 Looks like we're ready to go, 32-ish, beginning the Montpelier-Brocksbury Barterschool Directors Meeting for Wednesday, October 5th. First order of business is public comment. I see Chris is here, and there's a few people on the phone. Looks like James has raised his hand. Anyone else on the phone want to speak? If you understand the raise hand function, go ahead and employ it, otherwise take yourself off camera and give a little wave. Is that part of the consent agenda? I didn't see one come through, so maybe. That process, we talked briefly about last board meeting around having a different process, because the auditors pointed out that it was we were out of, we're not out of compliance, but we're out of order, in order in terms of consecutive, with days and stuff, so Christina is changing that process up in in response to what the order the auditors were telling her. And maybe it wasn't even in the consent agenda, and I just got used to seeing it. And yeah, I think that it's not in there, so never mind. Okay, sorry about that. So she may not have gotten it, it's where she needs to be. That's okay. Anyone from the public want to talk? I'll do room first, virtual second. Go for it. Please introduce yourself for the... Sure. Hi everybody. My name is Christopher Curtis. I'm a parent of two kids in the Montpellier schools, one in high school, one in the middle school. And I understand that you all are going to be considering the question of improvements to the athletic facilities at the high school. So I know there's been a lot of discussion in town. And as a parent of two student athletes, I wanted to just come forward and share my perspective on it. First, I want to preface this first by just thanking you all for the time and consideration you've given to all of this. I know it's been a lengthy process already and likely to be lengthier still. And there are no easy answers. So and I also realized that the public schools are here to serve all of our chill health and other aspects of their educational experience, but it's not the sum total of anything. We have huge issues to address throughout the whole district, and I really appreciate all the work that you all do. So thank you for that and for your service on the board. And, you know, however you resolve all the issues related to facilities one way or the other, it's like not going to be the end of the world one way or the other. So I'm just here with a particular interest in exploring the possibility for adding a turf component to the redesign of the track because it's track and field. And there has to be a field to go with the track. So I assume that no matter what happens with the redesign of the track, something is going to happen with the field, whether it's a grass surface redesign and refill or whether it's a turf. And I understand turf is being considered. My kids have very much enjoyed experiences in other locations around the state accessing turf fields. They've benefited from that use and the expanded seasonal use of turf fields. And I think that there's a lot to be said for having that kind of a surface available to students that would lengthen the seasonal, you know, playing time available for all sports. And I think to, you know, it's a huge investment in the track, which is I understand long overdue and I support. But I think in looking at the numbers of students that avail themselves and anecdotally in talking with other athletic directors around the state that manage both track and field infrastructure, the fields just get far more use. It's year round use because kids will come in the wintertime and literally shovel the field so they can play. And I think that the number of students participating in sports in field sports is actually greater in some. If you add in soccer, which is huge, I think it's 77 high school players are playing soccer. You've got a large number playing softball or baseball that could access to use the fields in their preseason for training purposes. You've got the field hockey teams. You've got lacrosse. The list just goes on and on. So when you add in all of the kids that might be able to take advantage of the extended length of time in a field that requires frankly in many ways less maintenance than the grass, especially in inclement weather, it's just there would be a lot of kids that benefit. So it's a major investment that the board is already considering for the track. I think it's sort of generational. This would be the one time if you're going to do a major restructuring of those facilities, now would be the time to do both all at once because I think if you do the one it's very unlikely that the other is going to get addressed. So I would just urge the board to think holistically if we're going to make a major investment in the athletic facilities, just consider kind of biting the bullet and saying, hey, let's do one great facility for all kids all at one time. That would be my pitch. I know there are other considerations too and I trust the board will take into consideration all of the financial, environmental and other needs of the school as you make this decision. But that was just my perspective on it. I love the fact that you're taking this up and I know a lot of kids would be very excited to see that change happen. So I hope that's helpful. The phone have James first and then Matt. And again, please introduce yourself for the viewers at home. Sure. I'm James Ikenberry. I'm a parent of a track and cross country student athlete and just came from the Google Meet about the facilities committee and feel a little bit more informed right now about the different options there. I think, you know, it's great that the committee explored a lot of options that are out there. I think it when the cost started to come in that was a little bit humbling to think about what the initial allocation is and then what it would cost even just to get the base level of the track up and running. So I think I like the end would support the option of getting at least the track project up and going and then thinking about the turf in a phase two because it looks like the track project can build the foundation from a drainage standpoint to make turf happen. There's tons of students that do track and one of the things I would encourage us to think about is how the high level of inclusivity of track can also help some other complementary goals in the school district, especially relating to anti bullying and it's an incredibly inclusive sport. And so I think we need to think about the mental health and other aspects of track that can frankly complement the education and create the social emotional learning components that we're looking for for our students. We were talking about net zero as well that facilities committee and I think turf would probably need to be something that is discussed from a net zero component. What are the materials and the life cycle and it doesn't sound like maybe we get 15 years of turf and then you'd have to replace it again. What are the pollution energetic elements of that? We might want to think about that from a net zero standpoint as well. It's worth thinking about and then also are there other better locations for other existing fields that would maybe make more sense to do turf than necessarily where the track is. I don't know but it's just a question that comes to mind. But I really hope that as I share in the other committee and I'll share with you here that we don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. If we have a great project that we can move forward with that gets us moving the right direction and benefits a lot of folks and also I think all other sports and gym classes would benefit from the track as well that I hope that we'd find a way to move forward. I also think there's a lot of public enthusiasm. There's a lot of track users that are not even related to the school who I think would be very excited community members and hopefully also willing to pitch in and do whatever fundraisers bake sales whatever we need to do to find the other funds or frankly writing grants. I saw a big plaque on the tennis courts showing what how funding was achieved through that and that makes me wonder if that might be another funding source that we could tap into to maybe fund the track. So I'll leave it at that but I hope that we keep moving forward and make good things happen. So thanks y'all. Thank you Jim. Matt, again, please introduce yourself for the camera. Sure. I don't think my video is working. So I want to make sure the audio is working. Yeah, audio is working fine. No, no biggie on the camera. I'm sorry about that. Good evening, everyone. My name is Matt Smith. I am the parent of two boys, one of which graduated from Montpelier in 2020. Payton Smith and then I have a also another son who's a graduate who graduated here in 2024 who's a who's a junior and resident of Montpelier and extremely proud to be a part of our community. I want to start off first and just say thanks to Libby and thanks to our school leadership, both you know, principals and vice-principal principals have passed and then the school board as well, especially over the last two and a half years, it has been a very tough going and we recognize that it's been tough going and we're very appreciative of our leadership all the way up to including the superintendent and then all the way down through our school board to make to make what's happened happened over the past two and a half years. We specifically moved to Montpelier from overseas where I was in the Air Force for 29 years and my final assignment was at Norwich University where I served as the the Professor of Aerospace Studies and I also served as my final year the Dean of the College of National Services, which was in charge of all all ROTC cadets at at Norwich and it's through that lens and that context that I would like to voice my support for the track and field infrastructure just to include the turf aspect of the the field and like folks know college is a year-round endeavor and for for me in that role that I served down at Norwich I was there every day through winter spring summer and fall and I can tell you that the turf field at Norwich saved our curriculum especially during the COVID time. In other words having a field in which we could go out on that was plowed because you can plow a turf field and be able to go outside the dorm and to be able to do all the the things that we needed to do to maintain a safe distance and so on and so forth was incredible and you can be out there rain shine there's no you know there's no mud issues there's no there's no field issues there's no maintenance large maintenance considerations other than just you know again just moving the snow out of the way in winter time which it does obviously snow a lot here in winter is it's a large portion of the school year and I can tell you just from the leadership role that I was in at Norwich and having used utilized that field nearly every single day from about mid-august till about the second week in May it was a game changer and I can tell you again being a coach both at the middle school level here at Montpelier and assisting coach helping out our baseball coach in the high school I can tell you that the fields have been a struggle and I applaud Matt link and his efforts and also some private donors to make the fields you know much better the fields writ large to include scoreboards for you know Peyton Smithfield and it has gotten better it's not you know it's it's not exceptionally dismal so I don't want you guys thinking I'm painting the picture that this is not we are you know that we are in dire straits we are making those improvements but I think at this point in time I think we have an incredible opportunity to really put some time and effort into that track initiative and also into the turf field which will bear I think just incredible fruits of our labors and our funding and our resources for years and years to come and and you know it'll also take pressure off the other fields and allow our limited maintenance resources that we have at the school and Andrew LaRosa is one of my favorite human beings who's amazing who's going to give a presentation here you know shortly and without him we wouldn't have a lot at this school just like we wouldn't have a lot with all the other you know folks that are support our MRPS but I just wanted this unequivocally you know support this proposal and I look forward to hearing from Andrew and again thank you very much to our school leadership and our school board for their their leadership and I know sometimes it's a thankless job but I just from my perspective my family's perspective I'm very thankful to be here in Montpelier and be able to be a part of our community thank you very much for your time great thank you um I think that concludes public comment I'll say a hand oh what if people showed up um yeah you guys want to talk for public comment you got a chance guys well you could also email us you don't yeah you have an opportunity now but yeah I mean he covered it pretty well I would say like even though I'm not going to be here for it as a senior like I think a turf field for the uh the kids coming up would be incredible like so many different uh sports teams could use it we could practice it all the time we could like believe uh like pressure on the other field like the back field that we practice on sometimes is like really really hard to practice on like the bombs and the divvets and whatnot and so we've resorted to dog to dog river and practicing there and half of it has a baseball field on it and people don't pick up their dog poop on the field and we have to bring a shovel from home to scoop the poop and put it away so that we can practice on the field so having a turf field to practice on at our school uh would be like I think really beneficial for a lot of our programs um yeah thank you doesn't think anybody else want to great thanks um we will move on to because we're gonna could basically continue this discussion and thanks everyone for for the input it's it's very very helpful uh to Andrew did you want to speak we don't have to force you we don't have to force you I mean I'd be happy to my friends I'm sorry for uh seeking in kind of late but um boy I really appreciate Ronnie's and I'm sure others comments around um the impact that having a turf field would make for this community and the impact that it would mean and the extension of um seasons and accessibility um it's I know that um there you know there's there's a lot of you know questions either way but I appreciate how this is something that doesn't necessarily impact my family but I think about future generations maybe my youngest would benefit like maybe but at the same time I realize that um giving this outdoor space to to our kids and making it available to them um is could just have a really significant impact and I I I I want to say as somebody who is um dealt with and struggled with priorities and managed um how how do we spend public funds right I think that there's an opportunity here to realize the community good here um and whether and I you know I leave it to you to understand to decide what's the best way forward but um it seems to me like this is something I think that this investment in this in doing a turf field is is the best investment for our community so does it necessarily have to come from the the district budget or is it something that could be bonded for and I but I do think that there could be support I'm confident that there would be support from the community because it has such an overall benefit for our for all of us for all of our kids to um to to move forward with this so I just appreciate you considering this I I get the the investment piece but know that I think that there's um that there is a broader community support around it. Thank you. Yes, you can come out in the middle. Second. Second. Any discussion? All is in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. Consent agenda done. Andrew. So uh I guess the uh Anna I sent you a document I'm not sure we're going to get into that document but did you get it? Check your email? Okay thanks like I said I'm not sure we're going to get to that point but uh what I wanted to give everybody a little update of where we stand with regards to the track project in the track investigation. About two months ago we met we seek out a group of interested parties, track people and athletics folks and all whole group we kind of had a listening session where we kind of went through what what are people's desires, what are the the needs, what are the aspirations. From that we met with engineering ventures, our consultant on this firm, an engineering firm out of Burlington. We've done plenty of tracks in the state. And we did three exercises. We did a from from the discussion two months ago it was it was a real desire to prove proof out what an eight-lane track would look like and how it would sit on the site. And we we kept it to sort of a paper doll exercise of moving it around and you'd be shocked at how much space an eight-lane track really takes up it takes up a lot. And they they tried that and uh yeah we found some tortured locations but they ended up making a very short home run field for the baseball field and how you you know if you moved it here put that there oh you'd how do you how do the fans even get to that event so it really wasn't a very viable option but we we proofed it out. The other two options was a six-lane track with an eight-lane straight away in the existing location. An alternate on top of that was what would a turf field inside of that look like. They went back and they did some re-looked at some of their cost estimates and we looked at a little bit more about you know we talked about concession areas and and picnic areas and food trucks and all kinds of different things. It it sugared down and I don't know whether we want to show that document or not. If you want to show it we'll show it I'm happy Anna's got it. Do you want to? Okay so when it all when it all sugared out we looked at uh Anna can you bring that up? So uh we looked at a base project of being the six a six-lane track with an eight-lane straight away and drainage to support a future turf field. The drainage support is not as dramatic as you'd think. We would be doing drainage on a on the track anyway. A turf field would be permeable um so it would be sort of just upsizing a little bit for those sort of every hundred-year storm kind of things. There is going to be a need for a maintenance building so we separated that out. That is we're not going to as much as anything the athletic department is going to need that storage building for all the mats and vaulting equipment and all their equipment on this new on this new field. So we've invested a lot in the last year in maintenance equipment and we're going to continue to do that and it's shown results so we need we need a facility for that. So when you take that base project that basically comes down to about 2.4 million dollars if we were going to do that pave a pave a track out there and create a replacement area for the facilities and maintenance equipment. On top of that you're probably looking if we're looking to do the lights all new lights out there and the lights are sort of a piece that we need to do a little more deeper dig on. It's probably another half million on top of that so when it all comes together um to do that you're looking at finding another anywhere between 900,000 and a million and a half dollars beyond the million and a half you've already committed towards this project to get the eight lane track grass field new maintenance facility that's and lighting and the light and the light the high end is with the lighting gap and that number I think is there's some the high end I think we've got a little bit of flexibility on but um if we were to add a turf field if you just boil it down a turf field is going to be about 1.7 million dollars on top of that number. We put in about you know there's all that support support area that we have there's been a desire for a press box and our because we're in a floodway building a whole new structure out there is not a good idea so I think we'd end up modifying the the grandstands that we have um and a concession area the concession stand that we have now would not I think would end up having to be demolished not that there's much to demolish but um the idea of setting up a proper you know concession area really the consensus has been more like we need a place that we can maybe serve some food a barbecue pit might do just as well because we just that's a little more flexible a little less intense and and we'll probably serve our needs and then a picnic area slash shade area a place for people to gather out of the sun place for the kids to go when they go because if you come here on any given day if it's the weather's a little bit inclement they're all crowded underneath the by the concession stand find the dry place to put on the sneakers so something of that nature but nothing super formal and I and then again the lighting piece and that number I think right now the engineers and I talk we think that number is a little bit artificially high right now it's just big pieces of metal being shipped long distances and I think that that number might actually come down a little bit and I think there may be some incentives that we can track down on that sort of thing but that all in you know if you looked out there and it was new lights and it was turf and it was track and it was concession and it was the whole magilla you're like 5.3 mil and so that's about 3.8 above and beyond the 1.5 that you've already committed a couple of other just things to consider things that we do need to consider or that are still in consideration if there is any hope of of sort of getting this project going and breaking ground next year it's a decision that's going to have to be made quickly permitting design bidding the one of the good things kind of out of this new construction environment we're in is you don't have to put bids it used to be if you get a bid in right after christmas right after new years it was great you could be the first one nobody's bidding this project six months out they're not going nobody's going to commit to the price so you actually have a little bit of flexibility but it's it's the bidding environment's a little bit odd right now but the other thing that we need to we'll have to just consider moving forward just so people know we will probably lose a season either at the beginning of the project or the end of the project certainly for track probably for one of the field sports we either have to start the project early so that by the end of the summer we can get our surface in so you can start the following year running on the track or we wait until the school years out we build our road and basically have to wait until the next spring to do our paving now that option i think actually helps us with regards to the soccer the lacrosse season because it doesn't really impact we're really just waiting to get the surface in but we probably wouldn't get down until pretty close to the end of the school year anyway so we're going to lose that this is something to keep in mind and we'd have to go through that you know the turf field it's the maintenance of it and replacement cost of it this is a field this is a surface that as as uh James i think mentioned was this is a surface that's going to need to be replaced in 15 20 years and it's going to be replaced at about half the cost of that insulate so so whatever the future value of $800,000 is in 20 years we're going to be looking at that and we're going to have to do that uh track surface again is sort of 15 20 years that's much that is not nearly the replacement cost as the turf field just because you're kind of just laying a new surface over the old surface so just to get clarity on the cost track no lighting about 2.4 million you add lighting you get 3.1 million you throw in a turf field without lighting you're at like 4.7 million you throw in a turf field with lighting you're at like 5.3 yeah 5.3 also includes the concession yeah yeah yeah and i just wanted because it to some degree the turf field absolutely because what we'll do what we would do is if we waited to do the turf field at some point we'd build a bridge over our track so trucks can go over it to move things out and that's going to be a not a very tall bridge or very long one but it's going to be strong um the press box concession picnic we can we can make that happen that's nothing pivots on that one and the same thing with the lighting the the um the lighting and our lights aren't broken our lights aren't broken um so it's just they're they were put up in 73 so it would be nice to get something a little more energy efficient out there and all that but we could we could do that that's outside of the track so that's why i kind of broke this out so then terms like available funding and commitment and timeline so we have 1.5 million right now that we have committed which puts us about $900,000 short of the smallest project and if we do the 2.4 million first can that be done it sounds like it can i just want to make sure can that be done in a way that would allow us to do the other projects later yeah so we so we could stagger this i yeah that's why i broke them out like this and so we can either figure out the funding later or i mean would it be and you might not be the person to answer this would be christine yeah the the obvious funding source beyond what we have is a bond how does the timing of a bond square with the timing of moving this well it's an interesting it's an interesting chicken and egg thing you know do you design a shovel ready project while you figure out how you're going to pay for it and you you've risked the money you've invested in design but when you get the money you're ready to go so that's that's kind of that that piece you need to figure out it's a i may be talking completely i'm i'm channeling my integrate a little while like they don't they don't just they don't just uh i mean yabbi has to get it approved but there are there's troops with the banks oh how long to go out and put it together and yeah that process i think we'd probably be able to do it by time meeting day but i would think yeah i think that's a a few months kind of thing you you have to get real enough numbers that people are confident that you're gonna what you borrow is going to complete your project and all that but that's it's not that seems yeah could you be a little bit more specific on the need to make a decision soon i don't think you mean like in two weeks from now but if i was if i was channeling my inner civil engineer i would say yeah if you're gonna build in a flood way you got permitting that you're gonna have to go and you have to have a design that's pretty well sorted before you go get those permits so i do believe if you were if you had intentions of trying to break ground even on the most big now if you said if the the decision is we want to do the turf well then that that all goes out the window because that's a whole another level of discussion because we have to decide what kind of turf we're going to do we're going to have to decide if if the turf goes into the you know if we get a flood those little granulars in that system what happens when they go into the river so is that the right system so again i i think if you decide that you want to do with the turf option i wouldn't i wouldn't think that you would have any expectation to be able to break ground next year with the turf decision there's just still a lot of work to be done on that a lot of discussions and you're going to have the people that use it what's the best turf you're going to have the environmental concerns you're going to have to find yes that's the pressures off on that decision with regards to that but if we were to decide to not do the turf right now what would you say is a dead could you could you give us a deadline i would say but no later than november one oh like four weeks and if we went later than that what we're talking about then is we're just waiting a year before we would break ground yeah okay yeah okay a lot of things so what are the financial implications for the 1.5 million that is already set aside if we were to say we're going to wait a year do more more decision-making processes um is this um i know that we had to rush to put this one vote on this 1.5 million so like can i just sit there until the rest of the process gets i think that's the the best person to answer that question is christina okay right here so but however if i use my just critical thinking since for a minute and i could be wrong on this so i just want to put that out there first off the um you all uncovered that money last fiscal year i believe correct yeah it was last fiscal year that that money was encumbered and it's held over for this fiscal year right so i would imagine it could be held over again um however christina may very well have a very different answer to that question thank you um the other question i have so i'm trying to understand um so some of the things that came out that environmental impacts around the turf um and all that will come out of that and but also thinking holistically so when you say we put over a bridge around the track what does that mean like it's is it like more money to be included in this 2. million um the bridge would only be one one link it's not it's not around the whole thing but oh um certainly it's going to cost more to do it later and you have to work around things you can't just go clear the site and do it so so the 1.3 million that we put in here was there are firms that it's what they do it's almost a turnkey type system they'll engineer the whole thing out that's there's pros and cons with that the pro is it's all done and the con is it's done by somebody who knows where and when there's a problem who you call so our engineers would be happy to design it for us but they'd also be happy not to have the liability of it so um i think that's a very i think you absolutely would have to to add a little extra kicker in there what that kicker is to do it five years from now you know is it is this just the inflation or is it inflation plus a little something i'm sure it's inflation plus a little something just because it's the logistics construction is all about the logistics the building is the easy part it's where do i pile this pile of dirt while i try to build here and if you've got a mil if you've got to move it way over there versus just over here that's just time and money so short answer doing it all at once is going to be the most cost efficient staging is going to cost more what that number is i don't know so last question is if we were to do it all what is the timeline around bonding how does bonding work and um what happens it when the environmental questions come around or like all these things through that process that that's why i think it would take an additional it's going to take if we if we went with a turf option i think there's just so many questions about that and just the level of sophistication of permitting and storm water design and all that that it's just it's it's more than just a road that you can run on what about maintenance costs for for turf and as opposed to what we have now with just a field that's a good question and i would defer a little bit to nap here as someone who's been at say buying field and has seen what maintenance there is but certainly there is going to be we're going to have to after a season of shoveling you have to if you do the the sort of typical ones with the crushed up whatever you know you got to collect it from the sides you've got to read redistribute it you've got to clean it every now and again i'm presuming but i think it is definitely lower it's definitely lower the good thing it would be much this would be a much easier discussion if our soccer field that our main field was bad you know if there was standing water and rocks and all that it would be a much easier discussion because it would be no better matt and kim had done an amazing job on our fields this year um and that field there you go how does it play it's it's all right it's definitely not one of the better fields you're playing on all year but it's not like yeah yeah no that's yeah we said it was the best grass field we would say well why we were placed if it was the worst we'd say of course we're replacing it um the good thing is is we're working with uh chip Stevens at at uh diamond tech who takes care of the mountaineers field and u32 and our baseball field and we have we're committed to running doing a sand layer every now and again to help level things out we're committed to fertilizing twice a year to get the grass stronger you know if anybody who came out here at the end of the year tom and kim were out there um auguring for lack of a better term the soil around the goals and all that to get the grass growing early this year so it was nice and strong when we came back um again it's all sort of anecdotal on my part but at the end of the lacrosse season you know you go look at spalding's football field and it was in tough shape came and looked at our field and was like yeah i feel it's pretty darn good so there's going to be and there's going to be some specialized and there's going to be things like repair you know we have to protect that field right we're going to have to put a fence around it because you know so many drive not to say this happens but somebody drives on a soccer field you go out there you rake it up and it's a pair in the neck someone goes out and blows donuts on a turf field i i don't know what the repair is for that um and again that's kind of insurance as much as anything else but so those are the questions we still need to figure out okay so but do you know the comparison is is the turf field eat lesser cost it costs less to maintain a turf field or it costs more to maintain the turf field and what's the i don't know maybe you don't have the answer um uh the the difference are we talking about $10,000 difference are we talking about $100,000 difference i don't know i don't know the answer to that okay and the other thing i can like i said they can it's a lot of anecdotes of people who have fields and i think matt link has actually talked to some athletic directors who are very speak lonely of their fields and how maintenance free they are and you just go out there and you use them so anecdotally it's actually cheaper to maintain the turf potential i think it's cheaper until there's a cat of something catastrophic yeah yeah okay and um how much we mentioned or i heard a bunch of times it mentioned that it's gonna expand the season is it year-round that we can use that or is it expanding for you know 20 more that gets into that's another that's a that's a good question it certainly would help in the spring i mean we had teams that were chomping at the bit this year to get out there and we if we had a turf field we could have been out a month before uh we canceled two weeks worth of games before you know across there um we we canceled two weeks worth of games because it was that the weather was beautiful no but it was still wet and everybody was doing it so i bet this year we probably could probably could have gotten out there two months early or a month early before the april break you know the plowing in the winter time and all that um i'll be honest i don't know what you plow that field with my guess is it's there's got to be a little bit of a specialty equipment to that and um matt would have to speak to you know what are we what are we practicing out there in december i mean we're kind of in indoor sports at that mode so matt would would probably speak to if we if we did it in the winter time what would we use it for but certainly early spring yeah a couple of commenters have brought up revenue opportunities for me to our field and understanding is south burlington who's able to generate some revenue do you have you looked into that at all i mean is this a project that that could over time pay for itself or at least pay for part of itself see the thing that that i struggle with sometimes is the fundraising and the roll it that's five million dollars that's a lot of that's a lot of tournaments that we don't have a lot of parking for that we have to pay a lot of staff to run traffic you know i'm i'm not sure how much you charge to run a tournament you know if you're charging thirty thousand dollars maybe it is thirty five million dollars it's one point six for the turf to be clear folks it's one point six for the turf it's five million for the whole package i i want to be clear yeah but i'm not we haven't done that analysis yet i guess um budget question but if we do go with whatever we go with that's and that gets our budget up does that increase the power per pupil spending and if it does then does that adversely affect the funding that we get from state because we are now way above um what the average is a word there is a there's a formula there right we have a bond now that we're in repayment of i don't believe that affects the per people i don't know i i i say that with 90 percent confidence that it doesn't but i don't believe it does are you talking about a bond are you talking about putting money for this into the general like the ed gen ed well in in in general i mean i'm just trying to get the feel of if you go with the bond oh yeah we don't have to worry about but if you don't go with the bond and go with the whatever funding there is then yeah we have to worry about the portion i'm just trying to get a feel of it then we're paying for it out of whatever we have in our fund balance so if they if you pay out of fund balance and the bond then it doesn't affect the gen ed per people spending which means it doesn't affect the okay i mean if you think about the fund balance is money the district has already collected through taxes and just not used right so it's not going to increase taxes if you use that part of it yeah the bond repayment definitely goes you'll see information about bond repayment in the budget yeah i i remember that the per people spending was used in a formula when we get the the cli and things like that and so if the per people spending is way above what the average is are one of those factors go up and which means that that our taxes just go up so i'm just curious about that uh emma and then you had her another breath not yet no uh emma hi um thanks to everybody who came to speak tonight i think it's really important to hear from the community when we're uh making decisions of of this nature um i have a couple of things uh to touch on to play off of what anicate was just asking so if we we've already earmarked one point five million dollars from the fund balance do we have another one million dollars to in the fund balance that we could comfortably put towards this project so it doesn't sound like for the if we want to get the track ground broken on the track in spring it is not going to be paid for by fund balance it's going to be paid for but i thought that one of the options was to put the one point five million dollars from the fund balance and then add a million dollars to the budget is that not one of the options on the table yeah if the board votes on the basic piece then we'd have to present the board with a budget that makes it happen does that make sense okay yes and then and then the other option would be to bond the one the additional one million dollars which would sounds like it would probably push the project out a year i i i i kind of the same question so it sounds like the what i'm hearing is that in terms of like getting to the two point four million we have one point five million we'd have to find nine hundred thousand is there any fund balance that could go towards that it would all have to come out of so at the end of the fourth quarter report from last board there's a little bit right it's six fifty two yeah six hundred fifty three thousand that is unreserved fund balance so i guess we could use some of that but then the rest would need to come through the regular budget which means our total budget goes up which means you know we have to collect that regular budget or bond our bond yeah understanding is that we might be able to get a bond done in time to cover the two point four million but if we wanted to do the whole thing we'd probably have to wait a year because there's just a lot of questions a lot of design questions to design questions on turf i just have a follow-up on that at the end of the at the fourth quarter report there was also there was four hundred thousand dollars that had been reserved in f y 22 as to cover things that maybe we hadn't anticipated that we thought we would need to transfer from the fund balance that we ended up not are we can we add that to the 625 so so really what we're saying is there's one point 1.025 of unreserved fund balance some of which we have to keep right and that was my next question we have to have at least two and a half person policy it's something we don't actually so we can't clear all that out yeah we we actually can it's not our policy to do so we do not have a mandated 2.5 we have a recommended 2.5 so we could dip a little below 2.5 which puts us into like dangerous territory somewhat because then we don't know then we our rainy day fund goes away but um we could bring it down to like 2.2 or 2 if we wanted what i guess the recommended are the what we have used is two we end up with 2.51 the 652 is 2.51 which is 130 k above the two is what the fourth call report says so are not mandated but recommended i think is two what we have always talked about is two percent is two percent and that's the what we have now is 2.51 percent which is 652 i'm not counting the other right right 652 is 2.51 can you give me a solid number amount on what's the two percent what is that that's uh it's about five hundred and twenty so we're talking like maybe like i'm my math my mescals are not great we're talking like maybe if we bring down to two like a 300 k gap or so yes yeah sorry what's the gap i said if we if we brought our fund balance down to two percent adding to four hundred thousand to get to where we're at like a we're like at a three hundred thousand dollar gap we need to be in the room that has the whiteboard walls seriously i i can't follow this math in my head remember that ask me after that so i'm i'm right this two percent is two percent of what total budget of the total budget okay and a total annual operating budget right for our district okay which is about 26 right million um i i'm not clear about the 400 thousand but it's if it's 400 000 you add the 652 to that that's over one million the the two percent is about 520 so we are 520 that's not 300 but 520 so it's 520 that we can borrow which would bring us i don't look at the shortfall so that brings the shortfall to like three four three to four hundred thousand dollars where's that 400 i'm sorry that's that's that's that's what we'd have to make up with general or no no no the question our finance committee report were you there it was it was some sort of over we didn't use it it was it was money we didn't use so one of the fund balance yeah we had yeah okay you saw okay all right can i clarify what timelines look like so one timeline is we use our money some of the money from the fund balance and the rest we bond for march and that is only for the uh tract flows maintenance the other scenario is that we bond the remaining of the five million from the one point you know the money that we have plus and we just bond the whole thing but because we don't have enough answers to all the turf we have to wait another year to be able to do that work or with the the sign you can release the art the engineers to to get a shovel ready project and and have it sitting there for whether you do a special whether you the audit comes back and says you got more money and or you bond it or you make it a line item on a ballot somewhere and you're just you're ready to go or it's two years from now and you got 90 percent of it sitting there and they just when you when you budget for it you budget yeah budget okay we're going to instead of asking for x amount of dollars this year we ask for 50 percent this year and 50 percent next year and which of the differences around 300 thousand dollars would make the most sense you wouldn't want to go bond yeah you know you just make it the capital budget basically the windows are taken that up yes or we should get added to this or or you could add to it you could there's some other differences that you could use for budgeting yeah you could ask for 500 000 pieces of yeah that's ready right we don't know anything more about the way in question so we have potentially a foul storm potentially there's really significant changes to how weights sort of play out we're actually in a you know minus all of this we're in a we're in a we're in a good state we're in a good place for that if we kind of clean out um everything down to two percent and find 300 000 dollars in our budget we can make this project go forward we can minus i think minus the the turf but do we make ourselves uncomfortably vulnerable in the event that the waiting process comes out and and really hurts more than we expected is that um i don't want to you know i don't want to think we want to keep all of the all of the possible sort of pressures on the district in mind PCBs are also another pressure yeah which PCB testing oh yeah the board didn't i'll throw it out because this is the time to throw this stuff out there one of the things that you'll see in the facilities report that ana will be sending around next week um is we got to do a roof study we got a we got to really when if you cast i don't know how many we're here when the bond vote was brought forward replacing this whole roof was part was was on the slate well what happened at that point was the understanding by the design team was not correct as to what the system could be used so that the replacement cost went from x to four times x so they chosen so our predecessors chose an option that was half x and they put a silicone coating over the membrane well that membrane is still up there and it's still old and it's still shrinking and it still cracks a little bit and we get leaks every now and again at some point you're not going to be able to stay ahead of those i'm not super concerned i'm concerned about it we got to get it on our radar but also it's the middle school the middle school addition roof was put on in 1982 or whenever that addition was put on in the 80s it's a ballasted roof so the sun hasn't been beating down on it but it's 40 years old so that's something that we should that this year one of my priorities is to really map that all out and give us some realistic expectations of when we're going to be looking at that because that one this one when we get a leak we can go up there and we can find it and it's easy enough to take care of over there a ballasted roof is a little more difficult to get up there and find the leak and plug it so i think once that one starts to go it won't take too many years of it being a real pain in the neck before we go we got to get we got to switch this now luckily union's roof is good rock barrier's roof is good and most of main street is good so but Kristen i have a question just about like order of operations so uh like what comes first the permitting or the bond i mean if you're gonna launch a bond on something right you're trying to drum up public support for things and you want to know that you have a project that's doable um i don't know what kind of hiccups could come up in the permitting process i don't know if you first see anybody but i'm just curious like do you kind of cross your fingers and hope the bond's gonna come through and in the meanwhile you kind of just have the permit you know process under way how does how do those two things interface they would get they would very early on the engineering team would go to the permitting the the the jurisdiction's in question uh and say this is what we're proposing what do you see what do we they would not go blindly and hope it's gonna pass they would work very closely very early on and we would have another we would hire a cost estimator in december to say where are we at what are we doing and then we'd have we'd hire another cost the cost estimator again in early february so that before you put in your warning we got the best information we have and we'd put a 10 to 15 contingency on that now luckily out there also the other thing to let you know we've we've uh retained stone environmental to do some environmental testing out there make sure that we've got clean soils and we don't have to worry about that sort of thing um they're also doing that at the middle school playground just so as we go over there we have a sense we know it's sort of a proactive measure so we would we would move forward in this and uh we wouldn't we wouldn't just like go for it and hope for the best when the bids came in we would we would cost estimate it they would work with the uh they would work with the anr and whoever else they have to get permits from and uh we would have a professional cost estimator look at it twice we would also a lot of the projects that we're going to be doing and we have to work through this a little bit is we would maybe even depending on the funding we would get a construction involved as early as possible as well that can help us with the cost that could actually really say it's it's not the estimator this is actually how much we would charge and work with the design team possibly on this project to say okay well let's do it a little differently this one's a little bit different that I think maybe just probably a straight bid would be the way to go on this because there's really nothing an asphalt roads an asphalt road nobody's got a different a different solution to three quarter inch crust stone and three quarter inch crust stone it is what it is do we do do we have any reason to believe that the soil might be contaminated that became quite an issue not here other than it's just and it's contaminates the wrong term it's and I'm getting a little bit above my pay grade here but it's it's urban soils we could take we could have taken the soils at union elementary and spread it out on the state house lawn it was not dirty soil it was soil that was in an area that's that was designated urban soils and take this all a little bit of ground it's soils that are in downtowns though and they used to burn coal and have you know it was the soil that's here and the real restriction is you can't we couldn't take that soil and bring it to the stump dump we could spread it on the courthouse lawn but we couldn't take it to the stump dump because it wasn't designated the same area where the soils came from this is we believe this is a green site this is never there wasn't anything here before the school so there's really no other than sort of just the residue coming from the air but there's no burnt down buildings or old coal storage bins or anything like that here um and again main street it was a neighborhood so I don't think we would find any that kind of stuff but it was it was a little neighborhood that was burning coal for 100 years so I was behind main street for a while and we had our soil tested it actually pretty bad yeah but but again but that's but that's that's why we work with engineers in the design of things so we balance the site so we don't have come up with the design says okay we got 200 yards of soil to get rid of we incorporate it into the design so you don't have to get rid of it right well I guess how it how does the bond process work first of all and secondly has there ever been a sort of dual bond process where you just put to voters would you like to fund 1.8 or would you like to fund 3.8 I don't know no that's not really we want to do that we would make a decision before then we get the community input beforehand and I'm going to admit that I've never gone through a bond process Jim you have as a former board member before the Montpelier Roxbury public schools came about because I came in Andrew and I both came in when that bond was being realized so when construction had started five years ago so neither of us were here for how the board went about that process yeah I'm really remembering is it it took a little bit time to align all the yeah but there's there's in in thinking back to my days of doing these sorts of things is is you know you really tried to you know you you went to town meeting day to say do you want to do this project and the town said yeah we want to do it and then you had the business manager got to work with the bond bank to have the bond ready to before the contracts were signed in the spring yeah what's the downside of waiting a year cost the cost yeah it's just going to get more expensive and it's just a year of not being able to use it right I was just wondering one of the main reasons we were exploring the turf field we're doing things to the interior field when the track project first came along was we thought it would provide some like efficiencies if we're already moving dirt and we have machinery is that reflected in this third column do you think that's captured that that or is that presuming all other is that presuming if this was a standalone I think that goes to to her comment before like is it going to be is it fundamentally is it going to be more expensive to do it in two steps versus one yeah I'm sure right but is that what we're looking at no this is this is if this is if you want to add it on this project okay 1.3 okay or the 1.6 would that expense because it sounds like it's just not practical to do like we don't really have the option in terms of where the design is to decide to do the whole thing in a year including the term no and I think we would this is this is a major project you would want you would you would want three turf reps coming in here and talking with the athletic director to say this is what it is and and saying this is our knee injury report and we would like to whatever when the when they come in and say yep our little granules are are are safe for the environment and we say well this is in South Carolina this is Vermont so our level of what's considered safe might be a little different prove it to us what you know what really is in these things and and the river the river is going to cover it at some point we all know that it's it's really it's it's it's the the difference is when when the it's so much it's somewhat cavalier what the engineer said is you're building a road and you're going to cover it with some smooshy stuff that's what the track is it's it's building a road and putting so it's not that big of a deal this next level is you want to make sure you do it right so so kind of my follow-up question is if the advantage to moving on the track portion with the option to do the turf field later now is cost do the efficiencies of doing it all at once make up is there a likelihood that it could make up do you feel like you ever win against inflation yeah my guess is it's hard to predict i think it's hard to predict because because if there was a hard answer everybody would outweigh inflation or just by the nature of people build i mean look at inflation now and construction and people are building like crazy you know now it's a little bit different here because we're not making money on this so and and what are we going to know whether we have to tear this building apart for pcb we are not slated to be tested for pcb danger just said for a year i think the first building start in 20 23 they've already tested cat they've already tested no no our building our building yeah now we've gotten our schedule and it was i think that one or two of the buildings are next summer and the other two are the following summer i'm feeling we're high school and our oxbury are the two that are up first yeah because of the date in which these buildings were built and it's the summer of 23 that's what they told us however they have already pushed it they have they've only got four buildings i think so far they've done six six they have funds to support if there is a change they did put 2.5 million nobody can access that right now including my friend mark tucker down in kevitt school who's can't use his gym at the moment um they they had no plan on how to get that money out to schools and so it's just sitting there right now and tom flanagan and burlington would really like to access some of that money too and he's not gonna you know like that money will be gone with the first rounds you know they tested six schools two of whom had pcbs at a higher level than the state put so chances are that money's going to be extinguished before we get to it before we test jill so i just wanted to summarize or reflect back um and because it seems like we're kind of winding to the end of possibly our conversation um we heard from a lot of parents i've spent way too much time reading about uh artificial turf which is not the same as astro turf and the impact on student athletes and yep i've heard from a lot of student athletes their parents from coaches of other schools i've heard some really compelling reasons why a turf field is actually a good idea including that it might be one of the few things that if we invest money in it might actually bring in revenue there are entities like capital soccer and other surrounding schools that would rent it um and that there are um any article you find about injuries and things like that you can find articles that dispute that um my friend in newton massachusetts told me that they've actually banned all artificial turf in all their parks and their schools there's a big lawsuit and martha's vineyard if anybody really wants to go down the rabbit hole um but i just really want to reflect back that we really heard a lot of really compelling reasons why it actually does make a lot of sense we heard from a lot of people we heard from students um i literally you know i feel like i've sort of waited into this because i feel like i thought it maybe was an opportunity because we had the track coming in and we had that support so i feel really torn because i feel like we have a lot of good momentum and support for this it seems like it actually could be something that would be a longer-term investment it could draw students here it could be another sort of asset to this community that would actually entice folks to come here even though i don't know anyone who could afford to buy a house in montpellier right now so i don't want to be short-sighted that being said i do not feel comfortable making a multimillion dollar decision especially when there is still so much unknown um in one board meeting so i i just felt like it was important to reflect that that we did hear from really invested intelligent people in our community who really wanted to advocate for this um and you know the reality of what's coming down the pike is really hard to wrestle with yeah thanks for going down the rabbit hole for the rest of us and summarizing that for us jill um i where i'm just where i'm at right now and my thinking could change on this is i definitely definitely don't we can't make a multimillion dollar decision in one meeting i actually feel pretty uncomfortable about making it within one month um because in addition to everything that we have heard and i you know and i am in favor of us having a new track i also think we have to take the financial considerations even of the base option very seriously and i would like to explore the idea of using bond money for the base version maybe the including the turf and new roof things i remember that the bond that we did that was sort of the marquee item was the playground but there were many about many other things that were included in that and it feels like let's use this opportunity to have a broader conversation about what our fellow facilities need for the long run rather than try and scramble and grab the last of our reserve funds to cover just the the small the base i shouldn't call it the small the base version of this plan um because i think there are other options for our reserve funds that we're not talking about and um and i want to i want us to do a project that is a real investment in the community and not just be like oh okay we think we can get this done and we got to get it done really fast so i i just my where i sit right now is i would i think waiting a year is a bummer for those of us who are you know our student athletes who are currently or very soon to be in the system but it is also only a year for us to really figure this out and you know i know that that was a real that was an experience that the kids who were at union back when we started the conversation about the playground it was a real shame that the kids who were there at union and were like good we get a new playground we're actually in middle school by the time the playground happened but it is also sort of the reality of this is a complicated um issue and it's and i think we should take the care and time that it deserves um i will just sort of like echo those same sentiments that uh mia and jill are bringing up and just being on the facilities and energy committee there was a lot of information provided um at that meeting and the last meeting that has not even been discussed um at these public school board meetings that just raise a lot of uh questions you know around whether this we should move forward this quickly on this project and one of the things that um i'd like andrew to sort of um i don't know reiterate or explain is that there is a replacement cost so when we're talking about revenue potential revenue for a turf field there's also a replacement window i think he said about 15 years and about $1 million but i want andrew to speak to that so that would be you know probably $70,000 to $100,000 a year if you break it down like that you know if we have to replace the turf every 15 years at the cost of a million dollars then that really puts that whole concept of a potential revenue into different light so i would need to understand all of those questions and financial implications a little bit better before feeling comfortable moving forward even with the base plan a lot of under to answer that or the track we should anticipate as we move forward um that the the track and or and a turf field would need to be replaced at in 15 to 20 years probably 20 years we'll say that the best information that we had regarding what uvm is doing at the moment um it was sort of the half the cost of building it in the first place so here it would be you know $800,000 in today's dollars to put a new surface on that again the coating on the tracks that's significantly less you know that's you're you're truly building a road out there you don't need that cost when you just you layer layer another coat of of surfacing on the existing you know after you take anything away so that's a good piece i want to appreciate uh your presentation on the committee that has worked so hard on this and gil pervich now to families i feel the same kind of in the realm of really wanting to take uh slow and like get feedback and think about this bond issue maybe think of capital you know fans house communities can support so that you know like they're rich people that want to donate you know something like that that we can get creative around you know people that really want to invest in this community and in these particular projects so that the bond is not so much i think that we can think about it and i would love to see us taking it slow and um i really and love um chris kurtis when he was speaking about inclusivity and was it maybe james i don't know when somebody was talking today about just you know the amount of students that can access both track and field um and i just having just the track and that we can think you know how many more kids we can uh provide these athletic opportunities too so i would love to just for us to take it slow and appreciate it all the work but say and let's hold off and let's do it right for our communities and let's see the big picture for those other things that's where i am i think it'll be helpful to see the facilities report in the next couple weeks is that coming before the board so we can kind of get some of those other big projects that might be on the horizon and kind of just pull those into context and i think echoing with ret study for you know i feel like we're feeling the tremors of act 127 but there's really no writing on the wall yet but just based on like the link in letter you know they're definitely it was where it sounds like we're going to have difficult decisions ahead of us and and given that i feel like i would want to have a better understanding of that before going through um this this reserve fund also right yeah i mean i think that if we're going to think about a bond we want to be as comprehensive as we can be there are a lot of there's a lot of a lot of pressures that we don't know about there's a lot of bits of you know there's a lot of facilities questions and i think that if we're going to ask for the community to make a big investment we want to be as comprehensive and and stable and sure-footed and confident in in what we're presenting to people as we can be you know for for all of our buildings you know and i i want to track as much as anybody you know and i i'm i'm committed to seeing the process through so that we can have that track whether there's a turf or not i don't know but you know i'm i'm i'm i'm personally committed to making sure that we have a track that you know that's what we committed that 1.5 million dollars for i i'm i'm certainly committed to that i just if we're going to have to put to put forth a bond i want it to be smart you know something i think i concur with freedom to run people said and i think it also would be good to um find out what the implications of the weighting study are and i am maybe more worried about pcps than others but burlington is is in macy's high school and they have to take out a what 95 yeah it a large large bond yeah to build a new high school so given the date this building was built it is of concern so in terms of it's next steps for us to work on gets more information about the bond process yeah um and what goes into that work and then thinking about it next next board meeting will help as well because you'll see in next board meetings is to andrew's annual facilities report so you'll get a broad overview of the facilities and we can start that thinking of if you're going for a bond you might as well go for a bond and figure out what else is in that absolutely yeah yeah no we should not use a bond for one thing to fill little holes yeah it's it's funny when they passed the bond here it was at five million dollars it was 56 up in wanouski and it was 75 the original one for burlington was 75 you know and if you just broke it out square footage wise we should have asked for a lot more that one this sort of relative though we're just being a little too modest at that one but andrew has said more than once if he and i were in that process it's been different but and and that's it's something that you know with this last couple years this is this is the new phase right this is we have to focus instead of just sort of playing defense we now with regards to facilities have to start playing a little offense and looking down the road we're looking right in front of us the last couple years libyn can you add to the list of next steps i think if we're going to take the time it's worth to exploring as andrew said having three turf i don't know companies have a conversation with liby should we go should we start that now or not yet not yet okay no we will if we go that way we decide to go down a bond route then yeah those conversations yeah absolutely okay yeah no absolutely once once we this this was that first sort of let's look at the size of the the cake here and yeah i think it's wishlist time if we're going to do a pod if we're going to do transformative bonds do transformative i agree that we need and i and so the bond i will be interested in learning how it works with raspberry too like how bonds work yeah and then they work like your mortgage yeah i'll learn i'll be right there next to you and i did that is there infrastructure grants coming in or no no there's nothing no i don't there that's a big push for the vermont superintendents association with the legislature that is one of the vsa's pushes is to bring back the infrastructure grants for schools because they were done away with quite a long time ago and because of that there's a lot of deferred maintenance across the state so it's definitely on the top of mind okay yeah i thought there was still an aura around a new esser aura round of infrastructure stuff we've already counted for that yeah covid relief infrastructure specifically you want to send me that email i don't think i don't think i haven't seen anything on that maybe that's why i didn't heard about it yes way back when we were talking about infrastructure federal dollars they took that out okay didn't get passed okay oh i thought you're talking about the state i'm sorry just want to put it out there jill mentioned that there are a lot of people that can afford homes and want to feel you're right now there's a lot of space in roxbury there's a lot of space there's no zoning i just want to put that out there it's one of the only places there's literally no zoning like you can build anything you want nobody's going to have a problem with it there's a beautiful little school there we take care of it you know for young kids as long as that school is strong you know come to this high school and eventually a gorgeous track and beautiful yeah there's a lot of space just saying good psa there ret thank you around you know how like the montpelier just bought that country club has has the school district ever collaborated like with the city council around like types of property like that like it's so beautiful to play soccer we used to the city and the school district used to be combined and then by statute we had to separate and we still work with them a great deal we use dog room or fields they'll use our gyms and the winter times things of that nature um but we're we're we're separate at the moment and we're separate by statute but uh we still have a good great relationship with them and we help when we help each other when we can no but i think you're right one of the people who had mentioned that we have less fields than we used to and it was true that part of why i think the community supported the the purchase of that property was the idea that there would be community rec fields that could be used so that might help also alleviate some of the challenges here if we can use that the way we used to use the rec fields i mean long term and i mean the little kids are playing soccer over there beautiful it is beautiful i wonder about how we get our athletes there yeah for after school practice but i mean that's we don't have to have that conversation right now but it's a good point they've maxed on a great job um with especially with getting rid of the mud lot that we have that extra field field here for the middle so we've done we've tried to get everybody here and it seems to be working pretty well we do again we do use the dog river but the dog river site isn't maintained as well as as i feel clear yeah but so not much flatland in montevill if the state sorry and then i'll stop pontificating there are a lot of parking lot spaces that we used to fill up as state employees that remain empty i'm one of the few state employees in my building that comes in i wonder if there is like a potential down the road to turn one of those parking lots into another field i mean it's just wasted pavement so i'll talk i'll talk to bgs about that one you'd understand get on it will you yeah i think they'd be happy to go selling a lot of their properties in town as added to the bond we'll buy a parking lot just kidding i'm just kidding all right thank you edry this is this is thank you very much you too yeah super helpful and yeah i think there's there's a firm part of commitment to all these projects we just want to do it right and do it efficiently and know what we're getting into and know some of these unanticipated near-term horizon possible costs and they'll be a quiz on the facilities report so should you read every 70 every one of those 78 pages i did last year and i will this year lovely a lot of this is here comes out the better i'll study it so equity committee update who's you want to lead on this sure yeah so we have been looking at on dsba released a small grants opportunity for equity projects and we've taken a look and one idea that we have that we wanted to get some feedback on was um and pursuing a process to arrive at kind of a working shared understanding and definition of what educational equity is in our district and such that you know we have our dei policy it doesn't necessarily have like a stated definition of educational equity in it it sort of gets at it in a couple different ways but um you know thinking about that just as collectively as a group so that we are really kind of working from you know the same starting point when we're thinking about you know utilizing our um beloved equity lens policy review tool and that so we're starting from you know just a common place of of understanding what equity is and what it looks like in our district and um and i think that would then kind of really i think folks might have a feel like they have a stronger understanding then of why we have the equity policy review tool and just kind of center that um our committee did a lot of work on that and um i don't know what it's kind of status is and being used elsewhere but i think we'd love to see that um you know just have a life beyond the google drive and um yeah so that's we're hoping to just get a little bit preliminary feedback from folks do you think that's good use of the grants are five thousand dollars it is due october 17th which is fast approaching um but they do ask for us to get some board input you know um you know did you get the go ahead from your board they would like for us to also you know have have you had a conversation with your superintendent and is this in collaboration does it feel like this is a collaborative um effort so that was our big update and wanting we could always send it around if people want more what would you spend the five thousand on i think facilitation so having you know like a couple one ideally two to three workshops and say like a we were thinking it wouldn't be ideal to stretch it over you know weeks and months but you know try to accomplish you know some kind of intensive workshop um activity and you know over the course of four to six weeks four to eight weeks and trying to arrive at that definition um so yeah outside consultant to run a process do we need an approval and from livy two for the grant i think we need like to buy him basically because it's like bsba one more approval here in the board kind of like some of the questions in there is like have you talked to is your superintendent on board with this as your board on board with this right is that yeah the question formal actually just need to check in which i think we yeah yeah i think it was essentially a nod they weren't active you know asking for a letter or anything but that we've had a conversation there's buy-in we're kind of aligned as a board in with our superintendent that we have like a clear unified objective and just as far as timing goes the due date of the for the grant submission is the 17th which is before our next board meeting so we were just hoping to get sort of like yay thumbs up from the board if you agree that this is a good idea that we should pursue this and then we could work between now and the 17th with liby to finesse language and whatever to have it fall within parameters that would be both like how the grant is structured and also be something that it's as the grant says like a collaboration of the board and the superintendent and you know what the administration is doing just like we wouldn't we wouldn't have time to come back to the board in a board meeting to say look at the actual grade submission but i don't think we would need to either so it does ask has the school board authorized the application for this mini grant is it a collaboration of the school board and the superintendent and have you notify the su sorry sd business office manager so and those are just like check yes no questions what's the timeline beyond 17 when's the grant going to be awarded and what's the timeline yeah so decisions are made by october 24th uh more notifications are made by the 31st funds must be committed by june 30th 2023 and spent by august 15th 2023 so it's got you know fairly significant timeline especially for a pretty small amount of money june thanks to your yeah yes they would need to be committed by next year yeah and then used by uh august 2023 so it would give us the time to find someone make a plan for what the um what it would look like we have a concept right now that we feel pretty good about but it gives us the time to solidify that so if we got the yeah so if you if you got the grant then we would look at doing something in spring or summer next year okay it's trying to get a sense is there a way to be looking at that blessing okay great thank you good thanks for sure um fully in prevention discussion why this is to so i just been thinking a lot about i know that a lot of the community members are doing you know uh dr hauser and the old brand big long had a little webinar or like zoom meeting just to hear about you know what people thought as what we can do is go and i didn't listen to it unfortunately um but i know that um we had a other some parents that send us some comments and um what's her name oh forgive me she's um what's her name adrian send us like a little chart of what some of the ideas that they had and i i thought so i've been thinking about like what our role is and um just hearing from some of the parents about what the gaps are and then having our training i wanted to suggest that we as a board do a series of community listening sessions for the next few months um and we can do it individually as groups just to hear like what ideas we can do to work with the get with the community to kind of tackle this problem that we have and and maybe to find out about what those gaps are from their perspectives right like i know that we're you know the administration db and jess are doing a lot of work and i appreciate that but i i feel like we need to kind of feel that gap between the parents and just communicate communicate and and be able to be responsive um perhaps what that looks like at the end is a collaboration with the parents groups around some sort of magical thing that can happen with our kids um so that's what i wanted to bring i think that i will be willing to support and do an a few community listening sessions just to you know hear from the community and for us to kind of be a little more involved to tackle this um and so that's the discussion i wanted to have or that's what i'm proposing starting out with listening sessions yeah yeah i'll just say i i think that's a great idea and i would be also be happy to sit in on them or help organize them and and attend um i went to one that was caregiver organized and it's clear that they're just it would be really helpful for the conversation to keep keep going um and a conversation in a way that's far different than we can have during public comment at a at a board meeting and um i have i've started having lots of ideas of what we could do but i also feel like it's um before trying to act on any of those we should do more listening and and discussing with the community i'm sure that ret and i are going to be having a community listening session out in rocksbury in a couple weeks on october 16th um so it's certainly one of the things that we can you know mention you know ideally and i think it's inviting people into the room to have them bring things up that is you know is is current and happening for them and also you know mentioning that we're aware of there's been some dialogue of and that we're just we're available so i think something good to hear from the community um sounds like you want to take a lead and putting those together yeah yeah four meetings ago when we last discussed this you floated the idea of some outbound communication you know we hadn't like solidified anything and it it strikes me that one thing we could do that would be in conjunction with this and almost like an invitation to join them would be and like an op-ed in the local papers that is a you know we and we recognize that this is a problem and we want to do what we can you know i i don't know exactly what it would say but something like that and it would it could conclude with an invitation to join these anyway and is our um process that jim writes op-eds for the board or is there i mean i can certainly i think the board agrees with us as well um we could go right yeah this makes me think of um i don't know if this might help sort of fill out this sort of outgoing communication but liby you had said something about how there's a need for community at one of our recent board member meeting board meetings you said there you said you you that the the phrase learning loss is out there and you feel like there's a it's more of a community there's a loss of community um i i kept that keeps that has been bouncing around my head a little bit and i was wondering if you would just expand on that a tiny bit i wonder if that might help any of the kind of communication that comes out from the board about some of the needs that are out there that i don't know if that if that yeah do you think that that some of our concerns about um the sort of social emotional climate that's out there predate the pandemic or is there an element of the community loss that occurred that sort of has been fueling some of these behaviors and some of these probably these problematic circumstances that we see for some of our families i mean some of our kids it doesn't feel like the pandemic made you know made it easier for kids that were struggling in the first place i don't know if that would never say that there was prior to the pandemic because there certainly was yeah well i know you know we don't want to idealize that time period like the 1950s are in ideal idealized right because there are a lot of things that we were working on in school systems with kids around social emotional learning then too i when i say community loss i mean that kids particularly our adolescents where becoming more independent without mom and dad right next to them and being in groups of friends in independent situations is possibly one of the biggest places of learning for kids they make a whole lot of mistakes doing that they and peers help correct those mistakes you know in the moment they know they learn how to talk to each other in a different way at that stage of the game and that was done in a very different way if at all so some kids many kids didn't have really any way to do that kind of communication i think of my kid who went through the pandemic as a sixth seventh and eighth grader right did interaction but it was all over the online right so we we allow we we let i don't know if anybody else did this maybe but as a parent like we let off all our like rules around technology because that was where he was interacting with his friends and we could hear him laughing and screaming and doing all all the things that we wanted him to do in that instance however it still has an impact on him because when he's sitting around and we're like go hang out with your friends he almost doesn't want to do that right whereas for me when i was young like you just went out and saw found somebody who was around you know so it's a completely different mentality and that's what i mean by like community loss is that i have a ninth grade kid now you know in a sixth grade kid who don't know how to call a friend and say hey what are you doing you know like that's hard that's a hard thing for them to wrap their heads around now and that's just my kids who are who've done pretty well and you know throughout this whole thing so i think that our kids now they're coming together we didn't we didn't do a good enough job last year when there were less restrictions in place with no pods and all that kind of stuff of of anticipating that they were going to need more restrictions right we tried to make it as if there was no need for that and there were there's still a need for it and then we slowly have to scaffold them back to knowing how to interact together and the masses and it's exacerbated by the fact that the technology we have cuts a lot of you know i mean yeah like if i wanted to know what a new album look felt the uh was like in 1984 i had to find a friend who had it and i'd go hang out with him or her and listen yeah i couldn't just press a button on a phone yeah like yeah if i wanted to call a friend i would have to call i'd have to probably interact with another family member like a parent i would have to like have that conversation i couldn't just send a silent text if i want to know what my friends are doing i could not look it up on stepchat there are there are so many social interactions and opportunities for social learning that have just been killed by this device yeah it's a whole different world and it was exasperated by by it was exasperated by the pandemic you know i i can keep talking about my kids my my daughter is one of the most lovely people on earth and i promise you she is she she like takes a picture of her face face being a weird face on snapchat and then puts her phone down i'm like what did you just do who did you just send that that's weird what did you do like why don't you just call them and talk to them instead of snapping a strange face it's just bizarre you know and then you look at our snapchat feed and all over it like that's how they're almost communicating through weird faces like so it's just and part of it is i think the adults trying to wrap our heads around this and so this is kind of the lightweight part of like what's happening right now with how our kids are communicating but there is a heavier side to that too that when you say something that's nasty or belittling or demeaning or whatever into a video game with a group of people who you don't know who you're playing with right and you've been doing that for a year and a half and then you get in a classroom of kids who you can see them and you still say the same things that's bad you know like they're they haven't learned that kind of interaction it's an unchecked experimentation that's a beautiful thing yeah you know and it is i mean it's just partisan anyway it's a diatribe but like it's it's i mean they are separate and not you know i mean i think the two compounded is has us arriving in a place that feels pretty treacherous for some kids and pretty formative but not maybe the best way here when we had the half day joelle was here and uh joelle and i both share the same opinion but i feel like putting joelle's name behind it has more weight because she's much smarter than i am in these things she's like the kids are gonna come there it's gonna come around you know they're gonna settle that we're gonna you know our first graders or second graders or third graders are back in where they should be in school with friends you know learning how to do this kind of thing so it will settle down um and what do we do in the meantime with kids who are making some decisions socially that are not appropriate yeah i mean this makes me think about how you know in terms of like right what can we do what's like what's within our purview and i know there's there's been some discussion about doing more you know direct like family outreach and workshops and things i mean i think there's a lot of parents swimming out in the abyss trying to find their way through this like not only just like the i gen itis you know that that plagues a lot of our kids and them trying to sort out their their social worlds with all these you know these these new tools um but you know in addition to kind of hearing from them it would be great and if the district can really do i mean i can remember that growing up i mean there was workshops for parents you know as we think about how we can kind of partner with each other as a school district and parents and come together to have a shared better understanding of our kids and where they're at so we can better write education a certain percentage happens in the school building and a lot of it happens at home and so that how we can be working you know in concert with one another and having these shared understandings as a board member i would be interested you know how we allocate funds to such things which is why community listening session around this specific topic will help us kind of frame those conversations because i think uh the culture shift also starts at home right and how we have those conversations with the kids and so i think of what's acceptable what's not and and i think you know this is a beautiful community uh and there's a lot of people that one that are really open to have conversations and i think that a lot of beautiful things can come out of it of like just like you know listening and kind of trying to come up with solutions that then we can bring together uh whether it's for the budget or like for grants that we write together with you know pie or you know some of the community groups whatever it is that we need but here from the people that are on the ground i feel like um there's a lot of solution oriented people too now just and that we can learn from um and that we can bridge that gap a little bit so i know building opportunities for social interaction because this lives absolutely right like kids kids learn by doing and they learn by interacting and they learn from each other as much as wonderful adults especially as they get older um great well thank you for bringing us top of cut amanda and for um sharing some leadership here and uh getting and one more question uh there were um i know murph's pie i understand that there's some kind of grant or funds that they have and they were sort of reaching out to maybe anna or something i'm not exactly sure i heard through third hand through my wife i'm not i'm not so connected i don't know how there's uh again and there's five thousand dollars that was a grant that pie received last year that has not been used for social emotional learning so there's a lot of ideas that are coming up around doing workshops for parents around bullying harassment and like so it wasn't clear how that money could be spent and it kind of just sat there so now we need to start it it's i mean we don't need to there's no timeline but this this topic also seems like a one that a lot of the pie groups want to invest some of that in there so and i think you they had conversations with just already kind of like trying to collaborate around some okay thank you um policy monitoring uh to have a motion to approve the b8 electronic communications between employees and students monitoring report i make a motion to approve the monitoring report so second any discussion all those in favor um i any opposed great um executive session i put the language in for you i put it on the agenda for you all right i got this this looks like it's like combined into one motion doing it don't we need like two motions oh you may okay you can do it in one motion no you need to because this is the first this is the hard one the second one is just to go into executive session okay now we can remember okay so i move that the board make a specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the positions that the board may take in upcoming labor negotiations would clearly place the board at a substantial disadvantage and therefore the board votes to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing labor negotiations with its employees and personnel matters all those in favor hi hi any post so now we i move we go into an executive session yes i move we go into an executive session second all those in favor hi any opposed great