 Alright, we'll call the meeting to order. It is 6-0-1. I guess we do need to record them anymore. Yes, we do. My name is Jill Remick. I'm the chair of the Central Vermont Career Center School District Board. Welcome. Thank you, Orca, for being here and thanks everyone for coming and everyone online. Okay, and we do have some guests from Expo, right? You guys are later on in our agenda. Thank you for being here. It doesn't look like we have any members in the public. Oh, right. And then, in your packet you have the board agreements and norms, which are always important to keep an eye on and have those front and center. I'm wondering if anyone would make a motion to update the agenda to add the resignation that we got this morning. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. You've heard. I'm thinking we can hear you. We can hear you. We'll do it first, maybe, because we ran out of, but we can't. 2.9, 2.9, and then we go to 3. That's weird. Because we can hear them. Well, we did. Spoke too soon on the internet. Something's died, though. That looks good. Are they rejoined? Yeah, we somehow lost internet for a minute, so bear with us. Alright, so we'll add that agenda revision. The resignation will be called 2.1a. We'll just add it to the top so we can work through that, since we have right up to 2.9 and then 3 on the agenda. Terry? We missed some stuff, could you guys? Terry, I don't think that you did. We lost you at the same time, so we just paused. It was on and it was off for a block, so that was in today. Oh, yeah, 4 is coming in case. Yeah, it's like 6 and it's like 8. Dial in from there. While I was going to hang them downstairs for a few more minutes. Alright, are we going to join on my laptop? No. I have my phone. Can we make a hotspot for your computer with my phone? It depends, because my internet, what do you have for service provider? Verizon has it now. Try it. Can you guys hear us? Yeah, you guys are working now. So all we did was... Okay, Anna would be so happy it's warm in here. It's almost too warm. We're going to try using my phone as a hotspot. I don't know if you folks can hear us. Or see us. Alright, can you folks hear us? We're going to try to use my phone as a hotspot for a little while and see what happens. Yeah. If you turn your video off, that might help us too. It might be just ours. Okay. No, but they did all turn their videos off, so they heard you. We're having internet uncooperatives. Just saying that was in my house. Can you folks hear us okay? Should we just dial in? Our crew would be... We could use it. But we can use that phone. Oh, we could use one of our cell phones. That might be the easiest. We'll let go. The morning will talk to me. I have them on my computer. I am connected to Christian's. Jodi's computer is muted. Yeah, can you hear us? Okay, great. Thank you. Hopefully we'll stay on for a little while. Alright, so we just added the resignation we got this morning to the agenda. Let's tackle that first. Was there anything you wanted to say? Jodi, about that resignation? I wasn't expecting it to come in. However, this is a program that we have discussed closing because we don't have applicants for next year. That's what I thought it was hard to tell exactly which program it was, but it seemed like design and fabrication instructor. Thank you. Any questions on that item? Just a quick question. I'm assuming a contract was signed at some point? Yes. Letter of intent, because we have not ratified yet. Letter of intent was signed. That's a good point. How does that work? I've been in discussions where people resigned in the mid-year and people were upset about the contract or the letter of intent and didn't want to let them go. I'm not suggesting that. You can say that. I can't tie him here. The board cannot approve it and I can say you signed a letter of intent and the board would like you to uphold that. I don't know what the next step would be. I'd have to do some research to find that out. Alright. But you feel covered. He mentioned the letter that would you be better to wait and see if a couple of the people that he mentioned can actually cover sounds like they can. We would need to post and hire a teacher. It's more than 30 days. You need a license. Even though there are folks that he knows that he's apparently spoken to already about this to cover the program, we would need to get an emergency license for one of them if they apply in our chosen. We do have to follow the process. Which is why we got Adam for plumbing and heating the emergency license last year. He was stepping in for more than 30 days into plumbing and heating. So we could approve it with the condition of finding an appropriate sub or an appropriate teacher. So following up through the recommendations that he made just so that you're not up in the air for the kids, especially not up in the air. Which doesn't sound like this what he wants either. Right. I don't think that's what he wants. So we could make a motion to approve it in full. How about we accept the resignation and then you give us a date for the next meeting? Jason? Jody, do you have a recommendation for the work on what to do? I want to say that Craig has done wonderful work with the students and the things that they have created are amazing. And so this is an incredible loss as far as that goes. And I don't want to hold someone in a space where they're not wanting to be. And I feel like he expressed that this was not the right path for him. And it's unfortunate that it's mid-year, but I don't feel like it's right to force someone to stay in a place that's working for them. So I guess my recommendation would be to accept his request. I don't want to lose him but I feel like that's what we have to do. Lemon? In theory, we can hire a long term sub for 30 days. Is that correct? Yes. Up to 30 days. So if he said to go through to the break, then we've got all of January to try to figure this out as well, right? So we've got about 5 weeks to figure it out. I believe the break he meant was the Christmas break or the winter break and that January 1st is done. So he will not return out of January 1st. Right, so he's got 2 weeks now or a week and a half now and a month after. Yes. It's not the best for students if it's up for that time. Is there a possibility if there isn't somebody that the students would just not be able to finish their year in the program? Yeah, I think we have to be realistic that that's a possibility. It's not something we would work towards in any way, but we have to be realistic that it's possible. However, one of the people that he spoke to was already contracted to work with those students for a few weeks. There's a contract with VTC for a week, 2 weeks to do some of the 3D, 2D and 3D design. So we do have, we could potentially between those breaks fill with support staff and try to meet the needs of the students. It's complicated because it's off site too. Right. Any further questions? I'm looking for a motion to accept the resignation. Jody will keep us informed. I'll make that motion. So I have floor, guy, any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that's a big loss. Alright, next up I'm looking for a motion to approve the meeting minutes from November 13th. Thank you. Do I have a second? Okay, thanks floor. Alright, were there any questions or further discussion on the meeting minutes from the 13th? Any corrections? Nope. Okay. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. There are minutes. Next on our agenda is the student appointees to the board from student leadership. It's been really nice having students here. I understand why they wouldn't be here today for a couple reasons. The weather and school being out. But glad that that's continuing to be. Glad we're continuing to have kids come and talk to us about their programs. Alright, next up we have a program presentation by exploratory technology. Alright. Stand or can we sit? You can sit. I'm Mr. Hammond. I'm one of the exploratory tech teachers. I started working here about six years ago. I did a lot of part educating at Burlington High School while going through the then Johnson State external degree program to get my licensure in 7 through 12 social studies. I ended up doing a big job search. I found the job here and I've been here a hundred percent. I enjoy it. I'm going on my third year co-teaching with Ms. Olson and I love coming to work every day. And I'm Stephanie Olson. I am the second exploratory technology instructor. This is actually my tenth year at CBCC. I went to Sterling College way up in Craftsbury and I pursued a degree in conservation ecology with kind of a focus on wildlife management. When I graduated I got a job for the Montpelier Parks Department as an AmeriCorps VISTA member and served for two terms there. And when I was working there I would take out the pre-tech program every Wednesday for their kind of program time and we would do different conservation projects around the parking, whether it was trail building, it was invasive plant management, whether it was gosh, ice on fire, all sorts of stuff. And did a lot of teaching and I kind of went above and beyond and actually decided to teach the kids about the different trees and the wildlife signs and about the conservation issues. And as my second term was coming to an end the instructor at the time asked me, hey there's going to be a program, there's going to be a natural resources program opening up at CBCC. You should apply to be the instructor. I was young at the time, I got scared so I applied for the lab assistance. And I came to work here at CBCC and I've had a lot of hats here. I bounced back and forth between natural resources, I was an automotive for a couple years, I long term sub expo for a while, and then I was the super sub. And then this position kind of popped up and I would do some guest teaching in Tim's expo class and it just kind of fell into place. But I love working here, the students are so cool to see them come in in the beginning of the year and grow all throughout the year. And it's really cool to see their confidence skyrocket and then see them excel and do well in their following years. Thanks. So we went back and forth a few times to see how we were going to present to you. And it also talks about a couple of times like showing off projects and stuff. So we kind of have two parts of what we're going to present to you. The common thread was student voice, which we know is powerful. And there are best advocates, there are best everything. So we have been preparing for this for a few weeks. We did do a writing prompt for them, not too long ago and that's what this handout is. It's all from the students. The prompt itself was the how the expo impacted you as a student, person and professional. They could respond to that any way that they wanted to. And we also had students do project presentations. So if you want to take one, you can pass it around while we're doing that. I'll read you a couple from the students. Exploratory has helped me grow in so many ways. It helped me grow socially and mentally. While at expo I've met a lot of new people and I've learned so much more about important things. Expo was helping me prepare for my future by having me try out all the programs and seeing which one I like most so I can go into a career that I like. Exploratory has helped me grow in many ways. I think the most prominent skill I've learned though are how to have a good time management and responsibility. In expo you learn that you have to have good time management in order to stay on track and not miss out on opportunities. This is a great skill to have especially if you are going straight into the workforce. Expo also teaches you responsibility. You are constantly being paired with new people to do projects on. You have to be responsible for your part of that project. Your peers count on you to be responsible and do your part. Expo teaches you important skills that you need to if you plan to go into the workforce that a typical high school does not teach you. Expo has helped me grow and prepare myself for my future by giving me more learning opportunities and giving me an idea of what trade I want to go into. It also gives me good teaching on how to pay my bills and read my pay stubs and all that. Final one. There's more in here. Expo has definitely boosted my confidence when it comes to trying new things. In Expo you try all kinds of different things related to different careers including going out and shadowing other programs. Having this kind of confidence is really good to have in the real world because once I go out into a career I'm going to be surrounded by a whole new group of people and opportunities. It was really fun getting their voice when we told them that we would be presenting. It was really sweet and we're like we can go, we can go, we can come and talk. Because you guys have all, you know, last time I showed the videos about why they should be excited for shadowing programs. So the kids wanted to do another video and we guided them and asked them like what's important to you guys that the board needs to know because you guys can talk to us but it's our students who really, you know, this is their year with us and they're kind of the experts, right? So they made a video, they did a really good job. Only two takes which is good but I'm going to show the video. I'm going to present to you guys. Let's see. While you're getting ready to do that I also forwarded your email with the video link and this to the rest of the board. Awesome. Looks like your video is off. Yeah. I think if I do, I'm going to restart this video and I'll make it. Hi, I'm Mr. Hammond from Exploratory. Hi, I'm Ms. Olson. I'm also an exploratory instructor. Welcome to Expo. We wanted to show off some of the things that our students do. Hi, I'm Gavin. I'm a CVCC, a exploratory student. This is our electrical program. It is one out of ten programs that we studied in this program. We learned how to wire in outlets and light switches. Some tools that you will need in order to correctly wire in an outlet or a light switch is your strippers, your cable, strippers, or a flathead screwdriver. Other than being in the shop, we learned a little about the Ohm's Law which is where you take your resistance and your current and you multiply them to get your total volts. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm also an exploratory student. This is our project we did. We made model houses using wood glue, hot glue, nails, and some other cool materials. We used it, we used the architect's scale to build these. It was really fun to build. For our cosmetology unit, we collabed with Cosmo two students and we learned how to use three of the iron, the Marso iron, the flat iron, and the curly iron. We got paired up with cosmetology students and we had an hour to make it up to. I'm Victoria. Before Thanksgiving break, my class did a cook-off. There were four different groups and one group made tacos, another made chicken stir fry, buffalo chicken ranch mac and cheese, and the last group made cinnamon swirl casserole. And the chicken stir fry won. And my class learned how to budget and how to use time management. And the budget for each group was $50 to serve about 20 people. Hi, I'm Alex from Expo and this is what we've been doing with the spoon carving unit. We have in the case of wood to carve into a spoon and that we're going to later auction off this year to make this money for the next year field trip. So far I've made this spoon and I've been pretty proud of it. My friend Jonathan also made this one which is a more casual spoon and we're just like a basic spoon you find in your drawer. And basically we have all the tools here. What you would need for carving a spoon would be a solid knife. Probably a detailed knife is recommended but required. You would need a spoon gouge and I can't remember what that's called but there's nothing to chip away all the way. So, plus the journal will help. Hi, I'm Hannah and this year I'm going for the weather project. Right now I'm working on posters and a journal cover. And I see things I've learned about weather projects is how to do a journal set, how to sew leather and how the team works and how the guide works and how to do one coaster. And something I really enjoy is freedom and creativity. So, yeah, so those are some of the projects that we're working on currently. It has worked on right now we are in our shadow unit so our students are going to be going out and shadowing. Every single program, they have to visit it from 9 to 12. If they participate we also have them do a little bit of research and ask some questions to students in that program and further kind of getting to see what each program's about before they really decide where they want to go for next year. They have to do a writing prompt when they come back and kind of showcase what they did. They're loving the shadowing piece. It's tough. They go one at a time to the program so like one kid goes to the automotive one kid's going to culinary and baking and so it's can be a little scary. But they're all doing really, really well. Also, you know, some of the things that we're looking ahead on is our work with the Barrie Cal pasture. We do a lot of community service. We work with a conservation group here in Barrie. The last three years we've been pulling invasive species of the Barrie Cal pasture and monitoring kind of that growth from them again and seeing if we're able as a class to kind of put a dent in these species that could negatively impact, you know, that conservation area. It's a lot of hard work. They're going to be exhausted. Every year we've gone out there. They're tired by the end of the day. They're covered in mud. But they get really, really into it. We also participate in Green Update. The last two years we have done Green Update in Barrie and Montpelier. We're hoping to kind of branch out to some of our other sending school, you know, communities to kind of further helping our sending units. You know, our sending communities. I think that would be, be pretty fun. You know, and I'm certified to teach NCCR and so is Tim, and that is the national construction curriculum for education and research. So these guys are going to learn all about shop safety. They all have their OSHA 10 certification that they get through our program, but they're still going to dive into what's a personal system, what is lockout tag out, what is, how do you read an SDSE so that they can go into next year and be leaders, and then go into the workplace and already have this information so that, again, they can be leaders and they can have a little bit more skill. They'll also learn introduction to hand tools and power tools. It's a great way, it's all in lab form. There is some reading, but it's a great way for them to be hands on as well. One thing our students have said that they want us to kind of do when we were talking about this was reach out to more industry partners and get industry partners in our class or us going to their job site so that they can make connection and see what it's like out on the job site. We've been really brainstorming and thinking about who can come in. We've heard from previous expo students who would be more than happy to come back who's currently working in the field and would love to interact with our current students, and I think that would be really cool. I think for both of us as well to kind of have that full circle. So I know we've got two in the automotive industry who definitely wanted to come back, about one in the building companies that we contacted. Are those shooting engineering? Yeah, I believe so. We're building management because she's working at the new Burlington High School site currently. Oh, great. So that's one thing our students said they would like us to kind of bring it into our curriculum. So that's something that we're, you know, we ask you guys, you know any connections we're going to still reach out and kind of see what we've got. And then, Tim, do you want to speak about your chemistry curriculum with activity? Sure. So one thing we're being more conscious of this year, well all years, is to make sure that we're adequately hitting all of the benchmarks in terms of our proficiencies and making sure that we aren't just checking off boxes. So with our history unit that starts generally after the holiday break we look at American history from the reconstruction just about after World War II and we focus on a lot of history that wasn't really readily available to me when I went through high school. So it's just interesting to see what information students don't know about the experience of some unrepresented communities in our history. And it tends to be it's not something that I like to force, you know, anything that's contrived for students doesn't work, especially ours. By this time of the year that's why we have to start this curriculum and it's slowly kind of introduced to them and that time also we're beginning a new book. We read two, we read Into the Wild and the second one is Freedom Riders Diary. And with Freedom Riders Diary it still connects to the book that we read previously because it's a young person who writes down their story but also has a lot more things that young people deal with that maybe there's a lot of parallels between what they go through but there's a lot of extremes that they don't see here in Vermont. So it ends up being really good and I'm hoping to utilize life, our equity in residence with that curriculum he's already offered. We've talked several times. I just want to make sure that he's available. I know he's got a lot of roles to fill in our school. Overall we're really happy with this year. We're never not happy with students but this year we feel like something's clicking even with their time management piece and the responsibility to do the right thing. We had a discussion with them on Friday about you're in shadow and you might see a different culture because each classroom's a different culture and just because you are part of that culture for that day does not mean that you you're still representing our program and we still have expectations Jody still has expectations of you so regardless of what you may or may not see you know in the program you still need to be responsible for your actions because at the end of the day you're representing yourself in our program and in past years that message has been a little bit tougher for our students to swallow. Now students understand that they not only are doing that outside of our classroom but they're doing it inside of our classroom before we have to have so many conversations about cell phones. So many conversations about cleaning up after themselves and using appropriate language in the right place, right time. Now the redirect is far between it and it's nice and I think that it's taken a while but I think we're starting to hit things right. You know we've got a little saying in our class and if you go to our classroom and if you say expo is a what they're going to fill in the blank we like to really talk with our students about how expo is a year long interview and what that means is they interviewed, they worked hard to get into exploratory work. Now they have a whole year from day one all the way to the time they start their new program that they have to showcase that they want to be in tech because it's hard to get into some of our programs like automotive, like building trades who have a lot of applicants. Our students can showcase themselves for a whole year and so that they want to be here and that they're ready to do the work. You know, not every kid wants to participate in a culinary challenge. Well there is business we're going to be at but not every kid may want to do the cosmetology updo challenge but they understand that they still have to do that and they have to show up, time, participate and it does, it reflects their want to be in tech. It's pretty cool. Any questions for us? How many students do you have right now? This year we have 20. We started off with 22 and in past years we've had 24. We did switch up our space so I will be the first person to admit that I was a little worried about the space particularly because the space we had before we had one kind of big room and we were all able to meet but I've been pleasantly surprised with having a smaller room has brought a sense of intimacy with our classroom as a whole and we are physically connected and we are emotionally connected with those three spaces. It goes classroom, lab space, classroom. I have a mini lab space in my area but I really think that where we're at right now in terms of students, 20 is a really good manageable fit particularly for the space. I think we could go a bigger space but yeah so that's a proposed answer. We have 20. But the cool thing and I'll talk about that space it's been really nice. We've been focusing a lot on community building. When we talk about quarter awards we were switching it up and student leaders kind of hold that to build our community. The cool thing about exploratory is we collaborate with most of the programs. This year we didn't get to three programs. We collaborated with seven other programs to kind of introduce them. In the mornings before school even starts we have students from our program, building trades and sometimes automotive. They all come in that teeny tiny shop. I have a giant car deck of Uno and from 8 to 830 they're all playing Uno together and it's kind of cool to see that community start to happen. I think all the work that's being done plus what we have done has really brought some programs together. It feels in those students who are coming in from two years ago last year, this year, they're bringing friends over from their program and students who maybe wouldn't get the opportunity to meet. Now they're coming to our classroom, we know them by name and even though we hope to not have to do that it's much easier to redirect the student when you have a relationship with them as we all know. And now if someone's being a bit too animated in the hallway it's easier for us to kind of tone things down because of all the leaders that we do have in all those programs, which is really nice. Any other questions? I was just curious, this is the third year that you're teaching the history sort of the more diverse curriculum? No, this is the fifth year? Yeah, this is the third year that we're working together. So you've seen the kids five years in a row, what is the desired outcome that you're looking for now with that partnership with life but what is your biggest hope? So my biggest hope for our school with life in general is to have students kind of just realize that there's gray areas in the world. I have my fixed beliefs on things but I try to think of myself as somebody who's open minded and I'm somebody who realizes that there's an argument for nurture and there's an argument for nature and I know that sometimes when we have students come in and they, I mean Central Vermont is such a small place in a relatively big world and I want our students to be prepared to be able to function in other spaces that are outside of Central Vermont. I feel like some of our students, some of our former students would have a hard time walking downtown but I think they would feel uncomfortable. There's nothing wrong with feeling uncomfortable, I think that's a good thing. I just want our students to be able to accept people based on experience and not based off of facade and I'm hoping that life can tactually help us if it's once in that seat. Any questions from folks on the video? It's great to hear so much going on with light because we should have met one of these meetings. I would be kind of cool and I'd love to hear what you think of how it's going for him at the program. Thanks Ashley. He's scheduled for the February meeting because he's working on the equity policy updates and so he's going to give the board an update at that point and I'm hoping he also weighs in at your meeting on the 20th when I show up for the budget presentation. Oh nice, that's great. Oh I'm glad to hear that. He's our equity scholar in residence but he's on the Harvard board. So is it typical that an Expo student does apply to come back to the program and say what like almost 90% I think to apply to come back we have high numbers and we have high numbers who come back. I know three years ago we had all 24 I think at that point we had 20 because we had some super students. All of them came back. Last year we had probably a 90% come back. Generally speaking students who don't come back for the following year due to them being asked to leave our school for something that's happened, that's out of our control or they move. I think last year we had one because they didn't move or anything, right? We had some weight lists. Yes, weight lists and that's true. They all apply. And that's sometimes one of the toughest things that we're continually thank you for bringing that up is that we do accept freshmen. And so freshmen are in a position where they really want to get in the program like building trades or automotive. Seniors get priority and automotive having a license is kind of a requisite to be in that program. So we try to encourage students to choose a program where they have a better chance of getting into. Good thing is, I don't think we find anybody who didn't get in and didn't reapply. Because there are weight lists that are reapplied for this year. It's tough with some of those kids coming in ninth grade and again automotive has such high numbers that Mr. McHenry's hands are tied. But we have some incredible ninth graders that we don't want to lose. So we have to really talk to them about the fact that just think about seat space and we need a bigger building. We need a bigger building and it's also a good argument for a foundation's level and then being able to build pathways so that students have access throughout. We've had a couple instructors say, sorry. How many students did you turn away this year? We had, I think our, we had I think 67. I think a little bit of numbers. I might have that in my bag just a minute. I know it was either close to triple what we accepted. And you had several that you accepted they signed the bottom line that they were coming and then they didn't. This is the first year where that's actually happened dramatically. This year we had a lot of students were very happy with the way our classroom turned out. But yeah, we really really really like to try to prevent that from happening again. Because even though we tried our best it's really tough to be able to like see if the students can be a really good fit. Even though we do all these things, we have all these protocols, it's tough. Sometimes we have students who are like we had no idea a student was going to shine that much. So why do you think that happened? This is speculation. I think we need to fight us being a bridging program or a less than general ed type of place and I feel that and this again this is all somebody it's all here say but I've heard that there's been times where parents, guides, counselors, teachers saying if you go to the tech center then you're off college track. Or you know and sometimes I think snowballs if one person from a school says no and then the other person's like why aren't you going? Again, all speculation. And that's why the students who come to our classroom are so brave because not all of them come with friends. You walk into our classroom and now you think they've known each other the whole lives because of how close they get. And they even talk about that when we do a circle or a team builder. Yeah, we focus a lot on team buildings but in the beginning of the year we're completely heavily focused on it but all throughout the year we do some kind of team building to the point where last year and it made us laugh. Last year, the last couple weeks of school, we were told we're not allowed to talk about how many days are left to school because they're going to miss Hexpo and they're like a family and what are they going to do next year without each other and it's cool to see our class really does become a little family. We do one of our final circles we're usually pretty far into the Freedom Riders Diary and one of the things that the teacher talks about is like judging the books by its cover. We go around and talk about a time where you judge a book by its cover and every single time, I thought Joey was a mean wrestler who didn't care about anybody. We're like best friends now. It's fun. It is really fun. Any other questions for these folks? And you said you sent the link Okay, awesome. We'll also post that video on our Instagram. I follow you guys on Instagram. Absolutely. Our kids kind of like it. First person to comment or like, they get a little worried. To go to that banking competition where there was buffalo, mac and cheese. That was a pretty intense project and the student who was talking about it Yeah, you judged it. In the beginning, we do our culinary unit where they learn some of the basics but then we have this culinary challenge where they're split up into groups of five and we start talking about the roles of the kitchen. You've got your executive chef, your sous chef budget manager. We have to clean up positions and we talk about how important those roles are. They're given a $50 budget. They have to come up with a recipe and they're only given one heat source. Either a crock pot or a hot plate. They have to cook a meal for $50 to feed the entire class and they have to we all went to the store, we all went to Shaw's and we had to think about budgeting. So $200 as a class $50 each to buy your ingredients. We talked about name brand versus store brand. This year it was like $197.62 so they were right under it and then they have to prepare their dish and they have to keep their stations clean and plate it and be ready for 12 o'clock when our judge is to walk in and talk about visitation and how it went and it's a lot of fun. It can be very stressful. I got to participate last year. It's fun. It was a burger or something. No, that's actually a culinary. Thank you so much for being here and for everything you do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to sign this. Next up on our agenda is the first reading of our remaining policies. I do think it looks like this is an action so we'll want a motion. Were there any in particular that you wanted us to discuss Jody that were significantly changed? I think when I talked to Jody about this I think the restraint policy I think there's a new policy out so we should take a look at replacing that at some point. I'm fine with approving this tonight because we'll give us something and we should take a look at that. It's just the first reading so we can make that change. Is there a time of year when the school board association or the agency rolls out new policies? It's constantly changing especially right now but we had a resolution about that. There's a couple of others but usually in our emails there's something that we should be looking at. We checked in for about that. The only other question I had, Jill was like sometimes it's worth it to look at the numbers and just make sure that the numbers are aligning with the BSBA because it just happened to us recently at our own meeting and there was a couple that we used to different districts and I don't know if Barry has done this. He used to sometimes number it differently and then sometimes we miss the update because we have different numbers so it might be, I didn't have time, I was wanting to do that but I didn't have time, but we might want to just have check that our numbers are aligning because that would make it easier to see if something is aligning. That makes sense to you. You'll see in C33 the assessment because our assessment rules are different than the rest of the schools that you all represent and so I put the CTE requirements in the work keys there. Are there any questions or comments about the policies? Anyone want to volunteer to do the renumbering? Are you sure? In all your spare time. One last question. Jody on the scholarship award policy how many awards are tied to the scholarship committee? Do you know off the top of your head? Which scholarship committee are you referring to? Referring to the Spalding High School. I think there's five and we might have one additional. But I can bring the list of scholarships next time. That would be good for us to kind of know anyway. So how is that coordinated? How does the communication line work with that? I'm not in charge of that part. Here's what I think happens and I could miss a step but we in-house have an application set up where the students apply that and it has just information about them. It has a why are they interested in a scholarship? What are they planning to do in the future? And that helps us match if it's one of the ones that requires college or not because the scholarships have different sort of things that we need to match them up with. And then it has also, they have recommendation so there's a little form to fill out and a person could also have recommendation so they have to have three recommendations. So one is from program advisor, one might be from someone at work, one might be from someone else that they know. So there's three of those and so we go through and the first we kind of score all of the scholarship applications. Their resume is in there too. So each part gets scored by a committee in-house which consists of the assistant director, the admin assistant usually myself and a couple of teachers whoever has chosen to be a part of that committee. And then we discuss them after the scoring and then go through the list of scholarships and the scores and the caveats for each scholarship and try to match them up and try to make sure that everyone that completed an application gets something. It's not always possible but for the most part we've done a pretty good job. In fact recently we've been able to give multiple scholarships to some students. If they didn't finish their application and there's still time for the deadline we try to push them to finish it, get that last piece do you have that? And sometimes we have to hold some anyways because they have very specific. Might even have, there's a couple of scholarships that are gender specific. Sometimes we reach back out and say does it really have to be one girl and one boy that receives this? Is there another way that we can deliver this piece or do they have to be going to college or can you, if they're going into the trade but they're doing the apprenticeship work, can that, it'll be applied to that. So sometimes we kind of reach back out. So usually they let us identify the students that we think would be there and give a little information about them. So the five or six scholarships that are associated with the investment group. They still give it to us to. But who holds the money, the other money for the other scholarships. That's not included in the, that's not a separate fund. In the past years there's a new accounting regulations that we have to, how we track that fund essentially. So we've been doing that since we started. I think it was in the audit. It's a newer. Thank you. I'll make a motion when we approve these for first reading. Okay. Thank you guys. Do I have a second? Second. Can we further discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? Okay. So we have approved this slate of policies for first reading. All right, next up is our committee reports. So we'll start with a finance committee and we also do have the budget presentation link in our agenda. Finance committee aren't we? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if there were questions. Does anyone need it to be projected? Because I would need to have Michelle log in for that. Got it. Okay, good. So the finance committee met before Jodi had her first meeting. She's always had to put on so many hats that day. But in finance we've been talking a lot about, and you were at the last meeting when Jodi talked about getting up for sprint and a half and using her director have to. And then getting back for sprint and have to visit all our schools. So the budget is much better than it was and Michelle is here with us. So we looked at the budget but we're going to look at that further down in our packet today. Right Jill? Yeah, we're also, we don't need to do that because there's that budget presentation. Well I guess we just do it now. Yeah, right now. So let's do the budget presentation first. Should we share the screen? I think everybody got to look at it. Everyone got a copy so they all said they're fine. I think the only change, we made a couple of changes adding our parameters. But I think the most important thing is that we're telling our narrative not just showing numbers but telling what we're doing, what our mission is and always leading with how we're serving kids as opposed to just leading with just numbers so that people know what our student needs are and what our ultimate vision and mission as a school is. We added the budget development to one of the slides and the budget parameter. We felt that it was good to add the budget parameter too because it also shows that we are further down from where we originally as the finance committee we were like oh my god we're going to be between 16 and 18 and we are at 12, 11, 11, 8, 11, 3. Are there questions on the budget presentation? It's lights first. So the pupil waiting piece will not necessarily directly affect us. Not in the way we're funded right now. Will it factor in at some point? I think we have to think of it as factoring in because it affects our sentences. And so it affects their budgets and then our budget impacts their budget also because they think for the tuition. In our student districts some of them are being more effective than the others. But I think for actual numbers for us as we calculate our budget it shouldn't affect us. What it would affect us is as we go to pass our budget because we are one more budget. This is just my side but like we did last year we really need to highlight the fact that our budget is not in addition to when the voters go to the polls. I think it's still confusing for people that they vote on our budget but our budget doesn't actually add any money to the overall. Can we slide back in? This presentation got test piloted at Montpelier last week so I already spoke with the Montpelier board because that's when they could get us in and that was one of the topics that there was question and discussion about in that board meeting. I think people just need that reminder line and you're right and I think that was pretty clear in that meeting too they're like oh wait how does your budget work was one of the questions like how do people vote on it, what if it gets voted down and so we reminded them that all of our votes are commingled so if it gets voted down because she had asked in two towns it doesn't matter we won't know if it's in two towns or all of them what the process would be if we had to go to re-vote or if it's past because who knows who's voting what but we win it's already accounted for in your budget and they're like oh yeah I forgot about that so and Libby was able to help talk about that a little bit as well but it is really important and certainly in our messaging that goes out to the greater community we need to make sure that that's something. What you don't see in this is the notes at the bottom of each slide so I think you do have the presentation the actual presentation shared with you so if you're looking at the actual presentation that was linked in the agenda then you have the little notes on the bottom and the tuition slides have a lot of detail in them and that's just a reminder for me and then all of you when we get into our February meeting of some of the things that we need to cover and talk about when talking about tuition and how it impacts our sending schools. Well the compelling slide for me is the tuition comparison pieces yeah this one we haven't updated yet because I only have four others to compare to right now but it looks the same it's going to look the same. The Hannaford and Southwest I do have their numbers Hannaford's is right around 30,000 Southwest Tech is over 27,000 per student Stafford is 21,000 next year and Riverbend is 17,6000 I think those four I have the others I don't have ours is 1945, is that right? Somewhere around that for next year. Could be 19 19, 420 Dre agree on alignment. Judy have you ever talked to the other directors about why you know Hannaford is almost 30 and we're not even 20? A lot of the Hannaford costs are debt service for their north campus they have two programs in a new building on the north side they're the last center that got any funding for building something so we may be joining them in 2029 or before yeah it's the debt service that really is a lot for them and they're in Middlebury I think the only other thing that I have on my nose here from that meeting is that we were going to discuss putting 50,000 on our capital we were just going to have this one balance discussion or is that going to wait for the next meeting or should we talk about it today? I think it's always nice to just talk about it so what came up at this meeting was that we in the past have used one balance to offset tax increase so in this budget we have a hundred thousand dollars I believe that we already we know that it's going to be more that we already put towards lowering the tax I think as a board we have to move away from using fund balance for keeping our taxes down that's just not good use of one time money so the idea was that we would use that money to put it into our capital so this year we could potentially put 1,000 dollars we're going to need it or whatever we decide to do so it would either be for design work or buying money we don't accept we know where we're headed but we're going to need that money and it would be in I speak for just the two of us that were at the committee it should be a poor decision not just us but it's not that use of money and I think we all agree with that because we're not doing a good service to our students and to our community members right that money is better used for students than students needs so what's the is there a rule of thumb amongst your peers in terms of what's a acceptable fund balance well it's still very new because we became a new district and we weren't allowed to necessarily you know tax them and we weren't allowed to have more than one percent historically CBCC has put at least a few thousand dollars of whatever the circumstances, whatever they brought forward towards tuition reduction for the following year that I left in this year but it is a good idea to start thinking about those that fund balance of putting it into something for the future for us rather than these tuition offsetting these tuition costs I can't say it's ever it's going to get easier this year is really hard in a lot of districts because of negotiations and health care increases in someone you know we could lower either within the year or two you know maybe I also spoke to the auditor and we safely have conservatively at least twice this amount for a fund balance moving forward so it's just dependent on what we would like and is that about the three percent it is but now that we're on our own school district it doesn't apply to us we're like a normal school district well I know in Montpelier Roxbury we have like a policy that we always keep at least two percent or three percent or something like that in our fund balance for whatever and it's been higher than that when you come up with 50 because we thought we were just going to I originally wanted to get the whole 100,000 but I was like oh my god we can't use fund balance but when we started looking at the tuition it just didn't make sense right now and we just got called I was going to completely change our numbers and when we were using 150,000 as the we think that's how much it sounds like it's 200,000 so if it's you know in my mind we should just keep 100 because that's what we committed as they created this budget and then if we have 100,000 we should go into the capital fund and start that process that it would be like every year we have fund balance the way that we do it now in our district is 2.6 of whatever fund balance we go goes immediately into the capital fund just to see in order to keep our buildings the student outcomes as we all believe here so I think it would be a wise way to start moving us out of that out of that cycle I don't think that very necessarily have much of a choice of what they were able to do because that's what the law states as anything over 3% has to go towards tuition so your proposing we leave the 100,000 that we banked here for this current budget and then we take 50,000 from our fund balance to make a commitment to a capital plan to make sure that you know and it's a change of culture for a community a change of culture for ourselves as a more to the start committee ourselves to that and then you have 50,000 left and then whatever we put in the capital plan we know we can't move it it's not like there for graphs because that's where the waste comes up we just had the discussion Does it still work where you go to the voters and ask for it to be moved? It depends on the amount in our policies and actually what we agreed upon and what the camera and the structure are and we don't have that working budget Right now it would be philosophical as a district we don't have something that says if it goes and we have the plan can be moved back but I think that is an agreement that we should not make at this meeting Anything is possible if things happen But I think what we are all trying to create here is a system that is just an us being at this table but future generations come to the table it won't matter if you know that's a decision we can make and not have the voters vote on it We're going to have to go back and check So we're just talking about the idea And it sounds like I might want to bring some policy examples from other districts Because I know some of the former boards have served on you had to have voter approval to use those funds Yeah, because you usually have passed something that doesn't allow you to do so because in the past that's how we've been lowering our budgets and you go and steal from your capital money So if you were to apply 100,000 to this current budget what effects does that have on tuition if any? It's already in there Yeah, and we looked at what it would be to take it out and it was slightly complicated, not complicated it was just an effect I was making steps 15% Yeah 9% So if you took out that 100,000 offset it's 15 points We've used the worksheet that Penny used to do tuition because it's such a complicated formula and so we have to all those pieces in and last we get finance started talking about what if we take that out So we could start slow towards that goal if not static But it gained interest or anything? Any questions? So if the committee is okay with that then we could come back to that proposal but at least I think we could have a green man Mine's not about the capital so if we're still talking about that I can wait I don't know Maybe we need a motion to be more clear I just need a direction That sounds like a good plan I was going to say it's a December meeting It'll be one week before we have to announce our tuition officially Okay Yeah but this shouldn't affect the because we're not taking out that 100,000 and just anything is worth and numbers will be shown for the fund balance for the capital Any objection to the finance committee coming back with the proposal? Sound like a plan? Thank you very much Go ahead What are the policy, the program quality changes? One of the things that you see in that slide show is the head count and you see the zero out on the design and fabrication and you see Welding is in there with 16 I did talk about that being our likely future because we have lots of applicants for Welding and zero We have two students currently in the program who would like to co-op That's all we've got Yes, also talked about that I sent that out to all the principals We sent it out to all the counselors across the schools There were no questions or really concerns about it They're good with our choice and understand the reasoning Any further questions or comments? Thanks Michelle Last Monday we met with Trent Collins and discussed the previous plans that I took in place and the fact that we need to refresh some of those There's new information that needs to be put into them We talked about that and some of our visions and thoughts about what we would like to do and they were supposed to come back with a proposal hopefully by tonight but they didn't quite make it They have some additional questions and clarity that they would like so we're meeting with them Monday morning at 10 to chat with them again and hopefully come back with a proposal They're not going to be working on anything They shared a timeline with us today It feels exciting to be starting something We have to start somewhere Great, thank you Any questions or comments on that piece? Maybe we'll have the next meeting I have a question from those folks Program quality Negotiations We'll provide an update Item 2.9 and then we'll have an executive session as well Board handbook draft action I think it might be ready for any else that needed to be in the board handbook I feel like I have the charge of each committee and the goals accurately reflected in there and I think we can adopt it and also know that it's a living document Any motion? I guess I do I have a motion to adopt the board handbook I just couldn't find it and I just found it If you look at page 27 I was elected for one year so I need to be real I need to run again and on page 28 that kind of is in conflict election year 2023-26 I think there's something wrong in the matrix I just want to make sure we double check Are you sure that you ran just for one year? Yes, I was appointed and then I ran so that is off What was the other page? Page 27 and 28 It should be 2023-25 No, it should be 24 because Lyman didn't you run last year and you ran for three I can't do any research Terry, we should check in with Rosie too I ran one Carol told me that she's up for election then we were confused We can't see you right now because we're looking at for the articles I'm positive I ran for one and just so you guys know I'm running Wait wait wait Change the numbers now Just when we're starting this project I'll stay on the facility committee I haven't totally made up my mind but I just want to get the word out I like competition Do you know of anybody that wants to run? There's a webinar tomorrow at 7pm of anybody that's thinking of running so please let your friends know send a little email because we need more people Did we end up? No, was there another question? Ashley, did you have your hand up? Or were you a second? I didn't hear who was the first, was it Juliano or Guy? I was the second Any further questions or discussion on the handbook? As Jody said it's a living document so it'll always be up for amendments if we need to All those in favor say aye Any opposed? So we have approved the board handbook draft Thank you so much for making that I'll find that and update it so it's accurate before we take draft off the title Next up we have the superintendent's report I shared a bunch of photos from our open house The record breaking year last year we were excited to have over 450 guests This year we had over 550 guests who attended our open house Thank you to all of you that came, it was really exciting and really crowded in some spots I've also included the plumbing and heating program has a new base structure we were required to do that when the fire inspector walked through and was looking at different pieces and the base structure is a permanent feature so we built that, they're going to put sprinklers under it in the summer and then our plumbing and heating will build on top of that so that was one of the disappointments at our open houses that we didn't have that ready to go so you couldn't see kids working in the actual rooms for plumbing and heating but now that space is done the base is done, the frame is up and they're getting moving on that so when we get to trades fair that will be an opportunity to see it baking and culinary students do some work with the very area senior center so they started their monthly meals there they did that last week and our student leadership participated in Act 77 convention which was really exciting we had some students go there, Act 77 is the flexible pathways act and in the newsletter that you got from our new admin assistant Anna Ryan, today you'll see there's a link to the recording of that if you want to take a look and our students very clearly talk about how excited they are to be here and why they chose to come and so it's wonderful. Any questions on the superintendent's report? and also at the start of the open house Jody also hosted a conversation with a lot of the area lawmakers which we actually had a pretty good crew come in which I think was really helpful, we had good conversations about CTE, about the funding about what's coming down the pipe so that was a great idea. And a couple of them came in late but they're still following, they're responding to emails that I've sent so it's good. Alright, next up is the accounts payable which we had in our packet, were there any questions about the accounts payable? Okay, alright, next up I'm very happy to, the next topic is the ratification of the teacher's collective bargaining agreement. So just so folks have context, the Barry Educators Association that is our, the bargaining unit that we work on with, did ratify this agreement late, last Thursday, which means that now as a board I would ask as the head of the negotiations committee for you folks to support ratifying the teacher's collective bargaining agreement Guy and Jason and I have, I think it's just, it's been over a year, I think we had our first meetings in November last year. So I would love to entertain a motion to ratify our teacher's collective bargaining agreement. Jason should second it. Second it. Okay, thank you. Guy, happily, enthusiastically and are there any questions, further discussion from anyone before we take a motion? Alright, just so folks are aware, this contract is essentially, it addresses this current school year and then next year, so it will be applying sort of retroactively to the beginning of the school year for folks. So we will, in the contracts will be going out. Yes. If it's ratified. In a year we're going to need to pick this process back up. It's a two year contract, but we're halfway through the first year of it. The first school year of it. So yeah, I know from your questions. Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Yay! Okay, it's official. Thank you all very much. Thank you Jason and Guy. Jill, if I may you know I've said this a few times, you know what a great job he did as our leader. I mean you really pulled the wagon. I gotta be honest with you. I mean, so I got you a little sunshine. Thank you so much. You know, you did a really great job. I mean, you know, you folks weren't there, but you know, that means you're just our spokesperson and you know, had to keep notes and had to do this and had to do that and you know, so thank you. People need to know that. That means a lot. Thank you very much. Yeah, it was a team effort and we learned a lot. Thank you very much. I was wondering what those were. Thank you. Alright, so next up we have two executive sessions. Do we know if folks for our student hearing? Stephanie would let them in if they're here, but I suspect that they're not. 7.45 is their time. Okay. They are not here at the moment and I'm keeping watch. Okay, why don't we go into the other executive session for the negotiations committee update. So the motion is on the agenda if anyone would like to read it. I move that the board enter into the second session for the purpose of the administration's update as premature general public knowledge should fairly place the board and the association of wellness, essential and disadvantage. In addition, we would like to invite our superintendent and the judgey members to do the second session. Second. Do we want to amend the motion to include Michelle or? No, Michelle said no. Okay. No, that's why you can't sell one for well. Okay, go, go, go. Alright, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Alright, great. It looks like so we are back out of executive session and I did want to, I skipped over agenda item 1.4 public comments and correspondence. Was there an update from you on correspondence we should discuss? So I believe everyone on the board got two emails last Thursday night from two different staff members and then I also shared a letter that I had received handed to me with you from another staff member and they're expressing concerns that we've talked about at various points throughout the year. So one of the issues that we had was with federal tax withholding with our company that we went with to do payroll last year that we contracted with. It's part of the reason why we shifted to ERP Pro, whatever it's called, there's a full name. That's why we changed our system for this year and we're operating with a different system. And so we did have concerns about that. I have lots of communication that Michelle had with that company and we're still trying to figure out what's the best way to try to make things right for our staff. Some folks did pay a lot of extra taxes or had unexpected taxes to pay. It's not that they paid more than they should have, it's just that not enough was taken out of their paychecks throughout the year and so then they had to pay in. So we've had a couple express that they may have penalties or that they're on payment plans and frustration with that which we never would have wanted our staff to have to deal with that piece. We wonder, I wonder if the board joins the teachers union in a letter and maybe with our auditing group to this company if there will be some sort of way to make things right and I'm not exactly sure what that would be or what the cost would be. There were some things in that letter that were unrelated. So the 403B pieces that were taken from the payroll, those were held once we got those plans set up and there was a staff member who did not fall through and get them to where they needed to be. Once Michelle was aware of that, she stepped in and took over that piece and so it has been corrected and those have been made since then and I think you could argue that we actually probably not intentionally but saved some of our folks some money by not having them distributed to their 403B but that was not intended and that was a staff member who did not do their job and they no longer work for us. The last item I think also relates to that staff member who didn't do their job our tax exempt status, they never filed for it and so when we uncovered that, Michelle immediately filed for it and it takes eight months and we're about five months into that, that's my understanding. So they have some valid complaints that these things happened. I also think we've done pretty much everything that we could to try to make it right. I'm not sure if there's something else that we could do I did not respond directly to those letters because I think there was a need to see how you would like me to respond. So is the company owning up to their mistakes? In every communication they had with Michelle they continued to argue that they were doing the calculations correctly or that they had adjusted them so that they were now correct. So it looks like we're headed for disagreement. Yes we are, yes. And I think though what I'm inclined to do is to hand our contract with them from last year over to Pietro and have them take a look at it and also get some information about how much has actually been lost. So for the payroll pieces and the federal tax withholding how many folks really do have penalties to pay? What are those add up to? For the other items that aren't really related to that company I would like to see if there was a negative impact from those 403Bs. I think this board needs to help me make a decision on how do we write that because we do know that that was an error in our office. So I've taken the steps I needed to in that case. Michelle has fixed it so that we're doing it correctly at this point and we know they're going in but how do we make amends for what happened if we need to? So if they didn't get the right amount taken out for the 403Bs, it's not like they lost money. So the money was taken out for their 403B starting in January because that's when those accounts were set up under the new district but it wasn't put into them until March when we were aware of that situation. We found out that it wasn't going in and Michelle took over and she put a lump sum in at that point. So we held that money for time when we shouldn't have been holding it. So you held the money but it wasn't invested. It wasn't invested until March, correct. And so there's more than likely it would have been a loss to some degree for them if it had been invested. However, we don't know how they invested and so they could have had gains but they didn't get because we didn't put it in until March. Well, things weren't going great between January and March. Right, but I think it makes sense for those folks to let us know what that is because we have no idea what sort of amend we could do if we need to. Well, I think we probably have a responsibility to make them whole. Somebody has to figure that out that's higher pay grade than me obviously and I can't blame people for being upset. No, I can't either. So we're working to make things right and it sounds like the company may or may not work with us. The company was recently bought by another company so we'll see what happens. I think it makes sense to find out as much as I can about the actual numbers of impact and then also legal counsel perspective on it. So would you pick these folks based on what your other colleagues were doing or what do you remember? I do remember. It was a very frustrating process so as we were splitting from Barry we were looking for a company and we wanted to stay with Tyler because that's what Barry had and they were shifting, Tyler was shifting to this new program but they wouldn't take any new customers unless we took the new program then and we didn't have $75,000 to spend on it at the time and that's what they quoted us at the time which was about $5,000 less than the USD. So thinking about the size of our districts. So we looked at other options can we contract out? Can we look at quick books using that in the office? Basically what could we do in the interim? Well we figured out how could we get to that Tyler technology program that we now have and so we were able to work through that and we looked at different Michelle looked at different vendors. She picked this company because we could afford them and it appeared like they could do all the things that we needed them to do. That wasn't true. So how would legal counsel review the contract with that company and then maybe I don't know if it's supposed to come from me or from you but back to the letter writers that we shared their concerns, we've taken steps to address it and if they're interested in writing a complaint, a formal complaint, if that's what legal counsel says we should do with us I don't know. And I don't know how you quantify what an investment would have done, had it. I'm not sure there is an answer and I wonder if our legal counsel might have maybe that's happened somewhere in the past. At the time I did reach out to Chris when in March and I can probably find that communication with him and he said we did what we could to make it right at the time and he doubted that anyone had lost anything so I think he said we probably did them a favor I don't necessarily agree that we did anyone a favor but I'm glad that it didn't go longer than that unnoticed. So I can find that communication as well. Any other questions? Is that enough? Yeah, I think so. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. I guess what I want to know are you going to respond to them? I can follow up with my request for please provide. Yeah, actuals. Yeah, why don't we do that? Okay. And then I see that our next person is here. Can I make a motion? Yes. We apologize we hired a company that did more than what we thought they were. I apologize for that. So I'm going to move that we entered into a concession for the purpose of considering the student as authorized by 21 of this A.A. Section 3.3.7 to include and student family members. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. So we are now in executive session for the purposes of a student hearing.