the community around specifically how could we use those ESSER funds, but are there ideas that have come up through that that don't necessarily fall into the category of money or, you know, but, but are really great ideas that we could bring into this conversation. So I wonder how we can get a broader perspective before we show up for, for those three hours is, I don't have the answers for that, but I, I would definitely want to encourage us to think about those, you know, what are the ways to do that. And then the other thing is I forgot to mention for day one, maybe this is doing too much, but in addition to the relationship building, and I think you were kind of getting at this Jim, and so if you were that I'm just kind of plus wanting to that is ending the day with some agreements for and sort of norms and procedures and how, how we will all work together as a board in order to accomplish whatever we're going to determine the next day are our priorities, I think would be really helpful. Yeah, absolutely. Other questions or comments? Yeah, I actually really like Amanda's idea of having us do some pre-work. I had it was really great to have that conversation with you, Jim, and I had prepared for it, and I like put some sort of thought into things I want to make sure I said, but I don't have that level of understanding of what other folks' priorities are. And I think it'd be kind of neat to hear, especially if there's some consensus in some of those pieces. And I think the structure you've talked about in the tree, I do think we need to just take that time in that first day to set up some norms and some common expectations and get to know each other that way. I think that would go along because I feel like we've all just been through this, you know, really intense period where it was really clear what the priorities were. And thankfully our administration and our teachers have carried us through that. And now we have the luxury of being able to look ahead at what we want to do and maybe even some federal dollars to do it with. So, I really like that idea of having that kind of pre-work done and also having the space to get to know each other because things will continue to come up. And we have a lot of priorities and a lot of possible work in this coming year or so. And I think it's great timing. So, I'm willing to do whatever needs to be done beforehand so we can make the best use of that time because it will go by really quickly. Yes, absolutely. And I definitely agree on getting kind of those priorities out. And I'll try to put together some sort of document. And I'll talk to Libby about how best to kind of get some of those ideas because there was yeah, there was overlap and there was divergence. Jerry? We did start the survey process in Roxbury. So, you might want to reach out, I don't know if Libby has those or if they're still with the principal, but I believe we have at least a subset of data from the community members. So, we could just use that as a data point. Great. Thanks, Jerry. Andrew? Yeah, so I'm just thinking about how we take this suggestion of doing pre-work and turn it into action. And my inclination normally is to set up a group and people can collaborate. And we wouldn't need to have like part of I think what makes this so difficult is we're constantly trying and we're doing a good job to avoid open meeting law violations. But that means we're not able to collaborate unless we're here in this space, which is very limiting. And I think that's impacting our ability to communicate in many ways. So, I'm just thinking about how do we want to go, I can think of many organic processes that I've used in the workplace to figure out a path forward on pre-work and have it evolved that way. But how do we want to do this so that we can focus ourselves and not break the open meeting law here and essentially get from A to B? That's my question for our group. Amanda? Yeah, I mean, I think there are ways, there's no valuation of a meeting though everything's transparent and open and you have like a meeting that you have. But if we're thinking about hiring a facilitator, that could be another way that we say here facilitator, we want to make sure that here are some things we want to know where everybody's at and do some pre-work and you facilitate that process. And then that person can do that. That is one thing that could be done. And I created this course, which is who did the Montpelier-Roxbury focus groups and who supported the school safety committee, you know, is one that I, you know, that already kind of knows what's happening in the community and that could kind of already have some idea I would think around what's happening in our district. And so I mean, I think I just want to offer that we do have some expertise in here in the school board of people that kind of like do this to that and community members that we can ask for support in terms of like this conversations. For me that I was just part of another group that also has open meeting laws attached to them. But there is, you know, like for the how to be together, there's also this conversation around that we could go an executive session and just have an open vulnerable discussion about how to be together. That is a little more humane that you can like we can actually like say what we without, you know, being worried that we're on TV or something like that. So I just did a training with a state board on implicit bias, for example, and it was an executive session and no recording so that people could be who they are. And we could have like really good conversations about how to work together. So I think, you know, there are ways to do this work that is like humane that takes us as humans. I think the open meeting laws is a tool actually to be transparent to the community that we are accountable for. And so I don't think that a survey violates open meeting laws. And it's a step forward. Yeah, no, I wasn't suggesting that it violates open meeting laws. I'm really asking the group, how do we want to, you know, essentially, we're talking about doing this pre-work, what do we want this to look like? How do we make this happen? Yeah, I mean, I think we could like easily do a survey monkey. I mean, as long as it's not interactive, it can go into a document and then we can discuss it publicly. But as long as we're not editing off of each other's work, I think like a survey monkey for the board would be an easy first way to start. Libby, is that something you can have Anna send around? Like maybe we can talk about it on Friday. I would check the USDA first to see if that does violate or not, because I don't know if it doesn't. So I would check before doing that. But yes, we can, I mean, logistically, if it's allowable, of course we can do that. That's easy. Jim, I also like Amanda's idea of asking the facilitator to maybe take this on as part of the work, because then we don't have to worry about how to ask the questions, which questions, how to compile and report out on the data. I mean, all of that takes some time and thought and effort. So maybe that's something we could include. And another thing that that raises is would we want facilitator for both days? So the facilitator might start by actually doing a lot of this work and like surveying the board and then thinking about it, it might be worth, it would be more money, but it might be worth having the facilitator do the second day as well. So that way they come in saying, okay, I talk to all of you individually or reach out to you by email. I've got all these priorities and have them to kind of do some synthesis beforehand and have the starting place of the discussion. Jill? Yeah, and I want to be realistic too, that it's April 7th and I know that everybody is, has pretty busy full-time jobs and I really don't want to add to anybody's plate. So I'm happy too as a plan B or maybe a plan A, take you up on your offer, Jim, to summarize what you heard. And if there's a way that you could share that and we could kind of react to that maybe in a survey or something like that, because that would get us a pretty good head start. And I think having had that perspective and time, you could probably pull that together. And like you said, having seen some patterns and some discrepancies and I'm trying to be realistic about, I don't know how realistic it is to get a facilitator in a month who could do this work well for us. And I also, this might be an unpopular plan, but it's occurring to me, it's when we have three hours each day. Sometimes that can get eaten up a lot by facilitation. And I want to make sure we all have a lot of time to actually talk to each other and it might get messy and, you know, we're only human and we might get tired and we might have to sort of self-police, but it might be more realistic than hiring a facilitator who could come on board and prepare. So I just want you, I'm very, I'm happy with whatever we can end up doing, but I think realistically I'm fine if that's what we can do, then that's what we can do. And I'm willing to be grown up about it. Great. Thanks, Joe. That's super, super helpful. And I may, I, when I regard this way to you, I don't mean a lot of self-rising. Having some help, help there would be helpful. I have, I have the pile of notes I just haven't gotten to the synthesis part of it. Am I, is that an old hand or? It's always an old and I'm getting old. Any other, any other questions or comments? Otherwise, I'll talk, I'll look at kind of whether we could do some sort of survey. We'll do a little more investigation on a, on a facilitator. I totally hear you, Jill. And I think that's why they're having the right facilitator who's going to be able to, you know, kind of, I think get quickly to, to where we need to go rather than spending, you know, an hour on a kind of, you know, icebreaker exercise or something, which I know can happen would be important. And why don't we just do another kind of update and, you know, if we can do a survey, we'll, you know, try to work on that between now, but we meet in a week because of spring break. So let's do another check-in on this next week with, you know, and kind of see where we're at. But it sounds like directionally relatively on course, and it's just kind of making sure we get the pre-work done correctly. All right, excellent. Next on the list is executive session. And I've lost my agenda. I don't know how that happened. But next on this is executive session, and it's for the purpose of negotiations. So we need the magic words. If someone can approximate a motion with those in, that would be fantastic. Mia, looks like she's going to bravely, was that a brave raise of your hand? Jill's ready to go. I don't want to steal her thunder. Okay, Jill. Oh, no, go for it. I was going to plagiarize from Anna's memo that she sent. Oh, I was going to do. Yeah, I think that's, that's the right, the right link out. Oh, let's see. So I moved to find that premature general public knowledge regarding our negotiations contracts would place the board at a substantial disadvantage if the board discusses the negotiations in public. I second that. Okay. Hi. Kristen. Hi. Jerry. Hi. Andrew. Hi. Mia. Hi. Jill. Hi. Amanda. Yes. And how am I? Hi. Okay. Now, uh, motion to actually go under executive session. So, move. Second. Hi. Kristen. Hi. Jerry. Hi. Andrew. Hi. Mia. Hi. Jill. Hi. Alanda. Hi. Ella. Hi. Hi. Great. Um, so, uh, so moved. Second. Mia. Jerry. Hi. Kristen. Hi. Jill. Hi. Anakit. Hi. Andrew. Hi. Vanda. Hi. Good. See you all next week. Thanks a lot. Bye.