 Just a quick little video that maybe if there's a classroom set up yet there may not be, but showing what six feet across looks like, or if it's down three feet across and the lower grades whatever it is looks like. If there's just one that you could show for each school that might relieve some concerns. But I know that that's part of the problems getting in the plexiglass if you're putting in partitions and things like that. Thanks Lindy. Flora and then Jonas. I think I was just going to reiterate what Brian had said in the in the health and spend a little bit of time the other day with Michelle because I was not sure that website was live in going back and some people are confused with the old website but that's just an archive but in health and facilities there's a lot of that in the newsletters. So I agree with you, Lindy, that maybe we could add something there but I think that the newsletters that direct communication with the principals has had the pictures for for for the parents. Thanks for Jonas. I don't think all of the newsletters have had those pictures and I just wanted to follow up on what Lindy said that because parents are not going to be allowed in the buildings and we parents are accustomed to being able to go in and you know experienced the rooms where our children spend so much of their lives, you know as much imagery, you know as much video, you know walking tours you feel comfortable sharing, you know about what's in each school I think we'll, we'll have a big impact. Great. Thanks. I'm very good. Are we okay with this then. Should we move on to, oh Lindy, yes. This is really just a public comment, not necessarily about the planning. I've been around the running errands where I go by the schools quite a bit this week, and since a lot of our tax dollars are being spent fixing up things. The marketing project at Berlin looks amazing and they, you know when you drive by and see all the big trucks I think if I had my boys were still five and seven. We would be spending a lot of time hanging out and watching all that truck work going on but it looks like a really nice project. I'm returning from Morrisville I got to come over the Worcester Hill and Dodie's project is in full on and the siting looks really nice where it's done and the windows look beautiful. I happened to go by calla saw some of the front entrance work that's being done. I think it's nice to recognize that this money that's being spent is really improving the buildings and the places where our children and our teacher spend an awful lot of time. I'm just looking at the, because Dodie still doesn't have all the sighting on, but the wrap and the new windows and thinking about the drafts and how that building was drafty. And some rooms, it just looks like it's going to be a much nicer situation for everybody. Thanks, Chris. So, in light of the multiple comments about trying to provide more pictures and videos of the schools. And in light of the, I think this is going back to account said a couple of meetings ago about high school students with not enough to do. I think we should authorize an expenditure to hire high school, several high school students to do the video work that would then make its way onto the website. And we leave the principals and other staff members who are undoubtedly busy with other things from that particular task. So I would, I would love to make a motion, if it's if it's advisable at this point or I can hold off until the end. But what we might be able to do Chris is just indicate by board consensus that we authorize the superintendent to undertake this because the expenditure. You'll have to make sure that it that it fits with the budget I'm sure Lori will insist. Steven look. Thanks on the community forum planning. If we're done discussing community forum planning can we move on to the next agenda item. Quite right. We're distracted and we're going all over the place. I'd really like to see if we could stay focused on our agenda and get the work that we need to get done first. The voice of reason. Thank you, Steven. I think let us let's hold that thought Chris, and we'll return to it. I think we'll find an opportunity a little bit later in the agenda where it won't provoke any objection. So if we're ready. Chris. Thank you. Oh, of course. Thanks. Okay. 3.2 wellness updates. I think the intention here is to kind of just get a quick idea of the pulse and temperature of the organization during a period of particular stress and flow of suggestion and thank you for for it. I don't know if you have anything to add of Brian you want to answer this. This floor have anything else I know this was a great idea to talk about with our and I know a principal fair has worked with our coven 19 coordinator. I think it's very important to hear what you have a presentation about the wellness of students and staff during this time. And I think it's very important to hear, hear what, hear this presentation. Thank you. I don't have anything I just want to make sure that that initiative that you guys had for self care is still going on. Thank you. Thank you. Yes and and I will say that principal fair is also on the on the task force social emotional learning so this is some of the work that they've been working on I'll let her, I don't want to take away any thunder from she's been working on this presentation very, very hard. The last few days so. Mrs fair you there. No one calls me this is fairly my mother. You can call me this cat. Thank you Brian. And thank you Elizabeth for helping me sort of direct the presentation. I'm, I did put something together. It's a little more formal than I would normally do but I think that that a visual is really helpful for folks instead of me just sort of talking at them. And I'm wondering, I think Keith McMartin is on here and said he was willing to sort of share the screen and put my presentation up this is a slide show it's only 16 slides it shouldn't take too terribly long. But because I will miss you we're not in person I won't be able to see your faces or expression I'm going to ask you to try to keep track of you have any questions or thoughts or concerns even to try and keep track of them so that we can I can answer them at the end, since I can't see your faces when you raise your hand. So okay. Keith do you mind putting up the presentation. Sure. One minute and I'll get it set up here. Thank you. I'll keep this getting it set up I will I will start out by acknowledging that the bulk of what I'm about to share with you is really not something that our task force is working on alone we have stakeholders from all over the state and even across the country that have been working to think about the emotional safety in addition to physical safety for folks returning to school in the fall. And the resources the guiding documents that we've been using. Come from ASCA that's the American School Counselor Association in Vitska, the Vermont School Counselor Association, and what you'll see on the screen there is everything that's in green. That is a link to another document so I'd love to make this presentation after we're done this evening, available on the site. And I'm happy to mail it to folks in the community and in the end to the board as well. I also have to say big props to Lisa LePlant. She's I'm getting all the kudos tonight by having put this together. It's really Lisa she's amazing. We're so lucky we have her. What I wanted to start out by saying was addressing the academic skills gap remains an important objective. However, students will not be ready to engage in formal learning until they feel physically and psychologically safe. So researching that sense of safety may take weeks or even months depending on the evolving context in individual communities and a range of factors unique to each individual. Even within a school community individual students and staff may be continuing to experience different stressors that could affect their personal sense of safety. As I said, as I said in the with the last slide this presentation you'll see a work of a number of stakeholders in school counseling and education from all around the state. I think it's really important to recognize those resources that we've pulled from so that you know we're not just sort of pulling it out of the head it's steeped in best practice. And, and the work of the of it's got the Vermont School Counselor Association ASCA. There's a lot of acronyms I hope that's okay National School Psychologist Association. It also reflects the work from Dave Melnick's planning on and well plan well and begin well document is important for us to acknowledge the the role that he has played in the work that we have done in Washington Central over the last two years around trauma informed and trauma transformed systems. We, we also pulled from quite a few resources from Castle which is the resource we are using to drive the work on SEL curriculums. And I just want to acknowledge with these names if you take a look at our task force in Washington Central is comprised of folks from each of our buildings and a variety of roles, and is focused on what the supports will look like in Washington Central. While much uncertainty surrounds how and when schools will reopen, we know that social and emotional learning will be critical to re engaging students supporting adults rebuilding relationships and creating a foundation for academic learning. This unprecedented shift to a new type of learning experience may have a lasting and profound impact on young people's academic social emotional and their life outcomes. School leaders will need to bring together administrators, teachers, school staff, families, youth and community partners to co create supportive learning environments where all students and adults can enhance their social and emotional competencies, feel a sense of belonging, heal and thrive. Educators in this moment of transition have an opportunity to reflect, innovate and build on an evidence based practices in schools across the country. The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored SEL as an essential part of high quality education, highlighting our relationships, resiliency and collective problem solving is fundamental to teaching and learning. While nearly everyone has faced some disruption, we must acknowledge the complex varying ways individuals have experienced these months. The pandemic has exposed an exacerbated existing inequities in education, and it's emphasized the need for learning environments that welcome and support all students, including those who were not equitably served even before COVID-19. Washington Central has established five task forces as we plan for reentry, and the SEL task force is focused solely on integrating SEL and academic supports, creating and maintaining a caring, safe and supportive environment for all students and adults. This fall we should expect some regression in academic, emotional and social areas and recognize that some students and families will not disclose that stress or challenges. It's also important to consider the impact of mass on the ability to read emotions and facial expressions, follow speech, participate in speech related interventions, and generally participate and focus on academics. SEL screening should have purpose, identifying how the data will be analyzed and used. The SEL curriculum should be embedded into core academic areas, and our task force has scripted some back to school interviews for students, staff and families. We will use this data as part of our system of support to identify where resources and interventions are more urgent. This is a really important point right here because all humans have been impacted in some way during this pandemic. Our team is focused on utilizing the best practices to identify where the impact is most critical or an urgent need of intervention. Our team, along with all of our task forces are building professional development for the coming year and in service. This PD should try to build from some of the unique learning experiences students may have had at home, while also acknowledging the potential loss that may be related to sports, performances, graduation or canceled travel. In elementary school this might look like supporting students in developing relationship building and conflict resolution skills by helping them to co-create shared agreements for their new class or their distance learning environment. In middle school it could look like offering adolescents an opportunity to reconnect and create a sense of closure from the previous school year. High school providing older students with a way to reflect and document their experience and what they've learned about themselves during the pandemic either through journal writing, their artwork, music or other creative outlets. It will be important to intentionally build structures that promote supportive adult student relationships and a sense of belonging. We need to ensure every student has at least one caring adult at the school who checks in regularly with them and whom they can reach out to. We should also examine our daily schedules or class assignments to create greater opportunities for meaningful teacher-student relationships. Examples include minimizing the number of transitions between teachers and classrooms, creating or extending time in a homeroom or advisory classes and looping students with the same teachers and peers from the previous year wherever possible. If distance learning continues, identify routines to maintain or deepen connections virtually or over the phone such as through smaller group meetings or individual check-ins. Recognizing that new structures will most likely be in place, creating a consistent routine and procedures that allow for flexibility as much as possible. Our team is planning professional development for staff, as I've mentioned, that is trauma-informed focused on self-care and a deep understanding of the relationship between the brain and the body on how we metabolize and cope with stressors. Our focus is intentionally on supporting staff. Guided by the SEL reentry plans of the Vermont School Counselor Association and Dave Melnick's work, we will be taking a systemic approach to ensuring social and emotional wellness for of our students and families. Knowing that students look to the adults and their lives for strength and support, we will start by making sure our staff members are ready and prepared to deal with the myriad issues that students and their families may be dealing with as school resumes, be it in person or remote. To this end, the SEL task force is designing screener activities and implementing supports for Washington Central faculty and staff, and we're planning pre-service professional development days prior to the start of school. We believe that infusing support and processing into our first staff days back together will serve as the guidepost and modeling for the upcoming days when students will return to their schools. This process of screening and responding to current events will serve as the foundation for the SEL practices as we return to school. Our team has also been working on how to identify support for students who are struggling. While not all students have the same experiences, some students have experienced grief, anxiety or trauma that may shape how they engage academically, socially, emotionally, or behaviorally. Our plans include how to support staff in proactively identifying and meeting the needs of students who may be struggling, working with family and community partners to create a comprehensive plan which may include providing additional mental health and trauma supports or connections to food, shelter, technology, transportation, and monitoring the response to ensure needs are met. So really that's three major components. Identifying the needs, connecting them with supports and interventions, and then monitoring their response to those interventions to ensure that all those needs are getting met. Clear evidence and understanding of the safety, the physical safety measures reinforces psychological safety, which is critical to overall safety. Our students, staff and families need a sense of both physical and emotional safety. The topic of reentry to schools is complex and it's emotionally charged. The SEL task force has worked in conjunction with some of our other task forces where there are implications for emotional safety. I have a few examples of some places where we've worked with some of the other task forces. We've worked with the health and facilities team and planning scripts for how to ask for space when someone gets too close. You can imagine that it's going to look different for a six-year-old in first grade saying, get away from me. There's got to be a way to teach them, give them a script for how to ask for space that it ensures their safety, and to make it normalized enough for the other kiddo to be able to receive that information because to hear to get away from me can also do some damage. So we're really working on that. We've started to talk a little bit with our curriculum instruction and assessment team about how to prioritize social emotional health and learning, when we also really, really want to focus on the academic growth. And we touched base most recently with the logistics task force about the safety drills that we need to conduct. There's still man data. We're still required to do them each month. What might those implications be? How might we plan for it to ensure the emotional safety if we're saying maintain physical distance? But we're going to have a lockdown drill. So let's curl up really tight and be quiet and breathe each other's air. Right? We're going to, this is the work we're faced with. It will be important to collect and act on the data around students who are disengaged or chronically absent. Again, like the drills, we need to keep in mind that the truancy laws have not changed and schools are still held accountable for them. One of the most critical tasks during the transition to the new school year will be supporting each student, particularly those whose needs were not fully met before COVID-19. Students who have not regularly attended classes, we need to develop a plan that addresses the root causes of their absences and leverage family and community partners to double down on individual outreach and relationship building. This may include revising existing policies and procedures that may have been inequitable or detrimental impact on students, such as punitive or exclusionary discipline practices that can contribute to student disengagement and retraumatized students. The SEL team is also planning elements of self-care and trauma-informed approaches and restorative practices for PD during pre-service. Attuned to the social and emotional needs of all the adults responsible for supporting students learning and development, the stress and well-being of teachers, principals, and staff are not new concerns. But the disruptions caused by COVID-19 have added to the educators anxiety and worry and stress. In a survey by CASEL, that was the resource I mentioned at the beginning, and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence in late March, they surveyed thousands of teachers that described their most frequent emotions during COVID-19 as anxious, fearful, worried, overwhelmed, and sad, and they cited the stress of adapting to virtual classrooms and working from home while caring for their loved ones. By creating time, space, and working conditions and a supportive work culture that help adults feel connected, empowered, supported, and valued, school leaders can help cultivate adults' SEL competencies and overall well-being. We talked a lot about this one tonight, and it will more to come as this evolves, but our website, our newsletters, and community forums are critical components to engaging and communicating with our families. While some of our guidance limits or prohibits activities that bring non-essential adults and families into the building, it doesn't mean we cannot hold on to our traditions and rituals like open house, meet the TA nights, meet the teacher. Just like graduation last June, we need to think creatively about how to offer these traditions like open house in the fall in new ways that are both safe and special. Resilience is fostered by and enhanced most effectively by a facilitated environment. It is far more effective to change the environment than to focus on changing an individual person, change the environment, control the context, and people change for the better. Our school counselors, multidisciplinary teams, community partners, and families are critical to creating a comprehensive plan for an emotionally safer return to school. Planning for the unexpected. Planning for the unexpected and being flexible and responsible, responsive has become the norm. In this age where we are expected to plan for school closure, dismissal, remote learning, and reopening schools with little or ever-changing guidance, mindset is the key. Nothing in this life comes without risk and we are not able to control whether or not we are in the midst of a pandemic. When the situation you find yourself in cannot be changed, the only thing you have control over is how you choose to let it affect you. This is mindset. We need to be open to engaging in what is meaningful, look for the opportunities embedded in what we have learned about ourselves during this time, and embrace the humor and joy all around us. It is there when we need to choose to see it. The coming months will mark continued transitions for everyone in school, communities as they prepare for an academic year that offers new types of relationships, learning, and operations. The transition may bring excitement, anxiety, concern, and other complex emotions as students wonder what the return to classrooms will look like. I anticipate reconnecting with peers and teachers and look forward to engaging in person in support of learning environments. This moment will call upon educators to intentionally and relentlessly your emotional and physical safety and a sense of belonging throughout their school community. High quality SEL implementation provides students an adult and opportunity to continue cultivating critical skills such as empathy and compassion, self regulation, stress management, communication, collaboration, that they will need not only to manage their experiences during the pandemic, but also to be the caring contributing members of their community that we wish them to be. SEL can also help educators reflect on how this experience has shaped our understanding of what and how we teach in schools, as well as the conditions that fully and equitably support student learning. That was my last slide. I do want to point out a couple of things as I was talking. And Keith, you can take it off the screen so I can see everyone's faces. And thank you for doing the slides for me, Keith. One of the things that I was thinking about as I was talking is a couple of things. One that I heard in town's voice in the room around what students are are nervous about excited about looking forward to that need for reconnecting. Also, Chris's call for let's talk about this and reframe what we're doing in terms of what we've accomplished, and not just what is his plan. So look for our next update to say what we've already established for our PD for the fall for staff. We've have accomplished a lot and I think it's important that we, we change our language and our voice to match that. Any thoughts or questions for me, I know I just did a lot of talking at you. And it was sort of a serious tone when I got to this slide on planning for the unexpected I had a kind of funny little video I wanted to show you and then I thought, hmm, it might not be the right mood. But if anyone wants to see a funny video later I'll share Steven I'm not going to do it right now because I know you want us to stay on task. Floor, did you have a question for me, or for the group. Maybe if you could make this presentation do the summarized version of this presentation for our public forum. I think it would be. Can I have a microphone you know I love one. I'm kidding. Can you hear me. No. Yeah. It was a joke. I was like, sorry. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kat. This, this was very much like asking for a hamburger and then being served a sirloin steak. Oh, good. Is that good. It wasn't too long. It was very, very good to hear and to hear through what you were saying that basically you're holding it together. It seems under, under tremendous pressure. Yeah, and I just wanted to thank Kat and Elizabeth and the entire SEL task force. That's been some of the things that they've been looking at and considering how do we prepare for the start of school when children have been as I know I know town did bring this up already but you know the old contrasting fears that children are facing by being home for these last five months and I also think that the adults parents are teachers or staff. It's very it's very challenging time. And I know there's a lot of anxiety and fear and I get I get questions a lot from staff and from families about what what it's going to look like and we keep trying to. Again, it's like an onion we keep trying to peel the layer off and get get closer and closer to the core and then the next day we get new guidance or we get a new directive and we or we find out we can't do something because we don't have the personnel and we have to go back and we look at it. You know, so I so I know that you know it's it's definitely challenging and it's frustrating and and I want to let the parents and families and staff know that we are definitely working as hard as we possibly can to make sure that everyone is safe. That is the number one thing. And I know some of the other recent comments and that I've received from staff and teachers and things that I've been hearing out in the community. And how do how do we prepare for this that it's great to hear cat. It's great to hear from the SEL task force. But what is that going to look like when I get back to school what am I going to what am I supposed to do. And one of the things is, is we the leadership team. We're meeting again tomorrow we meet a lot we're constantly talking about these things. One of the things that we're looking at is the districts calendar for the year. I know it you notice the governor made it pretty easy with the students coming back in September 8, but when do when is the first official day for teachers and staff. And so, you know, we're looking at a first day of August 24 and front loading a lot of our professional development days in the beginning of the year to really train our faculty and get ready for the beginning of year so we're looking at possibly 10 professional development days right at the start of the year. So a lot of these things that Kat Fair mentioned in her presentation is it and many other things training teachers around the new the new canvas the new learning management system how to how to use the online system training everyone because in three weeks after school starts or one day after school or the day of school, we could go all remote if the governor and the agency of education things change on the ground you have to be flexible. So how do we build some of that flexibility into training our staff and preparing them training them around protocols and cleaning and disinfecting protocols in the schools. I know I'm sidetracking away from my I know Kat had that some one of the disinfecting protocols mentioned in her in her slide but but I think you know, getting those things and ready for teachers and staff to understand that we are looking at those pieces. And when you come when if the first day is August 24, which is what we're looking at. And then we have to work some certain things out before, you know, the leadership teammates of work a couple things out. We also would like to meet with the Labor Management Council of the unions to make sure that they're aware of what we're what we're proposing. So when we next meet, we have a real clear solid calendar but the calendar really, you know, tentatively is what we're thinking about is the first day would be August 24. So we're looking at the staff and we're trying to work out the in service days, the student days, and the days also for ESP so we're still at work we're almost there. We're not there yet, but we're getting very close, and we should have an update hopefully out there soon. But again, wanted to let the school board know that our board, we are our team has been looking at this, and very importantly. The staff that are out there, we are looking at this and we are building in planning around returning for a safe return to school and trying to address some of the questions that folks have been raising regarding what is this going to look like what am I supposed to do when kids show up on the first day and how am I supposed to respond one of the things that we are looking at is the first month of school. We're looking at it's giving me a lot it's going to be very, I don't want to say traumatic experience coming back but it's going to be very kids kids haven't been to school in five months. So just getting them used to going to school. Like, even though the first, you know, in the beginning, yes, we're going to be very, we're going to have academics and everything else. I think we're also going to be really looking at that social emotional piece. And what does that look like in the schools. And so, because that's going to be the most important piece I know, not to sound like a geek with the research pointing the research out the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right. If you, it's very hard to impact here when you really need to feel connection here in your heart and and with the people that you're working with so I know that's that's one of the challenges we're facing and I think the first 30 days of school yes things will be academic. At the same time we're really going to be working trying to re acquaint ourselves with school for both for our adults and for our students. Thank you, Brian. I'm going to make a suggestion because much of this connects and overlaps with what we'll be getting to in 4.1. If board members have burning questions that are generated by cats presentation just now. If you could please maybe hold them and we'll have an opportunity to incorporate them into our part of 4.1.2. We still have miles to go before we sleep. So, if, if there's no objection we can move on to 3.3. I trust there's no objection. Thank you. Business administrators succession. What this means is that we have enormous shoes that need filling. And this will take some thought and preparation. Brian is this one that you would like to lead off on. I know we're going to have this. This is our this is my first year superintendent and I know this is a Lori Bebo's last year. I hope that's not. I hope she didn't decide to leave because I was just kidding Lori, but Lori is retiring at the end of the year and she's been here since 1985, I believe. And it's very hard to, you know, you never really replace someone who's been there that long, who's been so dedicated to the supervisory union and now the school district. And I know we're just, we just became a school district very recently, but there's a lot of changes, a lot of things that need to be done. And one of the things is how do we have a good succession policy and Lori and I had spoken about it and we wanted to definitely look for someone and recruit someone and possibly get them in there sooner rather than later so they can come in and really start getting acquainted with the entire process of our school district of how things have happened and been done. And so we're looking at when would be a good time to do a posting. I'm sure the posting should be not just in Vermont, but also a national posting, because I have to say full disclosure business administrators do not grow on trees. You know, there's not a lot of, you know, I don't know that I don't want to get myself in trouble but I had never met a child. And I asked them what they want to be, what they want to do when they grow up that I've never heard a student say I want to be a school business administrator. So it's very, it's very difficult to find a really good replacement. And so I don't know if Lori has anything else she would like to add but I know that it would be important for our district to think about posting for a position and thinking about putting together a committee and interviewing and, you know, getting that change sometime in the next few or several weeks. Lori, do you have anything to add. Really at the board's purview. I mean I gave a long notice, thinking it would provide the opportunity for the board to do a thorough search and for them to. I haven't been here since 1985. It was 95. 9490 fiscal year 9594. Yeah, I was at Central Vermont Hospital then so. But honestly, it's really the board's purview. I mean when I came here, there was a committee setup of board members and, you know, a wide range just kind of like you did for the superintendent search but I guess it's really at the board's discretion on how they want to do the search and, and what you want me to participate in and what you don't because honestly you might just want a fresh set of eyes. That was all I had to say. Great. Thank you, Laurie. Thank you, Brian. Board members. What say you to this idea of getting started soon and casting the net broadly, Joe. I would say soon and cast the net broadly absolutely. I think that's right. Others. Stephen. I think it would be beneficial to decide when we want to have the person hired and how much overlap we want, and then that will form inform when we're going to start to search when we're going to form the committee. So, I mean, do we want a six month overlap? Do we want a one month overlap? Do we want a nine month overlap? For me, the board saying this is what we want. This is when we want to hire someone so they can spend this much time working with Lori, then informs most of the other work that has to happen. So I, I'll just, just to start a conversation I'd say I'd like a hire for a three month overlap at a minimum. Three months at a minimum floor and then Monday. I agree with what Steven said, and I would just add to that that maybe Lori could help us to start with with updated job description of what is because some of those are a little old in our files and things have changed. And, you know, so that'll be great. I also will give us a perspective on what how much time and I would go for more than three months, but yeah. Three sounds good. Thanks, Lindy and then Chris and then Jonathan. I, I don't think more than three is necessary for one thing financially. We've been approving an awful lot of stuff that is making me very nervous about COVID. As far as I don't see our sister districts buying some of the things we're spying. And I think an overlap, you're paying the person at the salary, you're promising them. So we don't do it with any other positions. If we have a system in place that's good, which I have full faith we do because of Lori's work in the past 20 plus years. And I think that we have especially those last three months which is closing out the books and starting up the new year would give a great introduction. And I think the Vasbo would probably be helpful in identifying people when we advertise. There may be other districts who have people in great training who would find our district very. Nice to work. We have a good reputation across the state. So I'm not saying don't cast it out wide at all, but I do not agree with like a six month or nine month overlap because of financial and I don't think it's really that necessary. Thanks, Lindy, Chris and then Jonathan. I would support a three month overlap at a minimum. Just because the business manager I think is probably as crucial position as superintendent, because of the finances involved. In terms of a search. I have no problem with a broader search and just have more candidates in the door. But I would also urge that we have someone on the search committee. You know, I hope Lori would be on it, but also another financial person beyond the search committee because those are the folks who would know what questions to ask and be able to talk to talk with the business manager as opposed to board members. In terms of the finances, I'm not aware of any of us being particularly in view with financial wizardry or experience. Beyond our own household or personal finances. If there are, I apologize and be loved to have you on the committee. But I think it's a very important position and we should not under under train or under under sell what we need for it. Thanks. Thank you, Chris Jonathan. Yeah, I would just like to add to that. I agree with some of the sentiments already shared which is that it is a highly, highly specialized position and I think at a minimum three months of training. And to the extent that Lori would be willing to, to help out beyond and to whatever extent that that she is willing to train the new person whenever that person is selected I think that's invaluable. She knows the ins and outs of our budgeting process better than anyone. And, and so I think that that her, her knowledge is really invaluable and in that, in that way so that's what I just wanted to share. Thank you. Thanks Jonathan. Um, other member story thing. Well, I'd like to ask Lori what she thinks would be a good timeframe. Keeping in mind that if we do it the last three months that she's here. That's the end of the year. It's a wicked busy time. Maybe we need for. I just like to find out how she feels about that. I agree with Lori. Okay, um, honestly, I think that that is the better time of the year because things are a little bit slower unlike this year when we had coven. The thing that you might want to consider is similar to teachers, a lot of business administrators make decisions to sign contracts. In the spring, so you probably would want to make a decision around February at the latest so that people could plan for that whether or not you had them starting crossover isn't as important as having them be available to sign a contract with the new district. You may also encounter other people. I came to this job from the hospital. And it was a nice switch for me. It was a lot of similar in the financial skill set that I needed. The other pieces people from the state of Vermont might also apply. So you might end up finding that you have people who aren't necessarily business administrators applying. So you might end up finding from different walks of life with similar nonprofit experience. Thank you very much. So what it sounds to me as though the, the hiring process and the hiring timetable for a successor to Lori will follow roughly the same calendar as for hiring Brian. Yeah. That's what I said last year. Is that, is that about right, Lori? That's, that's, if you wanted someone to cross over for three months. Yes. Right. Okay. Is that, is that the board's consensus. Three month, three month crossover overlap. Yeah. Sorry. It's not from another profession, another accountant type profession. They may not be able to cross over because they will be in a contract with the school district. But perhaps they'll have some leave time that they can pop in and out to work with Lori. And if that's the best candidate, I think we have to also think about that as well. There may be somebody from non-profit or hospitals or other places that have that kind of financial background. Running budgets is something a lot of people do. They may not be school budgets, but they've run budgets. So keeping our options open is important. But realizing if it's another school business administrator, they may already be contracted through June. Thank you, Mindy. And I think that hiring committee should be more than board members, right? Like it was mentioned, also members of the public and, and we have some previous board members that have experienced our numbers too. So it should be a similar committee that what we use for Brian, not that committee, but something that has community members, principals and a Brian who's going to be working directly with the person and board members. Yes, fortunately, this is not, this is not a decision that we need to make right away. But, but thank you. So what then would be the next step? We have, we, we would draft up a, an announcement, an advert, based on your job description, I imagine, right? Correct? So, perhaps if we could see, I know this is, this is not, this is happening at a time when everything else is happening, but perhaps around September or so, if there were a draft that might help. And then, Mindy? One thing that we could decide is that are we going to use a consultant? Are we going to do this in-house? Will we ask Jen for help to do this? Are we going to do it in-house? So that, that job description, you know, you need that committee first. So, so we should decide on, we don't need to decide on the process. Today we can talk about it at our next meeting or have something to present to the board from, from Brian and the agenda planning committee. I don't know something to, so that the board can, can make some, some decisions. Because I think we were going to want somebody to be vetting those candidates anywhere anyway. So that might be the first decision. Thanks, Laura. Mindy? I think I was just going to say it just needs to go down as a future agenda item. I think the opening of school and COVID is pressing. This would be more like in November. And perhaps the vetting of those applications could be the admin team right at central office. Versus an outside consultant. I don't think that's usually used for a business admin, a business administrator, whatever they're called. So I think we need to just put this down as a future agenda item because I think our focus needs to be on getting the school started and the safety of all of the things that the public and the teachers are so concerned about right now. That, that sounds like sage advice to me. Are there any objections to that from board members? If we put it on the future agenda list, and, and we'll just keep it on the shelf until we're ready to bring it down and get cracking. Right. Great. Thank you, everyone. So now, if there's no objection, we move to 3.4 board retreat floor. Would you like to share? Sure. We, we had a meeting with the, with Nick, with the facilitator on last Tuesday is Scott, Brian, and myself and Michelle join us and took some, some minutes to it. We at the moment, the most pressing need and I'll let Brian speak more to the substance if necessary for right now, but our most pressing is to set the date. And I have you there. I sent you an email just to double check, but we're, we're thinking September 12 is where we have the most people. Lindy is able to join us that day now and I was waiting for Jonathan. Are you hearing me Jonathan that they will work for you but if we could hold that date for the meeting seems to be the one that everybody can can make happen except for Stephen to, and I also sent you as email Stephen to see if by any chance that they could work for you. That's fine for me floor. It's just Jonathan. Thank you. Thanks, Jonathan. Even sounds like most people will do it. I'll see what I can do. Can you remind me to save the date again I just want to be sure it's on my calendar, September 12. It's a Saturday. And it's, yes, breakfast and lunch and it was, it was in, yeah, in your doodle poll said yes, yeah. Yes, yes, yes, I can do it but I didn't block it on my calendar so I want to do that so I don't fill it in by accident. And now considering where we are in agenda. I think that unless you have more to share Brian it was a really good meeting we don't have a we don't have a location yet we're still planning so I think considering where we are in our list of things to do tonight if you're okay we'll report back in our next meeting and keep going down our lengthy agenda in the hopes that we'll get done earlier unless you have some specific questions. So, I think if it's September 12, we're going to hold that date. I just we just have to let the facilitator know as well so he's a, I know he's available but we just want to make sure. So I can do that tomorrow and let him know and we can continue the conversation about the location and other pieces that we'll need to figure out. Great. Thank you, Brian. Thank you. Good. If you're ready then we can move on to 3.5 the career center regional advisory board representative. Brian, would you like to introduce this. Yeah, sure. I'm going to turn this over to floor. I know, basically that we have an advisory board representative and I know a floor. I'm learning the history here used to is one of the representatives and then I think there was an alternate, but that alternate is no longer on the school board. And so we need to figure out. The first is the floor. Do you still want to be on it? Is that I think it's a book. I'll turn it over to you floor. So, so I was appointed. This is the, you know, we, we said at the, at the technical board with Brian and at that point was Deborah and myself and Marilyn had been my alternate. And she hadn't needed to attend any meeting, but it would just for just in case I think it would be good. And Penny asked us to see if we could nominate since she won't be there her in, if we could nominate an alternate. I'm still planning on attending the meetings. We haven't met since COVID, but we're going to have a meeting in September. So I'm just looking for somebody willing to go in case I can go. Steven look. Sure. I'd be willing to be the alternate. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you. Do we need to vote on this? Yeah. In that case, I will entertain a motion to nominate Steven look as alternate representative to the central Vermont career center regional advisory board. So moved. This is Lindy. Thank you, Lindy. Is there a second. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Any further discussion. If not kindly go to your participants screen or block or whatever, and click yes if you're for know if you're against. And I'm seeing all yeses. Wonderful. Congratulations, Steven. And thank you very much. Thank you, Steven. And I failed to say that Steven Dellinger paid is actually the one that went to all the meetings with me. So he sits on this board too. So, when I think when I say thank you to a Steven, then it does double duty. Good. All right. So, now we move on to 4.0, the report section. 4.1 superintendent school opening status update and board cues and is this is really sort of the center of gravity of the meeting. I figure. What I would propose is that Brian, if you don't mind leading off. And then what I'd like to do because this is the kind of thing that could go on at length. I'd like to give every board member in turn a chance basically to ask your number one question. You may hear somebody else ask your number one question during the course of the of the going around the table. So, feel free to ask another question. What I would like to do though is probably bring it to a close. It's undoubtedly going to be before everybody has asked everything they want to ask. But my hope is that Brian, I that sort of the spillover questions can be incorporated onto the website in some way. There's one that you have not sent, but still want to ask if you could put that question and email to Brian. And that will be sort of the represent the cutting room floor I guess the questions that will not that we will not have had a chance to answer. I hope that we will still have be able to get a lot of the most important ones out of the way on this evening. So, Brian, do you want to take her away. Absolutely. So I just want to begin by thanking the school board for and the steering committee in particular for proposing this q amp a I've over the last I would say two weeks. We've been getting lots of questions from the public. We answer questions. Sometimes they lead to more questions. Sometimes they lead to more questions that we need to go back and look up. I will say that the, one of the big overarching questions was about how decisions are being made. And, and so ultimately I can I can start off with that I kind of had that in my, in my memo into a school board, send a board packet, talking about the how decisions are being made the decision making process, what we're where we've been thinking but the biggest piece is the idea of flexibility. I think our biggest guiding principle is being flexible. And I think it's very important that parents in the audience pair and teachers in the audience understand and staff members and board member everyone understands that we're trying our school system and the school systems of Vermont and throughout the community have been asked to do something that we've never done before, which is basically prepared for a reopening of school. After we've shut everything down and within this in this climate of high anxiety, high, high fear, high concerns, and, you know, and I do understand that and I will say that earlier today even I had a news reporter reach out and they're asking questions about, you know, what are the major factors that you're using in order to plan for reopening of school. And so I could take everyone through the process. Briefly because I know that was a major question I'd also fielded last week and even today from different members of the community, as well as board members. The first thing is, you know, the biggest factor that we have is we've been receiving early in the earlier in the summer, the state of Vermont released a self safe and healthy reopening guidelines. They were released in June. And the school district had already composed five task forces. And these these basically are task forces that are, which were formed with many teachers, teacher leaders, administrators, members at ESP or ESP Union and trying to get everyone together to focus on different areas of reopening process. So we have task forces and curriculum instruction and assessment facilities and health logistics, policy finance and communication, and socially emotionally learning. So they've been working on trying to determine their scope of the work. And the scope of the work has really been based off of the guidelines for reopening which come from the agency of education, the center for disease, center for disease control, and the Department of Health. So the biggest question that we had to face with these task forces, as well as our leadership team, which meets twice, which met twice a week during the month during the month of July. And it seems like we're meeting all every feel like we're almost having meetings every day this week but we're not. We're having another big meeting tomorrow. We've been really focusing on, can we implement these guidelines? Can we do this? And if we can't, right now, what do we need to do in order to implement the guidelines? And so some of the guidelines that are in there discuss social distancing, making sure folks are wearing masks, temperature distancing, and how do students enter the building. So, and how do we do that? And what are the logistics in doing that? And it may look a little different in each school based on the building. It might based on the student population. The guidance also says that it is preferable to prioritize the instruction of the pre-K through eighth graders who are younger, who, according to the science, are not as susceptible to spreading and transmitting the disease as older children, older adults, and young adults. And so we really, at an early stage, determined that we really want to be able to see if we can prioritize or return to live instruction for our children, especially our young children, because we felt that it is the best intervention we can provide for our children if we can do it. So that was the big piece. Can we do it? And I have to say, in Washington Central, our school district, we've been blessed in having really beautiful buildings. We have smaller student populations, and we're able to do social distancing and be able to provide certain, be able to implement the guidance. Now, I can't speak for other school districts because that's been a topic of conversation. Mr. I have received several conversations, several notes from others saying, why are we not following what other districts are doing? Well, we're different than the other districts. We have more space. We are able to implement the guidance. By over the past month, we did ask for a number of purchases. We're able to do a lot of things that other districts may not be able to do based on social distancing requirement is a big one, I will say. In my conversations with other superintendents, they might not be able to have older children in the school every day under the social distancing requirement, so they have to look at different models. In our buildings, if we realize if we can socially distance and ensure folks are wearing masks, what else do we need to do to protect our children? Putting isolation rooms in every building. I mean, you've heard about this before, updating our air ventilation systems to double the standard of what is expected in Vermont. Right now, it's 15 cubic feet per minute of fresh air per student in a room. We are trying to get it up to 30 by the end of the summer. We have mechanical engineers going in, looking at the HVAC. We have a short term goal that we want to get done before the end of the summer. So we have more fresh air going into the buildings. Brian, so sorry to interrupt. I know you're warming to your theme, and HVAC in particular is a new area of expertise that you've made. I wonder if it would be okay if it would not sort of throw you off your groove. If we were maybe to get into some of the questions, and if some of this information that you've got, which is very important of course, if you can maybe weave it into your answers. We're appropriate. Sure. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. So what I would propose is essentially to Floor, would you mind leading off with. I think that I have spoken a lot. I would like to hear, especially Jonas, I know that this was something that you asked for Jonas, so I think you should, you should lead. I of course have a question and I'm happy to go after but I would like Jonas and some people that haven't spoken today to go first. Excellent. Very, very generous. In that case, Jonas, if you don't mind starting off, then Jonathan on deck, and Dorothy, what do we used to say in Little League? Dorothy in the hole? In the hole. In the hole. Okay. Thank you. Very good. Jonas. It's hard for me to choose my number one question to ask as I have a list of 35 to 40 questions that I provided to Brian earlier this week at his request from the board for their questions. So, I was hoping that this, this session would be more extensive and free flowing. So I will ask the first question on my list. How many options were considered for this plan, including hybrid plans for elementary, all at home, high school, you know, full time. How many plans were considered before deciding on in person for K through eight, and hybrid for high school. And sorry, Brian, you know, we've we've heard a lot about, you know, I appreciate your, your diagram, right, the flow diagram of how decisions are being made. What I'm trying to get into is a sense of how these conversations occur. And, you know, what was rejected, what was considered. So, so, so in creating the schedules and deciding upon the options, we looked at the sources of data, including the health and safety guidance from the agency of education. The leadership team had also put out a results of a staff caregiver and student remote learning surveys that were administered at the end of the school year. Back in June, the leadership team came to a consensus quite quickly that we wanted to and needed to prioritize in person learning for pre K through eight. We feel fortunate we can do that because pre K through eight students for give that option to our students because we have the spacious buildings and grounds. So that was one of that was one of the big things the other big thing was at the at U 32 that reviewed options for school opening around around the world they looked at options around the world and also around the country to determine what would best fit our students and our community given our current the current data that was provided to us. May I ask a follow up. Sure. It I mean it sounds like that decision was self evident, and yet we look around our state and our county, and we see school districts making very very different choices and I'm not saying one choice is right or one choice is wrong. But I think that I you know I would like to know, you know, how deeply other options were considered. So, so I could say that the the other options were considered however in the guidance that the state put out. They did say that we should be prioritizing if, if we could meet the requirements that they put out to have a full return to school, especially for our younger children. I think if I may, Brian. So Jonas I think speak to speak specifically to how did we come up with week on week off kind of hybrid which is not something that you're seeing in the rest of the state. You know we really looked at a lot of those. What are the models like what does what are they doing and a lot of the splits that we saw that we're having to be done by other schools. We had a lot of household needs. So when they had elementary school out on a hybrid system as well they had to create schedules in which families were both in and out. You know, as whole family so that that created a different problem. I would say that we've looked at the model that Chittenden County is doing and it doesn't really suit our needs right now. It's in the building as much as possible, but we also used some of the information that was coming out of, you know, really towards the beginning of summer is looking at a model where you tried to reduce transmission based upon the incubation period of the virus itself. So having a week on week off means that we have nine days of remote learning, you know five of them remote into the weekends themselves, where if someone were exposed they're most likely to show symptoms during that time and they would not be in the school building. And so we tried to bring a lot of that into account to and quite honestly being able to prioritize having the elementary kids in school helped us create a model that was different than most of the schools that are in the state. Thank you very much, Stephen and Brian, Jonas. We'll move on and we'll, we'll get back to other opportunities. Jonathan, Dorothy on deck and Jill in the home. Yeah, Brian, first of all, thanks. Thanks for everything you're doing. And considering all of these huge, huge challenges before you and before the entire district really. So I guess my question is, given all the sifting of all the data and the guidance and the science and all the things that you've looked at. What have you identified in your professional judgment as really being the highest priority for our district right now as we head into school reopening? Our, thank you. That's a great question, Jonathan. And thank you for asking it. The highest priority in my opinion is in my professional judgment is our ability to be flexible and pivot if we need to. But right now we have, I think the biggest concern right now is any plan we put out there, whatever it could be, a hybrid plan, remote learning plan, full instruction depends on whether or not we have the staff. And so I think the last two weeks the board has really, I feel empowered the district and myself and my team to be prepared for making sure we have the staff to implement whatever plan that we have to implement. So right now, if we can prioritize and meet the guidelines and do it with fidelity. And the question comes down to is, there are some staff that are scared out there. And there are some staff who have some medical concerns, legitimate concerns. And we have until where we put a deadline of August 12 to try to find out who is going to take us up on our leave requests. And we're going to be taking this up on asking for having their children attend schools or supervision. So I think that's the biggest priority right now in my mind is a few weeks ago, if you ask me that question. The highest priority would have been, are we going to be able to get the contractors in here to build these isolation rooms and are we going to have the time to finish some of these requests? The supplies that come in, like the plexiglass and making sure we can get that set up in the schools. But I've been told that two or three weeks from now, all those things will be coming in. So I think the biggest priority is, as of right now, is do we have the staff to implement the plans that we're trying to implement? Thank you. Thanks. So, Dorothy, Joe, then Chris. I'd like to know more about the elementary school setups. I'm probably very likely the only one here who went to school in the 40s and 50s when our desks and chairs were bolted to the floor in line facing straight ahead. You sat in your chair and behaved yourself. And kids were able to get up and pass papers or pick up papers and things like that, but I don't see that happening. One memory I have is in first grade, when it was time to have a little project where we might be blowing Halloween masks or something. The teacher would come around with a piece of paper towel and give you a dollop of paste. And then hopefully you wouldn't have eaten the paste by the rest of the stuff has brought to you. I just see knowing children having to change from the wonderful best practices ways of teaching that we have been doing to sit in rows and be able to contain themselves. I, and they will try their hardest because they want to be in school with their friends. I understand that. But I just, I just don't see it as best practices and I'm wondering if, if the risk is worth that. I just have a lot of those questions but I really, I understood the remote of plans that you sent. They were fairly clear, although I felt a little rigid. But I, I really don't understand what's actually going to be happening in the classrooms other than they'll be sitting in rows and they'll stay within their group. Although they may have different teachers from time to time or move as a group to another room for another teacher. But I just wonder how they're going to kind of soften the edges. So, so, I mean I think you've said a lot there Dorothy. So to try to answer your answer your question what I hear is, how are we going to work with children who are going to be possibly sitting in rows facing one direction. Right, where as maybe back in the 40s and 50s. That's how classes were, but we know that's not the best practice for our children currently. And, right, so is that how are we going to try to resolve that is that the question. Well that but I forgot to also add, when I went to school. The education was still focused on education the schools had not then been required to take care of the social emotional and physical life of the children and be the caretakers as well. When I went to school, it was education was the business, but it was still could have been better, I'm sure, but I did okay. Yeah, so, so, so I think the, you know, it's a challenge right to definitely a challenge. It's not a, you know, and I would and maybe people don't want to hear that but it's true. I agree that it's definitely a major challenge for reopening school so I think we heard Kat talk about how we're going to try to provide some professional development for our teachers and to get coming to buildings, and how to work with our children and how to try to reengage. I think it's also going to be very important to get the teachers back and into this classrooms for four, you know, at least 10 days before the children get there. You know, you start coming up with plans and, you know, someone told me a while the devil is in the details you can have the plans but as you get closer and closer to unpeeling the onion you get closer and closer to the details. And that I know that the principles have been working. And we're talking more about how we're going to be supporting our teachers when they do come back to get ready for having children sitting rows. And I do think that there may be some opportunities to take children out. I haven't go outside, you know, try to mix up the day a little bit but I do know those first 30 days are going to be really crucial for really just trying to reconnect kids to school because I think it's going to be a very challenging time when everyone comes back and we're trying to get folks used to coming back to school when they haven't done it for five months. I don't have any of the elementary principles wanted to add anything in addition to anything, you know, you think you might be preparing for your opening days with your faculty in your schools, regarding Dorothy's inquiry about children sitting in rows. But an idea is one thing I could say is, you know, the other option is having children sit at home and we do know that there are some children that are really suffering by being at home, not being around their friends. There's a lot of concerns about the wellness of children sitting at home and even if they can just come to school and be in rows around other children it could help them. So I don't have any principles want to. I see you're in this town that. Yeah, thanks. I think one thing that Dorothy said that resonates with me is that, you know, we are responsible not just for the three hours anymore, it's the whole child. I think one thing we learned when we dismissed in the spring is that it was very difficult to fully meet the needs of kids because they, they literally have to be in school for us to carry out what we're responsible for this day and age as as schools. So I remember reflecting with, with my teachers that we're doing the best we can remotely. But we knew, and we know that so many kids need to be in the building to maximize their whole self, not just academically, but like you said social emotional physical. So, and I, and I think maybe even to connect to Jonas's question as well. I think when we knew at the beginning of the summer that we were all able to physically safely have students come back to the building. It was the first step to. Yes, this is, this is awesome, like we can have kids back. And we want them back five days a week full days and I'm talking about, you know, for elementary. So, you know, it, you're right it's not ideal to be sitting in rows and facing forward and you know, the kind of the old fashioned way. But it is going to be way better, in my opinion, than what we experienced in the, in the spring for a lot of kids. So, good. In that case, we have Jill, Chris, and then Steven look. Thanks. So, Brian, I've been reading everything you've been sending around with with interest. So thank you for, for all that work to you and your, and the team. I was just trying to understand, and maybe this is in the materials, but for the K to eight are the options binary. So it's either full time in person, or full time remote, but not, not hybrid in the sense that some kids could do part of the day home, part of the day remote, just trying to understand the thinking around that and if it isn't indeed binary. Yeah, currently, currently it is a binary. Those are the two major options. Currently. Again, though, you know, we're trying to figure out, you know, will this work. Well, we may have to look at other options. Yeah. That's good, Joe. You got your answer. Yeah. Okay. Then Chris, Steven and towns. Okay, Scott. Hi, Brian. How are you? How are we doing? I have a combined question, but that is around the same topic. And it is if a student or a staff member tests positive in school, what happens in terms of quarantining for the rest of the school population in that school. And the next is, what is the threshold level at which a decision to go completely remote would be made? Is there a numerical level that we're looking at? Has that been discussed in any way? Thank you. Thanks for asking that question, Chris. The threshold level and if a staff member tests positive. So what I've received currently from the Secretary of Education, I do meet with him regularly. He does do an hour Q&A with the superintendents around the state of Vermont. And some of these questions were asked and currently the guidance that we received is if a staff member tests positive or student test positive, there's going to have to be a decision made by the superintendent in conjunction with the Department of Health to determine whether or not to close a school or close a district depending on what the data, what the actual situation says. I don't know if our COVID-19 coordinator, Elizabeth Worth, has anything else to add on that one? So let me just, let me ask a quick question. Go ahead. What criteria are you looking at to make that determination? If you do it in conjunction with the Department of Health, what criteria are you relying upon to make that determination? So, so basically, and I think that goes to your second question, right? So I was going to answer that one. It actually goes to both because of the individual positive result. What was the implication to the entire school and it sounded like there would be criteria to consider on whether the school be closed or whatnot. Yep. So Elizabeth, you want to answer that last part and then I can jump in about the threshold. Sure. I think what I understand is that we really will rely on the Department of Health and their COVID tracing. If a student goes home, nothing really happens in the classroom. Kids are going to be going home for a lot of things, not just extreme sickness, anything. We don't want sick kids in school just for safety's sake. But if a child does test positive for COVID, then the Department of Health will be notified, they will notify us, and then they will do the interview was really important. How many, they will look at where this comes from, how much community based it is, and then they will make a decision about whether they even need to contact trace the kids in the classroom. They may and they may not. And so there's not, there's not an absolute guideline about, you know, one child means the class goes home, none of that it really doesn't mean that so, but it doesn't mean they're not safe, it means that you know we we will really rely upon the Department of Health to figure that out. And so for the threshold level. So I during my weekly meetings the secretary goes over some metrics about the state of Vermont. He looks at our ability to do contract tracing are in fact a number of affected people, transmission rates, and the currently all those pieces, according and I just received some additional updates yesterday from the agency of education that they believe that the current low and the current positive numbers do point to a reopening of school. Now, people have asked what which that what what would the numbers need to look like in those areas in order to close school or go to full remote learning. And the answer is, the state has not provided that information. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thanks Chris. So, Steven look, and since Towns is evidently moved on to better things, Diane, then Lindy. I'll give my question to Jonas. Very nice Steven Jonas. Thanks Steven I appreciate that. My question is about testing. Will any testing be done before school opens. Will there be surveillance testing available during the year, who pays for testing. And, you know, if there is, you know, if there is a positive test and are one of our school communities, you know, who will be able to get tested I mean I think I heard Elizabeth say you know there's no protocol for that. And I know that you know at what point would our community, right because we're talking about a community of five towns here that everyone's public health, right will be, you know, in one big web with all the children in school together. You know, if there is a case, will we have access to the pop up testing facility that was used to such great effect in places like Manchester recently. Jonas said, I did ask that question recently. And the answer I got was, testing will not be available, due to the contagious nature of the disease. So, the idea is that if you do testing one day, if someone is infected the next day you would miss them so that they're not going to the state has said there would not be any testing available before the school year. What about during the school year will we have the ability to conduct any surveillance testing is there a plan at the state level at the regional level. No, I get as of right now the the only answer is that there were not going to be doing testing at this time. That's I mean I don't know Elizabeth have you heard anything else. That's true and I think part of the reason is because it won't give us any information with the level of disease in Vermont. It's really not necessary. And again, it's a it's a one day thing if you test positive negative today doesn't mean tomorrow you won't be positive. I have so few cases that it's not expedient and it also what they would somebody mentioned to me is that, you know when somebody gets a negative test, they tend to think oh well you know, I don't have to wear my mask today you know they it gives a sense of like freedom to not follow some of the mitigating things that we're doing so they're not interested in doing I think that if there was a large number of cases if that happened I'm sure that that would open up the possibility of doing something. And we certainly if we send a kid home, and they have certain symptoms they will check with their provider and the provider will decide whether they think that that child, or the adult needs to be tested. And then it's available. And as far as cost goes, that's a that's an up in the year thing you know some insurance is pay for it. Sometimes it could be free we can figure that out for kids so if they need a test, we can figure out how they're going to get it, and and not have to pay Did anybody answer your question. Jonas. Yes, I will follow up if if the opportunity presents itself. Great. Thanks. And thanks again Steven. So, Diane, Linda and floor. My question has to do with, are there going to be like scheduled mass breaks for kids is there a plan around some outdoor time that will provide outdoor education or mass breaks as well for both staff and kids. So, I know we were that our leadership team has been discussing that I've also received quite that that inquiry from a member of the public, who was concerned about, do we have to change our masks so I know, I know we've gotten a lot of questions about the One of the things is, how do we build endurance for wearing masks during the school day. And I know we're talking about, is there a way to, you know, you start off with wearing masks, you know, at home and asking parents to wear their mask at home for three hours and work work your way up. We were we had been discussing that as an outdoor time, as an outdoor time. I know that we've been feeling some questions about outside instruction. And, you know, we're definitely exploring outside possibilities. The grounds are different at each school. So some schools have natural shade. I do know that some schools have reached out to look at the use of tents to bring kids outside. I know one school look as a ask parents to donate tents. Another school has asked the National Guard to donate tents. Unfortunately, the rental, the rentals for some of these tents are like $200 or $300 a day. And so does it physically, is that the best way we could put where we could put our money, or should we be putting more money into make sure we improve the indoor air quality of our schools and trying to So that's one of the things trying to figure out. I don't know if you have any Elizabeth if you want to talk more about the masks and schedule mass breaks because I know we did discuss this. I absolutely think that kids are going to need to take their masks off from time to time is no doubt about that. And, and we will provide that opportunity I think the most important time like in the hallways in lines places where they cannot keep six foot distance is more But they need to be able to have a break and And we have we haven't got the total procedure down as far as like how many masks and what they do with them, but they'll they'll be able to put them in a bag put them in their backpack and have an have an additional one will have plenty of extras for kids who need them. And, and I think there will be outdoor time I mean it might not be, but when they're outdoors, as long as they're keeping six feet apart, they'll be able to have a break and we've also talked about some of the younger kids you know developmentally preschoolers. You know they don't get that and but they need constant reminders and they need modeling and reminders and the I know that the summer program has had no problems with it really these young kids they've, they've They've accepted it and they're wearing their masks you know and they need to be reminded on and off, and they may need to change a mask that's true, but, but I think absolutely that's important and people are aware that you know and teachers are aware that. And I also want to see if I know Gillian is here, Gillian here she's on she's one of our members of the facilities task force and I know they've been looking and talking about tense and if it's possible to have tense or outdoor, what kind of outdoor things we can do. Gillian. Right. So, in terms of some of the stuff for facilities. I kind of joke that that it's a shopping task force. But really, because you know that the PPE and the cleaning supplies and all that stuff but really looking at in terms of a lot of the things that we're ordering is, is what can we do that we can also have future use for and tense the rental of them is pretty And then the concern is about the big event tense if we were to purchase some of them, the concerns about setting them up properly and the risk. Now in terms of getting kids outside without masks and I think this kind of also speaks to what Dorothy was talking about is, is yes I mean kids are going to be sitting in rows, but within each of our buildings. And sort of our settings, what do we have that we can use as extensions of our classroom. So while it's not formalized outdoor education which is really sort of specific curriculum. It's really about encouraging teachers to take kids outside maybe they have their mini lesson on reading and then they take their books outside and they read, or maybe they practice being scientists by walking around and taking notes about what they see. But really, how can we, how can we physically in the buildings have kids in what we know is not the best practice setup. And then how can we be creative with what we're doing with them, sort of beyond that. I know what Doty we're looking at. Instead of having like one recess, how do you have several short recesses throughout the day and I know that people are looking really creatively at the schedule, because I know I mean even for adults masks are hard to wear for a long time. Thank you, Gillian. Thanks everyone. You're a good time. Great. Thanks. I'm going to turn the floor and then me. I keep turning off my camera because once again internet is unstable, but my question is about the staff and, and I don't think you can control families but staff you have some control over their activities prior to when school starts. I'm very pleased with how Vermont is handling itself our numbers are down I'm not nearly as concerned as I would be if I was living somewhere else, but it hasn't made me less cautious. I'm wondering about people who have gone to family gatherings and other states or done things outside of our state coming back. If there's anything that check list or things that staff are going to have to be signing off on. So I would think that one of the things is, we do have, and maybe I can even have someone from you 32 talk about their procedure. I will say that we copy we copied their procedure for our central office and how what when people come into our building now. So I don't know if anyone, I don't have Stephen or somebody else from you 32 wants to talk about their procedure. I think folks do come into their building, because I think that's kind of like what we've been doing. And I also think we are also looking at some other technology pieces about using base camp to talk about their, their temperatures and things like that but I think what you're saying is, if they went out of state, is anyone asking them hey did you go out of state do you go anywhere. Right, that's your that's your that's your question correct. Yes, mine is more not about walking in the building signing in taking your temperature. Kind of your contacts, prior to coming into the building to teach the children, and you got together with all your aunts and uncles and grandparents in New Jersey. Yeah, yeah. So I, hey, I have parents in New Jersey, when you try to stop just, I'm just playing with this kidding, Liddy. I'm not going to the other Alabama, I did not go. I'm not going to New Jersey anytime soon. So, but I will say that one of the things is one of the questions is have you been around anyone with contact if we do have those types of crash questionnaires when you walk into the building. So, you 32 does have that we have we've implemented it at an essential office. I have been putting I did put a communication out recently to teachers and staff, saying that you know if you have to you have to quarantine your advice you're not allowed you're really not permitted to go visit right before the right before we start the school and put yourself into a situation where you have to quarantine for 14 days because you took a vacation to in New Jersey on August 20th, you know, if we're having teachers come back on the 24th. So we did put those things out there. And that that is the expectation. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you, Liddy. Thank you Brian floor. I have a, I don't know if I call this a question but it how can I make sure that I'm supporting you in removing barriers so you can be there for all the children and what I'm referring to is to give you an example, you know, like the ADM if people decide to to homeschool for example, if some of our community members because no choice is a bad choice. How do we, how do you reach out to us to make sure that we're either reaching out to our legislature to ask them to hold those hammerless for the ADM and another, another one that it just came to my attention today is that the special ed, especially has moved into compensatory model. So how, you know, so how can we make sure, do you feel that you have enough communication I think you do but how do we make sure that we're supporting you so that you can take care of the kids, just like we're doing in the, in all the PPE and stuff like that. There's not any other stressor that we can make sure that we're removing so especially for special ed kids, you know, to support that IP processes. Yeah, so I can answer some of those questions for two of the, I mean, I know we did receive questions about. We talked about homeschooling and you know if parents go on homeschooling or they go is that going to take away our revenue stream for some from some of our families. So I would let I know you, I know some of the board members do talk to legislators I do think it's important that when the legislature does meet in August that they do hear from us from our let in from our, from our board that we really hope that they will penalize or to do a moratorium on homeschooling, because, and I think that there are a lot of superintendents and board of educations out there around Vermont. And I think that our, you know, asking their legislative their legislative delegations to consider this. I think it's going to be something that, you know, if 45 out of 55 school districts, after legislators that might be something that they they're going to give the meeting for, from what I understand three to five weeks or four weeks, when they do come back. And so they're going to have a lot of work on our plate so if more and more boards and came and came with once united thing around that piece. It may be something that can help help our schools. The other pieces make in the long the same lines and it may be a little more complicated is asking our, again, do a similar process but asking that if we're taking I don't know how many students we're going to be taking in to enroll into our schools but hopefully, you know, the money and all the students in some ways that we are trying to implement a implement the guidance that was provided by the state with fidelity, and I believe we're doing a very good job of it. So hopefully we're not penalized for doing the right thing. So that I think that would be very helpful, you know, from a political standpoint and ask your legislators for that support. And for special ed, can you repeat the special ed question that does want to make sure. And we don't need to get into details my the basis of the question is like, you know, I hope that this communication is back and forth and that you guys, if there's any way that as my, I think by reading all the plan. I feel a, you know, there's too many, you know, there's is not going to be perfect for for everybody. But at the same time, as board man as a board member, we are responsible for a whole community, not just as individuals so how can I make sure that we are being a, you know, supportive of you guys so you can make the best decisions is there anything that we're missing that I would think think that the school board's been extremely supportive and we're having weekly meetings. I mean, you probably have been putting in, you put about the hours, you always put a 40 hour work week into the summer already just in board meetings. So, and so I think, I think you you're doing it. And again, just talking those two pieces I think are going to be huge moving forward. Thank you. Thanks. Um, so, in my case, I think I can do no better than follow the example of Steven look and yield to you, Jonas. Thank you, Scott. I will take that opportunity. Um, so let me ask. See my menu options here. So it's become clear that that you know the binary option between five days in school for elementary kids and fully remote means just that. There's a lot of guidance and a couple of communications from principles that students who chew the families who choose the remote option. Those children will not be allowed to participate in any in school activities including recess, or, you know, outdoor walks or things like that. And I just wonder what the logic is there, right that we are, you know, that we're, you know, it sounds like the district is confident that the PPE and, you know, safety measures and protocols in place in the buildings are enough to prevent a, you know, the transmission or an outbreak, or at least mitigate that the best we can. But I wonder what the logic is for for preventing kids from participating in probably the most safe activity possible, which is recess outside. We're, you know, I'll, you know, my family is really concerned about this. So, you know, we hear a lot about the social aspect of schools, you know, and the kids social lives. We've heard, you know, feedback from a number of parents and, you know, community members who think that the remote learning option is too rigid, you know, that, you know, I will see what happens with that. The opportunity for kids to interact socially with the members of their cohort, right, who they are going to be isolated from during the year if they choose the remote option and will be in a, you know, a remote only cohort. So I would ask what the logic is and, you know, urge you to reconsider that. So I think what you're asking is if a family chooses the remote learning option, will students be allowed to come to school for resource, recess or other out of school building activities. Right, so the short answer is no. And let me explain why. So they're not going to be allowed to come because we're trying to make sure that we had the protocols and procedures in place to adhere to the guidelines that have been put out for creating pods of students. The guidance is really trying to make sure the kids that are in the building are working in pods and we're minimizing student and adult interactions between the pods. So, I mean, I guess I can have Jen, if Jen is there, she can talk a little bit more about that but about the pods. Yeah, Jen, are you there? Sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, so we've been talking in addition to all the teaching and learning information about the health and safety guidance, which encourages us to minimize the interacting between groups of students and adults as well. So I know that principals are working hard to set up schedules and places to go in the school, in certain classrooms and outside that minimize the mixing of those groups, so that we can protect the well-being of our students. And so our need to do that means that we're not able to sort of risk other exposure to folks who aren't within that pod. That's the primary reason that we're thinking about right now. Is that good, Jonas? It's certainly an answer. Okay. Thank you very much. And I noticed that Jail has joined us very discreetly in the meantime. And Jail, do you have a question that you would like to put to the administration? Welcome, by the way. I've been off and on. I was on my phone for a while. So I'm just getting back on. I don't even know where we're really at in the conversation. I guess my question. Can you hear me? We can indeed. Okay. I feel a lot better after hearing from Kat. I feel like everyone is really thinking about the mental health of students and kind of the stress that this will cause as well as the stress that this will cause teachers. I've heard that some schools, not in Vermont, but in other states are looking at going to half day to alleviate the kind of the stress to masks, wearing masks for such a long time. And I'm very concerned about that. And I did hear Gillian say that there would be more recess time. I'd like a little more detail on that. But one concern I guess for me personally is if a student is placed in a pod with students that she or he is having a hard time with, if they're able to move to a different pod, or if they're stuck with those same students for the whole entire year. I don't know if there's any issues around bullying or just things like that if there's any wiggle room for students to change their classroom or their pod. I have a lot more questions and just for brevity's sake, I will ask that one. I'll let you allocate the speakers. I think we have to be open to that. I think developmentally we want the child to be in school, right? We want children to be in school. And even if there was no pandemic, the bullying, if a child is getting mean-spirited activities against him or her, we would need to try to get to the bottom of that and find a resolution and give the child some counseling and coping and try to find ways to stop that from happening. So I do think that we have to be open to that possibility, but we have to also make sure we do this. If something like that does happen, we would have to do that in a medically sound manner. Yeah, I would offer. So the idea of a pod at the middle and high school level is there's actually two levels to it. There is both a classroom level where we're putting about 15 students in a class that we're going to keep together as much as possible, just that 15. But we're also going to have a larger group that's the team that's going to be about 60 students and six to seven teachers. And so if there was a need to move a student during any time, and in fact, we've already talked about at some point in time, we do want to mix them up. So when it's appropriate, we can then take the groups of 15 and remix them some within the group of 60. And so we just want to make sure that we don't start in a situation where kids are moving around too much as we get used to everything. And so, you know, we're trying to think of ways that we don't want kids to have to sit with the same 14 other kids for every day for the entire year. I don't think any of us would want that. And so we are going to look at ways that we can certainly mix them throughout the year, when it's appropriate and when it's medically, you know, when it, when it looks like the virus is at a spot where it allows for us to do that. So we certainly are taking that into account. Thank you very much. I believe, and if I have missed anybody, I apologize, but have I has every board member had a chance to ask at least one question. If I missed you please shout out. Otherwise, what I'd like to do everyone has been so patient and so focused. We'll take a five minute break, and then come back and pick up and and we'll take it from there. Any objection, five minutes return, let's say 829 829 see you back here. Thanks. Back. Refreshed, I hope. We're at at this point we're at a bit of a fork in the road. If there's if there's an appetite among board members for continuing. We can. If you prefer to that we move on. We can do that as well. I'm Jonas if you I know you were hoping for something that could perhaps be more free flowing. And I sense that this format tends to be a bit more lumbering. I'm not sure exactly how we might improve on it. Not now that everyone's had the everyone that has wanted to ask the question has. We could open it up to folks who have more questions without going necessarily in order. I mean, you did a very good Supreme Court job so far. Of taking question after question but if it. I think opening it up a little bit would be helpful. Okay. Any objections to then to continuing say for another 15 minutes. And just free wheeling it. Scott, this is Steve look. Thank you. I don't object to some time for. For additional conversation. But could we move that later in the agenda. And get through the action items that we have and then go back to the discussion. I'm, I'm absolutely open to that. And I see the wisdom in it. If nobody objects and nobody thinks it will sort of interrupt the flow, which we've already interrupted by taking a break anyway. And then let's then do that. And if again, if there's no objection, we will have the continuation of 4.1.2 board Q&A. After 6.2. We agree by consensus. Yes. I suspect I'm in the minority here, but I would, I would object to that. The consent agenda and the personnel actions should not take more than a handful of minutes. And I would prefer to get more questions on the table and more information in front of this meeting. Before we do that. I would join Jonas in that so that we don't lose. Members of the public. Who might be very interested in this topic as well. Okay. So in that case, what if we then just. Continue 4.1.2. After 4.2.1. Will that will that work? Well, that not not work. Maybe I should say. Okay. Good. Then let's, let's go to the central office renovations. And then we will return to board Q&As directly thereafter. So, um, Brian. Yeah, so, uh, this is for, we recently are completing phase one, which was the front part of the renovations. Uh, this second part phase two, uh, what is the building, the, uh, offices in the, in the back part of the building that is already there. We're not adding to the building. We're just adding into what areas that is open, open space area into, uh, offices. So our staff that work in that area have some protection. Uh, so the. We are already a July 15th, the board had authorized $26,000 for this construction project. And the two bids came in. Uh, that was a total of 36,000. So the bids are over. It's about 14.3 thousand dollars over budget. And, uh, in order to complete. Uh, the phase two, which would help us reopen our central office building. Uh, the reason why it came in over budget was, uh, there's a shortage of materials and, uh, there is an increase in the cost of materials. Um, also the rough drawings, uh, that were submitted earlier when did not include the estimates from vendors. So ultimately, uh, where, uh, we did review this with the finance committee, uh, last week. And it was, uh, before proceeding with phase two, uh, it was recommended from the finance committee to request the additional funds at, uh, tonight's board meeting. Uh, time is of the essence. We are trying to get these, uh, uh, this, uh, project finished once and for all. We really do need it in order to reopen our, uh, central office. And we're asking parents to come to school. Uh, bring your children to have to have their children come to our school. Uh, without having this project done, it's going to be difficult to have central office. Uh, we'll have to go back to our rotation of letting people coming into the building and, uh, and, uh, leaving the building. And it'll be very difficult. Uh, in order to do that. Thank you, Brian. So at this point, I would entertain a motion to authorize the superintendent to spend a total of. $43.3,000. For the central office renovations. So moved. Floor moves. Is there a second? Second. Jonas seconds. Thank you very much. Board discussion. So I have, I have a couple of questions. Um, one is that, um, um, I, I, I seem to review. Um, um, I, I, I seem to recall that we were talking about temporary walls, not permanent walls. And I read here in this memo that these are now permanent walls. Um, so I'm wondering how that changed from what. Um, the initial impression. Was, um, second, um, it seems to me very high. Um, it seems to me very high. Uh, to have $3,000 worth of locks for 10 doors. Um, and I'd like to have that explained because that's an expenditure we haven't seen before. Uh, and then third is, um, Are you saying that if we didn't do this central office would not be open? Okay. So I just want to make sure Chris, I got, uh, you want, you want me to discuss a locks for the 10 doors. Okay. Okay. Great question. First part is when this project, we talked about this project. Um, I think we had to discuss about these only being temporary walls as opposed to permanent walls. And I see here that these are talking about a permanent change. Yes. So, uh, so the, it was either, I would call that partitions versus permanent walls. Right. So, uh, one of the pieces was, uh, if you put the partition, there was two pieces, uh, either partitions versus permanent walls. So, uh, if we have partitions, it is my understanding that may not be reimbursable under the cares act. We're trying to get money back for, to help pay for, uh, pay for this. So I believe that is one of the biggest reasons why by having the permanent walls. The second piece was, uh, and that leads into the part about the locks or the doors is, uh, in the age of school shootings and, uh, uh, and hopefully this never ever happens. Uh, here in our district, but, uh, partitions are not as safe as having a wall to protect staff in, uh, in an office area. Uh, the other piece is the partitions, uh, would also, uh, uh, typically when you put up partitions or in an office area, they're typically up there for, uh, they become like walls. So those are, so the idea was to basically build the permanent walls for that reason, for the safety reason. And also for, uh, the cares act, uh, it's my understanding that we would get money back to pay for it. No guarantee, but I understand it does qualify for reimbursement. Uh, Lori, do you want to comment on that piece? Um, I also wanted to say there's a delay and a backlog and getting partitions. Um, the architect let us know that it is unknown if we could even get these in the next couple months. So that was one of the reasons why the architect had recommended, uh, permanent walls. Um, as far as the cares act, we are on the list. We've submitted our request. Um, we have submitted it with the permanency of the walls, but if we had to, uh, revisit that, we could just as unclear how many months we'd have to wait to get those partitions. Um, one of the things the architect said was most schools that put in partitions, they're there forever anyway. They never take them down. So they're not as structurally sound, um, for safety reasons. Um, what's the other question? Um, oh, on the locks. Um, yes, it costs around $200 a door for the equipment for the, the locks. Um, and it's about $100 to have them keyed and installed per door. So the proposal that we had had four doors and there's actually 10 additional doors. So I hear you, Chris, this is the first time you've heard of this, but, um, um, and talking to Brian, we felt like this was the time when we're going to be putting in four doors anyway to do the other 10. Yeah. Did we answer all the questions so far? Uh, and, well, and I think he also wanted to know about central office, not reopening, but, uh, uh, you know, so I do know that, uh, it's going to be, I mean, central office could reopen. Uh, it'll just be very difficult because we'll have to have a rotation of some people coming in and out and, uh, because it won't be, won't be able to have everyone in that area. Uh, it's, it's, so I think, yeah, could central office reopen. I think it'd be very, very difficult. Um, and I don't know if it would be a great look, uh, for the, um, district if we're asking folks to bring their children to school and yet we're not having our central office fully, uh, fully, uh, operational as for the locks, um, for the 10 doors, those are something that a $3,000 expense could just fall within my, um, purview as superintendent to just request and get it done. Um, currently none of the doors in central office have a lock. So I thought that was a pretty serious, uh, safety concern. Uh, and again, in the age of, you know, people don't want to think about it, but in the age of school shootings and, uh, you know, God forbid we definitely want to make sure that our central office staff is, uh, safe. Uh, and has, has, has that. So, um, we put it in there really Chris because, uh, if we're, if we were going to ask to, uh, have someone come and do this work, it would just be great for them to also do this at separate, do this job as well. That was really the reason. Oh, thank you. Diane. So I guess I'm a little confused as to how we're here again. Um, and I'm a little worried that we'll be here again next time. Um, in terms of a request that, um, and I, and I think it comes, it comes back to maybe we should have asked better questions in terms of what an estimate was in terms of a commitment or an RFP. Um, but I guess that's my biggest concern. We increased it last time. Now we're going to increase it again. And what happens if we come back next month or next week, whenever it is, we're meeting again, and it's another 10 to 20. So that, that concerns me. Yep. Linda. I share your concern Diane and I questioned an expenditure on the warrant this time because. I don't think I understood that we were spending $15,000 on a software program for healthcare checks. So each week we are now. Well, over $150,000. I don't know how much cares act money. But I worked with somebody who used to say, didn't we spend that grant money last week? And you're saying we're going to spend that grant money again this week, but this is something different. Um, it's, it's, it's, it's, and I, and I am all about, you know, making sure we're safe. But I think we're also, um, Perhaps not being as fiscally responsible as we could be. I think $300 a door for lock sounds pretty expensive to me. Um, when the safety concern is that you just need to turn it from the inside. If it's a shooter, problem, not that you need, um, Fort Knox. So, um, I, I also am concerned. And came to this meeting concerned about some of the expenditures we're doing. Um, thanks, Chris. Before I give it to you. So the, the finance committee did review this at our last meeting and they were going to come back to us with some extra, we felt like the, even though they had been on authorization for us to do, this was related to COVID to this expense that we wanted to bring it back to the board. I, with my experience in construction right now, I got to tell you that everything that we've done, we've been doing it. So just in there, you, you have about $1,800 just in installation, a carpenter, the cheapest carpenter you can get right now is $45 an hour. So I'm not necessarily trying to justify all of it. We just wanted to make sure that we were bringing it back. We just wanted to make sure that we were bringing it back to the board. I, with my experience in construction right now, I got to tell you that everything is, is coming out higher. There's that lack of builders around. And with the doors, we usually say two to four hours to four hours. So we just wanted to make sure that we were bringing it back. It was a consensus that Chris is Scott. And I came back at our last meeting saying we wanted to bring it back to the board. The money is in the capital fund. So it's not necessarily all cares act. We, we would, if they were, by understanding from our last meeting was if they were solid walls, it would qualify for the curse act. So we were hoping to maybe use some of that for the minute for, for that. So it's not an excuse, but so we did. We try to go through all of, all of the, of the lines of how we were going to fund it. So it's not necessarily just counting on, on, on the cares act. Thanks for Chris. Did you have more? I did not. Thank you. Okay. Great. Other other board members want to weigh in. I, I, on the question of this, I guess we, this estimate fell short by, you know, almost, well, actually by more than 50%. But the, the, what Brian was saying about the increase in price in Florida, you as well. I would just like to make a forward answer that. Evidently, I, Framing lumber, according in the national association of home builders. The cost of framing lumber is up 80% over the same period last year. And this is just part of the incredible wild swings and, and, It's just a mess. I think, you know, but it needs to get done, I think. So I support it. Joe? I wasn't actually raising my hand. I was just sort of putting my head in my hands a little bit. I'm not really sure how to respond. I am concerned about it. I did hear from at least one member of the public about the previous estimate. So this is, and I'm feeling, I think, like Diane, maybe didn't ask enough questions a lot of time around. So I'm just a little, but we're in the middle of it. So I'm struggling a little bit with how to how to recommend that we proceed. So, so you were doing a Fauci. So I was, yeah, exactly. Listen, we Italians have to sit together, OK? Great. So are we ready for a vote then? I would say Joe has a better wrong than Fauci, though. Oh, I don't think so. I you know, I don't think so. I'm terrible. Great. Well, someday we'll get a chance to compare Joe. Anyway, so if you're ready, Diane. So I guess my question is, is this a firm quote? So that if we vote tonight, because then we're going to be further down that road of no return, is there potential that we're going to come back with an additional amount? So, I mean, I hesitate to vote yes. And then we're going to get another 10, 15, 20,000. It was an official bid that the architect solicited. So we do have it in writing as if it was ready for a contract. So at this point, it should be enough. OK, now I am raising my hand. OK, so what happens if what would happen if we voted no? What would be the outcome? The the outcome is there could be some folks in central office that would have to relocate or work out of home or go back to what we had last year with the rotation. The because they're right out there in the right out there in the open. That would be one of the things. And of course, and that all depends on, of course, you know, the governor changing the occupancy. The occupancy rate can go back up. It can go up to 100 percent. And I don't think they're doing that anytime soon. There's there's different. There's different, you know, obviously, it depends on how how if the virus comes back, if it doesn't come back. The other piece is, though, is if you go back to the safety piece of someone entering the building during a an active shooter type of situation, those folks that are out that are sitting in that that area out there are sitting ducks in some ways. So that's another piece to it. That's right. Mindy and then Diane. How many people are in that outside area now? Is it two? Two. Yes. So I'm also wondering why a local carpenter couldn't build partitions as far as the active shooter, they are in a position where there are locked rooms with locks right next to them within like two jumps to get into a room and be in place with a locked door. So I'm not as concerned about them having a locking door as just a physical barrier between them for the droplets coming out. And so that is a little bit of my concern as we're doing permanent. I just keep thinking about so much of this permanent and then come December. Everything's put in storage. All this equipment, all of the stuff we're spending money on is going to be over and done because I have that kind of attitude that this is all going to be. We aren't going to live this way the rest of our lives. But for those, the two people there, everyone else in that building has individual rooms. So I just I can see where a partition could be of could work. Diane. So I guess in clarification, I thought it was going to be plexiglass. So I thought that we had talked about and what was described was that it was going to be a plexiglass because we expressed concern over closing in the interior as people went in. So again, I'm just very confused as to where we how we got here. So so the plexiglass is phase one. So when you walk into the building, you'll have you'll have a if you walk in to your left and right, you'll have plexiglass in there. That's that's that was phase one. OK, thanks for the floor. So we can't hear you. Sorry, I apologize for that. This would be an investment. This was a plan that was there before these partitions were never built before. So I won't have a ceiling. So is the back side of the of the of the office. So not not every I think they have too many people right now. If I'm not wrong at Central Office. So there's two people, even the filing. So it's something that for years, we've been saying that we, you know, that we might do and now it makes sense. So the drawings were there from from before. It's just never got built. And I'm talking just about the back. So the second phase, not not the first phase. Chris, are you signaling? I am. Brian, to clarify, the locks are for more than the new doors. It's for doors that are already in existence that don't have locks on them. That right? As of right now, the only door that has a lock is my is my office. And so basically beyond the new the new doors. And I guess if I was in an active shooter situation, I wouldn't want to be taking a skipper to anywhere. I want to be locked in my door, even though I still think these locks are really expensive. So thanks, Chris Scott, this is Steve. Look, please, Stephen, can I apologize? My camera is off too, because of funky stuff. I'm trying to summarize. And I think I'm known as a fiscally conservative member of the board. I think the administration needs to hear. And I suspect they've heard very clearly that if you want money, bring a solid plan. It would. And I know there's a rush, but it would still be preferable to have some kind of a blueprint or a sketch in a plan and a little more detail. But the other thing I'll bring up is we're dealing with multimillion dollar budgets and hundreds of thousands of dollars for covid. And, you know, for me, five thousand dollars for locks, I think the administration has heard we want to be smart with our money and not wasted. And this seems like a lot. But I think we can just vote and move on. Are you calling the question then, Stephen? Here, I'll call it. OK. So the question has been called. We're moving to a vote on in favor. Please click yes. If you're opposed, Scott Scott, where this is this is a vote on calling the question. No, the question has been called. So we go, this is a vote on the motion as as for moved and you seconded to authorize the superintendent to spend a total of forty three point three thousand for the central office renovations. Unless. So here's where my Robert's rules is a little hazy. If you call the question that is that closes debate. It would take, I think, a two thirds majority of board members to keep debate going. And if we didn't call the question and just decided to take a vote, would we avoid a vote on two thirds? No, no, we this is this is sorry. And can I can I offer some understanding by so so my understanding is a motion to call is a non debatable motion and it requires two thirds approval to pass. If it passes and the debate is closed. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you. OK, so it's a learning process. All in favor of calling the question and moving to a to a vote, please click yes. If you're opposed, click no. Great. That question has been called. So now all in favor of authorizing the superintendent to spend a total of forty three thousand three hundred for the central office renovations, please click yes. If opposed, click no. I have seven in favor and one opposed. No, wait a minute, I have there more one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight in favor, one, two, three opposed. Did I get that right? OK, eight to three in favor. So the motion carries. So thank you, everyone. Now, back to where we were at four point one point two since we're still kind of in the same zone. Jonas, would you like to would you like to just kick it off? I would be I would be happy to. So this is a couple of parts to this question about notifications and communications. So who will be responsible for communicating public health information and updates to school communities? And are those communications planned daily or weekly or ad hoc as necessary? And I'll mention a little background about this. The the daycare where we send our three year old sends updates each time, you know, a member of the school community is ill for whatever reason to give people information about how much illness there is going around and updates on the status of covid tests. And that's been extremely helpful for us making decisions each day about whether to send our three year old there. So will school communities will be notified of illnesses and absences without identifying those who are ill, regardless of the known covid status of those who are ill and will school communities be notified of the status of covid tests of students and staff when they occur. Thank you for your question, Jonas. I know we the covid coordinator and I have been discussing this. This and there is definitely a lot of information around this. Do you want to take this first, Elizabeth? I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question. My son was I think the question is who will be responsible for communicating public health information and updates to school communities? Are those communications planned daily, weekly ad hoc is necessary? And and Jonas had provided a basically saying that his daycare sends updates about the number of folks in the school community who may be sick and also any updates on the status of anyone who has covid or covid decisions. Is that correct, Jonas? Did I get that right? Yes, you did. Sorry. Yes. Yeah, I I mean, I'm sure that we'll have updates, but I don't I'm not sure that we will be updating daily on numbers of children who are sick in the building. Is that what you're talking about? You know, like it it is. It is, you know, as as a parent, if, you know, because there's no testing and because the incubation period could be up to two weeks, knowing, you know, that there is someone who is, you know, that there's someone in the classroom or in the building who has covid like symptoms is an important piece of information for parents who may be making day to day decisions about whether it's safe for their child to attend school. Well, I suppose, you know, and there's so many symptoms that are covid like, I mean, just about everything is. So we will be we will be paying close attention to that. And I think how can I put it? The. You know, we have similar protocols for anything like say we have outbreak of strep. We always we will notify a class if there's a certain number, you know. And the covid symptoms, I don't believe we're going to, you know, I don't know, we could we could talk about it and I'll talk about it with Brian as far as what kind of information makes sense, you know. And if we have like, I mean, even in a flu epidemic, if there's a certain percentage of kids out, then. That's something we we haven't had to do that, but we would consider closing the school, you know. So I think that does that make sense? I mean, I understand what you're saying. And daycare is a smaller operation than a school as well. So. And I also think that there could be a challenge if a child is out with covid like symptoms and we send something home. We have to be careful with not violating this HIPAA laws, right? There's crime and folks are going to know who's out, right? If it's in certain classrooms, hey, our body's not in today. And my mom just got a letter that someone has covid like symptoms. It may not be it may be a what you call it counterproductive. I know it may end up hurting hurting. It may be a false a false report and we don't want to get people nervous. I think the idea is if someone does have covid, you know, I think then that's really where we need to work with the Department of Health as well and talk about are we shutting down the school? Are we quarantining that pod in the building? Are we shutting that? I mean, I mean, I really those are the types of decisions that we're going to have to coordinate with the Department of Health. I I understand that. But sorry, Jill, just one follow up. It you know, it does, you know, because there is no testing, you know, we are going to know if there is an active case when someone has active, you know, is when someone is symptomatic, right? And has gotten a covid test and it has come back positive. And there's no way to know, you know, how long that person, you know, in that event, if how long that person has been, you know, circulating in the school building and, you know. You know, what has happened since then? As as as a parent, I would hope that they're, you know, obviously you have to balance competing interests, but I think more information is better than less information. Well, I had my meeting tomorrow. It's a good question. Also ask for a good question. Also ask tomorrow as well with my weekly meeting with the secretary. Thanks, Joe, I just wanted to say that I think the question I'm hearing you ask, Jonas, is really like, what is the communication going to look like? And so I just hope that that Brian and Elizabeth will just take away that broader question, because I think I'm hearing you say you're going to need to make it to, you know, decisions maybe not even on a day-to-day basis. And so how how will that communication be? It sounds like you have an example from a obviously a much smaller place, probably than a school that maybe would just be instructive to share, you know, my observation of anxious people is that they do better with more information. I think everybody's going to be plenty scared. So I don't think we have to worry about scaring people. I'm not especially worried about that. I'm more actually worried about not giving giving people the impression that or making sure people understand that they're getting all the information they need to make their individual decisions for their families. I think that will be more reassuring. So I think it's just a broader communication question. So I mean, the two questions I got out of this this conversation, this particular conversation is what will communication look like if someone is sick with COVID and what notification will be given and how will it be given? Right. Not just with COVID. I don't think I heard Jonah saying not just with COVID, but with even symptoms. So just a sense of the and that's that's where I think there it does become sort of technically challenging or operationally challenging. But it sounds like in his daycare, they're saying, you know, just this number of kids are sick. And and then Jonas can say, wow, five kids are sick. I think I'm kind of done for today or while one kid is sick, well, you know, who knows, maybe it's allergies. Chris, are you seeing I think for you, Jonas? I just I was just trying to I don't know. I just. Chris. Yeah, Scott. Yes. A couple of questions. One is kind of surfing back to the idea as to whether remote learning students can participate with other students like in outdoor activities at the elementary schools seems to me that we have a policy that opens up extracurricular activities in school to home schoolers, sexually endorsed policy and why that wouldn't also apply to remote learning students who essentially have the same type of old students do. It's not clear to me. And the second I understood from Jen Milo Arsenault's recitation that it was basically a health based issue. But then I hear and sorry, Stephen, for picking on you this way. Stephen Dellinger paid talking about the pods at U32 being 15. But you know what, not strictly 15 because people don't want to be stuck at the same 15 people all the time. So, you know, I guess it's a health concern, but not a strict one. And it seems to me that if we're still trying to maintain social relationships and unity amongst our students, because there's still all our students in the same school and eventually will be together again because of COVID won't last forever, that we should seriously rethink any exclusion of the remote learning students from participating in the activities that they can and not use, you know, not use the pod system as an excuse not to do that. And then the second question I have, and it's kind of along the same lines is I'm not clear why the seventh and eighth graders who fall within the age, as I understand it, the new studies, the age vulnerability that older high school students have, why they would be in school and not alternate week by week similar to the ninth and tenth graders and the eleventh and twelfth graders in the middle school. It just, it seems inconsistent, particularly since they're in the same school. And I know the governance is that, or the guidance is that K through 8, but when it's a different school building physically, it seems like it would be more consistent to have seventh and eighth reflecting what the high schoolers are doing. Thanks. Well, it's Steven. You want me to take that one, Brian? So first, Chris, I hope I didn't mischaracterize the teams and the pods. Kids are going to be in the same 15 student group exclusively unless we decide to move them within the 60 student group. And that's not going to happen on a daily basis, probably not even on a weekly basis. So that probably needs to be explained better when I write it out. But the other part is that when we just, we're designing our 60 student teams to be exclusive from other parts of the building. So our seventh and eighth graders are not going to interact with each other. The teams are not going to interact and the teachers are not going to interact either. And so we're going to have those designed so that they're apart from the high school entirely. But speaking to the need to keep those students in a hybrid system versus being there all day, there are four things that's recommended to reduce the spread of the virus within a school. The face coverings, the physical distancing, having pods and groups, and then hand washing, hand hygiene. If you do those four things, then you greatly reduce the potential of any kind of spread within your school. And so we think that given the numbers in our classes, we're going to be able to provide the physical distancing. We're going to work on having the masks. That's that big push for everybody is to wear masks on a regular basis. And we're going to really enforce that. And then the pods themselves really keep kids separate from a larger group of kids overall. And so we feel like by having the high school and a hybrid system, we can spread out our middle school enough as well to be able to provide that physical distancing piece. And so that kind of all four of those things together will greatly reduce the possibility that they're spread, not just with middle schoolers, but with high schoolers. And it would work, it works for elementary as well. So we think that we were meeting all those requirements and that we can with those kids there every day. Okay, so the high school will be alter, the hybrid for the high school to create space. And the middle schoolers. Yes, I would say that that is the primary reason that we're on a hybrid system with the high school is just to be able to provide for the physical distancing and just I would say logistics of getting meals to classrooms at lunchtime and doing, there's a lot of other logistics that go along with what we're going to have to do that we haven't even touched on yet. And that just having two thirds of the kids in the building makes that a lot more manageable during this time of COVID. Cause you gotta remember we're closing our cafeteria. We're gonna have to actually have the bathroom times for classes and things like that. Cause we don't have that many bathrooms in the building and they're gonna be need to be cleaned during the day at least once or twice. And so there's things like that that have to occur and just having everyone in the building makes those things much more difficult. Thank you. Yeah, thanks very much. Other board member questions? Jonas? So I've got some questions, Brian, under my education section. If an in-person student is sick with COVID or any other illness, will they be allowed to participate in remote learning that day? That day, if they're sick. If they're absent. If they're absent. I mean, I think if we're gonna have to make decisions, if a child or a group of children have to be quarantined and they're not allowed to come to school because there was an illness and we had to shut down either a wing or a part of the building, they would have to, we would have to definitely moved into remote learning. So the children did not miss their work. No, I'm saying, you know, one kid has strep or the sniffles, right? And doesn't come to school. Is that kid absent for the day or does they have an opportunity for remote learning? They would be sick for the day and they would have to be treated as if they're out for that day. If it's a COVID situation and we have to quarantine, then the children would have to go up. If even if they're not sick, but the whole class has to go home for a certain period of time, then they would know what they could go on remote learning. But if it's a student who has a sick illness for a day, you know, I would not, if you're sick, if you're sick, you really shouldn't be doing anything, right? So, no, the answer is no, they shouldn't be doing remote learning if they're sick. Okay. Chris, did I see you? You're muted. Okay. I didn't put my hand down. Sorry. Okay, okay. Lindy. That last question from Chris just made me want to clarify. The children whose families decide on remote learning, they will be in their own cohort. Is that correct? Such that you wouldn't just have a sick child join that class because there's already a plan going on for that cohort. Is that correct? That's correct. Yes. Thanks. If I might recognize myself, I guess, for a question. It seems, well, there's this teacher movement called Refuse to Return that seems to have started out in California. And one of their criteria for returning is that there would be zero cases of COVID for the county in which they're located over a period of two weeks. And in Washington County, Vermont, over the past two weeks, there's been something like two to four cases of COVID confirmed with very low positivity, test positivity rates. It is entirely possible to meet that zero cases for two weeks if the community is all on board. And we tend to look inward at ourselves as an organization, but has any thought been given to what we can do, what different things we can do in order to, instead of basing our actions and basing the community members, mask discipline and distancing, et cetera, on fear to turn it into something that's based on solidarity, on self-respect, respect for others and so forth, knowing that if they act responsibly and effectively, that this will allow schools to operate and everything else that will fall into place thereafter. Has, I know you've got so much on your plates, but have you thought about how we can do that? It sounds like kind of a board thing, at least in part, but interested in ideas, not necessarily tonight, but Joe. Scott, the Department of Health actually has a whole masks on public health campaign. It's a huge promotion. I just had my picture taken for it today. So I think as a healthcare leader, so I actually think that that is really important work, but I don't think it's work that we need to do as a board or as an administrative team, other than perhaps looking into the materials and maybe wanting to promote it, but I think that work is being done in other quarters on that broader sort of public health basis. Okay, thanks. Mindy. You, I mean, just from what Jill said and thinking about it, because I agree with her, if you wanted to jazz up the COVID website, you might put some pictures of our administrators with their masks, smodeling their masks or something like that, just showing that we're doing it and what Kat presented tonight also has a lot to do with mindset and that positivity. I think what you just said, Scott, is so important that we're looking at the positives of what Vermont is doing and not comparing ourselves to states who are in a huge uptick and forcing everyone back in a school at the same time trying to have that outlook of trust that the schools are doing the best they can and we're trying and watching the data. Washington County has had very low positivity rates and having a little of that compassion and positivity but maybe jazzed up the website with some mask pictures, I don't know. The power of art, yes. Jonas. I don't have the exact number in front of me but I believe there have been seven new cases and one death in Washington County in the last seven days. Thank you for the darker side of things. I mean, I mean. No, no, no, I mean, I will continue down the darker side. I mean, we are here, if we're gonna go into discussion instead of Q and A. Yeah, that's. I mean, if it can, if opening schools full-time five days a week can happen anywhere, it's here in Washington County. Even with those, a case a day over the last week, we've been extremely fortunate but as Branch Ricky said, luck is the residue of design and Vermont has handled this very well. Our citizens have been extremely responsible. We also have the benefit of seeing what is happening in other states that have not done as well as we have but that are opening that, their school year normally opens earlier than ours do and the early returns from Georgia and Indiana are not great. What I am most concerned about is that since early March in Vermont, there have been virtually zero significant gatherings of significant numbers of people inside. On September 8th, there are going to be hundreds of locations across the state where dozens or hundreds of people will be inside together, seven or more hours a day, two to five days a week. We are, there's nothing magical about Vermont, there's nothing special about us. It can happen and I think that we have, in addition to the educational responsibility we have to our children, we also have a public health responsibility and I'm glad that the administrator, I'm glad, Brian, thank you for answering all these questions. Everybody thank you for sitting and listening to me go on and on about this but there is a pandemic going on out there. We do not have closed borders in Vermont and without being too dire, it's not a matter of time but there is significant risk out there and opening schools is going to increase that risk profile. So yes, there's good news and there are things to celebrate but we also need to take a sober look at what the implications are. I would be very interested to know, the people at the state who are doing the modeling around COVID-19, I would be interested to know what their modeling says about the reopening of schools and what the different levels of future casting are for schools remaining closed versus a one day hybrid model or a two day hybrid model versus opening up full time. I think we need to confront this stuff. If I may, Jonas, first of all, your branch Ricky reference wins quote of the meeting award for tonight. That was for you. Yeah. Also, there's the, if you follow the as obsessively some of us do the graphs of incidents of disease in Vermont, there tends to be those blips that have happened since May. Upward blips tend to follow by about two weeks such events as Memorial Day or the last week of school or fourth of July. And the one concern that I have is about Labor Day weekend. There's clearly a lot of mixing going on. People may be getting together with relatives, with friends, sort of the last hurrah for the summer and then back to school without a testing protocol or a kind of soft entry, if you wanna call it that, that allows for any cases that might have been acquired to show themselves. So anyway, that too is a concern. Jump in board members if you care to, unless you're tired. We can call this at 9.30, in this particular section of the meeting if you like. Unless you're done now, Jonas. I have more questions. I have a question to Jonas. Go ahead, John, I'm sorry. Okay, it's okay. So I'm trying to eat dinner and be in this meeting. So I wanna actually go off of what, of Jonas's first question. And maybe this was discussed, maybe I missed it, but I got tested for COVID and it took 14 days to get the results. And so I'm concerned again, like if a child has a scratchy throat or something and they have to go home until their tests results come back, are they just going to be absent from school or are they going to be able to be incorporated into remote learning? Because I didn't feel it sounded like they would just be absent until they were either healthy or the test results came back. So I just needed more clarity on that. Yeah, currently, Jail, we were looking at that and that's a great question. And I would like to explore that further with the leadership team when we meet tomorrow. But currently the answer was if the child has to go home, if the child goes home sick, they would not be participating in remote learning because they're at home sick. But I think if you're saying if a student tests positive for COVID, but maybe it's asymptomatic, what would happen, is that the question? No, if the student goes home with a scratchy throat and then goes to get tested for COVID but doesn't get the results for 14 days, what is that student supposed to do during that time? I mean, because the symptoms can be very mild but they still may be contagious. So I mean, I send my kids to school with runny noses because they're fine, they can still run around but that was pre-COVID. So do they have to sit at home and do nothing for two weeks just because they have a runny nose? Elizabeth, do you have a comment on that? I think one thing is that if somebody goes home with a scratchy throat and they check in with their health provider, probably they're not gonna get a COVID test but they might be monitored and if they don't have a fever and the sore throat goes away, they can come back to school. I think that there is some allowance for kids who in that situation, if they did stay home longer and they were asymptomatic or they got a positive COVID test and they were still asymptomatic, they weren't sick and there is some allowance for doing some remote work with their own class, the class that's in person. And it's similar to if somebody's out for a period of time and needs to make up work but they could perhaps, they wouldn't join the remote group. I don't believe, I think they'd still be part of their class but... Yeah, they wouldn't be joining the remote learning the group that's already doing full time now. So they'd still be part of their class and that teacher would be able to work with them and figure out how they would participate to not fall behind now. So I think there has to be some allowance for kids who may need to be out of school. Like you said, not really sick but we're asking them not to come and they shouldn't have to miss. Yeah, Brian, I could add to that from U32's perspective. So the way, as we've been talking about these teams of kids the 60 kids, we're assigning all kids whether they're remote or in person to one of those teams. So those groups of six to seven teachers are gonna be working with that group of 60 kids. If some of them are remote by choice of their families we're building that into the teacher schedule as part of their day to work with those kids. And that way, because we know that there's gonna be these issues where if a kid ends up being quarantined for 14 days because of this, we want them just to be getting the same information as their classmates and being able to participate as much as possible. I mean, if they're actually sick then they probably won't be able to do their schoolwork but as much as possible. And I would also say that we haven't spoken much about this but one of the other big things is we're putting in place is a learning management system. And I cannot speak as the expert on that yet. I have other people who are becoming experts on that as we speak. But what that will do is allow our students and that's pre kindergarten through 12th grade that they're gonna be able to access lessons from their classroom on the learning management system. And so I don't know exactly how it will look yet but I can tell you that we are trying to create some better systems than we had back when we went into remote learning in the spring so that kids have quicker access and families have easier access through one portal to be able to get what schoolwork all of their kids no matter which grade level they are in. They'd be able to see that information for all their kids. And so we recognize the need for kids to be out sick and we're gonna try to plan around that. Thanks, Steven. Chris and then Jonas for the last word. So my question is, is there any situation in which the district can require a student or a staff member who is exhibiting what seems to be COVID-like symptoms to undergo a test before returning to any of the school? Let me answer that. Yes, please. I don't believe that we can force anybody to have a test but we can say that you need to check in with your healthcare provider and that person makes that decision in conjunction with them. And it can be a team kind of approach. The school nurse can be in touch with the healthcare provider. But if they refuse to go and say, if they say I'm not gonna go to my healthcare provider is there any protocol that would require assurance from a healthcare provider before someone returns to the school? That's a good question. I don't think we've thought about that in exactly that way. But I don't think we can, if somebody goes home because they have one of the symptoms or they've made that checklist and they did, there was some reason that they needed to go home or be excluded. And you're talking more about staff, right? I'm a staff or a student. You know, that person just basically a member of the population, whoever it is. Right, I mean, if we're concerned about a particular student especially, and we can contact the healthcare provider and have that student be seen. I mean, we can say that in order to come back, we could do that. As far as adults, that's a little bit different. But if somebody has symptoms, I don't think we can require that somebody sees their provider before coming, as long as they have no more symptoms, if they're better in a day. But if they do have, see a healthcare provider who says you need to have a test, then we would have them excluded until they had the results from that test. Okay, thank you. Thanks. Jonas, would you like to play us out? Well, Scott, it's hard to know what you're tuned to play. I had a long set list written up. So I think I'll ask the most uncomfortable one. How will we deal with mask and distancing non-compliance? And in a similar vein, will we require COVID vaccinations if and when one becomes available? So to answer your question, the last one first, will we require COVID-19 vaccinations? We're gonna have to wait for guidance from the state. The state will end up ultimately, I believe imagine setting that because it's a vaccination, usually the most vaccination laws and requirements come from the state Department of Health. I just want to make sure that is correct. I believe that is, but I just wanted to make sure Elizabeth, do you have anything else to add about the vaccination piece? That's correct. I don't think we can insist that, I mean, even regular immunizations, we can't insist. If somebody wants an exemption, they can have a religious exemption and not have a vaccination and they can't be excluded. But it would be, it's a state mandate. It's not our mandate about vaccinations. Yep. And the other question Jonas that you asked is, how will we address mask and distancing non-compliance? Yes. So I know Cat Fair talked about the trying to, when kids are coming back and we have all these options of discipline, right? To discipline a child when they're not doing something and it's being non-compliant. I think the first thing is we need to find out why they're being non-compliant and find out what is happening. But if it's just someone not following it because they think they don't have to and we work with their families to try to let them know that your child's not complying, here's what can happen. Ultimately, I think we have to be prepared to tell the family and the child that you may have to be on remote learning. Thanks Brian. Thanks. I know that, sorry Jonas. Yeah. Cat Fair. I'd love to fit in just one more. Just one more. Sure. Thank you. So this is about the separation of kids into in-person and remote cohorts. And it seems like there will be a wall and I haven't seen any opportunities for cross-engagement there. So in the event that I forget who said it earlier that this is not what we're gonna be doing for I think it was Lindy said we're not gonna be doing this forever. We won't have this pandemic forever. If that is the case and I certainly hope it is, how will the existing in-person class cohorts maintain contact and cohesion? If some are remote in classrooms what they don't know and some are in-person. And the last piece of this is will grading be comparable for in-person versus remote cohorts? So the answer to your last question is yes. And I can have Jen talk more about that. But I know she's under CI curriculum instruction and assessment task force. Jen can you please respond to that? Yeah, sure. So the standards, the performance indicators, the rubrics, the criteria, the proficiency skills they are all the same whether a student is in remote learning or they're learning in-person. Stephen had mentioned the learning management system earlier, Canvas. We did a lot of research this summer as the curriculum instruction and assessment task force to figure out a learning management system that was gonna allow us to customize so that we could continue to implement proficiency-based learning principles and so that we could customize so that the interfaces were developmentally appropriate. It also allows us to having one system pre-K through graduation to streamline our communication with families and students which we heard a lot of feedback about as a room for improvement in the spring. And it allows us to collaborate with teachers as well. In terms of your earlier question I guess I'd answer that in two ways. One thing is that we're currently envisioning the remote learning cohorts to be comprised of students in similar grades or grade level clusters of elementary from across all of our schools. And just like we spend the first six weeks of school in a responsive cluster model building community and articulating expectations we would envision doing the same thing so that that becomes a robust learning community as well. That third grade cohort from across all of the schools. So that there will be a lot of intentionality and community building and expectation understanding there. And we have been hearing questions about and how can I also maintain a connection to the broader school? And the principals have been talking about that, right? To the extent that there might be an event or some sort of a virtual exchange those sorts of things. We do not have all of the details ironed out but it is definitely something that we're all thinking about so that one day when kids can all be back in person we will preserve those relationships as well. Thank you, Jen. Wonderful. Thank you, everyone. Scott, just one, I'm very sorry, Scott. Okay. The topics that I haven't gotten to address and that I hope that we will have an opportunity to do as a board to continue to ask these questions are about the balancing act that in the decision making between the deleterious effects of remote learning, part-time remote learning, how those effects stack up, the more time a child spends out of the class and how we're balancing that against public health. Also more about the mechanics of how quarantine and isolation in schools should a kid become sick, how that happens. I have more questions about the resilience of the system, where the pain points are here, and particularly around how we will know each day if we have enough staff on hand to operate each school, given what we approved last week in terms of letting their kids come either as enrolled students or in their remote learning pods. Thank you for bearing with me. I appreciate everyone's patience. Of course, thank you, Janice. It's a good illustration of just how fiendishly complicated this whole business is. So I hope it's with some sense of relief that we move on to the fairly simple and straightforward part of the meeting, which is the consent agenda. Would anyone who care to move to approve the minutes of July 15th and July 22nd, beginning on page eight? This is Diane, I so move. Thank you, Diane. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Flora. Thanks, Jo and Jo, as backups. Any changes to the minutes? Any questions? Scott, I have a minor one. It's Jo. Sure, Jo. Lisa, it looked to me like in the minutes of July 22nd, my name is spelled correctly in the part up top where it lists who was present, but in the body of the minutes, it's spelled Olsen with an E-N, it should be Olsen with an O-N. Got that, Lisa. And Chris, I see your hand up. I think you need to unmute Chris. It was up from before, I just didn't unread it. Thank you. Oh, okay, great. All right. So if we're ready then to vote on the minutes of July 15th and July 22nd, please click yes if you approve and no if you disapprove. And I'm seeing all yeses. Jial, you're good? Yeah, I just accidentally hit the hand. Oh, okay, great. Great, okay, minutes are approved. Now, a motion to approve the board orders, whoever has them handy, please feel free to read them out. I will do so. I move that we approve the board orders in the amount of $180,213.21, $223,813.97, and $8,812.18. Excellent, thank you, Janice. Is there a second floor seconds? Great, are there questions about the board orders? Linda, did you have a question? No, I was actually just moving my hair, but I had sent an email inquiring about the readmission management software because I was a little concerned. I know we were, something was mentioned at our last meeting about some sort of software, but I didn't expect it to be $15,000 for a one year subscription is what it appears to be. So I just wanted to voice that, which I had done earlier as far as I think some of these COVID expenses have been Cadillacs or Mercedes or Audis or something. So I'm just saying. Thanks, Linda. And I presume you'll receive an email response. Have you received a response already? Oh, yes. I Googled the company to find out what it was because all it said was the name. So it had to do with hospitals, minimizing readmission hospital software. I thought when parents were filling out their checklist or whatever, it would be a simple Google Sheet or something in our already management, student management system or through Google, but not a full blown hospital software system. So I was a little surprised. Thanks. Other questions about the board orders? All right. All in favor of approving the board orders as moved by Jonas and seconded by Floor, please click yes. If you disapprove, please click no. And I'm seeing all the yeses. Thank you very much. The motion passes. And as I see some of you are already doing, please don't forget to send in your email as token of your signature on the board orders. Very good. So moving on to 6.0, approve new teachers, et cetera, beginning on page 23. Would anyone like to move in the first place, the hirings, the new teacher nominations? I move that we approve the new teacher nominations. Great. Would you more Heather? Yes. I move that we approve Heather Clark Warner, East Montpelier pre-K teacher at 0.4 FTE. Kevin Richards, U32 social studies teacher at one FTE. Jessica Abisla, the new Dodie school nurse at one FTE. Great. Thanks very much. And Dorothy, your seconding. Yes. Thank you very much. Okay. Is there a discussion of these? Thank you for including the employee nomination forms. If there is no discussion, we can go to a vote. All in favor of approving these teacher nominations, please click yes. If you're opposed, please click no. I'm seeing all the yeses. Great. Thank you very much. Now we also have one change in FTE. Would anyone care to move that? I can move it. I have it in front of me. David Mathews at East Montpelier nurse increased to a 0.5 FTE to a one full-time position. Great. Floor moves. Is there a second? I'll second. Thanks Dorothy. Great. Any further discussion of this? If not, all in favor, please click yes. Opposed? Click no. And I'm seeing once again, all yeses. The motion passes. Wonderful. Okay. Now at this point, we have, yeah, sorry, Brian. Yeah, I didn't want to, I'm sorry for jumping in. Maybe I should let you talk. I was just making sure we didn't miss the behavior interventionist position. Right. Thank you. Having jumped from the back to the front again of the agenda, I'm reminded that we have this 6.2 approving the addition of one behavior interventionist. Would anyone care to move this? Almost. Gile moves and Dorothy seconds. Thank you. Very good. So Brian, there's a memo explaining this, but would you like to? Yes. One of our contractors is no longer gonna be providing services that we've contracted with. And our director of special services, Kelly Bushy, has realized they cost savings to the district with being able to hire a behavior interventionist position, which would be a new position. However, we would be able to pay this position with the contracted service, with the money that we wouldn't be spending on the contract would basically cover this behavior interventionist and also result some savings to the district. Kelly, did I get everything? I just wanted to make sure. Is there anything else? I know you worked on this. You got it. Okay. Great. Thanks very much. Any board discussion or questions? What is the savings to the district? It'll be approximately around $20,000. Okay. Is that, and is the valuation of the new employee based on an average of benefits or conservatively using the family benefit? We use the family benefit. We use the family benefit. We went high. Okay. Thank you. Great. Other questions? If not, then let's go to a vote. All in favor of adding a behavior, a behavioral interventionist position, please click yes, opposed, click no. And once again, I'm seeing all the yeses. Great. Thank you, everyone. Now, almost there. However, we have at this point, public comments. Scott, I'm sorry. We do have, I do have one other piece that came out. We had a resignation recently that someone had resigned after 46 years of service. And Kat Fair wanted to, I really wanted to speak up tonight at this section. Absolutely. Yes, I'm, we're all ears. So, Moni Hudson, Mrs. Hudson, has been a parent educator and classroom assistant at Calis since I was a kid there at Calis. She started just a couple of years after I joined Calis. She has lived in Calis her whole life. She's worked in Calis her whole life. Her grandkids, her kids have gone through Calis in U32. This is an end of an era. And it's not, she is, this is not a position that the board needs to approve or not. She's been ready for retirement. I've just held on to her every year. But this is the year that she's decided to retire. And she did write a nice letter to the board. Do you guys mind a few minutes if I read it? No, go right ahead. No. So, Moni says to the school board after 46 rewarding years of being with Calis kids, I've decided to graduate to retirement. I started three years after this school was built, been here for all eight principals, seven librarians and countless teachers. I have seen and learned numerous reading and math programs over the years. And it's been a learning experience for me as well as the kids. Most rewarding to me has been seeing Calis students become successful adults. And it's gratifying to know where they got their start. That part makes me cry. Calis Elementary will always have a place in my heart and it's been a big part of my life for a long time. And I treasure my time there. I just wanted us to acknowledge her. That's beautiful, Kat. And Moni, you're right. She's an institution. It's impossible to imagine the school without her, actually. And she has like 10 times more energy than I do. So, we wish her our very, very best. And I know she'll continue to be a very big part of the community anyway. Just hope she stays safe and healthy. So, Brian, sorry, Flora? I just wanted to tell Moni that I am at the retired Calis librarian. She's hosting me because I had no power in my house. And Moni and Karen are best friends. So, the connections continue. Yeah, that's great. So, Brian, is it safe now to move to 7.0? Great. All right, 7.0 is public comments part two. So, I have public comments at the beginning and no one took us up on the invitation. For now, if you're on Zoom and wish to make a public comment, I would ask you kindly click the raise hand button on the participants box. Or if you were in on your phone, I guess if you just, uh, Ursula? And Lisa? This is actually Chris Stanley. Oh, hi, Chris. How are you doing? Good. There's been a lot of really good questions. That was a lot of hard work going on. With the community forum on the 19th, is there any way to delay when parents have to make their decision? There are way too many open questions, you know, commit by tomorrow. What are things that are going on? Thank you. Thank you for that question. I'm not, I know the, are we in a position to answer that question at this point? I would just say that we're trying to make this, I mean, I understand the question and because parents want as many, I know Chris has been reaching out and asking questions and we've been answering questions. I understand he has questions and he's asking great questions. A lot of times the questions end up, we end up taking back to our team and reviewing and trying to be more thoughtful about certain things. So I thank you, Chris, and I thank you, Ursula, for your questions. Can we delay answering those pieces? I would not say we want to delay because we do need to have answers and I know we're going to continue to send out more information. It's going to continue to come. I think some of these questions that board members, school board members asked today, we're going to definitely have to continue to go back and look at some of these questions that we could not answer today and try to get them out. So I think the instruction, the best way to try to say is try to answer the question as what do you call it, as well as you can with the limited information or the information that you have and again, the guiding principle is everything we're trying to do is we're trying to be as flexible as possible. So yes, please answer the questions so we can start making decisions on what we're doing. I do recognize though that things on the ground may change as new information comes available. So we have to be flexible, but we would also really, I don't want to say, yes, you can change it and then all of a sudden 200 parents don't answer questions. I think we really want to have an idea of have parents answer the questions based on the information that they have available and obviously if things change, maybe you want to reach out to your principal and let them know before the start of school, but I do think that we are in that area where we're trying to make some decisions, but we are recognizing that we have to be flexible. Thanks, Brian. May we move on to Lisa? And thank you Chris and Ursula for your question. So first I just want to thank the board and the administration and the SLEEP for all the work they've been doing. I know everybody is working really hard at a lot of impossible tasks. I am a fifth and sixth grade teacher at Doty as well as a parent of two school-aged children also at Doty. As a teacher, I've had growing concerns that the collective teacher voice hasn't been amplified to communities, especially because at some point all of this moves from discussion and meetings to teachers and staff implementing what Scott called earlier a fiendishly complicated system. So I've written a letter to the board that many of you probably have seen as an individual and also there is a letter in the Worcester Front porch forum today signed by 12 Doty teachers expressing some of our questions and concerns that haven't been answered yet. But so tonight, like Jonas, I have so many questions and it's hard to choose what to ask or what to comment on, especially as my list has grown tonight, but I'm gonna choose a teacher-focused question and ask in that capacity. So earlier a question was asked about providing more specific information on the website rather than just policy statements. And I'll give the specific example of the claim that we're sharing with the community that there will be a robust remote learning experience and what that would look like. I was stated that the remote learning survey documents what this experience will look like. And I have to argue that as a teacher, what I find is that the survey lets family know lets family know the hourly requirements, lets them know the tool, which is Canvas, which teachers are yet to be trained on, which will take up a few of our days as well as social-emotional training and protocol training. So those 10 days are getting filled very quickly. And there's a provided schedule that suggests to parents when math might happen or global citizenship might happen. But what's missing is instructional approaches and what we know makes a robust learning experience for students is high-quality instruction, strategies and tools, and teachers who are equipped to deliver that instruction. I'm a teacher and I know that if we are selected to teach remotely, we'll be asked to add an endorsement to our license, which will require 10 credits of coursework over the course of the year. But I don't know whether we'll receive any training beforehand or if we are implementing a remote program on the go as we also are trained. And I think these are the kinds of details that really are important for families and teachers to be aware of as we say that we are ready to implement a robust program. And then so I think these sentiments ripple through the concerns around all of the information on the website in terms of not just having policy documents and sentiments, as Chris spoke to earlier, but even Kat's presentation, which I have so much respect for and so many teachers believe that we're trying to make good plans to support students in social and emotional learning, but there are so many questions about what this looks like for us as teachers operationally and how much training we'll receive in those 10 days and if it's enough. And so I don't know what my specific question is, but I would like to see more information, specific information for families on that website. And if the board or admin wanna speak to my concerns, I would love it, but I'll leave it at that for now. Wow, thank you. Oh, let me summarize, Lisa. So you would like to see more information and you feel like teachers need to see more information on how some of the things play out operationally, correct? Yes, and if there's not more information then families need to know that. And teachers need time to plan and be trained and while I hear that we have 10 days, the list of things that we will need to train for in 10 days when our jobs are really gonna look very new for us is a little bit overwhelming for teachers. Yeah, and I know, and a lot of things are being placed on teachers, I get that. And I know it's probably the hardest time to ever be a teacher and a lot of people have not signed up for that, right? I mean, it's just a difficult situation. So, and I thank you for your dedication to your community and to your profession. The pieces, so basically a lot of the times the way that we're trying to set up our communication capacity has been, the website has been kind of, not gonna get into the minutiae of, it gives you an idea of a lot of the broader ideas of what we're thinking, how we're gonna be implementing and what we're gonna be doing. And then I know that the principles typically put out newsletters to their communities and they really get into a lot of the specific details. I know that it's, again, it's like an onion. You peel off an onion and there's more details that need to be added. So, I definitely would ask the employer to talk to your principal. And also, if there are certain things that still require more details, we do have folks working on those. So, for example, the instructional approaches. I can probably have Jen maybe talk a little bit more about she's a member of the curriculum Instruction Assessment Task Force as is, who else, I'm trying to think who else is there. Jen, I know Jen has been working with the task force about identifying PD professional development needs for teachers in regards to implementing the remote learning option. I also think if Alicia is also on that task force as well, as an elementary principal, I don't know if any of you want to talk about some of the work that we're working on, because I did see your letter and I thought that there was a lot of questions that you had. I thought that there was a lot of things that folks have either A, answered, or maybe haven't provided out to you directly. And then there's also some questions that we still need to look at absolutely for short. So, Jen or Alicia, do you have anything else to add about the student learning, I know about the learning management system and instructional approaches? Well, I can say a little bit. And then Jody, Alicia and I have been working on the in-service plan together to bring to the rest of the team. But we, a subgroup of the curriculum instruction and assessment task force is designing the PD around Canvas, using Canvas so that teachers will be familiar and confident with the platform and also embedding in that training, the modeling and the utilization of best practices in remote learning. So it's all sort of coming together in that way. That will be, that's some of the answer, but more extensive training as you mentioned regarding, I mean, this is a licensed endorsement in some cases, but we are trying to provide that baseline. We also wanna make sure that in utilizing Canvas, we're preparing all of our families, students and teachers in the event that everybody has to go remote down the line, that we all feel confident and competent in our use of that platform, so that we can more seamlessly transition to a period of remote learning should that be required. Jody or Alicia has anything they wanna add to that explanation. As we build our professional development, we've been working to build in best practices, as Jen said, and universal design for learning, so making sure that we remind teachers of the skills that they already have and that their experience and expertise hasn't gone away. We just need to shift how we're using it and so helping folks to do that. And teachers are designing the PD modules for that work in those two weeks. We also are setting aside a great deal of time in the second week to allow for teachers to collaborate and work together, whether it's across schools at the elementary level, at grade level teams, or if it's content alike, pre-K to graduation for my cat. And at the high school, working in teams are in course alike to start building those courses in Canvas, which I think will be immensely helpful so that you can divvy up the load, so to speak. Yeah, I think the only thing that I would add to that is just thinking about the timeline we're interviewing for the remote positions next week. And our hope is that once we've identified who those remote teachers are, we'll be able to work with them and developing the plans really for what more of those specific details look like. We wanted to come up with kind of the framework, but those details have yet to be determined and we're hoping that the remote teachers will help with that. Many thanks. Thank you. I believe the telephone 324-6622 unmuted is that... Yeah. Hi, Scott. Corinne. Hello, Corinne. How are you? So I'm great, thank you. Hope you guys are all doing okay. At least you don't have a drive home. I did send an email along with this, so I get it that you may not have answers to it and I will look forward to the frequently asked questions, but some of the things I haven't heard are, and I've read as much as I can on the news site and in principles, newsletters and so forth, but I have not seen or I missed what the vocational student plans are, what with them going back and forth between two schools, and I haven't heard if staff and substitutes will be working in more than one school. I'm wondering if school photos will be taken as usual. I'm wondering if instead of thinking about using tents at all, if people have thought about having at least one large shelter at each school, because besides the expense and the hassle of putting tents up and down, if you own it, you actually have to store it too. And I mean a shelter larger than the one that's currently at BES. And the last thing I want to note is please don't wait to put up the frequently asked questions until you have all the answers. Put it up even if you just have the questions and then people will know that their question has been asked and the answer will be coming and to make sure to date the answers. So if information changes and you need to update an answer based on new information, people will be able to discern what's current information. Thank you guys very much. Thank you. Nice suggestions. Thanks. Are there other public comments? If not... Sorry, Scott, I am raising my hand again. Oh, I'm sorry, Alisa. I'm going to sit next to your lead and keep asking a few. I am wondering what the process is or the plan is for hiring teachers, classroom teachers, to fill the positions of those teachers who will be hired to teach remotely. With the current timeline, as I understand, there's a interview process next week for current classroom teachers who are interested in teaching remotely. So there's going to be a number of jobs to fill across the district in classroom. And so that leaves about 12 days before the 24th, at best, to hire teachers to fill classroom positions. Is there a plan to shift teachers around in the district to fill that? Are we posting for external folks to get those jobs? And just what is the plan for that? Yeah. So I think the preliminary plan, Alisa, is to operate within our budget, right? So I know I heard some board members tonight are talking about being physically responsible. So we need to see where those teachers are coming from and also how many students, how many families are opting for the remote option and how many families are opting for in-person. So it's kind of a little bit of a puzzle, but it may involve moving some folks around. Nice, Ryan. Alisa, yes? I guess I just want to echo one more time from the community, both parent and teacher perspective, some of the unanswered questions about testing and protocol for when kids are showing any symptoms. I think there was a lot of unanswered questions there. I do really feel like as a community member and a teacher, I'm doing my due diligence to read through all the materials and really thinking about the questions that I'm submitting to administration and feel fairly confident that the questions I'm submitting have not already been answered in a way that adequately answers my questions. And I think it became very clear that there are a lot of questions about testing and about kids going home and how long they need to stay home and how the rest of us who are in the buildings or sending our children to the buildings can feel confident. And I heard a lot of the answers where that we need to talk more about that. And I think that needs to take a high level of priority for those of us who are deciding on whether to send our children into the buildings or not. So I just wanted to echo that, to make sure that that is not lost. Thank you, Lisa. Yeah. Thanks very much. Other public comments? If not, 8.0 is future agenda items. We've added a couple today already from business administrators succession and board retreat. Are there any others that board members would like to put on the list? Diane? Check in on where we're at for a board replacement. Membership? Good one. Yeah. Any others? Great. If that is the case, then if there is no objection, let's adjourn by consensus at 10.12 with thanks and best wishes for a calm and peaceful night. Good night, everyone. Good night. Thank you. Thanks.