 Call the meeting to order at 7.05. Do we have any adjustments to the agenda? What about that thing that needs to be read in Andrew? Oh right. I'm not sure if that's the appropriate place but well I think we can put that in the public comment. Okay. Report the original part about that later. Okay. We'll move to the consent agenda to approve the minutes of Tuesday the 7.19 and approve the minutes of Tuesday January 10th special meeting. The only discussion point that we had was just making sure that Andrew's name is okay. But other than that I'll make a motion to approve the minutes as amended. I second. I wasn't at that meeting so I don't really hold on it. Hello this is Tammy Benoine. I take minutes and when I identify administration I try to use the first name and the last initial for conciseness in the minutes. If I'm to take a different approach please let me know. Thank you. My name's just spelled wrong Tammy. It's A-N-D-R-A. That's all. That's all. Yes. I understand the spelling but if there's a different way to present the names please advise me of such. Thank you. We really appreciate you taking the minutes. Any other public that wants to address the board has a letter submitted for us to enter into the record. Do you have that right by any chance? I think so. The grouping one? Yeah. Oh here it is. So we'll record this letter. It was about the bid for fixing the grouping and comments about that and they'll include it in the minutes. Tammy I will pour that to you to include into the minutes or we'll add it once you send us the names. Okay thank you. This is a letter from Douglas Tucker. Okay moving on to board comments. So any board comments? Okay. And we'll do celebration learning. All right and so for our celebration tonight we have Ben Blanton. He's going to talk about our explorations. Good evening. I think Ray has a slide show for you. I can't see that so oh now I can. Thanks Ray. All right well hi. Thanks for having me here tonight. I decided well we decided that we would share a little bit about this explorations which if you follow any of our social media feeds you will have heard a little bit about it through those sources. So just before winter break we completed our first explorations which is a new program in the high school for this year. Explorations is as noted here a time when students can engage in risk-free that's ungraded investigations into topics selected from a menu offered by staff. So the idea is that we want to bring students some topics that they might not otherwise have a chance to explore. These are things that aren't in our program of studies they're not courses it's just a quick shot I'll spend a little time on some topics that are new to these students. So our idea our hope is that this leads them to new interests for their lives in courses they're taking and hopefully in our flexible pathways program. The structure of this experience we used our existing pathways period which meets four days a week. So Tuesdays and Wednesdays we're given over to explorations these special topics and Thursdays and Fridays we're given over to our regular pathways periods. So topics ranged from wood carving and soap making to historical dives into the history of Palestine and medieval Europe there were I think 16 total explorations offered. So when we were done we after we finished this first version we asked students and faculty for feedback so this one's a few comments from students we'll hold that you can read that for yourself I particularly like the last one so I thought that was pretty great and these two are comments from teachers course learning should be enjoyable so if at all possible so that's pretty exciting I really like that one about experimenting so sorry yeah Ray you're good. So Jeff and I Mr Thomas and I have been using this kind of metaphor all year for how we're approaching explorations and flexible pathways more generally building the road as we walk it so I thought I'd throw that one in there it's a little safer than the whole you know fly the plane as we build it think you're walking is better. So finally for our next iteration of explorations we're going to do three things well for next one where you're gathering student staff input to inform the design we're going to build that road together so we're getting information gathering that we're going to start talking about that at our next faculty meeting. Second thing we have solicited topics from students so that this time the offerings are not just what faculty comes up with but are also what students tell us they want so hopefully at least part of that list will be student driven faculty student driven ideas so the idea is to actually to move the first one was hey teachers what do you want to offer and we offered a bunch of stuff so it was you know totally teacher driven to kind of turn that a little bit toward the student driven which which is something we want to do in our school in general. Finally long term or longer term and hoping to get to that this year we would like to actually sort of turn the reins over to students so that some at least to these explorations experiences are student facilitated with the teachers in supportive roles rather than you know holding the reins hand them off and be there ready to help as necessary and support students as they grow into kind of leadership and and you know engaging roles on their own so I'm really excited to see what happens next and I just wanted to sort of hopefully get a little knowledge out there and share this with the folks both here and at home. Thank you. Awesome thanks Ben. Um so pardon me if you mentioned the sub rating but how long are the explorations how long is the last four? So we did about four weeks um we did four weeks actually over four weeks but it was only two days a week so the Tuesdays and Wednesdays so it was eight class periods that was a little short for some of the students and also for some of the adults involved so we're hoping to kind of take a look at we are going to take a look at how much we can expand that time for the next version and this was something everybody did all the students yes everyone was involved all all students um there I mean there were a couple of other activities so students who were in Driver's Ed um were still in Driver's Ed and students who were in the dream program which is a flexible flexible pathway all on its own stayed in there so since it was about student choice we said well let's keep them in the things they've already chosen and open the store to students as well um quite likely uh well it will work out this time that different students will be in the Driver's Ed class so we'll get students who weren't able to take advantage of it because they were taking Driver's Ed last time we'll be able to take advantage of the next one. Sounds like a great program. All right welcome thank you. Yeah so it's two cards right we did our normal principal's report and then I think each one of us submitted a social emotional learning report so it's a lot so we were able to look at it in advance uh highlighting from the regular principal's report I would just say that I've gotten into a format of just updating on what our PLCs are working on um learning that our teachers are signing up for uh what the Wildcat groups are doing on Fridays and the elementary and what they're learning about uh and just I feel like it's another place to highlight our students in the months of denying that. Also mentioned about Joelle Ben Lentz in service presentation which is really for everybody but um everyone did to learn about cognitive restructuring and some of our elementary was able to participate in the trauma informed schools which is quite lovely. And then I would say is we're in testing window the biggest update for elementary that we're working on that right now um and and then finally I think the final section about expanding our pre-outreach there's a lot there more grants that um Francis later has secured for us lots and lots of money so we are so thankful to her um so we're up to three grants now which is amazing uh so we want to thank her for all that uh also our snow cat program we've probably got snow thank god just in time for snow cats um so last week we were able to kick it off we have 50 skiers and 48 skaters skaters um and they made it without a hitch last week we're going to continue it for the next few you know seven inch eight weeks uh and then we're also working on some other standalone activities like maybe some outside activities and um scone making mindfulness scone making who knew uh through through king Arthur so we're looking forward to that highlighted our read a story day in December where we were able to have community come in and read also highlighted that we passed out 170 bags for food of food families over the break which was a lot uh and I got a lovely text over a break that Kathy Fector was nominated an awarded teacher citizen of the year by the Montpelier VFW for her community outreach work and uh she doesn't skip a beat she's already organizing the sandwich drive so she's amazing and then finally just um Puppets in Education was also able to offer to both campuses uh free performance it sounds like south broson won't be able to benefit from that so next go around but that's sort of the elementary regular part I don't know here here would you like to yeah go second or Jeff okay so on the principal's report so I just I'm I'm glad sorry sorry technical difficulties okay all you thanks Jeff I can keep it in order good evening folks um in the middle school there were several parallel experiences we two are looking at a lot of assessment data in the next coming weeks that we'll use in our data teams looking at student plans looking at universal instruction what I'd like to highlight is really some of the ways we're reaching out to the communities in the next few weeks we'll be visiting the Rochester school meeting with parents meeting with potential students reaching out to people that could fall within our middle school umbrella um we're also reaching out to a variety of folks and I mentioned this now for a reason as we're moving forward with changing spaces in the middle school the maker space being one of them if anyone has pictures of the shop back in its day I mean we have decades of experience but no pictures of when it was a shop we'd really like to look at ways of honoring the past and carrying on a tradition of building and creating so if anybody has any pictures we'd love to have some of those okay all right so for the high school principles report I just want to announce our new sat counselor Mary Ann Ralph so she works Monday Tuesday Wednesdays and she jumped right in and she has a already been meeting with about 10 to 12 people already so that's really a nice thing for us for support for our students um we talked about flexible pathways and one of the students joined us the other day coming back from the army and visited and you know to see that a student that really embraced flexible pathways and is doing a great job right now it's just so proud of him uh I remember if he came in after he graduated didn't want to walk so we had our picture taken in front office and a year later he comes back with a uniform and had that picture taken in the front office so that was pretty special some of the celebration besides Noah coming back was uh we celebrated our exchange students we buy flags for them and they sign it and we post that um we had a coach P Knight um coach Perot who had coached for over 30 years started at Washington Chelsea at Whitcomb and ended here at White River Valley so we celebrated his 30 years of coaching we had a recruiting day where the F bud came down and we uh had a little tour for them in school um we had a science project and it's just something that we're going to continue to do is that recruiting that's our highlights we're moving to social emotional reports uh I we did more of a narrative this time around not just the graphs uh hopefully we've looked at it so um for elementary it's what talks about where we've been and uh this year what we've implemented which is a little bit different so this is a positivity project and some of our planning from the best conference um talks about how we're trying to up our universal tools one example is the piece tables in the elementary you can see a picture of that uh and then it launches into our data which we can have a second to look at uh I thought quite honestly that our data looked really great last year um and it looks even better this year so um you can just take a second to see how it's continually to draw that's with an addition of five students are moving along I think and that's really because of all of our teachers they have the same page I think and working with kids and working to have some universal approaches for their kids I also think using the inner explorer program which I've mentioned in previous meetings has been beneficial and helpful to add some mindfulness in our classrooms sort of slow it down to be an example of our last this testing round last week the teacher uh did mindfulness just before testing and um it was a whole classroom so calm down less anxiety right now so I'm happy to answer any questions as we look through your data that we're really happy with it and just wanting to continue on this trajectory of learning uh with our team and trying to make our menus bigger and more specific to elementary so I did I have a question but I didn't want to get too ahead of myself for everybody who's done it but so I'm looking through the data and it's kind of interesting because the data throughout the three um age groups is different so in the elementary school you know the referrals are down overall this year um Wednesdays tend to be one of the lower days of the week where at middle school Wednesdays or high school Wednesdays seem to be the highest referral days um so I guess the question I'd have to all three of you is the the data is different than all three right so elementary is down middle school started down but has recently spiked in the November December and then high school looks like it kind of just took right off the gate so I guess and that data can be good or bad right I mean you know maybe we're enforcing things heavier this year than last year but what do we feel are really driving those numbers or why we're seeing the ups and downs of this year I could talk to stability by elementary we looked over this as a team and you know somebody brought up our member Thursdays that class always had eco and there was some really had a hard time eco and that was what drove that Thursdays game now really just I do think like one core part of kids and the schedule look more into hump day right supposed to be home day where like and so um but it's so obvious right it's this sort of film right there so I know in the high school like I believe I don't have to burn me but I mean I think last year we almost cut the referrals in half right yeah year over year yeah and it seems like and the referral but up this year maybe not gotten to last year or two years ago right but I'm just curious what those increases would be or maybe they're just being reported more then or no I can I can talk about that a little bit yeah so some of it is the income in class that we have our freshman class and we're really working with them and I was thinking about like being a coach and sometimes you know you have that state championship team and that caliber is pretty impressive and then some years you have oh and 20 team but they're still gaining and it's broke over time and I can just see that our growth with this group has just been tremendous and so I'm really excited about like working with them and Joel then Joel yeah and like came and she talked about executive functioning and self-regulation and that's something that we're working on now and advisory and so I think before she came we kind of just were like all just didn't have a finger to close that dam you know and now we kind of have an idea of what we want to focus on and it's really just about teaching these students that you know they moved up from the middle school I don't think they had these skills and so they're just skills and now we're starting to teach these skills and I'm really excited to see what this is going to look like because last year it was pretty awesome our everything was down so I was like are we not doing this dad of the same as and this year it's back to reality with this one group so I'm thinking the freshman group is kind of where the data points have gone oh yeah yeah because if you look at our other three classes they're very similar to last year so it's a growing process but I think it's just to me it's exciting to have that right an opportunity to grow with these kids and I think now that our teachers are buying in and know what we're doing in the plan ahead and advisory I think it's you're going to see a big difference by the end of school year and while I'm on it so you know in the report you know 43% of the our students are on targeted or specialized plan and then that's that's a pretty big amount so you think about some of the students and then I we didn't have an SAP counselor and I just I think that is huge I mean some of those kids that are going to just pass or have a problem now have somebody to see and that's such an important part of it that's a contract service so one thing I would say that it might be useful to go along with this just when I've spoken to some teachers like I think the elementary data does look great but anecdotally I've heard them having some challenges and so I'd be curious to kind of have like kind of a school climate like how do the teachers think it's going yeah I don't know if they're like just having like a quick one that's like behavior specific it's like you feel like you're going to your classrooms and like you know it might not these are kind of hard like this person got a referral to the thing and I would have time to write up and whatever it's a record that's like you know how easily is your class another data point that we might show something and it's not in the report but it sounds like that behind the scenes you kind of you know by grade level you can drill down my grade level drill down my grade you can drill down my grade what's on your head yeah well I did like saying that you're going to get a lighter at the top which is what's that I think the middle school and high school have their I just reported on that so Pierre if you're still there I'd like to report out on the middle school yep I'm here thank you so I appreciate your question Chris and I will get to an answer for you what we tried to present in the middle school report in keeping with again the protocol of my colleagues but we wanted to show you a surface level snapshot of how we're using data what you see here the typical again yes Wednesdays are a difficult day hump day you see in times of day where we might have to focus on a transition but we also looked at the data in different ways we really trying to build towards a very consistent pattern of writing students up and we did a behavioral reset coming back from the November break where we focused on the four behaviors that we were seeing most consistently and also most consistently leading to much bigger issues example horseplay leading to a physical altercation fight snapping someone's hat off their head leading to a fight so we addressed the entire student body we addressed each grade that we in this case being Kate myself and Nicola Moth our school counselor and others and the four behaviors really focused on setting a zero tolerance for hate speech for physicality horseplay again physical aggression things of that nature and we expect to see a spike in the data we fully expected to see November December shoot up if you broke down what was actually being written up more and more consistently it were those behaviors we were focused primarily on again based on the data we were seeing we expect to see those continue to fall off as we've done our best to apply a consistent response and discipline and we also what's not reflected in this report is highlighting the ways our system can continually improve areas we still need to improve on our communication all around back with teachers communicating the issue to staff dealing with it the processing relaying that back to families to the staff involved so we're using it to not only identify the areas to improve and to focus on in terms of responses to behavior but also how to look at where our system could stand some improvement to make a very transparent process that's our goal in the end is driving towards accountability for all of us and a very transparent process in the end and I welcome any questions and that's great that's why the data is always kind of it's hard to read into the data because like for instance in the middle school the reasons why some of these numbers shot up is because they they had saw a need and addressed it and put their finger in the vaults and you know those naturally came up to this that's why I appreciate these narratives yeah I think having it as part of the packet not just something you're telling us in the meeting superintendent report so you have my report just update in regards to legislative session um since we last met which was last week uh with the budget the what we the information we've gained out of the ABC event in the tax department is that the yield um they were projecting a yield drop that is the equivalent about four cents on the tax rate something last time and so what you've seen here is your tax rate bought by another four cents due to that drop in the yield um I met with uh representative from the joint fiscal office today with a couple other superintendents um the president of the rematch school business association um the executive director of the rematch superintendent's association um and what we discussed uh in the sorry the executive director for the once um school board uh superintendents and like I said uh business managers and what we discussed was uh our concern in regards to the only lever right now being for the legislature due to act 127 function of school district spending um being under the 10% ceiling which is in regards to what your district spending is between FY 24 and FY 25 long-term weighted pupils as long as you spend under 10% um it equates to uh the ability to be 5% tax count on the equalized tax rate why is that a problem for us as a district right where we don't find district the problem is is that the only lever really that the legislature has unless they were to add a new revenue stream um to the ed fund is to continue to drop the yield I'm worried that that this is the number we have right now right like we just got it on friday that's what they're projecting um I'm worried it could drop more and I worry about that because I believe at this point uh that that latest yield drop probably put well over 60% of the districts in the state into that 5% cap range it put all of our districts into it except for you uh and that's because we gained the most tax capacity within act 127 so when we get ready to look at your budget you're going to actually see our equalized tax rate is still actually in the negative Jamie why is that a problem well it's a problem that if they were to continue to drop the yield that we could see our tax rate go up significantly and be in the position that the rest of our districts are in the s so this latest yield drop put three of our districts that had worked really hard to stay under the 5% cap over and so I don't know where the yield's going to end up I don't have a magic ball what we have in front of us is the number we have right now which is the best number we've got but I'll tell you that I'm concerned that it's going to drop some more and I'm concerned that you know the model shows that it could possibly drop to a point where everyone's in the 5% cap and at that point we wouldn't be able to take advantage of any 10 percent so I just want to put that out there to say that that's where we are um we'll talk to you tonight when we get to the budget what you would need to either rate the increase in regards to revenue and or decrease to expenditures to get what we were last week is essentially a little over 400,000 I'll put that in my email out to the board yesterday um the at the legislation level have they identified that this is an issue yes and and I guess what are their proposal fixes I have not heard of any policy statement from the legislature you know what I would say to you is is that I have said this publicly at multiple board meetings and I've said it today that that I believe that Act 127 is just a flawed piece of legislation that it was set out to create equity and give districts like why we're working on five districts greater tax capacity what they did though is they wrote it in the they focused on the weighting it didn't actually I think take a hard enough look on what these ceiling and caps are going to get so now it's chasing its tail I don't foresee them adjusting anything in this session because people already adopted budgets but do I think that they need to take action to remedy it for next year yet but I don't I haven't heard any suggestions what that is yet other than like people saying it could be you height you higher than you you know you raise the cap and you lower the ceiling it's like it just capped the ratio of the new in my pupils you know that would mean that the tax impact might change but make it so that your budget is still impacted right I think that's the piece that I've had of it yeah I mean it was just tax what's actually yeah I think the modeling this just not so you know my my take on this you know and what I have said that the vsa is I think it really behooves us to continue to share with Montpelier where the shortfalls of the legislation is I think it that you know they've set out to be a good piece of legislation what I am concerned about is that um that this is going to end up being a a sentiment it's going to be that school district spending is out of control and that it's local school districts and superintendents who have not managed their budgets correctly and that's what's contributing to increase taxes so I hope it's reconciled I hope the legislature takes an arm look at it I'll tell you that I am fully expecting that messaging around what I just said around district spending is going to continue to ramp up from all over Montpelier because I don't know right yet whether the legislature is ready to look in the mirror and realize that there's just some tragic flaws to this piece of legislation I would imagine at this point it seems like increasingly real is right after diminishing returns because you have decreasing yeah 60 percent of the talents aren't going to be contributing anything more what they have said is that the modeling shows that the ed fund by just decreasing the yield will be able to carry itself meaning that I don't know how many districts that means pushing over the cap it seems like each time they do that and the districts are going to respond by I am asked if that modeling was part of it or not and I didn't get a straight answer around we go right yeah well if you yeah make it clear that when you push something in that five percent cap I made it abundantly clear and I even said share with them that I had a district do it last night because they have deferred maintenance and it didn't increase their tax rate and they worked really hard to keep a physically responsible budget and they were under the cap and they dropped the hill and they pushed them over and they could have cut 250,000 to try to get out from under the cap or they could add 400,000 to do repairs to their buildings that need them and so they added the funds but I don't know if that modeling's necessarily been represented in there so anyways that's my biggest piece in regards to the legislative update the only other thing I would just add real quickly I know we've got a lot on the agenda is just that PCB testing in remediation is continues to be a discussion but the good news in this district that's why I want to remind you is that both of our buildings have been tested and we were well under the benchmarks so just to remind the board that that has happened here any questions for Jamie all right so we're on to business manager hi sorry just clicked on you all have my report it outlines what's happening in the business office during the month of January in addition to our budget season and I'm happy to entertain any questions anyone may have yeah I missed the last meeting so if you want Rodney I can go real quick on this yeah okay in regards to policy committee you've got three policies here in your packet tonight that have revisions specifically around some grammar cleanup and introductory sentences with this would be the last district to approve those three revisions to these policies and then the policy committee right now is currently reviewing our drug and alcohol in the workplace policy there's going to be some pretty substantive changes to that one possibly the policy committee is meeting with our attorney next Tuesday to review those suggestions and then also our harassment in the workplace policy will be revised that was adopted in 2018 there's new requests for revisions that came out of statute in 2022 and so that one will be done over quite a bit as well so we'll have a couple of meetings on those two because they're pretty substantive okay all right and I have people have a chance to review the three policies that we're looking at and they have any comments but it's in from what I could see it seemed like it makes the language a little more clear so I if nobody objects I've read them all and I moved to approve the revised policy yeah I moved to approve all the revised policies just read out which one's there sure just the names you want me to read them up okay revisions policy b1 substitutes b4 drug and alcohol testing for transportation employees and b7 tobacco prohibition right motion to pass the revisions to all of those policies I'll second any discussion as well so revisions pass department of arts center building projects safety and security updates facilities task force he was going to original so how do you want um I think he's ready to go is that okay you're good to go there oh cool can you guys hear me now sorry about that guys I didn't make it tonight due to the weather my apologies I was planning on being there in person but I didn't really want a two-hour ride home so and Eric Josh Paul is with us tonight too awesome awesome so I'm gonna touch base I think just kind of high level on where we're at and then Josh if you want to talk specifically about the performing art center I'd love to do it I'm just going to kind of discuss where we're at in the process what measures we're working on developing what we're looking at roughly for budget and then kind of just a pre-development schedule that we're shooting for at this time so I'm gonna let me jump into this I don't think you guys really need an actual introduction to us considering that we've been doing some work with you guys now for the last year skip through if I can skip through these introduction to the team that's our holiday party picture we do fun stuff the rns go all right items for review um so we've been working with the task force um for the last couple months reviewing um the building needs and kind of high level building assessments so we did bring in van well architects we brought in um enter uh electrical systems group um mechanical engineer um and civil engineers and structural engineers as well we did an overall building assessment on your guys uh uh Bethel and Royalton campus um we've been continuing review of capital projects and long-term capital planning as a district so that's also something that we're working with um with another su um Keith um from the su which is long-term capital planning um we've also been working with ban well architects on project design and space programming so matt giffin from ban well has met with josh has also met with the principal um over there as well um and they've done some initial programming review on the drawings that you guys are going to see here in a few slides um and really what has kind of been settled on after we've gone through you know is this scope in is this scope out we've really kind of settled on these five major components that we're going to be focusing on one being the performing art center um which here is showing at 4600 square feet which actually includes um what is kind of this new vestibule that's going to also provide a new entrance to the high school um we've also looked at secured entrances which you'll see here is for both Royalton and um and specifically at Royalton addressing the need for an actual entrance to the high school that coincides with their parking lot um at Bethel we're specifically looking at the middle school side of the building um we do believe that there's can be security improvements made to the elementary school side that will accomplish a lot of the same goals that we're trying to do at the middle school that I'll talk to you in a few minutes um also looking at upgrading the library ventilation with dehumidification um addressing the original gymnasium so the original gymnasium being used as a performing art center now for their bigger performances and that would still be the case even with the addition of the smaller space that we'd be presenting at the front of the school but really making the original gym ready for not just music performance but theater performance so looking at the the stage lighting the audio system um sound detaining inside the school um looking at everything from the bleachers and egresses out of that space as well and hvac um and just general space lighting also um looking at stormwater improvements so these are improvements that are coming through the state with the new three-acre rules essentially saying that you know if you have more than three acres of impervious soils then you guys are required to do something with the stormwater runoff at your guys um school and then being that we'd be doing a performing art center on top of it um incorporating that stormwater design with this new addition would be really important because we'd have to also find a place for stormwater um discharge with the new addition with the added square footage as well i'm hoping you guys can see my picture here but this is real um kind of a real basic um floor plan of what the performing art center would be accomplishing so along this side on your right hand side of this drawing would be the new entryway to the high school which actually gets cut off from this drawing a little bit but i'll show it in the next slide in the elevation um the door the double set of doors that you see leading out to the drive on this door this side um actually is more just for egress so that isn't really an entryway um other things that were discussed at a meeting at the end of last week with um josh and jeff and matt i wasn't i couldn't make it to that meeting specifically but really kind of making adjustments to how this floor plan works so right now um this is kind of the main drag that the high school sits on um i know and they show kind of this more formal entrance um slash like reception area being off of that main drag i know based on conversations end of last week um they don't feel like that's probably the best location for it so they're probably looking at relocating that more towards the entrance of uh where the high school entrance is actually going to be so but the l the general concept providing you know some bathrooms and area for kind of like a breakout space for performances um including making sure that we still maintain the gym storage so they have gym storage actually for both the new gym and the original gym um as well as providing some office space um and kind of a little breakout space for the actual um music teacher josh and um and then obviously storage of all the music equipment as well so high level performing arts center and then you know really same thing looking at some elevations so here's your main entry elevation as if you're going to drive right by the school this is the new gymnasium over here on your left in this elevation or rendering that they provided by bandwell which is probably more expensive than what i've budgeted at this point they show this really nice big glass kind of entryway system they're showing you know kind of brick on the bottom with a different type of probably cement board up top a lot of windows along the front which you know typically doesn't bode as well for the performing arts having that amount of natural light coming into the space so that's probably something that would also get veed out of the project um and then the elevation that you would be looking up on the east side is really looking from you know the student parking lot or the high school parking lot and now looking back towards this being more of your secured entrance into the high school so i know originally kind of what we had talked about is we're not looking at relocating the administration and really kind of changing the whole programming around on the space but at the same time we want to make sure that we're creating that catch area so as students or teachers or other people enter the high school one there's actually a formal entrance that you know depicts what it is and names the actual school but two there's a way that we're going to have cameras there badge access systems and other ways so that they can enter this front vestibule get held and kind of what they call a typical catch area that you would have additional cameras in and then essentially get badged in through the second set of doors that would bring you out into the general classroom space so ecm energy cost measure number one is focusing on the addition at royalton specific to the performing arts center ecm number two secured entrance so this is the the entrance leading into bethel middle school same thing there's no vestibule here we have this kind of awkward ramp that coincides with this hollow steel tube that holds up essentially the the walkway roof that protects the walkways so in this situation we'd be looking at building a new second set of double doors in here and then trying to utilize the existing window right here for the administration so same idea that we'd be trying to accomplish over at the high school creating that catch area or that second set of doors in there that provide that second security measure as people enter the school so people would come in through the double set of doors they can check in with janet or the admin person at at bethel and then they could be essentially buzzed in through the second set of doors that would lead you into essentially the vestibule to the gymnasium at the middle school so trying to keep costs down working inside of the existing envelope that we have one of the tricky parts is you know we'd have to raise this new slab so as you can see we're about six inches below the finished grade of the actual classrooms ADA requirements only allow for a one percent pitch essentially to get up to a ramp so in this situation we'd be raising this concrete slab inside of this entryway and then we essentially be making a ramp from the new double set of doors out to this existing walkway and trying to feather it to the parking lot as well same thing trying to keep costs down while trying to accomplish the same goal and trying to provide a new kind of fresh look to the entryway thoughts on the elementary school side is that you kind of already have this catch all vestibule area really it's kind of addressing the door hardware the locking systems in the cameras so how does the elementary school access the cafeteria instead of coming back through the main entry of the school really looking at you know going by the gymnasium and by the admin to enter the cafeteria and then creating that same kind of catch all area in that front vestibule so the doors to the elementary school would be normally closed the doors to the cafeteria would be normally closed those would be locked obviously they would still have crash bars from the inside so in the case of emergency people trying to leave the building would be able to get out but then adding cameras as well and then a second set of buzzer systems so that they can reach the admin that wouldn't be relocating from the middle school to let them into the elementary school side of the way ECM number three library ventilation there's really no ventilation in the library at this time it's it's a stuffy space it gets hot it's up on the second floor it has a lot of windows so it gets a lot of natural light so part of this process would be adding a new rooftop heat pump ventilation unit that would provide both heating and dehumidification to the space as well as ventilating the space with outside air so we would be tempering the air as it comes into the space the unit would be bringing would be recirculating air from inside the space as well as well as introducing outside air depending on the occupant load in the inside the library so that's considered called demand control ventilation we'd also be including energy recovery to make sure that anything that we're exhausting is recaptured through the new ventilation system ECM number four original gym upgrades like I mentioned before upgrades to meet the music performing art needs so um stage uh stage lighting stage sound system addressing some of the the bleacher issues that they have in there addressing the controls the building control system so right now they utilize unit ventilators to provide outside air to the space making sure that those unit ventilators get brought on to the new ddc and off from the pneumatic control system so that we can make sure that we're dialing in the ventilation for when they're holding performances in there um and then um so that's ECM number four ECM number five like I mentioned before is the site is the site drainage so this is your high school parking lot over here essentially we would be working on regrading and then adding some storm drains as well and creating this drainage swale that would be essentially just to the right side of this high school parking lot so I think it's a lot of trees now those would get cleared out this is you know you're kind of big rocky drainage swale and then we would regrade the grounds and then provide some storm drains and storm leaders that would lean in lead into this retention bond and then essentially the same thing would occur with the new addition we'd be redirecting any storm run off there to this retention so um project so like I mentioned these are the real five project goals that have been identified as from the facilities task force of what they want us to focus on looking at roughly a budget of 3.65 million for the performing arts center secured entrances at Royalton and Bethel of around 600 000 library ventilation upgrades with demunification around 325 000 storm water improvements of 300 000 for a rough project budget cost of 4.8 million the reason why I left their original gymnasium upgrades they just did their walkthrough last week I I haven't had a chance to really get in touch with Matt yet and figure out exactly what those specific needs are going to be I know that he did reach out to the fire marshal yesterday in regards to egress because there is some concerns about egress with adding this new performing arts center onto the front of the school it kind of blocks one of their existing egress doors so we're looking at seeing what we can do with that to maintain the the function and programming of the rest of the school with this new added performing arts center so at this point you know because we're really at this high level kind of design and concept review I think you know having some kind of contingency five ten percent is a good idea so roughly looking at this kind of total project budget somewhere in that five million dollar range plus or minus five percent based you know really where we're at on the design process in discussions with the project development schedule so the pre-construction design schedule that we're looking at right now you know this meeting right now january 16th we're reviewing you know really the overall concept the goals some high level budgets and some overall project schedules the plan would be to come back in a couple months in march present a more detailed outline so really get into the details of you know what's included with that you know original gym upgrade you know work on the revisions based on the discussions that we've had with the performing arts center so kind of dialing back some of the design that they've shown so far based off what we'll see from some cost estimate updates based off the latest renderings and really just kind of dialing in what these five different ECM measures are going to look like um then we would spend essentially from spring through summer doing drawing development and updated pricing review so it's a it's a constant um situation we'll be working with the architects you know i'll be asking them to remove a lot of that glass manual that you that you see at the entryway and try to go with a more economical cost effective way um and we're just going to be looking at you know kind of every cost measure on the project and making sure that fits within the overall budgets that have been presented to you guys at this time um ideally we'd be you know that's something that we'd be working directly on with Jeff and josh as these drawings develop to try to make sure that whatever we're designing fits within their needs we'd be coming back August timeline really with a schematic design set so really having drawings at that 70 percent level where we feel that you know a lot of those details have been hatched out we know exactly what the pro programming is going to be we know what every single room is going to be used for we've essentially reviewed that the storage situations are going to meet a lot of the rich preliminary permitting review has been complete and we have a lot more clear detail what the overall project's going to look like um hopefully at that point you know our our pricing has been updated and you guys say great this project you know right in line with what we're hoping for um and then September we'd be you know issuing a warrant article um so that it'd be going out for essentially the presidential election in November of this year um if you guys get it passed on the November bond vote um then essentially we'd be looking at signing a contract um beginning of December with the plan of breaking ground on the performing art center that spring hopefully um and then summer 2025 addressing the other measures so doing the secured entrance at Bethel storm water upgrades would probably coincide with the the performing art center so that I'd probably go past summer 2025 and then addressing the library HVAC that summer as well so kind of overall wrapping up this whole project spring 2026 um so I know this is a lot of information to take in um you guys have a lot of stuff that you guys are working on today but just kind of high level this is what we're developing or that we're working on um and these are really kind of the targeted dates that we're trying to meet to make sure that we can can meet the goals of your facilities task force thanks for the presentation that was good to look at all the kind of different parts of it um does everybody have any questions but I just want to piggyback onto this so so the idea here was for us well for Eric to do the presentations tonight so if there's anything any large looming questions or concerns that the board may have between now and our next meeting would be to bring that up and then uh February our goal was to have more of the bond information um so financially wise what that impact would be and we didn't really want to bring the bond information tonight because if there's any changes we decide like you know let's take this piece out or you want to add more or whatever it is but um essentially right now it's about you know depending on against you know five five and a half million dollars for everything and you know between what we talked about before a third of the a third of the revenue for the Performing Arts Center would be based on donations and then we have some of our own money that we would use towards that you know at the end of the day the the financial information would probably be in the high two to three million dollars is what we we'd be looking at um on that so probably Tara or Jamie can give us some some information on a 20 or 30 year note what that would look like and we can make the idea would be at the next meeting which would be the last meeting for this board would be to actually get a um a vote of path forward if the board wants to uh to move that into the next steps like Tara Tara I think you did Tara did get some information do you remember what we I don't think it was for that much though I think maybe it was for two Tara you have a handy or no yeah I have two three and four million for 20 years uh do you want me do you want me to go over it why don't you go over three for now just so they have a sense and then we can okay set that and then the board can digest it more okay so at a three million dollar bond for 20 years the current rate which obviously is subject to change is at 4.44 percent it would give you when you actually started paying back the bond it would be a payment of uh two hundred seventy nine thousand nine hundred and eighty seven which is a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of principal and then the interest goes down each coinciding year after that so it's roughly about two and a half cents uh a year on your current budget yeah yeah and what would the payment start so this would when we pulled these we just had the interest payment we start year one of the bond and then principal and interest starts year two okay so on the schedule that I have here okay so whatever and the gym payments which are roughly that expire around 2028 2028 the two years left overlap I will have Tara support that tomorrow out to the other board, all three, just so you can look at them, if you didn't know. So Tara, right now, if I'm correct, I mean, can you, I think the current total billing reserve fund that we have for this year is like 1.38, is that right? Capital improvement charge. At the close of fiscal year 23, it was $1,441,810, and I just need to back out from there any expenditures we had in the current fiscal year. Well, we would have had to. Yeah. So we've got 1.4 million currently in the billing reserve fund, and what's the current projected surplus from this year? Six. Yeah, somewhere around $600,000. That's about, that's about $1,000,000. Oh, $1,000,000. You got those? That's better. Your unassigned fund balance is $997,660. So if we're able to get all of that combined into a single chunk, that would be, and we want to save some for the government. Is there any purposes? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we still have groups to look at, we're here, but that's essentially 2.3 million. Josh, did you want to add anything? We currently have raised half a million through private donations, and that's with me being the band director with the handshake and a smile. I think having a line item budget for the project and the board's support for the project officially will help other potential large donors come around. And I have two in the wings waiting for those line items so that they can make sure that the project aligns with the mission state and stuff. So that's where we're at with private donations this far. Okay. If we can help you, at the next meeting, we probably have a better breakdown of the financials of the project, what they look like. We anticipate for, we talked about the third donation. We can figure out what we want to put in there to get to a certain penny for the next many years. Sure. Eric? I would just say that there is some more grants coming out that I think specifically your library HVAC project I think could line up nicely for. And then I think there's a lot, usually there's grants out there for the performing arts specifically. So I know I have an eye out for it. I certainly plan on applying for that one grant specific to the library ventilation for this school, which is due I think in a couple months or a month and a half from now. So I would say that we have, I don't know of any real specific grants that I would say 100%, this would apply to, but we do have essentially the next year to apply for anything that may come across that would associate with this. We might be able to pick up another 100 or 200,000. I think there was a couple, I don't know if we'll take them out but a bunch of hands raised. I guess we can do a little bit of public comment now. We'll do some public comment now for the last two long when we'll save it for that public comment period later. Go ahead, Ian. Thanks guys. Yeah, no, I just was going to chime in. I think there are some grants and definitely some seed, the clean water state revolving fund on that three acre site and just being an outsider living and not fully, you know, seeing everything. It seems like the secured entrances and that stormwater upgrade, you know, probably need to get made a priority. And then just to say quick for the Performing Arts Center, really appreciate seeing the effort and you know, I know there's a lot of folks are awfully excited about the potential there. But again, I do want to hear all the things that, you know, and hear all the things that, you know, folks have concerns with with the fire egress, you know, is it the right time, right place to spend this money and just making sure that we're not like trying to cram too much into, you know, a small area of real estate, you know, versus, you know, should we have a bigger, you know, picture where, you know, where could we do just be wiser with it? That's all. All right. Anybody else who's looking to comment on this one? Board members, have anything I want to contribute? Yeah, I mean, I'm, I think I'm, I would like to, yeah, continue on with the project. I think it's something that's worth doing. We certainly need to get the ventilation for the library done, given, you know, what we've found out about the importance of fresh air and air exchanges and things like that. It's happened that the entrances are also important and has is having a space for our music program. So the task force members can, other members can speak up. I mean, one of the things that we liked about this proposal is that we were really hoping as a task force to be able to speak to the public about we are trying to meet several needs. One is continuing to focus on fresh air ventilation to school safety. And then three also putting investments into our performing arts to continue to grow that programming. And we felt like by being able to say to voters like, here's a bond, here's what we've been able to put away to put toward this project as far as capital reserves. Here's what's been fundraised by our new music boosters. And here's what the actual bond period means to your tax base. And you're able to hit all three of these areas. We felt like it really strengthened the proposal. So that's why we were going out of those ways. Yeah, it seems like all those things are things that we really want to post public. And we, you know, we, you know, Josh can speak as well. I mean, we really believe with our committee that, you know, we talked about, you know, the three A's and how important they are with school and in arts, arts is one that we haven't really had a large investment in over the years. And we do believe that there is an audience out there that we will be able to attract to our school by putting this investment kind of if you build, they will come take. So I mean, even though we will have a bond payment, we do believe that we are going to pick up students that are going to come into our school based on, you know, these programs or these spaces that the office or, you know, we were even just kind of throwing it out there. What if we got eight to 10 new students a year just because of the arts, you know, it instantly pays for itself on the bond payment, right? So, and we feel that that's achievable. I definitely think we'll pick up some students. Because we have a great program. I don't think we've provided them the structures to showcase their talent, right? Like, I think that we need to provide that support and structure. It's what I talked to principals a lot about like master's schedule and stuff, right? Like you've got to create structures for people to be able to do their work. I feel like what we've provided for the infrastructure for performing arts is not the work that they're producing. We want to think that it's even going to take the whole of an abstract providing that infrastructure. Yeah. And I think it is a strength of our school. Absolutely. And being able to build on our strengths and showcasing the differences. I think arguably they perhaps might have outgrown what we've given them as it stands right now. I mean, we've got a fast growing program and it's grown exponentially in the last couple of years. So, it's time to do it. Oh, I was just writing that, you know, also, you know, working with our design team and really kind of trying to pinpoint different areas that people can donate specifically towards, whether that's a sound system or a lighting system. And then, you know, really having some of the architecture renderings and then kind of some of those added bonuses of, you know, here's your base that we can provide under the bond. But, you know, if you guys want to have that next level sound system towards, you know, at the existing gym, like here's an option where somebody could specifically donate towards. And I think, so having our kind of design process assist you guys in your fundraising efforts, I think will be a big benefit to hopefully coming up with more than that half million dollars over the next six months as you guys lead towards this bond vote. And for anybody that hasn't been up to speed, so initially what we had talked about with the Performing Arts Center to get it off the ground and be attractive a lot of bond vote was to have a third of the revenue be fundraised. So, you know, if it's 3.6, then we were looking at, you know, three, 3.2 million dollars to be fundraised. And then, I'm sorry, 1.2. And then once we got to that minimum threshold, then any other money that was raised could go directly into that space for upgrades. So, like Eric was talking about, because we do know that there's potentially some donors that would rather see a certain item or a certain upgrade in that space rather than just donate to the building. So, I feel that's an option to be able to improve it. Is there any other comments that people want to make or should we move on to, it seems like everybody's supportive of the project, Stella and the most continue on to the next steps. Thank you guys, have a good night. Eric, all right, audit update. I received the first draft of your financials this afternoon and the plan is that it'll be ready for your adoption at the next board meeting. Next here, FY 24 or 25 budget. So, I'll go first, Terri, then you can go. Yep, you have your budget in hand. The biggest change, the only change is what I just talked about, which was the drop in the yield. And Terri, their pupil changed just slightly. Yes, it went from 1096.45 to 1095.42. So, as you know, Terri can walk you through the tax sheet and show you what that yield did. And essentially, like I said, added about four cents on the tax rate. So, Terri, you just want to walk them through that again. As Terri gets ready to do that, I would just say to the board, you know, we're at a place around the board giving direction around, they have two options, one, you could decrease the budget if you chose, you need to cut it by, just over 100,000 to get a penny, or you could choose to use some of that surplus funds that Terri just talked about and uses offsetting revenue. And same thing for every just over 100,000 uses offsetting revenue and decrease the tax rate. The only thing I'll give a little nervous about, too, is just know that we're using the yield we just got Friday and I don't know if that's the family. How are you, Tara? Okay, so we'll start right up at the top of the tax sheet. Your expenditure budget, as it sits, is $14,382,093. Offsetting revenue is $1,291,365. That results in an Act 68 education spending of $13,090,000, I can't even talk now, $13,090,728. We divide that by your long-term weighted average in version five, which is $1,095.42. And that results in the education spending per pupil cost of $11,950.42. Divide that by the new yield of $9,171. That gives us an equalized residential tax rate of 1.3031, which keeps us under the threshold and also is a reduction of 2.96 cents over your fiscal year 24 equalized tax rate. So the next box down is the Bethel specific. We start again at the equalized tax rate of 1.3031. We divide that by the CLA, which is 79.77. That gives us an estimated homestead tax rate of 1.6335 after the CLA, which is an increase of 12.46 cents over the current. On the other side, we have the Royalton. Start with the equalized tax rate of 1.3031. We divide that by the CLA, 79.44. That gives us an estimated homestead tax rate of 1.6403, which is 7.91 cents higher than the current. And then down at the bottom, I gave you what that cost would be for $100,000, $250,000, and $500,000 homes. All right. So that's unfortunate about the yield. I felt like we were in a really good place last week. So it doesn't make it a little more difficult. The fact that we're still seeing a decrease in the equalized tax rate essentially means that if everybody had the same value of house that they did last year, they would have a tax decrease. That's still positive. But then now we're looking at 8, 7, 12, and have some increase in the nominal tax rate. So where do people, what do people think at this point? You know, the physically conservative portion of me says, you know, we can do better. But like we talked about the last meeting, you know, we did propose a very responsible budget. A majority of the factors are out of our control. It would have, well, actually the budget we would have proposed would have put another $600,000 away, and we would have shown the savings of a couple of pennies in the town, right? And then the second revision of that is when the CLA went down 9%. So then we had to take our savings, our future savings out. And then, you know, we went up to $0.07, something like that. I guess the argument at this point is there's about $200,000 worth of growing that we have put into this budget for, you know, continuing to attract our base going forward and providing better services that we've talked about. And then there's the carryover money from one budget to the other, you know, that we could put towards it. But at the same time, you know, designating that money for future projects like we're talking about to continue to grow the school, I feel was probably the better way to go. I know, you know, I live in Bethel, so $0.12, going up $0.12 is a drastic increase. But at the same time, a majority of our neighboring towns are probably going to see $0.20. Not to say that, you know, we should toot the horn, but, you know, we're still pretty far ahead of the average town. Now a lot of voters, again, I think we're going to have to do a really good job of educating, I mean, really educating voters on what is going on. What are our neighbors looking at? Why did things change so much? And, you know, really get them to understand how CLA impacts it and how the yield impacts it, you know, and those types of things. And really, you know, hate to say it, but a majority of this are things that they should be talking to the legislators about, you know, what are you guys doing in Montpelier? You know, you're balancing our budget, you know, and you're changing your yields. And, you know, this is the risk of funding education through property taxes, right? And funding through property taxes on the state's end is the safest way to go because you're guaranteed you're getting money, right? But on the taxpayer's end of things, it means that you are more apt to get an adjustable rate every year, which we're seeing, you know, surprise. The government's getting no money, but we're getting an adjustable rate this year. So, I think maybe with some guidance if we can, we talked about a bunch of things that we could do to educate last time. I think we need to add to the list of what information our surrounding town might be looking at because if they start looking at 20 cents a year and 22 cents a year and 18 and we're at 12 or 7, I think, you know, that'll help digest it a little bit. But it's really going to be a tough year for people. Not to mention whatever the towns go up and things like that on the other hand. But I would vote to, you know, continue to build the school. We have a lot of traction currently at the school that we haven't had for years. And, you know, putting aside the money into the capital fund that we can use for potentially some of that for this bond vote and for the other projects we have. Yeah, and I guess with putting aside the money to make it so that the bond vote eventually is less versus making people happier now so that they might be more like the taxes aren't growing up quite as much, maybe they'll be more apt to build a bond. But I would lean more towards the bond vote. And we had talked about this board a couple of years ago that, you know, that Stormy days were coming, right? And we were moving this money into capital funds so that we could continue to build our school even when the budgets go up, right? I think here is a testament to that. Peggy, what are you thinking? I'm thinking, I'm thinking a lot of people are going to be hurting. I don't know if we need to go ahead with this budget but also have a clear picture of what we could do to reduce it if we had to. Not just going to say this is the budget, this is what we want, but we need to really be honest and say, yeah, we could reduce it, we could eliminate this or do. Going with a clear picture of what it means if we don't get the budget. Yeah, and I think like there were a couple of things that were added to the budget so we save why they were added and give it justification. Right, yeah. If the voters decide, we don't want to do that. I mean, you very well could have someone come in and make a motion that this is how much money we're going to reduce this budget by X amount and this is the money we're going to vote on. And they're in charge, we're not. So we need to be able to defend it to say, this is what we want. This is what we put in. And if they start saying, well, we've got to reduce it. We've got to have a plan. I liked what we had. And like Chris said, I feel like we were already being responsible. And we hadn't been thrown a curve ball. We'd be looking great right now. I really don't think that there's much that we can cut without doing a disservice to things that we've already discussed quite extensively and things that I wholeheartedly support. But what Peggy just said is true in that there's going to, there's a line that can be drawn. So we need to explain, we do, we need to explain to our constituents why some of these things are still going to happen. But I think each and every one of them should still happen without a question. We're just going to have to make everybody understand why they're as important as they are. But I don't see any reason to take any of them off the table. Yeah, I mean, the fact that we have the $900,000 surplus is definitely a benefit in that if people want to lower the tax rate, we can just that makes the bottom of the water. But you know, we have some room to play with there. It seems like some of the things that we were added to the budget, like if we take them out, it's only, you know, $100,000, so it's not. The majority of the stuff that adds to the budget is health insurance upgrades and increases and things that, you know, we definitely, you know, we have to cut existing services to match. But the fact that we have that surplus that we get to play with, but it does make, if you did, you might have had a reason to start. Anyway, Rodney, any thoughts? No, I mean, I guess I pretty much agree with what everybody else is saying. Yeah, it is quite an increase and it's, it might not set well. And yeah, we might have to come back and, you know, maybe figure it, but I guess we worry about that when time comes. That is one of the benefits of a floor vote is that we can adjust it. And if we need to. No, there's going to be a lot of people that aren't happy about it. Not really a lot we can do though. All right. Well, it's just going to say sometimes having a large surplus isn't necessarily a good thing because that gives the impression that we're, we're just asking for money that we're not using wisely and saving it up. That maybe we shouldn't have asked for all that to begin with. Sometimes that can work against you. Right. I mean, in this instance, it's because of the federal grants. Right. You'd have to explain that, but you look at all, they've got $900,000 over. So why are they asking for more money? That's what you're going to get. So I think one way that the board that will have to be ready to actively discuss, I think is how we've leveraged extra funds. Right. And that, you know, we've done it in a way to offset local district cost without all of a sudden being like, what I would say is some neighboring districts, not an RSU actually, we've done this not that way, but part of what's driving the ed fund right now is that people added a bunch of positions using Esther funding and now they're budgeting for those. Right. And what we've done, if we've added any positions via Esther funding, we budgeted for those over time. Or what we've done is use Esther funding to contract services and also to offset local district costs in regards to intervention. So that we could then build up reserves to continue to improve our buildings over time. Well, it seems like we have a consensus to move forward. So most people have anything else they want to discuss? I would have to take a motion on the budget where we need to have the exact amount that we're spending listed. What do we have to do that? Because how long before they'll actually settle on a number? I really need it next week to get it to the printer to get a book of people's hands. Just the printers are so busy right now with time reports and stuff. Like last year, we were tight. I'm supposed to have it in people's hands within 10 days if you weren't tight. We need to get the morning. Yeah, yeah. Really be next week. I don't see it now that they've changed it against December 1. I don't think we're going to get fresh reports on the yield until they actually start to see what budgets are settling at. So my sense is we won't even get another adjustment now probably until after we vote, like in March. And that might be when they adjust it. For the vote. My census because they just came out again. They don't usually give us like lots of them. They'll usually like give us one in the middle. And then as budgets like get approved and come in, they'll adjust again. All right. Well, Tara, would you want to give us a glitch for? All right. I've entertained a motion to prove the 2024 budget in the amount of $14,382,093. Any discussion? Hi. Hi. Hi. Rodney. Hi. The budget has passed. Okay. So the annual warning. At the end of. The packet. Last day. So I think with article nine. We would just need to fill in a number that we want to set that for. Yep. That's all I need there. And I would just remind you, I wouldn't do the full balance. Just because when we cross fiscal years, we have prior year expenses and leaving some money in that fund helps cover that. So. I would leave a little bit in there. Like 900,000. Yeah, that would work. Is that reasonable? Everybody. Yep. Okay. Change that to 900,000. Looks like everything else is already in place as it should be. So we need to approve this. Yep. You would approve the warning as written and presented. And then I can email it to Ray. And I think Ray can print there. And then who's there tonight can sign it. And then Rodney, you and I can connect to sign it. Nancy won't be here till next Tuesday, Tara, but I had told her I thought we were fine timeline. Yeah, that'll be fine. I'd answer a motion to approve the morning has presented. Second. Discussion. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. SoAMD is passed to the. including trailer. So I'll get started with writing. First draft. After to include, probably can out there. Other people are going to helpFBEc drafting. You wanna do a quarter or word. If you send it to me, I'd be happy to read and do suggestions and all that and co-op anything that I do have it without that. I'll try and get that one. Yeah, so in our timeline, it's really to have it all together off to the printer. And Principal is working on their report. Tara will do her figures. I'm going to really emphasize my report this year trying to and the best way I can to simplify 127. And I may even do a QR code that people could take a picture of and link it to a video. I'm going to try to explain a little more with like a screenshot. You might have to explain the QR code. I just, I just, I continue to be just, you know, worried. There's just a lot of changes and all this. I think the more people can hear it and access it. I did talk to Principal Thomas and Principal today about we do have a little radio podcast that we do weekly. I'm a local radio station and they tell you to join that school podcast to just talk it through a little bit. And then we'll send that out too. So people have questions because we can take the podcast and send it out just to give people multiple mediums. I told my office in general that that I am I have other people that are very focused on student instruction and learning right now. But I really focus on budget for the next until tell me that we've got to get out there. Budget informational meeting. What are we looking at? Well, we usually might have to try to do two, one, you know, a couple weeks. That's closer. Our regular board meeting is on the 20th. February break is the. Yes, so the 72. So we could do maybe one. The week before February break and one week after, which would make it before the annual meeting. One would be the week of the 12. That's in reasonable people. It's kind of what we've done in the past. We don't frequently get a lot of people coming out to them, but it's good to get the information out. So we do what one on one campus one on the other is everything. Yeah. So what were the dates? Well, we have some dates. We could move the 20th meeting if you wanted to piggyback. I think that'd be good. We've got the 13th or 20th. I'm going to be out of town. So I appreciate it. That if we raise my hair here, we have a meeting already on the 12th. Is that a Tuesday? Monday's are good. But I won't be able to make any second or fourth Wednesday's work fine too. Just Tuesday's have standing. The 12th is currently open Jamie. On my calendar, I don't see any board. It's for Chris. Do the Wednesday's work for the people who didn't do Monday's? Yeah. All right. There's Wednesday's. Friday, does that work for you? Wednesday the 14th from Wednesday to 28th? Do we get any Valentine's? Oh, it's Valentine's Day. Oh, no. Okay, maybe not the 14th. You can do the 15th at the Thursday. Okay. Do you watch there be a playoff game or something? I want to just stick with the seven o'clock time. It's fine. And what's your second date? Let's do the 28th. Does anyone know when the pre-time meeting? We usually do that the week before. Right. The Thursday or Tuesday. This would be the day after. Can I just request that the 15th meeting be on the Bethlehem campus? Yeah. I think that's what we want to do is because annual meetings on the Bethlehem campus will be on the 15th of the 28th. Okay. And where do you want to piggyback the non-february meeting on the 15th of the 28th? I mean, it's the normal one supposed to be. Yeah. Sorry. The regular meeting is during the school break. We say we're going to move it. We're going to move it to either one of these two informational meetings. So the ideas we do, the informational meeting for an hour or whatever. And we can keep it tight. Why don't we start at 6.30? Yeah, I'm usually done at 6. So on the 15th, 6.30 budget information. You usually do that first. In a half hour. That one's going to be the combined meeting. I'll be late. 15, whatever. And then, why don't we do 7? Okay. What was the other date? The 28th. And why don't we get closer to the 15th of the 28th of the 28th? Okay. So with Winnowski Valley school choice element. It takes action on this. Yeah, so in the last two years with Winnowski Valley school choice, we've done 10 and 10 out. That's essentially the minimums on pitch. Just an explanation. This is high school choice between public high schools in Vermont. We don't get any money to get exchanged when people go to the place, set how many you're willing to allow, leave the district and how many you're willing to allow coming to the district. And 10 has been the minimum in and out. We've had a, we actually, we had a district who, we didn't hit the threshold in either way. We were close on entries in. And there was a district that actually got capped that had more students that they wanted to have come in. It was, it didn't rank up to the number of us. So their, their 10 had been like how many out of this count. That's why they weren't going to access us. It wasn't that we had met ours. But if they had all chosen to come, I do believe one of theirs would have been requested. So, you know, again, there's not, no funds change hands. You know, do I think it's, it's great for us to be able to start to speak to that we haven't already, you know, more students choosing to come here than having desired to leave. Yes. And you think that someone should start to publicize as that number has really started to change over the last couple of years. Because at one point we have more out than in an hour, much more in than out, which is good. So, I don't see the 10 and 10 being an issue. But if you want, if you were going to go out doing anything, allowing a couple more in would be my recommendation just based on the desire of other groups. What's the con to letting more people in? I mean, we want, we're not out of our driving hold. I just think sometimes it's just, you know, some district boards. It's a great question. Struggle with like, well, wait a minute, like, what's the game? It's not money following, right? We don't get to count them. They don't count toward our equalized pupils. Sorry. That's not like the intuition. But, you know, and I do, I was actually talking to this a little bit about the facilities committee. I do think there's a game in word of mouth, meaning I'm a student that chooses to come here from the new ski valley. I have a positive experience. I'm at friends house. We're going to choice school choice town. And I say, yeah, no, I'm coming to the White River Valley High School because I want you for the ski valley. And that family says, well, I hadn't really considered. White River Valley. I might want to look into it. Absolutely. I don't, I, I, it's not going to affect change our staffing levels. I always say at high schools, you can add 18 to 20 kids and you're not even going to really see it, right? Like, our class size is not such. Some ways I help be dynamic. I also think it creates other friendships, as Andrew said. Well, I was thinking that the level you just talked about, obviously, if we got 50 kids that want to come here, we're going to get nothing going. But the difference between 10 and 12. So if it was two kids, it's almost like bragging rights. We've got the prestige that people want. We have a place that people want to be. So if it was to question it, like, I wouldn't want to wait list one kid or two kids. Like, I'd want them to come here and for us to be the place to be. Because that's, I don't want to say it's advertising, but it's great word of mouth. So, Yeah, I would say that we should definitely increase the number. I don't think there's any problem with that one. 15 even. Yeah. 15 in 10 out. What is that? I think it's three or four. And I should have brought that number, as I normally do. But it normally, in general, it's been a couple of students who chose early on. And I don't know what's right there. They may be like graduate. Have we never approached either? No, no, my time on the board. So, but I would say not to do 15 and 10. I'm actually in motion to set the levels of 15 and 10. Now, motion to increase the level to 15 for the Winooski Valley School Choice Allotment. In and 10 out. So 15 and 10 out. And I'm in motion. I'll second. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? All in. I guess we'll do it. Okay. Eddie. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Rodney. Hi. There's possible action around the public comments. So is there any public that is still on that? We don't have any reservations. We do have a new hire Michael at Chuck, who is a graduate from South Royalton High School. That joined us as a long-term sub in Spanish. And our Spanish teacher senior or a teller. Caroline. Yeah. Caroline. I was trying to show my spending. It has been on maternity leave and it's going to be on maternity leave for the end of the year. So Michael is coming on to finish up the rest of this year. Future of the end items will have Rodney to leave the task force. I haven't lost track of that. It's just been a full agenda tonight. Yeah. And maybe what we need to do is to have that mentioned in the meetings. And you have time meetings so we can get anybody interested when we have a big illness. And we can include something about it. Yeah. I think it's a good place to hold right now. Yeah. Yeah. So, but why don't we plan on leaving in the future again on items? But maybe we can plan on that at March. Yeah. Interested. All right. The next meeting is not Tuesday February. I guess a regular meeting is going to be at 7 p.m. for that whole campus. I don't know if it's the next meeting before that. I entertain a motion to adjourn. So long. Second. All right. Thanks everybody.