 6.32 p.m. to roll Jill is my Amanda Mia did I already call you no but I'm here let's look for miss Ryan they call you missing Andrew and Emma I believe Andrew is gonna be here start without him on there is one thing I want to add to the agenda just a discussion the oh there's Andrew yeah and you want to announce your presence yeah hi Andrew here okay yeah Emma's gonna get it has a conflict going late I want to add one thing to the agenda kind of over break there was a change in the vaccination schedule that I think has raised some questions about when teachers and other essential workers might be vaccinated so I just wanted to allow a little time to discuss that and see if we maybe want to take some action to get further clarity because I know that that has thrown into question whether teachers are going to be prioritized in the vaccination rotation and you know obviously they are doing great work and putting themselves at risk clearly you know essential to keeping people's open so we could discuss that a little bit and then you're out way to see if we can get some clarity on what we're changing and the teachers remain at that maybe a quick quick discussion so is public comment I don't see many non board members on but if if anybody wants to comment either use your raise hand function or since there's not many people you could just show yourself and physically raise your hand in your little zoom box Jessica um anyone other than Jessica go ahead Jessica and please announce yourself for the camera great thank you hi my name is Jessica Della Peppa Clayton and I'm the current educational technology teacher at UES my understanding is that the educational technology position at UES is possibly being eliminated for next school year I wanted to take a few moments to give you some information about what that position entails how the students and staff at UES benefit from the work of this position and what could be lost should it be cut this year the position now entails teaching grades K through 4 with a weekly 30 minute pre-recorded lesson which includes activities that not only practice good tech skills such as using touchpad typing skills and coding but also lifelong skills such as learning how to safely explore the world around them who to ask for help if they run into a situation they cannot solve as well as evaluating and problem solving skills in addition students are learning ways to work cooperatively and give credit and constructive feedback tech classes and just about using a computer this class like all the allied arts classes at UES focus on transferable lifelong skills another aspect of the position is keeping colleagues abreast of the plethora of tech options in the world at large and helping them build confidence in themselves and their teaching many of our instructional assistants were issued computers for the first time this year in preparation for remote learning there's been an ongoing year-long professional development for our eyes as well as support for new educational programs both being supported through the UES tech position in the process of helping these colleagues navigate new technology new responsibilities and a new way of teaching this position has opened the door for many of these colleagues and and there are more confident addition to our school they're able to support our students they serve that much better because they too have struggled with technology learned how to overcome these obstacles learned to problem solve on the spur of the moment and they can teach these skills of resilience through action this isn't just about how to make a call on Google needs our teachers and IA's are learning lifelong skills too I can see that there is an effort being made to create equity that's a big part of why I chose to teach in this district however I am concerned that in an effort to be equitable equity is going to be lost UES has our youngest learners they matriculate to mainstream middle school with a certain amount of skills and confidence if they no longer have the focus opportunity to practice these skills they're going to need to learn them catch us catch Ken or not get them at all even with a part-time assistant assigned to the UES library I feel like there will not be enough time for the one teacher the librarian to teach media art library standards that are already in place as well as educational tech that our students have learned this year I think it's important to really look at what would be lost if this position were to be cut our students really need this whether it's me or another qualified teacher leading our students our students need supported educational tech learning and if the position is cut something will have to give will it be the quality of their library skills tech skills both please do not take the opportunity of learning away from our UES students ensure that there is a dedicated tech education position at UES I'm happy to answer questions either tonight or another time as appropriate thank you for your time great thank you Jessica just a reminder that there will be further opportunity for budget related discussion after the budget presentation any other public comment before I close it out and move on to the consent agenda seeing none will move to the consent agenda I want to note that a a side letter with the union was included in the consent agenda since the original agenda was sent out so the consent agenda includes that side letter as well or approval of that side letter as well so I do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as so noted I move thanks Mia uh do you have a second second thanks Ryan uh Jill year and a yeah advocate okay Jerry Ryan hi Amanda yay yeah yay iron iron whichever Andrew yay okay I think that passes um so round three of Libyan grant uh the budget presentation um so I will I will turn it over to you uh and I'm assuming by the way you structured it that you want to give the presentation flip it to the board for questions flip it to the public go back to the board sounds good to me okay excellent okay let me just get in the consent mode here uh so for the board members most of you have seen that I think all of you have actually seen most of this presentation before it's pretty similar to a presentation we've done in the past this is how for any board members this is how we typically do it in the beginning we present the large budget and then we kind of cut it short to answer any questions in the next presentation then for the public forum we bring back the larger presentation um so so a lot of this information may be repeats uh but grant does has have updated numbers for us as well um so this is what we're going to go through tonight um just a district overview the size of each of our schools um of course Roxbury has 32 students but there's no pre-k students at rvs this year they have 21 in-person students and 11 virtual students this year union elementary is 399 students um they have a full k4 spectrum of you virtual students this year main street middle school is grades five through eight 382 students with our fifth graders in our own homegrown virtual academy uh fifth and sixth graders sorry and seventh and eighth graders also be working with vtvlc and montpellier high school is grades nine through 12 382 students and they have um approximately 18 percent of their student population working with vtvlc this year you have 243 employees 147 of whom are teachers and we added this slide this year just just because for this presentation just because we thought it was appropriate to the great demographics of our school so ues has a 17 percent free and reduced lunch um population rvs is at 26 percent msms is like ues at 17 percent mhs is slightly higher at 21 percent and the district overall is an 18 percent free reduced lunch percentage of families families self report this information we highly encourage families to fill out the paperwork um as the numbers could be lower than what we expect we don't these numbers are based on the paperwork families fill out so um we highly encourage families to fill out this paperwork because it influences the district quite a bit uh so here's the context we have our budget themes that support our theories of growth um our four pillars so a high quality instruction for all kids in every classroom a guaranteed and viable curriculum a timely system to intervene remediate and enrich and a collaborative and collective responsibility for student learning and we have our state factors that are in there the dollar yield has decreased and the health rates have increased and then we have local factors in terms of murder incentives student enrollment um and we're this whole budget assumes that we are back to in-person instruction in a little more normal i put that in quotes way next year because who really knows um but this budget is assuming that we will not have two systems of a virtual system and an in-person system next year so i took out a couple slides here but i just want to remind the board that the right drivers for growth of any kind of school system is capacity building collaborative work focusing on high quality pedagogy and the idea of systemness that we work as a system we don't work as individuals that's from michael fullen's work if you aren't familiar with michael fullen he basically uh publishes a book a week so you can get adamant opportunities to read his work because he's got lots of work around this this piece it's from this particular list is from a book called coherence which is a highly influential book for district leadership so our theories of growth echo a lot of fullen's work that all kids will learn at high levels if we have a strong feeling of collective responsibility and collaborative practices that gets us at a healthy culture in our school if we have formalized essential learning that is not everything but it's the most essential things that we're guaranteeing all kids will will help you show proficiency in uh if we have a timely system to enrich intervene and remediate and if we have high quality instruction in every classroom and that we have defined that and we've given teachers time to practice and we've given lots of really targeted feedback to increase that high quality instruction so when we're looking at this budget um if we break it up by our pillars in our high quality instruction we um have some staffing increases there's a need needed increase at the high school for pe staffing simply because of our higher enrollment at mhs and the fact that pe is a mandatory piece for ninth graders particularly i believe 10 graders as well in the educational quality standards we have an increased health staffing for mhs and msms which has been a high level of demand from the from the community and we have a system of technology integration across the district so that we're working under the same system across the district and use similar professional pieces there professional development we're working in collaboration with partners for literacy and learning this actually won't come out as a specific item a budget item in terms of professional development but when we see a very large lump sum for professional development in the budget this is how this kind of thing is broken down uh right now the the pll is doing an audit of our literacy practices in all four building and giving us a wealth of data that we can work from we're working with lis mira who is the national teacher of the year in science a few years back with mhs and msms science this fall or the spring and it will continue into next year our math teachers at the middle school and high school are working with teachers development group and our elementary teachers are working with kristin kordemansch on differentiated math practices and then of course we're working with educational equity development through our equity task force and and many different things that go with that in leadership we're coaching instructional leaders to lead pedagogical change particularly with work out of the university of washington uh and their work on what i'm defining high quality instruction in collective responsibility and collaborative practices in terms of staffing we're redesigning our student information and data systems uh that position uh to because the state has increased the demands on that position and the expectations so we're increasing the demand and expectations on the position as well and we're also looking to increase the transition students for students with special needs these are kids who are aging out of our high school um and have significant special needs and need that that support in order to transition into um their life beyond high school in terms of professional development here we're continue coaching in professional learning communities that's the collaborative responsibility or plcs and we're working through team assessment and goal setting um and that kind of thing doesn't cost any money but it's just really important to know that that professional development is happening and then in terms of leadership we're coaching uh coaching our instructional leaders to lead the plc growth because that really needs to be the cornerstone or the lynch pin of increasing student growth across the board that collaborative responsibility and collective practices or collective responsibility and collaborative practices rather uh so that leadership piece is imperative in terms of formalized essential learning with our staffing we have a continued focus on our coaches of some social emotional behavior learning and our academic instruction that has been a budget priority in the past we're just continuing that work this year professional development we're focusing in next year on our literacy work in the core content at the high school and then leadership we're continued we're continuing to give time to devote to naming those priority standards that essential learning for students in terms of timely intervention remediation and enrichment and staffing we'd like to add an intensive needs special educator and place that person at ues this is for kids with autism and significantly low functioning or significant behavior challenges so that we can better support them and be more inclusive into the classrooms with kids somebody who has much more expertise in that area than what we currently have we're looking at increasing our alternative programming needs at the high school so that we have more opportunities for kids to see success at our high school and then we're also looking at title one math intervention at the high school however that's not a local budgetary expense that comes out of title one funding which is a different piece in professional development we really want to work with our intervention faculty so that they can truly assess and target where kids are falling short and move them faster along the period of growth in terms of academic and social emotional learning and in leadership this spring our leaders will be working as we redesign our schedule again so that we don't just go back to the status quo but we ensure that our schedules have time dedicated that for intervention remediation and enrichment that does not take away from kids access to our prioritize standards at the grade level so i'll let grant take that over in terms of the actual what's this mean for budget go ahead grant again i know that you've seen a lot of this before but i need to go through it i'll try to talk fast but try also not to hyperventilate the first slide is just the changes from the last time that you saw these numbers on the expense side tech center tuition is up almost 20 000 we knew that we had more kids participating in tech ed i bumped that up significantly but i was off by a little bit more than one kid that's based on a six semester average of participation so our number is 20.83 kids and i had been using 19.75 teacher retirement assessments there's two different kinds there's a a an assessment for teachers that only became teachers i think after 2015 and then there's another assessment for any teachers who are paid for from federal grants the new teacher assessment that factor was a little lower than what i was using so that was less money the federal grants assessment unfortunately was higher the good news though is that federal grant assessment since it's an increase in federal expenses it also as you can see increases our federal revenues because if we plan on spending 300 000 from say title one we assume we're going to get 300 000 in revenues so it bumped up both the expense and the revenue as far as tax factors are concerned the common level of appraisal from both communities came in we were very close with Montpelier the decrease was 2.42 percent we had been using 2.5 so there wasn't a significant change in the tax rate Roxbury though was a big surprise instead of dropping 2.5 which is what we estimated it actually went up over four and a half percent so that big increase in CLA at Roxbury drove a large decrease in the tax rate it swung from like a six and a half cent tax rate increase to now a 3.8 cent decrease so good news for Roxbury we did get a draft equalized pupil number from the AOE we had assumed it would stay level at 1255 it actually dropped about 7.8 students so that was an unfavorable tax rate impact in looking at it we did lose a lot of pre-k and kindergarten kids that's a voluntary those are voluntary grades and so a lot of families I guess have chosen not to send kids to pre-k and kindergarten so that hurt our number and we also had a large increase in the number of kids who are homeschooled which we don't get credit for those kids either next so unknowns not many not many left equalized pupil count I said we got the draft it is still draft so it could change the dollar yield we do have the tax commissioner recommendation but that does have to be set by law and I'm going to talk a little bit more about dollar yield in a bit the reason is because due to these unfavorable tax factors I think a lot of districts are probably going to come in with a lower increase in their education spending than they had estimated and that estimate was factored into the dollar yield so I'm thinking we could see a higher dollar yield by the end of the legislative session so this is just a preview and we'll get into more of the details on following slides but just a few takeaways as you can see the total budget increase is 2.8 percent which is very reasonable the increase in education spending is 2.7 percent that compares to 3.5 percent from 20 to 21 the goal was a 3 percent increase so we hit that goal the equalized pupil count as it's highlighted there is still a draft number we do propose a capital plan again a capital fund we decreased it from 270,000 down to 250 based on those unfavorable tax factors but that capital fund as you'll see in the chart above it's factored into the numbers that you're going to see that come up with our education spending and our tax rates so it's even though it's a separate article whenever it comes time to vote it's already been factored into our calculations so this is a k through 12 enrollment projection for the high school middle school in union it does not include Roxbury village school because that would throw off the k through four class size analysis the projection includes kids that are new to being homeschooled because we assume they'll come back and we don't want the projection to be low artificially low that first line is kindergarten and that's the most uncertain data point because it's really based on birth data so you don't really have much to go on there you can see like out in fy 25 that number of 55 seems awfully low we'll have to see how that plays out it may not be that number it's as i said it's the most uncertain data point in this projection um let's see what else if you kind of go down to the grades five through 12 you'll see a box there that says it includes Roxbury students it includes those Roxbury students who are at main street middle school and at Montpelier high school um near the bottom there you can see a big oval for k through four that's showing you that decreases are projected at union elementary school over the next few years um main street is fairly stable and you do see in nine through 12 a large increase for the next few years at the high school overall we're still projecting an increase through fy 23 as you can see this is uh the enrollment projection related to class sizes at the high school middle school and union um you'll see some color coding here green means that we are under optimal class size yellow means that we're near the maximum class size red means we're over so some things to point out kind of in that lower chart uh for fy or for 21 22 you can see some green there for kindergarten and first grade um that it does appear that the class sizes are low but with covid it makes that data uncertain because that is projecting out current pre-kindergarten and kindergarten kids who i mentioned um seem to be low this year probably artificially low in 22 23 you see that green again so we'll be looking at those k2 projections to see if they're accurate and if they are we need to make we may need to make some staffing adjustments to get closer to optimal sizes because while you don't want to be over you also don't want to be under that's why there is an optimal class size um if you can go back once um we're going to continue to monitor that bottom line there nine through 12 but we should be fine in fy 22 even though it's yellow i think with the pe increase we'll be okay um we may need to revisit how we measure class size at high school because right now it just factors in math science social studies and english teachers so we may need to try to figure out a better way to decide what the um optimal class sizes are next so as a small school we look at rocksbury separately and we simply assume that the number of kids in one grade will be continuing to stay with us for the next year so there's no um complicated formula in this projection it's just basically carrying things straightforward you see that uh this year we had a drop um the reason mostly is because we had a large cohort in grade four last year that moved on in fy 22 it should be pretty stable that number might come up uh you know in rocksbury one family could move in and that could be a big percentage increase in the number of kids but right now it seems pretty stable around the 30 low 30s to 30 and then this is just a graphical depiction of enrollment um that top red line is overall k12 and you can see in uh fy 23 that's the first year that we won't have any grandparented rocksbury students uh it also marks what's probably a plateau in our enrollment um the bottom third of the chart you'll see there's several different lines each color differently those are each of the schools separately so as an example the high school is in yellow the middle school is in that pink color unions in a light blue and rocksbury is at the bottom there in a dark blue the future trend as you can see is lower enrollment at union fairly stable for the middle school in rocksbury and increasing enrollment at the high school so staffing um we spend a lot of time looking at staffing because that is the majority of our budget after all these next two slides show some of the staffing changes that we agreed upon as an administrative team at the district level we are going to create a grounds maintenance position which will shift um that work from being contracted with the rec department to being in house which will allow us to control and so supervise that scope of work at rocksbury we're going to increase the nurse from a point two to a point five um you know we need more than just the equivalent of one day per week um and as the note says it's very difficult to fill a point two position uh the pre-k teacher position is vacant right now so this is a good time to decrease that from point six to point five so that we are aligned with um the number of hours that we offer at union at union we're going to add an intensive needs teacher to create an autism program and hopefully decrease outside placements for future years the tech integration model is changed at union it'll be the same as the model of other schools as liby mentioned and you know as far as drivers of growth are concerned we need to try to make things more systemized uh systematized i guess as a district this is one of those things so that we can create a system for tech integration so at the middle school and the high school um we have a dedicated health teacher is what we're going for it's showing up as a as no increase in staffing because we're basically converting a pe slash health teacher to dedicated health um that is possible because as you see the first bullet under the high school we are increasing a pe position uh a full-time position there we also show math intervention which liby mentioned it's uh it's not an increase there because it's a it's actually a vacant position right now so we are just making sure that we fill it next year and it is paid for from title funds so even though it's a an increase in the budget it or it's not an increase because it's not a new position but um title one costs are included in the budget but it's also a revenue because it's a federal grant the alternative program we had budgeted that at 0.75 this year but we did not fill it we plan on filling it next year at a full 1.0 that position is funded by medicaid so once again it's a budget expense but it's not an education spending increase because it's offset by revenues transition services is another thing that liby talked about it's not an increase in fte but we are going to take a full-time teacher and make half of their job focused on transition services um student information systems at the high school we're going to go from part time to a full time there's just a need for additional support there for things like master scheduling um for monitoring proficiency data that type of thing so we'll jump into expenses um this is the overview slide again that you've already seen but it shows the number that we're going to be tracking to that 26 million 45 thousand forty dollars um this is the budget broken out by school showing a budget per pupil expense um district-wide costs uh are broken out based on the percentage of students at each school um you can see that rocksbury is much higher than the others and it's very difficult to drive down that rocksbury number because of the low student count um for example you're going to have low student to teacher ratios there's nothing you can really do about that even when you group classes or grades um you also have to deal with fixed costs that don't change no matter how many students you have things like utilities or um maintenance costs to just maintain that building so it's difficult to drive that number down but it is certainly an outlier this graph breaks out costs by program most of those programs I think you are pretty self-explanatory but just a couple to point out buildings and grounds um the capital fund is part of that little slice of the pie um safety includes things like bus aids crossing guards um principal slash special services admin that's the budget for each principal's office and the budget for the special ed director um fund transfers uh and like the top right there that's the money that we transfer to food service for the anticipated deficit that they that they typically see each year and then to break that down into the details I know these this font is very small um I will briefly go into most of these lines I know you've heard all this before but just running through it um general ed is a lower increase than usual mostly due to tuition savings for grandparented rocksbury students and pre-k tuition um tech tuition a few lines down it's listed as career center tuition that's a large increase we have much more students taking advantage of tech ed that's going from 16.5 this year to 20.8 next year student support services is higher than usual largely due to staffing adjustments the alternative program at the high school the sis increase student information system increase at the high school and the rocksbury nurse would be in that line staff support is decreasing mostly because of the change in the tech integration model that we talked about the principal line is actually decreasing um that's due to new higher savings we have um some key positions that turned over so we have new higher positions new higher savings in some of the principal's office and for the special ed director you'll see an increase in business services that's for transition uh since next year will be my last year to have some transition allowances there buildings and grounds that increases largely associated with facility projects such as the new autism space at union safety the decrease there is associated with eliminating the sro position transportation is showing a decrease that's associated with lower requirements for special education transportation and then fund transfer we bump that up a little bit to cover the anticipated food service deficit on the revenue side so i'm going to kind of lump some of these things together the top line is the education spending grant that is simply what balances the revenues with the expenses so anytime you have any kind of change in expenses you're going to see that number shift a bit um the special education revenues are up about 86 thousand dollars that's in line with special ed expenses and requirements and when i say the special ed revenues i'm talking about about like five or six lines down you'll see it starts with special ed block grant and then that carries down about five lines to special ed state placed those are state special ed revenues so those are up about 86 000 federal revenues are pretty stable and those will match expenses exactly and when i talk about federal revenues about halfway down that chart you'll see idea b grant and then several lines further down you see medicaid and epsd t those lines when you look at them in in whole they're pretty much level and what some of those acronyms mean idea b is basically federal special ed revenues cfp is consolidated federal program a lot of times you hear people talk about title funds title one title two and medicaid most people have heard of that epsd is a type of medicaid revenue as well a little bit below that you see a couple lines for tuition you'll see that those numbers are off a little bit we took a bit of a hit because of covet and it might take a little time to get those kids back coming into our schools hopefully not long and then almost at the bottom you see fund balance carry forward that is our surplus money that we are able to use as a revenue source and we've been trying to use that to offset that decrease of the merger incentive by two cents each year capital plan so the capital fund or the capital plan represents about one percent of the total general fund budget we did reset it kind of down from 270 to 250 because we've had such unfavorable tax factors the capital funds can roll over from year to year so we can accumulate money for several years for major projects and hopefully that reduces the need for future bonds as well fy 22 is highlighted in green the projects include behavior room renovation at union gym renovation at the middle school and a stair tower which isn't exactly exciting but needed we're also setting aside some money to plan for some work like the auditorium renovation and small gym renovation at union and then the big ticket item that's going to carry on for years is window replacements at union and at the middle school this is just to break up my slides with some pictures and now we'll go into the tax rates this chart shows how tax rates are calculated and also shows our current estimate the equalized pupil number was reduced based on the draft number i got from the aoe i already talked about why that might be dropping a little bit about halfway down the chart you'll see property dollar yield that's based on the tax commissioner recommendation as i said um we could set that higher um and i'm thinking we might want to because i think statewide education spending is going to be lower than what was originally estimated uh a little lower you see merger incentive you see that's dropping from four cents down to two cents next year it goes away um cla has been updated as i mentioned montpellier dropped 2.42 percent roxbury actually went up 4.5 percent um you can see by the call out boxes that the major impacts to the tax rate are basically factors that we can't control um the dollar yield the merger incentive and the cla um and to give you an example from montpellier the tax rates going up 17.6 cents right now the estimate 13 of those cents are for those factors that we have no control over so this slide shows the estimated tax impact based on property value but the impact could change if the equalized pupil number changes or if we change that dollar yield uh as the footnote explains about two thirds of vermont households receive an income sensitivity credit so the impact you see here is actually lower um for most people and this graph grant this is andrew i do i do just feel like we should we should be clear about something which is although income sensitivity lowers tax rates we're looking at about a 10 increase to tax rates this year and that means many people who receive income sensitivity they will also many of them will also see a 10 increase in their taxes so i do think that's important to realize because even though income sensitivity helps a lot of lower and middle income people um in our community a 10 increase is still a sizable increase so i just want to put that out there yeah and i want to circle back to that to that fact um on my last slide um this graph just shows some history i'm trying to track the history of from the year before we merged till now and as you can see the montpellier tax rate without the impact of cla which you can't really control is that top line it's about seven and a half seven point seven cents higher than it was in fyi 18 if you look at that per year that's about 1.9 cents per year or 1.3 which is reasonable um rocksbury is a whole different story i mean you can look at rocksbury even if you factor in cla and the tax rate in rocksbury is 14 and a half cents lower in fyi 22 than it was in fyi 18 so um good news for for rocksbury the rocksbury community next so this slide shows some important things for us to keep in mind for future budgets and for future tax rate implications um the merger incentive ends in fyi 23 which basically means we have one more year of a two cent increase um on the enrollment side we should see increases through fyi 23 the high school trending up union elementary trending down class size standards may require future fte increases at the middle school and the high school but may actually drive decreases at union um we talked a little bit uh last time i think about the fact that the equalized pupil waiting is probably going to change maybe as early as fyi 23 and when that happens our count is going to drop that will increase our tax rates um grandparent at rocksbury tuition will drop about 53 000 next in fyi 23 and that'll be the final year where we have any tuition transportation aid should go up in fyi 23 because it'll be based on this year's actuals which will include um main street middle school transportation and rocksbury transportation um we are posturing for a new special aid funding formula which is going to be based on a block grant instead of reimbursement which gives us more flexibility on the positive side on the negative side it will probably result in less revenues so just kind of the highlights here the total budget increase is 2.8 which is reasonable um 2.7 increase in education spending which is what the tax tax rates are based on uh residential tax rates are up in montpellier 17.6 cents as andrew mentioned that's 10.2 percent um if we change the dollar yield that could drop some uh rocksbury is actually down 3.8 uh cents uh the statewide tax rate increase was estimated by the tax commissioner to be nine percent um so across the state the average should be a nine percent increase next and final so what i was hoping we could do is open it up to questions from the board and then i'd like to discuss some potential changes most not to the budget necessarily but things that might impact the tax rate before we open it up to the public if that's possible so questions from the board um thank you grap and livy questions or uh comments from the board i guess kind of questions again well it says discussions or comments as well um i have a few questions i maybe for next next time we can break it up so that we can have questions in between because now it's like so much that i kind of i have too many questions and now it's going to be hard to find them but one of the questions i had was um if we had the numbers for homeschool like how many of our kids actually live for homeschool and um if there was a way and if we had like a history of that of how many we have 72 kids who are being homeschooled right now we traditionally have approximately 20 20 and less little less than 20 so we have 50 40 to 50 new ones this year and are we differentiating between homeschooling and virtual school right homeschooling is not virtual school right thank you and then um can you tell me a little bit about the deficit of full services you mentioned something about um how like every year there they can you explain to me a little bit about that about what what is that yeah food services it's actually every district that i know of food services never breaks even they they can't earn enough to break even it's maybe possible at at large schools where you have a big economy of scale but where you have you know four schools especially at Roxbury there's no way you can break even there um you're just spending too much on salaries and benefits um and we've been spending more because we've been bumping up we're trying to get to that livable wage kind of $15 an hour thing so we've been bumping salaries up by about six percent per year and we restructured some positions because um other than the director nobody was getting health benefits which we didn't like that so now there's i think four positions that are enough hours per week that they qualify for health that's great but it's not great when you're trying to break even as a food service so um it's typical for food service programs not to be able to break even and then the district has to transfer money over to the food service program to make them whole um it it's hard for us to know what the what the real number is going to be on a recurring basis for us because um you know it wasn't that long ago that we got a new and incredible food service director who's improving quality and improving revenues but you know one year into that then we have COVID and that threw everything out of whack so i'm assuming you know 100 to 125 thousand per year is maybe what we'll need because like i said they just if they try to increase prices then you end up losing participation it's just an ongoing struggle with every district that i know of in the state so the way that it works is uh with the food service program is like a business then that's like and then so what you try to do is just like a failing business it's it's it's it's partially it's like a partially funded business we several we had a food study done what was it three years ago jim it was when i just started i believe yeah and and we had a lot of discussions around this and we made um very conscientious decisions that it it's of such value from both a health and educational standpoint to our community to provide um high quality food services to our schools that it is worth uh supplementing the business side and not having uh expensive or poor quality food services that makes sense up on that i mean and we've had discussions about making you know the food services a free for all students which um i know has some expense attached to it but um i also think has you have some upsides as well i don't think we should necessarily give them a discussion tonight but it might be something to consider for future years and so with that because we got the covid relief fund gave basically universal food for our district this this past six months correct says that is there like a study of how many people actually took advantage of like having the the meals and we don't have the exact numbers but our food services is significantly lower than what it has been in the past if you think about mhs in particular i can give you the most close estimates there at mhs um the food service line was traditionally full when kids were in person and in session the food's quite excellent actually and by any of you to come in a regular year to come have lunch and be at mhs because it's really good fresh vegetables everything huge salad bar it's great but the right now we're having kids pick up meals after their classes or before their classes and they probably do about 30 a day and so we don't get reimbursed totally for the amount of food that's prepped we get reimbursed for the amount of bags that are taken and we get reimbursed for our higher rate so traditionally i think we get like four dollars 25 cents a meal grant can probably tell me exactly and now we're getting six dollars and 25 cents a meal so it's more money however it's not enough to make up the the difference between a typical in-person day and what's happening right now yeah it's worth that is the schedule of the school is different than usual too so i mean kids are only there for a morning chunk or an afternoon chunk so i guess that i guess is that probably has a lot to do with the decline yeah and in terms of our virtual learners we deliver three or four to three or four families anna delivers anna can probably tell us exactly how many families she delivers to each and every day a couple other people deliver as well and then we have three four thanks anna and then we have pinkie our pinkie outside the high school for people to pick up meals and he gives out approximately 30 a day but when you think about that our virtual population is 20 percent of our school population that's a significantly low number but if we were to ever think about universal you know lunches for the whole district what would what would be the next steps i know that this year like and you have this projection it's just well one one thing on that just just for context is there are schools in vermont that do provide this they're able to provide it with federal dollars because they have a higher percentage of free and reduced lunch kids than we do so yeah because we're a more affluent community it would be uh it would be the the local community that would be paying for that rather than federal dollars so we haven't have we explored that before jim uh i'm not sure i don't recall i'll be more than happy to start looking into but would we then accept to look into it just you know that there are some studies that that we could use but this doesn't have to be a conversation right so um and and if i have any further for i will let you guys so it looks like it's about a hundred hundred thousand dollars we're transferring for food services right so that's the shortfall um do we have a number how much it costs um overall yeah i'd say food service expenses i guess food service expenses are probably around six hundred thousand dollars between salaries benefits food supplies that kind of thing it's about five but i think probably about six hundred thousand and we get maybe a hundred and fifty thousand in state and federal reimbursements and then the rest of the revenue we get is just from charging for meals and back in the day i mean you used to be able to make money in food service but that's whenever you had soda machines and french fries and you know we're not doing those things anymore unfortunately well fortunately but not fortunately financially um so a lean cuisine every day just because our food service has not been running right now that's right because in a typical year i'm like the number one customer i have i have a few questions um before well first i wanted to just say thank you very much to both Grant and Libby and everybody else who participated in the the presentation and the of the information because and for pacing out the process this way because even though it was essentially the same information today that we saw two meetings ago i feel like i've been able to process it and like make a whole lot more sense of it um because we followed this process so i really appreciate that um and that does mean that i've been able to think a little bit more and have a few more questions um about some of the budget items one of the first one that i want to touch on is the capital fund just i'm curious about what would be the process for getting something on the list to be included in the capital fund you know at the last meeting in the public comment period we had some students and a teacher advocating for uh infrastructure changes like heat pumps that would make um particularly they were mentioning that Roxbury school but in general just looking at what would it take to make our buildings net zero and not and reduce our carbon footprint i just think i'm curious to know like what obviously we can't just like insert that in in this budget year so what would that look like in order to be able to start to to make that happen jim do you want to do you want to uh provide a little update as to where we are with that specific issue um yes yes i mean the idea of uh making our buildings uh certainly less carbon intensive you know obviously the you know the net zero goal um out there has been you know raised uh several times throughout the the years i think it's always had kind of broad support um where i think it's kind of failed the gain momentum um is yeah we have old buildings we also have some things out of our control i think some of the discussions have allowed the perfect to make the enemy of the good i mean i think we start with let's have a net zero goal um that seems very daunting to all the people who manage our buildings um uh and we have been ken jones who's a former board member uh approached uh approached me and asked for a discussion as has molly hotten who's part of a group of students who are looking at this we're going to hear from molly and the students likely in march uh andrew stein and i talked to libyon andrew marosa and also i've been talking to an Watson about this too uh just about throwing out some ideas uh we we want to get some ideas on the table uh i think as first steps who want to reach out to the effort the city's doing we understand they've employed some some experts to kind of uh yeah i think do some audits on their energy use come up with some ideas as to how you know the city can can move towards reduced emissions and net zero so we want to you know find ways we can borrow from that effort uh but i think the long and the short of it is this is something i this is discussion i would like to have this spring and i would like to frame it in uh maybe not starting with a net zero goal but starting with a water some concrete steps we can do to bring us towards that type of goal and some ideas i've had and we're already doing this a little i mean we have a capital fund uh we're making some efficiency investments yeah maybe we uh look at some policies to ensure that we prioritize investments in the future towards things that also gain us efficiencies yeah i mean you obviously have to take care of other needs but um you know making sure that this is a value that we're looking at as we're updating our buildings as we're making investments over time uh and then working with the city and other partners in the state to find ways that the district can uh yeah put us on a path towards severely reduced emissions so that's it's it's a it's a it's a conversation that's been going and it's a conversation i really want to have this spring with a little more figure and i wanted to circle back with me as a specific question so this you know what's on the capital fund is no different than any other requirements whether it's staffing or anything else the administrative team gets together we have a white board that we fill up with all the requirements which include facility requirements so a lot of times those are focused more on student needs than on energy efficiency um but the biggest thing on that capital plan is replacement windows for the union elementary school in the middle school which those are old single pane drafty windows which would help immensely um but we prioritize projects a lot of times what we try to put on the capital plan are the bigger projects the ones that we might need to collect money over several years since that money can roll over so it's kind of the same as any other priority but i i do want to make sure the board is aware it we aren't just you know sitting our hands as far as um you know net zero type of things are concerned we now we have every one of our electric meters is connected to solar metering and so we do solar metering and get solar credits and and that was a big a big thing for us the windows are a big thing for us the board's going to see for the second quarter budget or second quarter financial report i have a couple more line items on there for potential uses of fund balance one is that we need a new driver's ed vehicle and what we're assuming is that we're going to go with a hybrid you know for the first time um another thing is the rocksbury heat pump possibility is something that i've put on as a potential use of fund balance instead of having to budget for it it would be a one time cost it would be a good use of fund balance so we are looking at those things as they come up and we're trying to tackle those and knock them down um so we're not ignoring those but uh but as far as things getting on the capital plan list it's it's based on what bubbles up from the administrative team on what the requirements are that we're seeing great that's right the other thing to know too is that your question around how do things get on the list like heat pumps is a great example last last time or two week ago board meeting whenever that was seems like a month ago with that last board meeting was not the first time that we had talked about heat pumps right so um that andrew was already well versed in the need of heat pumps at rocksbury that was just the first time the board may have been hearing about it you know we had a group of parents with elissa shern and paul and you know that group who we had monthly meetings last year around led and radon and that kind of thing so working through andrew the rosa is he's very responsive when people come to him and look into things and so typically when it gets to the board it's usually giving students the chance to present their ideas and you know and that kind of thing which is an excellent thing to do as well um but no most of those things are not a surprise to to myself or grants or whoever's on the call because we've had conversations about it internally before it's just they don't happen immediately you know yep yeah but i think one thing we can do is we can i think solidify it a little more kind of our our goals and policies so for instance when we communicate it out huh and communicate what we're doing out better exactly and i and i think having it um having it in in policies or in goals will i think precipitate it being communicated out better so so when you are putting together uh you know the things you're doing you're thinking about okay the the board wants to see investment in in in things that reduce our emissions you know let's let's talk about it rather than you know this is a good idea and then you know we hear about it uh you know in piecemeal which has kind of been throughout the years because we are doing a lot of things i mean depunk's a great example windows are a great example hybrids are a great example um so i think just you know a little more of a focus on both you know how can we do it and then making sure it's communicated what we're doing and getting those those ideas of those ideas communicated and then fostering more more thought around for emma well i i just want to say and i think one thing i would add to i agree with everything you just said jim i think one thing to add is also knowing where we can direct someone when they come to us to how they can be involved in the process too you know just to if i get an email from a student because they know i'm on the board and i can say oh yeah the director of of facilities is very responsive to this and rosa he loves it yeah it's it's very that's just very helpful to know um i do have a few other questions but i'm happy to just bop back of where the emma wanted to jump in i just want to um follow it's related to this topic so no one yeah um came here i will go ahead so when the when the um when an and the students came um at the last meeting i think their request was for us to just do like have a um uh an estimate done on the heat pump at rocksbury is that something that has been discussed and we've already done it we already have the numbers grand andrew we're actually talking about just that fact today we've already done that and have and so was am i right that that's what they were asking for i think they were asking for us to actually be part of this large larger city initiative and um jim and i are planning we got we've both gotten emails from ken um and various emails from an more recently jim from an over the past couple of years on this and jim just reached back out to ken uh just the other day to try and set something up so that we can flesh some things out so heading out of budget season we can have an informed board conversation about this with that group and with andrew la Rosa and everybody so i would say your timing mia on this question is is perfect because their time and i have been talking about how yeah this this is likely going to be a priority for us heading into into the spring so that was my interpretation Emma um with that previous context of having some back and forth with them is that they want the schools to be a part of a city initiative we're just trying to flesh out you know what are the services that they're going to provide we understand they're working with a contractor what exactly could that we would love to have a contractor come in and provide you know energy audits of our schools as part of a city initiative that would be great if we could piggyback on that for example helping form our efforts so i think from a budget perspective i would just say that a lot of this i'm not saying it's not important i'm just saying i don't know that it it needs to be part of the budget because you know we're fortunate to have a good fund balance and so if there's initiatives like this that are one-time expenses this is a perfect thing to use that fund balance for and the heat pumps is one of the things i was going to say in the second quarter report we should set some money aside for that i think first we need to do some more engineering to make sure it's going to work right and what the exact solution is but we can deal with those things kind of through fund balance and through financial reports and recommendations and discussions throughout the year but hopefully the budget is okay as it is um Mia did you have more questions otherwise we can go to gel uh sure um my other questions are mostly on the expenses detail slide i don't know if it would help to bring that back up but um the they're on the line item for the superintendent and school board um the in the notes section it it explained about nine thousand dollars of that increase and i'm curious if you can share any other details on what the other eight thousand dollars of that increases the big money we make that's what i was hoping i'm just kidding run you're muted oh you're muted you're muted grant sorry that line is the school board and superintendent's budget right that also that includes salaries and benefits for the superintendent's office which you know health benefits are going up 9.6 percent um salaries going to go up a little bit so the basically staffing or not staffing but salary and benefit increases routine salary and benefit increases would make up the rest of that if not yeah is as the superintendent's office is that liby anna who else is included in superintendent's office because i know there are other district leadership i just don't know are they counted there are they counted in other places yeah i i'm trying to remember i think it's just liby and anna that are categorized as superintendent um we have the hr person and the business office is under the business services um andrew is under buildings and grounds uh and the special ed office is under special ed yep where's tracy tracy is split some from superintendent's office some from curriculum technology or what would be counted as student support i believe um and then speaking of the business office the you've mentioned that the um the person who works with you will be getting a bump in order to take on some of your knowledge as you transition out and i've heard you talk about it as like this is a transition i'm curious if you have any ideas for once you're out and if we have or when we've hired another business manager is that person going to go back to what they are currently doing i'm thinking it's that's a that's a large salary increase and it's very hard to walk that back after a couple of years i'm just trying to project out like what does that look like for future budgets yeah it could be a couple of different things um that person is going to go through the budget process with me through negotiations actually she's already doing some negotiations um you know grant reporting and reimbursement requests all those kinds of things that my position does and the idea is either then you know she could compete for the position in which case then she would become the business manager and then her position would go back to just being a payroll person in that salary the other option is that she does that work to basically make sure that all of the um the requirements of the job are known so that if we end up getting a different person that comes in at least there's somebody who can help that the new business manager make sure that they're you know attuned to everything but those responsibilities those increased responsibilities would go away other than just helping with um you know understanding what's required it may be that that higher level of of salary might be for a second year because maybe there will still be some additional responsibilities that second year right yes eventually it would go back to being just a payroll position and it would drop down that's not the the sole increase here because you also have routine increases and i believe somebody increased on health from like a two person to a family so you know there's other increases built in here but that was just kind of the one that was an unusual increase was bumping that up for the additional responsibilities which will either go away completely in the second you know in fy 23 or might continue in fy 23 during a transition of that new person uh but eventually it would drop back down again so in at least in fy 24 if not 23 you would see that drop back down thank you joe um i think that's it for now for me thanks all right thank you um i'm really glad that miss clayton came on um at the beginning of the meeting to talk about the technology integration position that you mean i had i i hadn't really understood that to be a cutting of an actively employed person and i feel like that raised an initial flag um i was misunderstanding i suppose that the position was essentially going to be um an individual who was repurposed to be part-time a library assistant and part-time the technology i did not realize it was actually cutting someone and it wasn't a vacancy that we were expecting um i also think considering the climate and the situation that we're in where we need professional development for our teachers as miss clayton was articulating for technology integration with our students under this changing universe we're all working in um that that did feel a little jarring and out of touch and and i would like to hear a little bit more about what that plan is and um barring a pretty satisfactory answer i'm wondering if other board members would join me in requesting that we that we do not cut that half position at union for technology integration and i'm going to let liby do most of the talking but i will remind you that staffing is the highest priority issue that we deal with whenever we meet as an administrative team and so we take that very seriously when we go through priorities and what we're going to fund and what we're not going to fund the other thing is that position was vacant until this year and when we filled it we were looking at it as a one-year position but i'll let liby get into more of the details but i i guess before i say and before i do that i will say the thing that we're lacking the most and i think liby would agree is systems this is not a system it's not going to be a system until we make it a system and so i think it's not a it's not a step down it's a step up because we are creating a system that all schools can follow where we have the librarians working together and all understand the rules that they need to be in and can cross train or have pd development across each other this is a one-off position in this district that liby you you're better at this than me well that's the that's from the budgetary side which you did quite nicely with the thing that we also know that increases students academic achievement that we are woefully low at right now and our literacy audit is is incredibly clear in this is informational literacy we have a very limited informational literacy going on in our district across the board k-12 our library media specialists that's what their degree is basically in so when we think about system it's not just a system in terms of staffing needs it's also a system of learning so if our learning needs are around informational text accessing the global society through technological means and that kind of thing then we need to have a cadre of of employees who have a specialty in just that which is what a library media person does currently it's the model at msms and at mhs however mhs has just gotten to this year was the first year that we hired in a library assistant mhs so it hasn't really clearly taken off obviously since we're in this world right now so we haven't had a chance to do it but what we really are looking at is for not just how to use a computer and touchscreen and that kind of thing but also digital citizenship that's huge library media specialists are experts in that we're also looking at informational literacy and accessing our global society accessing outside world in a different way rather than just how to use a computer and and how to do that kind of thing it's a we are not doing our children's service right now in that kind of learning and we need to increase our capacity to do that so by looking at our system where we have our three professionals for actually because we just moved Roxbury last year into this role as well when we have our four library media specialists working together to increase our students capacity around informational literacy it will move faster we'll be able to do more as educators and this was heavily debated when Jeffrey Jared was the person who had this last year he retired at the end of the year late last year and we it was a late hire and so we have a provisional in there right now a person who doesn't have the degree it's a provisional licensure in there right now and when it was hired it was hired with the idea that we would be using this as a one-year position does um does miss fry have her library media specialist degree or is she a librarian have a librarian everybody has to have a library media specialist degree right now so she I didn't realize that they had much over some yep so I do agree I mean I brought it up at the original um uh budget proposal that that was something that stood out to me as a cut and we sort of discussed it a little bit and I I did more thinking about it I still feel that um you know we had what we used to have at union school is a full-time technology teacher and a full-time librarian so those programs were really strong and they were treated as two special two separate specials that the kids took so you wrote the kids rotate through specials technology was one of them library was another one um so it feels like I I'm having a hard time envisioning how if and I understand we're hiring the the part-time library system I understand that part but how miss fry can handle the same level of programming um if she's cutting her time in half for both of those positions and I and I didn't feel completely satisfied with the answers that were given last time and I was hoping that maybe Ryan would speak directly to it um but I sort of sat back and and and took a few weeks to meditate on it and I'm still not convinced it still feels like a cut in terms of you know the actual human being power hours being able to put into the curriculum of those two programs the library the library program and the technology program at union school with all due respect your statement of a strong technology program we have no evidence of that so um you we may have evidence in that your kids enjoyed it enjoyed Mr. Jarrett because he certainly was a very enjoyable person but we have no real evidence that it supported or did anything for student learning so we we just don't and that's not a statement of judgment on on Jeffrey's work as a technology integrationist it's simply we don't have the evidence to support that statement so so I just want like there's no learning behind it but that's say that a new person in that position wouldn't bring a great program you know so if if we don't feel like Mr. Jarrett did brought a great program to Union Elementary School that's not what I said what I said was we don't have support you know an evidence to support that there was strong learning or that it was a strong program so we so your question is more about does marita who's in the library media specialist position now have the time so a significant portion of her time currently in a typical school year not this year because she's a pod teacher this year but in a typical school year is shelving books that's a because a classroom comes in each kid has two books that they've taken out so each kid has two books that need to go back on so that's approximately 40 books a classroom a day so it's a I've I've actually done it myself Mike Barry and I have done it several times where we sat in the library and shelved books for her because she felt very much overwhelmed in that capacity so the the aid coming in takes that out of her day and that's a significant portion of time that is gained there we also have a tech integrationist team a tech team across the district that helps considerably with different types of tech issues in in the district and that kind of thing so it's not a fix it role whatsoever it's a how do we access informational technology role which our librarians are the prime people to deliver that kind of instruction so the the old traditional idea of a librarian who welcomes kids in they sit on the rug they read a story and they get books may change so the time she has with classrooms may change or probably will change so that kids can do more of that how do i learn how to become an informational hungry learner during that time rather than let's just sit down enjoy a good book and then go check out some library books it might be more of a lesson around how do we access information how do we express information how do we share information how do we go get information and and then make sure that we kids have a chance to check out their choice books in the library as well so the content of the library instruction could change significantly in us with this model so it just when at the end of the day it feels like was it discussed at all like the potential of hiring a point five um maybe an additional library media specialist or technology integrationist no that wasn't discussed because it wasn't felt needed by the administration and so i guess that's the heart of what i want to know is like why isn't it needed if we're because i i picture these classes when they rotate through their specials it's like one whole classroom will be in the technology room at the same time as another whole classroom is in the library room and now they won't be able to do that at the same time so i'm just i mean if it's something that's fully supported by the staff and administration at at union school then i'm who am i to question it you know if that's if that's the direction that mr. Haridy and and the and the staff decided was the best for the kids but if it's more of a budgetary consideration then i want to look at it close more closely i can say and our meetings around staffing with the leadership team this was and where we were probably prioritizing things this was not a highly discussed position because it wasn't there are other priorities that we were focusing on this this this wasn't a hard decision from the administration perspective and ryan was most definitely part of those conversations jim there's some hands up i'm not who is your hand up amanda oh sorry about it so i'm a little confused about the role so we're talking about technology integration and library it's like in my mind is very two different things technology integration is very different than the process of library and teaching kids so like i really i want to understand so like so we're saying miss fry will be doing the technology integration at ues as well and because she's going to have support in shelving the books and doing that part of the library circulation because that's two different keys in not a circulation but the technology integration in the schools if you're thinking from a very traditional model yes you're true if you're thinking of those two things as different things then yes it is but in the educational quality to standards it's not separate it's a library media specialist so the degree the licensure is for the library and to do technology integration in a traditional very old school how i went to school they were very set they would have been very separate but that's not how it's written in the educational quality standards okay i i i still think i have i um there is two separate expertise in terms of the the the level of knowledge about around the technology as that um and so it'll be interesting to see the sorry because it'll be interesting to see the national education technology standards and like how that just plays in because we are in this world right now you know we we had to go virtual some of our teachers had some challenges some you know with like bringing in a new technology that like we had to accommodate ourselves in our classes and our programs that's not you know so i have a lot of questions jerry were you yeah jerry it seems like you might have a a way to clarify i have a few other questions but i'll i can go to jerry jerry you just muted yourself yeah i was just going to add that my best friend from college is a librarian and the the whole degree has changed significantly she is a librarian in a high school she had to learn how to create databases it's a very technology centric um field of study now so i was just going to add that that it has changed significantly since you know when i was in high school yeah i think that might be part of the confusions that all of us were in school well in my case 20 plus years ago and it looked a lot different i'm sure than it does today because we had a library and then technology was essentially typing that was my typing class was was my technology i wonder if maybe um because uh miss clayton painted a really strong picture for me in the public comments of what a student's experience is now under the current system of what technology looks like so i wonder if maybe uh maybe this is liby this is something you could speak to is like obviously at union it's not going to look the same as it looks at main street middle school or at at at the high school what would the what's the union elementary students experience going to be if we have this new system of an integrated library technology um teacher set up will they have library and technology as a special like they have pe and art or will they have library and in library there will be yeah maybe that like if we can look at it maybe from his perspective that would help the isti standards which are the international standards for technology education don't separate those two they are all one and the same and so we want we want kids to yes be able to use the dewy decimal system for what it's worth at this point in time which i haven't actually i've been in many libraries in my last five years i haven't actually used the dewy decimal system however that's what i learned in library right when i was there and that's all the books are organized in a library um however is the informational technology that truly matter matters and how do you not use technology to just take a you know the old science project which we still unfortunately do with the three winged thing you know at the front and then the sides the the then kids are kids like glue on their research out of those things for the science project oh yeah okay how do we not sorry how do i definitely made one of those yeah i think i made many of those um how do we not just take what was on those those power those uh paper things and put it on a power point how do we actually change um the learning and the understanding through the technology that's part of what the library media specialist can now do so it's not just taking you know your notes and putting on a power point but it's actually changing your thinking and growing your thinking to something deeper um that's what all the s sd standards are all about and it's it's not separating those two pieces anymore like that's one of the reasons why i really love although it makes mic crazy because it has his job is so big that it's curriculum and technology because those two things shouldn't be different anymore you know at first when we first brought in computers and all those kind of things it was different because we didn't really know but those two things should be the same now they should be one in the same where it's not like this is technology time and this is learning time it's all one thing and that can i just you know because so i i i totally understand that and that's why i'm a little confused about the position itself because the if we're thinking of systems in systems every teacher should be doing technology and that's what eq s does right that the now the eq ss technology integration means the infusion of technology into the curriculum the tool to and has learning and content you still and and we have different levels of the way that each teacher is going to use technology and from my understanding and maybe i'm not understanding um is clinton's position and like what how that works across the board at us with students and that's a like if we're thinking systems like every teacher should be using the technology according to the eq s and how that fits into the school classroom how we integrate and all of that so um and the eq s sorry for that is the education quality standards for um and so i think it's important to yeah so i just have more questions about like what is the actual position and like the role of means fry and absorbing some of that is that is that what's happening i would say to the board if the board would like us to put this position back into the budget if that's the will of the board then grant can do that and he can show the numbers it's going to be an increase significant increase in the significant tax impact we did not make this decision based on money or budgetary factors we made this based on what we feel the needs of the district are as a leadership team so the leaders in the district have decided that there are other places that we would rather put taxpayer dollars we don't feel that this is the correct or a direction to go we think it's an outdated model but if the board believes this is the model to go with then we will do what the board's bill is my my general thought on this just as somebody who doesn't really have a strong feeling one way or another is there's this concept of loss aversion and there's been a lot of studies of this and when people lose something of equal value to something that they gain they feel that sensation of loss twice as much as they feel the sensation of gain and so i've seen for example in my current role as a manager when we shipped away from a system that's not working people feeling a sense of loss and clinging on to that system and a little bit of what i feel like i'm seeing right now is people clinging on to systems that they know and understand and i don't think we fully understand exactly what is being proposed here which is part of the issue so i think you know on the administration side it could be explained a bit better to us but i think i will say liby is when people approach public education i feel like i see a lot of people they have they view public education in different lights you know some people think the purpose of public education the primary purpose is to achieve greater societal equity some people think the purpose is to maximize personal gain and whatever that personal gain may be whether it's to be the greatest citizen in our democracy or gain you know as much money as possible or gain certain skills whatever and so i it's not as though there's like a right or wrong here but i do feel like i do i'm just opining here i do feel like liby is bringing a level of expertise that we don't have to this issue and i think what would be helpful for the board is and we have one more budget meeting correct yeah we have to approve the budget the last the next meeting so from from my perspective i think it might be helpful at the next budget meeting to better understand this new system and the advantages of this new system versus what we were doing what we're doing now or really what we were doing before so that we can make a more informed decision about this but i will say just like listening to everybody on this and i really appreciate everybody sharing their thoughts it does seem like a lot of the board members are clinging on to what they know and understand that's just my perspective yeah i'm with all due respect andrew i just want to you know i i'm not clinging into anything i am asking for clarifications i think that jumping into the board to do whatever you know like you guys make the decision we're asking we don't understand so i think that um to say that you know we're clinging into something not we i personally do not understand the whole concept of like because they're even if you're throwing so i i yes liby has expertise but you know many of us also understand systems and understand other educational pieces of the puzzle so i think that it's it like for me to make decisions i need to have all the information and i don't have that right now so i'm asking i don't understand the position in relationship to the librarian and how to how it works in this system so that that's what i will need i'm gonna i'm gonna make a few comments i mean one i mean after hearing this conversation i i do not hear that this is a you know we feel a budget squeeze and we have to chop a position that that we feel we want i feel this is part of an exercise decision about the best allocation of resources and the best implementation of systems um and i also feel quite confident that liby and her team are have a lot of confidence in that area and frankly a lot of confidence that we don't have a lot of confidence frankly that and understanding that that we're not going to get with the amount of time we have as board members to to fully understand it there's a bit of a trust game with the budget process we cannot understand every decision with the level of detail that we can in our own jobs for instance we just don't you know liby and her team spend you know 40 50 hours a week ingrained in this analyzing it looking at how the various pieces move together um i would definitely like a higher degree of understanding on a lot of the budget items too i i feel i have some understanding but not the type of understanding i i'd want if i had to make the decision from an administrative level um at some level we're not going to you're never going to have that understanding about certain decisions that are involved in the budget i'm sure if we delved into some other layers in the budget and in how much you are spent we'd have the same questions about y x and not y so there has to be a little level of trust i think on this one it does sound like we want a little more information um liby if you're okay it'd be great if we could get maybe you could just kind of you know make spend the next two weeks thinking about the best way in like 10 minutes to really succinctly describe this position and how it integrates um i i feel in general though the the board is not doing its best work if we are interfering with non-budget decisions that really involve i think the type of of systematic and day-to-day knowledge that the administration has unless we have like really strong reasons too that's just my two cents i mean that's not that we shouldn't ask questions and that we shouldn't delve into it um but i think andrew's suggestion is good that maybe giving liby some time to kind of think about how to crisply present this to us next time and then um you know having us let's make a decision you know then before we pass the final budget makes a lot of sense but i just don't do want to caution that you know we're a volunteer board and our knowledge our knowledge is limited and and we have an oversight role not a day-to-day operations role and and we have to you know in some ways trust that you know the team that that we have in place is considering the type of things on a really deep level that we might not just simply have the time to to get our head thrown for me i i'm maybe it's naive but i'm trying to separate the budget aspect from the um from the direction or from the new system that that we're trying to implement or the libyan or administration is trying to implement um so if i if i separate them completely then i'm thinking i as as experts in their fields um i would lean towards what their recommendation is their recommendation is going for the through the systems you know upgrading the system if i have to completely change those or separate those out which means that if they if if i don't understand which direction they're going maybe i'll try to ask for any you know some information about that and that's what i guess uh jim you were asking about maybe libyan um and during the next meeting or before that i shed some light on it but i would lean towards and i agree with andrew i would lean towards um and you as well jim i would lean towards trusting the team that we have um because i don't i don't bring those expertise to to our school district that's why we have the team we have in place with the principals and whoever and if they feel that that's uh um that's a better system that we our kids um would benefit from i would lean towards that but at the same time as as amanda is is is mentioning that you know a little more information about that why we're going which direction we're going might be helpful um and then at that point then um if that's decision we are making then it becomes okay because we want to implement that these are the budgetary implications that we would need to have or whatever right not that just for me maybe again it's naive but i'm trying to separate these two things up i just want to be clear that there's just not a matter of trust uh or not trust and that i am a volunteer board but i have the agency to to listen to ask questions and i am representing a lot of people you know so like doesn't matter if i'm a volunteer i'm here and this is my role and so i want to feel confident that when i ask questions that it's not a matter of not trusting i have total faith in the administration love for all the teachers for administrators i am a fan of every single staff person and when i ask questions i don't want to be feeling like i don't trust no i want to ask and i want to make decisions just i am not just a volunteer i am here as a committed person that represents an entire town so i just um just want to make that yeah no i i totally agree and and uh that's i mean the the trust level wasn't that you know we shouldn't get explanations and we shouldn't find out the reasons the the trust level is more that um being able to to to go on an explanation that that maybe you don't fully understand if you weren't part of the actual administration team um and looking for you have they vetted it well have you know is this part of a larger plan is this uh you know being driven by you know the values that we care about as a district um and and and realizing that on some things you're not going to to know all that you need to know if you actually were you know living uh because you know there's there's a level of of expertise and i think a level of consideration in this decision and in a lot of these decisions that that we don't have the ability to as a board to get the the handle on that we have we didn't have more time but that's not saying that we shouldn't ask questions that's not saying that we shouldn't get enough information to feel comfortable that these decisions are being made in a sound manner and in a way that's uh you know the best interests of the district and the best interests of of the school district but uh we can get wound around the wheel if we try to get to the point where we feel like we know as much as the administration does about every decision because we just don't have the time to get there Emma um so i i'll just echo what amanda said about like you know i totally have faith in the admin team and my questions about this has nothing to do with my faith or respect for the decisions they've made but sometimes you end up having to look at the numbers and make cuts that you might not ordinarily make and so i guess my question is sort of around that is this like purely programmatic and this is going to be better and mr herity feels like you know miss fry is going to do a better job with without having those shelved books and focusing you know utilizing that part of her license with which she hasn't been utilizing you know so much up to this point but also as a public school teacher and someone who's a little bit more of an insider than some of you i do know that when they did the shift over for it's a relatively new shift right let me like six years or so to the new license requirements oh i don't know when the liber library media specialist i was jeffrey was hired as the technology integrationist 15 years ago but they used to be two separate licenses typically and it would be you would have a librarian and you would have a tech integrationist if you were lucky in a there are still two different licenses okay but they're making a move towards this unified license and make and most schools are making a move like we're talking about doing to having the one person have the have dual licensure and i think there's even like a new name for that license right the library license is currently library media specialist there is also a technology education license but there's no mover shift there it's it's the way it is right now okay so when i was at danville they were they were working on the librarian to to get the tech integrationist license so that she could also teach the tech integration courses and so that was my understanding of it is that there was sort of this move to blend those two positions much like there is in middle school you you want to hire teachers that have dual licensure in two subjects because they're most often teaching math and science together and language arts and social studies together so a lot of some teachers will come to the table without that dual licensure and they're more experts in math than they are in science and then you want them to get that dual licensure so that was my sort of experience in the schools that i worked in is that they were they were making this move towards one or the other teachers doing both and having dual licensure and sometimes that works out amazing and the person is the perfect fit for both of those roles and then other times you have people who aren't as techie librarians who are a little bit more old school and love reading to children in circles on on the floor and maybe aren't as you know techie doing coding and you know light up cards and stuff like that i've also attended a lot of like professional development around tech integration and i love the Vermont Tech Fest that Mike Barry used to present at and you know there are some people out there that are real experts in exactly that field and that you know i understand what Libby's saying around global citizenship and learning how to access information but there's also like true technology education nerds out there who bring a lot to the table in terms of um you know i forget who was saying at Mia or Amanda about you know technology should be integrated into the curriculum inside classrooms and not all teachers are comfortable with that so if you have a tech integration specialist they can work with individual teachers to improve their curriculum in terms of you know interesting really great tech integration for that grade level so that's sort of in my mind i dream big and i'm like uh you know it'd be great to have somebody that could really help and maybe this could be a transition year where we keep that 0.5 tech integrationist that we're losing um and maybe have them do more consulting with classrooms or stuff like that but so in my mind i just sort of like i'm excited about tech integration and i've seen a lot of really great stuff happen and so i would you know would like to have you know and jim the the thing about it's about the kids experience at the school so like Libby said my kids loved their their tech time you know they're they're really great typers they wanted to type for mr Jared and so it's just stuff like that like it's it's it's down to the student experience level so a lot of stuff in the budget goes over my head and i'm like okay okay i i you know i trust i know that grants a genius and you know and i'm just letting a lot of stuff go and then there's a couple of things that sort of you know are a little bit more in my wheelhouse that and so am i can i ask a question well indra i just wanted to check because jill's been waiting for a while with sorry i didn't oh sorry jill i i just had been noticing that there've been a few people not raising their hands and jumping in i just wanted to check like how should we follow that process yeah and we're at 822 we're we're uh we're blowing blowing the agenda schedule so if the point of order is not that we should use that i won't do it anymore but i i've just i i just put it up since i started us on this um i just asked one question which i think is a legitimate question i certainly didn't feel like i was expressing any lack of trust or going where board members should not go and i was actually satisfied with what grant liby had to say it definitely provided some context that i didn't have i think maybe because i work in state government and when we lose a position we do not get them back that i i felt like if we had an active professional in the building who was providing some value it felt like it was worth asking that question um i don't think it sounds great that we'll get a half a position that will shelve books but i understand the capacity and the shifting of sources so i'm willing to accept that so i i just i felt that that was important to sort of close that loop i actually feel like i have more concern after we've all been talking about it but for the purposes of my initial question i feel like my question was answered by by liby and grant thank you yeah and and let me really emphasize i mean i i wasn't i'm not trying to shed questioning down at all i was a little more concerned like liby kind of punted it to us about do we want to put it back in or not and before we took that up i wanted us to make sure that we understood that um the board should act very cautiously about overturning i think what's this what's more of a substantive than a money driven decision by uh the administration it from from what i was hearing from liby it sound like they considered this um not from a we have to cut a position boy we'd really like this but from more of a systematic we are moving in a certain direction and this makes sense in that move type of of being and um if if we're gonna put ourselves in a position we say no let me put that back in um that it's it's it's a little dangerous when the board starts doing that especially selectively you know jim maybe jump in here at the end and maybe bring conclusion it's not just an administrative decision this time last year the board had approved moving forward with the library media specialist and rbs and mhs as well so this time last year the board did approve the direction that we are going with the changes at ues also so last year the administration and the board um had well with the approval of the budget agreed with the system's direction that we're discussing this evening again that's helpful too thank you other other questions or comments on on the budget i guess i one one thing that i i wanted to just follow up on from emma and it doesn't need to be answered right now but i thought emma made some really good points about the the type of services and quality of services that she feels like kids and teachers were provided for and i guess the general question i have is it seems like there's there's a systemic change of foot it doesn't seem that way that's how it's been articulated and the general question i have is are our kids and our professional or our staff receiving those same or really better services moving forward i guess that's that's the kind of 5000 foot question i feel like i'm asking myself after all the follow-up um from what i said before so sorry was that rhetorical or was that no no it's not rhetorical because i don't know the answer to the question sorry sorry um so it depends on how you're looking at it if we want our kids spending time going jjj space jjj space you know like i learned how to type and learning how to use a computer well yeah that probably won't be spent as much time doing um as in the past or playing cool computer games or learning how to use a mouse in a very direct way um i can tell you if we're using just story and opinion my kids don't have that in their education and they do just fine by learning it on their own or with their teacher in their classroom what we want to move to is a more comprehensive way of looking at literacy instruction to include digital literacy digital citizenship and the people who are most expert in doing that kind of work across our system are the did it are the library media specialists um we have that model as ryan said at the high school and at rvs from last year we had it working at msms it's taking a little sidetrack right now um and if we have all four library media specialists working together to to provide that kind of vertical articulation and curriculum then we feel we could significantly fill a hole in a gap in our curriculum that we have right now and we discussed it for a while at our leadership team meeting and it was all agreed on from our leadership team jim before before we end up getting completely cut off i did want to talk a little bit about potential changes which this could be one of but i needed to talk about potential changes for the january 20th meeting because as you mentioned the board has to approve the budget and that's there's no denying that the board has to approve the budget on the 20th so um i want to make sure the board is at least comfortable with a few things before we come in because we're going to come in with warning to be signed and everything because of meeting the timelines of public notice um i know we're talking about potentially adding something back in which if you tell us to do that i guess we'll do that um but circling back to andrew's point earlier montpelio taxpayers are going to see a 10.2 increase in their tax rate which i'm not comfortable with i've never seen that in 15 years that kind of an increase um i would feel a lot better about bringing a tax rate that is at least at the level of the estimated statewide increase which is nine percent um to get there i'm not talking about making budget cuts um but i wanted to make sure i don't want to come in on the 20th and have you shocked by what i'm presenting what i would like to do is i would like to increase the dollar yield by about 85 dollars and then increase fund balance the amount that it would be required to get us to that nine percent figure which if i increase the dollar yield by 85 i could increase the fund balance by about 62 000 that would get us it at nine percent which i would feel much better at least delivering a budget that's at the level of the statewide estimated increase so i wanted to throw that out there i i know that it most people don't increase the dollar yield because it's based on the tax commissioners recommendation but um last year the dollar yield ended up being 115 dollars higher than than what the commissioners recommendation was it's not a slam on the tax commissioner the tax commissioner got numbers from the aoe and the aoe estimated that everybody was going to have a certain increase in their head spending i don't think that increase is going to be as dramatic as the estimate was so i think it's reasonable to assume that that dollar yield is going to be set higher which that's why i would like i did this last year and i used i think we we bumped it up by 117 and it actually ended up being 115 higher this year i'd like to bump that up by about 85 dollars take that calculated risk um and then bump up the fund balance because we can afford it and this year the tax factors are worse than i've seen in a long time so i wanted to give the board a heads up that that's the approach the changes that i was going to make next time not budget changes but a revenue increase for fund balance and adjusting the assumption for for dollar yield and i didn't want to shock you whenever we come in next time and we've done that so hopefully the board is comfortable with that so that you'll be comfortable with approving the budget i just got to see your hand is up and so why don't you go ahead because i know we are aligned with public comment um and then let's go back and let's give grand direction on his question um and also uh it seems like if we are going to want that half position back in we should give direction because we probably do not have a lot of time to change it next um next time although i guess we could last minute to clarify jim it's not a half position it's a one point opposition one point opposition sorry um jessica thank you i i did want to clarify a couple things and thank you um libby for um correcting the the half time full time question um i certainly do not um argue against what has already been said i do feel like that there is a lot um that can be done to uh to align things a little more and um my understanding is that the high school and middle school media specialists are both dual certified am i understanding that is our current media specialist at ues is not she's just um media specialists which does involve a lot of those things that libby has already set up digital citizenship and things like that um with me in this position or anybody else in this position um there's definitely the opportunity for more integration and we have not had the opportunity yet you know welcome to covid 2020 um and i do think that there's room for collaboration to continue growing in that aspect and um and i even with marita teaching the digital citizenship skills that are very important in 21st century learning i'm still concerned that trying to teach five grades those skills along with everything else that is required of the job including having a halftime person shelving books i still am concerned that's not quite enough time for her to her anybody to do that job thoroughly it would be five grades of our youngest kids versus you know middle school and high school who have they're doing it full time for older kids in smaller grades so while i i completely respect everything that's gone into research in this i know this is not something that anybody would take lightly i just want to make sure that our kids are not going to miss out on everything that has been um that has been growing and growing in these two programs great thanks jessica um so any reservations uh with grants approach um to uh to to deal with what i think we all agree is a scary tax number but i also think we we by all feel is is necessary given given the needs of of meeting the budget um i have a couple of follow-up questions for grant sure for on those on those points grant you were saying you would increase the dollar yield from what the tax commissioner is recommending by 85 dollars right and last year the it was finally set at 115 dollars higher than the tax commissioner had had recommended right so if it followed that trend we'd be in the margin and that would be okay we don't get like a we don't take a hit what happens if what happens if you're wrong and the dollar yield either stays where it is or just doesn't go up higher than like that would never happen um all that all that is is it's influencing our estimated tax rate so you know like last year if i had used the tax commissioner recommendation our estimated tax rate would have been 1.8 cents too high um because i changed it and i made an assumption of 117 dollars and it ended up being 115 our tax rate estimate was off by a tenth of a cent it it doesn't impact our budget we don't take all it is is it's it's basically me using a little bit of a different factor to estimate to the public what i think the tax rate is ultimately going to be it's always different because the dollar yield is never set exactly at what the tax commissioner's recommendation is and once again it's not a hit on the tax commissioner the tax commissioner gets all these data points from various places one of those is an AOE estimate of ed spending statewide and even i assumed that we were going to go up by about three percent or three and a half percent we only went up 2.7 i think all the districts in the state are probably fighting to try to drive their spending down which means the tax commissioner got a data point that's probably not going to be true um so i think it's safe to assume it's going to be higher i don't know how much higher it's always off a little bit the risk to us is just that the estimate that we give to the public could be a little off but it always is off somewhat it's usually off too high and i i don't think that it's going to be i don't think that i'm giving an estimate that's that's you know i don't feel dishonest about giving an estimate based on a dollar yield that's 85 dollars higher than the tax commissioner recommendation it doesn't mess us up financially how much money we get in anything we're we're authorizing grant to make a different assumption than the tax commissioner did several months ago and i do think we are in a different climate than we were several months ago economically so if i could just summarize like you what you're working to do would be to get our estimated tax rate to nine percent and if if we're if you're wrong with the dollar yield and it actually doesn't go up any higher than the actual tax rate would be more than nine percent correct okay after after people voted on the budget right we find this all this information out actually after we vote on the budget yes ironically yeah which is always a little awkward and scary yeah and then my historically though the dollar yield i've never heard the dollar yield ending up being set at or below the tax commissioner recommendation great it always ends up being set higher so it's not okay like i said it's not being dishonest it's just me trying to give a better estimate of what i think it might be okay and then my second follow-up question it is um can you remind me the size of our fund balance currently it's over two and a half million dollars okay um and what what was it that you were proposing increasing it instead of 250,000 making it 62,000 higher so like 350,000 okay okay thank you but that two and a half million is not fully unobligated we have a bunch of obligations related to that yeah i mean like this year we're using 240,000 as a fund balance revenue in fy 21 we plan on using like 300,000 if you accept this in fy 22 maybe another 200 to 250 to 300 in the next year we we still would have a sufficient amount that i would feel comfortable and we would still be able to use fund balance for one-time requirements such as some of the things we've talked about earlier we do need at some point to control the decrease of fund balance as a revenue source so as not to take up certainly tax rate in any one year but we've got a sufficient amount that i think we can easily have a glide path of of reducing that down later okay yeah and the yeah the fund balance right now is about what 10 percent of our total budget and i think we're required to have was it 2.5 or 3 percent the old the old policy which i don't even know if it still exists used to say 2 percent as like a rule yeah yeah so we've we've got a um it's good to have a bloated fund balance in the current climate but but uh it is much larger than usual um yeah i feel i feel comfortable with the the things you recommended grant thank you right grant i have a oh sorry anakit you go first and then i'll ask thanks andrew um i was just wondering grant you mentioned that historically the the dollar yield has always been um tax commissioner has always come under and then it's ended up more um but you mentioned last year you you went 115 dollars about historically or in your tenure have you always gone above the tax commissioner no ironically um last year was the first year i ever did not use the tax commissioner recommendation and it was based on some some things that were going on that i thought we're going to yield to end up resulting in a higher dollar yield um whenever the pandemic hit i was panicked because i thought oh the one year i do this is going to end up backfiring on me but it still ended up being set higher um so there's nothing that says you have to use the tax commissioner recommendation it's just most business managers and school boards used it because it's the best number you got um but each year it's frustrating because you present a budget that gets voted on with a tax estimated tax rate that every year is higher than it ends up really being because the dollar yield gets higher so last year was the first year i did it um and luckily for me it worked out um and i i like i said i think that it's safe assumption that it's going to be higher i wouldn't be surprised if it's even more than 85 dollars to tell you the truth but we'll see so historically uh uh the voted on estimated tax rate has always been more and people have been pleasantly surprised when they actually see the tax rate and it's lower correct okay grant do you so one thing i do think it's just important for everybody to realize and i think our entire board is aware of this this year because of extraordinary circumstances we are deficit spending but we have fund balance to support that um so we're using the fund balance to cover that uh do you have any anticipation of where will be in terms of unencumbered fund balance at the end of this fiscal year ballpark yeah i think we'll i mean i already did a second quarter report and even after i set aside things like the replacement vehicles and heat pumps and such i was it almost i was about 1.8 million dollars that doesn't take into consideration a potential deficit this year but the reason why it doesn't is because as i looked at the second quarter report i'm not sure we're going to end up with a deficit we have savings that i didn't anticipate that we would have you know because we're virtual or just half time or there's a lot less kids there's a lot less in supplies substitute expenses are way down over time expenses um there's a lot of expenses are coming in lower than i anticipated so we will overspend in some lines but i think we're going to underspend in some and in some cases where we really overspend like a lot of we spent almost 200 000 on ventilation improvements and and um these special filters that are running in every room we're getting crf money through efficiency vermont to cover that so i'm no longer sure that we're even going to have a deficit this year wow that's great news really great news oh go ahead amanda i i also want to be talking about Tina has her end up but i also want to again remind us that it's 842 no that's what i want to say that Tina has had her hand up okay yes okay so i wanted to get the grand part done thank you amanda um i i have two two things one is and you sort of spoke to this grant is certainly uh 10.2 percent sends me over the edge so i appreciate your idea um but would we andrew's laughing at me would we um using the fund balance is great because we we have it and we should use it but you know it'll be next year and the next year we've used it and the budget keeps going up but you're feeling we're going to be okay about that yeah i think these these out of control tax factors are going to be are here this year they may be here for another year or two but i think at some point these tax factors are going to calm down um that too that loss of a two cent in merger incentive in FY 23 it's the last time we lose that two cents then we're level there um i think we have enough that we can control it we look at it every year and then look each year a few years down the road i think we have enough that we can control the amount of fund balance we're using and draw it down slowly so that we don't make the tax rate go out of control i i do we have to keep looking at it i'm trusting you and the second question is uh we talked as a matter of um what we pay the highest amount to is salary so i'm curious to know does the grounds management position about equal what we paid when we contracted yeah well with that it depends on you never know what you're gonna have to pay with benefits but um it should be pretty close we're gonna have some upfront costs one-time costs um on like buying zero-turn mowers and that kind of stuff which as a one-time cost i can use that out of fund balance so they're not increasing the budget but we wouldn't have to buy that that high cost equipment each year so i don't think it's dramatically different um the thing is it's hard to say what it's going to be in years to come because that that agreement um has come up a few times as far as the desire to change it or increase the amount that we'd have to pay so i'm not sure if it's a one-for-one it's it's not directly direct department yes with the city thank you and not to prolong it but that not what grant what grant didn't say is the guys who do our fields right now for the rec department are both uh retiring so it's kind of a it's a good time from both perspectives to to do a different different way a different actually actually i'm thinking about the city budget i think they should not hold that position they should take it out because they no longer have a different board meeting tina you know you should go you should go to city council and tell them that's what i'm doing that's what i'm saying and i just want to clarify tina i was laughing with you i was not laughing i knew other other questions for grant um and then on the uh the integrated tech position um is it fair to say we don't want to give any specific direction to liby but maybe would like another five minute explanation just at the beginning of of the presentation next time if board members could send me exact questions because five minutes is not going to answer what it's going to look like next year ten you know and oh that's much better jim thanks so if i could get some exact questions that i want to make sure that i answer from the board that would be helpful so i don't present on what i believe you need to know versus what you actually want to know so so please shoot liby um any questions you feel you still have um have have a need to know before next meeting if you can just to so we can be efficient with with time um we have two more items which i am hopeful we can cover quickly uh the first is as i explained there has been a change of the vaccination policy um i don't think we totally understand it um what i basically like is just approval to write a letter to the governor um on behalf of the board uh asking what it means for teachers and see if we can get some clarification and stressing that uh you know it's the sentiment of the board that given uh the importance of in-person learning and the importance of keeping our our teachers and their families and our other school workers and their families safe uh that that uh we strongly urge that uh in addition to other at risk groups that the teachers and other essential workers uh be prioritized on the vaccine list um in a manner that gets into them as quickly as possible and puts them in a safe position um i don't think we need a formal vote on that or just kind of consensus but um i'd love to do that i know that some of our teachers are are concerned about um when they're going to get the vaccine and and what the change i agree go for it jim i have perfect i will uh i'll i'll work on i'll work on something um jim jim can we just on the same topic really quickly liby have you do you know if i just really quickly with everybody to me this feels and i jim and i have talked about this already this feels like an issue that is obviously much larger than just our board and our district and is pertinent to really every school in the state liby have you heard about other schools that are other districts that are concerned about this issue right now i mean i've heard from some teachers but no i mean everybody's been on vacation everybody took some time over the vacation and so we're all just we're all coming back we haven't we haven't met as a regional superintendent group or i haven't spoken to my colleagues i spoke to brian over at e32 today but we didn't talk about this um the final item i don't know jerry to go through and i'm happy to go through it too just a quick overview of the timeline of the superintendent evaluation just so people know the process we're about to enter because that's um kind of the next big thing we do after the budget um yeah jim um perhaps you could because i'm a little unclear on the timeline okay uh yeah we set a formal timeline um yeah the the the timeline we set out which always gets a little fungible or flexible as we go uh is at the beginning of the year you know in july uh uh goals are set to the superintendent uh we kind of work with with her to to set some goals um you know that that process has kind of changed over the summer um and then starting in november which kind of really hasn't um which has started to happen but um is the superintendent uh you know shares or valuation of framework with the board chair um and also the superintendent evaluation committee um you know that plan is shared uh and that just kind of basically sets out we we have this long document that sets out a variety of competencies uh and uh has a place where ultimately liby gives herself a self-evaluation we do an evaluation um so basically that document is is shared in the november early december timeframe uh and we've done that uh jerry has worked to kind of update the one from last year you know liby's looking at it now we're a little behind the timeframe um on that but not horribly behind uh liby has sent out as part of that a 360 degree evaluation to all her direct reports which is done um anonymously but basically to get feedback from those she works with on a daily basis uh uh the the feelings of of uh of of her reports uh liby's a little ahead of us she has provided uh kind of based on the the form we we used over the years herself evaluation um and a goal for the the next year so liby has has shared that um and then uh the next step is we take those those goals and objectives and um we bring them to uh to the the whole board uh which is liby's self-evaluation uh you know her goal for the upcoming year uh we meet an executive session uh and and basically kind of provide initial feedback on that um we compile that feedback between january 20th and february 3rd um on february 3rd we're scheduled to and you know this can this sometimes can happen you know the 17th as well uh but we should try to stick to the third because um uh it just kind of goes with contract renewals etc although liby is not up for contract renewal this year um uh we facilitate evaluation uh you know we're supposed to recommend day recommend also a couple couple goals which we we want to work uh with her on we also set a personal goal uh that liby provides to us um we take that back uh we take all that in from the superintendent evaluation committee takes all that information puts it into a draft report gives that back to the board to review um and then um on our uh mid february meeting uh the board meets an executive session uh to review the evaluation report make final adjustments uh and then it concludes uh with uh me and i think sometimes we've involved the the chair of the superintendent values committee basically sitting down with liby and giving her uh the board's final final evaluation um so we'll be sharing those documents soon uh but that will be uh you know work at our next board meeting and uh on the third and the 17th any any questions about that um yeah and that will go into questions you know regarding uh you know compensation etc uh because usually we do a compensation adjustment um annually as well jim the um 360 eval that liby sent to direct reports is that what's in the is that those competencies we've asked the competencies are things that we evaluate her on um the 360 report is to give both her and us a snapshot of how her reports feel she's doing and the the question she adds her reports align a lot with the competencies um you know the things like like you know crafting a vision for the the district you know management uh curriculum uh you know outreach to the community um kind of all the the aspects of her job and did they send those back to liby or did they send those to jerry or to you who has their responses so so how 360 generally works in in any places that i send it to the people get sent back to me and then i use it as data to self reflect on um what we do do or what we've done the last two years anyway is that i share the 360 results with jim so i've already shared that with jim um and when i when you'll see when you get my self reflection in my evidence for performance i quote that data so yeah i send it to 14 people 12 people filled it out this many people report that they have plenty of evidence that i have proficiency in that or there's no evidence or this is an area my direct reports have reported that i need some i need to do some work in that kind of so i use that and for me you that's how the full board sees that information great yeah because we only get really a very small snapshot of your performance so it'll be good for us to have to have that did do you know who filled it out or you said 12 of you grand filled it out look and filled it out she told me earlier okay i'm not i don't need names i'm actually more curious like were they filling it out anonymously and yeah okay yeah it's everyone that reports directly to liby which is what alvar 14 people it's the principle i sent it to three extra people people this year so i sent it to all the principles the assistant principles who are not my direct reports so i sent it actually to more all the central office administrators heather human resources tracy who works in my office anna who we all know and love and andrew rosa and then i also sent it to the three union leaders as well and it's carol and it's a and it's a question with a one to five so um so it's easy to keep anonymous it's not it's not a narrative thing where it could be like oh like oh that person i know who that is the bottom though and i'm trying to figure out who it is um and then i noted the um the use of the smart framework for the goals which my guess is that that came from the management center or maybe it's a different kind of you know i i i appreciate it the smart framework for the goals and i wanted to offer that um the management center is has uh shifted theirs to include i e at the end so they're now smart e goals because the i stands for inclusive and the e stands for equitable to ensure that the goals are written in a way that articulate how you would be striving for equity in what you are accomplishing and i just wanted to offer that as as you're thinking about goals and as we think about goals for liby that we could perhaps incorporate this new version of smart goals to be smart e goals and i'd be happy to share a very quick worksheet with the board to so you could see what that how that all breaks down sure we can add it to that document mia um where we where we reference the smart goals we also have it as a line item under some of the items but um yeah that's a great idea thank you yeah i i really appreciated seeing equity as like woven into many of the different competencies it wasn't just kind of like set alone as its own thing and this is another way of incorporating it so that as you as you think about goals and as you articulate them it's all really woven yep okay and jim i'll add i'll update the dates and then i don't know if we need to meet before february third the committee um i can get with you i think we probably should um just to make sure that that we're all um kind of going through and giving our recommendations as a committee to understand like how the facilitation process will work yeah and usually what the committee has done before is the committee is kind of met and and framed up how kind of our recommendations about uh the evaluation so so we're not going in stone cold to the to the board with it yep so yeah um let me work with anna to to get a date for the committee to meet that'd be great okay can i ask the question does the does the board have a budget a very very very small one grant you know much but not like the stipend all the huge amount of money as we get by that that like other money discretionary or not you don't have to do it right now unfortunately i shut my computer off i can turn it on but um there's there's money in there for obviously the stipends and fiken but there's um money in there for dues and fees like vsba there's some supply money in case there's things you buy but it's it's not a big dollar amount um there might be i think at one point we had some money in there for like professional services but all told i'm thinking it's probably less than 20 000 dollars is and most most of it's accounted for right grand i mean yeah i i would have to go back to look to see if there was any discretionary i mean like the supplies is discretionary travel and conference is discretionary um i just don't remember off the top of my head what we plugged in for like a professional services in case there was a you know the need for a yeah i my recollection is it's is it's very small um in terms of you know money that's not neither vsba dues or uh you know the board stipends etc thanks all right excellent um all right well look for the superintendent evaluation stuff to to move forward it it's a it's a big piece of our our jobs um uh and uh i will say that this tina who has dropped off uh knows the um board did not have much of a superintendent evaluation process until really liby came on board um and um and having it is important not not having it was was a problem so uh having it was definitely important um yeah so so i noted this to jerry when i responded to her but i just want to say i really appreciate the work that the committee is doing to basically like build the plane while we're flying it so it's it's hard to do so thank you yeah and for everyone else um who remembers the pain and suffering we went through last year with the scoring we have clarified the scoring so it should should knock on something should be much easier this year but it can always be improved so if you see if you if you see room for improvement we're more than happy to um take a look and work on it some more yeah yeah and and yeah no thank you jerry for doing that the scoring is much clearer um just for context the the old form we had uh we we spent a good i think 45 minutes debating what the various scores mean and so i think we can avoid that this time i pulled up my computer so i might as well just kill that question okay we had $5,000 in professional services budgeted for the possibility of some kind of a district visioning study so that $5,000 is more than what usually goes in there we had a thousand dollars for travel and conference fees perhaps $500 for supplies and $7,500 for dues and fees for like the bsba okay brah i appreciate it thank you so much for doing thanks great um i think we're at the the motion to adjourn stage uh motion to adjourn i'm moved over to you thank you anaket do you have a second second um who said that mia oh thanks mia um anaket hi ryan hi jill amanda emma jerry hi andrew yep yes yeah hi thanks all we'll uh uh see you in a couple weeks good night everybody