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