 We are at 6.30, and we have a quorum. The bus is on. Just so you know, this meeting will be recorded. Rochester Stockbridge Unified District Board of School Directors regular meeting, Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021, 6.30 PM at the Stockbridge campus and via Google Meet, amended agenda. We have called to order any adjustments to the agenda. There being none, let's move on to Timekeeper. Amy, what do you feel? Is it too far away? Are you OK? No, it's fine. I can do it. Consent agenda, five public comments. Who knows? Board comment? Anybody going to be jumping on? No. Give it five in case somebody gets inspired. Celebration, learning 15? Yeah, I think so. 15, Amy? Is that good? 15 or so? I think it'll be less, probably a little less than half. OK. We've always underdone these reports to the board for time, so I'm going to give them a good 35 discussion item. 35? 35. Gotcha. Building use, request. What's going to be the year? What do you think? Draft two? Pretty good news on draft two, actually. Yeah, OK. I want to give you 10. Let's try for 10 in each. It's not going to be that. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. That's given an hour for discussion items. I think that's reasonable. And at least keep us on track. Any new hires resignation? Yes. Is that the first time? Might be. Public comment again? No, that's true. We've just put a lot of effort into it. I hate to say the image of silt, but it feels a little like you said it. It's kind of cool. All right, then future generation. All right, let's get to work. So consent agenda. We can approve 4-1 and 4-2 as a slate. 4-3 and 4-4, this is sort of got behind us, the retreat. It's the special meeting and the retreat. And we need to, Jamie and Lindy and I will work on that and have that for the next month. So just so Christie isn't upset with us, we will work on that. I would entertain a motion if there is, what we can entertain a motion to approve them and then discuss if there's any questions. Minutes of Tuesday, October 5th, 2021, regular. And approve the amended minutes of Tuesday, September 7th, 2021, regular. So moved. So moved by Robert. Second. Seconded by Bill. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you, Robert. I would have slipped over that little detail. And that's here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I make a motion to table 4-3 and 4-4. Thank you for that, Robert. I appreciate that. Second. Seconded by Bill. Seconded by Bill. Thank you. He got a little head of you. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Robert. I just slipped over that little detail. And that's very important. Is there any public comment at this time? I see Julie Grop. Julie Grop, do you have any public comment? Sorry, I was on mute. I don't have any public comment. Thank you very much. Pat Harvey, do you have any public comment? I'll tell you that as a no. Tim Pratt, do you have any public comment? Okay. Thank you, Tim. Unknown. Do we know? There's an unknown number. Oh, Nancy. Nancy, do you have any public comment? You're still muted, but I think that was a no reading your lips, but I'll take that as a no. She sat back pretty comfortably. Okay. Good. Very good. Anybody else? I don't see anybody else there. Good. Good. Excellent. Moving on. I have a quick word comment. No. Very good. Oh, what the heck? I'm going to do it. I have a quick one. I want to share. I don't know. I mean, you can tell me that it's inappropriate. I want to acknowledge you, Lindy. You made some tough calls last spring. Some really tough calls and there was a lot of pushback about it. And from everything I'm hearing, they were good calls and they were supporting our students and they're working. And I want to acknowledge publicly acknowledge Wendy. And I'm glad we supported her as we did board. Because I believe she really had the best interests of our students at heart. Thank you. It's appropriate. Good. Celebration of learning. Yeah. Speaking of. New positions. Good evening. I'm wondering if my presentation could be shown. Is that possible? Yeah. It is a Google. Slide presentation. Thank you. I've called it the outdoors and mindful education. First of all, I just have trouble hearing. Can you hear me? No, I can't. Thank you. Okay. Super. Thank you for asking me to share information with you about the outdoors program. My name, if you don't know me is Amy Braun. And I have been a teacher for 25 years. Most of the time right here in this valley. And obviously I've adapted and changed over those 25 years, especially during this past year when I took my teaching practices outside. The kids and I learned that it can be done inside. It can be done outside. And they have learned so much more than just reading, and I can't possibly sum it all up right here. But I've been enjoying so far getting to know all the kids on both campuses this year. Sharing my love for the outdoors with them has been my pleasure. And building this program has been a joy. Can I have the next slide, please? So what is going on during our time outside? If you would click right and everybody can find out. A beautiful place. Our children will only understand this when they are exposed to the outdoors as much as possible. When they are with me, each class begins with a cup of herbal non-caffeinated tea served to them from my mother's teapot. We began the year studying dandelions. All kids grades pre-K to sixth grade learned to identify the characteristics of the dandelion plant from the leaves to the flowers, the seeds and the roots. With a little honey added, many kids enjoy the taste of the tea. From there, we moved on to harvesting burdock, cleaning it, peeling it, chopping it, boiling it, chamomile, and staghorn sumac. We've been busy drying our herbs to make tea to keep us warm on the coming cold winter days. But it's not just about tea. It's about being able to sustain ourselves. From holding the cup to feeling it's warmth, taking deep breaths, being present, mindful, spending time with our feet on the ground. We play games, observe nature, read books, and try to understand our surroundings better every time we venture outside. And most importantly, every student is writing those things down in a journal. What exactly is my philosophy? Why am I doing this? Outdoor education provides opportunities to develop positive relationships with the environment, with others, with ourselves, through interaction with the natural world. These relationships are essential for the well-being and sustainability of individuals, of society, and our world. Nature is the teacher. I'm simply the guide. We live in Vermont. A beautiful place. I'm going to pass it over to you. If you go to the next slide, it just sort of recaps the philosophy again, if you're willing to go to that next slide, please. We see it, Amy, do you? I do. I was letting you read it. I wasn't going to. But basically, it sums it up better than I could in words. I've done a lot of research about it. I've been taking classes, and I'm currently taking a cup of tea. If you go to the next slide, I'll show you the ingredients we need to make that happen. Now more than ever, we need to be present in our bodies and not as much present in our brains. When the kids come outside to me, the first thing I do, as I mentioned earlier, is hand them a cup of tea. It's been a tea that we have harvested together, so they're understanding the idea of where to find it, what it looks like, what look-alike plants might be in the garden, what they're doing. They're not going to get hurt, but we've harvested the herbs and cleaned the herbs and dried the herbs. And by the way, thank you, Stockbridge, because there is so much mint in that garden. Every day I go to the grocery bag up and I'm drying them so that we can stay warm through the winter. And so here are the ingredients, basically. But the bottom is the kids, the teachers, and the fresh air. And when it gets to be cold and these kids are outside, I believe they're building the resiliency to get past this time. So if you'll go on to the next slide. Being outdoors builds our resilience, which is all something that we need right now. And I guess at this point, I'll open it up to any questions that anyone might have or comments that people would like to share. I'm the board chair. Oh, I recognize myself. Amy, what's the vision for the rest of the year? So right now we're doing the five cases. Can you hear me? I'm sorry. Okay, right now we're doing the five tastes of herbs. So I'm diving into sour this week so that kids can understand what the taste of sour is. And part of that will build into the mindfulness where we'll put signs up in the forest. The first sign that we'll put up will be the word sour. And so we will liken that to sometimes when you feel like you're in a sour mood, maybe having a sour tea might help to get you to ground yourself and then identify some of those feelings. And toward the end of the year for the pathways part of my job, I'd like to do math game boards with all of the kids pre K to six on both campuses and then hold maybe a virtual math night or if, if we're by that point, we're able to be in person. Kids can demonstrate and show their math work and we'll be on with the theme of what we've learned in the outdoors. So if they decide they want to make it be a theme of Burdock, they can, they can get pictures of Burdock, draw pictures of Burdock, create the board game, but then it will link it into the math. So, and because I'm taking this class right now, mindfulness in the cup of tea in the spring, the other part is to actually plant herb gardens with the preschoolers so that on both campuses, we have an active herb garden. And as I mentioned at Stockbridge, there's already quite a bit of mint that I can see, but there is not one Burdock plant on that campus. So we kind of planted just got to warn you all, we planted a few Burdock so that we can harvest it next year. So along the edge of the woods, I didn't put it in the middle of the field, but there was not one Burdock over there. So we shared from Rochester, as you could see on my hat in the picture. So does that answer your question, Ethan? Yes, thank you. Okay. Anybody else? Any further questions for Amy? Bill? Yeah, I have a question. Can you speak a little bit about the, um, the level of engagement and anything you've noticed in that? I mean, you've been doing this a little bit. You started last year in your own classroom, but, um, yeah, can you speak a little bit about that? Absolutely. Um, the kids are psyched when they come outside and they're right away now. They realize that the first thing I do is hand them the T and always there's questions, you know, what kind is it? And did we help make it? And where did it come from? And all of those types of things. So they come out. The other thing we do is we spread out and we take off masks and we turn towards the sun and we, and we breathe like one of the main things I feel these kids need right now is to not be wearing a mask and to take a second to just feel their bodies and be outside. So that's one of the main things we do. And they're into it. I have a couple of different, um, I call them gadgets. I use one as a chime and with the older kids to get them to be mindful. It's difficult for them to stop because they're, they're at that age where they like to, you know, tease each other and move around. But if I hit a chime, they actually learn to stop and wait for it to stop until they don't hear the sound anymore. So I'm getting them to actually be still and be mindful. So I think it's, I think it's great. I come home exhausted. I'm completely exhausted at the end of every day because I'm, I'm outside the whole time. I don't spend a lot of time inside. So I can attest that my brain is working while I'm out there and my body's. I really like the documentation you're doing. It's really neat. Oh, thank you. And, and actually you went to herb schools. So some of these things are familiar things to you too. But yeah, the kids are becoming little herbalists. And I think that's important that they know what is in their actual backyard. And some kids actually actually today, this is really sweet. This little girl stopped me when I was walking down the hall and she said, I've got something for you. Hold on. Stay right there. So she ran back into the classroom and came out with this huge grocery bag. And it was this massive mushroom. And she handed it to me like a gift. Like, here, I found this. Thank you. So I don't even know what it is yet. I have to identify it, but it was the sweetest gift. And I've had kids bring me bags of dandelion from home and birdock and things like they are definitely bringing, bringing it home and going outside and finding those things. So it's pretty exciting. Any other questions? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of comments. One is what you're doing is ageless. The message, the vision, the passion, the gift you're giving these kids, we're all kids and we all could learn from you and what you're talking about, whether you're talking about the low of nature or mindfulness or just taking a moment to be still and observant and to have that taste of tea. So I think that is neat. And you could be teaching this as far as I'm concerned, it'd be helpful K through 12 and K through, I don't want to reveal my age, but I think it's a timeless and important message and essence that if our kids can just keep some of that as they grow older, it'll be a real gift. And I wanted to thank you for that. Well, thank you very much. I am hoping that this program will grow like a, like a pebble tossed into a pond, you know, that it will go out and the class that I'm in, there are other teachers that are doing similar things with just one group. And the gift that this board has given me to be able to pre-K to six is such a gift. I've never worked with this many kids at once. And it really, it really is an amazing experience because there'll be a minute where I'll be with pre-K and they're holding on to this snake that I have so that they stay together outside. And then the next minute I'm with sixth graders and they're climbing over a fence, you know, so it's like the, the diversity is really exciting. So thank you for acknowledging that. And thank you to the board for allowing this to happen. And I look forward to every year, the program building. And some day I'm going to hit you up for more time with classes because right now I get 40 minutes and I really want a bigger chunk of time because I think I'll get a lot more done. So there's the shameless plug for that. Great. Excellent. Any other questions? Oh, Amy, go ahead. I just wanted to say that I think it is absolutely wonderful what you're doing. And I'm so happy that you are now with all of our kids in the whole school rather than just, you know, restricted to one age group, one class. So I'm just, it's so thrilled with what you're doing. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Very good. Further questions? Well, I'll just sum it up by saying, there's no question. Okay. Sorry. No, no, go for it. I'll sum it up by saying that next time when I can be in person with you guys, I can bring a little pot of tea and you guys can have a moment where you can enjoy that too. Maybe something that the kids have harvested because they're very excited about what they're creating too. So we'd love to share it with you. Oh, yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much, Amy. It feels very wrong to move on. Reports to the board. But that's what we're reporting this. Yeah. Reports to the board. Start off with the superintendent. That's a tough act to follow. So you have my, my written report. You know, since the report, we did have positivity in the ARSA community. The community spread right now is pretty significant. It's not just an ARSA. I was up at 4am dealing with COVID in another school. I was dealing with COVID before I came here tonight. So I just think the more we can put a shout out around just being safe in the community to follow the mitigation efforts that we implement here, the better. And we're hoping to have vaccination clinics up and running for our youngest students within the next three weeks. There will be a forum on November 18th with Dr. Miller from the health hub. She's a pediatrician that took over for Becky folks. And many folks probably know Becky folk. Maybe some folks even on the call. She was your pediatrician. She was mine. I'll admit that. And so Dr. Miller took over that office. And so she is going to be holding a statewide forum on the 18th. And so we're going to tap into that. And also share other forms that that night doesn't work to try to get information out to our communities. And, you know, I would say that, you know, Wendy and nurse Chelsea was incredible over the weekend. They responded quickly and swiftly, you know, on a Saturday and a Sunday. So just a shout out to all my folks. I keep saying this. I got to tell you this year is way harder than last year. The toll that the staff's under is significant. I want to acknowledge that I try to acknowledge it. I hope the staff's hearing that I'm certainly well aware. And I'm really hoping that as we start to increase our vaccinations, that maybe that will be a left burden right now. That's over the school systems in general. How sick. How sick are kids getting. Well, you know, I can't speak to every case, but what I can tell you is, is that some kids get sick. Like it's like a really bad virus. Knock on wood. We haven't had any one hospital lives or anything like that. But, you know, and some kids, they're asymptomatic, right? It's like what you hear on the news. Some and same with adults. Like so that is that has been my experience as the superintendent. We have some students who get sick. And some students who don't get sick. And I don't know, you know, just I am sort of, there's going to be a ton of research done on this. About the why that is. But right now we just don't know. So what I will say is, is that I've been really happy with our mitigation efforts. They really do seem to work. I was sharing with Lindy. We've had COVID in our middle school at White River Valley. A few times now. And at our high school. And I share those because you just see kids are more mixed, right? And we've been able to really contain spread. Within the school building. So masking, washing hands, being diligent about cleaning. Really does seem to be critical. And we do see our vaccination rates ticking up. Which is good. But, you know, they really, they can't be high enough as far as I'm concerned, because again, you know, that that really does seem to, when you talk about sickness, we have been not been seeing anyone who's been vaccinated, at least in school, these children getting sick. So. And that's what vaccine does, right? It builds up your body's immunity to be able to better fight this off. Thank you. So I look forward to at some point as your superintendent, hopefully not talking about COVID. We did get about a month of it, I think this year. And now I feel like we're back into it again, but there's a lot going out also. I don't know if you watch my videos. I know that they could be improved. I did send you that mic. We're going about the bike. But, you know, I'll say that we're ramping up test-to-state measures as well. And so those will be implemented on a few different ways. For those students who are not vaccinated, we'll do antigen testing. And we'll continue to stay if there's a close contact. And so an example, like the situation we have right now in Rochester, those close contacts could be coming in every morning and getting antigen tested. We have the results within 15 to 30 minutes, as long as they're negative and they're not demonstrating any symptoms they can stay. Those students who are close contacts, we could have sent them home with a PCR test. They could have done themselves some mail, so they didn't have to go to a doctor's clinic. And then for students who are exhibiting symptoms at home, soon we'll be able to do a PCR test right in the school and mail that away so families don't have to go. So that's all should be ready to watch here in the next few weeks. Actually, the PCR test arrived yesterday, which was exciting. So that will be nice. So that's what I have. Our sublists do continue to grow slowly. But anyone who's interested, please reach out. We were happy to train folks up and have you join our team. And just another shout out how great our educators are on the board. I used to be a killer sub. I bet you did. Thank you, Jimmy, for all that and for 4.30 in the morning. That's a lot. It's been busy in the last few weeks. So you know that the SU office and the two campuses received chocolates for everybody, care of the R-SUD board over the last day. Thank you. To share our appreciation for everything they're doing and all the hard work they're doing. Thank you. They were delicious. If you ever go up, it's a friend, daily chocolate up in Virginia. Look it up. It's good. Good. Any questions for Jamie? I have one other thing to add. Sorry. We are moving forward with those energy audits that we put the RFQ out for with EI services. So we'll hopefully have some information here within the next couple of months. They're going to start touring buildings soon. So I wanted you to have that heads up. Yeah. Jamie, could you update the board on your initiative to develop student performance goals and the presentation to the SU board? So the R-SUD board will remember that you received data on each cohort area in both math and literacy. So I've been working with Honda Adams for us to develop individual grade level goals for each cohort that expands out through 2025 so that we have a way to progress monitor annually on whether or not we're going to meet our long range goals, which is to be above the state average in scale score, both in smart of balance assessment consortium or whatever our universal assessment system is, tied to the state benchmark, which is just so folks know, the state benchmark is about the 60th percentile ranking versus the national norm, which is the 40th percentile ranking. So the state benchmark in Vermont is significantly higher than the national norm on those types of assessments. And so that is going to, we're going to continue to work on that. I think our presentation was sent out that we had presented to the full board. We'll continue to work on it. It'll be shared with a greater staff as well in December and talked about we're going to do a presentation with our whole SU white staff about the why around that. And then the goal will be after the first of the year, but once hopefully the full SU board adopts these goals, is that we'll have a dashboard that's interactive so that there's a accountability measure to the greater public where our targets are and where our benchmark targets are through 2025. So yeah, thanks for letting me talk about that a little bit, Bill. No, I'm impressed because you're proposing goals that meet or exceed the state's 2025 goals. And not only you're saying, well, we should buy then your draft proposal each year, 2022, 23, 24, 25, how are you going to get there? So we've got meaningful measures that we can see how we're doing on that. And you're talking about wanting to exceed that. And the second thing is a perspective that I wasn't aware of that the state of Vermont's 2025 goal is substantially higher than the national goals. And I don't think, I think that's a very important to get that information out there. So that, and we're talking about meeting that or exceeding that, that would be a hell of an accomplishment for the SU. So thank you for this initiative very much. For the questions for the superintendent. They're being done. Let's move on to our principles. Principles. So you have my report in front of you. I think that only updates I would add and just kind of some highlights to remind folks that next week really kicks off parent-teacher conferences. I think one thing that's kind of exciting here in Stockbridge that one of the teachers is going to try and pay one is that it'll be a student conference where the kids will get to bring their parents in and lead to them and do a math center with them. And I would definitely say that's the right group to do that with so we can learn from and see if we can start to make that the more moving forward and maybe expand more in the spring. And it was a teacher driven idea. I can't take any credit for it. So I'm excited to kind of see how that pans out with folks. And then the other things that I will add is just Amy what she didn't tell in her little presentation is she has done some great outdoor edge field trips with some classes from hiking throughout the different areas in the valley. And in my final year of my college life, I went to school with my grandma and my grandmas hikes and looking for mushroom she took us as a faculty. Now was it Cushman? Yep. And then as well as we had one group who was studying the life cycle of an apple that she took all the way up to And now, I know she wants more time, but now the kids are putting the pressure on their teacher to be able to go and do those field trips with Mrs. Crow. How come I haven't gotten to go do a field trip with Mrs. Crow? So it's been pretty cool to see, and I think those are the big things. And the oil tank or the underground fuel tank for the generator here in Stockridge is almost here on its way here. We just have to dig the hole. I say that like it simple. There's dimensions and something else. But I think that's pretty much it, other than like Jamie said, we did have some positivity over the weekend. And then hopefully, we do have a group in Manchester that's virtual learning currently. And hopefully, we will return to in person with that group as soon as possible. I just a comment, I like the we have positivity. This is what we're doing. Let's keep going, you know, as opposed to, you know, I just think that's so the way to do this. It's just a very wise, this is what we're doing. And I feel, I feel at least, I don't know what other people are hearing, but I feel from other parents a sense of, I've been communicated with, I know what's going on. I feel, you know, worried as you would, but I feel like I know what's going on. So if anybody's heard different than that, I hope, well, you know, you'll get some feedback to Linda or Jamie, but that's my impression. Other questions or comments for our principal? Well, go for it. What the heck? Out of protocol. What are you? What are you, Amy? Oh, yes, I just wanted to mention, I happened to have my phone nearby and Phil Scott tweeted out that as of hopefully tonight, it'll get approved for kids five through 11 to get vaccinated and start to sign up tomorrow. So that's like hot off the press. So that's pretty exciting. That'll help a lot for families. Thanks, Amy. Great news. Here for other questions or comments for our principal? Phil? Sorry, I didn't want to monopolize. What a phenomenal report. And to you and your team, because you're not doing it alone. You've got phenomenal staff that are doing wonderful, creative, impactful things month after month after month. I read this report and we should have this on some sort of wall because it's pretty hard to to do better than what you're doing in so many fields. And I just the highlights about the student led parent teachers. Wow, that's what that means. The parents that listen to their children and the children kind of thinking this through that in itself is empowering that I think is phenomenal. The workshop, the feedback I got on direct instruction was very, very, very positive. And it leads me to think that Stockbridge, Rochester, literacy is going to be a leader. The what's coaching with Bonnie Bourne, talking about focal point of building kindness on both campuses and celebrating, being respectful and responsible and ready to learn. I mean, these things are huge. And and while I'm a real important, I want to see the bottom line, which is performance as we can measure it. But these things all build civic, responsible, learning a talented and people that can make a difference. And and we're building that from the ground up with this age group. And I think I find it enormously important. And finally, the generator for Stockbridge. Back in Irene, we didn't have a generator. This school is not only a school for our children, it's a community center. And to have that generator up and running is going to not only protect what you're trying to do here with this energy out of the electricity. But another natural disaster coming down will have this to help us get through it. So all those reasons, I it's great. Thank you. Well, I think you said it best, though. It's a great team. It's definitely not me solo. It's just a lot of great people worried about kids and what's best for kids. And that's really exciting when they're doing a great job. And I think they're really excited and they should. They've definitely earned it every single adult that works in our buildings. To have some time off next week after the teacher conferences. Yeah, they're definitely well earned. Good. Good questions. Any other questions? Very good. Let's move on. Business manager. Good evening, everyone. Hello, Tara. So you have my report. I go over the upcoming due date for the month of November for both the business office and the school food authority. And then down on the discussion item, the first discussion item will go over now. And then the second item is later on on your agenda. So we'll go back to that later. So Ray, if you could put out the our flood revenue and expense for quarter projection. Thank you. So this is the form that we started using last year. We're going over the. Is that the amount up top and this quarter we're focusing on the salary budget versus contracted. And we have a savings of eighty nine thousand two hundred and fifty dollars there. And then on health insurance, it's what was budgeted versus current enrollment is the savings of seventeen thousand and eight ninety five. So right now we have a projected savings of one hundred and seven thousand one hundred and forty five dollars. And then on the next page, Ray, is the revenue side. Again, we go over how the budget was outlined. We have more tuition students and pre-paying than we had originally budgeted for. So there's an increase there of fourteen thousand one hundred and forty four dollars interest income. We are making currently more than what we had budgeted for because we're not using your tax anticipation note yet. So right now we have a surplus there of three thousand six hundred and seventy seven dollars and we've received some miscellaneous revenue. We budget usually a thousand dollars and we've gotten fifteen forty three. So a surplus there of five hundred and forty three dollars. We haven't received any rental yet this year. So that right now is showing as zero. We project forestry grant until we see what we get from that. And then your trustees of public funds. I haven't updated the transportation aid yet because I don't have those numbers in from the agency of education. So that will come in the future. But based on the updates that I've made up top, we currently have sixteen thousand three hundred and sixty four dollars for a combined projected surplus at the end of quarter one of one hundred and twenty three thousand five hundred and nine dollars. So any questions on that? If I may Tara Ethan here. How is the combined food service going? I think you're the one to ask or whether I should ask you or Jamie. It is going very well. The team is working fantastic together as far as financials. We have not submitted for our first month of claims yet, which would be the month of September. So a report will be coming once we are able to do that to the full board in the near future. OK, great. And you're meeting monthly. Is that? Yes, the child nutrition team meets monthly. OK, good. Anyone else? Amy, you have a question again or more updates? No, no, I will. Amy will. Sorry. We're on Amy. Sorry. Go Amy will. All right. I was like, Amy, Amy, I'm sorry. I don't have a question. I just request that we could put the date on these reports that that this this report is being reported to the board. And so all the other reports of the drafts that are coming in, I don't know if there's a way that we can just put in the header and putter what the what the date is that it is being presented to the board. Good point. I think that just would be helpful to keep it all straight. I see people writing things down here. So no, I meant important people like administration writing that down, their suggestion. Bill, question. Yeah, I had a question on the second page, the two lines above the yellow horizontal stretch. This is FY 21 budget revenue total. FY 21 budget expenditure total. Are we talking about FY 21 or FY 22? I just forgot to update the date. Twenty two. I'll go fix that. OK, so those numbers above next to it on the right there. It's all. Thank you. Thank you. Good catch. You had it everywhere else, Tara. As a projected FY 21 in the orange. Well, I've done it all my life, so yeah, thank you. For the questions for the business manager. Bill, sorry. Tara, help me on a summary of financial operations. That's the pink line. I'm not sure I the fund balance for 2022 going into it. Revenue is we're starting a year this year of at one hundred and seventy three thousand six hundred. Is that correct? That was that. So that is what you used in your budget and FY 22 from your FY 19 surplus. As offsetting revenue. That's what those numbers down there represent. So in FY 20, you used two hundred and thirty six five sixteen and FY 21. You use the hundred and forty two nine eighty seven. Then in FY 22, you used one hundred and seventy three six as offsetting revenue from prior. So so I understand this correctly. The yellow band of one hundred twenty three thousand. That's the projection this current year. Yeah, now that's separate from financial operations that kind of goes back in time in those years that we came out with a plus on those years that we utilize those. That's the that's the middle section. And then the final thing in light blue is a separate total and that has to do with our capital budget. So the three kind of things you're you're you're showing us on the same page. Is that right? Correct. OK, that's I was trying to tie them together and and I was hitting my head because I didn't understand it. So now I do. Thank you. You called me. I would have explained it. We found that this was the boards for Robert and Bill really felt like this gave them a snapshot into and Patrick to where you're at financially and keeps you abreast on your reserve funds and you're audited. Well, I like to serve pluses and revenue use. And so we'll continue to update this quarterly. And if you have a request for the expenditure report, we can definitely share. But folks are like they can make more sense out of this. Yeah, and I like the quarterly. How it is I have to be monthly makes sense. Thank you for the questions for Tara. Justine, is there a hand up or are you rubbing your eye? Good. Then thank you very much, Tara. Moving on. WRVSU policy committee. You got a meeting. Whole board meeting Monday. Yes. So hopefully take action. Yeah, we had to pass it on now. It's worn for action. Finally, it's. Yeah, there were some changes. I think the biggest thing to tell you is it's sort of a clarity for what the board is supposed to do is that we're supposed to create policy, but we're not supposed to create procedure of how things, how policy is implemented. And there was very clear, there was very clear that the anti-racism policy had procedures in it. And Don Shaw, yeah, Don Shaw was very right in pointing this out to us. And so the board felt I wasn't actually able to make that meeting, but the board amended it to take out the procedures without feeling like it gutted it at all. It's still very much and the procedures will be put back by the administration as is a proper. So that's where the delay came from or the shift we got one more month. But from what I'm hearing of the board, the SUY board, I think we've got, I expect it to pass. But we'll see. Yeah, if there's, you know, we'll see. If there's more discussion, there still has been some heated discussion about it, but most of the feedback we're getting, the majority of the feedback we're getting is positive. And I think we're all on the board very ready to work, to act on this. Anything further? No, just that there's an update to the bids and procurement policy that's in alignment with state statute that allow us to increase the micro purchases from 3,500 to 40,000 under 40,000, can't go over it. And then the other one, of course, is you can't exceed the sum of 40,000. And that's an alignment with work to happen out of the legislature this spring to allow us to quickly and more swiftly move on purposes, especially with an influx of federal money. Does he use the 15? 15. 15 before. And 3,500 in the top one. And we will be asking on this. That one, nope, that one's worn too at the full board. And you guys will take both of these up in December, because I have to have one in the paper 10 days prior. And Christie and I now have a calendar all mapped out so that it's worn. It's Monday the 8th is a special meeting. Yep. Thank you. There's gonna be a coming Monday, there's a special meeting of the full board to act on both these policies and nothing else. That is, that's exactly what we're done. And that's six o'clock virtual or where, and where is it? Virtual and worn at the SU office. SU office. Okay. That's where the board chair wanted it. Good, good. Any questions for the policy committee? Name me, no. Justine, no. I see nothing here. Let's keep moving. Nothing says we have to have three hour meeting. What? I think it's meeting number eight. Yes. Discussion items. Question? I'm sorry, no. Oh, yeah. That was just clarification. Got you. Discussion on nine one, building use request of high school building possible action. Who's leading this? This is the email that we received in regards to... Oh, Tom Pat. This was more, no, this is Robert. Robert, that's right. Is there a meeting on why that there's, it's no longer called Envision Rochester, or is it? I couldn't tell you, this is for the kickoff meeting for the feasibility study. Got it. Gotcha. And I also pass, you can ask Pat herself, but she also asked me to request at the same time for the town meeting to be able to use the auditorium to be able to use the auditorium for that as well. I don't recall the date. She's here, you could ask her something. First of Tuesday and March. I think it's early this year, is it the first? You guys do it on the first of Tuesday. We can have one too. Yes, obviously. I think, oh wait, no, Pat, yeah, you wanna, what's the date you're looking for? March 1st. We still can't hear you. Commuted. Commuted. Rochester's town meeting is February 28th. February 28th. Okay, so we have a request for that. And what's, do you have a date yet? 17th. 17th of what? November. November. Coming up soon. November 17th. This will mean heat if possible. It was on yesterday. Yeah, okay, yeah. So Robert said he went in, so instead of, we're gonna talk about this later, there's been some heat issues in this, February 28th will be, that'll be interesting, is that, could be cold. It usually has to get on at least a day ahead, depends on the year shows we've done. Do you wanna act on this? What's our, what's the board's, pleasure here? We have a proposal for, permission to use of the high school auditorium, really, is not building, it's auditorium, to be, and lobby. Auditorium, so that should be in their motion, and lobby. On these two dates, November 17th, 2020, 2021, and February 28th, 2022. Is there any, should we move it and have some discussion then? So moved. So moved. Second. And second and moved by Robert, seconded by Bill. Any discussion about this permission? Robert raised an interesting question about insurance. I checked that with our, for any more second. Oh, second, good, thank you. That's good to know. Any further discussion on this permission, of use of the auditorium? There being none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Nicely done. The ayes have it. These two buildings have, or these two events have permission. Who am I contacting for the building use form? Eric is gonna ask me a question. Pat, Pat has a question. Well, so we've just passed this here, Pat. I just wanted to make a comment that this event that's coming up on November 17th is open to all the Quintown Valley towns. It's not specific to Rochester. So we would like to have all of our neighbors in the neighboring towns also join into this discussion. There's a lot to be gained from it for the feasibility study. Thank you. Good. And, Robert. May I add that if we could use any assistance in, from the schools, the schools and the school boards of the, all the involved towns to be made aware. I'd really love to see the school boards of the towns that have enough schools to at least send one person. Yeah, now I can share that. Yeah. That would be very, very helpful. We've got great, good hand talk tomorrow night, so. Right. November 17th, right? That's correct. At 6, 6.30, I believe it's half. 6.30, thank you. Further comments on this? If not, we'll move on. 9.2, update on heating system at high school building and winterization effort. Lyle, I believe this is you. Yeah, so what we've done at this point is we contracted with Brian Boucher who has also been the guy that's been working on the Max over the years. He and his father have maintained the system, not on a regular basis, but more of an on-call, and we've got a problem basis, but he was familiar with the building. He went there, he found, I think, at least two circulator pumps that were not functioning. So that there were wings of the building that didn't have any means of pumping water through that section of the building. We've asked Alliance Mechanical to go over and troubleshoot what's going on with those pumps. One of them's just seized up and does not, when you turn the power on, it just sits there and hums. The other one, breaker, apparently, according to him. So I really want Alliance to go over there, figure out what the best and cheapest course of action is to get those pumps back up and running and do a combustion test on the burners to make sure that they're burning properly and give me a report on how that's going because I'm sure they haven't been cleaned in a while. And this is going on the second winter that they'll be running. So looking forward to their report so that we can take some action quickly and make sure that we have heat. I also wanna make sure that our low-temperature devices are all functional and put through a test. So I'll be calling that alarm company to make sure that we can verify our own peace of mind that that's all in good shape. Again, I think we need to have somebody checking that building every day, protect the asset. So no dollar amount yet. No, my hope is that we can salvage the pumps if it's just a motor and we don't have to change out the pump entirely. It comes to the point where the pumps are in such bad shape that we have to replace them. I've contacted Efficiency Vermont to see if we can get some rebates to do more energy-efficient pumps because there's usually quite a bit of money there to help you upgrade them and they still would do that for us if that's the case. Great. Thank you. Sure, Robert. I'd like to talk with you offline. There are some aspects of the timer system in the auditorium. For one, I'm not sure that it's entirely hooked up properly because it does kill the blower, but not the circulator as which may be wasting heat. And two, if I know that the thing was, the power was shut off on it so the battery went dead and it lost all its memory. So I think that timer needs to be reprogrammed. That could very well be the occupied unoccupied feature. Yeah, well, yes, we usually would put that on for performances or particular days. You can set it up, but it's completely blank now. But I did reset it and get it going. It had lost its battery, so therefore went blank. Okay, so I would offline be able to give you some advice on that timer and such. Sure thing. Sounds good. Lyle, is there any time concern on this? Obviously we're going into cold season. Yeah, the building does have heat in most areas. The auditorium obviously still works. And Jesse said that there's heat in some other parts of the building, but I think Brian indicated he felt like the classroom wings were not getting heat through the radiation. The area handlers were the pumps for those were getting hot water. So you have some lukewarm air that does circulate when it gets below the unoccupied set point. I definitely, I'm on alliance on a regular basis to make sure they get over there as soon as possible. And we had some work stuff. We had to get them set up as a vendor for some reason, which is odd because Lindy had said that they had done business with them before, but for whatever reason they was to set up an account or something with them. But they do work in a lot of our buildings. So they do have a pretty strong presence in the area, which I like for emergency calls. They have people that live in the area. A question, not that many years ago, I was up on a very high ladder in that theater and looking at the air vents that are up at the top of the fly loft and you could see the light. And I'm wondering if any weatherization has happened at all, even emergency weatherization has happened up there cause that would be an incredible heat loss. And I think part of this assessment was to close up some venting that might be unnecessary or, is that happening at all? I haven't seen those events because I'm just not that familiar with that building and have not been up on high ladders looking all around. I talked to Brian and he did check the intake air hoovers and said they were operating properly. So in unoccupied times, they did close tightly and in an occupied time, they would come to a minimum opening to let in fresh air based on outside air temperature. So when it's unoccupied, they are closing. Just how airtight they are, I won't know that until it's cold and I get up there and I take a look and check it out for myself to see if they're leaking a lot or not. That's something it's a lot easier to figure out when it's really cold out. It can do, it's a little tricky to do when it was, a month ago when he was there or three weeks ago or something. Definitely on my mind, I will check that out as soon as it gets a little cooler and crawl around and see what we can find, see if there's any gaping holes. But weatherizing and door doors that have light showing underneath things like that can all be addressed in a little bit of time. Have some maintenance folks. Yeah, even quick stuff. Yeah. Piece of fabric, even shoved under a door, I know it's probably fire code, probably issues, but. It's unoccupied other than your few meetings. Anything like that is saving us, especially when you're getting in below zero temperatures, you can be saving a lot of money. Robert, do you have something? The louvers for the stage, which are originally intended for when you had lots of heat from lights and such, which actually we still did. The manual valve was not operating, it is not operating now, we've got it operating for the performance. And we did want to leave it open for getting some fresh air turnover, but we left it closed up till audience time. I also discovered that there is yet a third one that's at the back of the catwalk structure. There's a third one above the auditorium. So there's three, I don't know, I believe that one also operates off the manual valve that's on the south side of the stage. Did you know about this one? Say again? Did you know about these manual valves? I don't know that I've ever even been in that auditorium, quite frankly. But Brian would know if they were operated pneumatically or not, and I can ask him about it. They are. Robert's got a lot of lighting in that space, so he's very familiar with the catwalk and the structure. I've been in there for about 32, 33 years. So if Brian or you would like to, please feel free to call me. Yeah, I would definitely like to tour it with you and see if we can come up with some strategies. Great, thank you. Sure. Any further comments from the board? Questions or comments? I just want to say thank you for the attention that you are giving to this building. And I think it's just really wonderful that you've come on board with your expertise. So thank you. Sure thing. Thank you, Lyle. You're welcome. Thank you. All right, moving on 93. Draft two of the 22, 23 are said budget universal instruction along with student support budget. Karen, Linda, you want to take the lead? Go, go. Yep. So what you have in front of you, basically what this supports. I'll tell you what it supports. I'll let Tara talk numbers. What this supports is or is added, what you see on the bottom section under general education is something that's, you saw the first part last meeting, the top part and the bottom parts newer. This will support our educators that we have now in the building, both buildings. And that includes foreign language or world language position and keeping everything as is. I didn't make any changes. I will say that the outdoor education and the educator slash pathways in this position is in that regular education line item. And it breaks down, you know, two preschool teachers, a K one in Stockbridge, a K most likely in Rochester, the breakdown pool. Funky, but it keeps the same number of classroom teachers as well as we currently have, which is. Five K through six in Rochester and three point, oh, what is she now? I think she's like 3.4 or 3.6. 3.0 through four through six grade literacy. Yeah, and 0.6. Yeah, 0.6 because you're four through six literacy, 0.4 outdoor ed, 0.6 pathways. So in general, folks may, I'll jump in and say, and Tara, you can fill in too, still have a math intervention of discussion to buildings, still have literacy intervention in both buildings. We'll continue to have a mental health counselor from Claire Martin Center in both buildings. And, you know, you may say, well, how is the budget down? We look at our staffing, right? Well, the truth is that we did have some turnover in staffing. It's why you're seeing a projected surplus in your staffing part for this year of a hundred grand is that based on just what folks are taking for health insurance or where they came in on the salary schedule, you know, it's just been, it's just been younger than the teachers. So that's part of why you're seeing this down at this point. Next month, you're going to see everything. And what I mean by that is you're going to see all your maintenance, you're going to see the whole budget. And so what you were probably familiar with seeing if you're on the board previously, Robert, like all the budget lines and function codes. And as we start to also look and get a look at tuition and the other piece to this budget, of course, will be as we start to get information on the yield, equalized pupils that all plays a significant role in your tax rate, CLA's. And so, you know, we'll have a whole sense of your expenditure side of the budget in December and start to give you a better look at the revenue side. The other big thing here is, is that tuition, it's good that our salary and benefits are down. Tuition, a big thing is, is that the Sharon Academy has approached the agency of education to be able to start announcing tuition. And no longer be considered an independent school that's accredited with the AOE, but they wanna have the same designation by meeting school quality standards, like that for the Academy. And say, Johnsbury Academy and Burr Burton to be able to announce tuition. The estimated announcement is gonna be 18.5, which is about $2,000 more, almost a student. And you have quite a few students that go there. It's gonna have a pretty significant impact across the SU as we look to start budget intuitions over a quarter of a million dollars in our member districts. So I'm gonna advise that I don't expect that the agency is gonna have an answer for us. Necessarily, they may in your actual budget cycle, which would be good news. You're late, you're late. The rest of the boards, we're gonna go ahead and budget at the 18.5 announced, unless the agency of education takes some type of stance in December, because I think we have to budget accordingly. What we don't want to do is get caught, right? So- Well, I think we're also looking at significant healthcare increases. That's what I remember- These salary and benefits do, they do include what we expect healthcare to be. Okay. Is this the time we were very eager last year to add in world languages? Is this the time we should be talking about if there's anything- Yeah, you should start to give us a sense. Yep. Does anybody have any thoughts on that? If something, do we wanna hold the course as we have this year from last year and or does anybody have any burning issues for what they think we should be having as educators? I think it'd be important to have that. What's that? To have, for the kids to be learning secondary language. Well, we've got it. On a regular basis. I mean, look at other countries and they're learning English in second and third grade. Well, and they're doing it- They're fluent by sixth grade, you know? Yeah. It's a more serious approach. Yeah. Remember, this is an introduction. I think we knew, and that's what we had was an introduction. Yeah, and let's, before we realize whether it's feasible or not, let's, do we want that? Do we want more? What do we want more of? I mean, it's similar to like the outdoor program. For me, I look at it like I took three years of French in high school. I don't remember any of it. But if I had learned that at a younger age and then continued it through high school, I think it would stick. Same thing for the outdoor program. If these kids do it now, continue it through high school, they're going to be able to forge their own through DNL or herbs, I appreciate it, you know? And actually have it stick in reminisce, so. Robert and Amy. How about you go with Amy first? Okay, Amy, what do you think? Actually, you can go ahead with Robert. My question was off of the foreign language topic, but it was a question in regards to one of the other line items here, so you can circle back. Okay, well, I'm sort of making this about is there anything we want more or different? And if not, we don't have to. That's fine. It's not that we have to, but though, right now Patrick's got something on the floor about more world languages. How do we feel about that? Robert? I think one, what's happening, I mean, to his point about going on to the high school, what you're trying to do is capture their imagination. If you capture the kid's imagination, they're going to have that interest that's going to carry on to their higher education. You're only going to scratch the surface as far as real language instruction, but you're going to, they're going to be familiar with it. They won't have to start from scratch. Well, I totally agree with you on that. Like daughter's five and she comes home and she's already showing interest in it and that's why I think it's really important. Same thing with the wilder. Yeah. Right, and the other thing is we're basically getting a half day in each school. It's the absolute bare minimum, I think we can, you'll have to evaluate if it's, yeah, I'll have to depend on the administrators to evaluate if it's effective. If it is effective, I think would consider it as a pilot that you may want to increase it. There's going to be some logistical problems of whether or not there's availability. So you're sort of suggesting maybe wait and see? No, I think we would, if they are considering it a successful program, then I would say we should try doubling that at least. How late in this budget process can we bring something like that to you, increasing world languages? I mean, this summer in January, I mean, I feel like you're going to have some of, I mean, it's good for us to start talking about it, right? And what we do behind the scenes is we run a bunch of different scenarios. You see the scenario we're projecting this time, but as we start to get all those other numbers in, it certainly starts to paint a different picture for us too. Right. Is it reasonable to ask them to come up with a model for increased world languages as part of our budget overview? Right, and I also wonder about time. I mean, there's only so much time we have in the day. So is what would we be missing? What I don't want to miss out on anything. And I definitely want to increase programming in all aspects. So I look to the administration for what they feel our kids really need right now. Is that a lot to ask to add in? Well, we can sit down and look at the schedule. We can sit down and look at the schedule. I think what I'll share with you is this is not typically something like when I build a schedule, I don't do it in a silo. It's with a lot of different folks at the table. And everybody's loved having world languages. They really enjoy it, foreign languages. Like teachers are staying in the classroom kits. They're not leaving. It's unusual. Because normally it's part of their planning time. I think the, you know, million dollar question in education always is time. And like, what do you give when you expand a program and how to make that work? Then we'll just have to look at it. Well, it comes down. Yeah, I mean, clearly we've made writing, literacy and math are our big priorities. And these other ones are second level priorities are outdoor education and world languages, not to mention art and music. So, yeah, and I guess we can say we want more and you can say at the expense of what? Well, and I think that's a question that you have to be ready because at the expense of what? It's typically science and social studies right now to be able to support everything. Which is, I'm glad you mentioned. So, yeah, I mean, that's a tough flip. There's a lot of way to do like, integrative stuff altogether, absolutely. That just takes time to build those. It's just like integrate language with some of these other subjects like math. Yeah, yeah. You're already doing it. Amy, I want to get to you. Great, well, I, you know, as we're kind of talking about this, you know, how much time and, you know, what do you increase and what do you lose then? I'm wondering what the library slash media is because it looks like our students have like two days of that library slash media. And I just was kind of wondering what that, what that program was then. It's more that it's just two positions. Like it's one of the last positions. It's not a shared position across like this. Was that that answer? Meaning like it's two different people who fill the position versus with pretty much everything, actually with everything else, it's a shared position. So it's one person that teaches the same content amongst the buildings. It's not separate hiders. We have two library. We have two library. Not just one. So it's a full day. It's a full day in, in Stark region. It's a full day in, in Rochester for this media library. And it's two separate people that do it. Yeah, I think the schedule might look different. The schedule looks different. I understand that. I'll find time wise. Yeah. What's the media part of it? Good question. It's more a licensing piece. They are also like learning how to decipher different news sources and what that's telling them. And it just depends on the grade level. What we used to think Amy as library is becoming more library media in regards to what it should be teaching kids 21st century skills of how to be competent researchers and how to figure out different types of sources. And so one of the things that we're starting to work on in some of our other schools, we haven't pursued it here yet, is our library media specialists are actually pushing into our literacy blocks and science blocks and co-teaching. And so that we're really looking at how do you utilize the library as a place for research? That's what we do with libraries. It's not just another place where we're doing a read aloud and checking out books. And so that work is underway at a few of my other elementary schools. And that's another PLC group like a professional learning community that we're looking to build across the SU so that our librarians are learning from each other. And actually the two librarians that are doing this work are gonna after the first of the year start to bring the librarians together and facilitate that conversation as a much larger conversation across the SU for our librarians. Justine, let me just. Yeah, that kind of touched on what I was thinking about trying to figure out how to say how can we, with a concern for the amount of time taken away from other things, how much effort can we put toward figuring out ways to integrate these in with other subjects and co-teaching them? I mean, outdoor education can lend itself greatly to all topics really and even language. I mean, foreign language, there's math, there's science, there's literacy. I don't know, it might be an idea a way to get these things boosted but not taking away time from the other subjects. Do you wanna respond, Lydia? It's all excellent and you guys aren't wrong. It's just, we have to build that capacity to get there. And I think that's what Amy Braun's got her hand up and I'm sure she can speak to this much better than I can. She wants more time and she's getting more time with certain classes because they're starting to co-teach different things together. And that would be the ideal model. We have to build our capacity to get there. It's not something I can snap my fingers and say that it's gonna happen right away. Like right now, it's like the pebble effect that we've been talking about but Amy can probably speak to it a lot better than I can as being on the other end of someone who's trying to get more time with folks. Follow up, Justine, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to follow up because I didn't wanna come off as let's just start doing that. My question was, what can we do to look into the possibilities for working toward that? Not how can we just do it? Maybe a committee board or maybe there's a way we can look into it as a possibility not to sprinkle it in. Well, I think your role as the board is to say this is our desire and it's on us as administrators to figure out how to implement with our teachers, right? And so we work hand in hand with our teachers to do that. And so the example I just gave was I've got two buildings that are ready to roll with this. So let's do it. And then that's the interdependence goal, right? Goal three of the SU is let's learn from each other and share ideas. And so as we've got these two schools doing this right now, the idea is to learn, take back and that teachers are becoming teacher leaders. So the example I've had with Lindy is I'm gonna be looking for Amy to tap, Amy to say what have we been learning about outdoor ed in pathways and how are we pulling a PLC together on that because we have people doing that type of work across the SU. And so now that we have teacher leaders and that we're fostering really capacity within the SU that we don't always have to bring outside folks in that we can have our own trainers. And so part of that is that we are just in different places in different districts. Some districts are further along in certain areas and some districts are not, but the idea is to learn from each other. Amy. And Robert- Are you talking Amy Braun, right? I'm talking about Amy Braun. Okay, so I'm chomping at the bit to tell you a couple of things. The thing one that pops in my head is that last year I taught math outside so easily. I mean, I did literacy as well, but the math was, it just was so natural and a hundred percent of my kindergarten went on to first grade exceeding the PNOA standards. So it can be done and it can be done incredibly easily while you're outside. So I would love to, as I plugged earlier having more time and for example, I have fifth and sixth grade now on Fridays for two hours, which is a huge chunk of time compared to 40 minutes where I can say to Sean Lenahan and he wants to come outside with me as well. What are you doing in math? How can we integrate that in and play games outside? So moving forward right now, we have kind of an experimental thing going on a Friday afternoon with those fifth and sixth graders who really right now emotionally, I can tell you need that time. I'm giving it to them because they need to actually come out and be free outside. And then also the science aspect of it that gets just naturally just rolled right in. So yeah, it's easily done and I'm really a energetic, creative person who can make things like that happen. And I can go on to train other people on how to do it. But math is the first thing that pops in my head and science is the second thing. Robert. Just what I'm harking back to some of your comments on at the retreat. We have to have a vision of, perhaps harking back many, many years into Rochester school where we had a very strong integrated learning program. That was it primarily in the upper grades. But I think if we have a vision to integrate that as our longer term goal, it's quite as what he says, it's going to take time. Curriculum has to be developed. This just doesn't pop out of teachers heads on the fly. So, but I think that's the way to go. That's efficient. It broadens our education, the education of the kids without taking more time because the time is fixed. We only have them for so many hours a day. But if we can pack more in by crossing over the boundaries of different disciplines, we'll do, it'll be much more efficient and much more interesting. And also cheaper because we're already paying people and if we're just doing more integrative stuff. And so I think that is, certainly sounds like to me the best way to do this is to let, give you that that we want this. We want these efficiencies. We want these interactions. We want these co-teaching opportunities and maybe not showing more money at some particular thing yet necessarily unless you come to us and say, yes, we do. Does that sound to sort of sum it up a little bit where we are? Amy, Bill, you have. I just put my plug in there. There were a double time on this topic. Thank you. Yeah. So we need to wrap this up. I'd like to be able to speak before we wrap this up. Oh yeah. No, no, I was saying. We also want results. And that's the challenge here. And I strongly believe that the board has a responsibility of showing the way and our staff led by our superintendent is gonna figure out how to do it. And I love that concept of integrative learning. I also believe that if we cannot get and meet state standards on the fundamental reasons why we have public education which is literacy and math. We could also put in science, fitness, and health. We're not doing our jobs. And so I, my belief is that we're not gonna tell Jamie's team how to create this. The dollars, but we wanna make sure that the plan that they, the budget plan that come up with can achieve the goals that we think are so important. So that's my first comment. The second thing is a question. I think music is very, very important. And somehow I'm missing the fact that we're keeping the programming level. But I'm looking at numbers that show that in the proposed budget that's cut in half. So help me here that we're gonna have a strong music program. It's really the way that position was coded. And we should have had a special note there. So Tara, we shouldn't moving forward. The music teacher was gonna be doing outdoor ed and music. It was a 1.0. And so instead what we've done is Amy's doing pathways in outdoor ed and we kept the music part of point six which is what it was going to be. We'll make certain to make a note. I picked up on it too. Yeah, thank you very much. And you know, for the integrated learning is really ironically a hark back to the one room schoolhouse. Because it was all integrated there. Oh, I agree. Okay, anything more? Not, let's move on. Thank you both. 9.4, board guiding principles and protocols. Who is this? Christine. Hello. Christine, you want to lead off? Well, I don't feel there was a lot really edited in this document other than the edits that were requested to kind of consolidate the purpose of a couple of them. So I think it's probably best to open it up to anyone who's reviewed it for feedback because we kind of went through it last time we had some questions and we worked on those questions and here we have the revised version. Yeah, and the revisions are most of them are underlined but not every one of them. Under principles, Robert had the suggestion that the earlier draft had that language just that our role vision, create policies and assure accountability in the superintendent and then just go, we had that down as the last protocol. And Robert suggested that that's really a principle, a guiding principle of why we exist and how we exist. So that's moved from the last protocol to the top principle. Secondly, that we've worked for them to make it clear and thanks to Justine and a couple of places, number three under protocols, individual board members don't have authority, only the board as a collective body does. And I think that language just helps explain that further. She also strengthened number five, once a board makes a decision, the whole board will support it through actions and words. And our tendency is all we've lost, we grumble, we're gonna, you know, grouse. And what this protocol says is we have a civic debate, we get all the issues on the table, a final vote is taken and then if we were happened to be in a minority, we accept the decision of the majority. I think that's just huge. And I think that language through our actions and the words is very important. Amy talked about, we had some language in there and I apologize for it was kind of confusing and we tried to clarify it through number eight. And this, the reason it is because as board members, people call us and meet us on the street or at Shaw's and says, hey, and they give us a complaint. That's just natural and they know whatever the case is. And this talks about a protocol that says that we can't say, ain't it just awful? We can't really say, I'll do something about it because we're not the board. What we can say is we can give them guidance of where they can go to get that problem or issues solved and there's a hierarchy. And ultimately, if it isn't solved after going to the, if it's the teacher, to the principal, to the superintendent, it comes to us. And to the extent that we can explain that, that won't always be well received, but I think it's the real decision. And I've been part of, heard people say, ain't it just awful? I'm gonna do something about it before you even get the information. And then you're stuck backpedaling or something like that. So I think number eight is, it's just a reminder to us that- Invite them to the board meeting. There's a board meeting and there's a process. That reminds me, Bill, I added number 11. It kind of impacts on that because what came to mind was number 11 in that we are kind of, we're representatives of the community. And it's not, though, we're not experiencing quite the tumultuous times as we were when I first joined the board. This concept has been something I've had in my mind, naturally, with some guidance from watching the way Ethan has been managing the meeting. So I think number 11 is important as well. And I chose to add it to this and Bill- Yeah, that's a wonderful addition. Because our role is being representatives of the community. Part of that is doing that respectfully and effectively. And I think number 11 is something that is an important protocol that we don't forget. One language correction, if they end of eight, if unresolved, the complaint may appeal to the board. I think if the complaint may be appealed. It may be, yep. Yeah, yep. I agree, that's a typo. Also, if you just go directly below that, there's another typo with the board will stick to its agenda and issues, yeah. Yeah, I put a period of your agenda strike and then just have a capital I. So it says the board will stick to its agenda. New sentence issues outside the agenda will be heard. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. Yep. I think you guys did a great job with this. Well done. Yeah. We also add a number 10 which is our response to the commitment. And that was my thanks to our school and our board. And, you know, it takes our commitment to ourselves and what we're all about. We're here to listen and to learn and it's an active process. We don't know everything and we'll do it together. Yeah. So we're, go ahead. Well, just a dynamic that we were in in the last session, the last article we were talking about, our agenda item, where we were sort of thinking, well, do we wanna do this? And then it was the fact that we really wanna actually get the feedback from the administration about how things are working before we foist something onto them. That sort of was the tenor of what I think we were getting at. And I don't know, you know, I haven't read this as closely as I probably should. Do we say that in there some way? That the board will listen to the administration? Well, I think it speaks to the number one principle. But you know what I mean? As far as listening, to actually hear what the administration's doing. And not just, because that established vision create policies and assure accountability. Number five. Doesn't, number five, governance, cooperation, superintendent, yeah, that's getting there. Yeah, it's not as reflected. My sense of collaboration is, yes, is ask them how it's going. Five should be a sub-principle one. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, maybe it's more, you know, work and collaboration with the superintendent. Well, under state, Vermont state laws, the governing body is this board and it goes to the supervisory board. And the superintendent reports to this board. That's why the word govern is in there. The superintendent cannot govern. We cannot govern effectively without having an effective collaboration and cooperation and talented superintendent and the superintendent's team. So all that's, I think all this is trying to say is that we have a governance responsibility, but that isn't like our way or the highway, we listen with and the most important body we do is with the superintendent and their team as well as the community. So I think that's what you're trying to, what we're trying to say in terms of governance. I mean, you know, I trust our board to listen. I think we have, and we've done a good job of it. I just, this is going to go forward to other boards and I want to make sure it's clear that we are listening. Jeff, Justine? Yeah, maybe we can incorporate your point into number two under protocols. You know, as another thing that we will consider in our decision making. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Consider advice from our administration. Yeah. And put from our administration. I think that'd be great. Public input is in there. It'd be great if it was terrorist. I think it'd be great if it was terrorist. Sounds good to me to add that. I think we need to be careful of a board that is, you know, laying stuff on the administration without feedback from the administration. That, we know that's bad governance anywhere. If you're just laying what we call the unfunded mandate, right, of no child left behind. That was the biggest problem was that they had all those things and there was nothing, no feedback. This is a bad idea. Good. Also point of information or clarification. This draft or whatever we vote on, when we vote on it, will basically be our governance principles and our governance protocol for this toward. It isn't, we're not proposing or suggesting it couldn't go on to other boards, but we're not, that's not our mandate or I don't understand our mandate. Well, I think we need to just try to understand. Yeah, yeah, I think it's a good idea. But I'm just saying it isn't. No, it's not set in stone. No, no, no. It's ours. Yeah, it's ours. That's how we change it. Yep, yep. But that was just a thing that I wanted to get in there. But I think you're right. Number two is a good point. So I've changed that to, and financial impacts and I can strike the word and. So the board will consider research, best practices, public input, comma, financial impacts and our, financial impacts and input from the administration in our decision making. I, as I would say, I would like it first personally. Okay. The board will consider input from the administration. Okay. Consider research, best practices and public and financial impact. I had a research, right? I think so. Yes, okay. I think it's the first place we go. I think it's one of the professionals. So let me change that and propose. The board will consider input from the administration, comma, research, best practices, public input and financial impacts and our decision making. Let me reflect what you're, I like that. Yes, exactly. Any other suggestions? Edits. Oh, your mask is sort of slipped off your nose. I'm sorry. That's okay. Thank you. Any further comments on this? There being none. Thank you so much, Justine and Bill, for your work on this. Yes. So I should agree for possible action in December. Yes. I think we're ready. I think, I feel like we're ready. Let's do it. Moving on. Nine, five board goals. Oh gosh. This again. That's our goal. Get up to a meeting. No, under two hours. I have a quick suggestion. One is that we had the power of goal setting, at least in my opinion, is the administration's proposal to the SU board to set numerical goals for achieving or treating the state standards in literacy and math. And I think it's a demonstration of how powerful goals can be. That we're talking about SU wide, but if it's passed by and it comes down, we'd like to be able to do that here in our two beautiful schools. I'd like to suggest to the chair that you'll point a committee so that we can keep the goal setting going. I think that's a good idea. And let the committee go to work and we could be doing that during the month, not we, excuse me, whoever you'll point, or is interested. Oh, I get it. And when the committee's ready, some committees ready, they can come back to this board. No, I think it's a really good idea. Because otherwise it's not something we want to be spending our meetings hashing out. I think we all feel that pretty clear. It's something that, like you've done such a good job with the protocols, and that's the way it should be done. Committee? I'm already joining one. Oh, you're already joining? Oh, nice try. And thanks, Jamie. And have a good one. Thanks, Jamie. You got me. I'm a little maxed out with some other committees right now. What's that? I'm a little maxed out with some other committees. The high school is maxed out with life. Amy, you want to get together once or twice, you and I, and have something out for goals? Or how are you feeling? I mean, I'm talking. Twice I would like to believe it. What's that, Jamie? If it was once or twice, I would like to be part of it kind of sooner. I think we can be very efficient with this. I don't want it to be like the articles committee. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, but that, I mean, that was important and that was about, that was about letting, no, but it was about letting everything out and airing everything in that. That was the whole point. This is much more specific. And I think we have the model that Jamie shared, that idea that we would like to see, that demonstrated over time. I think that was a really good model to look at. And I think that should be where we start. Do you all remember that? I don't know if you remember that off the top of your head. It was from a school. From Rudd. From Rudd. Yeah, there it is. And it was a demonstration. It was tangible. A tangible presentation of your knowledge. And then I think if that, and then something like what Bill's talking about, these numerical, whoop, is this the thing you mean? Oh, sorry. So anyway, I think we could do this efficiently. That was about, it was nice learning. And come back with three or four bedrock goals. And I bet we could do it in an hour. I really just. I can send you what Rudd had if it is a watching. Justine, be a great excuse. As long as we stay on task, you and I, Amy, would you want to be part of it? Are you? Yeah, I can try. I think you guys should spearhead it and I will do my best to be there as well. Great. All right. So we know and I'll warn it. We have a, we have a, we have a committee. Oh, do we have to move a committee? I'll entertain a motion to set up a goals or WR, R, S. No, I don't know. RSUD. RSUD. Thank you. Committee to present the board with a list of not more than four goals for the December meeting. Well, you move that for this for, well, for this. We'll bring them and you can decide how long they are. Right. It's for 20, 21, 22 and beyond. Is that what that's what? Oh, that's what I, yeah, that's what I wrote. Beyond. So I think you might want to have them go beyond. Great. We'll, we'll move. So move. Thank you. Somebody moved it. Okay. Second. Bill seconded. All in favor. Discussion. All in favor. Signifier saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I do think it is the most efficient way to do it. And I do think we can do it in a limited time. Okay. I need to remind you, I just ran into this on the committee. I just attended they had a Zoom meeting, but they didn't want a physical location and blew them out of the water. I mean, we, we discussed things, but we couldn't take any action because you have to warrant physical location. The physical location be like the top of Mount Christian. Well, I was, well, I was, it's something to consider. I would, just because I am stretching, right then in the tech department, if you could just warrant a physical location for committee work, that would be my preference. I would love if we just met and did it, even if an outside structure. So there's, if it, can it just be? Yes, it can just be. Yeah, no, it can just be physical location. Yeah. I can definitely just be, I would love to do that. It makes it so much easier. Yeah. And gives Ray a break. Good. See Ray. I'm watching. Thank you. By the way, he's excellent. You do say. Yay. I hate to pause at that. 96 letter of support for town of Starkbridge, planning commission's application for Vermont town planning grant possible action. Yes. Every eight years, state law requires towns to to revise or create their town plans. Starkbridge plan is coming up. The stock bridge planning commission is filed for a grant and they're asking for the significant town bodies to support their grant application. And the monies would go through the regional planning commission that have professional planners and I've dealt with them and it's, they're essential. So if we're going to do it right, you need this grant and you need their help. So it's, and I can write the letter. It just makes sense. One of the chapters in the town plan is education. Have you ever read it? And when I was doing it back in 2015, I couldn't get much school board interest, but it seems to me we're, we should be very interested in what the town has to say about the future of education. So we have certainly a reason to support this grant to get it done right. And I would recommend to the board that you folks support for this application. Go ahead and move it for us still. I think well, is there any further questions? Comment what we can move it and then we can talk then too. Try to move it. That the Rochester Stockbridge Unified District Board directors support the town of Stockbridge's application for a municipal planning grant. So moved. So moved by Robert. You moved, I second it. Yeah, he moved it, you second it, they're good. Discussion on this. Well, we don't know exactly what's in the planning grant, but give them the conditions of what you just said that it's a point of time to create, recreate, revise their town plan. Right. That's good. And can we review the letter? Oh, sure. It goes out. Yeah, I'll send it to you. All right. Any further discussion on this? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye, aye. Aye, aye, aye. And there is a time cause I see, man. That's good to start through. Yeah. Yeah, we're good. No, I don't want to get to say it yet. We have taken action on number tens, we have no number tens, we have no new hires or resignation. Is there any public comment? Anybody left here. Julie Grubb, do you have public comment? I am good. Thank you. Thank you. Nancy Woolley, do you have public comment? Do you have any comment, Nancy? Oh, okay, public sound, gotcha. Good, anybody else on? I think, is that it, Frank? Janet. Janet, I might have missed you the first time. I'm sorry. Do you have any public comment? No, I'm all set, thank you. Good. Okay, well, I think that's it for us. Let's see, we're future agenda items. We'll be- The another budget draft. Another budget draft. We're hoping to continue, possibly, the celebration in some way. I hope so. So, Wendy and I will work on that. Hopefully, Lyle may have some numbers for us. So, we'll be revisiting that. And the principal's approval. And we'll have something for goals. So, it's gonna look pretty similar, actually. I think there's a, nope, there's not. There's more than the thick of budget. I was thinking there was a data report, there was a PSU board level. Okay, so, pretty similar to what we've got as next agenda. Of course, always bring it up to us if you have any. And the next meeting date is Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 at 6.30 p.m. Oh, I'll be out of town. Amy, my vice chair, you'll have to run that meeting for me, please. Oh, you're not gonna be able to join via Zoom? No, I'll be in DC. Okay, go easy on me. Thanks. Hey, if you just do exactly what it did tonight, say the same thing, it'll be fine. Rochester campus and Google meets. That's gonna be tough to meet, too. That's my daughter's birthday. Oh, here you go. Any further items to manifest before the board and all here ye hear ye. All in turn, a motion to adjourn. Move. Second. Our shortest meeting ever. What's that? Congratulations. That was a good one. I'm sorry, it was a good service. Because we didn't shortchange anything. We shouldn't shortchange anything, but we got it done. And I mean, those of you who have not been on this board as long as Amy and I have, meets.