 from the Malthyr-Roxbury Board of School Directors. Let's take a roll, Emma? Here. Ryan? Here. Jill? Here. Mara? Yeah. Adrienne? Oh, sorry. I was waiting for you. Oh, I was waiting for you. I was already here. No, I was here. You just happened to be, I was in robot mode. Bridget? Here. Adikett? Here. Andrew? Here. And Jared is not here yet, so okay. So before I go to public comment, I just want to note that this is Bridget's last meeting. And again, thank her for all the great work she's done on the board. She has been such a tremendous asset to the district over the last, I believe, six, seven years on the board. Six years, yeah. Yeah. And just as a board, a ton of energy and smarts and really hard work into a whole variety of issues that really made the district much better. And we thank her and we are going to miss her, but she is definitely taking a very well-deserved break from the mayhem. So we hope you stay very involved as a parent and community member. And again, our super thankful for all you've done over the last six plus years. And I believe that Libby has a little gift for the board that unfortunately we can't give you in person, but it will get to you. And again, just... I already got to. Libby is so on top of it, it already came. Thank you guys very much. I'm sorry, we can't have cake. It's okay, but clarification, Anna is so on top of things. But thank you again for all you've done. So let's open it up to public comment. And I think, you know, tonight, we're having a little election of our own. Although unlike other elections, all the candidates are wonderful. The tough part will be choosing one. And we'll finish the vote count on the same night. Yes, yes, exactly. So why don't we use this time, just in case folks either want to hop off in an unstable meeting. If you want to speak about your candidates, you know, I think we have at least three of the four candidates here. And then again, we will actually deliberate at the end, but if you just want to take some time during public comment. And I think this time I will break the rules and allow board members to have any questions. If you do have, which usually you don't do in public comment, but for that, the candidates that will be, will allow that. And obviously, you know, Bridget, since this is open session, I don't think there's any issue with you being here. Yeah, but just to be clear, I'm not going to play any role. Exactly. You'll put your community member participant path on. And then obviously, you know, other members of the public can comment on whatever they want as well. So let's start with anyone who is not running for the board and just has a general comment. And I also just want to state several people wrote notes of support to various candidates. And those have been circulated. So, you know, if you've already weighed in via email, the board has gotten your comments. So if anyone would like to speak, you know, please go ahead and use the raise hand function, which if you hit participants, you'll see a raise hand function. And if you can't find that, just feel free to go ahead and put yourselves on video and physically raise your hand. So is there anyone who wishes to make a comment? So we have Renee Hansel. Okay. Renee. Hi, good night to everyone. I wanted to make a public comment. One, thank you all for all the work that you do. And two, I just wanted to talk about the new measures for COVID that we're having on the schools where kids started taking their breakfast home and having work as a social worker. I know that kids with food insecurity, you know, foster kids, kids that live in an abusive household are probably not getting that meal for breakfast. And, you know, this measure is, in my opinion, it's just feeding more anxiety and fear into the kids and us encouraging other kids to go to school. At this point, I don't think that we're providing any of the kids with any tools to learn how to deal with this fear and anxiety inadequacy that is going on. And in a way, it feels to them that more is taken away from them. I think we're forgetting to tell kids to live their lives with passion and we're just feeding them more fear that is all around us. For example, I know from my own son, he can't go along without having a meal. And fortunately, we don't suffer any of the food insecurity but it's hard for him. I know from other kids that their first meal of the day is at school either because they can eat the morning early because it makes them hunches. And of course, there's the kids that, you know, have nothing. Also, food is so social that for kids that don't like to eat, this is an opportunity for them to share, you know. So, and besides all this, I think that the goal of this school is to keep the kids with a strong immune system and they need food, they need it often, they need peace of mind, you know, they need to have more fun and feel their value this social interactions and community. You know, my wish is that we could find a way to provide for them, you know, a more calm environment. They get into our camp and everything that is going around and, you know, using words that are not based in fear or scaring us, but just also handing on some of that responsibility to them, which I think they're dealing really well with it. You know, I want all the kids to go to bed with full belly if we could, but that's not the child of the school, but we can tell them how good they are to tell them their value and making them feel good about their lives, make them, you know, as much as possible feel good of having friendships and a community, you know, and I want to imagine that we can be more loved and less cared. Anyway, that's my comment and thank you for your time. Thank you, Renee. Anyone else other than CNE? I'm assuming all the candidates on want to speak. I'm just gonna go in order of how they appear on my screen. Adrian? Hi, my name is Adrian Gill. I am just so excited to be here today. It looks like I'm in great company with others that also have interest in the board position. And I'm just here today, you know, I've been a passionate lover of our community. I've been in Montpelier for five years and I've been involved with both UES and the Main Street Middle School since we came here. And, you know, my passion lies within health and wellness. That is my foundational experience. I have a master's in public health and I work with schools around the country and helping guide them in wellness policies and social-emotional learning and health education and being physically active to, you know, make our students and staff, you know, healthier, especially during these unbelievably stressful times. And so, you know, I know that the board here is amazing and I don't know exactly what you're looking for to fill this spot, but I'm sure you will all make the most amazing decision and whoever you choose is gonna be the best person for that position and I will continue to support the schools and continue to support the middle school where both of my daughters are at. And I'm just excited to kind of see the future and how you all grow and, you know, hopefully I'll be a part of it. But I just, I'm really glad to be a part of this community and appreciate everything that you all do every day to support our students, our staff and our community. So thank you. Thanks, Edwin. Any questions for Adrienne? Great, thanks. Mia. Thanks, Jim. And thanks, everyone. So my name's Mia Moore. I'm a Montpelio resident and mother to three children in our school system. And thank you very much for considering my kind of seat to fill the seat that Bridget is vacating. She's definitely leaving some big shoes to fill. And I also wanted to express appreciation for the other folks who have sent forward to and volunteering to serve in this way as well. You all know how challenging and rewarding it can be. I wanted to share a little bit more about my experience just to round out what I shared with all of you in my letter of interest. So I was the chief of staff at Democracy for America which is a national political action committee for 10 years. And my primary roles there were organizational budgeting and long-term planning and ensuring our people were supported and accountable to their goals. About halfway through my tenure in this role, we learned some very hard truths about what it was like to be a person of color working at DFA. And at the time, this was pretty shocking to me because as a white person with the position of power in the organization, I wasn't experiencing working there in the same way. And it was also pretty terrible for me, for everyone in the organization, but I felt it very personally because I had the power to do something about it and I hadn't up until then. So we got to work first by educating ourselves as a team of staff and then by working on changes. And it was really hard and we didn't get it right a lot of the time but we stuck with it together. And I wanted to share that with you all because as a district and as a community, I see us all really coming together to do very similar work. And I understand what it means to slowly learn the painful realities of oppression because I don't experience them myself in many ways to mess up along the way and to begin to envision a more equitable and just system. And I've worked on teams trying to unravel white supremacy habits and culture from our own policies, our own practices and our own behaviors. And I know that this work can't be a separate and unique effort but that instead it needs to be woven and integrated into all the decisions that we make. And I hope that those experiences that I've had can be an asset to the work that the district and our school communities are currently undergoing. So thank you again for your consideration of my candidacy. Great, thank you Mia. Questions for Mia? Excellent. And Chloe Wexler. Hello, hi, here I am. My name is, hello, good evening. My name is Chloe Wexler. I have also been living in the Montpelier community for about four years now. And now that I'm a little bit more settled, I've been thinking about ways that I too can get involved and get back to the community. Due to my, especially right now with everything that's going on, I was thinking that the way that I could conceivably most efficiently and readily become a sort of participating member of the community is through potential involvement with the school board. And this is because of my current job. I am the legislative fiscal data analyst for the joint fiscal office. And my primary charge is to calculate the yields. So I have a unique familiarity with the education fund. And so I think that I could at least on the fiscal side and the budgetary side, I could rapidly become a participating member of the board, especially since I know that you guys are in your budget process right now is I too am in my budget process to prepare the December one letter. So on that, so that's sort of one part of the equation. And then I am not 100% familiar what's going on with the district. I actually do not have a student in the district. I come to the board without, I don't have any policy incentives or preconceived notions who would just come as someone who would listen and make informed decisions based on the information that I receive. I did go to Harwood. I remember playing soccer at Montpelier High School when I was a kid. And I want to make sure that the students in Vermont continue to have as good of an experience as I had. I actually had a great experience going through the public schools. So those are my little pitches. I understand that we'll see what happens and maybe you'll see me around more frequently as I maybe not through this particular position but start to get more involved in the Montpelier schools. So thank you very much. Thank you, Chloe. And I also want to point out that Josh Kirtland also applied. He was not sure he was gonna be able to make it tonight, given I think our obligation. But if he does pop in and it's conveniently made, allow him to give him time to speak as well later. Any questions for Chloe? Jim, just for all of the candidates, can we please clarify, this position will be up for reelection in March, correct? Yes. As will, we'll have more than our usual number that are up for reelection in March, correct? Because Emma came in to Steve's seat which she left after the election of my memory, is that right? Yeah, so what we'll have in March is this seat will actually expire as in March. So how it works is the appointment, the appointment is good till the next election. And then in the case of Emma's seat, I think it's two years. It'll be two years, because Steve left shortly after he won a three-year term. Emma could choose to run for those two years. She could choose to say, oh my God, what did I get into? I'm not gonna do this anymore. Or she could choose to run for the open three-year term. And Bridget's term expires in March. So whoever appointed to this could either, if they were interested in continuing, could either run for another three-year term, could run for the two-year term, the rest of Steve's, or I'm not sure if we have another seat up or not in my pillar, do we? My seat should also be up. Yeah. Oh, that's right, because you were appointed. Yeah, one year, yeah. And so Mara I think would be, so we'll have like a one-year term. So I think we'll have a one-year, two-year, and a three-year term. Two, three years and one two-year. Okay. I just wanna clarify this because we have so many extraordinary candidates and we can only choose one candidate, but there is gonna be an election with a more than usual number of seats on the board coming up in March. And also to let the public know. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That is what, is your seat up in March? Yes, my term will be ending in March. So there'll be an election in Roxbury as well this cycle. Yeah. I see Livy greeting her teeth. So following up on that. So yeah, so the appointment will be to March. I encourage one, I wanna thank everyone who stepped forward. This is a super impressive slate of applicants. It's gonna be a really tough choice. I wish we could appoint you all. But please do keep your eye on March if we don't choose you because that is a great opportunity to either run again as, you know, obviously that's an election. So the voters will decide then. And yeah, obviously next March and just we do have vacancies that pop up just do-do. People stepping down midterm. So I wanna thank all of you. It's just really wonderful to see so many talented people step up and you will all be on our list for future vacancies and or elections because we'd love to get all of you on the board at some time. All right, that concludes public comment. Let's move to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. I had a question. I don't think we saw the policy monitoring report or I didn't see the policy monitoring report for the AO3. So four member expectations, right Emma? Yeah. Yeah. Is that in the, are we voting on that right now or no? Yeah, that is later. That's policy monitoring at the end. Okay, sorry about that. And I have it here. I can send it along to you Emma. We're just voting on minutes from recent committee meetings, the last school board meeting, warrants for payroll and accounts payable through November 13th and then the superintendent's report. Yeah, and I think it was the, any, well first, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Great, let's go to a vote. Vote, Emma? Aye. Jill? Aye. Ryan? Aye. Mara? Aye. Anaget? Aye. Andrew? Aye. And Bridget? Aye. Consent agenda is approved. We already covered board member applications. So board discussion is budget goals and priorities. And Libby, I want to hand it off to you on that. Yeah, I just have really broad slides and Grant was going to try to join us, but he was rushing home after the meeting before this, so he may not have gotten home. But I just- Hey, Libby, do we want to do the policy readings first to give him some time? Yeah, if we don't mind. I mean, if it's not a big deal, let's do that first and then just see if he has time to, if he gets home to jump on. Sometimes his internet's not so great at home too. So, but that might give him a minute. Okay. Let's, let's rearrange that. I don't know if he's going to buy us a ton of tie or not, but we can, we can try. So we're going to skip to the policy reading. So we have a second reading of the electronic communication between employees and students policy and the C-12 prevention of sexual had harassment as prohibited by title nine. Any comments or edits on these two policies? No, but I just want to say your plan paid off. Yes, I saw, I saw Grant appear. I think we actually can't edit the policies these particular ones. Yeah, they're mandated ones, right? Yeah. So it makes the discussion a little shorter. Yeah. And let's just, while we're on it, do the policy monitoring as well. We have to approve these, to have a motion to approve the, do I have any questions about the policy monitoring reports for Lily? I agree with Emma that I cannot find the report for AO3. I can, I can find the text of AO3, just not. Yeah, that's, I was looking through and that's what I found too. That was the one that you were looking for, Tim. You were going to do that one. I was. Yeah. Yeah, that one wasn't supposed to be AO3. I was trying to think of a good way to say that, but I didn't get any other good way. No, you can call me out at it. I'm sorry. It's been a busy couple of weeks. Well, let's kick that one to next time. Yeah, we can just move it to the next time. Yeah. Jim, would you like any input from board members on? I would love input from board members. Out of the both? I don't know. I don't actually have any, but I just thought I'd throw out that idea since we're all here looking at the policy. I mean, I will say, I think that the board's done a great job of board members of taking on the work of the board, which is part of this policy. I think that that's been very well met. I think that's been very well met in the past year. Any other questions or comments? And I will actually do this next time. I would echo Bridget just in the sense of the board has done an exceptional job through some very challenging times where it would have been very easy to come out of their lane. So. I will write up something and circulate it next on the 17th. So I apologize for that. And then any questions about the FO3 transportation? No. Do I have a motion to approve and we'll just do the FO3 transportation report? So moved. Do I have a second? A second. Any discussion? Emma? Aye. Ryan? Aye. Jill? Aye. Mara? Aye. Anakin? Aye. Andrew? Aye. Bridget? Aye. Great, approved. And now that we have both Olivia and Graham here, let's go to the budget goals and priorities. Yeah, so we just put together a very slim, I don't think we've actually ever done this for budget time before, but this is just a very slim piece of where the administration is right now. We've had several meetings. We've actually slowed down the budget process and had more face-to-face, well, sometimes virtually, time with the administrative team because we have so many new members on our administrative team and because it's just such an oddball year. So we've had a lot of conversation amongst ourselves and we're starting to zero in on where we believe the priorities need to be based on what we're seeing in our field. But this is also a chance of the board members to weigh in. So I have just four very short slides for some themes we're thinking about and some questions for the board for you all to have a discussion around. Okay, the grant is here as well. Just in case there's more money questions that he would be a better suited than me to answer. So just a reminder, I know most of you have seen this before but we always wanna put this in front of the community and we always wanna put it in front of the board members. This is the MRPS theory of growth that all kids will learn at high levels because of what we do every single day. And if we have collective responsibility and collaborative practices, formalized essential learning, a timely system to enrich, intervene and remediate and high quality instruction in every classroom then we'll reach that goal of all kids learning at high levels. For right now, what we're looking at for this budget cycle to support is high quality instruction in every classroom. Which actually isn't a whole financial piece to it that's much different than other years but this is certainly then, this was actually where we were gonna focus all of our efforts this year but because we're in this strange place where we can't really get into classrooms and teaching looks different and classrooms look different. We're still focusing on high quality instruction but nowhere near in the way that we were focusing on. Actually, this year we're really doubling down on collaborative practices and collective responsibilities because of the situation we're in right now which is not a bad thing. It's not holding us back. It's just making us stronger in that particular circle. But what you will see a theme around is timely system to enrich, intervene and remediate and the idea is that the administrative team will most likely put forward for actual dollars that we're looking at. We also wanna put in front of you some enrollment trends that are pretty significant. So since the 1920 school year, the high school has increased by 55 students and it's modeling to significantly continue that increase. So we have a lot more kids coming into our high school and that really influences the mandatory courses particularly at the ninth and 10th grade. Once kids get to 11th and 12th grade they can start taking a lot of different things and there's different offerings outside of our high school walls but that influx of kids, we have a significantly larger 10th grade for instance. It really influences some things that kids have to take. Mandatory things kids have to take. Oh, Jim, I see Josh is entering the board meeting too. And then mainstream middle school is still increasing since the 1920 school year they've increased by 20 students. That will continue to increase except not as significantly as the high school. Right now we are top heavy at seven, eight. So our seven, eight classes are very big at Main Street middle school. Our sixth grade is just a slight bit smaller but not much. So we have a few more years at Main Street but it seems for enrollment that the board has talked about before. UAS is remaining constant but it is gonna start to decline starting next year. That's what the modeling is predicting. Again, the modeling at UAS is a little bit tricky because kindergarten is not mandatory and so there were some people who chose not to engage in kindergarten this year because they didn't have to. So those numbers may not be our current reality of the actual five-year-olds in our community but we don't know that. There's no real way to know that. It's also based on like birth rates. So our kindergarten numbers are based on birth rates and that's not exactly a reliable number. However, it's what the model is built on for our kindergarten. So it is gonna start to decline in terms of enrollment but again, that modeling may be a little off. And then RBS is just hard to model because it's so small and if one family moves in with three kids that significantly changes the population at RBS. So it's just really hard to model it but what we can say across time that it's pretty much remained constant across time. So across what we have anyway, the information we have. So that's what Grant's kind of modeling for going forward but the enrollment trends are significant and they do influence our budgetary thinking. Oh, sorry. So some of the things that we're talking about is opportunities for this year's budget. Our administrative team would really like to build our capacity for intensive needs in special education. Our current reality is that less than 0.01 students at UES and MSMS cost the district $291,814,000 because of outside placements or outside consultants. So what the team would really like to try to do is to build our capacity internally. So which may be a dollar amount upfront but eventually decrease this reliance on outside consultancy. Right now we have a BCBA that we hired last year and that will allow us to build a lot of social emotional learning capacity in-house and it has to, it's all tied up in negotiations and all kinds of things like that as well but we have plans to build that capacity and the BCBA lets us go a long way in that. But we also are looking at our kids who have intensive special needs and how we're servicing them and if we're doing the best by them and do we really have a program built for kids in a way that continues to build and increase their learning capacity so that they are learning to their highest levels as well. And we're not sure that we have a definitive on that but we think that we're building a plan or a program that we're gonna present to the board around increasing our human resource capacity and intensive needs. Did it be? So I'm just, oh, go ahead, Andrew, sorry. I'm just not, I'm not entirely certain what that means. Less than 0.01 students cost 291,814. Does that mean that they're? Well, that should be a percentage actually, sorry. Oh, okay. I think no 1% of students. Sorry, I'm just missing that point. Sorry about that, Andrew. Good question. So what it means is a very few number of students with high needs cost the district a lot of money in this area. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, sorry. Just for people listening, the A2 in-house board certified behavior analyst. Thank you, Anne. Thank you, Anne. This is an emotional learning capacity building. Thank you for clarifying jargon. I owe a dime to the jargon drawer. Thanks. Yes, that's a board certified behavior analyst, which is odd for schools to have, not many schools have them. So it's usually the outside consultancies who have them. So we want to try to keep that position in our ranks. So the next thing we're looking at is. I was going to just ask it on there. I mean, are we sure that we can, I mean, aren't there some other factors that influence outside placements like desires of parents, et cetera, that can be expensive and hard to resolve? And sometimes on a case-by-case basis, we can have something explode regardless of what our in-house capacity is. Yeah, absolutely on a case-by-case basis. It's not the case right now. So outside consultancy and placements is an IEP team decision, which of course is a school team and a parent team working collaboratively. And yes, there are cases and have been cases where the IEP team disagrees on what those services would be. And that's been a little costly to the district. Currently, this number does not reflect that necessarily. So unforeseen retirements allows for potential new programming, particularly at Main Street Middle School in the high school. So we did have some retirements that the board offered the early retirement incentive this year because of the situation we're in. We didn't expect for those retirements, but they've allowed us to have a year of thinking about what we could do for other programming that has nutritional programming that's happened in the past and how do we reimagine it for going forward in the future? One example of that is Crafter's Edge at the Middle School. And how can we use the capacity that we have there to build potentially a program that can build across the four years at the middle school so that the eighth graders do have a grand experience much like Crafter's Edge. But that might be more reflective of the district's values around sustainability and that kind of thing. So we're kind of looking at that right now and Katie's gonna start a conversation with the community after the winter haul, the winter break around this piece as well but there's some potential new programming that may or may not influence the budget but it's definitely things we're talking about right now. And then more kids at the middle school and the high school that just increases the need for humans for required coursework but it also equals different opportunities for kids. So if we need, last year the board added some fine arts work at the high school but there is a potential that we need even more opportunities for kids there because it's a requirement. And we currently don't have a whole lot of offerings there. We looked at that last year and maybe that we're proposing something new this year. So the increase in human resources isn't just because we have more kids but it's also because we wanna think about different opportunities for students. And I know that's really broad in general but we're still really in discussion about bringing to the board what exactly we wanna do with that idea. But it's just, I wanted to make sure you knew that that enrollment does impact some budgetary decisions going forward. So last was just some questions that you could use as part of your discussion jump off or you could go other places too. What are priorities the community would like the administration to consider in building our budget to present to the board? Are there areas that the community does not want us to focus on but then wants more focus? You know, what don't we focus on? What do we focus on? And where are the landmines that we're we wanna make sure that we don't touch going forward. So I'll leave it to you all to discuss as Grant and I any questions we can take it back to the administrative team as we're thinking forward. We're got a really good start on this budget. So but we wanna make sure that we have this input before we move forward even more. Great, thanks, I guess two things questions for Libby. And then also comments on her questions and we can obviously, you know, keep giving that feedback as the next few meetings move forward and we hear more food immunity. But Jill. I just real quick, I think it's helpful for me as a new board member going into this and maybe some folks that are listening. So the budget we're starting to have the conversation is about is the one that eventually will become something that we're all voting on in March, right? That's the timeframe. Cause it's so hard to look past COVID right now but I just thought that would be important to confirm that understanding. So, okay. And it's for the fiscal year 22 budget. So we're talking about July 1, 2021 to June 30th, 2022. Yeah. Yeah. And just for what we usually kind of do from a timeframe perspective is we'll get the first budget presentation. The first meeting in December. All the way in this area. Yeah. And then we'll give input and, you know, based on that input and then based on some other things that happen and it's kind of this rolling process where, you know, Grant is making estimates about what, you know, the CLA is going to be what the yield is going to be, what our equalized pupil numbers are going to be. And, you know, we'll kind of get that information in real time as we try to, you know, also, you know, bring in any, you know, input or, you know, other factors from the board or through the board, the community and then there'll be a second presentation usually a presentation to the community sometime in January that we try to do as an open meeting. We'll obviously probably do that through Zoom this year. And then we have to vote on it and finalize it by one January 19th or something. And then, you know, then we had it off and, you know, both the city of Montpelier and the town of Roxbury, you know, approve it in March. So, and then, you know, obviously adjustments are made to the taxes depending on what the legislature ultimately ultimately does. So we, you know, even when it's approved, we don't have final numbers for the tax impacts are going to be able to have a pretty good idea as well as other impacts. And so there's a little bit of a big change that we're seeing in the region. Livy, did you say that there's gonna be a kind of deliberate community involvement around the middle school offerings and curriculum? Yeah. That the. Or Crafters Edge. Oh, that's a future for Crafters Edge. But Crafters Edge kind of implicates the specials, right? I mean, they're integrated. I mean, I think that that's great And since, since you mentioned the middle school and that point about crafters edge, I just wanted to throw out something that I know was taking around a couple of years ago around foreign language at the middle school. When the fifth grade got shifted there that there was a lot of parental interest in moving proficiency based foreign language education into lower grades at the middle school since they were there. So, I don't know what Katie's thinking about or you're thinking about, but I just wanted to throw that idea out again and remind that there was a lot of, there's certainly a lot of community interest of them around using moving the fifth grade to the middle school as an opportunity to bring real proficiency based foreign language education to younger students and I don't think it's played out but could it be on the table again. I don't think board members could be asking the community about now. Maybe in terms of the fine arts position that you were just talking about possibly expanding there we did do a survey. Well, we, the view and your team I don't know who did it. A survey last year correct. So, was that the high school level was that at the middle school level at the high school level. Okay. Yeah, and really what we're looking at so we have we're having a lot of conversations right now because we have a couple shared positions between Main Street middle schools that does get difficult to do because their schedules are different. So it is difficult to share positions between the two. The instrumental people in the inquire make it work pretty well because of the nature of their gigs. So we're looking to talk about other positions. So we've heard loud and clear from the community for instance over the past couple years around and many people who are in this board meeting I've heard as well around health education. And so that's actually an area when I say we have opportunity right now to increase this capacity. So we're looking at just health is a required course in ninth grade that and we have the operating so we're looking at can we increase that position to offer more health education across our fifth through 12th graders. So, and how do we do that how do we do that in a way that we do we share position do we not share a position do it you know like those are the kind of conversations we're having right now. It's just been made loud and clear to us that that is something the community values and wants. So anyway, those are the kind of ideas that we're talking about right now. And I just add real quick again for those who aren't familiar I always didn't I never knew what crafters edge meant or who they were or what that was because it's like an inside baseball kind of term but my understanding is that they're it's sort of like an eighth grade capstone where they put on performances they will bake sales it's like a way sort of learn responsibility and organization and also do some fun things like host dances for the younger grades maybe but something else feel free to fill that out but again I think it's another thing that I just not all of us who knew what crafters were doing in terms of management except for that they make pies and really fun events and really cool would furniture that when I was cleaning out the classrooms this year to get a classroom into our tech room. I got to take some home so Bridget I got Ben stuff back to bridge. There's also a job that business sort of aspect to it that there's money being raised. So there's an ability to like, you know, kind of calculate expenses versus income and how you're going to use it and send it in different ways. And we're trying to figure out how to keep things like this is what the community conversation is and we're in such we're not we're nowhere near. But we're trying to think about how do we keep some valuable pieces like what Bridget just said like financial education which is, I personally think it's so important and we don't do it enough. And perhaps turn the focus to community service in a different way so and giving back to the community in a way so we're we're we're kind of playing with that idea a little bit. I think it interests with some first from some of our top notch middle school teachers around this. So it's exciting, but Katie's going to plan that conversation with the community, starting after the December break. I would just add that crafters edges like a really beloved legacy in this town. There's big framed photographs in the hallway at the middle school of all the various classes that participated in crafters edge dating even to my era. But I would definitely echo that was the point that I was going to bring up was the health education. I know in particular at the middle school when kids are first being introduced to sex ed. There's been a lot of community organization around the quality of that education at the middle school and wanting something different and I know that that viper has been working on it. Another inside term. I know that he's been working really hard on potentially getting a new adopting a new curriculum for the middle school but there was also a lot of discussion about potentially. I don't know shifting around the duties around that particular teaching assignment. So I'd be interested in hearing more about that. My main concern is something that Grant brought up at a previous meeting around because potential projections are showing Union Elementary School of class sizes dropping slightly that there was some talk about potentially cutting staff faculty positions at us and that concerns me. Yes, it's a little tricky next for next year. I think it's a little tricky because right now our enrollment numbers at kindergarten and first grade may not be accurate for next year for our enrollment number for next for next year's kindergarteners and next year's first grade may not be accurate because of the pandemic that we just don't know. Right now, those classrooms are about 12 kids in a classroom. If the numbers hold, which is not healthy for kids. You want, you want about 17 to 18 in a classroom for real real so it's we're not looking at that right now unless we have to unless the board tells us to. But they right now if the numbers hold they are very low at Union. And what is that? Is that is that kids are doing first grade or sorry I misunderstood or is. That would be next year's K and and one for that. Thanks. Thanks. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead, Brian. I'm going to follow up on the question about enrollment numbers. So it seems like building the special services program is a big theme and the proposal you just shared with us. How does our facility space look for me to accommodate that type of a program. We're not talking about a lot of students, but we'll be talking about students who have special needs that might need breakout rooms or more dedicated space to be able to serve well. We don't have that right now where it's part of the program looking at maybe having outside. Well, districts face outside of our current buildings. No, we're not looking at that at all. But you're absolutely right, Brian, very astute of you. We that's part of the conversation of if we develop more programming to keep kids in house. We do we're going to need to do something with some space us actually does have space and that's what we're looking at right now. A beautiful space actually that Andrew the rose is going to put on his architect hat. And because of our capital capital projects as well as the his buildings and grounds budget in general, we think that we can do that pretty well without adding a whole lot of money onto the budget. But it's really, I don't know if you've ever been there right but it's the special education suite at us. Because they have like a full office suite that no other building has. And so we're looking at how could we keep some of the offices and make it more of a student friendly space. It's all going to depend on students and individual cases, but it was just as we grow it how does it kind of fit into what we have to work with. But what you're saying is exactly right like we need small spaces for individual kids who have a lot of sensory needs you know so do we have those small breakout rooms with carpets on the wall so kids can touch the carpet you know like that those kind of things are the things that we're talking about right now. And how we build it so it's much more student friendly for our kids who really need that type of environment. So I think that's really successful. I saw you turn on your camera so I know you have something to say. No, I just. We just got our hand up. I'm going to follow up on Emma's point, because it's about the sort of community landmines around class sizes and changes and staffing that. And I know Brian's like he's so great at communication that I don't think it's an issue but in the past that has caused, I think, cause staffing changes. And class size changes to be even more of it. You know, it's like turning a community reaction because there wasn't clear communication about what was happening. So, you know, it's like a grade went from you know, five second grades to four third grades but no one ever said to people that was happening and you know people just sort of piecing together wait a minute. And you know, I feel like they haven't been told so, again, Brian's been such a great communicator through all of his time in this. So I know that he would know that but I think that really helps the fact change is going to happen that people just find out straight up this is what the plan is this is how large you expect the classes to be this is why we're going from four to three or five right now unless we have to we're not planning on that right now, unless we have to do other things but there is a reality that will need guidance from the board around that our high school population and our middle school population is significantly large, and our high school population is significantly growing. And so there, there is the reality that that it's either a give and take, or it's just a give on our which gets expensive when you're talking about teachers right so if you're adding one teacher that's approximately 75 to $80,000 when you're talking about benefits. So they're, I mean, it's not a small chunk of change so it's just something that in the next year, and probably two or three years that we're going to have to grab away the little bit. Yeah, and I would just echo what Bridget said, you know, past past attempts at, you know, resizing classes have been sticky and I think a lot of the stickiness has been that some of the, some of the communication around it was was not as as direct and clear and out front as it could have been so you know to the extent that that any of that will occur like, you know, it would be good and I think you and Ryan both do an exit job of this of just, you know, be very playing about the rationale and what's happening. Another issue that's both community landmine and I think a priority to potentially look into. I've heard a lot about the expensive field trips, and the way that we fundraise around field trips, and field trips that have a significant impact on community landmining history that we pretty much know are going to be happening every year, but that we're still families to raise money for. So I know I've heard a lot of buzz around potentially building some of those field trips into the curriculum budget. I think that would be something interesting to look into. I think we did. Do you remember the number that you you put your budget. Do you remember when we were talking about that, the beginning of last year. Do you remember the beginning of last year was it like 200. It wasn't a, it wasn't like huge. I think 200 might be too high, but I think we did have a number. I don't remember. I don't remember what it was off the top of my head, but we did make a conscious effort last year to make sure that the principals were budgeting what they needed for field trips. The only outliers are those ones that are, you know, like a trip to Canada or a trip to Ireland. I mean those kinds of trips that would really be hard to put into the budget and you'd also end up with some equity concerns if you don't fully fund that for all kids that are interested. But as far as local field trips for instruction, we are, we have tried to make sure that we've budgeted for the full cost of that so that people aren't having to fundraise and families aren't having to come up with it on their own. One of the field trips I'm thinking about is the fifth grade field trip to Boston. I know that's a very expensive field trip, but it's also like, you know, one of those big capstone moments of middle school that everybody's looking forward to and they've been doing the trip since the beginning of time. And I do think I do consider it an equity issue. It would be the reason why I would want to build it into the budget. So that pressure is taken off of families. And that's one of our new administrators. So I have a meeting with with her, I think on Friday to go over her budget to make sure that she's fully understanding how, you know, what we how we work what the process is. And I will bring it up to her to make sure that if that is a field trip that is important from the curriculum standpoint that she wants to support that we make sure that we have enough money in the budget to do that. Excellent. Other questions or comments. The one game. I was just about to say, in the past, we've kind of come up with a general public outreach plan. Yeah, this time and talk about that and our life there of this year. Yeah, it's also a different environment, but yeah, I mean, is that something we want to do because in the past, what we've done is we've kind of split up various groups and there are a few years even like hosted events in the basement of the library and kind of got people together and just brainstormed over priorities. And then reached out to just various, you know, interest groups in in the city. And Iraq as well. Is that something you want to kind of formally do and try to split up. Or just given the COVID times. And also, like, honestly, the, this is probably not the year for huge new initiatives. Is this what we want to do formally or do we just want to kind of each individually. And I think it's a lot of networks we have. I don't know. I know that I had heard in the past of what the board used to do again under times when you could go to the senior center or you could host some kind of station. I mean, I'm happy to do whatever is useful. I think, I think having the board meetings over zoom like this has definitely opened the door for folks to participate. So maybe, maybe that we formally sort of invite the community and we block an hour of certain board meetings and hosts that conversation as part of that meeting or I don't know if we can get it up somehow. I'm not sure what that looks like, but I'm happy to host separately or, or as a team. And I think this will be the way that we that we need to do it. Does that, excuse me, does that need to be a board meeting or can we host independent meetings and not call them. Seriously, this is something we do outside of the board meeting to have maybe to two members go, you know, set an hour aside at the senior center and just go and listen to what their concerns are. You know, same with like, you know, the friends of popular schools. I think Steve needs to do some outreach to some of the, you know, kind of trade and business organizations. Yeah. Our budget doesn't affect you. Yeah. Yeah, I do think it's, I'm, I, I have no problem with us reaching out to business organizations but I always thought it was kind of funny because our budget doesn't affect their tax rates. And they don't maybe talking to them about ways that they can work with students, but I feel like we have professionals who already focus on that. I'm thinking like that makes me in that whole crew. So I always thought that was kind of a little bit of a funny thing. Yeah, I'm, I'm totally fine. I'm not, not necessarily doing that, or at least not, not business groups, but I think it might be good. You know, the parents groups. Yeah, the senior center. You know, any other groups are going to think of it up again I'm not sure, like for instance with the senior center I'm not sure whether there's a good platform to really talk to the senior center at the moment. Yeah, so we can reach out to Janet Claire and ask her. I almost, I almost wonder if we could also just kind of send an email blast to some of these different groups and say hey do you have any budget issues budget concerns issues concerning the school that that pertain to the budget. If you want us to consider in this process. And another thought is if we had something on the district site to channel focused feedback with a couple of questions saying, hey, you know what, what, what would you like to see us invest in as we move forward as a as a school district. That's, that's not the most eloquent way of putting it but I think you get what I'm, I'm getting. If I can what I would say that one of my worries is that we're late. Yes, that the that we're going to present a budget to you on December 3rd or whatever that date is, which is a month away so I just want to put that out there that, and I'm not saying that as a blame game or anything like that because this is just a different year. I mean we've had some other things on our plate as a board but but it is a little bit late for kind of some processes to happen. The town hall style that you did that I helped with right before school opened, you know something like that like a zoom town hall and we can even facilitate some breakout rooms based on topics or something like that. It's a really quick efficient way and we could talk to Jana and other stakeholders try to get people to participate just in one big town hall together. I had one other budget priority that came to mind around the issue of equity at Union Elementary School. We talked about quite a bit the snack program that we're not doing this year, but that we've done in prior years, and there's been a lot of the talk about just rolling it into the budget and having it be free to all students. And I don't understand all the complexities of what that would take or how expensive it would be. But just that first blush it seems like a good idea. I was watching what's been happening with COVID and how all meals have been made free to all students. It definitely strikes me as something we should consider. I was watching Grant's face, because he's, you're not you're thinking about the snack fairy aren't you, Grant. It already is paid for. So I was, I was just watching Grant's reaction to that. Yeah, kind of is kind of isn't I talked to Jim Birmingham about it because that was, that was one of the positions in food service that was kind of covered by the general fund instead of food service but I think that got restructured and with this being now the COVID world. I'm not sure how that's going to play out. But I have to talk to him because it also involves things like, you know, federal reimbursement state reimbursement so you're just talking about the snack program. Yeah, I'm actually talking about so I understand I understand what you're saying that the position now is paid for in the budget, the physical person who who organizes the program. I was more talking about food and making that available and free to everyone who wants it or needs it. And snack. Yeah, I need to talk to Jim though because I don't even know now whether you know snack is even a term like is snack really what we're calling breakfast now. So let me let me talk to him about it and see you know kind of what we have done in the past what it what the definitions are and and what he has to say about it and hopefully we can bring some kind of proposal forward. Yeah, I know it's a moot point this year because they're not doing I mean as Renee commented at the beginning they're not even doing breakfast as cool right now but breakfast is separate from snack is separate from lunch. So, in terms of to do is Olivia assuming you're willing to do the town hall. Should we just send out some put it down. Why don't you give us a date to send out to the board and then we can decide here who can do some outreach I'm willing to reach out to to Jan up and see if she can connect connect up with with folks in the senior center. The admin team usually goes and has lunch at the senior center a couple times a year and I can be able to do that this year and all of us are saying the other day and I'm sure we're gonna miss that. They asked the best questions about our budget. I don't really like going. It's appropriate but I do have a professional zoom account that I paid for that I'm happy to host parents I'm happy to host teachers like if there's groups that you want just need a board member to be a sounding board I'm happy to do something like that if it's in the evening. In the town hall we could invite a bunch of groups and say many people come or if you want to do a job you want to just do a separate reach out and then bring ideas to the board meeting, you know, that would would work as well. And the groups I love to go I'm reaching the senior center we could get someone to reach out to the three school groups us MSMS and the high school. Yeah, if we set us out all we can just make sure it gets posted on the. Yeah, various social media sites where we'll get a lot of parents and community members but I think if we do outreach to those four groups and if anybody has any other group they can think of. That would be great too but because everyone do the school groups I can do Jana but that's, I think, I'm also happy I like Andrew's idea of doing some kind of either it's a, you know, a comment form on the web page or a really simple survey monkey kind of survey or something out that we can put out on the web page or put out to parents that's another way that folks could kind of quickly weigh in. I'm happy to help and I remember. Yeah, that's great. I can reach out to MSMS and us parent groups. Okay, awesome. Does everybody want to do the high school. And I'm thinking reaching out with an invitation to a pre scheduled town hall. Yeah, I think we just, you know, living under calendar maybe propose a date to send it to the board and then, you know, we can just send a quick email. You know, it was going to do this we'd love to have great time to have you come and Yeah, talk about your budget priorities. Yeah, and the board will be there in listen mode. Or at least some members will. Well, we'll figure out a way to find. I can figure out the high school. Yeah. And all of them. Yeah, I was going to say, I almost just wonder if it makes sense if M is already reaching out to those parents groups if she does. Is it consolidated now. Adrian's here and she should. And I can help with that and it's got into the parent groups are like this. Perfect. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, it's just a communication to them once we once we set up a time and if Anna can assist them. I'm looking at just because of board meetings and negotiations meeting probably November 16 is about the only day that would work. I think that that works. So you guys can put that on your calendar. It's just with the negotiations with three negotiations and board meetings nights are pretty few and far between right now. Yes. And we have the holiday. Yeah, I think we have to make it too late either. Because I know that as much as you love spending time with us, I'm sure you also like to see your family every now and then too. You saw earlier she was dancing behind me that. Yeah, so kind of make it at a time that's convenient. All right. Any other questions for Grant or living on the budget. Thank you both. Yeah, no, thank you. So the budget conversation this year is not as as scary as we were thinking it might might have been. We're about to have an executive session to talk about negotiations and board candidates but I see that Josh Kirk link has joined us. And I just want to give him an opportunity to introduce himself before we head into executive session. Thank you for joining us and go ahead and introduce yourself. Well, thank you. I'm sorry I was late. Murphy's law struck again and as we're getting everything set up we had a quick run so I'm back now. I'm pleased to just build a kind of listen in and see everyone's faces and hopeful that you know if not now at one point I can join the board and and help shape the school district that our kids are in so any questions I'll happily answer. Any questions for Josh. Well, thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of say what we said to the other guys who spoke a little earlier we have a really amazing slate. So, so thank you for stepping up hugely appreciated. We are going to have three openings in March. So if we don't appoint you tonight definitely, you know, keep it in mind and we'd love to see you run. And yeah, and obviously we are. This is unusual to have four candidates for a vacancy. Yeah, no, it's great. It's a good thing to have so. Yeah, so thank you very much. We'll be we'll be making a decision after we come out of executive session and Yeah, and we'll let you know and and if if you're not chosen, you know, please, please do keep the board in mind because we, we will have openings and and opportunities to serve so so thank you very much. And with that I need, you've got an executive session for negotiations, and then to consider board candidates which not sure exactly personnel. But for the purpose of negotiations we need the first one. And we're going to join us in yes for the negotiations part or no. This is going to give you the opportunity to one last time. I'm happy to do that. Yes. After this, after you make this motion no one will ever know how to make this motion again. I'm happy to be able to have the board find discussing contract negotiations and open session with the board at a substantial disadvantage. Let me write that down. Second matter. Ryan. I, Jill. Hi, Mara. Hi, and again. Hi, Andrew. Hi, Emma. I'm from Virginia. Hi. And then now I'm also here now. Oh, sorry. And now I need a motion to go into executive session for the purpose of discussion negotiations and board discussions board appointment. I'll make a motion to board entry executive session to discuss contract negotiations and personnel matter. I second that. Ryan. I, Jill. Hi, Mara. Hi, and again. Hi, Andrew. Hi, Emma. Hi, and Bridget. Hi. I'm going to refuse after the negotiation part. Okay. Okay. You want to do the magic. Do I have a motion to appoint. Ironically, she is the last one standing near more to fill the seat. On the board. So move. I can just do a second. Jerry. Hi, etiquette. Hi, Mara. Hi, Andrew. Hi, Bill. Hi, Emma. Hi, Ryan. Hi. Congratulations, Mia. You don't know what you're getting yourself into. She's been at every one of our meetings for the past. Yeah, she does. What you do have to do is. You can either call John Odom or, you know, put a mask and go to city hall and get sworn in. And then you can join us. Open right now, Jim. Are they open by appointment? Okay. And it's open like Tuesday through Thursday. I think it's seven hours. Just the heads up the phone thing takes 30 seconds. And then you don't have to figure out whether city hall is operational right now. Yes. And gets worn in and then you're good to go. So, and I'm, I'm sure. I'm not going to be getting an email. Yeah. We can make that happen. And the board will want to think about which one of you wants to be a mentor to me. Yes. And committees. Committee. Emotion to adjourn. So move. Jerry. Hi. Hi, Mara. Hi. Andrew Jill. Ryan. Hi. Hi. Welcome here. Thank you. Welcome. Yeah, thank you.