 my clock has struck six. So the first order of business is executive session for legal negotiations and personnel. We've allotted 30 minutes for this. And the justification for executive session is 16, Title 16, Section 313A1A for contracts, B for labor relations agreements with employees, and F, confidential attorney-client communications. So I would welcome a motion to go into executive session for those purposes. So moved. Thank you, Flora. Diane, second. Was that Diane second? Thank you very much. Very good. So give or please click your yes button, or if you're opposed, click no. I'm seeing all the yeses. Very good. And we'd like for Brian and Bernie Mambic to join us, correct? Anybody else, Brian? No, that's all for now. And then after Bernie, I would like to have Carla join us. Okay, after Bernie. Yes, Mindy? It was pointed out to me after our meeting last time that Jim came in and we did not invite him in. So we need to explain if people are coming in or aren't supposed, you know, who we're bringing in, who we're voting for. Excellent point. I think maybe if we invite Jim in in order to take care of technical issues that might arise during the course of the executive session, would that be acceptable to board members? Is there an objection? So while we're in there, we call out to him to come in. Or if there's something that he sees that he needs to deal with inside, I don't really know how it works. And this is Jim. One thing we could do is I could remain out. It would just mean that one or multiple board members would have to tell me as we're moving people out of the breakout room and into the breakout room. Usually I toggle. You'll see me jump in and out several times to toggle board members in and out. So but it's easy for me to stay out. It was really more for the technical elements of it. Sure. If you can do it, if you can handle staying out of them, I think we'd probably... Of course, no problem. Absolutely. At least please. Thank you, Jim. My pleasure. My pleasure. Okay, so very good. Are there any other points raised before we go in, before we enter the room? Chris McVeigh, welcome. Hey, Scott. Okay, so in that case, let's enter the room. And Jim, please invite Bernie Lambeck in as well. We'll do. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, everybody. We still have one piece of unfinished business from our executive session, which is a brief statement by Jonas Inovan-Fleet. So I just wanted to read this into the record. This is the negotiation summary from our last negotiation session with the teachers union last Tuesday, February 9th. We reached an agreement regarding payments for time spent on duties that extends beyond the limit of 90 minutes per week, and both sides agree that the negotiation process has been conducted with mutual respect and an appreciation for the interests and goodwill of each side. Thanks, Scott. Many thanks, Jonas. Great. So welcome, everyone. Guests, members of the public, staff members, whoever is here is most welcome. Do we have any agenda revisions for tonight? We have a pretty... Chris, you're muted, Chris, I believe. I'm going to ask that we put on for a future agenda item. If we don't get to it tonight, having discussion and a vote on moving public comment to the beginning of the meeting, as opposed to keeping it at the dog tail end of the meetings. Noted. Thank you. Thank you. Any other agenda revisions? I had one, Scott. Thank you, Caroline. Go ahead. The superintendent evaluation, it's not really going to be a discussion for 30 minutes. It's a five-minute update. And so then on future agenda items, if we could move the discussion, I don't... It would be great if it could be the first meeting in March, but if the reorganization takes too long, I would understand if we couldn't do that. But the first meeting in March would be my request. Thanks. Our thanks to you, Caroline. I think there was a measurable sigh of relief at that. Thank you. Other agenda revisions before we move on. If not, student reports and towns. Awesome. Okay. To start things off, the U32 library is going to be holding virtual book groups. We'll be reading The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas and discussing it over different dates in March so that students can engage with each other and with important books virtually. We have had our winter sports startup, and we've actually had some games recently, and Boys Hockey won their first game in a very, very long time. They won 10 to 3. Girls Hockey won 10 to 3 as well, and Girls Basketball won 38 to 28. And with these games, if any of you of the public or the board are interested, I think it's called CVT Sports, and it's on YouTube, so you can watch the games. Awesome. As I'm sure everyone here knows, we had a remote day yesterday because of the weather, and that was our first, the first time that we have had a remote day that we've been able to transition into a remote schedule because of weather changes. I'm not going to say that students were thrilled about it, but it was a new experience. Yeah. We also, in the middle school this year, they're doing what are called PIPs, which is a personal interest project, and you can look at those and see what they did on the newsletter, which is linked by Jody Emerson. Thank you so much for doing that, and you can see all the different projects they did. I think there was some about psychology, how different people learn, and it just allowed students to do a project that let them do their own work independently and study something they're interested in. Next week is the start of our February vacation. A lot of people are looking forward to. It'll be a week and three days of break. We also have, in the very end of March, there's going to be a college fair. That's going to be virtual, which is pretty exciting. As a junior, I'm starting to think about college, so it's really nice to see that we can still learn about our future and get on a pathway for that. I think that's everything. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I don't know if there are any board member questions for either of you. You still sound upbeat, but I guess it's because the vacation is nigh. Yes. Good. We hope you manage to have a great time, basically, under house arrest. All right. Superintendent, COVID-19 update. Yes, so just a few little updates here. I think a lot of us are looking forward to that break coming in next week for our teachers and leadership team. Even myself, looking forward to hitting the snooze button a couple of times next week. It's been a lot of action that's happened since our last board meeting. We did receive a mask donation of over 1,500 masks that were donated to our school district by a nonprofit known as Another Way Incorporated, and they're based in off Billier. We did thank them for their donation, which we will definitely be putting to good use in our schools, across our schools. The student attendance still continues to be very high. On average, the student attendance rate, daily attendance rate, and across all of our buildings, every building is over 95 percent, and our average for the entire district when you add up all the students, 95.5 percent daily attendance rate. Last on February 10th, we did conduct surveillance testing, which is for our staff. It's called the asymptomatic surveillance testing for educators in our district and everyone that works in our schools. We continue to, we do this at least once a month, is what we work with the Department of Health and Agency of Education. And I'm proud to say that we are amongst the highest, if not number one in the state of Vermont for participation in this program. And we did this again on February 10th, and we'll be doing it again in March, right along every month. And I just want to thank our school nurses for leading this effort at the schools. It's great that we have a school nurse at every school to help out with this, quite frankly, and also very happy with our COVID-19 coordinator who has been working around the clock. We did have two positive cases, events that happened since our last meeting, and we've been, our COVID-19 coordinator and our principals have been working with food service staff and other staff members throughout the district. To prepare for some remote days that are happening, you've probably heard about the East Montpelier Elementary School is on remote till the end of this week. Elizabeth, do you have anything, is Elizabeth here? I'd like to see if she has anything to add. She has been doing just doing such great work throughout this entire last few weeks. Or maybe I did try to tell Elizabeth she needs to go to sleep though after this. That is what I'll be doing. It's been interesting. It's an interesting year, of course, and every situation is different. That's one of the challenging parts because everything is, you have to deal with it in a different way and you have a lot of different players. But our staff, I feel, have been just incredible. And I'm looking forward to having staff be able to be vaccinated and free of quarantine should they be close to anybody with a positive case. But it's a great teamwork. It's amazing. We were calling people all last night and the staff, the administrators at U32 and the staff and administrators at East Montpelier. I could not do this without them. That was really helpful. But I think we're doing pretty well. And we still have no transmission, but there will be cases here and there. So appreciate everybody's support. That's what we've needed. I think that's all I have to say. Can those people have questions? Thanks and admiration to all of you for dealing with this unbelievably difficult situation day after day after day after day. Board member questions? If not, we can move on to 5.2.2. Before we go on to that, I'll ask Jim Garrity to please put up the share screen here. But before we get into this, I wanted to just also highlight that we did complete the site visit portion of the Curriculum Management Review. And that took place on February 8th to the 10th. I really want to thank our teachers and principals for being just so great and spectacular throughout the entire year and just continuing that effort on February 8th through the 10th. I also want to point out someone that I have to say, you know, another person who probably needs to catch up on some sleep this upcoming week is Jen Miller, Arsenal. She not only had to work around the clock in preparing the documents and artifacts for the Curriculum Management Review, but she also worked in coordinating a lot of the work regarding the site visits. And also served as a tour guide as well for some of our visitors. So I just want my hats off to Jen Miller and her efforts and her leadership in really moving this forward. So thank you, Jen. And moving into the entry plan. So as you are aware that I've been working with implementing a superintendent entry plan, I've been trying to stick to it. It's been very difficult. Ultimately, in a non-pandemic year, I would love to have had this done by three months into the school year. But that's not what happened based on our just our current situation or circumstance, but we're definitely sticking through it. I've been working, meeting with different folks throughout the district, teachers, some students, ESP members, principals, central office, and school boards. And what I've been doing is I had been meeting with certain groups. And if you can put that back up, I don't know what happened to that, Jim, you had it up there. I've been meeting with certain groups and ultimately what we, the next step of this process is just to go over, I met with every board member individually. And we did talk about some of the ideas was to try to get to see the district through your lens, through your eyes as individual board members. And what I did now is I'm sharing the information with the board as I do with each group of folks that I've met with. And I take the personally identifiable information out so no one can tell who said what, but I think it's important. I think it has value to share with the board what folks have shared. And if there's any additional clarifications or anything that you think I missed, or if I think, if you think that there's something that needs to be revised or changed, you know, this would be an opportunity to do that. So, you know, over the next 15 minutes, I hope we can go through this and just look at some of the questions here. So, Jim, if you can scroll down to the first question. Brian, I'm wondering too, if during this, if your plan is to do this anyway, but to kind of focus on your takeaways, because there's a fair amount of info in there and just what really kind of came together for you. So, what I can tell you is I can definitely share some takeaways. What I can tell you is there is a lot of alignment in what different groups have been sharing with me, because I haven't finished with certain groups yet. I haven't been able to, I definitely will be putting together an entry plan report for all stakeholders about what I've been learning about the district. And so, these are just, so the idea, this is the next step of the process. So, getting it, soliciting the information, did I miss anything? Is there something that you want me to add or consider? And after that, I'll take that back and add that to a larger report of the entry plan. Does that answer your question, Scott? Sure. Because board members have read this, do you want, do you want them to kind of chip in? Yeah, I think if there's anything that I missed, if we can go down each question, I just want to give the board an opportunity, board members, to give them an opportunity to just give me any additional information under each one of these. So, I have an idea of, if there's something, I just want to make sure I got all the information in the correct way. Great. Okay. So, if we can look at the first one, board members, why did you see a election to the board? What do you hope to accomplish? I know I sent this out already several days ago. So, I'm hoping that if there's anything that you want additional clarification on or you want to add something that I missed or may have missed, or you want something that you don't want in there, let me know because I don't see any hands up or anything. Yeah. Okay. So, we'll go down to the next question. Whoops. I had my hand up, you guys. Sorry, Joe. Sorry, Joe. Sorry. I was on mute. Brian, I just had a quick comment. So, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who said something about being unhappy with proficiency-based grading. I just want to clarify, my problem was with proficiency-based GPA. Okay. And I have been very quiet in this pandemic about that issue. Thank you, Jill. And this is why I'm doing it. I want to make sure we got it the right way. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Anyone else on question one, or should we move to question two? What groups individuals have a major influence on schools? And I did omit the names of specific community members. If you could scroll down, Jim, just a movie. Anyone for question two? Nice to meet you, buddy. Okay. Let's question three. What are your expectations of me as your superintendent? I must have done a good job collecting it. I'm feeling pretty good right now. But we still have a few more. So, what are we doing well? What was very interesting about this one, I have to say, is almost literally every single, and this is just stuff I have to, almost literally every single board member, teacher, people I've spoke with kept talking about the TA system at U32. I mean, everyone loves the TA system. So, I see that here. It's just highlighted here, but there's a lot of commonalities. And I think you'll see them as they come out when I issue the report. Move down to what could we be doing better? And the ultimate goal just is to, when we do get, when I do synthesize this information and put it into the entry plan report, the goal is to ultimately have the entry plan report. Hopefully around the same time, we have the curriculum review document. So, we'll have some artifacts to really see how things line up or don't line up with what people said and shared versus what the review folks also saw. And then the last one, I don't see anyone else. So, last one, last, I think this is the last question. Very cool. Jim, can you just scroll it up? What is the matching behavior between what you say we're going to accomplish and what we're actually spending money on? And I think that's it. Sorry, Brian. I think I just might, I think Elizabeth, we can hear the sounds of domestic bliss. I don't know, Elizabeth, if you can hear me, if you could please mute your mic. Go ahead, Brian. Yeah, so I think this is, is this still, if you want to go down one more. Hey, Elizabeth, your mic is, you have a hot mic. All right, thanks. So, I think that's really all I have right now. On entry plan, there's any additional information about these responses. I know we did it. We do this in a public session. If there's something that you go to sleep tonight and you think, oh, wait a minute, he didn't have something, please let me know. But there is a week, I am taking some time off next week, but I also do plan on working next week. And I'm going to be working on some of this entry plan, a conglomeration of what we're doing. So, very intentional work next week with the entry plan. There are a lot of interesting similarities. And I think, I think it's very exciting stuff. I think it's really going to be very exciting to see what folks have shared across the district. So, any questions? Any comments about the entry plan? Yeah. Board member of questions, comments, Kai? Yeah, I just wanted to say it's kind of neat to see the responses compiled. And to me, it seems like another, yet another input into setting up strategic planning, along with the curriculum management review and the student learning outcome review. So, good job. Thank you. Great. Other, thank you. Other comments, questions? If not, we can move to 5.2.3, search update for administrators. So, I will, as Carla's still here, or I'll turn this one over to Carla. We've been working a lot in trying to align these, she here? There she is. Get on here. All right. I went the wrong way. That's okay. Both searches are being well progressed. Actually, the business administrator meeting is having their first main committee meeting tomorrow evening or afternoon. And then from that meeting, they will pretty much have set up the interviews for candidates on March 2nd. So, that's where everything is progressing there. The IT director position is also progressing. Their committee meeting is being set up as tomorrow, well, sometime later this week or the following. I don't have that exact time and date, but everything's progressing. The criteria for each of the groupings have been done based on the job descriptions. So, everyone that's moving forward in these committees will be quickly taken care of. So, here's hoping that within March, we will have some very definitive decisions. Carla, this is a general clarity. I did want to mention that the committee meeting, the next committee meeting is going to be March the 5th, which is, I think, a Friday based on some schedule changes from the couple of the team members. And so, we'll provide another step out of this update at the next board meeting. Thank you very much. Yep. Thank you. Thanks. Board member questions? Caroline? Thanks. I had a question about the business administrator search. It says, of the seven applicants, three applicants met the job requirements as listed. So, I have two questions. One, of those three, how many resided in Vermont? And two, are we interviewing people even if they didn't meet that requirement, if you're allowed to share that in open session? Thanks. Well, on the memo, it indicated that there's three that met the requirements. We do have a Excel sheet that we've given the criteria, how they met it. And there are two on that list that the committee will be reviewing as well that may not have met all of the criteria, but have skills within some of the areas that we're looking for. So, it's not a cut and dry, here's the only ones. But of the candidates that, of all the candidates of seven, there are, let's see, there's five, say four that are outside of Vermont and three that are inside of Vermont. Does that answer your question, Caroline? I think that is good enough. Thank you. Thanks. Lindy? Is it possible to know who's on these committees? It says roles, but not who these people are. And I'm just curious if that's something we can know. Sure. I can email. Yeah, I can email you the information as to who's on the committees. Yeah, sure. We'll get the information. Yeah. I can do that tomorrow morning or tonight before I leave, depending on. Could that be emailed to the whole board? Yes. Yeah. Thank you. I did notice that there weren't, we were asked as board members to submit if we wanted to be on it. I don't know if that's what the community member is, is that it was a board member. I guess when we do our reorganization, it might be helpful to sort of nominate a board member or two who could be on these committees, if that's something that we want to participate in. Yeah. I guess while you know, we do have a board member on that committee. Okay, great. Thank you. You're welcome. Great. Anything else before we move on? Otherwise, thanks very much, Brian and Carla. We'll go on to education quality. Kari, would you like to take this? Sure. Thanks, Scott. So great. This month's topic is math. And of course, that's as fundamental to our mission as anything we're going to consider this year. So hopefully this will be informative for you and stimulating. Pleased to report that we had a record turnout at our last Ed Quality Committee meeting. We had about a dozen of us showed up for the in-depth version of tonight's discussion, and that was great to see it. I hope folks continue to turn out and share in the learning. Tonight, we're going to get a chance to learn a bit about how we organized the math curriculum as well as some insights into the aspects of the instruction, including we're going to hear from some incredibly charming students. And of course, there's plenty of data for us to take a look at in this area, help us understand our student achievement. I want to thank Jen, Miller-Arson, and Advanced for preparing the presentation. Each of these presentations that we get is, I'm sure, a ton of work. And on top of everything else Jen has been up to, I just feel very lucky. This is a valuable opportunity for us to look really closely into something that matters a whole lot to our students. And the last thing before I turn it over is, as we go through this, keep the future in mind and think about what we might want to take from this first strategic planning, and we'll return to that after the presentation. So Jen, if you're ready to go, please take it over. Jen, are you muted? All right, there we go. Sorry, I was having a screen sharing glitch. I think I'm sharing now, correct? Can you see that? Okay, all right. So I'm going to talk through a little bit, as Kari just said, and we'll take it from there. I'm going to go to presentation mode here. Okay, so the first thing that I want to let you all know about, again, is that overall the standards and the performance indicators, we have articulated five standards. You can see them listed in front of you. It's important to note that in the younger grades, statistics and probability is really an emphasis on measurement and data, and that functions doesn't start. It doesn't start to show up until grade eight. Our standards are aligned to the common core state standards. I did put a link in there for you all if you're interested in seeing the progressions. So you can really see what we start with in pre-K and K around number and quantity and how those expectations build, really striving to create coherence in the system. And then another thing that is important to note is that typically our kids, through algebra two, if they've been successful in meeting course expectations through algebra two, then they have achieved our standards for their graduation level. So that's important to know. And also, as you know, we offer more courses beyond algebra two for kids. I want to talk through a few pieces regarding instruction, just so everybody knows. I believe most of you know right now that we adopted a program through eight last year called Ready Classroom Mathematics. We've done a lot of work in professional learning for our teachers around mathematics, really understanding language and concept and procedure and building on levels of knowing. And our teachers were still desiring a program to continue to create some coherence and provide support for them as they were teaching math. So we vetted a lot of, you know, we used ed reports criterion criteria to vet programs. And then we took a closer examination of a few and we ultimately adopted Ready Classroom Math. Along with Ready Classroom Mathematics comes an online instructional component called iReady. We piloted iReady last year. We purchased iReady this year. So we use the iReady Math Diagnostic right now, kindergarten through eighth grade. This fall, it was optional for kindergarten. Our kindergarten students were just learning how to use their tablets. This winter, all of our students will have completed the iReady Diagnostic. There's some data in the presentation later that I can highlight for you. And then another thing that's important to note is that there's an online instruction component. And based on the results of the iReady Diagnostic, kids get an instructional path, a personalized path in iReady, and teachers can continue to assign lessons. That's important to know. It's important to know that we're engaging in ongoing professional learning about our programs and that this is really year two of implementation. I want to really give a shout out to our math instructional coaches, Ellen Dorsey and Ann Carter. They've worked really hard. This middle part here is an example of a course that they've created in Canvas to support our teachers in an ongoing way around implementation. And then finally, I included some of our high leverage math practices for you to take a look at the things that we want to see actually not just in math classrooms but across the board. Things like really effective questioning, making sure that we're being precise with our language, making sure that there's some real world application and context using formative assessment on a daily basis, those things. So this is the part that Kari talked about. This probably stole the show, the video, the last time. So I'm going to show it in a minute. I always, you know, I take me, I get flustered when I have to share my sound, so bear with me in just a minute when I pull that up. But I want to lay the context for this video. So a huge thanks to Jen Fitch from East Montpelier Elementary. These are her third graders from last year. And this is an example of leveraging technology during the period of school dismissal to deepen an understanding multiplicative reasoning. So we expect our students to know multiplication in poor ways. We want them to know multiplication as groups of, as repeated addition, as a raise, and as the area model. And you're going to see that, you can see the assignment there that Jen had posted. And you're going to see some kids answer those questions. So give me just a minute. I need you to go to more. And I chose eight times three because A plus eight equals 16, 16 plus four equals 20 and 20 plus four equals 24. Hi, everyone. I chose three times eight because it has the most efficient way to use my favorite strategy. First, I'd take the three eighths. Eight plus eight is 16. And I broke up the 16 into six and 10. I broke up the 16 and I mean the six into four and two. I added the four to the eight, which got me to 12. 12 plus 10 equals 22 and 22 plus one, I mean two equals 24. And that's how I like to figure out multiplication. Hi guys. So I'm solving the problem 56 times five. And so I'd write 50 times five equals 250. And then I'd write six times five equals 30. So 50 times 50 plus 30 would be 280. So up here I'd write 280. I could also make an area model. So six would go here. 50 would go here. And five and five can go on the sides. So five times 50 would be 250. And six times five is 30. So 250 plus 30 is 280. So I can't wait to hear your problems. And yeah. So I picked 56 times five. I know 56 using poise value times 10 is 560. I know that half of 10 is five. So what's so half of 560 will be the product. And half of 560 is 280. Hey everyone. I'm going to be doing 17 times seven. So I split the 17 up into nine and eight. And so I know that seven times nine is 63 and eight times seven is 56. And so I split the 60 and three and up into 60 and three and 56 into 50 and six. So 60 plus 50 equals 110. So I have a three and six left. So six plus three is nine. Sorry if it looks like a four. 110 plus nine equals 119. My next strategy is a little bit more simple. Simple is always nice. So I split the 17 up into seven and 10. So seven times 10 is 70 and seven times seven equals 49. So 70 plus 40 equals 110 and nine plus 110 equals 119. Hope to see you guys soon. Bye. I chose eight times three B. All right. So I hope that was enjoyable for all of you as well. And we'll talk a little bit about that video in just a little while. Another thing that I wanted to point out was just a little bit of what's happening in the middle school and the high school instructionally as well. The example from middle school is an example that Hollis St. Peter shared with us. He engages in data chats with his students. So when the eye-ready diagnostic results are available, he really sits down and talks to kids about what their goals are, what their strengths are, their current areas for growth. Those are quotes from the fuller sort of transcript that he wrote up for us. So you can see that this year's harder. You all know you've been supporting our middle school teachers to try to have some more co-planning time. Their schedule, just the way that we've been able to organize and get our kids into school, is much tighter. But this is certainly a practice that he intends to enact as much as possible. And then the examples from the high school, again, you all can look at them when you have the time and inclination. These are actually assignments that were collected as part and submitted as part of the curriculum management review that we were just talking about. So there is all of that for you. And then there's the data. And the Ed Quality Committee, we've been trying to get into our rhythm, figuring out what works for us, what's the right size amount of data and analysis. And so there are a lot of slides and we're not going to go through them tonight. I'm happy to try to answer questions that you might have. I want to point out a few important things. And then I've been asked to kind of share my analysis right now. So one thing that I would say is that you know, and we've talked a number of times, and we did last month during the continuous improvement planning, that our math scores have room for improvement. They haven't improved much over the years. We are at or sort of below, by and large, the state average at times. We're trying hard to dig into that. Two, the slides that I didn't share in this presentation, but I'll make sure to put back in the literacy presentation were ones that you did see in the continuous improvement planning presentation. And those are the scatter plots that show that we have gaps in achievement, differences, pretty significant ones between the students who qualify for free and reduced lunch and our students who don't qualify for free and reduced lunch. Our students who qualify for IDPs, individualized education fans and students who aren't on IDPs. So we're working on that as well. You remember, Kelly had recently talked about the annual performance review and the state improvement strategy that we're working on. So all of this work sort of goes together. There are lots and lots of other slides around the data. And again, I'm happy to talk with you about those in more detail if you have questions. Well, I think that one thing that's important, like the Ed Quality Committee asked me to consider why do we think the scores are what they are? And I mean, if we knew, we would be immediately addressing that and remediating it. But I have a couple of thoughts. And I also want to again thank, I ran my initial thinking by Ellen and Anne and just appreciate they're weighing in on this too and helping me get more clarity as well. So one thing is you saw in that video, a number of those students had a really strong sense of number. They understood combinations of making 10 and they could then apply that to multiplicative reasoning, right? They were breaking apart numbers and putting them back together. Number sense is super important. And sometimes we see as kids are getting older, sometimes they're counting like this, right? That it's really an indication of number sense that needed to be strengthened a while ago. So we pay attention to that. We also want to make sure that there are plenty of opportunities for problem solving in real life, not just focusing on fact fluency for the sake of fact fluency or sort of solving lots of mathematical problems outside of real context and real life. One thing we're thinking about is instructional time. There are differences in instructional time in mathematics, not only at the elementary level and the difference when we get into middle and high school, but also just overall we spend less instructional time even when we've made the commitment for at least 60 minutes a day. That's less than we are spending in literacy. That could be a factor. We talked about our scores had historically been lower than we wanted and being able to support teachers by having a math program. We're still implementing that and learning about it and working hard to sort of leverage it to its full potential. We have not engaged in all of the PD that the company curriculum associates has to provide, but we do have more opportunities days with them. It's a matter of figuring out when. I think along those lines, ongoing professional learning in math is really key. Our instructional coaches are doing a phenomenal job and we don't have enough of them. They are spread thin. In past years, we've also been able to engage in some ongoing professional development opportunities like lesson study and curriculum topic study. We have not been able to engage in those opportunities at all since last year and even when we do sometimes it's hard because we're trying to strike that balance between keeping kids with their teachers and pulling teachers out. We have over the years had a steering committee that sometimes met during the school day again necessitating sometimes some subs and we've gotten away from that practice. That might be an influence. Then I think that probably one of the biggest issues and we talk about this a lot is just needing to continue to create a culture of math that promotes math as sort of beautiful and universal where we can say that everybody is a mathematician. It is socially acceptable to say I can't do that math or I don't do math or math isn't for me. We want to change that culture. That's something I know in that slide show later on there were some board implications. Things that I know I thought about about continuing to support interventions. You all mentioned that earlier in the budget presentation tonight. We need to do that. We need to intervene when kids need it. We need to focus on early interventions. We need to again continue to commit to forms of professional learning, instructional coaching and other forms, curriculum camp, doing some of that lifting during the end of the year when school is out and teachers can really focus and I think probably most importantly continuing to build on that idea that math is accessible to everybody. Everybody is a mathematician and math is fundamentally important. That is my current analysis. I think I would turn it to Kari for the next steps. Are there any questions? We have a little bit of time for discussion. Chris, you have something? Two questions for Jen. One is it seems to me that math unlike literacy is beyond a lot of parents who cannot help their kids at home. How much do you think that that contributes if it does it all to how students perform in school? The second is how many additional math coaches do you think we would need this year in order to make a difference? One thing I think is that your question, Chris, about math and parents is a complicated one. I think that many families, parents, caregivers probably learned math the way that I learned math, which was straight up procedure or standard algorithm with very little conceptual understanding. To be honest with you, having gone through the math lab in 2012, 2013 and understanding math as an area model was life changing for me. I didn't know it that way. I think that parents when they can support kids with math learning at home, we have to continue to do some more education and support of our parents. I think most importantly is that language that math is fun, math is beautiful. All of those things are probably the most important things right now. That would be my quick answer to that. In terms of the coaching, I'm going to say ideally we'd have coaches in every building so that there's flexibility and understanding. There has been a plan over the years to increase that. That would be my two cents. Is there any sense in trying to reach out and have instructional or forums for parents to come and learn about new math concepts? Just so it's not, so they're not elated by, and basically say, I can't even talk to you. I don't know what you're talking about to their students. Yeah, and some of our principals and teachers have arranged those opportunities over the years. In general, they've been well attended and they've been good way to support kids or teaching kids math games, those sorts of things. That's part of maybe an overall picture. It's not the only thing. Okay, thank you. So great. We just have a few minutes left and I wanted to give a chance to, if anybody has a response to the question that we had for you, which is what information from this review do you want to make sure we carry forward and consider when we get into strategic planning? Does anybody have anything that comes to mind? Scott? I just like to second what Jen had to say about creating the culture of kind of mathophilia and this idea that is a human activity that is as natural as speaking and using language and creating that culture in the way that Chris was sort of suggesting, not just in the school, but more broadly as well, so that it really is a culture and not just kind of a hot house plant. Great, thank you. Caroline, you have something? Yeah, thanks. Mine was actually somewhat similar to Scott's, but really keeping that piece that Jen had highlighted about keeping math fun, I think there was a lot of research about math being a lot more isolated in the past and so making it more of a collaborative approach and something that you can do, not just doing math worksheets in your room, but actually having discussions about it. Yeah, that one is really important and I think the idea that Jen touched on about having it just socially acceptable to say, oh, I'm not really that great at math, I think even in educational groups and settings, people have historically been very comfortable to say I'm not good at math, whereas they would never say I'm not a strong reader and so I think just continuing that, I think those are great in terms of what information and data coming back, I would just love to hear more about how it's going and the opportunities that we have to increase both of those, both the confidence people have with math, the social acceptance or no longer accepting, like to get people comfortable if they are struggling with math, that it is extremely important to build that skill, so thanks. Thank you. Brian? Yeah, I appreciate the presentation and I definitely know we have a lot of work to do in math, so that's something that we definitely have to look into, the culture of math, math, aphilia, those are all things. I also appreciate the desire to add coaches and start talking about instructional coaches. I think the big thing is really looking forward to see what the curriculum management review is going to share about our curriculum, which could also help us guide us in this area. I also am looking at a, when you talk about coaching, it's great to have coaches, but I think you really have to make sure we clearly define what those coaches are doing and making sure that we have adopted a coaching model, so it makes it much more predictable and easier to do coaching across the district and I think that's an equity thing as well, because if you have several different coaches, you can have different methods and maybe get different results and so I think the idea is that we really want to make sure that we, if we're going to invest in coaching, which I've seen, I know coaching is where the rubber hits the road in improving instructional capacity of our teaching staff and also improving the leadership capacity of our principals around math instruction, so I think it's very powerful and I think there's a lot of work to be done here and I think it's very exciting and I thank Jen for her time again. I don't know where she found a time between site visits, curriculum management review, and ed quality, but you know, very impressed, so thank you. Great, well we'll leave it with that and just a reminder that our next couple reviews are going to be literacy and science, so you're more than welcome to join us. The committee discussions are at 5 p.m. before the first board meeting of the month and we'll send the packet out again to everybody so you're, you have a chance to join us. Okay, thanks. Back to you Scott. Many thanks Kari and Jen. Before we proceed, any, is there any desire among board members for a five-minute break? Do you want to just plow through? Okay, let's plow through. Flora, finance. Thanks Scott. So we had a meeting just yesterday, I'm not like forgetting all my days now, on the 16th. Yes, just yesterday morning. Let's just write through the agenda, so we're going to try to do it just as a quick report out. We put in the agenda 15 minutes, but Lori's here with us too, if you have more in-depth questions is Brian too. So for phase 5.4 finance committee discussion, 5.41 Care Relief Grants, so you saw the information in page 50, we received those five grants, the summer food grant, the food service equipment, Efficiency Vermont, the CRF LEA grant, and the ESSERS grant, and all of those total, the 4.3 that we shared at the budget presentation. And I think the one thing to do in public here, and we did at the public meeting right now, was to just, you know, thank you Matt, Penny, Michelle, Carla, and Melissa for all the work. There was a lot of work that had to be done to be able to submit all of this grants, and it's a tremendous effort to, you know, allocate all of this grant money for our district. And it also shows that, you know, we had maybe a little bigger, we received a little bit more grants than other districts because we were fully open, starting right at the beginning of the school year. So 4.2 if you guys are okay with that, unless you want to go or open it for questions on that one, or can I plow through and then we do questions? Okay. And in 5.42, an audit and fund balance, I do want Lori to speak a little bit so that in case a community member is, like Alan had a few questions about, I'll just say what I had taken on my notes from our meeting, but the fund balance from 1920 didn't change, right? So right now when we started, when we started our, when we went through all the numbers on page, we're getting my pages here, when we went through all the numbers on page 64 and then moved to 67, the percentage for operations and all is 1.2, $1,287, $890,000. And Lori is still working on that fund balance to, you know, to show all of the savings from this year too. I want, I want Lori to give us just that quick run through page, I believe it's page 67, I don't have it right in front of, I'm moving quickly to get there. 67, that's the current year, is that where you want to focus or on the prior year floor? Yes. The current year? Okay. I wanted to focus in this, in the current year, that's okay if you could just go through that last step. That's probably, that's page 67. Yes, yes. How we get through that one point. Yeah, thank you. Right. Okay. So when we got the CARES relief funds, there were funds that needed to be what we, the state's calling repurposed, which means that they're staffing and other costs that we would have put in our budget, but because people were doing different things like, for example, remote learning or summer task force work for school reopening, we've already paid people to do that work, it's already in the budget, but the reason why the state requested that we repurpose and do some bookkeeping on that is because then that frees up money for the education fund. So on page 67 at the top, you'll see where I have a negative $836,152 in ed spending, and that means that we would be repurposing staff and giving back $836,000 to the state education fund. So that's good news because what that did was that actually gave them more confidence at the state that they have additional revenue coming in at the state, and that's what's helping tax rate reductions for next year. You'll see the other $2 million coming into the budget for the CARES relief expenses, and then you will see the efficiency Vermont, $815,000 coming in as revenue. Those same amounts are going out down below under the expenses, so that doesn't impact the fund balance. It's really a bookkeeping exercise for us to run those transactions through the books, but what is different is that in our fall projections, we had projected that we would have to pay for the nurses in the COVID coordinator and some of our replacement for our remote teachers out of our regular budget. So we actually saved 4.2 FTEs for nine pay periods. That's the remote teachers that I was able to charge out, and that's about $255,000. So that's a savings because I previously thought you might have to pay locally, and then we also had previously a reserve for nursing in the COVID coordinator out of the fund balance this year. So what you'll see is based on our current operations, our fund balance this year would go up $966,000. So we've done a great job of managing the budget, and having said that, that was one of the reasons why we felt that tonight might be the night you would take a board action to transfer some of the fund balance. I know you've been patiently waiting for this transaction since last year when I asked you to hold up until we were sure, and I'm very comfortable now. We've received all but $600,000 out of these grants currently getting monitored by the state, but I believe we will get the last $600,000 and I'll know tomorrow morning. If they do short us, I have other things I could have charged off to the grant. So I guess that's the great news is that all the grant money is in the bank pretty much. So at the end of the day, the fund balance will increase further. I'm still working on the savings associated with not having athletics full-time, not having field trips. Actually, our staff has been quite healthy and we haven't seen as many subs due to colds in the flu. So we are saving some money and I'm hoping to start rolling that up as soon as I get done with the audit next week. So at the bottom you would see we'd still have a $1.2 million fund balance right now if the board did decide to transfer the $1.5 million over to the capital fund. Did I go too fast? Last but not least, what we didn't cover was that we have approximately another million dollars coming in for another CARES grant. It should be I believe for next fiscal year. So some of the reservations and fund balance like for the nursing and the COVID coordinator would be expected to qualify out of this new million dollars that Washington Central should receive. We'll get more information about that with instructions in the next few months, but it's all good news. So thank you. Thank you, Laurie. So now moving to 243 review capital projects for year 2122. Are you okay with making a motion? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I was going to say. Invite a motion. Yeah, so I was reading that. So the first motion is to authorize the capital project budget of 981,064, subject to a reduction in state or federal aid. And I'll explain after if somebody is willing to second that. Second it, Diane. Thank you. Thank you, Diane. Floor moved. Diane, okay. Go ahead and explain, Flo. Okay. My internet is saying that it's unstable. Can everybody hear me? Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna take my video. Can you hear me better now? Yes. Yes. Okay. Sorry, my internet is acting up. So in, let's say where to start. So we have, we had some projects, the Berlin parking lot, the Romney, Germany, Jim Ford and the U32 side project are still going, right? And these are separate projects funds that we approved before. And the capital fund balance is not enough to pay for them. So we want to be able to move this funds for the two retaining funds that we have, one at U32 and one at Berlin. Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah. That was very clear, Flo. Thanks. So basically we're reserving those funds in the event that the federal and state money that would pay for it is not, doesn't come through. Is that how we should understand this? Yes. Great. Yeah. Okay. And Chris. Yeah. The funds that we're reserving is the $981,064. And that's for the water runoff at Berlin and U32 plus the projects at Romney and Central Office. Are they all incorporated in the 981,64? Yes. Yes. Yes. Can you hear me? Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Laurie. Yes. Yes. Good. Other word questions? If not, we can, oh, Diane. Yeah. So you were mentioning that two of the projects, so like the Berlin one and I don't know if it was the retaining pond or whatever at U32, were those in a previous budget? And if so, how does that connect to this then moving forward for additional money? Did you want me to answer that or? Yes. Okay. So Diane, when you do water projects, the state has a separate division that often offers grants. And so when that came to be, I checked in and that department still exists and they still have funding. But what's happening is they're waiting for this spring for the legislature to approve their budget. Then they're going to send out applications. And they don't always pay 100%. They usually pay a considerable sum for planning and for getting these projects in motion. So we would have more information about the funding in the spring, but just like last meeting when, you know, Lindy reminded us that we should put it subject to reduction in state or federal aid. That would be appropriate here. So when the funds are available, we would apply those first. Are you good, Diane? Yes. Thanks. Okay. Other questions before we go to a vote? If not, all in favor of the motion that Floor made to reserve the amount that I don't have in front of me, but that was seconded by Diane. 984. Go for it, Floor. 981,064 dollars. Excellent. If you're in favor, click yes, oppose, click no. And I'm seeing all yeses. Motion carries. Please continue. And we have a second motion to authorize a fund balance transfer from the general fund to the capital fund in the amount of 1,500,000 dollars. Okay. Excellent. Floor moves. Is there a second? Okay. Kari seconds. Thanks. And thanks for the backup from Jill and Dorothy. Very good. Discussion. Chris. So we're, we've just heard about our math program, which does not sound very powerful. And that we are in, I think, need of math coaches. So I would want to move to a reserve out of this 1.5 million dollar transfer, enough money to hire three math coaches at least. And I know that's an arbitrary number because we haven't heard the number three, but we did hear Jen suggest that we should have a math coach at each school. And I think we only have two now. If I'm wrong on the number, then, but so I'm going to move that we amend this and reserve enough money to hire three math coaches with the understanding that Brian has concerns about how we use math coaches. But that would be in, you know, our administration's area of expertise, but that we fund those for this upcoming year because it doesn't seem like there's time to lose. Chris has made an amendment, has moved an amendment, that is. Is there a second for that amendment before I go to Floor? I'll second. Dorothy seconds. Okay. Floor. Can you hear me? So Chris, I think my input on that by sort of sitting both in the quality committee and in the finance committee, it would be that, you know, we can't make decisions like that, you know, like it comes out of student needs and it would be a proposal that, especially with the curriculum review going on right now. So we would need that first and the strategic plan, and then we can decide how to allocate that money. I wouldn't, like Lori was saying, you know, she's still working on making this fund balance, you know, getting the final number on the fund balance, but our capital plan is really underfunded. And I know that a lot of the time we've seen the capital money not as educational, but it is still an investment on, because the built environment affects our kids and our administrators. So the way that we are thinking of using this money are all is projects that we will be deferring, that we will cost us more money later. So that's just my opinion since it's very underfunded. Thanks. Lori. Bye. That we do have 3.2 coaches in the budget for next year already. 3.2 FTEs between grant funds and local funds. And I'm not quite sure where that would all go, if it's all math or if it's some of other topic areas. But I just didn't want us to supplant because some of this is coming out of grants, Chris, and I just didn't want you to use local money when we already have it in some grant budgets for next year. In addition, 3.2 FTEs across the entire district. True. Plus this million dollar grant that I just mentioned, I'm able to, if we needed some supplemental services, it's my understanding that I could also use some of that money to pay for student needs when right now things are a little slow. So I wouldn't want to use local money without having that million dollar grant in our hand that you can see and understand better about how that money could be used. Is that million dollar grant fungible in terms of can it be used for capital projects? I was just told no. I did ask that. It is not for school construction. It is solely for student services types of things like remote learning, PP&E, things to do with the pandemic. If we have students who are behind because of the pandemic, we've put in a request that they might consider that. I was asked to help write the legislation for some of those items, just like I did with the prior care grant. So I just wanted you to know I could add that to the list. I'll defer to Jen. I was just going to see what Brian was sitting in this meeting with us too. So I was wanting him to sit. So I'll defer to Jen and then wait. Thank you. I am so appreciative of the support for instructional coaching. That is huge. In fact, tomorrow morning we have a meeting with folks across the district who are interested in coaching to continue to talk about cultivating coaching culture. I want to underscore what Lori said as well, though we do have money earmarked in the grants to continue to support coaching. And there have been changes in grant requirements that are sort of promoting some of the shifting of funding. And I don't want to get us into supplanting trouble. So I am so appreciative of the sentiment. And I think we just need to wait and have the grants pay out a little bit. Is that grant money? Will it be available for additional coaches for the upcoming school year? We're hopeful. I mean, that's what Lori and I have been working on designating that money. And I think in addition to that, there are chunks of some coaching or PD across the district in other grant pools. And I just met with Michelle today. We're doing some projection of preliminary numbers for some of the Title I schools. So I think we're going to be okay. If we aren't, then it is awesome to know that there may be support on the board for more local funds. I think everybody's appreciative. But I just, there's like a time frame in terms of applying for the grant and ensuring that we don't supplant. Thank you very much, Jen. So do you all feel ready to vote intelligently on Chris's amendment to he amended the main motion in order to reserve money for coaches? Ready to vote on that, Brian? I just think that it's important to, another thing is what model are the coaches using to give feedback and across the district? What are we, what are they coaching on? What is the curriculum management review say? What if there are other findings in that review that say we need to do more with curriculum or writing or other pieces? So I don't want to put the cart before the horse, right? So there might be other work that may need to happen in addition to coaches. I think coaches is the ultimate goal to get there. But I just hate to buy the house and get ready to move in. And then you find out that it's on a sinkhole. There's other things we may need to think about doing. And I always thought that if we were going to use local funds, that's great. I will say there are districts across the country where it's very hard to even get folks to say let's invest in coaching. That does not seem to be the case here in Washington Central. So I am completely blown away and extremely happy for that kind of support. I just want to make sure that you don't spend the money on coaches when we may need something else, depending on what the curriculum management review and what the entry plan and what other results may come out of it. Thanks, Brian. Okay, ready for a vote on the amendment by Chris, seconded by Dorothy, to reserve money out of the capital fund transfer for math coaches. You've heard the background? Okay, a vote of yes means you're voting to reserve money out of the capital fund. A no vote means the amendment is rejected and we go back to the main motion. So please click yes for the amendment or no against the amendment. Okay, I'm going to need to count these up. I'm seeing two yeses. Two yeses, three yeses. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. One, two, three. They disappear before I can count them. If somebody wishes to help me, obviously, my own math skills are insufficient. Can we do it again just so that I can get this This is in the amendment, right? This is the amendment. This is the internet. So, okay, okay. Let me see. Yeah. Okay, I see some votes. I don't see. Yeah. We are people voting because it's not showing on the checks and square and X's. I see a no on your screen. You know, I'm just going to have to call the roll. Sorry. I need to have an accurate count here. So, Chris McVeigh. Yes. Chris McVeigh is yes. Flora Diaz-Smith? No. No. Everybody's moving around. Dorothy? Yes. Dorothy is yes. Kari? No. Kari is no. Dianne? No. Dianne is no. Jial? Yes. Jial is yes. Jill? No. Jial is no. Jonas? No. Jonas is no. Caroline? No. Caroline is no. Lindy? No. No. No. And I am also no. So, I have three yeses and three, six, eight, noes. Does that... Okay. So, the noes have it. We're back to the main motion. Flora's motion, do we need to discuss it further? Flora, do you mind reminding all of us of that motion? To authorize a fund balance transfer from the general fund to the capital fund in the amount of $1.5 million. $1.5 million. Thank you. And that had been seconded. I've now forgotten, but Lisa remembers. Bye, Lisa. Bye, Dianne. Bye, Dianne. Was it? I have that. Yes. Okay. Was it a car? I thought it was Kari. You know, yeah, I think you're right. I think it was me. Yeah, it was seconded by Kari. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Okay. More discussion on this. Or shall we move to a vote? All in favor of the main motion, move by Flora, seconded by Kari, to transfer $1.5 million to the capital fund, please click yes. If you're opposed, click no. And I'm seeing all, I'm seeing one no and all the yeses. As a courtesy, Chris, you're welcome to explain your no vote. I'm guessing it has to do with the amendment. Scott, sorry, Scott, there are still a bunch of votes that I didn't see show up in the participant's check. Okay. Let's do this again. You're right. They pop up and then vanish before you can get a good clear count. People click twice, it goes off. It seems to go off after a certain period of time anyway. So the only no vote I saw was Chris. Were there other no votes besides Chris? Okay. So the eyes have it. But Chris? I am voting no, not because I don't believe in the concept, but I think it's probably too much money to transfer all at once. And I also just think we should also be funding our coaching if given the report that we heard about the need for us. And not wait for another day to come by, hopefully with a grant or not. I think it should be something that we're incorporating into our regular budget as opposed to relying upon grant funding because it apparently works. So that's my rationale. Thank you. Okay. All right. So we can move on now to 5.4.4. Flora? Do you want to take it? Yes. So hiring a facilities director, am I jumping anything? Let me just make sure I'm in there. Yeah. So we wanted to report back and hopefully we have it in our budget for next year, facilities director. And we are wanting to start that process a little bit sooner, which would be authorize us to, well, authorize Brian and his team and Carla to post the position so that we can hire this person sooner rather than later. We believe that we can fund it. Laurie has, it's really by the time we hire it, it's going to be just two months before we were thinking of hiring them full-time for the next school year. So we would like to free Brian and our principals so that they have a more time for instructional leadership rather than spending, you know, it's time putting out fires that are related to facilities. Could you hear me? I just see everybody frozen. So that was great. That's that. And it's just a report out. It's just a report out that we don't need any action on this unless there's, you know, obviously please give us the opinion, but it's just, you know, information out because at this process we're not quite hired. They haven't, we don't have candidates. We don't have a committee. It's about posting it and seeing if it's possible to get somebody sooner rather than later. Scott, back to you. It sounds, I don't see any board members with questions. So if you want to move on to 5.4.5. Okay, so I move on to the technology. Yep. So the technology equipment authorization is in page 72 and it's also more of a report out because until we have RFPs we won't have much to discuss. But right now the district, as we've discussed before, is in the middle of a technology assessment and Jim has been working to really figure out what the infrastructure that we need mostly for storage. I'm going back to my notes. The district right now has some infrastructure housed at U32 that is out of date that will be repurposed and moved to our elementary schools because there will still be usable service there. But in the meantime, he's hoping to, you know, to get five to seven years in from this new infrastructure and infrastructure that we were hoping to put our RFP out and we will continue to update you as we have more information. And I believe Jim is on the call if he has something to add to that, but also seeing the hour I'll leave it up to our chair to the side of that's where we want to go. Yeah, I think it's explained pretty well in the in the attached documentation. So unless board members have questions specifically, I think we can consider it taken on board and that Jim has our blessing. It says the end of the facilities report. Wonderful. Thank you very much, Flora. Before I turn it over to you, Chris. Oh, sorry, Flora. Oh, I just say facilities and it was fine. I'm sorry. I just so used to that. Sorry. And we are meeting for facilities right after with with Brian and Laurie. So I've been. But you said facilities and I heard finance. So it all works out. So before I turn it over to you, Chris, perhaps we can invite a motion to approve on second reading the policies that are up for approval and adoption. Would anyone like to move those policies? I will. Dorothy? I'll move our second reading and adoption of policies. F F 22 data retention and storage F 25 access control and F 41 reasonable care and protecting propriety and our confidential information. Thank you very much. Is there a second? I have Caroline as second. Thanks. Very good. Chris. Okay. Thank you very much. This is the second reading for these policies that we discussed or read last time. And there's been no changes that I'm aware of through the committee or from the conversation that we had at our last meeting. So we'll take them one by one. Is there any change? Any questions about F 22, which is the data retention and storage policy? Yeah, I just I see thumb drives UBS. I think it's USBs. I think it's just a simple little typo on F 22. Okay. Unless I've been calling them the wrong thing all these years. That might be our finance and company. Is that but we'll make that change. Any others? Okay. Next up is F 25 the access control policy. Any comments or questions about it? And the final one. I just had a question because I'm so used to from when I was on policy committee that they were quite often vetted through the SBA or they had the little like that they were model policies or they just had the little sections and everything. None of these do. And so I was curious about that. So Jim Garrity developed these policies for us and we worked through them at the policy committee. And so he could explain the origin of these if you would like. No, that answered my question. I just I'm used to seeing that and I didn't see it. So I wanted to know where they came from. And if we were changing the way we do things. Nope. This was just a I mean the original policy was just like 40 pages and was broken into different sections. So last up is at 41 the reasonable care and protecting proprietary and or confidential confidential information policy. Any questions? Okay. Scott, you want to call for the vote? Sure. If you're ready for a vote, please click yes if you're in favor of adopting the policies as moved by Dorothy and seconded by Caroline and know if you're opposed. And I'm seeing all the yeses. So motion carries unanimously. Thank you everyone. Scott, Scott, are you only seeing five yeses there? Thanks. How about this? Does anybody say no? If not, okay. It's really hard to count. Scott, one item is Zoom did report an issue tonight with both chat and with voting. And it's an active issue. So we might continue to see this tonight. But you know, so I'll keep track of their their outage window to see when this will be corrected. But it may not be corrected before the end of tonight's reading. Thank you for that, Jim. We'll we'll work with it. Thanks. Appreciate it. I think the raise hand function last longer so we could all just raise our hand if we're voting yes. Okay. Great idea. Thank you, Gail. All right. So we can move on to board operations. Floor, shall we have a motion to approve this to start it off? Yes. That'll be great. I hadn't written a motion myself, but let me come up with something. So we need to authorize the superintendent chair and vice chair to write to sign a letter in behalf of the school board in support of the comments in our letter. So basically it was making some clarifications about age 81 and age 63. Can you hear me? Yeah. That sounds good. Just make sure that Lisa, were you able to get that, Lisa? Sorry, it takes me forever to unmute. No, I was I was in the middle of typing it. So floor move to authorize the superintendent. Who were the other people? Sorry. Chair and vice chair, I believe she said. Okay. Yeah. I was trying to make it just chair, but they might put my name on it. So yeah. So chair and vice chair. Assign a letter on behalf of the board in support of the letter submitted in the package. I think that might be more clear. Okay. I'll just refer to that actual document. It's in page 79. Yeah. February 17th. Excellent. Yeah, today. Yeah. And then the only the only change. So as of because this was moving so so quickly and it passed in the house just yesterday, I think that it would be best now. So we would be authorizing this letter just to keep some but I guess the second and then I'll have discussion. Sorry, Scott. Yeah. No, no problem. Is there a second for floors motion? Seconds. Very good. Carry on floor. So the bill is now out of the of the house and we're not exactly sure if it's going to move to economic development and housing and general first is economic development or to housing and general first. So if we if your guys are okay just with the what the letter says by tomorrow hopefully we will know which committee and in the meantime we would send it to the senator our senators and to Janet and Kimberly even though we already passed the house. I don't know if you had a chance to read the letter or need some clarification on on what this is about. Does anybody want to ask Floor about the letter or Jonas? So I think I recall that the the differences between age 81 and age 63 were in how they define the arbitration process for the statewide health care bargaining commission. Do I do I remember that correctly Floor? Yes. And what is the mechanism by which we think that age 63 would reduce the district's health care spending allowing us to spend money on other things? How else you know if that's going to reduce our share of health care who else would be picking up that share of the health care? So I think the way this bill is going so I'm you know I don't have all of the details but this bill a lot of people are calling this bill just as doing some technical changes so I don't have the complete answer to that question but because it's until you negotiate that you will know that we require this the bill right now age 63 on the wall it requires one of the big changes is that it requires both sides to submit a full cost estimate from both parties that will include that information the way that age 81 has that there's no it's still in labor there's no no cost estimate is submitted to to the negotiation table right? Does that so yeah Floor would it would it be fair to say that that the intent in supporting age 63 would be to make it more likely that that in the case of arbitration with that commission that the school board side would be the side representing school boards would be more likely to win that arbitration? Yeah yeah yeah the biggest you know two of the biggest changes I can for the bargaining group is the biggest one on the employee side is that the has requested to change from earlier from the mental agreement to have the same terms applied to employees covered by the agreement and they and the employee side wants to ditch that which opens up complex negotiation issues and that might help to increase costs that will create a major administrative burden right? So that's one big related to what you're saying. Thanks Floor. Thank you anybody so it feels really weird to be able to okay so okay Dorothy. I just wanted to mention that when we send letters to our representatives and you just mentioned Janet and Kim but there are representatives that represent Worcester and Berlin. I think we should always include them and have just have them on the list as well as all three senators all the time. Thank you. Yeah I agree Dorothy yeah and I was just mentioning that because they already have passed on the house right now we should go to the Senate but yeah you're absolutely right. Wonderful are we ready for a vote? And I think the last thing that I would say is that we at the beginning of this I believe it was Carrie that brought it up that we are increased in healthcare for us this year is 9.5 right so if we are able to really manage this is what this bill ultimately is the goal right that we don't have enough we don't have flexibility as a board to spend the dollars where we need them for our kids which is what we were saying on the letter but that is really between all of the technical changes that's the major thing we want to be able to have more dollars for instructional rather than healthcare that's it. I see Diane you have Diane and then Jonas. Well so I wonder what the impact will eventually potentially be on negotiations and so I guess that's where and I don't think you can answer that but I just you know I it's a complex issue that I'm not really sure 100% I completely understand where we're going and I just worry because I don't want to balance healthcare I get it we want to spend where we need to but I worry about balancing it on the backs of our of our staff as well. Yeah and that's not what this bill is about it's more about changing the language that allows us to have actual estimates of what the the cost of healthcare are to to have more documents on the table to be able to make more informed decisions. That's all I would say. Thanks Jonas and then Chris. I've already gone so if Chris wants to go I'll quite right thank you Jonas and Chris and then and thank you Jonas and so for what is what prevents that from being done already having those estimates as part of the negotiation or any part of any negotiation or resolutions yeah right now they're not required and I you know I don't set on the bargaining committee so I don't have all the details but this this was brought originally by both sides last year and and then this year it was changed to you know more focus on on labor and technical changes or technical corrections they're calling it instead of actually making taking into account the testimony from from last year so I don't I don't have I would be lying to you if I knew all the details I don't I don't I don't sit on the on the commission so what is what was understandable to me and clear is what what I put on the letter and Laurie helped with all the you know the numbers what it means to to us as a as a district because we are right now it's that part would be out of our hands anyways because it's by the bargaining commission that will be you know so it's it's really authorizing data to make informed decisions in my mind you know that's how I simplify it thanks um Lindy um it was the h81 that passed today this is separate is my understanding the 63 it yeah the 63 is separate but what happened what passed today they're trying to send it back to they're sending it to the senate so we're trying to still get pieces of h 63 into h81 and it's not called h81 anymore it's forget what they let me see it you everybody got an email yesterday from I believe to take action too but yeah it's ha it's the h81 is what passed today in the in the house and I was going to to the senate to to Becca's committee so what we're hoping is that they will because the original committee had left h63 on the wall they didn't cancel it they still left h63 on the wall that they're still at opportunity to bring pieces of h63 and make it a different bill all right so my other comment was about the letter that I have a little bit of problem with is the statement whatever the public that um we're having to move money from programs to benefit our kids and it just feels like because we don't value our staff enough where the health care costs are so out of control everywhere that this that kind of concerns me the way it's worded there uh that our children are being just I don't it's just the wording that we're making this choice or that we're in a place where we can't fund programs because that it just sounds like it doesn't sound right to me where it's really a much bigger problem of health care costs and the value of health care is a mess and so I'm having problems with the way it's worded in this letter that we have to contain it in order to have the programs for our students thanks thank you um are we ready to go to a vote have we heard enough to be able to vote so um all in favor of approving the authorizing um Brian floor and me to sign this letter please maybe raise your hand or um thumbs up or maybe thumbs up will will work too um I'm at or hit no I I see one no um otherwise everybody else is four um uh uh Jonas is a no as well I see Lindy and Jonas as noes am I missing any other noes so Jial is also no Jial is also a no thank you so are we once again um eight yeses three noes the um the motion passes okay um move on to town meeting update floor do you want to take this one as well thanks I think most of you were at the budget meeting that was part of our coming update our town our next informational meeting is scheduled for March 1st and that is required by by law so we hope to see everybody there not everybody needs to I and that was a clarification that I had but hopefully all of you can attend our March 1st informational meeting and then March 2nd is town meeting everybody needs to go out and and vote and help you know answer questions from the community and uh that they are especially because our our reports went out a little bit later than than we wanted and and helping your town clerks you know putting a little pressure on your town clerks to post all the information in their websites some of our town clerks have done it and some haven't yet okay that's all I that's all I have and thank you we're gonna possibly write a letter to post yeah um just to uh send around that for everybody's use to just um you know be at the drums in your own uh in your own towns to get people to vote and you get people to vote in favor of the budget and other articles Brian yeah I just want to also point out that uh it's my understanding that uh the the challenge this year has been that the ballot everyone's has a ballot it's getting a electronic a ballot mailed home the town sent out the ballots the annual report was printed as quickly as possible to get it out they went out they were printed out on Friday they were delivered here on late Friday they went out uh yesterday and I believe people got them today uh so pretty good uh that I think the I also heard that many some towns received their town reports just yesterday so we're not really far behind in the uh thing I think the difference is that the ballots went out we don't control all that but the ballots have to go out so there was it was it's just been a unique year in that regards but I also know that we typically don't mail out annual reports right so uh but this is the first time so we're learning how to do this and uh you know very excited that we were this is the earliest we've actually had the annual reports from what I was told out in the previous years so yeah great lindy um I think if I know Worcester and I saw it on Front Porch Forum and I have to go look it back up look it back up that's not very good English but um has a write-in person and I think we should be putting these names in our Front Porch Forums like that person put a little blurb about her and I'm going to go back and cut and paste that because all of us vote on school board members and they need a certain number of write-ins and so I think we should if there's somebody from Berlin I should be putting the Berlin and the Worcester in the Front Porch Forum for Eastmont Piliar to just say who they are I'm not endorsing but I'm informing um I know that that's one way otherwise the other towns don't know who these people are and since we're early voting people have their ballots at home right now and could be there are returning them I know tabulating is starting in some of the towns tomorrow so um we need a good idea getting that information out thank you very much for pointing that out Lindy yeah I haven't done it yet but I will great Brian and I just want to thank Lindy for pointing out the uh trying to make sure we get the uh the uh uh asking for help with help asking the towns for help to with uh getting the word out about there are any reports so thank you Lindy excellent uh too so Lindy I I really appreciate your effort on the um the write-in will you be sharing that with us so that um we can we can do what you're suggesting okay sure I'll put it together um I think it's only the Worcester one I know of I don't think I've heard of anyone from Berlin but I'll get it out that would be really helpful and then yeah and then we have Scott I think you already said around something about today's budget hearing and so we can probably work from that to post something in front porch forum yeah and I'll be I'll be cranking out something else to okay great okay and I'll share what I put in front porch forum each time because I do it for East Montpelier but I don't say share to communities because it's also Barry and Montpelier and I think that's kind of silly but I can share that as well that would be super helpful great um anything else on town meeting update I guess we just need to send invitations Brian we don't have I believe that time is five o'clock but I don't think that board members have uh the march first on their calendars yet so we just got to confirm the time and yeah great appreciate your pointing out that floor good so if we're done with um 6.2 town meeting update we can move on to 6.3 superintendent evaluation goals Caroline thank you so we have a proposed plan that defines a target for each of the board goals along with pieces of evidence that could be used to assess that the target was met we discussed at length the use of surveys and input from staff and input from the leadership team um once we looked at individual goals it was more clear to see where input would be essential so for the next meeting it would be great if board members could review the document which will be emailed to you all tomorrow and then come to the meeting with questions and comments so we still will need to define a timeline for gathering feedback and having the board meet to discuss the evaluation but at the next so the next board meeting is the reorganization meeting I'm hoping to get this on the agenda um and I'm hoping that we would leave that meeting with a final um superintendent evaluation plan it it it may not include the timeline but that the document um that the committee's created would would be able to be finalized so if when you get um the document if you have any questions or feedback you're welcome to email them ahead but definitely coming to the meeting prepared um would be great so thanks thank you Caroline um any questions before we continue okay very good so Jonas um negotiations update I do you have anything further we've done that I think we've done that fantastic all right so we can move on to the consent agenda would anyone be willing to move to approve the minutes of minutes of February 3rd don't move to approve the minutes of February 3rd okay I got um okay I got Jonas moving and Chris seconding any changes to the minutes if not um all in favor please raise your hand and opposed to show no and I'm seeing all hands raised and no no's um so okay the motion passes unanimously um next 7.2 approve board orders um might there possibly be someone kind enough Mindy to move to approve the board orders yes I am I'm going to to do it in the two figures because I didn't check that total and one time that wasn't right so I don't want to do that wrong so to approve the board orders of $287,894.57 the second one is $15,267.95 thank you Mindy is there a second I'll second thank you Caroline so Lindy moves Caroline seconds are there any questions about the board orders if not we can go to a vote um please raise your hand if you're in favor and click no if you're opposed and once again I'm seeing all hands raised so motion carries unanimously the board orders are approved and um in in keeping with our customary practice I imagine floor is already um setting the example for the rest of us sending in the email um thank you floor so um 7.3 the uh is there a motion to approve the job description for the speech language pathologist at page 84 we're beginning at page 84 I'll move Gael moves to approve the job description is there a second I'll second Jonas Jonas seconds very good um are there any board member questions about this I see Kelly has has um uh gone to battle stations to answer any questions that we might have um anybody have any questions I do I'd stay in oh so I just did a quick read through but it doesn't look as though preschool is listed in there is there a separate one for the preschool SLP we didn't specify grade level there is some grade level stuff down below it's under supervision so I guess that doesn't really matter but I it just I just wondered this is one job description for all SLPs pre-k through graduation okay so that then there I would just recommend that under supervision received which is what page 87 that you know you just put pre-k in there before the eight I mean you know the it says K-day currently okay we can that's an easy fix great thanks anything else for Kelly before we move to a vote if not all in favor of approving the job description for speech language pathologist beginning on page 84 please raise your hand if you're opposed click no and I'm seeing all raised hands the motion carries unanimously many thanks everyone um 8.1 I believe um it's not what are we approving here there is something here isn't there social work position position social work position yes thank you um do we have a motion to approve the social work worker position I'll make a motion to approve okay um Carol bless you Caroline moved and did I hear a second Diane seconded Diane seconded thank you very much any questions about this one this is transferred from a contract to a staff position is that correct Kelly yes thanks yeah so is is I do have a question because this came up that it wasn't I mean I think it was a challenge to fill but then it also wasn't that the focus was on the math instructor that there needed to be a replacement is this that same position so it's no no no so we for next year we have in the budget this was a plan to have this position on staff we budgeted for that in the process and then and about a month ago the person that's in the role through the washington county contract resigned and instead of having washington county fill that position again uh you know with the U32 leadership team we talked about fewer transitions for students and families and if the intent is for us to hire our own person for next year why not do that now knowing also that we would hire and fill the position only from now until june however if it's a good fit right with this whoever we hire we would hope that they would stay on and be a more permanent employee going forward and I just want to add on to that part is that if we do hire a person they would still have to apply for the job for next year just putting that there yeah right so I guess I'm a little confused and I'll leave it alone however it seemed to be and I know that other position was a U32 position but it seemed like we were kind of stuck at that point or there was a sense of being stuck and needing to really focus on the math um the math opening vacancy and um and the I don't in this is late now you're thinking that it was also there wasn't a nobody was applying but anyway but so I'm a little confused as to how we made a decision in the fall going one way and then now we're we're it seems to be a little different now I don't know that there's any correlation with this position in a math position they're two separate I think Diane you're get you're putting the two there's two different positions here right the bad thing is a different situation with a different narrative this is really about a contracted position that we're trying to convert into a social worker position because we have a need for that right now we could go back to the contractor position uh and just keep that the way it is uh unfortunately though we were looking to hire a social worker for next year and so if we did find someone and it worked out uh they would already have a they would already have a kind of a head start for next year uh it's really nothing to do with the math position that's a different that's a different FTE yeah and again you know I'll go back in the minutes to clarify for my own thinking and it wasn't the other math issue that was in there it was around people and the focus and the statements were made that were we have to look at academics first and that's what we were going to move forward on and so again I'll just go back and try to refresh my memory around it I think this absolutely is necessary and needed and I hope we're able to find the person I noticed that Stephen also is it just on it just dawned on me exactly what Diane is talking about at the at the beginning of the year we chose not to fill a part-time social work position so that we could have a math teacher at the beginning of the year that would be for this one year only what we found ourselves we still we've got that math teacher we're all set with that through the end of the year this position is to fill um because of the opening from uh the person leaving from washington county mental health and we are also next year going to have that as a full-time social worker position we wanted to just see if we could provide continuity and not go through a couple of people um with their contract and then with our contract we're trying to hire somebody now that will go into next year in this new position thank you Stephen great thank you are we ready for a vote is it all clear to everyone now if so in if you're in favor of approving the social worker position please raise your hand if you're opposed click no and i'm seeing all hands raised motion carries unanimously thank you very much to everyone um now we arrive at um for our patient long-suffering public the moment for public comments um bearing in mind of course chris's request that we'll get to under the next agenda item but um are there any members of the public who would like to take the opportunity to to speak up um you're more than welcome can just sort of take a couple of breaths and we did have the the budget forum which was an opportunity for the public early on today so um with that i'll move to future agenda items and um chris would you like to repeat your request yes i'd like to have a discussion on moving the public comments section of our meeting from the tail end to the beginning of the of the meeting i think we encourage participation um thank you okay um caroline i i think i um this yeah this the superintendent evaluation um i'm thinking half an hour would give enough time for the discussion if people come prepared with um their thoughts and comments very good thank you um and karya i oh sorry uh jonis go ahead uh uh yeah i'd like to i'd like to hear about um the equity scholar in residence and how if it's important if how we might fund that moving forward all right thanks and kari um you have some ideas too yeah i mentioned earlier um today to scott that uh i think it's best practice for boards to evaluate their own performance and usually at the end of the year so i think looking at the calendar we missed our the boat this year but perhaps this would be um a good lead in to um the next retreat that we do that i think it's been talked about um as a way of furthering our governance goals thank you very much um are there uh any other uh oh sorry brian uh just to put it out there again uh superintendent responsibilities uh board roles and responsibilities just love to explore that topic got it thank you very much um is that you dian behind that hand that is i'm just i'm doing my mime impression but um so i wonder i would like to put on staff appreciation so that we begin to explore it um ahead of time as opposed to otherwise and and also for us to also explore is there kind of a mid-year way to um we have expressed appreciation but also acknowledging to the community how much uh we appreciate the hard work that's happening every day in our buildings as well as remote too so all the hard work that's going on um within our our our school district sorry thank you um this is quite a cornucopia of future agenda items um it's great uh any any others um if not we can move to board reflection um if anybody would like to share anything um jail oh yeah um yeah that that was an obvious one sorry jail please i just want to say that it's been such a pleasure to serve with such a wonderful group of people and i just want to take this opportunity to thank all the staff and the administrators and the teachers for such a fantastic job and um it's been really wonderful getting to know all of you um so thank you and jail if i if i might reciprocate thanks to you um certainly on my part and i imagine also from all your colleagues on the board uh we've very much appreciating you as um one of the very few non sort of white uh color type people as a farmer as an environmental activist um everything else that that you are and do um has really enriched our work and and the time that we spend on the board and we'll miss you um and when p if if there is a place to to run into people in wister in future we'll have to make sure that um you know that we drag you there and and have a chance to socialize when socializing is possible again for sure and i'll poke in i'll drop into meetings here and there um great check up on all of you make sure you're doing a good job still you'll always be welcome always you never you never get to escape the the fraternity sorority of school board members um other other reflections if not um i think everybody is probably pretty beat um so if there's no objection we could adjourn by consensus at 927 no objection all right in that case have a wonderful school vacation all of you who can enjoy it and um just take good care stay healthy look forward to seeing you again next time thank you everyone bye thanks jail bye bye everybody bye see you on the trail