 I'm going to call us to order, and that's whatever time it is, 5.47, Verizon Standard Time, and... You might need to take notes. Oh, so you don't want me to do that? Do you want to do that or do you want me to do that? I can do that. I can take it right on this. As you all know, this is a forum to discuss what we as your local board do about Act 46, because the Act 46 committee ended up in a stalemate, unfortunately, which means that the decision-making and the whole process lands back on the local board, which is us. So, that said, I was not part of the Act 46 committee and Flora and Steve were, so I'm going to invite Flora and Steve to carry forward from here. They are, by far, the best in form. Do you want me to carry first or do you want to carry first? Go ahead. Say whatever you would like. I shared that email with most of you about what our next steps needed to be and we need to report back as a town and also decide what we're going to do as a district and we're going to talk to our neighbors and how to move forward in a positive way to comply with the goals of Act 46. So, in my mind, if they're being part of this process, there's just two, basically two options. One would be to justify the way that we are, but that's not for us to decide on your input on that. And the second one would be to, what we were going to try to do, a point is somebody to talk to the different districts and move forward together. I'll let Steven speak. So, I have a more specific recommendation. Yeah. It's my opinion that this board favors consolidation. I think what we should do is, and I'm looking at the chair, I think we should contact all the other boards and say, is there any interest in pursuing consolidation? Because we don't know how the boards feel. Well, I think we can suspect how two boards feel by how the vote was, but the other boards were, you couldn't tell. So, I think our first step should be outreaching to the other local boards and saying, is there any interest in pursuing consolidation? And if there isn't, then that informs how we go forward. If there is, then that informs how we go forward. But I'm interested in pursuing consolidation. And if there are other boards that are interested in doing that, that's where I'd like to expend our energies. I think Matthew and I were very clear. Matthew was the representative from Doty, from Worcester, that we felt very strongly that this should go to the voters. And the voters can vote it up or down, but it's a big decision. And to my mind, for everyone that's concerned about local control, we should let the local communities have the control. And we should put together the best consolidation plan we get and put it to the voters. And I suspect there may be a town or two that might be interested in that same process, but we won't know unless we ask. Can we recap what the talking points or the issues that other towns saw with consolidation or... No floor. Can you do that? It would be hard for me to do that. Yeah, I think there are mainly two issues that other towns... And I also want to open it up to the public since we have public to see their thoughts. But I want to try to be really brief on that. The two main holding points were governance model and debt. So the debt was because we, especially East Montpelier, but East Montpelier, Romney, and now Berlin have debt. And when you do a governance model and you unify the federal bills together, we did come up with a potential way to deal with that in an article of agreement, but it hadn't been completely clear for them to be able to move forward. So that is a huge difference. And then the other difference is that they would like to continue to have... Some of them strongly would like to continue to have their own school boards and take the decisions for the budget themselves in hiring the principal. And they really want to keep everything pretty much as it is, except they want to open up to have pre-K to 12. It had to give like a special unified board the control of keeping pre-K to 12, and you can pick up if I'm missing something, but the pre-K to 12, the outcomes are important. Everybody agreed that pre-K to 12 outcomes are important. We want all the kids to come to U32 with similar outcomes. So in seventh grade, there's not such a disparity. So those were the main issues, truthfully. But yes, Tony. I have a question. Is there any discussion about if there was a failure of the five schools to come to some positive conclusion that they could bring to the state or review that the ultimate decision down the line is that the state, if we don't do it, the state will do it for us. And if anybody were to look at, and when I was in the legislature, they did look at this district as a district that said, that's really easy. So was there a thought amongst the other four school boards that they were going to be banking on the law being changed or repealed? Because my little connections that I still have left, that's fantasy. There are too many districts that successfully done this and the train has left the station. So I don't really understand why people are digging their heels in the sand, whether it's for good reasons or not. The eventuality of it is that things will change. They won't stay the way they are. Any acknowledgement of that? Yeah, we talked about it extensively about that. And then there was no, you know, there is some members of, even of our community that feel like the state is never going to come and they're never going to do it and they'll sue the state. You know, we did talk about all that. For some of the more vocal people against consolidation, that wasn't a concern. For some of the people strongly against it, they are prepared to pursue legal action. I mean, that's, I think what's difficult to say is, we can't say, and that's why I suggested what I did at the start, we don't know, we actually don't know what any of the boards think. We only know what certain representatives from towns, some of who are board members, some who are not, thought. We don't know how the boards feel. And you don't know how the townspeople feel. Well, not a lot. We know how some, we've heard from some, but we don't know collectively what the towns think. I think we know more about how, in my mind, how boards feel because you can't get a sense by the representatives of how their local school boards feel. Even though it's a representative, they're still, you know, representing their town. But we really don't know what you're saying, how our towns feel. We got a sense that a town meeting this year, really for the first time, more clear. But we don't really know unless we go out to vote. But you've had a comment. Yes. I have a question. I'm just wondering if any of you could speak to why a super majority model is chosen as opposed to some majority. Do you want to bring this to the voters? That's what the committee decided to operate under. Yeah. And it started truthfully. And we had this come back and forth in the committee. It started because we originally wanted to start with that consensus model. And then, you know, facilitate and rule this. And then we slowly started to put boundaries and said, well, if you're not going to have a super majority, this can't, that it would require a super majority to go out. So in theory, everybody was going to be in a better, all the communities were going to have more buy-in into it. And at the end, you know, from my personal point of view, I didn't even want to call a vote. I was hoping that we would be able to just move forward and say, you know, I'm 70%. But I'm not going to stop this. We're going to come up with some kind of model, put it out to the voters. And it still comes from us instead of, you know, a completely, you know, disbanding. But that was the model that was adopted at the first organizational meeting. Yeah. And I also think, and I'm talking too much, but I also think that one of, to me, one of my interests would be that we preserve, we do a good job with U32. And I would hate for us to try to put our towns against each other right now, but, you know, how do we move forward together? I know we just tried to do that and it didn't quite work, but it wouldn't be in the best interest, I think, in my mind to try to just get, you know, two towns together and the other three not to get, you know, it just seems like we would be, you know, separating everybody in camps when we're already collaborating together so much better than we have done in years before. So, again, asking a question. If it pierced me, maybe I'm wrong, it would correct me if I'm wrong. What I heard about the big fear was that having a local school board be responsible for their school that basically nobody could do it better. Okay, so I understand that. But was there, you know, I can't, you know, when I look at the model, if you go to the consolidated model and you have an expanded larger board that's responsible for the six schools, at that point, I can't for the life of me imagine that there wouldn't be, it wouldn't be called a school board maybe anymore, but maybe you would be called a council. You'd have to exist to collect the data, collect the information, share what the environment is of the school to move it to that central. Was there any talk about that? Yeah, we tried. And why that was not acceptable? Because the councils would be... They didn't have budgetary control. They didn't have statutory powers. So it would be advisable. So the councils would be advisable and even though they can be doing more for the schools, we were not able to get enough buying into the council model because you don't have statutory powers. So you can't say, you know, whatever, no to the budget to, you know, you don't have the ability to hire the principal as one. For example, we did look at different ways that you could elect a council, what the council's responsibilities would be, but there was not enough buying for that model. Correct me if I'm wrong. The superintendent hires the principal today, is that correct? Yeah. So the school board's phone... It would be the same. Hire the principal anyway. No. So that... And actually the council model will give us a better way to connect with the principal than the board does now. Yes. What I thought was fascinating at the last meeting I went to, which was I think the next to last one before the plug-up poll. And that was the first one where the lawyer was present. And I thought that was really profound. The extent to which members of the committee didn't know what the law was. There was incident after incident where they would say, well, we want to do this. Well, that's not it. That's against the law. You can't do that. And it could have saved a lot of time, I think, had we had legal advice earlier so that people would give up some of their fantasies about what they wanted to do, which wasn't allowed under the statute. And they were kind of taken aback when they heard some of this and then started saying, well, we've got to change the law is that because they won't let us do what we want to do. All right, not you. It was disturbing to me to watch that play. I would take a different read on it. They knew all along it was against the law. For the people that opposed, they weren't surprised. I think we wanted to see the, we wanted to hear everybody's fears and really have an honest conversation and have those conversations. Because those conversations were happening before, but in the parking lot and not actually there. So we were able to have those conversations and bring the lawyer into it. I think that people were reading more into the alternative options and they were hoping that through that alternative they would be able to do things differently. So part of the idea of having the lawyer there was that to try to keep bounce ideas from him and see how much we could ban the law to work for our five districts. But there was not a lot of room. The only room we found was that the article of agreement to maybe preserve the debt separate. But other than that, there was not as much. So is the next legal step, I thought I heard was that you have to at least enter into a discussion with at least one other school in the district. And I heard you say that you think Worcester has the same mindset as this. I know the representative from Worcester felt very strongly that he wanted it to be able to go to a vote. So my suggestion would be is to whatever school it is in the district that either wants it to go to a vote or is more on the flavor of the total consolidation and not bother with anything else because anything else won't be acceptable for the state. Anyway, why not just do that and you've met the letter of the law, wash your hands of it, and say, okay, we've done our gig and now we'll wait and see what happens. It would be a little less passive about that personally speaking. It would be a political answer. I think I'll speak for myself. I particularly through the first six months of information that was shared, I felt very strongly that this was the best model to pursue. I felt like this would have the best, provide the best opportunity for students. And that's what's driving my work. So feeling that way, I feel like I need to at least personally exhaust every opportunity to move in a direction of what I think is best. Now, that may not be what the majority thinks and that's okay, but I would like people to be able to weigh in on if that's how they think or not. So for me, there's a lot of angles you can approach it at, but for me personally, I truly believe that this is the best model going forward for student learning and others disagree vehemently and that's okay, I understand that, but I think it's due, it's fair discussion in the communities. Let the communities hear what are the advantages and disadvantages of both and decide what they want to do. So it's not for me, it's not just meeting the letter of the law and moving on, because in politically, I agree with you, I think we're going to be consolidated. I would just like to have as much of our input into that process and I'm not against that consolidation, so I'm not saying let's get our input because that's going to be our only choice. I want that direction, but that doesn't mean I want the state saying this is how we want you to do it. I want that direction with us saying this is how we want to do it. I'm going to follow up, Stephen, kind of point this at you. What are you expecting to happen at the joint meeting at the end of April? There is no joint meeting at the end of April. We don't have a carousel meeting then? Not until June. But we can ask for a special meeting. We could, there's nothing scheduled right now. So there's nothing from now until your next board meeting in May? Part of, we can't be that passive about what's going on, so part of the idea of meeting today is trying to move that process along, either we appoint a member. Why we have a special meeting tonight and not waiting until May. We talked about the possibility of that at our full board meeting. In my mind, I would like to be able to, and we talked about this, to appoint somebody that can be having those conversations with the other board so that we continue to move this work along. For me, I agree with Stephen. I tend to be a little bit more cautious about listening to that other side because I had also, it didn't come naturally. You know, like, oh, woohoo! Of course, here we're going to consolidate and have the unified board. So it slowly came, for me, without the councils, there's no, but that's just personal. Just because I feel that it's really important to make that. So the devil is in the details. So having good articles of agreement between all the towns. So I can't just say, I think we're doing better and better by modeling what centralized leadership looks like. So it's lower to a lot of people that haven't been on the board for quite some time to see, there's a lot of things that we are ready to, that we are ready to do together. So the devil is in the details. So we would have to just, I worry about putting something out that says which option would you favor as a town. I think we really have to have a plan out that doesn't just merely... Well, we could not put an option out. It would be, this is what we recommend and you vote yes or no. It wouldn't be pick A, B, or C. Yeah, we can't do it. We could, but... And you get 36%, 41% and 28%, and what does that mean? Yeah, and I think if we're going to move together and we're going to have a good unified system, we have to figure out a way that we can move forward together. Even if we're going to bang our heads against the wall for a little longer, there's got to be a way that either... I know that there's a lot of people and I hate to bring this up today, but there's a lot of people that disagree with having a unified model, but really want to talk to Montpiler, for example. So is there any other things that we can think about that really will shake the process a little bit and allow us to move together? I really don't want to push this down the throat of anybody to say, you know, Wister and I are going to get together and this is what we're doing. Floor is very optimistic that we can work together to find a solution and I'm very pessimistic that we can work together and find a solution. Well, I kind of think the history of the last 18 months, there was a lot of work. And... a lot of emotion. And this is not about the data. We're all sitting here. This is not about the data. This is about perception and it's visceral and it's our towns and it's our schools. It's how we interact with each other. So this conversation needs to happen a long time ago before or even after it's expressed. But we're not going to get into that. But we need to. That's just my personal. So you said there are people that are opposed to our own towns merging but want to talk about Pillar who has a single board for all three schools. Yeah. And we would have even less representation. Exactly. Because they have our population and they don't own their... I mean, that's a reinforcement that it's not about the data. It is not about the data. It's about the doughnut there in the middle. It doesn't make any sense to not collaborate. Can we look it up on the other end in terms of the scenarios? How could this play out? So my understanding is if the SU, the five pounds voted on the preferred or an alternative model and we brought that to the state the agency of education they might approve that. Likely they would approve that. That seems remote at this point. So at this point either the SU or the five towns or some combination of the towns are to bring a report or multiple reports to the agency of education demonstrating how we comply with the goals of Act 46. The likelihood of us coming with one report demonstrates that is I mean, we've already been told that we won't be able to produce a report that complies. This model does not that the AOE has examined this model and said at the very beginning of this process that the model that we're in would not be allowed. And our five towns appear to be divided. That might not be true, but we only have six months or so to come up with a direction. Can I just interject something? I don't have any idea how our towns feel. Representatives from towns that were on the committee had certain beliefs. That's an important distinction to make, I think. That's why I made it. It's important, but we have to in some way involve these representatives in building consensus to one model. I mean, it seems hard to work without that. So my question is, is there any scenario here that's at all likely that has us bringing something to the agency where they're just not going to make the decision for us? A report that demonstrates compliance or a vote on a model that they will accept? Yeah. Those are the only two options. To present an alternative, we have just until November of this year, the 30th of November of this year, unless S122, which is now in this past the house and is now in the Senate, will extend that timeline until January 31st of next year. So our timeline is really short. Lord, do I remember sometime in the last month or so that the legislature addressed the issue of debt? They're addressing and again in this S122 it hasn't passed, but they're addressing debt and they're addressing there's like seven different sections, but the timeline and the debt would be the two that correspond to our district but there was a lot of pushback from their last Tuesday and there's a lot of pushback from other towns saying that this just benefits a select group of towns. It's not something that benefits everybody. Isn't it true that if we were able to bring a consolidation report forward that we an East mom pillar could decide, the town could decide that debt of this bond was the big issue amongst the other, that we could keep that separate and in some way shape or form keep paying for it as we're committed to pay for it for the next 20 years. Our lawyer, Paul Giuliani said that he was not absolutely certain, but he thought that we could do that, that we could keep separate through an article of agreement. What is now on the senate is a little bit of both, so it could benefit us, but it could also harms us because it would be keeping the debt in the town and right now that's what a mom pillar does. We own our schools and it's part of our expense of our educational money. That's what we get. We would want to continue to have that benefit, so having an article of agreement is more beneficial for us and being able to curate that, but we're not going to solve that. Did that make sense? Did everybody get that distinction? I think too, and we did hear this from Giuliani, there's no possibility so there's no cut and dry rule in Act 46 how the debt is shared. The only solution that's been presented is to consolidate the debt and equally distribute it amongst the communities. I bring it up because I was someone that opposed Eastmont Peir, you're keeping its debt totally. I wanted to see, I was willing to say it would be too much of a burden to share it equally. But my stance was if you expect me to share some of your debt in the future, I expect you to share some of our debt today and come up with a formula that towns could say, so a town that didn't have debt could say, well I don't want to increase my debt, but this is an unreasonable increase and I have protection in the future when our school needs some work it's going to be affordable because it's going to be spread out over this larger group and for us to have debt could say, gee I'd like to see it all shared and have ours go down, but that's not fair. Maybe ours goes down a little bit and so in the near term we benefit from it but we assume the risk in the future of schools that haven't had work done that need work done, we're going to contribute to that and find that tipping point where everyone was like, yep we're willing to accept these other towns debt at this level as a protection against our future debt and we're willing to say we'll take the benefit right now understanding that we're going to see an increase in the future. I'm not a resident and I swore I'd keep my mouth shut. But on the debt thing I did want to inform you that what's I think it's point H509 that pours the debt onto the town which means that that goes onto the town taxes and you don't have income sensitivity on that side of the taxes. So that's the other part that wouldn't work for us. Right, so there's two pieces of that. There's the income sensitivity piece and there's also the fact that it's counted as ad spending or not so it affects the spending for equalized pupil formulas and all of that. But it says may not shall because I remember reading that language so there is some room for interpretation but you would be the expert at that Tony. There's some other towns in the state that are very very upset about it. And I don't know why anyway so it's a completion but was there any the debt could go to one of the scenarios I envision that could be a possibility with the consolidation is that you have you have elementary school choice in the district and when residents of any town can choose to send their kids to the existing elementary schools in the district that kind of that kind of softens the the debt issue was that a fear of some of the schools who seem to not want to consolidate that maybe and enough parents would say well So I can only bring my perspective I think people on the committee had positions from day one and they were not going to be swayed so any of the discussions were it just we it was difficult to get to substantive discussions on the different possibilities Does that make any sense? Yes because you're absolutely right I think it was three years ago and I don't know whether it was a school board meeting that I was at as the representative but it was the beginning of what Act 46 would be about and they went around the room maybe it was the first it was the first district you were there right it was the first district and I distinctly remember the member from Worcester a gentleman saying well I'm not going to do any of this stuff the only thing I'm interested in is repealing this and I remember saying to him well you know it is the law of the land and you're supposed to roll your sleeves up and do the best that you can and by the way repeal is never going to happen he was not on the study committee that was the early that was the early I remember that so you're absolutely right so how many representatives per community were there on the committee? it depended it was proportional so East Montpelier and Berlin each had three callous and middle sex each had two and Worcester had one and they had one voting member too and the way the vote went was the East Montpelier group and floor correct me if I get the vote wrong the East Montpelier group all favored consolidation the Berlin group all opposed consolidation the one board representative from Worcester favored going to a vote and the callous board members favored going to a vote the community member did not favor going to a vote or consolidated at the end it was six to five so six favor consolidation five didn't want to consolidate so it was not a super majority yes do you have a sense of but if the reports are likely to be say three out of five towns are going to make the case for it's great the way it is even though they've been told that it's not going to conform but is that kind of your sense of the status quo as far as reports being submitted? we haven't had those we haven't had those conversations so it's you know it's hard to tell I think that you know I come at this a little bit different I think that some people had some legitimate concerns about you know school closure you know like there's a lot of things that they had kind of in the back of their mind that even though they favored going to unify they were worried that at the end the only savings is in school closure so it's really hard to say what I know that there's some talk as I've seen some emails there's some talk about just trying to do the status quo or stay in the towns and then there's the letter about joining Montpelier you know I think everybody's going in all sorts of directions so ideally we would try to bring all that energy together I think it would be fair to say we don't know at this point what boards are going to do school closure you could have addressed in the articles yes and we said we would have closed closed for five you know it's just we didn't really were able to get to the details at the end because there was no agreement on governance so you had said earlier that I think you had said earlier that part of the concern about consolidation was carrying the debt over but I thought you said Berlin was one of those schools that has debt that would so it's they just passed the bond so I want to be respectful and but I want to express so this is personal and I said it earlier when I was answering Tony's question I think what made this committee the act 46 committee hindered the work of the act 46 committee is I feel that members of the committee had positions from day one that they were not going to sway from so no amount of information no amount of anything was going to sway some of the committee members they were determined to oppose it from day one now that's just my feeling it's just my impression from the way things went but that's what I believe and I believe that's what caused that led to that committee being ineffective but I think it goes both ways because we were doing a unified as much as the ones that wanted to oppose it had made up their mind from the very beginning the ones that were sure that this is the best model had made up their mind from the beginning so there was no crossover there was no let's try to compromise and come to the middle we were slowly getting there we didn't get there so there was no movement from side I understand that M46 is for unified but you know what I'm trying to say there had to be some interaction between the two sides and trying to come up with those councils they thought that could move us to the middle but maybe it was brought too late into the process I don't know but I think just to be fair I'm not trying to put that to be fair there needs to be movement from both sides not that that means that we go to an alternative but a truthful acknowledgement of the worries of the other side from my perspective I wasn't on the committee but I was paying attention the opposition to consolidation seemed to be based on two principles one was the debt issue which is complex and I understand but I also think it was workable I mean we might not have started looking at real solutions until near the end or something but I think we could have gotten through that the other piece was just the very principled position that local control whatever that means to people smaller is better and this is a government mandate that's being handed down to us and we're going to fight it that's not anything that I think you were going to be able to convince anybody or any amount of data was going to convince that's just a very principled decision it's just continuing to have these conversations people slowly and I don't know if Doc can speak to that people were slowly starting to get there and unfortunately we ended up with the three members of Berlin still voting against that because I think they were hoping that we would do an alternative so it's it's not easy but we have to figure it out I mean if I can interject and I'm not trying to squash the discussion if people have questions ask them I'm more interested in what we're going to do going forward and less interested on what's happened over the last 18 months if I could just following up on so if we believe that there's not really a scenario where we can present something to the agency that they will approve maybe the best we can do is try to influence their decision and one thing we might try is to start with some principles with this board or this community that we have and advance those principles just a set of statements about things that we believe that we want to see in whatever the agency decides and try to build some support from maybe Worcester maybe other boards maybe individual board members so things like we believe a consolidated model will be better for the SU if that's what we believe some sharing of debt would be beneficial for the SU if that's what we believe and try to build some momentum and invite others in to share those principles if they do because it's hard for me to see how we're going to be able to advance something to the agency where they say okay there's just not time so along those lines there is a body of work and a body of knowledge carried around in a handful of heads that have worked very hard on this for the last 18 months and I would like to see that collaboration between boards just personally speaking continue I I think it's there's two sides so there's the one side that says well if we want to show just how inefficient the five board system can be then we can all go off into our separate corners and we can all do exactly the same work between now and November and that'll be a beautiful case in point of what a ridiculous way this is to do a common share task or we can choose to actually adopt whatever version of this model we can to the degree that we can by having those heads that have been working on this issue and have done so much work collaborate and continue to do so and perhaps start thinking things like those shared those shared values and shared statements that then come back to the town that the voters of the towns can weigh in on and say yes we think those are valuable and we stand behind those and we agree with them or we don't it's very frustrating to me on a personal level that any board member who is a representative of the town would refuse to have an issue come to the town that's my personal take on it I think as a representative to the town sometimes it's our job to lead but never is it our job to not give the voters an opportunity to weigh in should we put a survey out about do you want to have a vote and since we don't have something to vote on we don't have anything to vote on but do you want to I think tonight we call the community forum and we've asked for community input so I would ask as community members how do you feel about what years ago I was on the school boards and I can't imagine this has changed there was prevailing thought that the best educational model for our sixth graders was that they really need to be out of the elementary school by the time they're done with fifth grade and having a real middle school a 6, 7 and 8 would be beneficial to all kids educationally if that is still a continued philosophy or mindset what does that do to the if the 5 elementary schools were now sending their sixth graders to U32 what does that do to the viability of the 5 schools staying as 5 elementary schools so that was part of the that was part of the efficiency study that was done and the efficiency study said if that's the model we want to Calis would close no, Worcester would not close Worcester can't close because there's not enough space not enough space for Romney to take in Worcester could go to whatever the efficiency study didn't address consolidation it aggressed efficiencies and if all students went to if we had a true 6, 7, 8 middle school we reduced all the elementary schools down to pre-K through 5 and it didn't say Calis had to close but Calis could close there was space the only way there were savings is if we kept Calis close and it created a more efficient more opportunities specific schools that each so like you said Calis would close would that mean they'd be absorbed here or here in Worcester they would be absorbed primarily here because we have excess we have excess space and I think there are two sort of overarching pieces to act 46 one is student opportunity and if you read the letter tell any of you this but the law specifically addresses educational opportunity it has very little to do with cost and so in following the spirit of the law as it's written we're really not talking about cost savings and I think there's a little bit of a red herring at work where there are a lot of people focusing on where the money is and where it's going to come from and what it means and how it all flows and what's it going to mean to my taxes but at the end of the day that's not what act 46 was really author to do it may have been sold that way which is deeply unfortunate but but the efficiency studies that we made we were looking for efficiencies we were looking for savings but that was free and we walked to the side and had really nothing to do other than the coincidence of time with act 46 back to the hypothetical list of core values I would put equality of opportunity right at the top and I think that and we may be in the luxurious position of being able to sort of feel that way about other students I don't know that other communities necessarily feel that way but we again, alright I feel very strongly that that it is all of our kids I mean my kids go to school with Worcester kids and they all come together in the same place come seventh grade so why they have extracurriculars together I mean they're in summer camps together it's not that big a place that our circles don't intersect almost completely so again one of my personal frustrations is this idea that these Venn diagrams are like these five circles with these little tiny intersections it's just not it's not the way it really works everyone used to talk to us I was on the U32 board about 90, 90, 90 schools that are 90% minority, 90% low SES and 90% meeting the standards and we're here with at best 60% meeting the standards and we're next to nothing in terms of minority and very low SES, relatively low compared to 90 I think we're complacent I think we're not really looking hard enough but how much better we could and should be if we were putting our energy in the right places so how are we going to move forward I have one thing to what Rubin said when you talk about the five I always remember that there's the six one if you're going to talk that way, you should include the six speaking personally, I completely agree I think it's absurd that we have a district with a big hole blow in the middle of it and that buses through we got to get our stuff every day before we can entertain that I don't agree with that I'm not sure that's true and so personally what I would like is to have some representation from this board town, whatever who is charged with reaching out to and collaborating with willing parties on the other boards including Montpelier let's talk about it and figure it out it won't be a first it won't be a first for sure so just so we're clear, right now we're prevented by a statute reaching out to Montpelier because they're involved in a 706B which prevents them from discussing with other districts they're only permitted to talk to Roxbury until their 706B committee is resolved so right now we're prevented from by statute from outreaching to them they're prevented from speaking to us I would presume that we're not prevented by statute they're prevented from talking to us yes I agree but again to go back to how I started the meeting I think there's uniformity on what we feel I think we should express that to the other boards and ask if there are other boards that feel the way we feel and are interested in pursuing those goals how would you do that board chair to board chair that's what my suggestion was at the start but frankly my hesitation to that I have not been involved with Act 46 so I would I would I'm willing to do it but I would be much more comfortable if another representative from this board who was on the Act 46 committee well it could be decided that someone else outreached but we would have to be clear on what it is that we want others to that we're interested in there inviting others to talk about and if no one's interested like I said it informs how we move forward if there's interest it informs how we move forward but I felt like our boards had a clear understanding except perhaps new members that haven't been able to participate so of where the committee was going got pretty regular feedback on our stance and was our stance the stance of the board was our opinions the opinions of the board and so I felt like we were we had a certain unified approach throughout the process and if that unified approach continues to be we would like to move in the direction of consolidation and see if we can create and no that we liked the possibility of consolidation and we would like to write some articles of agreement to present a proposal to the community I do not think without some kind of leadership and some kind of proposal that we'll ever move forward we'll talk because we feel differently about I don't feel different about moving forward I think I very much want to move forward but like they say and this is new to me because I've come from places that that's how you have dictators it doesn't matter how and that's the part that I love about not being here it takes a little while and there's so much that you can put down somebody's throat that you need buying you need buying for it to to move forward you need buying from the community so I'm not saying let's not to do it but let's make sure that if we're doing it we're doing it in an inclusive in an inclusive way so we're not pitting each other against each other I think we have to move forward together whether it is that we move forward with a unified model so we move forward and say we're going to justify what we have take our chances and they're going to say no because that might be what some boards wants us to do so we would just go with an open mind I think we can I think if those boards want to do that they are free to do that at this point the Act 46 model 706B committee wasn't able to gain consensus which means that if there are boards who want to try that model they are welcome to do that I'm not willing to let there I'm not willing to follow that plan I don't think it's a good plan from an educational perspective and I don't like being not the master of our destiny I'm not willing to be play a passive role so that says to me and here's what I suspect will happen a subset of the folks that have been working on Act 46 for a long will start to collaborate and it will be a genuine collaboration and there will be a different model of consensus building such and there have been heavy lessons learned in that committee and it will be a much more functional group and what will come out of that is a healthy discussion around a problem solving discussion around the actual issues instead of everybody being lined up behind whatever head row they decided that they were lining up behind and when that work starts to move forward first it will show the agency of education that we are taking deliberate steps to not thumb our nose at the law and to follow the law which I think is really important because at the end of the day the law is the law and if they decide to come in and say you are a district then they will I hope be kinder to those of us who have been working diligent toward some sort of a model that fits their requirements I think in a hopeful way that if some of the other towns that have been reluctant to join see these substantive conversations happening they may actually come to the table slightly later and with a different stance that's my hope and that at the end of the day we will land where we are all trying to land where we are going to land like I mean this is my opinion but Rebecca Holcomb was really clear we are going to be consolidated so we can bury our heads in the sand and pretend that's going to happen or we are going to sue or draw this process out for years and years and years and years but the reality is that even if that happens couldn't be consolidated in the meantime because that's the law so even if somebody was able to prevail in a court of law years down the road are they going to tear it apart once you have a functioning consolidated district I think not so we have agreed to do that with Rebecca that we were disbanding we said we look forward to continue to collaborate and comply with the goals back 46 it's not like we acknowledge that we want to so I agree with you and Stephen I understand that we need leadership all I'm saying is that we need leadership but we need to continue to talk together I felt like for example Chris it was his idea to talk at the full board meeting they came up with the idea of having the boards come together whether it was appointing the representative of that board and continue to move forward together so if there's three boards that say we need to continue to move this together and then get input from them of how we continue to move in that direction where's the optimism I hope you're right I was at that at that meeting and I was like men I didn't know where Chris McCabe was coming from with his statement after being one of the rigid opponents of the whole thing so where does your optimism come what's it found in it I think I think I am a hopeless and eternal optimist just in general it's not based on it's not based on it's not based on any interpersonal conversations or any I think it's really it's like an outsider's thousand foot view of this if you take a step back and you look at the inevitability of it then it becomes take the emotion out of it then the choice becomes clearer you can be passive and it may still happen to you or you can be active and it may still happen to you but at least you've had a hand in what happens and that's where I want to be the ship has sailed on holding hands and singing kubaiya at this point as a unified district we know that's not going to happen all five towns at this point have said that can't happen there's too much baggage there's too many issues representatives from the act 46 committee have said that and that's a distinction that I called out earlier and then made badly I went to a lot of those meetings and I never left with much optimism as I walked out I thought they were ugly I was very upset when I left and I finally said I can't go to them anymore because and so it's hard for me and I would be hopeful that something that I didn't see as being as big a deal as other people and I am a townsperson but obviously it turned out to be a very big deal so I think to characterize my position it's not optimistic as much as hopeful that's a good way to put it so with the changes that have happened where we said that Berlin now has debt is there any perception that that may have changed some of their position or is it potential that their representation doesn't represent their full boards opinion and therefore if we do meet again as a committee that there may be different representation from each town that may have a different position and in my directly I don't think it matters they knew they were going to have debt I think we know that there we know what we want and tonight we don't know what anybody else wants right so we're here we're getting input we're saying does this sound reasonable does this path that we're talking about make sense and it sounds like yes I think that's part of the charge is to find out if there is any change of heart and I think what we're all hoping for is that whatever this group becomes or is or however it sort of stands up that it's you know if you want to come to the table come to the table leave your baggage at the door or don't but we're going to have substantive conversations about this I think it may just by virtue of it being a voluntary group instead of a 706B that may actually who knows I don't know because I have my own kicks about the heavy handedness of it and it took me a while to come around at the end of the day we don't know and I think that's really what we're hoping that we can find out with some representation just a quick observation it seems like the committee as it was working that part of what helped it up was the representational aspect of it you know individuals coming representing counts were not necessarily representing the consensus of the school boards and if you move forward to meet with five towns is it possible to call a large meeting where the boards get together rather than sending representatives in other words if you guys are sitting around a room all staring at each other is that an opportunity to get a better sense of how the towns are feeling as opposed to relying on representatives to act as intermediaries we try to do that at the full board meeting but because now it's gone back the 706B has disbanded and there's no charge for the full board it's not a legal body that can decide for each of our towns it's now back in each of our towns so our only hope is to do what we're saying have somebody represent and let go of there so are you prevented from inviting the other school boards to come sit in a meeting with you? I don't think so that's kind of what my point is that I think during this month the local boards will be discussing how they feel how they think they should move forward and interacting with their community however they think is appropriate that's why I think our next step is then to say everyone's met as a local board this is what we felt as a local board what do you feel like and if there are others that feel the way we do then we can work together as a group to generate one report and move forward if no one else wants to do what we want to do then our board gets together again and here's what the other board said and it helps us until my position I've talked against positions all night but we don't know what the other boards think and before we can decide how to proceed we need to know what the other boards think not representatives not some people what does the board think my suggestion to you would be if you thought it was the proper thing to do that this board should take the informal vote on supporting a consolidation structure and you could put that out as a press release to the town if you wanted that I can't believe that if this board especially if you had a unanimous vote going in one direction that you would have the town not supporting the position that we can't and that would give you strength going forward with the other it also demonstrates that that's something a board can do I think part of the problem is not all the boards are unanimous I think there was a reluctance to take a board action this is what we believe could really help you really do need to know what the other boards think for me I'd like to know what more of our not just our boards think but our community as well you guys all seem very pro at 46 emerging in our last meeting I can't remember yeah he didn't you know so is there more polls out there that are strongly against or well exactly I wish we had more represented well I think we'd find out if we took a stance yeah that's true if the stance we take is strongly not supported by the community we'll hear that so I mean from my perspective we're elected officials we're supposed to make decisions that's why people have elected us because collectively they can't make decisions so let's make a damn decision put it out and it'll either be supported or it won't be supported if it's supported then we look to the other boards how do you feel about this because if there's one thing my experience tells me on a school board you tend not to hear a lot if people agree with it if people disagree with it you'll hear in uncertain terms that they don't like that the community doesn't like that and you will hear that so I think we take a position this is how we feel how does the community feel we're gonna ask and we could put it in an article or put it on Facebook this is how the school board feels this is our position we're gonna ask other boards how they feel and what their positions are but you understand as the East Montpelier community how we're moving forward how do you feel about that here's the contact information you can contact the administrators you can contact the central office you can come to our next meeting which is in a couple weeks avenues for input you know just so that the community can then respond to what we've said I mean that's what we do with the vote we ask for input we never know collectively how the whole community feels we think okay this is our position we think this is the way the budget should be and the town lets us know if they support that or not there's a question as a community member and parent I would say that a lot of people especially hearing a unanimous vote are gonna lean toward wow they know more about this issue than I do they've been immersed in Act 46 and all the positives and negatives and read the efficiency reports and there is an element of members who are gonna trust that of course there will be some who don't but I think many you would have more buy in buy that statement and when I think of the town's representatives who were against consolidating they may or may not be representing the majority of their board but they've been the liaison so what that board has heard is a one-sided view for the most part so they I'm not as optimistic but a strong person coming from a town against consolidating is gonna be strongly convincing the people that they are around to think their way unfortunately although I would point out that we dealt with the issue of the Australian ballot or town meeting vote for the budget there were some very very strong opinions and that was a very very electric meeting at U32 and I think the vote was overwhelming for what we have today so one side did prevail pretty heavy on that paper on paper that first time when the very strong-minded people got up they shot it down it was only when it was quieter and people had an opportunity to think for themselves that they voted it up but it was in paper where they called them they had been there he told me later how it could have been avoided spur of the moment stop we didn't know what to do so before I forget I want to again on the record and I want to support the letter that Jenny Burley put out on the front page forum really thanking you and respecting you all the hard work that you have done as a board we feel very well I feel very well represented by a group of really intelligent people totally and you were way more patient than either one of us ever could have we'll have to acknowledge Floor's Patience continued at a better level than mine did at a certain point in the process so she deserves even more credit for being continued to work for a lot of work so I have a pretty I think we have a pretty clear sense of the room that we're strongly supportive of exploring this further so the action item is to appoint Board Representative to act as liaison with the other districts I see Floor's hand shooting up I would like to interject that I was at meetings before and after Floor was chair and Floor worked her heart out to make this work and to keep people civil and to engender respect between all the people she is an amazing woman I wish you lived in Calis I mean to say that however let's not forget that Stephen who let it for a year did a great job too having to be the right personality to try to make let's just move forward this was a tough one all the way around and it was hard to watch for everybody but Ruben before we vote on that I'm in agreement I'd like us to go on record of and if I was going to word a motion I might word it like one pillar elementary school board favors supports writing articles of agreement that would lead to consolidation or would lead to a Washington Central Supervile no I can't say that that would lead towards districts consolidating a consolidated district model yeah if there was a second we could discuss that I'm just trying to get down what you said Stephen Ruben was writing articles of agreement to support a consolidated district model a consolidated district model that would lead to a consolidated district model where do you imagine will happen with those articles I don't imagine that we might even write them I'm just saying this is our current stance there are others to write them with if you want my basic gut opinion the articles if there's like minded groups the only article that takes any consideration is the debt one the other articles can be written very quickly from a template the debt model would be unique the debt article would be unique what? councils aren't unique other people doing that I don't know of anyone that didn't support councils that's fine it's still easy to write no one wants to limit can we add to this because I think one of the strongest points that everybody made today is that bring it to a vote to our that will lead to a consolidated district model to bring to a vote to our towns because that's something that we're not I wouldn't put it in the motion floor because we don't know where it's going to lead we're making a statement if we're the only ones that feel that way then it won't go to a vote for the town because there's no reason for the town to vote because there's nothing that could change if we're going to write articles of agreement to consolidate well actually it doesn't have to go to voters but I don't think we would have a vision not sending it to the voters my read of the current statute is it's now up to school boards to decide I know in East Montpelier we wouldn't decide without the support of the town I don't think any other towns would either so we would progress the same way as if we were a 706 B we would write articles and the town would vote on them and say this is what they want to do but I don't think it needs to be in the motion so the motion is the East Montpelier school board supports writing articles of agreement that would lead toward a consolidated district I have a motion and a second which means that we can discuss I don't need to discuss I'm not seeing any faces that look like they need to discuss I'm willing to wait if people are I just I don't need to discuss so all of those in favor of the motion please say aye aye opposed abstains okay and then are we going to take action on 2-1 yes so 2-1 here's my recommendation and it's just me I do not think the representatives should be people that served the act 46 committee why because all this should be there should be no advocating at all it should just be gathering information what do you think, how do you feel anybody can do that they need no knowledge of act 46 whatsoever all we're doing is saying this is how we feel how do you feel so what do you envision do you think that then boards would pick representation or would pick a model I have no idea what would happen but depending on so depending on who are picked as liaisons could influence the flow of information and I want to facilitate the flow of information but then if there's questions what questions are there how does your feel this is how our board feels how does your board feel we don't want to know what individuals think we want to know what a board collectively thinks that's why my suggestion was is it the chair level the chair represents the board and then when we hear then to me the next step would be if regardless of how the boards felt if there was a group of boards that wanted to go in a direction then they would decide on some method of doing that which it would be reasonable to think that there would be representatives assigned liaisons however you want to put it to move forward so you as a board just voted to support consolidation so you've taken a stand for the board members if you want somebody like that you have to appoint somebody who's not on the board to play that role but then that person needs to respect and represent what the board just voted so what I'm saying is we're not at the stage where someone is representing our board we're at the stage where we're telling the other boards how we stand and asking them what their stance is we have no liaisons yet because we don't know if we need liaisons so let me ask this question then are we then what it almost sounds like to me is that we're tabling 2.1 no that's not it sounds like we could table 2.1 and I'm only saying this because I'm the chair but I could pull the other like we've made a clear statement so then I can reach out let me just see if I'm understanding so then I would reach out to other board chairs take a straw poll of what positions other boards have taken and then what I'm just suggesting that the information is shared with the other boards and find out what the other board's stances are there's no negotiation, there's no liaising this is what we think what do you think and that informs and the only reason the only reason I say the board chair is because the board chair in most instances is the spokesperson for the board and so board to board, it's chair to chair it's not someone on the board the board chair speaks for the board you speak for us you tell the other boards this is our stance this is what we voted on how are you feeling about this and the other board chairs representing their board say this is what our board thinks that's the only reason logically the chair represents the board I am comfortable with that as long as that is as far as it goes I'm suggesting that's as far as it goes as the board chair you share the information with the other board chairs they share with what they want to share with you you come back at our next board meeting I've told the other chairs this is the information that I've gathered what do we want to do we're lucky we meet again this week so here's how I suspect this would play out we meet again this is a special meeting but I thought we'd change that meeting to now so we have the 24th meeting we still have the regular meeting did that one on the calendar I don't think I've been invited to see you so I think my suggestion then if we want to follow this path that in our regular board chairs meeting I will discuss I will disclose that we've had this vote and we as a board voted unanimously to in support of writing articles of agreement and that my suggestion to all of the boards would be to put the action item that we have on on their next meeting agenda and that the boards at that point appoint a representative to act as the liaison and it seems to me in my 12 and a half seconds of thinking about this that walks that fine line of having it come from the appointed spokesperson of the board without tripping into the land of that which I'm not qualified to have an opinion on which is pretty much anything to do with Act 46 because I have been a bystander really so that's where my hesitation I don't want to be in a position where I'm having any kind of substantive discussion about Act 46 or the machinations that have gone into it because I have not been involved except very peripherally from the sidelines as bystanders that's why you're the right person to do it because this is not a substantive conversation it's just research I guess I'm just belaboring the point really if that's the way we want to pursue then we'd have to call a special board chairs meeting we don't have a board chairs meeting scheduled until maybe even early June so then I think my charge would be to see if we can do that we can we can propose that we can propose that I would suspect other board chairs would be willing to do that I can't say that because of the governance structure that we're in but you know how are you going to do that otherwise we're going to do the same thing it's at this point up to the local a board chair could say our board doesn't want to do that and they wouldn't have to be there I don't think that I think board chairs would be more than happy to have a special board chair meeting to discuss whatever would be on the agenda so people understand there are some board chair meetings that are done collectively and they're typically before a full board and the board chairs build the agenda for the full board meeting so I would so we have two weeks before our next meeting and one of them is the school vacation week would that being said do you think you could get the chairs meeting or should you just reach out via email I'm actually inclined to just reach out to each of the individual chairs and get a sense of where they stand whether they feel like we need a board chairs meeting or if they would be willing to just put action item 2.1 on their next meeting agenda because if they are then we don't need to have an entire meeting about it so my recollection our last board meeting was that everyone had a meeting prior to school vacation so it's a potential they've already had this conversation it is possible that they're having them tonight or Thursday night so what I will do is I will reach out to them all tomorrow and while we have a lull I would interject some hope in the whole process and why I'm encouraging what you're doing Ruben I would like to hope if there's like minded boards that we still may be able to write articles of agreement presented to the town and shared with the state board in time to benefit from tax incentives it would be incredibly tight fit and it would be very hopeful thinking but the possibility would exist can I make a suggestion to go with that that somebody put something out tonight, tomorrow that screams this from the rooftop what you voted on tonight because otherwise it's just going to stay hidden there's nobody that's going to publish this I'm sure Flora will share it with Facebook I'm hoping Flora will put it up put it up on my I did put it up on Facebook and I went out late I've got a whole press list if you need it do we have a whole press list that you can go to anymore yeah would it be helpful if those of us with contacts in other towns got to put on their front porch forms as well they can get it on their floor yeah this may be an instance go ahead I think it would be important to let put it out in front porch form but also to let you have the conversations with the other with the other boards I think this would be an instance where for us to put the information in front of other towns would not be good this is how we feel we want the community members from East Montpelier to understand that I think we're overstepping our bounds and creating opportunities for friction if we're putting this out to other towns that's the purview of that local town and their board to decide what information they want to share and how they want to share it or the citizens of that town they're going to hear all the towns are going to hear it I just don't want to I don't want to make it look like we're lobbying to community members in other towns just make sure our citizens hear it from you first I'm sure I totally trust Floor that it will get out at least in Facebook form very timely okay so just to be clear you're going to post it on our porch form alrighty do we need further action? I think we don't need further action I think we've got the beginnings very very beginnings of something that approaches a game plan okay thank you all for your input thank you thank you join us no it's an awkward