 In that case, let's get started with the full session of the board, the regular session, for the welcome of participants and public. I'd like to turn it over to Floor, if you don't mind Floor. I don't mind at all, wondering if all the board members are back, and are they ready? Yes, here. Okay, so if you can show your little... Yeah, if you're back, perhaps you could put your camera on so we can see that you're here. Yeah, if all the board members show themselves and have their little surprise, it would be great if they have one. And we just wanted to say it's Teacher Appreciation Week, and we're sincerely and eternally grateful for the long hours, nights and weekends that have been spent by all our two great farming plans. And to teach and love all our kids during these challenging times, you're our most valuable resource, and we appreciate everything that you're doing now and have done through the years to help kids become lifelong learners and contribute members of society. So this is... That was it. So thank you. That was great. Thank you, Floor. Thank you, all of you. Yeah, yeah. I took pictures of us. Yeah, and if you haven't been doing more Williams at 1 p.m. every day, he says, I haven't, but I did have done some of it. It's so fun. It's really fun. My kids are not little. So Teacher Appreciation, definitely. Well, moving on then to agenda revisions. I think we'd like an executive session at the end if we still have the stamina for it. Is that correct, Deborah? Yes. Okay, very good. Anyone else have anything they'd like to revise in the agenda? Okay, good. Oh, Floor. So I just want to add a line item to discuss Teacher Appreciation. Besides what we just did, but yeah. Oh, okay. Later on the, yeah, later on our schedule, on our agenda. Wonderful. Maybe how about if we put it in a 7.2, say, of personnel? Would that work? Okay. So Teacher Appreciation and a new 7.2. Okay, great. So in that case, we're ready for item 3.3, public comments. Now, I can't really see everything at this point. Are there public comments that are not connected to an item that's already on the agenda? Hopefully everyone has been able to get a copy of that agenda. Please, any member of the public who would like to speak up, say in the next five to seven seconds, just hold my peace. Scott, this is Robbie. I assume you want my public comments on the beatering. I don't think that was on the full board agenda. I'm not really sure. Do you want them now or would you like them further on? It's on the agenda. It is on the agenda, Robbie. At 5.4.2, that's... Okay, excellent. Thanks. Okay, any member of the public who would like to speak up, please do so. Okay, I'm not hearing anyone. So we will then move on to item 4.1, board steering team, as it's written here, which is an item that was on our agenda for the last meeting, but was punted to this meeting just because it got so late. I think, if I remember correctly, Chris, you were sort of an instigator of this? Instigator is such an inflammatory word, Scott. Why am I an initiator? A concerned citizen, maybe. Good. So I don't think we ever, as a board, formally created a steering committee. I think it just kind of came together as an idea to help move the board along. So I would like to at least have a formal recognition that we're going to have a steering committee if we want to. Good. It seems to me the steering committee has assumed some of the responsibility of an executive committee. And if we are going to keep the steering committee, I would suggest that we expand it to a five-member committee and have one representative from each of the towns. And I know that may seem to go contrary to this idea that there are no individual towns anymore. There's only one district. But I think the fact that we have three representatives from each of the towns on the board is a reflection of we're together. We have town interests as well. So the proposal is to discuss whether we want to have a steering committee. And if we do, to expand it to five members, as opposed to three. And have a discussion as to what we think the steering committee's role should be. Because I think there's no doubt that when the steering committee is coming back and making recommendations, it carries weight. Thank you, Chris. Who wants to sink? Yeah, very. I appreciate it. Can we try to maybe devote 10 minutes to this and see how that goes between the discretion of your points? Do we want to have a steering committee? And if so, should it be expanded to five members? Did I accurately capture your thought, Chris? Sure. Okay. How about discussion from board members? Mindy. I just I assume what you, Jonas and Flora are doing as far as the agenda is what we're referring to as far as a steering committee, which used to be done by the executive committee when there were a million boards. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. And I support Chris's proposal, as well as the idea one from each town gives equal representation. So that makes perfect sense to me. Thank you. I agree. I support Chris's proposal. I don't have anything to add to it. I think it's it sounds great. Dorothy. Oh, okay. I see the thumb. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Others who would like to weigh in on this, I have I have one question or one concern. Part of the reason I know why we developed this kind of ad hoc arrangement was it grew out of the sort of the nature out of the prehistory of the merged board. And I recognized that that I may not be completely I may not command the full confidence of every member of the board. And I thought it would be useful and a confidence building measure to include another or others who would in the view of the of the board membership kind of balance me out if I could call it that. And and that has I think happened in my in my view. It's it's worked out essentially as I as I had hoped. Not without frustration at times, I think among our concern, but but that's the nature. That's exactly what we're looking for in a way. I'm not a huge fan of of executive committees just because from what I've seen they create a kind of class structure within the board. They're sort of an in group and in a not in group. And I I would love to have a board even a 15 member board of of equals full equals really apart from you know obviously the the officers of the board are elected to do their particular to play their particular roles. But I'm I'm not objecting if the board wants to have this I will not of course you know say that it's a bad idea or anything. I just wanted to explain kind of the background for why it is the way it is at the moment. So that you have that in order to compare with Lindy. I mean please. I just I feel we already have I don't I don't want to call it inequity or the in crowd and the out crowd. We are all equal. And yet we sometimes get additions to agendas at the last minute from you usually maybe because you're the chairman. But I see it as we should all have input and yet all of us can't meet to do the agenda. So for me I would be much more comfortable with one rep from each town because yes we're merged but we are five towns and it would make me feel more comfortable that there were more voices at the table in the agenda. Not an in crowd out crowd. Right. OK. Thanks. Joe muted Joe. Yeah no I know you know what I'm doing it. I'm controlling it for my phone. If you control it from the video I get stuck out because my my video is so so unstable. So I'd rather control it from my phone if you can trust me to do that. You can mute me if I make noise. I just wanted to see if there was any rather than having like a whole go round about this. I'd be curious if anybody objects to Chris's proposal and do it that way because that might be a lot quicker than you know all the back and forth. So is there anybody who has a concern about Chris Chris's proposal or doesn't agree with it. I'd love to hear that. And otherwise I think we should just move forward. Hi. Just had a question. Is there is agenda planning the only function of this committee. It's supposed to be. Yeah. And what's supposed to be is I would say that it almost always is sometimes you know human beings being the way we are. It's difficult to to keep the discussion wholly within the bounds of agenda setting. It's it's you know it spills over of course. And I just wanted to be honest about that. But no decisions are taken in that committee or group. So it's distinct from the executive committee. Does the executive committee have some additional authority or function. They don't remember that in the articles. There there actually is no executive committee at the moment. It's it's just this kind of ad hoc agenda setting group that consists of the chair vice chair and clerk. And that's it. Any anybody else. Jill made a procedural suggestion that sounds sounds good to me. How about how about if before we move to to taking some sort of action if we do expand it and formalize it as an agenda committee and have five people say two more from from the towns that are not represented which would be Berlin and and Middlesex. Why don't we why don't we come up with two names from one from Middlesex one from Berlin Jonas. Yeah I think that I would decline to be part of this committee. Oh okay. It's it you know it's from you know some of some of the communication that I've received um indicates that there is a I'm not sure what the white right right word is but some you know some inflammatory stuff was so you know was was communicated to me about the perceptions of the committee. I regret that deeply. And if the executive if we're going to form an executive committee that is going to take decisions that is going to be a formal committee with notes and warnings and is going to be taking action I'm just not sure that that's I'm not I don't think that that's an activity that I would prefer to be involved in. I've really enjoyed spending the time with with you Scott and with you Floor and with you Deborah every other Wednesday. They have been ad hoc. We have you know talked about the agendas. I've learned a lot but if this is going to expand and turn into a more a more formal and time consuming and involved process my bandwidth is limited and my my desire to be part of you know what may become a more contentious process is very limited. Okay thank you Janice sorry to hear it. Can I just clarify something? Well but we're not talking I thought we weren't talking about creating an executive committee that could act in in lieu of the board. I thought we were continuing to talk about an agenda committee that's what I'm in favor of and a slightly expanded version of what we have now that would just be helping to develop the agenda given that that's a really hard thing to do with 15 people. So that's what I thought we were talking about and that's what I'm supporting. And Lindy I see your thumb and that's and Chris yes? That's the only proposal that's on the table. There's no talk from an executive committee here and it is it's it's unfortunate that there's inflammatory rhetoric or conversation or whatever communication it is that Jonas was just talking about that's about this or something. Yeah please is that shell and then floor? Well I'm just going to suggest that maybe we separate the questions back out so let's just get let's just decide if we want to have an agenda committee or not and then we can sort out the representation separately. I feel like now we're getting stuck in the muck again. So my hope was to like move us forward and then you know so we can get through the rest of our agenda and we can sort out the who's going to be on it separately or maybe even talk about it next time if that's really a complicated conversation. I don't want to get bogged down in this. Sounds fine okay and floor? I'll say the second deal is motion. Okay thanks Chris. Flora? Yeah I agree. I agree with Jill. I also agree with Jonas. I think we wanted to do our retreat sort of leads us to these two. We had called this an ad hoc committee but it was really like a governance team is what we would call it. There's a lot of history in other districts also having the the clerk, the vice chair and the chair meet. I think adding two more members is important but after we do that we really need to have a conversation about how we operate together and how we trust each other so that if there's more transparency in this in the work that we do and we are able to develop that trust. Okay so let's let's follow Jill's suggestion that we address the question of a five-member agenda committee formalized with warned meetings and with a with a specific membership. Yeah I'll have the question. Oh sorry Jaya thanks. It's more of a comment. Yeah I don't have the bandwidth either to join another meeting and Worcester only has two board members currently so I don't know who would be joining that. Worcester yeah we can again the the staffing of the committee we can we can figure out after we after we come up with the you know the forum of it and there's always towns too. He's from Worcester. So how about Chris would you like to formulate a motion then? I move that we formally recognize a steering slash agenda committee and that we expand it to five committee members one from each now. Is there a second? I was thinking I think I was muted. Oh just second great okay um any further discussion of the motion? Flo on mute please. Sorry for an agenda planning committee to work I think it should include the the clerk the chair and the vice chair because of the responsibilities in doing the agenda planning so it might help us keep those it's just that just a thought. Sure um because since Jill suggested that we look at the composition of the of the group on a separate occasion um let's let's hold that thought maybe for for the future and and um any other any other comments or discussion otherwise if there aren't let's um let's vote um remember uh participants if you click on participants then you can see the yes or no so um all in favor of Chris's motion a seconded by Jill um please click yes and any opposed click no please and I'm seeing only yeses on the screen so the motion carries sorry Chris uh were you saying something no no okay good so the motion carries and how about we defer to another occasion the um the composition of this committee is that by consensus you're okay with that okay great yeah very good okay thanks everyone now 4.2 superintendent transition update um for uh Brian Alkowski to join us on July 1st 2020 um I've uh been in touch with Brian and he has moved and is um unpacking and getting settled and figuring out his you know life support network for himself and his family um he's living in Plainfield uh trying to um trying to adapt to our internet desert in Vermont um you'll recall that I said an email about a week ago asking for any ideas that you might have regarding his entry plan which he's working on anyway but he just wanted to make sure that he didn't leave out anything that um that you might consider uh important and um I heard back from Akari a very interesting idea of um having him introduce himself in a video perhaps interviewed by a student um which I think would be great uh and I'm sure that um we could figure out some way to make it happen technically um are there are there any other thoughts about um that we should relate to Brian as to uh what he should do anything that that he might not be thinking of himself um what about oh sorry Diane and then Chris so I guess it would help me to know what some of the plans are that he has and and whether or not there needs to be any suggestions to it because he might have covered a lot yeah and and um he has uh he has a draft um he he didn't feel it was quite ready for uh sharing with the board um thinking wants to make a good impression but I'll I'll relay that back to him Diane and um and so that we can take a look at it and maybe fill in any gaps that we might see thanks and Chris um I was gonna say the same thing find out or at least get a sense from him what he thinks he needs um in order to have some foundation for transition great okay um I I shall definitely do that um another another question that came up had to do with um the the notion of crossover which I guess is the is the term of art um please correct me um Deborah or anyone if I if I get it wrong um get the terminology wrong but crossover is the is the process of consultation in order to um transition um between uh executives in the school district is that is that a fair definition for it yes did you want me to address some things that we I know that there's been outreach on the part of the leadership team on behalf of them by Kelly and I have been reaching out to Brian as well so typically there are well first of all there's a tentative two-day retreat scheduled at the end of June between the leadership team and Brian and there are there's another retreat scheduled later in the summer um that those dates were set within the last few weeks Brian and I have been communicating electronically we've had some phone conversations now that he's in the state we plan to connect in fact we just made an appointment today to um have a conversation on Monday and then talk about scheduling time for that transition um I typically call it a transition uh but so I'm going to make myself available to him as much time as he would like and I we haven't um our leadership team hasn't I don't believe had time to be thinking yet about the June retreat but that is on their future agenda plan for that thank you very much Deborah um and another question that um that came up was and and this may be one for you Laurie if um if you're still here in this maze of um of video images uh what is the standard practice for this is there um are there per diem days that are typically allocated or um and if so how many would that be um how does that work um what we've done in the past is that we have um usually for the crossover there's only been a few days and um we've afforded um the new employee time off in the month of July or August kind of like a comp day so I think when Bill Kimball came we had four or five days of crossover and then in June or July he took time off that wasn't necessarily vacation it was in trade so there was no financial exchange for that but it's the board's pleasure whatever you'd like to do that's been my experience as well uh anytime that's put in in advance it's usually comp later that's great um that that makes a lot of sense um what do what do other board members think um show of thumbs would be would be fine on comp time for yeah great I'm seeing I'm seeing we're all thumbs in a good way Jonas please this would of course you know make it incumbent upon us not to tax his time right so as not to incur so much of that uh which makes the conversations that uh that you Scott and the leadership team in Debra have with Brian that much more important thank you it's good to know yes good to keep in mind Jonas um just a clarifying question when you say it makes it even more important you mean to be concise and efficient and to represent the board and make sure that communication occurs that's exactly right thank you thank you both yeah um good clarification not that it really needed that much clarification but it's always nice to have um okay I don't have anything further on superintendent transition oh it's Jonas please so Scott it's great that you're communicating with Brian it's great Kelly thank you for being in touch with him and it sounds like you're leading that outreach Scott can you tell us anything else about the nature of your conversations with Brian besides you know the mechanics of moving and the sort of logistics of his move up here have you discussed with him you know the history of the district how this board how this you know uh municipality came to be the atmospherics the board dynamics all of you know anything like that is there anything that you can share with us along those lines sure um I have I have discussed it to some degree um basically just to give him framework for understanding the the dynamics and the sort of the the different positions that he's likely to encounter on on various issues um I have not I have not tried to push an agenda of my own I've um I think I what I've explained to him is that he really needs to discover for himself and he is um he's completely uh I mean on his own experience I already took him to that to that realization anyway um I we have talked in the whole interviewing and hiring process we've talked about the the history of act 46 and the the merging of the boards the expansion of the board from 10 to 15 most recently in march and um the dynamic that that introduces um he he's interested he's very interested but he's interested in finding out mostly for himself he's um let's see oh I I did one of the subjects of tonight's executive session I have uh run by him as well um so just to yes Jonas can I ask you when you ran that by him um in an email on Monday and in a phone conversation yesterday so um that's I'm you know he's Brian is um Brian is is a is an extrovert and he is um he's very interested in people and very interested in um sort of the human factor in general I'd say um so he's he's he asked a lot of questions and um and has a lot of has had a lot of experience and in education and including in some difficult environments so I think he's he's gonna have to shift gears to some extent this represents um a very different kind of climate from what he has spent most of his career working in um so he's he's interested in trying to soak up as much as he possibly can and uh meeting with every board member is that's one thing Diane that he definitely has in his in his entry plan that's great that's great well I'm sure we can give him a run for his money anyway yeah and he may be able to give us a run for ours as well yeah yeah yeah I yeah I'd love to move on I'm sensitive about the time tonight because I have a professional board meeting tomorrow for work so that I need to be very on for so I'm just a little sensitive about um us getting too bogged down in any one topic if there's not a lot of decision making got it okay thank you Joe um is that okay Jonas I'm happy to talk with you um you know uh one on one too if you like if you're if if you still have questions I'm sure we can find that time excellent good um so moving on then to 5.1 you have a student from floor floor here's a question oh sorry floor yes please it just we can do it at the next meeting but we talked about this at our agenda prepping meeting and at this meeting that Brian you had mentioned that Brian was looking for a list of people that he wanted to contact that we would suggest for him to for him to get to know our our district so I think more people should be involved with that list so it'd be nice to be nice to that to do that and I I also think that our we can we can talk a little bit more about how we want to introduce Brian into the into the system and I'm a little concerned that he's just has the he just has one voice right now and unfortunately our board is still has a you know not totally blended together so so I think it would be good to to have a conversation with him a broader conversation with him without getting into the details yeah I think our hope is to have a retreat with him is it not yeah yeah so that's what I want to be talking about I don't really I hope that he's not I am a little concerned that's all I want to say okay thanks um good so unless there's another objection let us move to 5.1.1 student last day of school Deborah would you like to lead on this yes I would good evening again everyone we are going to be taking a look at well there's a few things in play at the moment daily guidance from the governor and the agency of education secretary Dan French and anticipated guidance about end of school year and summer which is actually going to be coming uh or either Friday the 8th or Monday the 11th so we really would just like to put forward a proposal which may be may have to be amended or adjusted based upon statewide proposed guidance or requirements as you know COVID-19 is certainly is in flux and as that occurs of course our responses have to be flexible and but what we have well our administrative team would like to propose this evening pending any changes in guidance from the secretary or governor is that the board would consider having our last day of school be the 11th which is our typical last day of school if we had not had any snow days and there's two reasons for this one is um we have been given permission to have our school year be in by the state to include the 175 days um 175 days concludes on June 11th because we had five snow days this year so essentially we're requesting that the board forgive the five snow days again this is pending no further action from the governor or the secretary of education to authorize us another change in date we would like to however hold on the final decision as to our support staff and teachers calendar again until a little bit later on and certainly no later than the next board meeting we have been having conversations as a leadership team as you know the future school year is still unknown in terms of how it will open and certainly our summer programs are also we've not yet received formal guidance on on how to proceed with our typical summer school esy and high school proficiency summer school but we have also been getting some questions by families and by staff about when the last day of school should be so our leadership team has spoken about this at length and we believe that the 11th would be the best day to end the school at this point it's seldom that I give a recommendation with so many caveats but as you know things are changing I'd like to be more definitive but this is a provisional recommendation I suppose is the way to state it so if there's no further guidance that would change the recommendation we'd like to proceed with that as our last day okay so and what we're looking for then is a motion to end school for students on the 11th of June um recognizing um sorry Mia yeah um I was just wondering whether that June 11th date would be the end for all students or if the seniors would have a different end date that would be a question you want to go later yeah I think she was hoping for June 30th right Mia listen spin Olson is standing right here he wants to go later too so you guys are totally on the same page Stephen are you on the call I think I know you were earlier yes yes I'm here um I that would be inclusive of all students because our seniors would need to complete 175 days of school also in the past the seniors have ended a little bit earlier because of the leeway with the days but that's not possible this year all right okay thank you Mia um and yeah and Finn um so uh back to the uh a motion to end school for students on the 11th of June uh Lindy yes the way Deborah said it this was some provisional recommendation yes I'm not sure there needs to be a motion should there well I do need your permission to waive the additional snow days to reduce the calendar to 175 but if you could add provisionally in light of um recognizing that there may be further guidance or orders from the governor or secretary of education which may cause us to take a different attack and I don't know what that would be would it make sense just to just to waive the snow days move to waive the snow days that's one way of going sure for students for students right just for students we're just talking about student calendar now Chris did you have a question for me yeah um would is it there a sense that the governor or the um agency of education will have a sooner end of school day there are many rumors abound um there are no facts at the moment other than that there will be guidance released on the 8th of May um so I would like to that's why I'm trying to have this caveat there may be a change uh there may be more specific guidance than we have received the 175 days is relying on a prior uh order from the governor and the secretary you would you would request the waiver of the snow days regardless of the guidance right that would be our recommendation yes okay so I will move that we waive snow days for students um in the current um school year thank you thanks Chris a second I'll second that thank you Jaya any further discussion if not please go over to your um your voting box and click yes if you're in favor of waving snow days for students or no if you're opposed and I see all green um very good the motion passes thank you very much everyone um okay 5.1.2 COVID-19 update yes I provided an update in my report this month and I'd like to just highlight a few things and add one that was not included as this is breaking information breaking news today we were able to provide a or review our overall attendance for this year and compare it to the same time frame last year as you know our students are required to check in with your teachers and that check in and daily is the way in which we account for attendance during the school closure and I'm very pleased to point out that we have over 96 percent precipitation in our overall from April 13th through yesterday in terms of our attendance for students and that is actually a full percentage point higher than it was last year interesting fact but still very high and it's of course kudos to all of our teachers and support personnel and administrators who've been working so hard to reach out and make our remote learning meaningful on in personalized and individualized to our students there's been just a remarkable work going on and much of which you've heard about personally perhaps in your families or I had a chance to look at various posts from teachers on in the school district on twitter but we're really very very pleased with that very very positive precipitation and engagement the other highlight I'd like to make is that we as of the 28th of April we had served 32,818 meals which includes breakfast and lunch so about half that number for the entire time frame since we closed in March and recall that we did offer our school meals during April break and we're really appreciative of our food service team that includes administration and our food service personnel and many of our support staff who have helped both with meal preparation packaging and the delivery and of course to our bus drivers for making that possible we've begun to include other deliveries in our buses and some of them are library books are now being delivered and we've also been delivering materials and if necessary computers if there are things that have to be changed out so we're using that option to try to keep our families safe avoid having them come to school and to have those deliveries with the proper social distancing and preparation so that's all very exciting and great news and I'd also like to thank Deborah sorry I may interrupt you super quick question sure just a quick question can kids return books that way too I happen to have a stack ah you do I believe so I believe so so I think that if you were to take a look at your school's website we have the procedures noted there oh great I'll take a look I'm just teasing mostly yeah oh that's I'm glad that you've got a stack though that's great great okay so we spoke about student attendance and that's been going very well and let's see oh and I wanted to make a a very very important shout out to a few other administrators who've been really working very very hard first is Amy Malina and I don't know if Amy is still with us she was here earlier Amy has been working behind the scenes as our we decide initially our incident commander but she's taken on the role of oversight of all of our facilities and custodial maintenance work which really is all the safety that's associated with our employees coming in and out of the building and we still appreciate her work just today she sent out a very lengthy set of documents to our principles to um which with detailed information that's coming from the department labor for businesses that are now opening up so there's a lot more information that we can follow a lot of guidelines that we can follow to ensure that when employees come into the building that they are safe and so thank her very very much I'd also like to thank Kelly for her the yeoman's work that she's been doing with our special education distance learning plans and and thank her for helping with the negotiations we're especially around some of the para issues so thanks Kelly for that and Jen I don't know if you are feeling this but I sometimes feel like the world must be on your shoulders with all the continuous learning plan work that's been happening and when I take a look at and and pop in to see meetings I know that you're working continuously making yourself available and helping our principles and then of course every other member of our leadership team has been doing such such great work and really I love I love the way everyone stepped up to help try to address this shift in budget and the new procedure for leave the board put in place and supported Lori with information to help us get you the report you'll be seeing shortly so um that's my COVID-19 update and you're welcome to ask any questions of any of us if you have them yes any questions from whatever Deborah yes or is our meal service going to continue beyond the end of the school year well we have we are currently operating under our summer program we have not received definitive guidance on that I did in writing I did learn at a meeting that it is something that we will be able to do but we still have not received information about how that will be funded and in the past when we've run the summer school we have had meals prepared at the site where the summer school is located and last year it was in Berlin and the Berlin kitchen prepared meals and they were used for the students that were there and they were also sent to the high school for the high school summer school we have not had a large-scale summer long meal program so we still have to investigate whether or not that's going to be feasible and and as Lori will be speaking later we're also watching to see what information comes forward as to what which of our expenses are going to be reimbursed through this work and it certainly is a topic that I welcome the board's input on I don't think we need to make a decision today but understanding your point of view would be helpful as well if the if the end of school is June 11th at what time would you need to know the board's position well I think we would be we needed to we first of all need to have a discussion with the team that has been operating the program and we also need to determine I think we have to collect some information and then come back to you at the next meeting with your recommendation if you wished to have a have a specific view on it I think that what we've been trying to do is to respond flexibly as soon as we've been asked to carry out a specific task such as when the executive order came along and said we must offer meals you know we immediately mobilized the team and we started doing that and then today there was a some guidance issued around the possibility of child care continuing and I've not yet had time to speak with our child care leader talk about that so I think that the board's input is always welcome Chris um but as I said before there's still there's still questions about how we might if we were to continue it do we have the capacity do we have the staff and capacity would our buses be available our drivers and so on and I'm not really prepared to answer those tonight thank you thanks very much anyone else if not we can move on to 5.1.3 which is future planning literacy and special education review yes may I just briefly I'm sorry did you want to no no no you're you're doing you're answering my question before I even asked it okay so earlier this year we had talked about taking a look at these two areas we'd even prepared uh I've gone as far as having a consultant provide a proposal to us which was initially to be implemented this spring but of course in the early march we became aware of the COVID pandemic and we've not been able to implement that so it is my recommendation that the board consider and I could certainly work with Brian and our leadership team on this consider implementing this when school resumes because a good part of the review is inter having interviews and conversations and observations with teachers when they're in the classroom as well as data collection and and overview one thing that's clear and I think it's been made our quality committee has focused on this topic in the last few sessions and the board has as well earlier in the year is that we do have a a growth that we need to focus on in terms of our overall outcomes both in terms of literacy and special education and that's the purpose of of having these reviews but again it's really difficult to accomplish them when school is not in session so it would be our hope that it could be revisited in a later time okay Marilyn so Lindy had it I just wanted to Lindy has a question in the chat that who was or is the consultant and Jen you and I had had a meeting about this like days before this happened so I'm interested in that too and I and then I'll make a comment after sure Jen did you want to make any comment about I'm just going to search through my documents I've got five or six folders going right now to pull up some information on it but did you want to make any comment about it we had talked to two different folks and the person who the organization that had generated a specific proposal was the partnership for literacy and learning that's part of what they had done we had not pursued anything beyond an initial conversation with one with both two two different consultants one of which gave us a proposal that's where we had left it right so my suggestion is that the quality committee take this up either now or in in the fall and I would be I'm sure Jen or I could share that proposal and you could take a look at it it essentially decovers what I mentioned before which includes observations interviews of teachers review of data and then action oriented oriented recommendations for how to make improvements in instruction and that would of course require ongoing work in professional learning and curriculum thank you very much this might also be a topic that we can touch on in a retreat with Brian since it sounds Deborah as though this will have to take place in a post-Debra era so making sure that we just get it all together Diane I guess I have some concerns just in terms of fiscally planning for things I mean you said some critical pieces that this was before the virus really took hold and so I think there's how our teachers also respond to some of these questions and interviews are going to sound and look very different come the fall and I also hesitate to say in one message that we might have recisions for our budget which are going to impact potential staffing and programming but then keep carrying on business as usual around maybe some of the approaches we might have done to gather information so I just caution that we move forward if we haven't signed on the dotted line with anyone until we absolutely know just what the information is that we need to know right now thank you Diane we did not have a signed contract at this time but we do have people who are interested in a set of proposal in um and prior to us having a greater conversation do you suspect that you would be signing on the dotted line with these consultants I don't I think it's something that the quality committee as I suggested before that should really take up and discuss and see if this is going to meet your needs and Jen would you agree okay that's fine yeah I Jen I see you so that that sounds good okay does moving forward need board authorization or is that something within the administration's authority for the before getting the proposal or for accepting a proposal for the review it was in I would say that if you would like to we had received or discussed the board's desire to pursue this work so we were acting on that request however further refinement of the charge now with the certainly the major change in the way our schools are operating now and the uncertainty of the future and the transition leadership I think would be appropriate to take a slower path and have those conversations and refine the goal which was very different six months ago than it would have been perhaps now into the future thank you thanks are we are we good on this topic then shall we um shall we move on to 5.2 policy however before we do move on um and before I turn it over to you Chris do you want to take a few minutes just uh uh you know a break necessities um sure yeah so why don't we come back at 8 10 10 see you all at 8 10 and then Chris will go straight into your thing can I raise something is Robbie Porter still waiting to be heard and is he on a specific Robbie Robbie is still here and I hope you don't mind us um keeping you hanging Robbie um until we get to the the energy project at 5.42 no it's been my first experience with a group zoom meeting I've moved in a load of wood and a bunch of other things check back in you're more productive than the rest that's why that's why you joined by phone for the audio so you can kind of move around a little bit yeah great thanks Robbie thank you and thanks Chris all right it's 8 10 according to my clock so um if we're ready to resume if Chris is uh I guess it's not only towns who has had who is having a birthday I see what looks like a happy birthday festoon um Chris who's birthday Chris if I may ask um I'm just looking behind you at the at the decorations um I'm not hearing you very well um the connection doesn't seem great it was aces it was ace's birthday ace who's didn't I mean yes yeah hey my steps oh oh wonderful congratulations yeah those are the card game too great okay um Chris it's all yours for this next bit okay so we have um the policies for a consideration b 40 which is a um non retribution non retaliation policy and it was proposed just to more of card for strict employees uh with the sense of security um we try to try Chris Jonas Jonas has his hand up hey Chris I don't know about anyone else but I want a real hard time hearing you you're breaking up could you turn your video off to conserve your bandwidth yeah thank you don't put Jonas then you won't be able to be the point Chris I can see you with my eyes closed I feel for you then is that better yeah I don't want to know anymore about that the goal of these pretty um uh more of a competition for district ways to speak um on uh matters involving the district and to encourage us each involving matters uh concerning the straight uh we try to fashion it so that it did not give license to um speak recklessly so and it was I will say it was not in response to anything specific um it was in I don't think it was under any type of complaint or anything other other than just in terms of members that they they didn't feel like to speak freely so I guess uh you're you're looking for comments Chris or or changes yes looking for comments and and uh this general um um sensible do you want to do a straw pool of thumbs perhaps um for the well first how about how about comments to see what people's general positions are uh and their support for moving forward or not I'm in favor is this is this based on a model policy or is it something just written or where did it come from well if you see a little see the circle down at the bottom is the copyright and chris mcbay policy so I'll be um licensing it to the district no charge no charge it's not based on a model it is not based on a model so who has vetted the policy besides you no one but I'm glad to run by I think we talked about having the um district attorney run go by it if there's board support for the policy itself with the board's authorization to do that because that would that would incur an expense right um why don't we uh are there any objections to having this policy continue to go forward and to run it by the attorney I hear no objections so moving on okay um so with that we um Debra would you like to do that um yes I will I can I can contact Scott Cameron I believe he's does this type of work for the board he has in the past okay great of course so next up is c1 um which and then next up that is c4 fairly straightforward any comments or concerns about either one otherwise we'd be asking for a vote to adopt any motion made sure okay I I would make a motion to adopt policy don't don't assess this question it can wait until after it's moved in second sorry okay good to um make a motion to adopt policies c1 student education records and c4 limited english proficiency students um is this on first reading chris I don't think so so first reading of b40 and second reading and adoption of c1 and c4 is that yes okay yeah I didn't include that first one because I knew it was a first reading right okay good oh isn't it great so Jonas sorry my unmute function is not working anymore um the key phrases in both of these are as required by law right it doesn't look like there is a whole lot other than recapitulating the fact that we will maintain records and distribute them only according to law and policy and for ESP have equitable access to school programs as required by law yes any other questions or comments if there aren't we can move to a vote um so that's once again all in favor regardless of your position on this on these two policies um green asked for voting for them and red no for voting against please and I'm seeing all green once again okay um motion carries those two policies are adopted thank you very much chris um and hello to the osan family um all right uh 5.3 quality education kari right okay thank you so um I'll just give a brief report on what we discussed tonight that we started by taking a look at a proposed charter that we'll be bringing um to the full board for approval so we're clear on what the committee is is doing and seeking to accomplish and then we this month's data set um we started out by looking at some espach literacy proficiency rates and um relative to state averages we're doing fairly well we looked at some cohort data that is a class as as they move through the system um noted that uh in math with with the particular cohort that we looked at math ethnic proficiency rates declined over time I think it was between fourth grade and ninth grade and that was true at the state level um but it was um our kids were losing ground at even a faster rate and then we um also looked at graduation rates and um and noted that the past two most most recent years at the rate has been at 90 before your graduation right and then uh we uh gen provided an update on remote learning and a summary of different successes and challenges now this highlight that there was an acknowledgement that board support is a very important element from John's point of view and that appreciation for teachers like we did tonight and I'm going to discuss later and the administration and understanding and compassion and support including um flexibility um are very important from that from the staff perspective right now so and then going forward we're going to be looking at a draft monitoring calendar um so looking at student achievement over the coming year and then um take in some more additional information on remote learning with a focus on implications for college and that I think after we've got some some time working as a committee then we can reach out to the agenda committee on how to bring our um our conversation to the full board you're looking really for that but um we're getting there that's great thank you very much any any questions for kari or um anything to add good all right in that case let's move on to 5.4 finance flora i'm a real slow at unmuting so i'm uh i'm gonna let uh lori walk us through i think everybody had a chance to look at hopefully had a chance to look at the finance package we had asked them to update us uh on the closure due to COVID-19 and uh and i think we are all going to be happily surprised with what she has at least for now so i wouldn't say that you know listen to this with a very positive uh year because i think uh overall uh is looking is looking that our projected funds balance is is really healthy right now but i let a lori walk us through we we spend most of the meeting talking about the index expenses and she's gonna walk us through that first part in after that i don't know if you're okay with that ruby or do you want to go first since you've been waiting i'm do you can hear me now i'm fine whatever whatever to you guys okay okay thank you do you want to go ahead lori and walk us through those three points so um first of all i wanted to uh let you know that if if anyone has read the report you have any questions um we had about 50 minutes to go through this and i know probably right now we might have five or ten minutes so i'm happy to have you contact me directly if you have specific questions um what we covered in summary is on page seven of on the on the fund balance report out of the finance packet so i don't believe it's in the full packet i believe it's in the finance packet and so that page seven um in summary identifies that we have about two million dollars in reserves for fund balance and fund balance is you know the operational side of things it's the funds you rely on if you have a shortfall in revenue or if you have an unmet need in the budget so the good news is we have about two million dollars projected those numbers are pretty solid if anything i was sharing with the committee that they're conservative um we have reservations that we had previously earmarked for technology and fiscal software um that amounts to almost six hundred thousand dollars so that means that there's about 1.4 million left in operations you could change the reservations if you needed to um but for right now um from what i'm hearing i believe that those will be sufficient funds um for any shortfall we might have in revenue um however we have had a projected two percent retainage in case something comes up um so that leaves about seven hundred and thirty eight thousand available um the committee discussed the fact that the leadership team has been reviewing options some of that we may recommend to reserve for future revenue shortfalls some of it we may recommend get transferred to capital or for other specific purposes um so that was the beginning of the report the voters did approve this board having authority to manage these funds so that's something that our district has that's unique not every district in the state has that permission so i wanted to let you know that um and then when we started to look at um other funds we'll have more information about capital and food services in covid um we're gonna have a meeting on we're planning to have a meeting on may 20th but in the meantime what we know today is that based on closing down the school the way we've had to close it we have saved a significant sum of money um due to the fact that students weren't in the school the principals have been working really hard and there are many assistance with my team to try to go through and find out how much that is and currently we're projecting a savings of five hundred and ninety thousand dollars that was not included in the numbers um on page seven so that's good news um as you know we do have some government orders to provide food and distribute food as well as to do the child care and for the remote learning um there are some revenues associated with the food um we have projections based on all the hard work the u32 staff and and the team district wide has um been pulling together so those costs for those new items i had separately in the report and those costs after revenues is projected to be about three hundred and twenty thousand dollars um when you net the two out we're still in the positive of two hundred and seventy thousand um so that's the good news we have projected two hundred and seventy thousand more revenue than expenses due to the school closed down and these new covid initiatives i've talked pretty fast um but i knew i had limited time um you can see i'm excited about it it's a new project um but it is ever changing and we're still awaiting some more information at a basal meeting that'll be coming next friday um but i had recommended we have an interim finance committee meeting to just keep up with the changes and to spend a little bit more time with the newer information we're going to have in the next couple weeks um so that you can feel comfortable about how things are going so it's actually all good news i think that's kind of the recap floor did i miss anything scott or floor or anyone else again i don't hesitate to email me i'm sorry i don't think you missed anything except tell them how many meals jody is serving and the data that you're collecting oh about 1200 a day is the average right now and it goes up and down it's unreal so um that's a lot jody and team you know brian yeah yeah yeah yeah there's a group i mean yeah so moving right along and as somebody has questions there's one more point any questions no okay so moving into capital because we want to make that decision it it was part of your your packet up to we have we have fun it's right so um on april 17th we took our bids for the rum name memorial school roof project and only one bidder came forward which caused us to request a waiver for the single bidder which was received and we are now recommending that the board approved the bid to go regard general contracting in the amount of 39 500 so we can initiate that work so we'll need a motion for that yes please anyone care to make the motion i'll move that we award the bid to borrowed our construction for the room the roof project any man 39 500 dollars second i'll take it thanks joe okay oh thanks for um joe seconds uh any further discussion if not uh please once again oh jonas please i remember uh during our first meeting uh as this board in the u32 cafeteria talking about how um prices and the bids had gone way up because there was you know too much work out there for construction companies to do i mean i i wonder i'm just curious if if that's chammy i see if there's only one bid for you know a roof job this bid came in under budget um we do have a large group of consolidated bids that will be coming to the board the next at the next meeting and until those are received i really can't speak as to where we are at this time the challenge has been of course that many of our construction companies have been closed by order of the governor and um employees furloughed but they're ready to ramp up then you can work as uh with the guidelines most of these projects fit in the guidelines that are available right now and um bill fort is working really hard on ensuring that our contractors are aware of what the safety requirements are so that um all of the individuals who are working on our sites are safe thank you debba uh any anything else before we um if not let's vote yes to award in the bid to border guard construction or red no if you're opposed and um once again i'm i'm seeing only green green checks so the motion carries and um we may continue so the last the last part of the finance committee today we wanted to bring this to the attention of the board in i believe everybody received this letter by email to and part of the package and it was in the finance committee package we have been approached by vendors of solar and hydro projects lately in uh to engage in a long-term contract and we rubby is with us today and we had a contract with him i believe five years ago and um and and he has you know we we'll talk about questions in our next step so i'll let both the rubby and um and debba give us their points of view would you like me to start for or just to set the stage okay i'll be brief it's this information i'm referring to is um begins on page 11 of the finance packet you should be able to locate it there we have been approached by numerous solar net metering providers and more recently again by the hydro net metering to engage in contracts which would provide a portion of the net metering savings to the school district a portion maintained by the vendor and there are there are others individuals both on the faculty and our students our administration who are very very much in favor of working hard to find ways to incorporate energy savings into our facilities whenever possible however there have been some there's a few items that are in flux at the moment um some years back there were quite a few more positive opportunities through efficiency vermont there have there has been a reduction in net metering opportunities for all partners which the legislature was planning to address this year however due to the pandemic their conversation on this topic has been postponed but i think before more than anything i think it's necessary for the board to hear what our attorney has had to say about the idea of signing a long-term contract at this time and that is that he recommends strongly that the board consider hiring a consultant with an energy savings background and there are are several some of whom have worked with the district before to examine the contractual obligations the long-term impact and in particular how what other avenues are available to the board as they think about this perhaps bringing forward their own and purchasing installing their own solar erased for example and doing other energy savings kinds of opportunities through lease arrangements and that's mentioned this memo here but in any case before looking at making any specific decisions our attorney highly recommended that we bring someone on board to help a team of our board and our faculty staff and leadership people to determine what our future steps in relation to these projects and also to be sure that we have we're making the right decision for the district in the long term i think there's no doubt we are committed to this jail i mean they want to make a comment i know that she had reached out to one of the solar providers and he has seemed to have some exciting opportunities but right now there is a lot of competing priorities and there are details about these arrangements i think the board needs to be informed about before taking action so i believe that the idea of contracting with a consultant is prudent and it will also give the board time to establish a collective vision for the future in this area so thank you do you want to i know there's some board members that have sent comments before too i'm going to let you explain your point of view too and give us your pros and cons so that we can make an informed decision sure i will um i'll be i'll make this in um three or four points i'll quickly describe net metering for the people that i haven't talked to i will contrast our hydro deal with a potential solar deal and then i'll make some comments on a suggestion that carry bradley had about how we move forward so first of all for those of you who don't know that much about net metering it's a simple essentially an accounting or financial arrangement we would generate electricity the electricity would get credited to your bill or the bill of various schools in the district however many that it can only get credited to meters that are in the green mountain power um territory because that's the territory that are generating facilities in um those credits would go on the bills that would save the the school money the district money and the district payouts uh in our deal the district payouts 90 of the savings so the district would spend savings there's no no liability there's no financial action there's no uh physical connection it's basically an accounting arrangement um that's that's in a nutshell that's how it really works and it can be with any renewable generation hydro wind solar uh you know bio bio us um our generating facility is located in ealtther um and there are some reasons getting to the again the metering that he's located in ealtther um to get into the complex but he also set off my dog um we think that would be better than solar but the real reason we think our deal will be better than solar deals because our deal is very simple and most solar deals are complicated both solar deals sorry um this is normal for a group zoom meeting somebody's dog has to bark it's part of a group meaning i know you said you were new to them so just so you know it's normal anyway um solar deals are structured that's it investors usually those investors are out of state um often those deals are quite complicated they have provisions that make sure the investors get the return that they were guaranteed when they invested in the project the solar farms can be built anywhere once again in green mountain power service territory and um there are provisions in those deals for potential buyouts for penalties if you don't use as much electricity for they're just they get complicated um we structured our deal because it was an early net meter and deal we structured it to be very simple and very safe to the school no money changes hands unless you save money so it can never cost the school anyway um and also i think it's important to know that you know it's a local deal it's this renewable energy that's generated the same town that the high school is in and it could go i'm not sure if all the schools are in green mountain power uh service territory is i don't think rum is somewhere we could call off washington call out so this this this generation could be shared with any um any any meter in the district and that would be true of any net metering deal you did that wouldn't be different if it were a solar deal um with respect to carry's proposal and i'll also make some comments about the energy consultant carry's suggestion which was i think a really good suggestion is that we sign a short term contract with the school with the district and that gives the district the benefit of net metering while the district is going through the process of dealing with an energy consultant which from the description i've heard i'm guessing would take probably a year um that and i would recommend that the way we would structure that deal would be this we would the uh school board would pick a date or and the contract would go to that date and at that date the school board or the superintendent whoever is this it makes this decision would decide whether they wanted to continue with the deal or they would decide if they wanted to go and and find a different deal um and the the contract we had would extend six months past the point of that decision so that that would give the school time to find a different partner and that would give us uh time to find a different partner too if the school or if the district wanted to go that way i also having a little bit of experience with this now i guess i would recommend that we structure that contract so the default position is that we keep net metering rather than that it that it ends because what happened last time i think the contract came to an end the district was involved in six no we could move forward with that and you know we're a business we had to make a decision and find a a net metering partner and we got to a point where we had to find a different partner because we couldn't get a a response from then superintendent kimball um we've saved that other partner 34 000 the time that we have not been net metering with u32 so that's you know that's money that was lost to u32 or into the district to the taxpayers just it was basically free money that was just lost and just lost because of the inertia of trying to trying to uh you know deal with something complicated while something else complicated was going on so i'd recommend we structure it in such a way that that the default position is if no decision is made it keeps going that's obviously my advantage but frankly i think it's in the district's advantage too i think that's a that's a very quick summary um let me make a few comments about the energy consultant because i think a couple things are getting conflated here i think it would be a really good idea for the school and all the schools in the district to study energy efficiency in ways that we can save on um you know power usage obviously um that's one issue a separate issue is what is the best net metering deal for the school and the district to be in and um you know those two issues are obviously related because it's a related topic but they're but they're also different issues you which net metering deal you're in will reduce your energy costs for electricity regardless of whether you do energy efficiency members uh measures or not so i just think it's important to keep those separate because figuring out which is the best net metering deal for you could be relatively quick um doing an energy you know audit and understanding of all the schools in the district is a is a fairly involved process i guess i i guess that's a brief overview so ask me questions thank you ruby i i think i'm i'm gonna let the board members ask questions in general whether it's from you or or debra and just their thoughts and i would like to start with kari and jael because they have sent comments before i'll just i'll just comment that um i i had i had that idea i a variation on what robby mentioned is i think we should consider it i it's not a proposal for me i think it's something to think about and i think we i think there needs to be some process around this some amount of due diligence on our part we we can't just take the first deal that that is presented to us on the other hand part of where the idea comes from is exactly the dynamic that robby was describing is that while we while we wasted time and ultimately didn't make a decision on the u32 board um two years ago we we just simply missed out so i and i do think it's going to take us at least a year i mean i guess i don't fully understand what the consultant would do for us but i think it's going to take us some time to do the full full due diligence and figure out what our energy plan is and i'd hate to see us lose another year or more of energy savings and working with a local renewable partner um that that just that seems like the worst outcome i'd like to avoid any others jl has shared hers in the chat any other comments before i i'll just chime in the idea of being able to do something short term and right away to save money in a way that's also good for the environment good for our communities since this is a local project we're not making a long-term commitment um makes sense to me versus a bunch well it's only one committee that was recommended i won't say it inflammatory like a bunch of committees and a long term but having a consultant we could have that going on in the background who could review whether this is the best deal for us or what we should be doing and um we're getting the value out of it this is a question for debora yes debora did um and i'm assuming you're saying attorney scott cameron or someone else okay scott it's scott talk about um how long a period of time the consultant um would take to discuss and to review and then provide the board with advice about the various options that were available including um uh boarders proposal no he did not and that would really depend on how you uh how the board tasks the consultant what you would like him to do um as robby said it could be a large scale analysis of every school with an eye toward combining energy savings with other facilities work that's underway and that would take multiple months if we were simply looking at the question of what short term or long term net metering projects should become involved in that would i'm certain be a much smaller project shorter period of time initially when i brought this question to scott we were looking at a multi-year contract it wasn't until this evening that i was made aware of the possibility of a short term contract i think if the board wishes to pursue that i definitely would want them to receive the guidance of their attorney have the contract reviewed and perhaps if not the finance committee then a subcommittee of the finance committee could take a look at it and have a conversation about it before you were to take action i think the idea of a short term contract makes sense the worry i had about signing on long term is that it is my understanding that you can only have one net metering project operating in a partnership external the district at one time and that it may limit your future ability to do net metering as a with the project with the equipment that you own that is was the case a few years ago when i worked in another district so i want to be sure that our energy consultant can guide us on that question and if that's the case then we need to tread carefully as to how and as to which long term projects we sign on to so i think there's a path forward on the short term um and i think it could be relatively quick okay and and robby house shoot i'm sorry for it finish your question and then i just okay no robby robby how short term is the shortest short term contract that you would be willing to consider well like i said i think the way we should structure the contract is it goes from whenever we start the contract to a date and at that date then then a decision is made by the school board and then it continues for six months after that date and then it terminates so let's say the school board needs a year to make a decision through an energy consultant the contract would would specify that the school board would make a decision by by that year and then the contract would go for another six months so that would be 18 months it doesn't it wouldn't really matter to me you could make the contract the six month window is what's important to me because i need six months to find another partner and and frankly the six month window is also important to you because you'll need six months or you'll need some time period to find another partner so i would say the contract goes for whatever period it goes and then six months beyond that okay so in order to have to have a one-year contract it would basically have to be a six month contract with a six month endpoint after notice that's right that's correct okay i would i would say i would suggest that because the finance committee is meeting in two weeks that that i i see that the majority of the board from what i'm seeing from the comments are interested in looking at some type of short term and also in support of the you know of having a consultant so i think we we do need to do diligence in this issue so we would come back to the board with some solid proposals so that they could make up their mind at the not necessarily at the meeting on the 20th because that would be the first time that we're meeting and i know that ravi is under they're gone also for a decision but we we we do need to do this uh responsible and i think there is a path forward like everybody said can i make a suggestion a suggestion and comment i guess one is i i think it might be useful if i talk to scott cameron the i assume he knows something about net metering contracts or or he's a lawyer anyway i could explain to him it seems like it's difficult to do that in this in this context but i could certainly explain to him what our contract is in fact i could show him our contract which was you know approved by the previous attorney paul juliani i've already shared the contract with him robbie i did share that contract but his advice is for us to have an expert in energy to to discuss the the whole landscape and his expertise is is within contract review so um that's why he but wait can we just deborah can we just let robbie finish his point because i think he was focused on the short term piece and i just wanted to hear that out there's the short term piece for me is this you know i brought this up i think six or seven weeks ago with with with deborah in an email and we've you know we've progressed to this point but the time is ticking on the other side of my other partner who's told me i need to find a new you know partner and so i feel like you know i either need something pretty concrete coming out of this meeting that you know that we're moving forward or else i need to start shopping this to other you know other schools and potentially other businesses too because i don't really know how much time i've got left so hands down in every way i would rather partner with you with the washington central district i mean it just makes it makes every bit of sense to me it did the last time too though and i kind of got stopped out so i want to make sure that you know we there's a concrete step that's moving forward or else i've i've really got to start looking somewhere else because time keeps rolling on so robbie what would what would make you feel like it was moving forward if we if we directed deborah or the the finance committee to come back to the next meeting with a short term contract or i'm just trying to understand what would satisfy you but would also give us the time to make sure you know we've read the words and you know we can't we can't tell you we're going to sign a contract without reading it tonight so just trying to understand a little bit better what would be the middle ground well i certainly don't again don't and didn't expect you and frankly wouldn't want you to sign a contract tonight that would be irresponsible for all of us um if but that's why i brought up talking to scott cameron yes if we came back to another meeting i don't in a month in two weeks i can't remember exactly what florid said and you had a contract and you'd consulted with scott cameron and you were ready to make a decision yes or no about do we can we sign this contract you know even if that was in a month and then you had to make that decision a couple weeks later i could live with that but putting it off in a way where it's going to be discussed again at another meeting and then kick down the road you know then i can't that's just not enough for me to go on so yeah i would love to communicate with scott explain to him well maybe you guys should discuss among yourselves the the suggestion that cari brought up and and maybe this would be more effective done in email but if we could come out with sort of conceptually what that what that proposal would look like we could take that to scott and say scott you know can you can you see putting this in a contract that we could vote yes or no on in a month or or even six weeks i mean i can i can live that long if there's going to be a hard decision but it's got to be a hard decision coming up at some point um and if you want to you know if you want to have a meeting in a couple weeks and discuss it again and then and then have a hard decision in a couple weeks after that and vote that that's fine with me too i'm but i i feel like we need to take some concrete steps and those probably ought to be relating to getting language that we think we could like in the contract and then you guys can decide what to put on that contract i'm sorry if it was confusing i think deb debora and chris both have comments but but i think what we're saying i i'm seeing unless somebody raises their hand i'm seeing in the chat that there is a from people that talk there is an interest in looking at a short term so what i'm proposing is that we're meeting on the 20th the finance committee is meeting in the 20th between now and then we will look at options that include having conversations with you on scott camera so that we can present to the board some hopefully by the 20th but if not the 20th you know i understand you have a time limit but we also have to work within our our structure so we're we're not committing but we're saying we're going to look at it promptly on the 20th and we'll have those conversations and get back to you you know i'm going to let yeah i may i suggest that if robert if you would like to draft that one year contract and um then forward it to me and i will have scott review it and get and get information of the board by the 20th that would be my suggestion on the next steps okay so make let me clarify something on that depra if we're talking about a year it means really a six month contract with a six year with a six month notice if that's what you're talking about the year contract would actually be 18 months potentially i've heard okay so this they should be clear in your motion what you're seeking thinking is that addressed to me i don't know and i think and i think what happened uh to be clear in terms of the term of the contract chris i was you were asking is it a year or 18 months so i think that your motion should be clear um carry has it stand up sorry it's okay chris i wrote in the chat but i i think we should consider something other term robbie robbie said he doesn't care i think it's going to take us a while to find a cut find a consultant and work through that process and you know if it you know two years is next year's going to be so difficult for planning let's just buy ourselves a little more time that's my opinion you carry i think we i think we would have the time either way um just because i think we're just having contract that goes on and on that in any point unless the board decides to end it so i think the way he was talking about incorrect if i'm wrong than that um robbie let me clarify something there's a there's a natural point to end the contract in 2032 because and this gets into the arc arcane laws of net metering but we're governed for 20 years under a certain set of rules that were established when we got our certificate of public good and that will go until 2032 at which time the rules governing our particular project potentially not certainly but potentially will be different so 2032 is a natural end point for the contract or point for the contract to be reassessed so my suggestion would be that you guys choose a date a year 18 months two years you know you choose a date and we do the short term contract for that time period when that time period comes if you guys want to continue then it continues and the defaults or continues until 2032 not not not not unending as a business i can't continue it unending past 2032 because i don't even know what the circumstances of net metering will be at that point they'll definitely or almost certainly they'll change for us at that point so short term defaulting to 2032 if it's if we want to go on that would be my suggestion and i'm happy to look Stephen look so let me make an observation first and then i have a recommendation on how we might go forward i don't think the school board should be engaged in establishing a contract with a provider and a school board meeting is completely inappropriate however i understand the timeliness of this situation so what i would offer is a suggestion and i would rely on you robbie on what's practical or not practical um that we need to move tonight and is it any more difficult to write a six month contract that we know would expire in a year and a one year contract that we know would expire in 18 months so then when it comes to us for a vote in a decision then we can begin to weigh those would we rather have a six month or we would rather have a year and it it gives us a time to look at them gives us a little more time to understand it is it reasonable to ask that two contracts be written one shorter and one longer and then it gives us a chance to weigh all that stuff and we chris then we don't need to get a debate tonight on whether it's the six months or it's a one year we have two contracts that we can look at i think that's fine i mean i think that's just a question right right i don't think you need two contracts i just think you need one that doesn't have the date specified or that has the options as we look at the draft yeah that's a great idea and i agree it doesn't bog us down in this debate tonight which i'm completely in favor of statement so so robbie um do we understand that you're going to um share a draft with debora for um review by scrap cameron that's exactly what i'll do and just so we're on the same page we'll leave the dates open um we'll specify how the dates should work you know the six months after make a decision six months after that um i guess the only there's two other pieces one is there's the contract when the contract terminates the termination date in the contract do we make it so that if no action is taken it defaults to 2032 or do we make it so that we have to go through another board meeting and warning and everything if in other words the schools should have the option to terminate but if the school wants to continue does that default go on do you want it written out by question number one my inclination would be that we write it with some way for it to continue so that if we you know if we say uh you know missed the deadline by a month we don't break the whole thing apart but 2032 um it sounds like too long so i think we need something that is allows the some some kind of um you know flexibility that you're describing that actually makes sense to me i tend to i prefer contracts that are written that way too for the reason you described i would not feel comfortable saying 2032 if we missed the deadline because we you know got bogged down and something so um but i i gave point and i would be supportive of something that would you know not not let it fall apart just because we couldn't get our act together which is i think what you're asking for i think just davin's point though we are now negotiating a contract and a board meeting and i think and i would highly recommend that this item be continued at your finance committee meeting with documents to review and different options to discuss i don't yeah i'm not sure we're really negotiating because i think we're just yeah i don't think so either language let me make one other explanation because i can see this cause confusion later on in the original contract which we will just modify for for these time periods the allocation of the generation credits was very specific and it went to the Shapiro building and the Supervisor Union building and 32 in the current contract that we propose we will have all of the generation applied to the u32 meter that does not mean that all that generation has to go to the u32 meter it just means that i can't create a proposal contract without putting account numbers from the other potential meters that we might want to put in the contract in that contract however if we dump 100 of the generation on the u32 meter we don't have to change the contract i can just call green mountain power and say now we want to allocate to these other meters so if we want to bring in other schools in the district it's a question of a phone call not a question of modifying the contract but that's going to be something that i'm sure we'll have to discuss when it comes up i just want to give you a heads up that that will look like that great okay so you're right and you'll be communicating with debora is that is that correct debora okay very good thank you i will get it to debora okay um the floor uh one so that finishes the finance committee and and i think one clarification question that has come up also is that it just when we talk about this is that why does this contract doesn't have to go out to bed ruby could you elaborate on that sure this is not a contract in a traditional sense um first of all the school is not spending any money the school simply is not you know we structured the original contract the one will be revising so that it only saved the school money there was no circumstance in which it would ever cost the school money um so i i guess that's in the lawyer told us the first time around that it was essentially not necessary even for it to be i think in front of the school board for that reason that it could be simply decided by the superintendent if i remember correctly um so you're not buying anything you're just paying a fee that's equal to a percentage of what you save and i think that's why it doesn't need to be treated like a contract the other difference in this contract most contracts are of adversarial or at least there are two sides to the contract this contract is structured so that the school's interests in my interest are aligned and when we generate electricity it saves the school or the district money so there's not that sort of adversarial component to it that you would have in a typical contract um you know there's no there's no circumstance where what's good for me isn't also good for you okay we are committing an asset in terms of committing ourselves to a period of time uh where you know we do the beneficiaries of the production and turning over it does deal tangible benefit even though there's no you know physical structure or anything like that and i would want an opinion that it's not a contract on the big part yeah so and debra debra i see is taking note great okay um so flor are are we completely finished then with finance with yeah yeah questions yeah um there it says overview of budget projection that was what we did um or is this okay so we're not talking about the um the state side of things which would be fine with me if we're not okay no no because we have enough thank you rabbi thank you rabbi i'll look forward to hearing from you i okay good i think what i i think what we agree was that our projections look really look really good for now and that there is more information that is coming from the state on friday and on the 15th so i think we need more information from the state in order to really do better projections to share with the board that so i don't i don't think it's necessary unless somebody really okay great okay thank you very much flor um and everyone so moving on to the consent agenda uh do we have a motion to approve the minutes of april 15 so moved thank you gel second lindy seconds thank you um any uh any changes or anything that needs correcting on the minutes for april 15 i should just mention that i received a comment from a member of the public who felt that the board members ought to be mentioned before the administrators and i gather that they might have been flipped i i i merely mentioned it it doesn't need to be changed on the april 15 on the minutes on the minutes right but um you're all correct they should be listed first okay that was the member of the public an alert citizen um very alert more alert than i am i'll say thank you lisa um okay uh so if there are no um no changes to the minutes please vote yes or no and um again i'm oh jonis yeah sorry or this is just about minutes i realized uh lindy and steven we did not approve the minutes of uh the executive sessions during the last negotiating session um i'm not sure how to do that at this point you could do that at your next negotiations meeting on monday great great thank you very much um so i'll agree um everybody uh everybody approves thank you very much um now uh motion to approve the board orders please have them from our packet does anybody have them handy to read the you're sorry christ yeah so do we not need to do this by email i'm confused about how we do this now the email goes around and i'm just confused about it the the email as i understand that the email stands for our signature but oh i see got it in the same way that um that we vote in a regular meeting we do it um orally as well okay got it i would thank you thank you we move that we approve board orders in the amount of 354 thousand and one dollar and 83 cents and in the amount of 23 thousand five hundred and seven uh 97 dollars and 22 cents thank you christ moves uh second how's that gonna flow our seconds lisa were you able to get those figures do you have those yeah i have them in the in the email great excellent okay super um any uh any questions about the board orders before we go to a vote no questions very good all in favor please click yes all opposed please click no once again um all green lights very good thank you very much now um it occurs to me that we have not heard from towns um if towns is still here would there be any objection among the board before we hit the personnel um peace to um to just touch base with towns no and and mia if she's here too yeah mia you're still here as well i don't know if towns is still here but mia is here or she seems to be yeah um her um she is i may have i may have waited too long to get to the students i'm here scott you're here um can we just check in mia please and what um how you're doing and what your um what your net network says oh my network um a lot of pressure everyone's kind of finding a schedule ish sorry i think it's going as well as can be expected with everything that's happening yeah i don't know do you have any specific things you were wondering um yeah i guess a lot hinges on how much can be expected um what about i i have to say i i was very touched to see all of the all of the lawn signs that were set out for seniors yeah those were really great i think a lot of people everybody was surprised when they got out but very happily surprised i think it was a great thing yeah um how does it feel to to the seniors to um to have you know basically your senior year um kind of decapitated sorry i mean um yeah how does that feel to be decapitated um he can't speak because her head is no longer attached to her body there you go all right all right we're choice of words i apologize who's who's watching nerving when i'm eating them i think considering what other people are having to do with this crisis like all the essential workers and everything that they've been doing i think it's nice for me personally to put it in perspective and say like well oh man like i don't have to wake up at 7 a.m. every morning like gosh what like i don't have to sacrifice that much for everything that's going on and i think it's sentimental in a way like it's sad that i won't be able to spend the last kind of quarter i guess of my senior year with the rest of my class but compared to what other people are giving up it's really not yeah and and how is it going in continuing your classes do you feel like you're able to make progress and and i know considering the circumstances yeah so i'm taking more advanced classes so my teachers were already very involved in making sure like even before school got out some of my teachers were making plans this is what we're going to be doing if we're not going to be a looming in person anymore and i think because of that i've been able to continue my learning quite easily but i know that some of my other peers haven't had as much work that i haven't had as much work as i have and it really depends on what classes you're taking which isn't necessarily a good thing yeah sorry did anybody else have a question for mia i have a question but mia i just want to say that um your perspective is so amazing but i am essential i'm a nurse and um the sacrifice that you and your class have to give right now and just not being able to get that back it is a huge it's a huge deal and um i celebrate your your outlook on it but also i really just wish you guys the best of luck and give yourself your chance to work through that and mourn that and just appreciate all the hard work that you've done and um i just thank you for all that you put through with this board and in the past year so thank you that's this wonderfully said narrowing i can only agree and um and mia i guess you understand that you're this class this class of seniors is historic and will never be forgotten and i hope will never be repeated either um so completely agree with with maryland are are we good shall we move on thank you steven very nice yeah um okay so to personnel um 7.1 approve hires resignations retirements we have an entire sheet on this i believe yes and um it's interesting having three or four of us working in different parts of the state um collaborating and pulling together documents so um it isn't unusual in the spring of the year for there to be last minute changes but in your email this evening i sent you a final version so if you've not had a chance to check that please do i will read these aloud just to be sure everyone has an understanding of what we're bringing forward um well first of all thanks to our principals and central office administrators for their hard work and bringing these high quality candidates forward for your consideration the first is julia pritchard who is um to replace bill the special service coordinator at both the district and u32 if you recall bill is taking a position in montpelier and is resigned recently and um we'd also like to recommend jamie specter school social worker and behavior specialists who will be a district employee and she would take on some of the work that we have previously contracted out to wash the county mental health supervising the eyes and working closely with students families and staff um students who have behavioral support needs allison burns a math teacher for u32 idly fit sterald a special educator for u32 michael southerby a pe teacher rumney and dodie michael was hired late last year after july 1st so he was on a one-year contract and we're bringing him back in on a permanent basis now uh bonnie denham associate school nurse rumney um amy earling science teacher u32 noelle panard classroom teacher second grade in east montpelier james warden classroom teacher five six in callas and jessica eggy z classroom teacher five six berlin jessica is also uh one of those individuals who came to us late and we're offering a permanent contract for her um we have more positions that are currently posted and we anticipate bringing um additional recommendations to you at the next meeting for new hires but i think this is a very very fine group of people and we strongly recommend your consideration and for their employment thank you debora um may we may we move these uh hirings as a as a slate as a group okay um i'll uh welcome a motion to um to approve the the hirings of these teachers carry i'll move that we accept the recommendation for new hires thank you carry moves do we have a second it's lindy thank you lindy all right any further discussion yes scott this is steve yes um i'm just i'm unfamiliar with the term associate school nurse is that the same thing as a school nurse yes it's a matter of the um preparation and training um right now you may become a school nurse with an associates degree specializing in the study of nursing uh and then once you attain your bachelor's degree then um the bachelor's column but either one of those is acceptable and we've had a number of people who've come up through the ranks as associate nurses and then become a full bachelor's nurse that's fine i just i hadn't seen a term before i'm fine yep any other questions or uh yeah marylin is um the is sharon um uh licensed social worker jamie uh jamie sorry yes that's okay um i believe she is uh kelly do you recall yeah i believe she is licensed yes thank you quite a lot of experience as well working with um students in fact um she and she's been working with students in our region as well outside of the public schools and within so she's very dynamic i think she'll do a great job wonderful thanks um any any other questions if not um let's move to a vote all in favor of approving this group of teacher nominations as moved by cari and seconded by lindy please click yes on your participant's box if you oppose please click no and again all the green the motion carries their hirings are approved um i i see there is no retirement is that correct debora no retirements this this month um this meeting we do have a resignation though on sadly brian ryan excuse me healy from u32 science teacher is resigning her position effective at the end of the school year and um you recommend approval of this yes we do okay um any questions no questions then let's go to a vote all in favor of approving the resignation of brianna healy please click yes we need a motion oh yeah we thank you jonis we do i jumped the gun there um would you like to move it i will move that we accept the resignation of thank you really thank you um second i'll second it thank you floor um so now we can vote on it please click green for approve red for oppose and once again oh green thank you um the resignation is approved now uh would you like to continue debora yes we have one leave of absence request for one year and this is from christine herzhausen who is currently working at jody and this is a um a family related request without being too specific a little later on you'll notice that there's a change in fte she was also seeking a reduction fte from full time to point five as well which um and then i'll just continue if i may on the change in fte that will wrap up the page um due to um our incoming employees in the district we there are some savings and the one of the things that our administrators had originally proposed in our early days of our budget work back in the fall was to increase maria melicos from a point nine to one point oh she is our school nurse in um who is shared right now between callas and dodie um we feel that with our incoming teachers and the savings we've been able to calculate that um we can increase her to a full-time position which would provide her with uh another half day and um that would be devoted to dodie school it's a recommendation first of all that maria would support and one that we think would be very good particularly in the light of the increased role of the school nurse in the coming year okay thanks so um i guess the first thing we'll need is uh is a motion to approve the leave of absence request for christine herzhausen i'll move that christ moves second diane second thank you diane diane seconds so um i noticed there at least on my uh what i'm looking at there's no um administrative recommendation does the administration have a recommendation uh we do recommend approval uh okay any questions from board members steven um if if we grant her a leave of absence how are we going to reduce her from a one to a half actually her leave will leave will be a halftime leave um it is something that she had requested and planned for before um the other um situation arose so she's looking at a full year leave at the halftime position so i should correct that you're right it doesn't add up otherwise and it's not a full full year it's a sometime in the end of september starting and then for the rest of the year oh it says one year on my list here i'm sorry gillian it may be that there's a an error but um yeah well this was like this was a complicated one because of the timing um but you're saying her leave of absence is not for one year or is for one year the no the um can i just back up and go from the beginning otherwise i get confused is that she had wanted to drop down to part time for professional reasons and i support keeping her there she's an incredibly gifted educator so half of christine is better than no christine um and then she has had a um increasing family issue come up i don't even know what i'm allowed to say about that but anyway that's as much as we ought to say yeah and so she uh so as we were talking about the switching down to part time so that she could pursue some of her other professional interests this other issue came up so that she would be starting the year with us at dodie until probably late september when the other issue issues and then she's requesting leave for the remainder of the year for that so so thank you for clarifying that so the halftime pre-sees the full year leave well nearly full year which would start at the after september right yeah so if we look at according to the calendar it's they're correct but the dates aren't clear for you so our apologies does that make more sense now with the explanation um where does that leave us with emotion do we need to change the motion um we would be looking for her up you to approve her change in fte and her leave of absence so as a as a compound package and just as a point of clarification there is a letter from her that explains what what her request is so um so i realize there are limits to what we can discuss but we did receive a copy of the letter so i think we're all aware of her i don't think it's a big secret yeah it's just not something you typically discuss in open session for your in your minutes but you know if you wanted to talk about it in private i just i feel like people's uh personal health and so on is really not something to talk about in in your open minutes yeah this is steve i mean i brought it up i support whatever we need to do to adequately support her i'm just talking technically if we were over a year of absence then she's not working or if we approve a reduction from one fte to five fte that's for a year unless there's some other language i just want to approve what's gonna accomplish what we want it to accomplish i'm not objecting to anything i'm just saying what's been presented to me doesn't make any sense so we have a employee who's coming in september who will work half time if you give us approval to have her contract reduced from one to point five and then after september she'll be on leave for the remainder of the year that's what the request is and i apologize that it wasn't made more clear in the notes or in our explanation but ilian did a good job of explaining it and we're hopeful that you'd be willing to approve it it's our recommendation what what does she teach what are she she's a literacy interventionist and coach okay so is it um is because it just seems bad to me to have someone start and then stop after a month um and having and then she can be absent from the school completely or she can work part-time for from the end of september from the end of september she would be absent from completely completely for the remainder of the year through june of 2021 so are we gonna have someone as a substitute then filling that half-time position as an interventionist so chris uh sort of where the thinking is at right now is the way christine's position is structured is she is half-time literacy interventionist half-time literacy coach so in dropping down to the point five she would keep the literacy coach coaching portion of her job um and i think she's thinking of being part-time for more than just this one year so this is a career move for her at least in this point in her life so i do actually have some people in the pipeline who could then pick up you know could be considered for you know after the posting the positions but i've got feelers out for people who could fill the point five literacy interventionist portion for her position starting at the beginning of the year and then the benefit though of having her christine still there even part-time is that she can provide support and coaching some intensive coaching and work with the person who would take her position where that literacy interventionist portion of her position does that make sense oh it does it but you say and that will be for a month and then she goes on leave completely yes okay okay that is better clarification thank you um lindy is our the board packet with all of these papers public information we did not publish it on the on the website no but would it be if somebody had asked me for information i'd gotten for this board meeting is it public information if you were at a board meeting and you had a handout on the table it's public so yes because i'm finding it very weird on the website the the recommendation was posted but not all the nomination forms um is that what you're asking about the nomination well i just find it weird that we can't say the word maternity leave we do in every board meeting i've been in and i think that clarifies things why chris is wondering why is she coming for a month sorry late true um and and for that reason perhaps it sounds to me as though we may need to amend the the existing motion um would would someone um i made the motion on to um authorize or to propose that we grant the leave starting in late september and grant her request for leave of absence starting in late september of the school year and um i also about the fte part reduce your e to to 50 also was part of the request okay and then we also grant the request to reduce the fte from point one to point five to from one point zero to point five second again wonderful okay steven i just make a friendly motion i'm being a stick in the mud i'm sorry could could the motion be we approve a reduction of one fte to point five fte through the last day of september and then effective the first day of october we approve a full-time leave of absence for the remainder of the school year it would you can't you can't be specific about a date for this purpose because you don't know when the person may have to leave so you you can't okay it's fine yeah sorry okay thank you steven thanks for trying to keep us on the straighten now we're we're losing jill we have to move on this we're losing yeah oh dear this is killing me okay so if there is no further discussion so it's not to lose jill or anybody else for that matter i saw a few other people had their faces in their hands just i'm just saying yeah kari you're doing a dr fouchy okay um all in favor of uh the mo motion as restated by chris and resecunded by diane um which just to summarize reduces the fte of christine herds hausman from 1.0 to 0.5 and grants her leave of absence request um please click green if you're opposed click red very good all green motion carries all right now um hopefully the next one won't be um quite so uh complicated so uh we we're on to maria mellicos looking to increase her fte from point nine to 1.0 with savings we've already established do we have a motion i'll make the motion second thank you lindy uh and jill seconds very good any further discussion of this floor shakes her head and so let's move to a vote all in favor of approving the change in fte for maria mellicos by 0.1 from 0.9 to 1.0 please click green red if you're opposed and it's all green thank you very much now floor um unless i'm um missing something over to you yeah i'll be very quick i was wondering if as you know as as a board in a district we could and i know that there's teachers and administrators in the cult too but it won't be a surprise for them but i was i was hoping that we because it's appreciation week for the teachers that maybe we could budget something more meaningful because they've been working extra hard in this covered times and even if it's like i you know one proposal was maybe uh give certificate from burr one books which helps our local economy and send one to all of the teachers in the district i i know that we're in saving mode but also the numbers didn't look as horrible today and so i was wondering if we could appreciate the teachers and something more than just us saying we appreciate you i believe that before i believe i've done cards yes sorry i believe that every principal was um either in the process of or has been appearing and sending cards with a small gift card i inserted it wasn't exactly the same in every school but that effort was definitely our sentiment was the same and we were um planning on doing that but those of you who are here still if you're uh want to make comments about what you've done specifically it's been a little bit different from school to school but we have absolutely had them in our minds so maryland has a question yeah yeah i i definitely i'm sure that the principals are doing an amazing job and i know that the pto's are too but as a board i would love for us as a as a committee as a school committee to be able to put our heads together as the 15 of us and think of something specific for us which we have done that in the past we've given them breakfast or lunch or something like that we can't do that so um i would i support i'd love to do something from from all of us other views floor did you have an amount in mind okay i i did not have an amount in my i was thinking you know between 15 and 20 i don't like at least one book i know all teachers love to love to read and and they more likely might not even use it for themselves knowing them but it that was just one option you know everything else seemed a little bit too expensive right a basket of flowers or you know more a lot harder to send and i don't want to undermine any effort that the principals are doing from there i i just felt what that it was something from from us you know that we appreciate them because that you know i know that they're appreciated uh their individual schools it's just like a little extra thing and i might be on my own with Marilyn on this but uh you know or if you guys felt comfortable with you know coming up with a proposal that we send to you before you know it wouldn't go out this week obviously but it would mean something if we said something during teacher appreciation week but i'm happy to hear from other principals if they would be a discourage or offended by such a gesture let's see would um i see that alisha has her light on did you want to make a comment alisha about what's happening at least until you're no i'm happy to share what um what we did as so the elementary principals have been in coordination together and i know u32 sent something as well we just sent all of our teachers um in staff not just the teachers a personal card um with a gift card in it to local different local vendors that was all of our elementary schools and steven did you want to speak to u32 something similar yeah so u32 sent a card as well from the administrative team to all of our educators and uh we gave them a link to a uh google form so that they could choose a gift card from one of the many local vendors because we just we felt like we could spread it around a little bit more to any business that was associated with our district through parents kids alumni or anything like that um with a few exceptions we we didn't do just strictly alcohol-based businesses or things like that but um we can understand the desire for that but uh but we felt like those might not be appropriate for public uh with some funds that we had available that were discretionary mainly through work that some of our teachers have done and so um so it was really nice uh to uh to be able to honor them that way did you get a response back on their google form of like where they preferred so the cards hit a lot of the houses today so we're getting back those and we'll see kind of where they wanted um where they wanted to spend their money um so we had a unique dollar amount in this as well it was 19 dollars for covid 19 um and so we felt like that was uh add a little humor to the whole piece but uh it was something that we were we felt fortunate to be able to do because of this discretionary funds that we got cool i think it's a great idea i just wonder um what staff though that we um you know just wanting to be mindful of you know as alisha was saying all staff that um we're showing appreciation for so just clarity around how we do that everyone everyone yeah yeah so we just said yeah everyone should yeah right i would we should if we do it at all we do i would support doing it for everybody yeah so we've done that this week and and then there have been some really great um exchanges between and among teachers um with just celebrations and and patting one another in the back and and some funny exchanges it's been great they're making the most of this week lindy well i've noticed on the east mott failures pt you know facebook page the kids are holding up signs and i really think that's where this appreciation comes from is it from the schools and from the families or the parents and i'm a teacher but i just i wonder about the board spending money on it when the fiscal realities are a little bit not great but from our town perspective i was thinking you know i could go on that ptno page and put something right there as a board member in this community blah blah blah um i just i wonder about the kind of swag i know a gift certificate isn't but it adds up and if we're doing everybody in the district it really adds up and when flor asked us to you know put a picture or make a poster or something i went into the story box and i found all these little pins i've gotten over the years of teacher appreciation pins and things they're very nice and usually they're from parents or whatever but i just i wonder about the the spending of the money and i sound like a real grump because i certainly appreciate teachers and people are working harder than they've ever worked other views i just wanted to have the discussion so i think we could say that our science today demonstrates our appreciation for the teachers in and we'll try to be you know part of the planning for next year i i'm gonna make i think we should make a i'm gonna make a motion that we follow up on flor's recommendation because um as governor Cuomo has said you can say yeah we appreciate we appreciate but um you know only backing up with it's even it's just a token really even if it's like 20 it's a token uh and the i think the improvement to morale um that we're thinking of them in a tangible way um it just it's well received and contributes to a a great climate in supplement to what the principals have already done um so i'm gonna move that we um and i like steven's idea where steven um deland repates was very long names um recommendation about letting teachers choose where to use that money and so i'm gonna i'm gonna move that we um spend 20 for each of our personnel uh to show our appreciation during this week of appreciation um because it has been a challenging year uh for for um all of our staff members do we have any idea what that adds up to tell what the total would be there are how many employees would it be how do we end up i i didn't count go ahead larry probably about 7500 dollars yeah it'd be about 375 roughly employees okay steven um i'm i'm not opposed to any action we take uh we can't take action on a budget item tonight it has to be properly warned so anything we want to do we could decide tonight and that we would still have to vote on it and warn it at the next meeting we we can't take action on a budget item that's not worn right point well taken thank you i have to say that sounds like a lot of money to me at this moment in time i i totally get floors points but i don't know i uh i also get lindy's point i guess and i recall um what steven look said at one of our recent meetings about um you know making decisions about other people's money uh that we need to proceed with all due to liberation um and lindy has a has a comment here as well um yeah um shall we marilyn had her hand up scott all i'm sorry thank you thank you debba marilyn no i just wonder if we just get um six different cards right now sit together and pass them along in some way and i think we can figure that out in a systematic fashion to send to each school to just write a note to the teachers to thank them for their support and then we can figure out a monetary gift maybe of what lindy's saying at the end of the year but it's teacher appreciation week and a card to each school would go a long way if if that's where we're at it is at a discussion right now yeah and i was also wondering i know i don't know how feasible this is because i know everybody lives everywhere but i you know the parades that have been happening around to say thank you to um to you know to visit again with kids i do wonder if there's any possibility that we could potentially go on several caravans even around to all of our staff and um saying thank you in a different way that so many teachers are they themselves doing that that it'd be nice for them to be on the receiving end of it as well yeah that's really thoughtful i want to remind you that we have um you know strict protocols we follow with our staff and food delivery unless you're speaking of like having a being part of a caravan and driving behind the bus yeah no we would be driving separately with signs in your car yeah okay um so uh yeah um i i agree with your chat thank you kasey um on the remedy parade tomorrow um hey and friday what time hi kasey do you have are you sorry i wasn't feeling very camera ready at this hour sorry that's okay you don't have to be we're following the middle sex one uh bus tomorrow from between 10 and about 12 15 so i'm not entirely sure what time would be at your stop but we're following this leave at 10 a.m the district website so tomorrow is middle six one and a week from friday is middle sex two yeah so buses leave at 10 a.m at you 32 if for anyone who's interested in following and the next callous parade will be next thursday five 14 at 10 from at 10 to 12 10 to 12 thank you cat and that was something that you'd be willing to collect that maybe collect that for us and send it around so we yeah i'm just afraid of losing track of it in the chat yeah and if you would like if you would like um my office can have a card sent to every school on your behalf i know that you wouldn't be able to assign it personally that was a suggestion marylyn had made um we could do that for you within the next day or so if you wanted to just post those at the school so let me know okay um are we good with this yeah um i i like flora's suggestion um in the chat box if you haven't seen it thank you for um okay yeah wonderful all right so um uh at this point um as announced before uh executive session um are you up for it we would need a motion to enter executive session can i just clarify something real quick sure um chris did make a motion do you want to just rescind it chris or does it just kind of die because that's a good point lisa thank you for keeping track i'll let it wither on the vine all right that it withered on the vine it early at the edges when it in the frost tonight thanks great okay so um executive session we would need a motion to enter executive session uh what's the purpose of the contractual matter sorry i'll move that we enter executive session for a contractual thank you kai um second second chris seconds all in favor of entering executive session please click yes on your on your participant box no if you oppose eith are you still with us can you set us up a break room a breakout room for this i'm working on it right now yes oh perfect thank you lisa if you can share it with me i'll finish this off okay i'll do that thank you good night hi lisa good night thank you lisa thank you always good okay so uh we are now in executive session i guess when keith not quite yet quite quite yeah we have to go into a breakout room which he's setting up for you right now okay debra i'm assuming you're also going to be in this executive session yes debra debra is invited to be in okay okay so it's just the board and debra is that correct um i think just the board and debra okay let me just make sure i have everybody all right i'm sorry go ahead do we only have 12 board members here right now uh yes i think so uh let me see hold on yes we have 14 members on the board and george and jonathan are not here okay i think you should be all set now there is no action to be taken following that executive session um diane you had a question i believe yes so i guess it's a question and a clarification that again if there is a team regardless of whether it's three or five or whoever if there is a team that is creating the agenda then that is the agenda that should stay until it comes to the board meeting and that opportunity to be there um you know that addition to the or changes to the agenda so i guess it does i i can see where the wonderings are and where the questions are coming that we suddenly then had the email posing another item that went on the agenda because because it came from you my assumption which is my issue was that it had gone through that same process and so i would just say that the clarity of this especially as we move to new leadership is we absolutely need to follow that procedure that whoever the agenda deciding group is once that decision is made it's locked it's there and when we come to the board meeting that's when additions or revisions should occur yes well normally um normally once the agenda is set it stays set um marylyn pointed out i think quite rightly that there are occasions where um there are very serious issues that are also very urgent issues that have to be dealt with um and it's a it's a bit of a judgment call and sometimes uh it doesn't um sometimes one disagrees with the judgment and i get that and i appreciate that however one also has to understand if something comes under your name it gives the impression of the process being followed and all i'm saying is if for whatever reason that process can't be followed then that explanation needs to be there um it's just it's confusing as we try to manage some of this different information if it isn't following the expected process just that we need to be aware of that right i appreciate that thank you diane all right um anyway we're at future agenda oh i'm sorry lindy i just i wanted to clarify when christa or debra had added in more appointments those are very timely and they just add to the packet but they're not a new agenda item so i wouldn't want um debra to think that those can't be added because we want those people signed on before they get taken by somebody else so something where it's already on the agenda and you're adding more information related to it is understandable okay good i'm glad that's clear on jonas did you have something okay no okay so uh future agenda items we have we have um a lot of interest for the future but um if there's nothing to consider then we can move on to um adjourn by consensus at 1022 yeah thank you very much everyone much appreciated as always take good care good night thanks good night thanks bye hi everyone