 Hey, good evening and welcome to 2021's version of Montpelier Civic Forum and we are going to talk about all of the issues that are involved in Town Meeting Day and I hope that you'll follow each of these. We've got some really good candidates this year. We've got candidates from Consul, we've got candidates for the school board, we've got one person who's running for a five-year term on the Park Commission. That's a good show. We've got Bill Fraser in on the school budget. We've got Jim Murphy, the president of the school board talking about the school budget. We've got Anne Watson for yet another year of the mayor reviewing the city all the way from the wayside, all the way up towards the baseball field, all the way from the plant, the sewage plant out. So you're going to find out all about Montpelier. That's a good show too. And this one I have a sitting school board member, Emma Bay Hansen. Emma, welcome to Montpelier Civic Forum. Thank you. Glad to be here. Could you tell me a little bit about Emma Bay Hansen? What part of town do you live in? I live in the College Hill neighborhood. Not too far of a walk from here, the Okramita Orchimedia Studios. And I grew up also in this area of town. So I grew up off of College Street on McKinley Street with my parents, Nat and Martha Winthrop. I'm not sure if you know them. Now that means that you walked down the hill to Union Elementary School? Yes. We walked to school every day and walked home from school every day. And then you walked down Liberty to get down to or walked over to college to get to MSMS? I think I still walked down Liberty from my vantage point on McKinley Street. I would walk down Liberty Street. And you had a friend who had a car to take you to Montpelier High School. I walked mostly to Montpelier High School and then I was lucky enough to to get a car in maybe my sophomore year of high school. So I started driving. Okay, what year did you get out of high school? 1996. Who was the principal at Montpelier High School? Was it Charlie Phillips at that point? Yep, Charlie Phillips. And then I do believe it changed in my last year there, but I can't remember who took over. Elementary school? Who was your principal at that point? I can't remember my principal. Oh, this is so horrible. I will say that I had Mrs. Mello was my kindergarten teacher, a beloved kindergarten teacher in this town who just retired last year. And my daughter who is now in fourth grade ended up also having Mary Mello as her kindergarten teacher when she went through the system. So it was a really wonderful sort of full circle moment for us. Now you have kids in the schools? So I have a fourth grader and an eighth grader. You weren't always on the school board. How long have you been on the school board? I came on the school board to fill a vacancy created when Steve Hinchin resigned and I believe that was in early May, late April or early May. So I'm I'm fresh on the board. Now what convinced you to go how long had you been thinking about the board? And what what convinced you to actually make the jump? Well, I mean, I followed the board, the school board pretty closely just because I'm actually, you know, part of your first question is tell me a little bit about yourself. But I'm an educator. I was a high school social studies teacher for six years in Vermont. Where? Both at Danville High School and then end at U 32 High School. And so I bring that love of passion for education and love of kids and then my own kids, of course, are in the district. So I've been following the school board since my kids entered the school system. And I just felt like, you know, I'll throw my name in the hat to to be supportive of the work that they're doing during these crazy times since we had already been in the pandemic at that point. And so I just thought maybe my expertise as an educator could support the work of the board. Are you zoomed out? Definitely zoomed out. Yes, I do a lot of I work right now for the Vermont Higher Education Collaborative and we transitioned completely from in person professional development. We offer professional development to mostly Vermont educators. And so we had been doing all in person workshops at conference centers and such. And we had to completely pivot and transition to all virtual. So all of our workshops are now held virtually via zoom. And so if I'm not on zoom for my job, I'm on zoom for the school board. So it's a lot of zoom. Was the school board as much work as you thought it would be? More. It was more work than I thought it would be. Yes. Your kids, when the pandemic hit, and you had the choice to leave them in school or take them home, what for virtual learning? Yeah. Which did you choose? You know, my older son, I my older kid, I gave him the choice because I felt like he was at an age where he was actually working pretty well. In spring, they were all virtual, all the kids were virtual. So we kind of got a taste of what that would be like for our family. And he was pretty successful with it. So I gave him the choice of, you know, choosing virtual or in person instruction. And he chose to go in person. I think most kids that age, their social lives are paramount. And so I think just the thought of after so much lockdown, even just seeing kids his own age in person was really exciting for him. So he chose in person. And then for my younger daughter, we just felt like in person instruction was going to be best for her. It was she had been, I mean, you talk about adults getting zoomed out. I think it was a real struggle for her to connect with her teachers virtually and to connect with the material, you know, through computer programs and stuff like that. So it was, we felt it would be really important for her and we're glad that they gave us the option of attending in person. Now, you know, people who are involved in the virtual as well, I imagine. Definitely. You didn't know the superintendent that well at that point in time. You know her well on her team now. Very well. What was it like the trust factor? You have your kid coming back into the school and you're trusting that it's a safe environment and that it's structured correctly. Yeah. What was that leap like for you as a parent? I mean, I just think it was such a strange time for everybody and and it pushed us all to places where we never imagined having to go mentally or emotionally. So I think that was part of my desire to serve on the board was to kind of get a little bit more of an insider scoop on on how are they planning to go back to school safely in a global pandemic. And once I sat on the board and started, you know, attending all of the meetings, it was clear to me that our admin team and led by Libby Bonesteel was doing an incredible job and being very thoughtful and considerate and going, you know, working overtime every week and and working with the Department of Health and just trying to come up with education for that matter. Yeah, leading or being guided by their guidelines. And and I feel like even going, you know, one or two steps beyond what was required sometimes. And and I just fully trusted at that point that I felt like our team was doing a great job with designing an in person experience that was going to be safe. Now, I don't want to take you off the reservation, but you probably still know people at U 32. Yeah. How is our experience compared to other school districts? You might be in touch with other school boards from your teaching experience in Danville and U 32. How does our our system, our approach to this take differently than theirs? Well, I don't know what every, you know, what every school is doing. But I know there's I think U 32. And I know that at Twinfield, they're doing a hybrid model where kids are in person a few days a week, and then they go virtual the other days of the week. And and I've heard mixed feedback, you know, this is a very these are very personal to each kid, I think what works best for them and each family, because some families are home and they're working from home and they are able to support their kids in a virtual environment. And then other families, you know, don't have the luxury of being at home to support their kids. So when their younger kids are home for many hours a day without adult supervision, that can be a struggle. So I think that's the main difference is that Montpelier is, you know, one of the few of the local schools that I know that offered consistent in person instruction, you know, five days a week. Were you on the board when that discussion was happening over hybrid? I know we must have had that discussion in town. Yeah, you know, I think I was, I mean, first of all, that that decision was basically beyond the purview of the board. The actual decisions of how to move forward with instruction were made by the admin team. It wasn't, you know, the the board never voted. Should we do a hybrid model? Should we do an in person? But I'm sure that they sought your counsel on that. Yeah, and I'm sure that if if it came down to there was a decision being made that we didn't agree with, then maybe we could have, you know, shifted gears. I think some school boards in Vermont did that and changed what the decision of the admin was. But I never felt like the board questioned Libby's expertise in decision making during that whole process. Now keep in mind that my son hadn't been in Montpelier school since 2012. So we're part of that community of Montpelier that has kids who have gotten out of that school district. I know that there was some reluctance in terms of making that decision that you're going to be in the school, or you're going to be virtual, and you can't you can't get out of that decision that once if it doesn't work for you in virtual, you can't go into the school. Well, there was always a clause written into Libby's presentations about what the options were going to be, that if there was, you know, a real problem with instruction and learning for a child, that there would be able to be exceptions made. So that sort of put my mind at ease for like if if something's really not working for a child or really not working for a family, exceptions can be made. When we had the hockey outbreak at Union of COVID and we had to go virtual again, was your family involved in that? Like my daughter was not in the class that was impacted. But I think all families in Montpelier were involved in that just because when it started to hit close to home, you feel, you know, because in Vermont at the time, as everybody knows, our numbers were so low. And then to have that spike be right in our community, it definitely hit close to home. And I think got everybody in this town involved in feeling like it was now in their backyard. Now I'm going to speak from point of ignorance because I don't have a child in the school. What happens when a teacher gets COVID? Or how do we cover that? They have a great it's they have a pod system at the school. A pod is a group of kids that are isolated to and teachers that are isolated within that group. So they don't every every kid is assigned to a pod. It's basically how many pods would be in a class in a first grade class? Five. Okay. Yeah. It's just like classrooms. It's not the bluebirds, blackbirds and redbirds. It's basically just like homeroom class. But instead of a typical homeroom class, so at Union School, if you were in first grade, you would spend a certain amount of time in your homeroom class. But then you would go out to a gym class, you would go out to an art class, you would go out to a music class, you go out to library specials specials, right? Yeah. And then you would go to recess with your whole grade and maybe one other grade, you would go to the lunch room with your whole grade. So really now those classrooms have become pods, we're calling them. And they have two teachers at least assigned to each pod. And that way if one of them has to be out, the other one can take over instruction. Boy, I'm sure the board has possibly touched on this. Is that a new instructional model post pandemic that you see staying around after the pandemic? I don't know what we're going to teaching. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what we're going to keep after, after we're, we can look back on COVID. But I think there's a lot to be learned in, you know, a lot of lessons to be learned and a lot of things potentially to carry over in our culture at large and in education. You know, there's definitely some things to be learned and maybe that's one of them. What are you hearing from the parents who are doing this virtually? What is their experience like? How, how, how many hours does a child spend virtual? What happens when my fourth grader is studying at my place virtually? I just think it's really, it's really mixed, you know, it just really depends on the family. I can tell you that one of my colleagues has her two children at home with her. And so, you know, there's funny things that happen where she's at a work meeting and her kids will pop on and they like to say hi and they might be like sort of making jokes in the background or making noise in the background. But that's just life right now. And I think we're all having to sort of adapt and be, you know, forgiving and accepting of all sorts of things that might not have seemed professional prior to this pandemic. I think, I keep couching this because I know so little about it. I believe that parents are creating pods outside, even in the virtual world where groups of students are kind of clustering together for support. Yeah, I haven't heard too much about that. Most of the people I know who are, who have chosen the virtual option have done that because of, you know, risk assessment and wanting to reduce exposure to this virus. So most of the people that I know who are doing virtual seem to be pretty much limiting their contact, you know, with, and that's why they chose virtual. How do those kids do extras? How do they do art? How do they do... Well, there are specials at Union Elementary School are mostly recorded. They will do like a recording of an art lesson and then those will be shared with the students who are doing virtual. And I have to admit, I don't know a lot about the, it's called the Virtual Academy. I don't know a lot about, enough about it really because I'm not part of it and my kids aren't part of it. Most of the kids are in middle school and all of the kids in high school are most of the kids in high school, live. Are you asking like what percentage of? Yes, I'm asking what percentage, roughly what percentage are doing live, middle school or high school? I can't answer that, like I could make a guess but I wouldn't want to be quoted. Sure, make a guess and everybody will think you're crazy. About 10 to 15% would be my guess, but then maybe you can confirm that when you interview Jim or Lily. Jim Murphy, talking about the school budget and I will ask him that question, school board president. In terms of academics, what's your largest concern about what's going in the school and then we'll get to virtual. Can you still do the same kinds of evaluations that you normally do? I mean, the board is very concerned with evaluating so that they can do an accountability model to see whether the administration is delivering the kinds of results that the board is looking for. Are you talking about just in general, are you talking about because of COVID and sort of what happened with spring? Because of COVID and the uniqueness of this. Yeah. Are we still doing evaluation as we always have? Yeah, I mean, there's evaluation happening every day if you know any teachers and I'm a teacher. That's like really the boots on the ground of evaluating a student and where they're at is the teacher who sees them every day. So when a teacher sees a student every day, they're doing assessments as they go. They're doing assessments three, four times a day in the classroom. Just quick, they call them formative assessments. So it's sort of like a quick check-in. You might be seeing that somebody's struggling with spelling words. You might be seeing that someone's struggling with their math and you can do those quick sort of assessments in the moment of kids. And so the classroom teachers really are like sort of the front lines of assessment. And then there's all different, I think you might be talking about more like. The new England assessment tool. So we are, I know that my son just did the star assessment which is not a statewide assessment model but it's a school district-wide assessment model that's more like what you're thinking of about a kid sitting at a computer and doing a test and then getting a score at the end. So, yes, the answer is yes, we're still doing some of those. I feel like Libby did mention something about the statewide assessments and the federal assessments. And I can't remember what they had decided on those if they were gonna continue with them or not. Do we still have, even though we have masks and social distancing and all, do we still have parent teachers conferences? Yes, absolutely. And you get to look at the portfolio of work that the kids are doing? Yeah. I mean, it's a little different. All of our conferences have been via Zoom. So, more Zoom. Yeah, more Zoom. So, yeah, but we have a conference scheduled on Monday for our parent teacher conference for our daughter in fourth grade on Monday. Do the kids still set their own grades as to how they feel they're doing? Yes, so they do a self-assessment. So when we got the report, we also get report cards. So we're getting those regularly. And with my daughter's report card this year, yeah, it has, the report card is sort of printed up with her evaluation, her self-evaluation. And then the teacher's evaluation comes in printed form. Now, realizing you're within walking distance of two of the schools, how are we doing the transportation? Those school buses where you don't want kids squeezed into each other? Yeah, I don't know where, you mean in terms of COVID and spacing and stuff like that? Absolutely. I think that I haven't heard any complaints about the way that it went. I know that in the beginning, that was one of the primary concerns in the beginning of the school year was would we have enough space on the school buses to do proper social distancing? And also the temperature checks and that type of thing before kids got on the bus, would we have enough, you know? Could you explain the temperature check before kids get on the bus? Yeah, so I wanna say that my kids don't take the bus because we live too close to be able to be eligible to take the bus. So again, this is my understanding of it, but I don't know if it's totally accurate. I know that in the beginning, there was a rule and I don't know if it was established by the Department of Health, but I think it was established by the Department of Health that kids should be temperature checked and the list of questions, I don't know if you've seen it, but there's these little tickets that every kid brings to school with them every day. And it says their name and the date and the parent's signature and there's a list of COVID questions much like you would get if you went into a dentist's office these days. And that includes kids from Montpellier High School? Yes, I believe so. Well, I'm sure that's popular at Montpellier High School. They probably can fill it out themselves, but so you're supposed to take your temperature. So my kids take, we take their temperature every day at home and we check off all of the questions about, you know, have we traveled out of state? Are we under quarantine? Is anyone awaiting COVID results? All of these questions, do you have any symptoms? And then we send our kids with that physical ticket to school. And I believe now that's probably what they're doing for school bus kids is that the guardians are filling those out for the children before they get onto the bus. But in the beginning of the school year, it was a concern and then- Particularly for kids from Roxbury, I imagine. Because they're coming a distance on that school bus. Oh, like they're sitting on the bus for longer. Yeah, that might be true. I wonder, some of our kids that got picked up early might spend almost as much time as a Roxbury kid on the school bus just because of how many stops there are. So I'm not sure about that. Let's sum, I think the elephant in the room is low income kids and low achieving kids. The board has to have a concern for their achievement, which during normal years, the board has been concerned about the achievement gap for as long as I can remember and I can remember fairly long in this district. What's the board's concern on that? Particularly with the lack of solid computer access in some low income families, if not many low income families, how is the board viewing that? I'm pretty sure that the computer access issue is a non-issue these days because I know that all of the kids at Union School and all of the kids at Main Street Middle School all have Chromebooks assigned to them that they can take home with them. Do they have internet access at home? Some might not. So there's the achievement. A Chromebook doesn't do a whole lot of good when you don't have internet access. Correct. So there's the achievement gap that tends to run side by side with the opportunity gap. What is the opportunity gap? Opportunity gap is what you're talking about about low income kids that don't have the same opportunities as their higher income peers. Sometimes, sometimes not. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But there tends to be, the opportunity gap tends to align with the achievement gap. And it's definitely one of those things, just a common theme in education where you're always worried about what can you do for those kids who are struggling. And a lot of times, the kids who are struggling are the kids who are also struggling at home. Struggling in what sense at home? All different ways. So it could be that, it could be maybe their parents or guardians are not available to them as a resource when they arrive home. It could be what you said about Wi-Fi. It could be that they have to work a job after they get home from school, but not every kid. Or the family is stressed because of long-term layoff. Yeah. Long-term unemployment. Or there could be like a sick grandparent living with them that they have to, I mean, there's all sorts of things that could be occupying a student's time when they exit the school building at home. And those things make it harder to succeed academically. They layer on top of your schoolwork and homework. So it can make it more challenging for that kid to achieve the same thing as their peer who doesn't have those stressors at home. What do we do with our library closed? The second floor of that library that kids in this town have lived in hasn't been opened forever. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot, I just think that that sort of taps into this, you know, the sad side effect of a global pandemic is that there's just not as much connection. There's not as much community connection. You don't have as many like public places to go. Kids can't just exit the school and go hang out with 10 friends in the library. So yeah, it's definitely a loss. And I think I'm sure some kids are feeling that pretty hard. How's our district dealing with sadness with just the psychological sadness that accompanies a kid having to wear a mask? Yeah, I'm sure it's been tough. I don't really know. One thing that I do know is that our district invests very heavily in social emotional well-being of children. How does it do that? We have, for example, we have a designated social worker, one each at Union School, Main Street Middle School and Montpelier High School. And that's pretty unique to a public school setting. Usually most schools contract that social work out. And we have our own social workers on staff. And then we also have guidance counselors. Can I return to the social workers? What's their job spec? What are they doing in those schools? Let's start with the high school and work our way down. What would the high school social worker be doing? So they take care of kids who are in need, kids who are struggling, kids who are having a hard time. And in particular, if there is something going on with that child outside of the school building that they need help inside the school building with, then the social worker would be in charge of that. Is that at risk children or is that any child who basically is struggling with teenage angst or beyond teenage angst? I think it would be any child in the building would fall under the purview of our social workers and our guidance counselors. So I don't wanna speak for how they divide that between guidance counselors and social workers. I know that the social worker at Union School, I believe, is also the district's homeless liaison. So it deals with our population of kids that do not have permanent housing. Would the social worker, particularly in the high school, let's stay at that one, would they be working with the court system? Children who somehow engaged in the court system and are being monitored? I'm sure, yes, I'm sure they would. Or would that be the guidance counselor? I'm not positive how they divide that work. So, and I don't know if you're talking about when DCF is involved or if a child, a teenager has committed some sort of crime and is in the court system or if they're in the court system because of some sort of DCF involvement. I'm not sure what you're getting at, the question. Well, if you're not sure what I'm getting at, I'm not sure what I'm getting at. That was a pretty broad question. Yeah, I mean, I think, but definitely they, social workers and the guidance. DCF standing for what? Department of Child and Children and Family Services. But we have one in each building. Except for Roxbury, but yes, the other three. How many students are in Roxbury these days, roughly? I think it's in the 30s. It should be shrinking in theory. Meaning because they're coming to Montpelier. Exactly. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly how that has looked over the last few years. But we have a social worker assigned to each school. The behavior modification system in union. That changes every so often. We change style and approach. Has the board looked at that since you've been on? I have not been part of a big discussion around the behavioral approach that union elementary school takes. I know that we are starting to look at how discipline is what the discipline systems are in all of the schools in the district. We're starting to take a closer look at that. Why are you looking at that? Is that part of the study that's been going on in terms of equity of, what am I trying to say? Yeah, so in. If you'll help me with that. I think you're in charge of that committee. I think I can help you. So in September, the school board created the school safety and police relations committee. And part of- That was at a request of parents, of a group of parents, yes? It was, yes. So since May, since I started on the board, we've been hearing a lot of testimony all through the summer calls to examine more closely the role of the school resource officer, commonly referred to as the SRO. So there was a lot of testimony asking the board to consider that role in our schools and take a look at it more closely. And so that's what we, the way that we did that was by creating this committee that we started in, started having meetings of the committee in October, I believe. Now what more time on the title of the committee? School safety and police relations committee. School safety meaning what? Cause there's two sides to this. Well, that was sort of the first thing that we delved into is to define what does this community, what are the community's values from a variety of stakeholder perspectives around safety in schools? And so that was a big part of what we did October, November, and December. Safety defined as how, is it the physical safety, the psychological safety? All of the above. It turns out it's all of the above. So, and different people put place higher value on different aspects of safety. So for one family, they might place the social emotional safety of their child as a higher priority than the physical safety of their child. And then other families, they might be thinking more about the physical safety than the social emotional wellbeing. Has there ever really been a serious physical safety issue in our district? I mean, you graduated from the district, I had a child in the district. Yeah. Do you feel that that's a real concern beyond the push and shove of being a teenager? Well, I can't, I think there's always going to be safety issues in schools. Absolutely. And sometimes that, and they're real, sometimes that can be a child acting out and putting other children in danger in some way. Sometimes it could be an angry parent or guardian who comes onto campus. It could be those types of things. I haven't personally heard of any stories this year and we're living in different circumstances where nobody's allowed in the buildings. Exactly. So this is a different... Well taken. So I haven't heard a lot, the safety issue hasn't arose a lot, but it does, it just does. In any school, there's always gonna be a few safety issues that surface. Were there parents who were concerned about a racial component of school discipline? And did that fall into this? Yeah. So there's lots of, there's like a handful of organizations out there that have, including the Vermont Human Rights Commission, the Vermont, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, Black Lives Matter, Vermont Legal Aid, all of these organizations have been pointing to both statewide and national data that shows that marginalized kids, whether disabilities, LGBTQ, BIPOC, which is Black, Indigenous, people of color. You beat me to the acro... I'm trying to work with you here. So those populations of kids are disproportionately impacted by school discipline. And that's just, you know, that's data. Data shows us that. Now discipline in schools isn't always tied to school resource officers, obviously, but we do see that both at school level and when you're an adult, that policing disproportionately impacts those communities as well. So that's data that we have. And based on that data, and based on sort of the national conversation around people of color in particular who have suffered at the hands of police officers, there was a call to remove school resource officers from schools. Has the school resource officer ever been involved in an incident or a reported incident that would involve that? And we've had a number of school resource officers, so we're not talking in particular person. No, this was not a conversation about an individual police officer or even really about the Montpelier Police Department. It's not really a conversation about, this person did this bad thing, although we have seen many examples of that nationally, of this person did this bad thing. But when one individual acts badly, it makes us sort of turn inward as a society and say, is there something going on there that could potentially improve? And so the way I see it is, the major conversation circles around implicit bias, which is just something that we all are raised with. I was just trying to say, if you're gonna tackle that, you're doing a Yeoman's job. So we all have implicit bias. It's something that I think should be looked at when we're looking at systems like policing. How does implicit bias potentially impact policing? Does implicit bias play a role in the recent types of violence that have happened against people of color in our country? And so it's definitely a question that's been raised, but not about any person in particular at the Montpelier Police Department. What did your committee recommend? So our committee decided not to make one recommendation, one way or the other about the school resource officer. What we did do is we compiled everything that we had learned from a variety of stakeholders, the city, the police department, parents and guardians, teachers, faculty, staff, the admin team, community members at large, students, and so we had surveyed all these different stakeholders. We had conducted a lot of interviews. We reached out to all of the organizations that I mentioned. We reached out to other schools in Vermont who have created systems and have systems in place in the absence of an SRO to ask how are they doing things. We had Libby Bonesteel present to us about the current use of the school resource officer. And at the end of the process, we presented the school board with sort of everything that we learned. And we did end up putting that into categories of considered recommendations to keep the SRO, considered recommendations to eliminate the position, and then sort of other information to keep in mind when making the decision. Now, some of that material is online right now on the school website, isn't it? All of that material should be available, including sort of the raw data that we collected from surveys. So if someone were interested in seeing this, go over to the Montpelier Roxbury School District site and go to the board. Yes. In terms of recommendations, the school board ultimately discussed this and decided to go with the route of eliminating the position. Correct. What happened to that funding that went to that position from the school side? Well, right now it's been primarily eliminated from the budget. And so the step two, our committee had sort of a two-part charge. The first part of the charge was to present the committee with recommendations around the school resource officer position. And then the second part of the charge is to take a broader look at how could the Montpelier Roxbury School System improve our systems of discipline and in particular through the lens of our diversity, equity and inclusion policy. So that's the work that we'll be doing. I'm doing. Yeah, starting next Tuesday. And when will that, in theory, report in? Well, in theory, at the end of March. So there's a chance that this will be implemented for the following school year? Yeah, I mean, I see it as more, most likely what will come out of that committee work will be sort of values statements from the community about what we value in terms of school discipline and through the lens of the diversity, equity and inclusion policy. And then maybe some broader recommendations to the admin team of, you know, we hope that you will look into this or we hope that you might provide professional development around this or we hope, you know, it'll be more broad strokes. And then it will be up to the admin team, you know, when to implement those and how to. Will the committee be making recommendations to the board or is it the board's job to try and set up metrics of figuring out whether this works? I think that will be up to the board. It's the committee's job to make the recommendations and then it will be up to the board and the admin team, you know, how we proceed from there. So there could be a variety of avenues that that takes, you know, it could be that the admin team just takes the recommendations and starts to implement them or it could mean that the board would like to establish a policy around a piece of the recommendation. I'm not sure how. But would there be a metric to see whether what we have is, what we have right now is doing this. When we change it, it's doing that. Is this superior to this? I'm not sure what metrics will end up implementing or using. I can't see the future on that one. Well, if you can't see the future, I do see the future and the future is on town meeting day when you're running for office against no one. So I can posit in the future that you will win. And I'll also posit in the future that I hope with all the absentee ballot stuff that's going on right now and how easy it is, I would hope that everyone watching this actually gets to take their vote, make their voice heard, make sure that other people have their voices heard. You've got to take this seriously because we are a small town, but our lifeblood is in terms of a small town that's engaged, a small town that cares about this. And if you care, watch the other shows there. And they're not only on cable television, they're on Orca Media's YouTube channel. And I thank you for watching this and thank you very much, Emma, for the time you've given us and for the time that you've spent on your committee zooming. Yeah, thank you for doing this as like a public service for our whole town. Thank you for watching.