 goodness, something's being worked. Okay, my community just talked to me, but they're trying to fundraise and get resources for the indigenous cultures, such as the Sioux, which are in the Black Hills, North Carolina. So it's really broadening what we've learned in middle school and trying to make it more interactive with the community. So if anyone does have resources, books, clothing, anything like that that they wanna donate, bring it to the library for them. Another quick thing is, as a senior, I like to talk about what's going on in my life. And not personally for me, but a lot of students are applying early action and are getting accepted early action. I'm personally implying in January then. So this past few weeks, the conversation, which is a club at U32 held presentations where they educated and raised awareness to all the grades, seven through 12, about rape culture, sexual assault and harassment in general, and how it affects our school community. I think everyone at school went to the meetings and it's really important for everyone to hear and just to start the conversation. Another thing with our school newspaper and article I just published recently is about a junior who created, is creating this album in music and it's becoming a public thing. And I feel like that's a really big deal to represent and showcase our students as they do preceding success and progress and all of that. And along the lines of sports, my last note tonight is that Paige Oakes and Riley Richards in golf also got within the top five for their championship in Vermont. So sports are looking really good and it will probably be talked about later, but when our sports are hopefully gonna happen very soon after Thanksgiving. Thank you. Any more questions? Thank you very much, both of you. Any more questions? I don't see any. Thank you for a comprehensive report and good luck in college admission. Thanks for being here with us tonight. Oh, Maggie has her hand up. Don't go away Anna and Maya. Maggie, go ahead. I was just curious what the general perspective and conversation is around having all of next week off, which is different than prior years. So what's the vibe? I mean, students seem pretty happy about it. I'm gonna be honest. Some teachers they're like throwing everything into this week with like summatives and finishing up units, which like they're not used to because we haven't had a full week off in a very long time but the general consensus is that I think everyone likes it. Yeah, I think I would second. I haven't heard a whole lot about it. I'm personally very excited that I just moved into a house in Berlin. My dad just bought a house. So this full week is a really good relax and unpack week for me and for other students we get to relax and sleep in for once. So it's exciting. Yeah, I would just say from administration and teachers, we're not against it and being off of it. Just deserve it. You need it. Thank you. Okay, Superintendent Report. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about COVID. I'll give you some updates and invite Maria into the conversation in just a minute. As of today, we have had 58 cases in our schools. That's a lot and we are feeling the stress of that. We have implemented test to stay. And just to be clear, test to stay is a program that allows unvaccinated asymptomatic students to take a test if there has been an in school exposure. They get a negative test. They are allowed to stay for the day and participate in school activities. They should be quarantining otherwise. We got even more people trained for test to stay in the past week. So principals, a few central office folks were helping out when necessary. And I think that we learned as we implemented it, quite frankly, the hard way that we were so focused on the logistics of making it happen. And I will say I personally was so excited to have an option to keep kids in school that we hadn't really thought about the emotional impact and the fact that it's just a completely different practice and that that is also causing stress, right? When we have sent kids away as close contacts, but now that we're inviting them to test to stay in, that that's just a little bit different and there's a little bit more risk involved in that. And so after learning the hard way at Berlin and huge gratitude to the Berlin school community for engaging in that dialogue with us, we've been more proactive since then to talk to folks in schools before or just as that's happening. We have achieved the 82% vaccination rate at U32, which means protocols change at U32 since we're above 80. And I would invite Maria just to quickly share with you a little bit about what that means before I share a few other things. So Maria. Hi everyone. So the agency of education has asked us that once our student population at U32 at any of our schools goes above 80% that we do change some of our practices. What we have stopped doing is actually quarantining anyone except positive cases. So if there is a positive case at school, we of course ask that student to leave if they have come into school. And then the remainder of the contacts of that student, we just notify, we ask them to monitor themselves for, I mean, we talk to their parents, we ask them to monitor themselves for symptoms if they need to to get tested but vaccinated people in a school with a vaccination rate of 80% or above are not required to test. Unvaccinated people are strongly recommended to test at three to five days. So there are some different regulations and requirements now out for U32 than we have for the rest of our schools. Thanks Maria. I will share a little bit more and then Maggie, we're happy to answer any questions that you have. So Maya and Anna talked a little bit about winter sports. I've been working with the Winooski Valley superintendents to come up with some regional agreements. And we've agreed among those within those agreements that home team rules will prevail. And so with our rates right now and our case count, we're trying to figure out what exactly that's gonna mean in terms of spectators and no spectators masking who's overseeing and ensuring that spectators do wear masks. So we've had some conversation and we will continue that. We couldn't pull the team of us together to do that this week. We're gonna do it Monday and hope to provide some more guidance with you about that and some clear communication. Likewise, we're continuing to explore all the nuances around particularly elementary basketball. So please stay tuned for that information. I wanna share with you that we're upset that we couldn't offer vaccine clinics from until after the beginning of January. And we've heard from the Department of Health that they're trying hard to figure something out with us. Recently, just yesterday, we heard that there were vacancies at Spaulding's clinic that's happening tomorrow. Maria sent that information out to families. It was too quick for us to pull together any kind of bus trip down to Spaulding, but we did let families know and we're working with Osco Pharmacy in the hope that they can help us coordinate something sooner than the beginning of January. I will share with you as well that throughout the fall, the Labor Management Committee has been working together to come up with a memorandum of understanding between the Association and the admin and the parties. And we tend to, we verbally agreed to something that I'm gonna bring to you in December. I wanna say that it's taken longer than we had hoped for quite frankly, because we've been so busy dealing with COVID and other issues as you're aware. And because my learning curve as your interim superintendent has been steep just about what the process is. So what we totally agree to is that the safety and health of our students and our staff is at the forefront of our practices. Again, we have some verbal agreement. The Association is gonna take it to their membership ideally right after the Thanksgiving break, ideally for a ratification and we'll bring it to you all as well. Couple key highlights still providing protective equipment as we have been. We wanted to, you all had extended the leave time through September and we would like to continue to offer our employees an administrative paid leave for quarantining purposes that is separate from their sick time. We want our sick employees to stay home and we wanna keep everybody safe and we don't want them fretting about using up all of their sick days. We also want them wanna encourage vaccination and getting boosters. And so that would apply to that as well. We want our employees to provide proof of vaccination and so we're gonna send a message out to them tomorrow asking them to provide proof and letting them know that absent that proof they will be treated as unvaccinated individuals and we'll want them to be engaging in regular surveillance testing. And the other thing I guess I would highlight for you is that we're agreeing that this is retroactive from October 1st. Again, we've been working on it for a long time. It's been a very, I'd say healthy and collaborative process. It's just taken longer than we would have hoped. And then the final thing I'll say is just again, you've all alluded to it as well. There's stress in our school system. There's a lot going on and I will say I've been so grateful for the support that we have received the offers to help and I personally am really grateful for the upcoming week of break as well. Hoping that everybody takes some time to just breathe and reflect and relax and renew in preparation for that next push when we come back on the 29th. Any questions for Jen? I see Maggie, Maggie, Jonathan, Diane. So go ahead, Maggie. I have three questions. First, students who've been exposed or direct texts are they eligible? Do they have access to testing in school beyond the Monday PCR testing? And if so, has this been communicated to families and students? My second question is are children eligible to utilize the vaccine clinic at Berlin Mall? And if so, has this been communicated to district families? And thirdly, if spectators cannot attend our administration and sports leaders in the district exploring use of CVT SportsNet or another way that these games can be broadcast via the internet? Thank you. So I can take the first two, or the second two questions and Maria, if you can talk more about testing protocols. So we have been advertising about vaccination clinics. Maria had sent information about that as soon as the vaccine was available for kids ages five to 11. And we did enjoy live streaming last year services, and that went well. So while I have not actively had a conversation with anybody about that yet, because we have yet to make a decision about it, I would think that that would be a viable option that we would explore. Maria, testing questions. Sure, so right now at our disposal within the district, we have three different testing methodologies. We have our surveillance testing, which anybody regardless of vaccination status is encouraged to take advantage of. That occurs every Monday. We have something called a test stay, which is only offered to unvaccinated students who are exposed in the school. So the other thing is test stay is not recommended for schools above the 80% vaccination threshold. It's seen as a pull of resources during a time when we don't have as many resources as we would like. So unfortunately, we do not offer test to stay or any of the rapid tests for people that are at U32, with the exception of our third testing methodology, which is response testing. So at any of our schools now, if a student or staff member comes in with symptoms, I don't feel well, I have a headache, oh, I have a fever, et cetera, my throat hurts. We will rapid test them with the permission of the parents, of course. We would rapid test them in the office. If it is positive, it's considered to be a positive test result. They don't test again. They go home, they quarantine for 10 days. We start again. If the rapid is negative, we do take a PCR swab and we send it off to Binks Healthcare, which is who does our surveillance testing. So while we can offer rapids and PCRs to symptomatic students and staff, we cannot offer test to stay to the U32 community. We do offer it at all of the elementary schools when there has been an exposure in school. Any exposure in the community or in the home is not eligible for any of our testing to stay programs. They're required to quarantine for the state guidance because their risk of transmission is that much higher than in school. And I do feel that the elementary schools are very aware of their options for their kids. Thank you, Mariette. Jonas. Yeah, I just wanted to address Jen's comments about the impending MOU, the COVID MOU. Jen, I'm sorry I haven't been able to attend the last couple of sessions as fully as I wanted because I was dealing with my own family's COVID issues. We had a false positive, thank goodness. And I just want to say that the LMC sessions that I have been able to attend have been cordial and productive. And I get the sense that the administration and the unions are operating from the same set of values. And I think, from the draft that I saw, that's reflected in that document and I'm looking forward to seeing it. So thank you to Jen. And thanks to everybody on the other side of the table who's been engaging in good faith and in a productive way during a really, really stressful time. Thanks to everybody who's working on that. Thank you, Jonas. Diane. So this one's kind of out of left field. So I apologize, Jen, because it wasn't on the agenda, but I do feel that as part of the steering committee for the agenda that we need to start putting this on there is the concern that has been raised now twice about the lack of a certified music teacher, Aperlin and the process around it. And it's, that obviously is uppermost in my mind, but also makes me realize as a board member, if there are other vacancies or shortages across our district, prizing us of what's occurring, what are the plans and how are we addressing those shortages? But it is, as a board member, I need some more concrete information as to what's happening and how those decisions are being made. So I have a good idea about instruction. Diane, I wonder if when you do that action right around personnel, if we could easily embed a report around current vacancies and progress we're making, that we could do that right then. Good idea. Lindy. Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on Jen's report and her honesty and positive outlook in a very hard situation. I have really appreciated this year and I know it's been a huge learning curve and curriculum is her love. So I just wanted to say, I appreciate how we're hearing that the team is stepping up and the team is working to make this work across our schools because I know we have a very strong leadership team and I'm grateful for their help in the work that has to go on to run our schools and to help in Jen's interim position. So I hear you and I appreciate the positive tone in a very difficult time that could be very negative. And I appreciate the teamwork and collaboration to keep our schools as safe and as, I don't know, positive or stress-free as you can. Thank you, Lindy. Maggie, you're muted. Two questions, one for Maria. Some other school districts, not in Vermont, pool testing. I looked on the website and I can't tell whether these PCR tests are being pulled or whether these are individual tests. So that's my question for you and then just following up on what Diane was saying about the openings, I'm looking for clarity on whether there is or isn't also a music vacancy at Calis. And if so, I would also like some clarity on what the plan is as a unified district with teachers being employees of the district now. What is the limitation on getting these educators into the classrooms, into the schools that need them so these kids can have the equity they deserve? Maggie, I'm gonna ask you to repeat your question. I didn't understand it. Pool testing rather than individual PCR testing. I have friends who are educators in other parts of the country and they are pool testing. And then only if from that very large sample, there is a positive yielded from combining all of that testing are they using the individual tests to then identify the individuals? I have never heard of that. It's not something that our state engages in or has offered for our schools. I'm happy to look into it. Do you know what the, okay, okay. No, I think it's causing a great deal of stress in school districts in other parts of the country because by capturing that many samples together rather than individually, I think it's a cost saving measure but I looked at the website, I couldn't identify whether banks was using this technique, but I wanted to raise the question because it came up. I will certainly clarify, but not to my knowledge, are we using anything called pool testing, right? Everything is individualized to the best of my knowledge. Okay. Thank you, Maggie. Jen, do you have anything else? No, okay. So let's move on. We're done with our reports and let's move on into finance. I'm gonna take just a quick look around. Does anybody need a break or can we push through the rest of the agenda? I'm not seeing anybody. Okay. Welcome, Suzanne. China, let's get started. We sent you some informational stuff. We have divided it to try to make it quicker for us. I wonder if you have any questions on the monthly reflection or the quarterly fund balance for Suzanne or the finance committee. I'm not seeing any heads moving and I guess just for the record on the orca, I just wanna say that one thing to have for people to know is that the fund balance update was completed, which resulted in an additional amount of 171,623 additional fund balance. And that's primarily due to between the budgeted and the new higher benefit selection. So just so that people that are watching the meeting cut the benefit to that. And let's move into the capital improvement. Chris O'Brien is on vacation, so he won't be joining us today, but I'm gonna look at Carrie or Scott to make a motion and then we'll have some discussion. Do you guys mind? It's on page 95, Carrie, go ahead. Scott, I'll take this first one, you can go next. So I'll recommend that the board authorize the superintendent to complete bidding for the projects listed on the WCUUSD capital improvement project plan FY2223 budget column for a total estimated cost of 1,533,863 dollars. Second. Thank you, Carrie. Thank you, Scott. Any discussion from board members? Seeing that we don't have any questions, we just wanna share that the importance of doing this now is to, this would allow them to move as quickly as possible to make sure that we get the bids and we get the people working. Cause as you know, there's a shortage of labor in the state. So having said that, everybody, all those in favor of the motion as read by Carrie, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Energy project consultant, Carrie, if you don't mind, Scott is gonna take policy because Chris McDay is not gonna be able to join us today. So if you don't mind, keep going with that or you guys can tag along, however you want to do it. Yeah, so there's two here. The first one is move that the board authorized superintendent to forward thinking consultants LC at a rate of $100 an hour not to exceed $2,000 for identifying the right net metering partners for the school district. Carrie moves, could I have a second? Second. Thanks Scott. Any discussion? Any questions? Okay, hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you. Can you do the second one, Carrie, on that? Sure, the second part is that I'll move that the board authorized the superintendent to sign a one month extension to the current net metering agreement with Kingsbury hydroelectric. And Scott, you're muted, but I assume you said second. You assume correctly, thank you for that. Okay, all right. Any discussion? Laura, I couldn't hear the month. It broke up on me what Carrie said. Yeah, so it's for extended it for one month and that would allow us to do some work with the consultant that we are hiring in the meantime, just so that the board knows we're still trying to negotiate with Robbie Porter to extend that further than one month, that would allow us to better see our options. But so far, Robbie has agreed to one month and that will carry us for the time being. But we will be, if something changes, we'll be back to you next month. Any further questions? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion as read by Carrie, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you. Now the really excited out-of-floor scrubber then I believe Chris McVeigh want to write on. Please, could I motion? Sorry, we have to keep it funny a little bit. It's a long meeting. Carrie? Scott? Carrie, OK. Sure, I'll move that the board authorize the superintendent to sign a 36-month lease agreement with Hill Yard and All Lines Leasing Company for $971.22 per month for two Trident ride-on auto scrubbers and one Trident walk-behind auto scrubber with the option to purchase the equipment for $1 at the end of the lease. Thank you, Carrie. Second. Thanks, Scott. Any questions? Any discussion? Hearing none. Anybody else wants to write it? No. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Transportation bid. Scott, you want to go? Sure, I'll warm up my vocal chords. Thank you. I move that the board award the bid to first student. Transportation bid to first student based on the bus bid. Can I start over? I move the board award the bid to first student based on the bus bid with direction for selecting electorate. No. You should have done it, Carrie. I move that the board award the bid to first student based on the bus bid with direction for selecting diesel buses. Second. Thank you both. Any discussion? I see Maggie's hand up already. I can almost anticipate. Go ahead, Maggie. You can almost anticipate, huh? I just wanted to just acknowledge our first student drivers, in addition to our onsite faculty and administration, because they are absolutely also under a great deal of stress and working under uncomfortable conditions with the windows open, as are the students. So much appreciation for student employees. Thank you, Maggie. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking before that. Lindy. Just had a question about the board action in our packet versus what Scott said, because it says or selecting diesel or electric buses. But that was left off, so I was curious. Yeah, we needed to pick one or the other. If you looked at the information, it has two different options, Lindy. So the motion was done to what the finance committee does is just our recommendation. So we needed to do the motion, pick one. And that's what Scott said is what the finance committee recommended. I misread the information, because I thought it was saying the bus company might have both or something is why I misread it. Yeah, so that's one of the options. But if you see that, it's just super expensive. So it's not like we don't want it. And anyways, they could provide a full fleet of electric buses. So, Sam, do you want to speak to that? Sure. First, students submitted one option that was all diesel buses, which is the first table in the write-up. And then the second option was including three electric buses in year three. And the reason that they only offered up three and they did it in year three was a shortage of equipment. So that's why it had to be delayed. And then they identified the geography and the topography as being too difficult in many of our routes because of the upward bound trajectory. And also the length of the routes was a problem. So they identified that or they recommended only using three electric buses in our routes. And so that's what you're seeing in the second table is a mix of diesel and electric. Thank you. Suzanne, McKaylin? Sorry, I'm now confused, though. So are we opting out of the electorate? Well, for now, yes. For now, we're opting out of the electric without not saying that we don't want to do it. It's just if you look at the numbers. So for financial reasons, we're opting out. Yeah, for financial reasons. And it would just be three buses. So it doesn't mean that we don't want to get there. That's where we want to be. But there's not an end because of the, like Suzanne explained, because of the landscape, we can't really, with the technology available for us right now, it wouldn't be the best decision. Not that we don't want to do that. I would oppose not going with electric when we can. For the record. Yeah, and we gave Diane just to speak we gave the Suzanne some, you know, sort of that if there was availability of ESSER funds or any grants that we could use that she would look into it. But so far, that didn't seem to be an option. Let me just see my Ursula and then Jonas. The buses are in our complete fleet. Like that we utilize. And we should. That was for 25 buses. And that includes our reserve buses. Thank you. Jonas. You're muted. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out what the delta between the two offers is something about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. If I'm right. Over the three years. Yeah, I'd say it was about that. Or over the over the five years, right? Or those those three years, which represents, you know, you know, about a little less than a hundred thousand dollars a year over those five years and also represents. That an eight million dollar bid. That's about a five and a half percent delta between the all diesel and the partial electric option. You know, I'm with the gallon that I would love to be able to to use electric buses, and I'm just not sure if that, you know, if my numbers are wrong, you know, throw them back at me. But about that five and a half percent over the five years. Is I'm not certain if that's worth it to go partially electric. Wendy. I know they're testing the next few actually weeks or months. They're going to be testing to see how well they're doing. And we do have some pretty rough routes. So perhaps we'll get more information after some of that testing in Vermont to see how it works and things will change. And for student knows that's where we're going. We would like. So I understand this now better. And I think they'll hear that if the testing goes well. But I still remember my father-in-law when he was a superintendent talking about when they went to the snub nose that worked great down in the south, but they couldn't get up the hills and up here in Vermont. And so this testing that they're doing in Barry and I think Saint Albans, they may not have the altitude changes we have. But we'll we need to watch that and just see where it goes. Thank you, Wendy. Jonas, do you have an extra question? Or that was an old hand. OK. Are we ready to vote? All those in favor of the motion as read by Scott, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. OK, so I'm I miss. So McKaylin and Jonah have two no votes. Right. So the motion carries. With this little process, just because we had a couple of noes, I just want to make that quick. All right. Yeah. Now, 6.25, the cop your bid, which is a mouthful, too. Yeah. Scott, are you ready or should I give it to Kari? I have been rehearsing my dramatic reading, but maybe we should give it to Kari. It's up to you. Let's move the meeting alone. All right. I move that the board award the copier and printer bid to SimQuest with conicum and older copiers and printers and approve and authorize the superintendent to sign the proposed tax exempt lease with MST, government leasing LLC for the purposes of leasing, refinancing and funding photocopy equipment leases, including consultant fees and related costs of issuances of such leases in an amount not to exceed $183,517 and 21 cents and an annual interest rate of 3.290% through August 1st, 2025. Thank you, Scott. Second. Thanks, Kari. Any questions? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the motion as read by Scott, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. OK. And then we're going to move into the general fund draft number one. And I'm going to pass this on to Suzanne and Jen for a quick. So I'll do a super quick introduction and then pass it on to Suzanne for the details. And we talked about this earlier tonight around the budget, really wanting to make sure that it's a reflection of meeting our students' needs and our community's values. So you can see the principles that have guided the level service budget in this particular draft. And we'll talk through a little bit more about the process and the timeline. But I would invite Suzanne to really take the lead here. This is her work and the fiscal teamwork and the leadership team so far. So Suzanne. Thank you. The first section I've described in the memo is about the level service budget and what it does include. We've included the current staffing salaries plus estimates for inflation. Health insurance increases at 5.2%, which is from VEHI. The dental and HRA amounts that were previously brought to the board for their approval. We utilized a 0.25% increase for the VEEMRS contribution. After publishing, we've been notified that it's actually going to increase to 0.5. So that number will have to change in the next iteration. Early retirement projected calculations are included as well as the fund balance allocation that had previously been identified for use by the board. Current special ed student needs for our out-of-district placements, transportation, and other services. The transportation for special ed does not include any increase that was quoted in this transportation bid. Current contracts for auditors and insurance plus estimates for inflation. And we level budgeted non-payroll expenses. Debt service payments were updated for the debt service schedules, which actually reduced debt service. U32 had a bond payment that is retiring this year. We made our last payment, and that was $155,000 a year payment. The capital fund transfer is where we've put that additional $155,000, moved it into that. So now instead of a $725,000 transfer, it's $880,000. That's for the board to eventually finalize that decision, but that's what I'm recommending. And then we've got a section that's talking about our update. So in the next, we've got the transportation bid that you just approved. The leadership team is working on several priorities and programs or services that they might bring in the next iteration of the budget. We have a meeting on Friday, and we want to include any feedback from this meeting. The principles, as Jen had noted, have done a preliminary input from staff in the budget process and have requested feedback from them through a survey. And just to note that the ARP-SR grant is not fully allocated. Funds are currently obligated for full-time nursing, school counselor staff in all buildings, and interventions in FY22 and budgeted in FY23. So you're not seeing in this general fund budget full-time nursing and counselor staffing at the buildings because it's rounded out in ARP-SR the same way that it currently is in FY22. So the next steps are for the school board to set budget parameters and priorities regarding any new board goals or initiatives that reflect the community's values. And we're hoping for that feedback tonight. And also for the school board to continue to work to inform and engage the community in the budget process. And in number three on next steps, you'll see the list of things that the leadership team is considering while we're reviewing these new program or service requests. And it involves quite a bit of things. So the implementation plan, the moving forward plan, systemic state improvement plan, equity, enrollment data, resource sharing, community forum feedback, staff engagement, length of student day, and community tax burden. We need to review the specialized student needs, not the specific needs, but the higher level needs. So special educators and the requirement across the district, a multi-year tech plan, and involving cybersecurity and hardening of our cybersecurity needs. The transportation budget updates will be done. And operation of plant non-payroll expenses are being reviewed for potential changes or updates. And a multi-year equipment replacement schedule and possibly requesting reserve fund transfers to fund that over time. So a multi-year plan on that. As well as the food service transfer that happens, community connections transfers. And then the revenue and tax updates from the AOE are usually received in November, along with the special education block grant, which is not to be done in a reimbursement fashion due to Act 173. So it'll be one block grant, no matter what our expenses are next year. That's it. I've also included an update to the timeline. And really the only change is that I added two leadership team meetings in November. Partially because I wanted you all to be aware that we are, how often we're meeting and discussing topics, discussing the budget, but also for next year, so that we document how frequently we need it to meet and we get it ahead of time. So. Thank you, Suzanne. And thank you, Jen. Does the board have any question, that we'll move into parameters after this, but do they have any questions or input for them? With the next steps, Diane. Do we have any ballpark idea of the impact of Act 173 on the funding? I just know in other schools that I'm in, it's a huge impact and is critically impacting budgets. And so, kind of limits your parameters then. So I just wonder if we have any ballpark idea of what that impact might be. So we did receive a preliminary calculator from the AOE last week and I ran the numbers and they do have some questions for the AOE. They're taking our reimbursement over the last two years and averaging it and increasing it with an inflator of 4.89%. And that's how they're coming up with our numbers. So theoretically it should be more than last year's reimbursement, it's slightly higher than last year's, but that doesn't identify what our student needs are. So if we've had additional students come into the district with higher needs or just more identification of students with higher needs and also students not, if there are higher needs students, but not quite hitting that extraordinary cost level. So yes, I would say it's possibly a very negative number. Yeah, I don't have it in front of me and I'm sorry I should have brought that with me. I did calculate it earlier today, but I will have it for you. Thank you, Susanne. Maggie. For those of us who are new to the board, can you just briefly outline how this changes funding? Is it going from a per student, accepting Medicaid reimbursement? So Medicaid's not part of this equation. Currently we submit basically quarterly reports to the state that say these are our expenses and if students hit $60,000, the state reimburses anything over 60,095%. The state reimburses us 100% for any state-placed students and then anything after that they reimburse at 56%. Instead of that reimbursement model, the state is moving to basically a block grant model for everything other than state-placed, which is remaining the same and the extraordinary cost, which is over $60,000. So those two are remaining the same, but that 56% on any actual expenditures, that's not happening anymore. That's where they're taking last years in the year before averaging it, getting an inflator. So it's really just here's a grant amount basically. And it just doesn't reflect exactly what we're doing. It does open up a lot of opportunities to the way that we're looking at how we utilize that money though. I think in the first years when we're gonna experience this kind of bumpy road of adjustment, but I think it opens a lot of doors for us that we're discovering. And I don't know if Jen or Carol wants to speak to that a little bit. I would say that essentially the drivers for Act 173, in addition to price or cost, are really offering a more flexible education system for all students. So all that work that we're doing around coordinating curriculum, multi-layered systems of support, assessment planning, all of those things are part of it. And I think as Suzanne said financially, it'll be a bit of an adjustment period for us. We are all working hard now to get smarter about it, not only because of the impact on special ed services and the provision of services, but because really it's designed to impact the way that we are supporting students across the system from good first instruction to progressive layers of support. I don't know if there's anything you wanted to add to that or not. Sure, I would add the gist of the laws to move us more towards a response to intervention model. And so the biggest transition will be the most kind of practical manifestation of the changes will be in special education eligibility. So there'll be practices, there's the practical components and then the funding components and the practical components like Jen is saying will relate more to tier one intervention and supports provided throughout tier one and tier two as opposed to the strategies in place and the interventions in place for students on IEP. So it's more an early intervention, excuse me, model. So those practices eventually will impact special ed. And so the funding and the practices are meant to align and changes hard. So there'll be some transition years before it feels a little bit more smooth. Thank you, Kara. Diane, do you have any questions ahead? Yes. So the other thing too that this, you know, thanks to Dorothy and Scott as well as this is really or it's intended to be connected to the waiting study. And so kind of part of it, you know, some of the wheels came off. And so I think it's critical for us as a board to really understand that connection and how can one part move forward without another part because it will be dramatic. I mean, when we think of the costs of our peras, when we think of the other costs that are currently there, that shift is gonna be pretty dramatic and is potentially at a time when we feel flush with ESSER money in reality because of some of these other financial changes, we're gonna be potentially looking at some heavy duty increases. And so we need to understand all the tools in our toolbox in order to be making decisions that are the best for our learners. Maggie, you have another question. I just wanna say that some of those questions will be addressed in the training that Susanne is hoping to give to the board. Let me see. You wanna let Ursula go first, Maggie, since you were last, okay? Ursula? I had a follow-up question on essentially this block funding for the education and then in addition to Act 173, there is a special law changes coming into effect in July of 2022. And I'm curious, maybe Kara, that's what you were just saying is how essentially it's gonna change the eligibility of kids for IEPs and how that is gonna maybe affect this block that we're getting, which has been passed, based on the student needs that we've had that are based on the old rules. Ursula, I'm not sure if I heard your question in there and correct, Act 173 is the law that will be behind the changes to special education eligibility. I don't know the details that we want to go into right now but just for the sake of time, in order for students to be eligible, we'll have to indicate that they didn't respond to various interventions, which will shift a little bit. And so- I guess my question is how those eligibility changes are affecting our budget when, like Suzanne said, this block is based on our past budget, which is based on previous. What are we looking at? And maybe somebody, are we expecting a large change in what our needs are versus what we're getting for this block grant? Suzanne, do you want to- I have thought to give you- Well, Ursula, I will say that the expense side of this budget is based upon student need. The revenue side is not firm yet because we didn't have those revenues from the state in time to have them reflected in this version. So the revenues really are not firmed up on this. The needs are there and it's not that we're not identifying needs we are. And that's what the special ed service plan was in October. It's just that the way that the state is funding, their funding model to the school district is changing. So the revenue that we received to offset it will be less. We need to make up the difference in our tax funding. Did that answer your question? I think so, yes. Thank you. Maggie. I was just curious if there are plans for additional planning time for educators to adjust to these changes. Because it sounds like we're talking about EST and 504 kids potentially getting different resources in addition to IEP kids. Is there a plan for that to just provide opportunities for more focused planning? Yeah, we're talking about that now as a leadership team and thinking about how to roll out these changes and let folks know while also being sensitive to all of the stress that's within the system and challenges that are going on. In terms of supporting students on ESTs and 504s, I want to say that the goal is to provide more supports earlier on. And so I just want to make it clear that there won't be a lessening of services for those students, just an increase of services ideally earlier as students demonstrate caps and learning. Yeah, so my question was really, are you going to be afforded the time to do the planning to make that shift? Because that's a significant change in approach. Yeah, I presented to the leadership team and to our case managers last week about the changes from Act 173. There's not full clarity from the agency of Ed as of yet. The new rules will be coming out in January or February, and so I'm tentative to present too much information and then backtrack. And so the case managers are aware of the changes and of course the goal is to break down the silos between special education and general Ed. And so their request was can we share this with everyone and start planning? And I'm working with the principals to be thoughtful in how we do that. And again, a way that's sensitive to all that people are holding right now and it allows us to start the next year prepared for these changes. And so I don't have an explicit plan just yet. I was just diving into them in recent weeks and we're starting to get our head around it as a team. And we're very aware that we'll start moving on these soon. Thank you, Kara. Thank you, Maggie, for the question. Let's move on to the budget parameters on page 125. And just to be clear, I was traveling and I was having the hardest time attaching the document and the wrong document when went up. So it was not updated. So number five should say reinvigorate, this is what the actual document said, reinvigorate three. It won of three existing initiatives, music, outdoor education, or food services. That's what we had heard in the community forum. So that should have been number five. Right now it has the old what I gave you last year because I was using the template. I apologize for that. And then on number six is right. I had it as number seven, but there's a last one. So you can write it down there as number seven. And that was the additional funds for hardening in response to cybersecurity was the other thing that we agreed on the finance committee. So I apologize for that, but those are, I know that it's more than that the usual, but they sort of aligned with some of the leadership team too. So we could go one by one and see how more members feel about them. Or if we want to move them up this late, however you want to do it, we have a little bit of time. So my equation would be to just go since you guys were not part of the finance committee to just go down the list one by one. Is that okay? So we talked about, I included the equity definition there. That's a conversation that we do need to have, but all of this parameters are viewed from that equity lens. So the social emotional pillar aligns with the work that we're trying to do. So could I have just like either thumbs up if you agree that that is a strong parameter that you would like to see? Okay. And then for you guys that don't have your cameras aren't just speak up if you think it's not, okay? And then continue to offer and further develop the multi-layer system of supports to all students across all our schools and professional development for our teachers. Yes. Okay. Steven, let's see, yes. Under the threshold for the penalty, we know that the penalty is not on for this year. We felt that just for good practice it would be good for us to use an average. We'd spoke to Suzanne and she said that she could come up with an average even though we were not gonna have a number, but we definitely don't wanna be, you know, knowing that not just at 173 but the possibility of not this year but the following year having the weight study also will hit us. We felt that that was prudent to leave that there. Are you guys comfortable with that? Okay. I didn't hear any no's. I see all thumbs up. Diana assume that was a thumb up. And then bring the next impact of the expensive budget in under 3% if we felt that we needed to give a number right away. Okay. Yeah, this is one that I just, I don't have enough information. So I guess I hesitate to say that and then we get this huge influx and so it just makes it impossible for them to present the budget. So I don't have enough information to know what that number is gonna be. Yeah, I agree with you. We talked about it. I will invite Kari and Scott to talk about it. I didn't know we should wait until we get the first budget to give a parameter. I feel like both Susanne and Jen were comfortable with getting a number. It doesn't mean that they can't bring something above that. It's just that at least one of the options should be there. Is that okay? So I think, you know, and again, my brain's a little fuzzy but I think that when we set those parameters we didn't quite have this number locked in yet. I think we wanted to see what it looked like at some of the level funding and what that ended up doing to the expense part of the budget. And so to me, I kind of need to see that first and then if what we put forward is way out of bounds then that sets the conversation and the discussion. But I guess, and it's just me that's reflecting this. I don't feel I have enough information to say that that's a good number to land on or not for an initial. I don't know how any other board members feel. Kari? Yeah, I think the thinking here is to signal what we think we're gonna be comfortable with when it comes time to present this to the community. Is there a best thinking now and we're asking the administration to come with a budget that meets this? It doesn't preclude them from also saying for an extra half percent, 1% X amount we can get this additional thing and we're recommending that you consider that. But we want to sort of have them sharpen the pencil and do the exercise of developing a 3% or less budget at this stage. Thank you. Kari, Steven and then Maggie? So I'll mirror a little bit of what Kari said. I think this is the most important thing we need to do and we need to clearly communicate a percent so that the administrators can then go forward understanding what our intent is. And I think 3% is too high. I think it should be under 2%. Thank you, Steven. Maggie? I was going to propose the opposite. Why can't we offer a range like three to 5%? Thanks, Maggie. Jonas? I'm comfortable with 3% that reflects what at least I've seen in previous years in terms of what the threshold that the board has given to the finance team. And I would say that with inflationary pressures throughout the economy, we should be prepared for that. I think 2% is going to be, I don't know. I can't say that what Steven said was wrong, right? Because last year we came in at a negative number. But as, you know, I'm not, my brain is a little fuzzy too, Diane. I'm not looking for austerity, right? I'm not looking for a gold-plated budget either. 3% is in line with what we've done in the past. Thank you, Jonas. Diane? I'll keep it brief. You know, I just, I'm not in agreement to having any number there just because I know in the other budgets and the other school systems I'm doing, we're getting blown out of the water because of all of the supply increases in cost, the cost of living increase. There's just, this is not a typical year. And again, it looks so strange because we have so much extra money but it can't touch our budget. And so that's the only thing I just, I don't know enough to know if that's a fair number or not, but I won't talk again, I promise. That's okay. I'm actually going to ask Jonathan and everybody to say something on this. So I guess the kind of conditions you're in. If you would have liked it, but if you're comfortable. I would just say that we, you know, that historically we've come in, at least with an initial budget draft somewhere around 3% just as an initial starting point but the reality is we're not in the usual times. So it may turn out that it's not a reasonable place to start, but I don't know that it's really harmful to at least start in that place and then see what a draft budget looks like and what if anything really needs to be adjusted because there probably will be things that need to be adjusted, maybe significantly. Thank you, Jonathan. Jill, are you comfortable with the 3%? Yeah, okay. Anybody else that I'm missing or say are you okay with the 3% McKaylin? Okay. Yeah, I'm okay with the 3% as a starting point, but I agree I mean with costs as they are I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up having to be higher. So I guess this acknowledgement of that on my part. Thank you. So I think what I'm hearing for this parameter is that we're comfortable with the 3% but if it needed to be differently we want to see those options in order to best support our students. Does that, does that make sense? We got that, okay. And I'll make that change here too and send you the clean draft, Suzanne and Jen. Okay, moving into the next one it would be to, you know, this word to reinvigorate or boost. We can use a different word but that's what I had when I was there. We heard from community members about the music program, outdoor education and the food service program with the dream from, you know, farm to table. So, you know, but I felt like as a board we didn't want to say one or the other let the administrators and the leadership team that best understand the student needs focus on one of those to boost one of those. What do you guys think about that? And this is from the finance committee not just we discussed that at the finance committee. Are you okay with that, Maggie? Is that a question? Why just one? Yeah, why just one? What was the rationale? But it could be one or three of them but it's the, you know, like Suzanne said when she was explaining, you know our resources are finite, right? So like it would be better if we can narrow it down we could, you know, it would be better to invest a good amount of money in one initiative rather than make three not too good, right? So, but they can come back to us and say, you know what? You know, we have the resources or this is where we want to spend our money at least we have put them out there. We have a better outdoor program really that we think so that might be just information. I don't know, but that was the reasoning. I have a follow-up question to that. Sure. Can we utilize the friends of the district to, can we go to them with the potential would you be interested in one of these other two to do some footwork? You know, I'm thinking specifically about the farm to table question, you know can we utilize our community partners to investigate funding sources and support for some of these initiatives? It seems like the music thing is really like a fundamental access issue. Thanks, Maggie. You know, I don't want to answer all these questions it's our good questions to put forward to them. We were taking notes and they will, sorry, I can't see. It will come back with some answers to those questions. Are you guys in support of potentially that being the fifth programmer? I see Scott as Midway, Kari as Midway, so. Okay, I'm seeing more thumbs up than non. Jill, I didn't quite get to see how you felt about this. Do you want to, did I missed it? Can you hear me? And now I can hear you. Can you hear me, Floor? Yeah, now I can. Sorry, I'm a little, I'm double muted. So I just am not totally following what you're saying which is why I didn't raise my thumb. I just wasn't tracking. Okay, so what we were saying is that we- I'm not reading it in the packet, right? You're talking about something that's not written on the page. Yeah, so what I said before, maybe you missed it that I, the number five was wrong in there. And it's the, we heard from community members, those three, music, outdoor education and food program. So we're- Yeah, I agree, we heard those three things. Yeah. Okay, so you're okay with that being one of the parameters that they could pick one of them to focus their attention. And if none of them is what we can afford, they will come back to us too, but at least is that clear enough? So I don't know what it means. It's the music one that I'm particularly hung up on. I mean, we have, I'm not understanding what, I think we have a problem we need to solve there. So I don't think that's an option. So I guess I'm just confused by what you mean. That's all that's, I'm okay with being confused and just going forward. I'm just not following you. Yeah, so just to be clear, this is not to solve the existing music problem of the hiring the teachers. So, you know, like we, the part of recruiting, you know, like what we agreed on last year was to have the music, the music program to serve all the needs of our students. This three are to boost, we're hearing that the people want more, right? It's to boost, it's not, that is a separate issue. And it's not from, as you guys know, it's not as a problem in the state, it's not for lack of trying to hire a music teacher. We have been unsuccessful. We have the entire music department and the orchestra trying to help us to find a teacher too. There's been multiple attempts and post this, we just, it just hasn't been successful. So, but, so that is separate. So what does it mean to put it on the list here? It means that we're going to talk about somehow expanding the music offerings beyond what they already are. That's what you're saying. That's what we heard from the community members. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So I saw three sideways, Scott, Carrie, and there was somebody else that was sideways. And then there, I mean. I'm sideways. Okay, so there's four sideways for this initiative and everybody else okay with it? Laura, what was the third? Was music outdoor education and what? The food service, farm to table. Yeah, or just food service. Because it doesn't have to be farm to table, but that's why we keep hearing. So, Jonathan. Yeah, I just want to say I support all three of those things. Thank you, Jonathan. Ursula. So I just wanted to clarify, like we're talking about these pillars as essentially guidelines for the leadership team to come up with this like a first draft and come to us. And so I think, I guess my understanding from reading that was that if some of these things can't be done or like we talked about in this last one, they can't do it for the 3% increase. They're going to come to us with that information because it's a draft, right? Correct. Okay. Correct, correct. Okay, Maggie. You're muted. I sent an old hand. I think Ursula's question answered my question. So all three, if I all three are going to be addressed, but then administration would be selecting of the three the one that they felt was the ultimate priority. Or more viable, yeah. Okay, but there's going to be a response to the community on all three points, all three areas of focus. For example, Calis and other communities have four wins, nature education. Some schools already have volunteer situations where community members are providing for example, like is that education about what's actually happening going to be provided to the school communities who are raising these questions because they may not have those answers. So we're taking notes as we go, Maggie and we'll have some responses for that. It's Suzanne, do you want to clarify something? I saw your hand up. I did. I was imagining that what you're suggesting is that we bring you a 3% budget with what we as a leadership team prioritize and then also provide you some allocator costs for these other priorities that you're providing so that you know how those would impact the budget. That's what I'm interpreting this direction to be. So yeah, yeah, especially for this parameter. Yeah. Okay, so sounds like we have three now or three, so it's not a no. So I'm going to let number five go and move into number six, develop a contingency plan for expense reduction options in case the rate is not favorable. That is just not, you know, it's just good practice. We had it from last year and then the last one, which really was number six, but it didn't get in your packet, it was a, and I think you guys would all agree, it's a hardening and using additional forms for rebuilding our response to cybersecurity. Okay, so we have seven parameters and we can move on into the policy committee and hopefully be done by 830, that's my goal, but any other discussion? Any other discussion? Yeah, any other, Jen, yes. Flora, we have some training to do. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yes, yes, that was going to respond to the, I'm so excited about that. Okay, Suzanne, I don't want to steal your thunder because this is really good and then we'll answer some questions. I hope it's really good. I'm a little nervous, it's eight o'clock at night and this is some, some deep stuff. All right, so annually the district has done this budget training for school board members and it's a refresher for veterans, but is especially helpful for new board members. The outline of the training is on page 127 of the board packet and I'll just begin tonight by briefly explaining expenditures and revenues. So expenditures are all the dollars a school district plans to spend. The budget plus any deficit or obligation to a regional tech center school district. So what you'll receive in your expense budget, it will be delineated by program or service such as instructional services, preschool programs, guidance services, you'll see each of those programs or services segmented out. So you can see which, how much each of them costs and you'll see it current year and you'll see a projected column for where we believe the current year will end based on actual what has actually occurred and then also the column for FY23 budget proposal. Within each program or service you'll find specific lines for things like salaries, benefits, tuition reimbursement, all the way down to dues and fees and interest expenses. So you'll see each of those lines separated out that way. The local revenues or money the school district already has or is owed, federal dollars, state aid for special education, transportation, small schools, tuition, surplus, interest bearing accounts, private donations, et cetera. Revenues currently appear at the top of the budget report and include lines for things like tuition from other school districts, interest earnings, miscellaneous income such as the tech ed and transportation reimbursements, special ed revenues and any use of fund balance has to be identified as an actual revenue. The education spending is the amount that needs to be raised by education property taxes. These funds are received from the state of Vermont and are the net of budget expenses less budget revenues. So if you were in a private sector you'd probably see this as your, well, I mean in the private sector it's normally a net income but this is where we're actually looking for income to fund our services. So education spending is currently listed in the revenue section at the top of the budget report and then it's actually divvied out and figured out and taxed based on a per equalized pupil amount. And that's what actually determines the education homestead tax rate. So before I walk you through the tax rate are there any questions about expenses and revenues? Just saying I'm wondering if you wanna share your screen because especially for new board members so they can see or we can share it for you and you can keep talking just to. Or if everybody's following that slide. I was just reading what I prepared for notes. So I don't have in the packet, I would be looking at the budget spreadsheets that look like this. I can look it up what pages it is. I think 128. Thank you. Would it be helpful if I shared that for board members or you're following just like that? Pretty clear in the packet. Okay. Okay. Are there any questions about expenses and revenues? Okay. So the next piece I am referring to page 128 and I'm gonna walk you through the tax rate calculation which is really, really detailed. The state of Vermont is a very complicated tax funding system. Using the budget year 2122, if we look at page 128 in your packet, it begins with the total budget expenditures at the top. And then it subtracts out offsetting revenues and this calculation gives us the local education spending amount. Equalized pupils are not a straight head count of students. So if you see equalized pupils, it doesn't mean that we have that amount of students in our buildings. This number is actually based upon ADM which is with ADM with an applied weighting. And ADM is the two year average daily membership reported by the district. State place students uses prior year actual numbers. Pupils are adjusted based on the following weighting. Limited English proficiency increases the count by 20%. Poverty adds 25%. Preschool students are actually reduced by 46%. Secondary students which are identified as grades seven through 12 increase it by 13%. A statewide adjustment is then applied. Last year this adjustment was 95.112%. And a hold harmless provision, no more than 3.5% reduction in one year. So all of that weighting. And then at the very end the state says you can't have a dip more than 3.5%. So if we were to see a dip in our equalized pupils that went down to 5% for instance, they would only make us have it at 3.5%. So equalized pupils. Any questions on that before I move on to the next piece of it? Just to be clear, it is the weighting for equalized pupils that Scott is doing all of his yeoman's work about. Yes. And changes to that system. I will go on to the next segment. So the state sets a base tax rate and that comes out from the tax commissioner around or on, they usually say on December 1st, but it comes out on or around December 1st. The state tax rate for residential home was $1 last year and non-residential 1.612. The property yield is set annually by the legislature and is used to determine the equalized tax rate. In FY22 for every $11,317, a district spends per equalized pupil, its equalized homestead tax rate will be $1. And the property yield helps to minimize the impact of big swings in the CLA. The equalized homestead tax rate is the rate a district would have if all properties were assessed at fair market value. So we're seeing a couple of different things happen here. We're seeing a count on pupils. We're seeing that count weighted. Then we're seeing the state setting a base tax rate that then gets adjusted by the property yield. And then we're also seeing this impact from CLA. And the common level of appraisal is the ratio of each town's listed values versus the state's listed value. The state's listed value is comprised of actual sales, generally averaged over three years. The state's fair market value is the equalized education grand list. We received this in mid to late December. The actual homestead tax rate is education tax rate seen on a property tax bill of a residential homeowner. The last piece of it is the excess spending threshold, which is an amount set by the state annually to encourage districts to keep spending under a certain amount per student. Districts are charged double the tax for every $1 above the state per pupil threshold. Last year, this amount was $18,789. The excess spending threshold calculation has been suspended for FY22 and FY23. Any questions? Do I need to? Maggie, I'm seeing your hand. Yeah, as a new board member, is this where we ended up with reduction in our music? Last year, was that a budget correction to avoid this? I wasn't here last year, so I'd invite someone over. Laura's shaking her head, no. Okay. No, it was not a budget correction, Maggie. The music, that was a plan thing there. It was based on student needs. It was not on a budget reduction. It was not on any number. It was on student needs. How does the board participate in responding to a potential excess spending? How do we interact with that with you in finance? So what I heard tonight was make an attempt to stay under an anticipated threshold if there were a threshold. So given that the last threshold was, or last year, the legislatures waived the threshold after the budget process. And so there was an amount that people were trying to stay under, which was that $18,789. So I'm anticipating developing a new number to try to stay under. And so it's through the board guidance that we would work on staying under that number. That would have been so helpful to know before we had our last discussion as a new board member. I don't see any other questions to send. Feel free to shoot me an email at any time and ask me a question if I haven't addressed. I know this is a really complex process that the state has for us. And if you walk away going, I still don't get that. Feel free to shoot me an email and I'm happy to address your questions. Thank you, Suzanne. Thank you for giving us that training and it's really helpful. I'm gonna move us into policy. Chris couldn't join us tonight. The policy committee members that are here. He sent me an email saying that Scott was gonna take over policy for him tonight. And I would like to ask you, Lindy, if you wouldn't mind co-hosting this segment with me. Thank you. Because you did most of the research on this D7, would you like to lead off with that one? Sure, actually this was a recommended one. I mean, a required one. And so it's from a model policy. And I think the only change was actually your suggestion, Scott, the word federal in red because of the IDEA Act. And this is definitely required under the state. And then the VSBA creates a model one and I was trying to figure out, oh, I see it was just a typo under the legal reference that was changed. So there are just two minor little changes there of adding the word federal in the second paragraph instead of just of the Individuals with Disabilities Act and then fixing that typo under the legal reference. And I should also point out that you figured out what's going on with the manual. Yeah. I just, I realized now as I was focusing on it because it wasn't in red. At the last, it says the manual can be found in the Vermont Agency of Education's website. Scott couldn't find it. We were Googling, I emailed a friend at AOE who then emailed somebody else. It hasn't been approved through legal yet. So they put out this policy but that manual, we were hoping to have a link or something to make it easier for people to find because the AOE website is not always easy to navigate but what we learned is the manual has been written but it has not been approved through all their legal channels yet to publish and as soon as it is, it will be on the AOE website. Great. And this is a first reading, correct, Lindy? Correct. So there's no need to vote but Chris will be cross with us if we don't collect comments or changes that you'd like to see unless you're okay with it. Anybody have anything that they want to comment on or a note for the next round in the policy committee? When we look at this, Jonathan? Yeah, I would just add that we not include that last sentence only because it's, as it's written, not correct at the moment, that's all. I think, Jonathan, when we go to second reading at that point, maybe we'll know if the manual exists but what we did find was it would be difficult to put a link in here because the links change too often. So we were trying to figure out how to make it easy for families and decided perhaps we could put, I think the manual would be a PDF on the either district website under special services or have it available that way. So we can take that note to the policy meeting as to whether that line stays in and maybe at that point we'll know if it even exists yet or has been approved. Sound good, Jonathan? Okay, Ursula and then Diane. Wendy, did your contact at the AOE have a timeline for when that manual was published? Well, it's at the final stage as far as being with the legal department and it was about a two-line email back from the director of special services, I think, that said it has been approved by the committee who wrote it all but it's now just being approved by legal to make sure that it, so no. But I have been told that this has to be done by the end of 2021, which means it should be ready to be published January 1st. Thanks, Diane? So that's what my question connects to because I know that a lot of districts are having to go through this because the state is requiring it now due to auditing. Do we know if this policy meets what's required? Okay, I see you nodding floor, okay. Yeah, this one was one that came recommended to us and it was highlighted by the BSBA in one of our notes. So the answer is yes, everybody is being like trying to hurry up to bring it up. Great, I have noted Jonathan's comment with Lindy's comment on Jonathan's comment. So we can move on, if you like, to second readings of upcoming policies. B-8, the electronic communication between employees and students. This is second reading. Can I just update, Scott? I'm sorry, I went back to my email about that timeline question and I was wrong. What I got back from Jackie was it will be available this month. We are delayed as it is still with general counsel. So that is a timeline. So instead of the end of December, to me, since she sent this in November, the beginning of November, I'll check again before our next policy meeting. That's great. Thanks. So electronic communication between employees and students, B-8, first of all, what we could do is move the second readings as a slate. Would you like to have that, or would you like to consider them as a slate? Okay. In that case, I think Floor would probably... Yeah, so could I have a motion for moving B-8, D-3, and E-46? I move to approve the second readings of policies, B-8, D-3, and E-46. Thank you, Jonas. I see Michelle has a clarifying. Something, Michelle, we can do this. So it's second reading and adoption? Yes. Okay. I just want to make sure that that's what the motion is. Okay, good, good call. Yes, I will move to approve the second reading and adopt policies B-8, D-3, and E-46. Thank you, Michelle. And a second? Second. Oh, thank you. Is that a second or a question? It's a question. Okay, so hold on a minute. We'll select seconds. Okay, any discussion? And Maggie, I see you have a question. Go ahead. Yeah, so is B-8 not the policy proposal that we heard public comment from an educator on? Or is that something different? The one that we... I believe the one you're referring to was usage of electronic devices, not communication between. And it was a homemade one, where this is a required one from the VSBA. Okay. Thank you, Maggie. McKaylet? Oh, sorry. I think I had the same. I thought that the teacher who spoke earlier was talking about one of these. So I just wanted... I agree with it, but I just wanted to acknowledge, I don't know, that maybe looking at how we communicate these ahead of time. Thank you. Rosa? So my comment is in line with the fact that we heard a teacher comment and comment on ATEC related, which I think is either B-8 or D-3. And their question had been whether or not there could be essentially staff, I don't know, the ability to preview, but staff input on these sorts of policies that affect them on the ground and their ability to do their job. And I guess my question is, was their staff input in the creation of the policies or did anybody get to see it? Yeah. I think the answer to that is yes. Correct, Linda? Tyler Smith was there. And yeah, please. Aren't I right, Scott, that these are not that policy. There was a policy that was written by the tech director previously that had to do with using your personal devices and it was not vetted through VSBA or through the legal. These are both required through VSBA for boards and schools. Correct. That mystery policy is in the package, I believe on page 139, but it was not moved, it's not part of the motion as I heard the motion. Correct. Okay. And yeah, the policy committee is open to, to, I mean, their administrator, there's administrator, staff, teacher representation. So, I don't know what to say, maybe the communications could be better within among the teachers, I don't know. But it also sounds like these two policies aren't really taking anything from that policy that seemed to have bothered the administrator or the teacher that didn't talk. That's my understanding, yeah. And Jen and then Diane. Yeah, I think that last spring there were a number of technology policies that were above and beyond what was required by the VSBA. There were a number of concerns about those particular policies. The policy committee went back now in this fall and sort of reexamined all of those with sort of new eyes and a lens toward the VSBA policies and thinking about what other things do we do that would be procedure and not policy? And so what's being recommended now are the two required VSBA policies, which I think assuages the questions and concerns that had arisen from the staff many months ago. And the procedure question, the staff and students already sign a form about how they use, and it's part of a procedure, an internet procedure versus a policy. So those, I see that the question Mark one is in here, but it's not one we're voting on. Right. Thank you, Lindy, Diane. I'm just confused because they're both B8. Are they different? I was confused by that too. I think there's just two copies and that's what I've just been going through to figure out why. One of them is a red line version. I believe that's the way we get them. We get the old version and then the changes in red. Yes. Gotcha. Thank you. And I requested that so I should have realized. Well, I wasn't finding the red line because as I was scrolling this packet so big, it kept jumping to different places, but I did just find the red line part on page 135. So we have this late. We have a motion by John as a second by Ursula. All those in favor of approving the second reading and adoption of this three policies, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you. No. Okay. So now let's move into the Consent Agenda unless there's some final statement from the Policy Committee or any other questions for the Policy Committee. Just to be clear, that D question mark that we have just discussed quite a bit, that is still tabled. Policy is the Policy Committee and everyone who is attending the Policy Committee including stakeholders outside of the committee and the board. There will be another update about that later and we are taking no action on it. Correct. It's tabled. Good. McKinnon? Just related to, way back to the beginning of the meeting, I tried to look for our gender policy and I don't see it on the website. Do we have one? And is it on the, I mean, if not, but that's my question. Do we have one? Can a gender policy? Can you reframe your question as far as what do you mean by a gender policy? I guess. You know, going back to the, whatever you call it, legal thing we signed on to in support of transgender rights, I don't see a gender policy on our list of policies. I did, when I Googled it, I saw one in an agenda from a while back. I'm just, are all the agenda, all our policies are on the website. So if it's not there, we don't have one effectively. Correct. Yeah. And I think our practices have been to be an inclusive community and we haven't relied on policy for that, but I will, we can take a look into that. Cause I do remember in the past, as a unified district, we did pass something. I'm looking at Carrie and some other, we did have a vote. All right. Well, it's late. We'll look. I would just put it on the list for a future policy thing and maybe an environmental policy to down the line when life is less crazy. I'd be interested. Okay. Thank you. And I did find on the VSB website, VSBA website, there is a C28, which is a transgender and gender non-conforming students, which is under review. And that was from March of 2020. So if we have one, it wouldn't be a VSBA one if there's a still under review. So we'll bring it up in our policy to see. Thank you. Thank you, Lindy. Yeah. And those are under review for six months. So we could potentially have something in there being looked at under an equity lens now by people that are not just the VSBA, but two grants that we had. So it might be worth waiting to see what they come up with. Let's move into the policy committee. It's already the policy committee. So in the consent agenda, could I have a motion to approve the minutes of 10, 2021, 10, 30, 21, 11, 3, 21? I move to approve the minutes of October 20, October 30 and November 3rd, 2001. Thank you, Jonas. I'll second it. Thank you, Lindy. Yeah. Any discussion? Always thank you to Lisa for the minutes. Go look at other district's minutes and then compare them to what Lisa gives us. Thank you. All those in favor of approving the minutes, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any oppose? Any abstain? Hearing none, the motion carries. The minutes are approved. Okay, Lindy, you're on the spot. Approved for orders. All right. I make a motion to approve the board order in the total amount of $919,310.75. Second. Thank you, Lindy. Thank you, Scott. Any discussion? You will get an email right after this meeting. Don't forget to send your electronic signature. Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any oppose? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you very much. Okay. Personnel. Page 156. Somebody wants to take the thunder out. Lindy, otherwise I'm counting on you. Just scroll down to it. So I'll take the thunder. I make a motion to accept the new teacher nomination for Lauren Kiesling. I'm sorry if I said it wrong. As school psychologist. Second. Thank you, Lindy. Thank you, Scott. Any questions? Any discussion or comments? I don't see any of those in favor of approving the higher ed and new teacher school psychologist, Lauren Kinsley, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any oppose? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you. And I believe that's the only one we have there, right, Lindy? Yeah. Oh, maybe not. Jen. That is the only one we have, but if you want me to start to embed a report around vacancies, I could do that in this particular section. So I'm gonna do my best right now because I don't have it in front of me. I'll be prepared with it in front of me next time. And I'm gonna ask the leadership team crew who's here if I'm forgetting something, pipe in here. We've got still the music vacancy at Calis and at Berlin. And I was texted this evening that we hope to bring a non-form to you for the next board meeting. So that's moving forward. Yay. We have partially filled the lit interventionist position at Calis, but it's not fully filled, but we're grateful for it to be partially filled. We still have a special ed vacancy at Berlin. At Berlin, it's being filled right now, but that created the instructional coaching vacancy. So we'd still love to get a Berlin special educator so that we could have an instructional coach. We still have the driver's ed vacancy, which we discussed many months ago together. And then we have physicians in, we still have unfilled pair educator physicians. We have some custodial positions and we have some food service. And I can't give you the exact numbers right this second. And I'm just wondering principals, Cara, Michelle, Mark, am I forgetting anybody right now? That was off the top of my head. No, that's everybody. Okay, so that's where we are right now. Thank you. Thank you for that, Jen, that was really helpful. And we'll remember to embed that there for the next meeting. Future agenda items, there's never a lack of future agenda items. There were a couple of requests that I might be forgetting right now. There was, yeah, for the finance, Jonas had brought up, I try to remember right now. And Cara, you had reminded me, it's staff bonuses. Is that, yep, so we'll be looking at that at our finance committee, but I'll also remember for it to be here. Any other, I think with the budget we have a lot going on right now. So it's nothing, I don't really want to add anything else and I'm sure some other things are gonna come up between superintendent of elation and superintendent search and the budget. I think that I want to be mindful of the support that we can get a central office. Maggie. Just reviewing the last board meeting, I had to send a document, share a document with some other approaches that might be utilized to reach people about the community forum. And I did send that to you and Jen and Cara, but I never received a response. So I'm just looking to clarify whether you received that or not. Yes, yeah, we did receive that and we'll get back to you. Yes, we did receive that, I apologize, Mike, but we'll bring that up at our next meeting and we'll connect with you before our next forum. And in the interim, we're free to share that information through existing approaches. For example, Callis has a parent Facebook group. I can share that the link and be proactive in communicating with community members in my town to notify them about the forum rather than waiting until the day before, right? Yeah, yeah, but I thought that what we had agreed is that you, you know, we would all help. So if you have an initiative, so after the meeting, we, you know, you and Cara drafted that last one update. So we would do that. At the last forum, we put it on the Friends of Washington Central and they advertised for us. But yeah, if you wanna write something for your community, that's okay. But if you wanna help us for all, you could write something that any of the steering committee could post to remind people of the forum too. So is that clear? Or we can talk off the meeting. Well, we can, we can talk off the meeting. I was trying to be proactive. And I think we need, you know, we had a better turnout last time, but you know, still hearing directly from community members. And I think that the community forum is a great avenue for them to be heard rather than contacting me directly. And I think we, I just think we need to be more proactive about reaching out. And totally agree. And there are a lot of different avenues. And yeah, so I never received a response to that sharing. I wasn't speaking about the content. I'm talking about how we're reaching out. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. But you did get it, right? Yes. Yeah, we did get it. Yes, we did get it. Anything else? Otherwise, board reflections, besides what Maggie just shared, Ursula? I just wanted to say it was really helpful to have the red line additions of the policies in the packet. And I wanted to say thank you to Diane for asking for it so we could have it. It helped me when I was preparing for tonight. Thanks Ursula. Anything else? Okay. So one last question is Carrie and Maggie would you guys be willing to write an update of the, and share it with the steering committee to be sent out? Yes. Okay. Can I just run through what I think should be in there and then people can add to it? Yeah. We joined an amicus brief in support of transgender student rights. We met with our consultant, Mike DeWise who's supporting our search for a new superintendent update on our situation with COVID and preventative measures. We reviewed the first draft of the budget for the 22-23 school year and established board priorities for future drafts. And we are planning for our next community forum on December 1st which will be focused on our budget planning. Anything that you would like to add to that? That's enough. No. That's good. Student, is the student update in there too? Student update? Okay. All right. Thank you. I'll draft it. Thank you. Sorry. Okay. Any... So I'm gonna move on into public comments or all the brave that stayed on. Please raise your hand or speak up. I don't see any hands up. I don't see any other community members with us. Well, thank you for the ones that stayed. I see that Lisa stayed with us. So thank you for braving up. And so we're ready to adjourn unless if I could have a motion to adjourn. I'm gonna make a motion that we can adjourn. Ah! Okay. Lindy and Jonas. Lindy moves. Jonas second. All of those in favor of adjourn in the meeting, please say aye and leave. Aye. Aye. Good night. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Thanks. Happy Thanksgiving. Bye, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.