 at 6.33, I'd like to welcome our guests and we will go around and do some introductions just so everyone knows who's who. Notice that we have our first run of some name tags made by the Graphics Arts of RTCC. So you have a little idea who we are if you have good eyesight. My name's Laura Rocha. I represent Brookfield here on the OSSD board. Lane Millington, superintendent. I'm Rachel Gatiss. I'm a representative from Braintree. I'm Linda DuVold. I take the minutes. I'm Ann Kaplan. I'm a representative from Randolph. I'm Ann Howard. I'm a representative from Braintree. Paul Penney from Randolph. Brian Baker from Brookfield. Ashley Lincoln, Randolph Center. Melody DeGlorio, Randolph. Would you mind telling us who you are as well? I'm Jeffery Francis. I'm from the Vermont Superintendents Association. Mark McDowell, representative. East Hills in the city. North Sloanick, teacher and citizen. I'm Peter Reed. I'm the newest representative for this district replacing Ben Chickman. I'm from Braintree. Paul Kendall, Braintree. I'm Hannah Arias, from Randolph, resident. I'm Betsy Shands, teacher of Braintree. Michelle Kliskevich, teacher at Braintree. Betsy Baker, speech language pathologist at Braintree and RU, and also a citizen. Thank you. Deb Tribellen, at Braintree, and live in Randolph. Tev Kelman, I teach English and so studies here at the high school. Beth Oshia, school nurse at Arias. I'm Steve Foreman. I'm middle school math teacher here. Thank you very much. Welcome to the meeting. So the focus of our meeting today is to hear from our legislators and from Jeff Francis of the Roth Principles Association. We're gonna start with that. Just an update on what's going on in the legislature and in education in the state. So. Do you have a time in mind? We allowed 60 minutes for you. Okay. I think representative Cooper's expected, right? Yes. Okay. And how do you want to approach us? The same way we usually do. Okay. So I can give an overview. Oh, if I do that, what I'd like to do if nobody objects is moving my chair over there. So I don't have my back on, that would be great. That's great. I'll start the way I have in the years past, which is to, why as a citizen myself and as the executive director of the superintendent's association, Susie Glowski, who's the executive director of the school board association couldn't be with me tonight, but she sends her greetings in regards. The only difference had she been here is we probably would have divided some of these things that we'll talk about. And I wanted to thank you for your service. The teachers, the staff in the school system and school board members, because as you all know, we have a public education system in Vermont, which is focused on best service to children, attention to affordability and taxpayers. And none of it really works unless we've got a lot of contribution from you as school board members and from you as teachers and staff. So thank you. I have the benefit of working in Montpelier trying to follow what happens in the general assembly and then in sessions like this or in written material or in, for me, conversations with superintendents conveying to people what we see happening under the golden belt. And I would say this year is somewhat remarkable for the sheer amount of legislation that's under consideration. When the second half of a biennium, each of the last four or five years has been characterized in and of itself with what I would consider to be major pieces of legislation. I'm gonna talk a little bit about some of that legislation tonight, but the acts and the subject matter will be familiar either in its entirety to all of you or in part to some of you. So where we are in the delivery system of public education today is trying to contend with a lot of law and regulation which is intended to create better opportunities for kids and to do it in a sensible way. I wanna pause here and say what I'm doing is communicating to you the knowledge and information that I have about these laws and regulations, some of them I supported, perhaps some of them I haven't. So I'm not here to say that I and the superintendent association are in favor or oppose. I'm just telling you what's happening. So in recent years, as you know, we had Act 166 which was the unification law, excuse me, Act 166 which was universal access to pre-K. Act 46 which was the merger law, Act 173 which is support for struggling students, Act 77, proficiency-based learning. It is a challenge and multiple pathways for students. So I'll circle back and say none of it can be done and be done well without the work that you're doing and without the work that you're doing. And I think many people are challenged by one of the interests that I had in this legislative session was just the sheer volume of legislation that has been introduced or is under consideration. We're not sure where it's gonna end up but it's an extraordinarily dynamic session, perhaps more dynamic than others despite the fact that these major laws have been passed. So what I'll do is just talk to you a little bit about what I observe as the Executive Director of the Superintendent's Association and then open it to questions and comments from the legislators. So the Senate and the House have taken a different approach to the legislative session this year. So in the House where Jay is on the House Education Committee there is a real focus on literacy and support for literacy through our educational process. In some ways it's residual to Act 173 because Act 173 which is a bill intended to bring more resources to bear for students who struggle had a major emphasis on literacy. So the House Education Committee is focused on literacy specifically, particularly with regard and I think this is something that we should all welcome to providing more resources to school systems rather than asking for things from the school systems and I can talk a little bit about that Bill. There is also a major effort in the House Education Committee on trying to address some of the provisions of Act 166 which is universal access to pre-kindergarten education in order to make that law work better for school systems and private providers alike and I can talk about that but the main points in that bill are to end what I would call the bifurcated administration system. So currently the construct of the law relies on the agency of human services and the agency of education to work together to support the delivery of pre-k through private providers and public schools and I would say the aspect of that law that's working the best is the aspect which has the delivery of public education for pre-kindergarten students at the local level. So I would say that in most instances the private providers in the school districts are getting along reasonably well. The administration of that law jointly between the AOE and AHS has not worked as well. So it's been hard for people to get answers to questions. It's been hard to get technical resources into place. It's been hard to get answers under that bifurcated system. I'm gonna pause here and say there are maybe people here in the audience, there may be people if this was broadcast day wide who would say that's not my experience and I'd say that's true. So one of the things about when the state involves itself in the delivery of public education you need to do an evaluation which takes place across the state and not everybody's experience is the same and that's a struggle when you try to get lost change but the emphasis in the House Education Committee around that law right now is to end the bifurcated administration system to make the AOE responsible for the delivery of pre-kinder public schools, to make agency human services and the child development division responsible for the delivery of services in private providers. That has got a long way to go as a piece of legislation but that's what is under conversation in the House Education Committee right now. In addition to that, and this is something that I think is going to largely be welcomed if it comes to pass and it's questionable whether it will come to pass is there's a real emphasis in the House in trying to get a reinstatement of school construction aid. So there's not been any state aid for school construction since 2007 and what we're seeing in the absence of state aid for school construction is school buildings that should be refurbished or renovated and the resources aren't available to do it and I want to come back to that statement in a minute. Depending on where you are in the state, the needs vary from addressing, situations that might be attributable to a lack of investment in the school or modernization of school facilities up until 2007 when the school construction program ended the state had a say in the allocation of dollars to support school construction and because they were providing dollars to support school construction, they were able to target the resources in places and in activities that they wanted to support and the absence of school construction aid, what's happening is that some districts where voters will approve major investments in terms of renovation and refurbishment of buildings, they're moving ahead with projects. So you may have seen in the media, Winooski School District had a $50 million project, Burlington did a $77 million school project, South Burlington's got a proposal for a $209 million project. Meanwhile, over at Mount Abraham School District, they've tried for three successive votes to get starting with $50 million and declining because they keep trimming back the money, investment into buildings that sorely needed and the voters are passing the boggles there. So you can see where when you rely on the current education funding system, if projects are passed in certain communities and defeated in others in the absence of state aid for school construction, equity issues that manifest themselves through the condition and availability of buildings are exacerbated in terms of some places are moving ahead and other places aren't. So basically the infrastructure for schools in Vermont is about a 1960 vintage and we're now 70, well 60 years past that and most of the buildings don't have a useful life that was intended to go that long, although what year was this building built? In the 50s, every time I come into this building, I look at the condition of it and I think I haven't like poked into every nook and cranny but when you walk into the building and look at the condition that it's in, I think you've got a lot to be proud of in terms of how these buildings have been maintained over the years. Not the same picture every place. What exacerbates that issue and I apologize for giving you this much detail, I hope you have some interest in it. In many places in Vermont, we're seeing precipitous declines in student enrollment, right? Precipitous, so schools that might have been built to house 140 kids or 150 kids, now I have 60 or 70 kids. I know that your trends in this school district are not that, I've had conversations with Lane and others about what's happening in terms of the increases in student enrollment that you're seeing. But nevertheless, this issue of school construction aid is something that's foremost in the minds of house members in particular and this is how the conversation goes. We know there's been a moratorium since 2007. We know that we should reinstate it for some of the reasons that I indicated. We're not sure where the money's gonna come from to do it because the state is stressed in terms of monetary resources and even if school construction aid was reinstated tomorrow, the state would have to contend with how they would wanna allocate the money. In other words, what priorities would they want to point toward in terms of utilization of those dollars? Because there is likely to be a fair amount of demand when and if school construction aid is reinstated. So that's another big issue. One issue which you should all be paying attention to and we're not sure how this is gonna play out although I would wager that it will play out is the so-called waiting study. And what that is about is as a result of Act 173 which moves the funding system for special education from a reimbursement model to a census block model. As part of that law, there was a waiting study commission that was intended to look at the weights that are applied to different student characteristics currently. And the reason for that is because the weights that are utilized in Vermont, largely track grade configuration and English language learners. And there have not been weights for morality and probably insufficient weights for poverty. So the state commissioned a study by Professor Tammy Colby who's an education finance expert at University of Vermont and a nationally known education finance expert whose name is Bruce Baker at Rutgers University. And they completed a study which looked at Vermont, its weighting system in the context of its education funding system. It's weighting system in the context of Act 173 and the potential shift to a census block model. And it took a look at both Vermont characteristics and national characteristics in terms of education funding systems. And what they determined is that the weights that we currently rely on are, I think for lack of a better term, I could say not reliable in this era. So what they've done is they've made recommendations for adjusting the weights. But when you adjust the weights, you affect equalized pupils because ADM and weights convert to equalized pupils. Equalized pupils are the denominator in the spending for pupil calculation which your tax rate is derived, okay? So to put it in simplest terms, the way your tax rates are configured, and this is a relatively simplistic presentation, but this is how it works. You have your budget, you have your equalized pupils. The result of that equation is your end spending for pupil. Your end spending for pupil is how your tax rates are determined. I won't talk about CLA and et cetera, but so what happens is when the weights change, the factors that affect your ADM change the equalized pupils, okay? So if you're dealing in a community where the predominant weights are age and grade configurations, you have an equalized pupil. If the weights change to put more emphasis, for example, on poverty or rurality, it's not a potential. The fact is that in every community in Vermont, the equalized pupils are gonna change and they're gonna change on a basis of new factors, right? So if you go online and look at that report, you can actually look up the school district and see what happens based on some of the scenarios that are run. Now, why is this important? It's important as an exercise on its face, but it's also important because legislators and local school officials are taking a look at what happens based on the various options that are presented in that report. And in some instances, tax rates could rise and fall by as much as 40 cents, all right? So the second point that's important to acknowledge is that it's a zero-sum game, so that the exercise of changing weights does not produce any more money. It basically just redistributes equalized pupils so that the calculations change. Now, if you try to look at this outside of political context and outside of the fact that it needs to be practically applied when and if the law changes, you might say, you know, my golly, what are we gonna do? And some legislators are, I mean, we're starting to hear that already. Letters are being written. Dan French, Secretary of Education, made a presentation on the House Ways and Means Committee last week or the week before where he said he thought that the General Assembly needed to act over in the Senate Education Committee. Senator Baruth, who's the chair there, is familiar with this weighting studies, familiar with the resulting dynamics. He said that perhaps the most prudent way to approach this is through a phased-in approach. But in a system where there are perceptions of lack of resources, perhaps in your community, you'll say we have a lack of resources in another community, which you might know of, you might say they have an abundance of resources, the potential for a conflict or a contest as you try to navigate this is very real. So what we're encouraging people to do is read the report, understand what it could mean in your district, be prepared for the legislative conversations when they haven't started in earnest yet, and to the best of our ability, keep in mind that we're really dealing with a system which is a system of public education for the entire state. But there are, underlying these conversations is this whole issue of equity. How do we have an equitable system? How do we be responsible to every kid and every community? And how do you navigate the potential for change associated with something which could be quite big in terms of its impact? In terms of the report itself, I mean the big question that I had about it is I was kind of thinking through stuff over the last day or two, is as they take time to actually digest what's in it, what is the potential that it's gonna push back the date of implementation for that act? I wouldn't speculate on that. What I'd say is the implementation of 173 has been pushed back one year already. I would not wanna come down here and say I think that it could happen. I think that, well, you only need to read the executive summary of that report, the first 10 pages to realize how significant it might be in terms of consequence. And if you consider, for example, the weighting study and the potential policy levers associated with the weighting study and implications for communities and school construction aid, which also has major implications, and a phenomenon of declining enrollment, right? And a phenomenon where some school districts recently unified are contending now, like you, as a single board, looking at the population and grade configurations in particular schools serving rural communities, you know, for me, it can be summed up this way. Anything you do, don't go in too lightly. And I think that speaks for itself, but sometimes there's a tendency for people to read a report and say, we need to act. And I think right now paused reflection considering where we are as a state in terms of the delivery of the public education system, that General Assembly would be well advised to do. And I say that with full recognition of the fact that there are gonna be people who will say, we need to adjust the weights, we need to adjust the weights, and maybe we do. Or maybe the General Assembly does, but it ought to take place with as big a field of view of all the implications, you know, without belaboring the point, this will be the last thing that I'll say, because there's a lot of aspects to this that people need to think about. One of the things that I've heard legislators say as well, what about communities that now have maybe some new found access to monetary capacity because of increased weights in certain categories, but decisions are made to not convert that into investment in the school systems, but rather to save money on the taxation side. You know, that would be one real, that's something that people ought to think about. And what if you've got school districts that maybe have, maybe are faced with declines in enrollment, and this is a real scenario, where they ought to be thinking about, for example, merging two schools into a single school, and they haven't done that. So, you know, how do you contend with a scenario where you might give them more capacity when you would say, here's the capacity, but our recommendations would be that you invest it in a particular way. There any talk on the school construction aid about using it as a carrot to get districts that should be consolidating schools to do that? That's part of the conversation. It's not the new school, but it means that you're gonna take these two. Yeah, yeah, and you know, for me, what I observe in that conversation is how does the saying go, where you stand depends on where you sit. So, you know, there are still raw nerves over Act 46. And it would be, you know, I would be the last person to sit in this chair and say that that's not true, because it is true. So the minute you start to talk about further inducements toward consolidation through some statewide policy lever, some people look at that apprehensively. I guess the point is Vermont is challenged by demographics, socioeconomics, the overall economy, the fact that, you know, we've got an aging population and a low birth rate. There are pressures on the budget and Senator McDonald knows this. He's on the finance committee and the Senate. There are immense pressures, both in terms of where you get the money in order to put it into the programs that we have currently. And what happens every time somebody talks about an adjustment, either to where they wanna put that investment or how they're gonna raise the money. You know, I would not wanna overstate our circumstance, but there's a lot of concern at the general assembly that is, I would say, at least seems to be quite a bit more complex and quite a bit more challenging than it might have been at other periods in the past. That's what I'd say. So the weighting study is a big consideration. Something that wasn't really anticipated and I don't know where it's gonna go is an emphasis on examining the construct for proficiency-based education in Vermont. The revision to the school quality standards around 2012 to 2014 resulted in an emphasis on proficiency-based learning. It contributed to the mindset that led to Act 77, which is so-called flexible pathways. And this year, when technically school districts are supposed to respond with proficiency-based learning construct, the general assembly and school officials started to hear about what does it mean for a high school transcript when you're in a proficiency-based learning system? This is not my area of expertise, but I am a fairly keen observer and I know that all across the state, the notion of proficiency-based learning is being looked at differently from community to community. So some communities have responded that they don't think proficiency-based learning is a good idea. Other communities have said it's working well for us. It sort of focuses on the skills and abilities that we want each and every student to emerge from. It's a very dynamic conversation without any focused piece of legislation. The State Board of Education, which is, I would say, revisiting its own mission, decided that it would do a big meeting on proficiency-based learning. Statewide meeting down in Rutland in January, they met from one o'clock to nine o'clock at night, they had witnesses come through. Now, this week and next, the Senate Education Committee's taking a lot of testimony on the subject, but there's no bill. So it is an educational approach in Vermont that is being reviewed, and I think there's keen interest in it on the part of educators, on the part of students and their families, and on the part of the General Assembly. I don't know what's gonna happen with that, but it's added to the complexity. I'm gonna wrap up with just a few other categories. There's a real interest in, I would say universality, right? So there's a bill on universal access to after school. There's a bill on universal provision of breakfast and lunch to every student at no cost to the student. So there's a real interest in, I would say the equity mindset in utilizing schools to make sure that children receive access to education and what I would refer to, I guess, as components of education that stretch beyond classroom learning into things like after school, pre-K, nutrition, health, so on and so forth, all very important parts of the public education system, but there's an interest in addressing elements of the school system with a focus on universal access. So that's a phenomenon that I think the General Assembly is contending with because it all comes with a cost. So I frequently amassed by the media, what do I think about universal access, universal provision of meals? And what I say, no one's gonna argue with nutrition, no one's gonna argue with the utilization of local foods. Everybody believes that you ought to make it easy for kids at all grade levels to take advantage of good nutrition programs that they get at schools. In many instances, the meals that kids get in school are the best meals they get. But, and from me, at least there's always a but, you gotta pay attention to the price tag. So the universal meals legislation I am told, and I think that this is under dispute, but the Joint Physical Office produced a report that said it had a price tag of about $50 million. That's $50 million in a state that already on a per pupil basis is in the top five of spending. And if you think back to what I said about school construction aid, we don't really provide school construction aid, right? So there are aspects to this that really require very close scrutiny. There are a ray of other bills under consideration, but I will stop there because I've probably given you a lot. Juwan, the legislators certainly will have comments if they wanna add, but that I think is a pretty good medium level, not high, not in the weeds, but medium level view of what's going on in the Vermont State House right now. Thank you. We'll have time for questions. Why don't we hear from Jay and Mark and then we'll open up for questions. Hey, dude. Jay Hooper, I represent five towns, Brookfield, Braintree, Randolph, Granville, and Roxbury. I'm in my second term and I serve on the House Education Committee. There's pretty much nothing more that I could say than that he hasn't covered, but I am curious to know from this board and Jeff between the three universal bills, universal pre-K, universal school meals, and universal after school, which should be the priority for the Education Committee. Got anybody off the universal pre-K for you? That's what we've been discussing doing in our own school district is the universal pre-K. That I would think would solve the most problems with this, will that be the best investment? I would take it. Anyone else? Jay, I met this morning and wished we had met with Peter and said, wanna welcome him. Yeah. He's jumped right in. But this is the first time we've come here with our own opinions. And this is a very sobering presentation by the superintendent. And we thought, gonna ask how waiting affected Randolph, Brookfield, and Braintree. Act 60 has been a place for 22 years. And the underpinnings are as the superintendent said, they're based on spending per pupil. In the ensuing 22 years, which is a long time for state aid to education formulas, the construction part is not followed. And right now we're seeing towns with a lot of resources, whether it's South Burlington, 200 million bucks, they want an indoor track. And the more rural schools are in a very different situation. So the implications of what happens are as profound as Act 60 was and will be as disruptive. And when you have new formulas that are being proposed to the entire state, it's traditional to raise a bunch of money so that when the formulas change, you don't have a bunch of losers. And under the current budget proposal, as Jeff has pointed out, if you put your weight in, if you implement it, you have a whole bunch of towns that are gonna be paying a lot more and a whole bunch of towns that are gonna be paying a lot less. And I for one, and my colleagues in the house, I think would be very interested in seeing who's getting whacked and who isn't. I would add one other thing that's been happening in 22 years is the self-selection of towns, people moving to towns based on the schools. And 22 years ago, the towns that were wealthy were less wealthy than they are today. And 22 years ago, the towns by just demographics that struggled are struggling more than they did 22 years ago. So that's going on. And this is the biggest question for education I think in 22 years and will rival the establishment the back 60, 22 years ago. And ought to be taken, I wouldn't want to vote on this year until I got a clear message from the school boards. And I know the school boards would feel competent to give a clear message this year until they had seen the various levels of changes that are being put forth. This is not a business as usual time. And I think Jeff has given a sobering analysis of what we have, all of us have had this. You have something to add here? Well, first of all, I haven't had much to do with education yet. I've talked to Jay Holt that I'm on the healthcare committee but I see a lot of parallels between what's happening in education and in healthcare between the rural and the Burlington. So I'm hearing some things that make sense. The solutions are always pretty difficult but I'm here to listen and I'm certainly very interested in education. I've got four kids. They all have been educators at one time or another. One of them's hung on. But so I get a lot from them as well. So just looking forward to hearing more and being able to. All right, so we've got about 20 minutes for questions or comments or insights. Do people in the audience or amongst the board have questions for Jeff or any of the legislators? We also had one question today after meeting with some teachers that invited us in and was having the legislature accepted the governor's proposal to negotiate healthcare benefits at the statewide level. We've been through a year of that and we wanted to hear how this district has felt that has, how successful has it been or would you wish there to be some modifications or whatever. That was a question we brought with us tonight. I don't know if you can give us an answer tonight but that's what we wanted to ask. I think it's, it provided healthcare to a whole new category of faculty and employees that had never been before in the district which is always a good thing. But at the same time, it came with a sticker shop to a district like us of 740,000 at a minimum could push one million and to have to adjust for that with little notice and going to time is very difficult. There were a lot of good works happening across the district that are gonna be slowing down a bit until we can make those adjustments to accommodate that size of the bill. That's a good thing for us. My biggest concern is that, again, I think it's wonderful that folks are getting healthcare that didn't previously have it but more than likely the districts that are gonna be hit with the big bills are the ones that can least afford it. In the bigger districts, they were already able to afford offering healthcare across all categories of employees. So to them, they're potentially looking at the savings of the new 80-20 split. But for smaller districts that either weren't able or didn't offer that prior to, it's a big hit. And again, my guess is if we looked across the state, the districts that got hit the hardest were the ones that could least afford it. Just an opinion. Do you have any numbers on it? No, I mean, thankfully, that's been between the employer commissioners which the VSBA has supported and the employee commissioners that the Vermont NEA has supported. In fact, the superintendent's association has 52 members, one of whom is Wayne. We're represented in this negotiation by the employee commissioners. So there was a change there not because superintendents don't typically get the health insurance that is provided to other employees, because superintendents often work with the management side in the negotiation process. So that's been interesting. I think what I'm reminded of is something that you said about sort of a sobering presentation because if you take, let's say for example, and there's no right or wrong to this, it's just something that we need to contend with. If you had a district like this one that had cost impact of $750,000 to a million dollars. And I think Lane's point was right. I mean, basically one emphasis of this negotiation or one result of the negotiation is to get better coverage more affordably to the entire class of employees, right? At least uniformly. Yeah, yeah. So I don't think it was a good thing or a bad thing or well intended or poorly intended, but the fact of the matter is there are school districts in Vermont where folks that were in certain categories of employment, they had lesser coverage, right? So you make an adjustment of $750,000 to a million to address that. And if you think back to what I said, and I'm not trying to be alarmist, you had facilities that needed school construction aid that you hadn't been able to generate because a lot of the issues around the condition of our facilities are because decisions have been made to put the money someplace else, right? So there's a report that shows that in Vermont we've got among the higher spending in the country and one of the lesser investments in the last decade in terms of facilities. So let's say that that was a factor or condition too and you look at the results of the weighting study and all of a sudden your denominator's gonna change because in the weighting study, you're gonna have fewer equalized pupils as a result. Now that's probably not a common circumstance or condition although I don't know because a lot of the places where the redistribution of weights might benefit our more rural school systems, right? In the Northeast Kingdom, the superintendents in the Northeast Kingdom have a rural education collaborative and they have written a letter to the General Assembly saying it's now is the time to act. But when you get back to sort of the sobering effect, if you have to contend with all of those things and let's say that you're dealing in a school system which is not this one where the unification process has brought you into a new dynamic. So you were in a supervisory union with seven school boards each making decisions for a singular school and now you're a single school board trying to contend with the challenges and needs of seven schools. That's probably a good organizational structure over time but when you're faced with all these big things makes it hard to know what to do. To answer Mark's question directly, I'm not sure how memory will record or history will record the elevation of healthcare bargaining to a statewide level but it's a dramatic adjustment in many places and Elaine's the very first person I heard from when the decision was rendered by the arbitrator within two days he called me and said, I wanna tell you about what the cost impacts were here. So. Am I allowed to- Sure, of course. Yeah, this is an open discussion here. I didn't know if it was open or not. So I wanted to comment on the number that Elaine said as someone who was part of that process. When that, and I forget the exact amount that you had said it's gonna cost the district. So 150,000, thank you. Those figures are based on an assumption that I think is a false assumption and that support staff is going to take health insurance at the same level that teachers currently take health insurance and I don't believe that that's really going to happen for many reasons. The cost is a primary one. Even though all tiers are gonna be offered now to support staff, if you look at what that is gonna cost a person to buy that a higher level of coverage for example, family plan, on their salary there are still a significant number of people who cannot afford it who are going to be better off buying their health insurance through either their spouse or through the state health benefit program. So I think it's a really big mistake to say that it's gonna be at the same level that teachers take it and I forget the percentage of teachers that take family plan for example. But I know it's hot and there's no way I think it's gonna be at that same level for support staff to take that. And I do agree, I think it was of the utmost importance that people have access though to all those tiers and yes it's huge difference and there will be some costs to it but it's an important cost but not as high a cost as I think is being put out there. The other thing I wanted to say that in our particular district for professional staff it's a huge increase for health insurance. We're going from in one year paying 15% of our health care for the premiums to 20% and a 5% increase alone is gonna cost over $1,000 closer to $1,500 for a family plan. And that's a significant chunk of change to put out. I think there needs to be at the statewide level a bigger discussion as well of how to make health care affordable for all people in the state that it's a burden that gets bigger and bigger and bigger when you're putting it on public institutions and private employers. And that I think does need to be addressed at a statewide level and that we should be working towards having all people having access to high quality health care which they don't have. Add a little on to the last part of what Nora said which I think is important in all other industries. If you want to increase your market share you either have to build a better product or have better customer service or both. Health insurance is the one industry where that is not the case. They want to increase their market share year after year. The cost of actually providing the health services don't really go up anywhere near as much as what the insurance companies are charging and we're seeing an average 14% increase every year. That's the problem. They don't have to provide better service. They don't have to provide better quality of what they do provide yet they're still able to just jack up the prices year after year without providing anything different for to meet their desires in terms of their business model. And I think that's a problem. Yeah, if I get some payback when you say it like that I agree on 100% and I think everyone sitting back here is in this kind of dual position of having a lot of sympathy for where y'all are sitting because we all pay taxes, right? And we're all taxpayers and getting hit there and our health insurance costs are going off and that hurts on both sides. So I think just to really echo and to put a little bit of a more pointed question maybe to some of the legislators because I think that yeah, this issue of runaway healthcare costs is huge and I don't have the date on this but I wouldn't be surprised if someone in this room does like how much of the rising costs of education and the shrinking pie that we're talking about how to carve up and still have equity is getting eaten up by the health insurance industry. I think it's going up quite a bit faster than anybody's wages. But it's a huge problem. I think we can definitely all agree and I'm not an expert in this but as far as I can tell, it seemed like the only game in town for addressing this right now is OneCare which is a so-called accountable care organization but as some of you may have read our union along with the same place has declined to enter that because the accountability seemed like it wasn't two-way street, it's kind of a black box and so I'm just wondering like are there other options or are there things that folks are talking about and do you as representatives think that it's appropriate for the towns to be footing the bill for these rising healthcare costs out of the education budget because what seems to me is like we're having to make really tough decisions about what's important because there's not another option besides having this for-profit company take enormous sums of money and promise us that they're gonna be able to lower costs but the one thing I would add is that I know that in the governor's budget proposal they're asking for six million to plug a hole in their budget out of Medicaid funds which is disturbing as someone who teaches many, many students who use access Medicaid and knowing that the existing, there's still problems with access under the existing system so yeah, I'm just curious because I think I appreciate what you were saying. Well, I'm a little bit on one care and I can't claim to be a total expert but it's kind of a complicated entity and there's then, I don't think anybody really understands it well other than maybe the people that run one care or maybe a few people in health policy but the whole concept is to try to I guess gather as many people who are covered by insurance under one umbrella so that you have a little more cloud in negotiating and structuring and directing money to things that are I guess geared towards improving people's health rather than having them end up going to a very expensive care. That's the concept, I'm not saying it's working yet but it's, we're kind of in the early stages. There's been a lot of discussion about the one care budget and whether it's appropriate or not. I mean, ranging from their budget went up 56% this year which is true technically but it's because a lot more people are underneath that so it doesn't mean that healthcare costs went up 56%. But one care does have a cost to running it and transforming the healthcare system from something where you're getting a fee for service every time you perform something is a doctor to one that I think the state is trying to lean towards where hospitals are given X amount per person in their coverage area and they have to deal with their health for better or for worse which is supposed to incentivize them to provide more of the front end healthcare rather than the expensive back end. That's the theory again, doesn't always work perfectly. So to make that transformation there was some investment required in some systems and processes within one care that I think is that $6 million number that we were talking about which is kind of up in the air whether all of that is gonna come through. As far as I can tell, one care itself costs about $4 million to actually run administratively. And the other issue with it is that it's technically a for profit company. It really doesn't exist to make profit so it really runs more like a nonprofit. I think there's some reasons that it can't become technically on profit but there are some initiatives to try to basically make them follow all the nonprofit rules and have a little more transparency about their costs which hasn't happened yet but that's kind of the direction that I hope we're heading. The other piece is the Green Mountain Care Board which is supposed to kind of keep a cap on costs overall and I think they've done an okay job at forcing those costs controls down to at least the hospitals and some of the providers that are under their administration but they only have a limited purview of healthcare so they cover the hospitals but that's not the whole picture. So there's nothing that's forcing costs down in a dramatic way unfortunately other than couple things. So we're looking at a sort of pharmaceutical costs and prescription costs. The concept of importing drugs from Canada is one thing that's been flowing around out there. Seems like no one's actually talked to Canada about this so I'm not sure it's gonna be something that happens real fast. Do we talk again? We're trying. So there is some pressure being brought to bear in certain drugs like insulin and a couple other specialized things but again it's been a little bit here and there not a broad thing that's gonna drop your healthcare costs. The insurance rate's going up 12, 14% when everything else in healthcare is going up 3%. I don't understand what that's happening yet but I'm trying to figure it out. You think though kind of the last piece to kind of add on I'm pretty confident in the 740 number. We did a lot of research. Maybe wrongful, we can compare notes in a year or two once it's fully implemented but I want people not to forget compound interest. I now potentially have another 750,000, 740,000, a million dollars that every year when insurance goes up by 14% which has been about the average the last couple of years that I've gotta pay another 14% on top of it. So it is actually accelerating the tax increase in the town, my attic. Again that's looking at it strictly from a business perspective even the people out of it but to bring in another piece of what Nora said in terms of the workers in some cases not being able to afford it. One of the things going into the statewide negotiations that might be of value is taking a look at salary thresholds and what the percentages are. If you make a low salary and you're entitled to health insurance maybe you're not paying 80, 20 maybe you're paying 80, 15 and those that are above this dollar or not maybe you're paying 17 and maybe yeah. Income sensitivity was a really big item that was on the table and being looked at and to try to figure out a model and we had some models for how to do income sensitivity which is what you're talking about. I supported 100% I think it should happen because you're right why should someone who has a $100,000 a year salary be paying the same amount as someone who has a $16,000 a year salary? It's not equitable. There were a lot of, there were some legal issues and how the law was written that prevented it and then there was a time issue. But I think it is something that does absolutely need to be looked at and happen. But that's a suggestion if the goal of the committee is equality which it seems like. I mean that was the result of it which isn't a bad thing. Just thoughts. Any other questions? Is there any question? Yeah. Mine's not necessarily healthcare related. That's fine but it's fine. Okay, well to finish the healthcare we have somebody in our family who's on support staff my name's David Boyd for the school and so I see the numbers from both perspectives and if it's broad and like it will be offered if we're offered a family coverage it'd be a no-brainer for us today to get to maybe say hundreds of dollars a month probably compared to what I paid my employer. So I'd be surprised if most people didn't take it but so I would definitely support the income sensitivity program and so I encourage Jay and others to try to bring that up again, try to rehash it. To change the subject I have a question about the proficiency based grading. I was following it more closely a couple years ago when we were implementing it here and I was told it was mandatory and required statewide and I heard Jeff say sort of and I've been just anecdotally asking other parents and other communities and I've had more than one say no we started to implement it we didn't like it and we stopped and I said well I thought it was state we required statewide and one of them said they're just doing it kind of on the side and they do keeping with the normal A's, B's, 90's, 80's and that's what they're really using on their transcripts and I had somebody else say they're just they're not doing it at all. So I stopped following it at the state level so I guess my question is how mandatory is it and should we be considering dropping it as well? So there's a loophole in the law. Well there's no law, that's the thing right? So it's based on the rules that were put into place by the state board as a result of the education quality standards were but your question's a good one and when I query people about it I can hear what you heard so I talked to a superintendent today and I said you know they're taking a hard look at proficiency based learning and the response was educationally it's supported for how it supports kids in terms of their aptitudes their aspirations how they learn what they need to know but the grading aspect of it and how it translates to a transcript is inconsistently applied across Vermont. And I think you know it may be that the results of the legislative process will bring some clarity to it. So I didn't mean to cut you off. It's a regs a reg I mean it's the secretary of education could have quite a bit of weight to say if we weren't following through on it but there is a loophole in it and it was one of the things that I brought up my first year here in the loophole would work something like this is yeah we've gotta have the graduation proficiencies but we could state them in such a way as yeah these are our graduation proficiencies and you've met this one if you've earned a grade of a B or higher in algebra two and you know algebra one so they could have been that way which my guess is what some districts have chosen to do. There is a lot of good that can come out of proficiency based grading I am not a supporter of it I keep my mouth shut kind of on it because the superintendent's association is very strong about it I'm more kind of neutral it has great potential if done right but the way that it happened in the state was that every district ran off and had to kind of do their own creation because there was no model that anyone had kind of proposed as this is what it could look like or what it could do and so how it's kind of worked out here and some of the teachers can probably speak up that use this and disagree with me if they like is that it's an enormous amount of effort tracking putting the little check boxes in the marks inside the system for a small amount of benefit so this much effort. It hasn't been extremely easy for parents and kids to follow what it means to be say college track versus not honors versus not I think a lot of teachers are doing good work and when you ask the question but it takes the parents asking a couple of times each teacher does it a little bit differently and so I guess I would encourage the legislators to pass a bill that makes it clear that every school either has to make it part of their transcript or not because you need strength in numbers for the college admissions to really take it seriously or not you don't want to have one off school doing it when everybody else is getting away or not and a model so that it's consistent because everybody is doing it different there was no model to follow. Coming from Massachusetts they put in standards, base grades a decade ago they didn't do it at the high school level they did it at the elementary and middle school level it was never gonna fly in Massachusetts at the high school level but it is incredibly powerful at the elementary and middle school in terms of what it does and helping the teachers really whittle down to where individual kids are struggling and helping them so yeah, just thoughts. Time is about up, do other people have? Do you have another question or comment? Yes, I would love for maybe it's Jay to tell us a little bit more about the literacy focus. Sure, so we've got a couple different bills there are three different literacy bills in committee we're sort of focusing on the chairs version of it but the bill would basically require teachers to learn how to screen students in first grade and kindergarten for dyslexia and there's difficulty on that topic because there's a lack of consensus after the definition of dyslexia. We had a public hearing the other day on this bill and it was very surprising that 28 people said you should pass a bill endorsing structured literacy and just one person advocated for the alternative which I think is the status quo, that's my understanding which is balanced literacy. So I think that the conversation is in its infancy there's a lot more testimony to be taken and what I told the Randolph Union high school teachers this afternoon was that the conversation isn't slowing down right now but it's calming down and we're realizing that not taking action on a bill is an option and maybe that's the most true. I guess I would ask caution because I think anytime the state tries to legislate we create a whole bunch of new issues. Exactly and I think this is ripe for that in so many ways and I don't want to take up more time because we can talk privately. Sure, we should talk offline but I think the chair, Kate Webb, I think she was the one who led the charge sort of this urgency that we have to solve this problem because 32% of students going into fifth grade are not proficient readers. They're reading at a first grade level and to assume that that's because three out of 10 students are dyslexic I think is not realistic. I think we've got a whole bunch of different issues. Students are hungry, they're tired, maybe there's issues at home. There are other factors so I think we're talking about maybe studying the different determinants of those. Youth problems, universal pre-K may hit a lot of what you're concerned about. The one piece, because I tend to dwell on GIPACs and I do all the legislation, even the ones that I've parked on a little bit, they all came from a point of view of people putting in things to make things better but I do see that so I do want to make that statement. Good news, I think we're going to pass a tax and regulate cannabis bill which will create some revenue for some of these programs. I think the governor will advocate for that money to go towards an after school program but I think it's possible that we could massage that into a different place but there was question of, I think the tax committees were trying to suggest that the sales tax, I think they tried to rename it a retail tax in order to be allowed to divert that money to a different place. That has been nipped in the bud. So I think that money will go towards the ad fund one way or another, which is good. It was like a 20% tax, it wasn't it? I think it's pretty high, it was pretty high, I guess. Any other questions or comments for our legislators before they go? Thank you very much. Thank you. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Peter, you just said that. Thanks. You're welcome to say it. Should I? I certainly don't have to say it. You don't actually have to go anywhere. You're right, you're free now. I mean, what else do you have to teach you how to do? Maybe sleep, but maybe sleep. Don't be strangers though. If anybody wants to testify on anything, you can call me. Great. Okay, is one of us willing to be an evaluator for this meeting? It's Ash. Thank you, Anne, I appreciate it. Yeah, right. What's that we need? I'm starting to start to be a dictator here, Rachel, so watch it. I don't believe in an evaluator. I'm never gonna make eye contact with you. I'm just gonna have to have an orange. Okay, thank you. Let's move on to the follow-up with the bus route. Issue, the materials were available for anyone to look at in the OSSD office. So I would like to hear what someone bleed off the discussion with what you think we, what action do you think we ought to take as far as on a cat's bus route question? I have kind of two of your points on this. One is that my understanding after the discussion is that the bus routes are made to serve the greatest good and they can't collect every student at every time. So that's one viewpoint. And then the other thing, I think is that we've clearly identified this is something that our superintendent has the time to say on. Does anyone have something different to say or add? Well, I'll add just that I went in and I looked over the email conversations. It doesn't seem that I think everything was handled professionally. The person was responded to appropriately and it was looked into, it was checked into with the select board. And so I mean, really he's making that final decision with the input of the transportation director who is really the one who knows the routes and what the buses can handle. And the decision was made that it was not it was not an appropriate stop. So I think they've done due diligence. They've responded as appropriately and it's unfortunate but that's, you know, we can't, we can't pass everybody to their doorstep. Does anyone else have anything else to add or something different to say or additional comment? Anyone have a disagreeing point of view on this? Is someone willing to make a motion to resolve this? I make a motion in supporting Lane's decision on not changing the bus route. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor of supporting Lane's policy as stated? Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the motion carries. Thank you for everyone's look at those emails and the correspondence that's helpful. All right, so we have upcoming meetings in preparation for our, both our budget and the vote on town meeting day. There's a budget informational meeting in the media center here. Was there on the public comment section? That was the legislators. Did you want something else? I did. Let's finish this topic and then we can go. Okay. So there's a budget informational meeting. Next Wednesday? No, two weeks. Yeah, the 26th here at the media center. And then the annual meeting takes place the day before town meeting. That's Monday at 6 p.m. in the media center this year. Please try to come to that. It's important that we have as many school board members as possible. There will be towns people, should be some towns people asking questions. We will do a vote on the treasure and that sort of thing at that meeting. And then of course the budget vote takes place at town meetings in our various towns. All right. Public comment. Yes. I wanted to, and it might be too late in essence, but I wanted to make some comments about concerns that I have on the reduction of paras in the budget that's being proposed. I first want to say I really do appreciate the model that I think Lane is putting forward to change to have it be a one to three ratio of one special educator for three classrooms. I think that that could have a huge positive impact for our students. Having said that, the cost of that, I think might negate the positive impact that it can have. And by cost, I mean it's going to cost a huge reduction in para educator support. And that really concerns me as a classroom teacher. The para educators that we currently have are in place primarily as one to one supports for students with high needs. And while I agree that we don't want that in the long run, we want students to be independent. We want to work towards students being independent. And I think it's, I've heard that it's being looked at to have as part of regular meetings, to have a process to look to see and have to have goals in students' IEPs towards them gaining independence, which I think is really important. But there are, the reality is that there are students that need those one to ones, either because their needs are so high that they're not going to be able to be independent. And I'm talking about severely autistic students or students who have had trauma to a degree that it's had a huge impact on them. Or students who are intellectually impaired, developmentally impaired, who we have to be realistic are going to need that kind of support through life. And we have the job of educating them. And I think that's an important job and the job that we need to take very seriously and we need to do it to the best means possible. And for many of those students, it means having that one to one para support. And in order, that's a team decision. It's not a decision that's ever made likely. It's always made looking at how is this really necessary? Is there any other way we can give the student how their needs being at? And it's really a last resort for these students. And I'm very concerned that this is going to take away those supports that these students need. It's also a legal issue because it's a team decision. It's in students IEPs, it has to be provided. It has to be a team decision to remove that support from them. And you cannot say, we don't have the money. You have to find the money if the team decides that they need that. So where is the money going to come from? So it's going to have a negative impact on the other students in our district as well. So thank you. Do you want to respond from a budget standpoint? Or? I can, but I think at the last meeting I said my piece. So I'm happy that they should have an opportunity to be able to. Can I just ask a question? Sure, no questions. Nora, you know what his plan is. So based on what you've heard his plan is and your concerns, what would you recommend? I think having a close look at, and I think we're doing that, as I know in our school we're doing that, a close look on are there students that have para support right now that really don't need it? That can be worked towards being more independent. And I don't, it's not appropriate for me to name names. But I know of two such situations where they're saying these students really have gained enough independence that they don't need these paras. And I think it's perfectly appropriate for that para support to be removed. I think though that you can't depend on that. You could have a student move in who has those high needs again. So I'm not saying, I think there has to be some flexibility in the budget. Because I think you have those unexpected situations and you have other situations where that independence is not yet there for those kids. Thank you. Thank you. I think putting more money into the budget as hard as that is, is I guess what I would say is needed. Did you have a comment? Before Lane's time, about five years ago in the high school, we decided to cut a significant amount of para educators and hire special educators to replace them. And within two years, we were scrambling around. We didn't have enough adult support system to work with the kids that needed them the most. And the special educators were running thin and honestly from a legal standpoint, we weren't doing the best that we could do to support those students. And by hearing the cuts and thinking about it and processing it and already being gone through it within the high school, it does scare me. Because I see the needs rising among special education students and the students that need support, especially with the trauma and with emotional disturbance. And for once, I feel like I will say that since Lane has been here, he has been providing what we need from the aspect of having enough para educators, enough special educators. And now we have like the social worker in the building which has been a tremendous help and we still need more. And it's not because we're not doing our jobs, it's because we're seeing a rise with students that need this. And so just to hear the words cut again, I just, I think back that we should look of what has already happened when we have cut para educators. I mean, just in my room, I was in the intensive needs and I started out with seven para educators and I ended when I left that room with two. It just didn't work. So I think there has to be a lot of data around that. Yeah, the only piece I wanna add is just so people aren't confused, there are no cuts monetarily. Matter of fact, it's a 9% increase to the special education that has been issued here. What is happening is we are transitioning some para out and using that money to buy additional special educators because the special educators are the ones that can provide the services to the students to provide the independence that they need. In any case where a student who moves into the district, there is money available because there will always be students in the park once. So that's already been accounted for in the budget process. In fact, the number of paras that were put as kind of a general level in most models and most districts, they don't exist, it's just the teachers. I recognize that we are transitioning away from a model that is not working right now, hopefully to one that will. And so I've made sure that there are additional supports which is why there's a 9% increase to the special education budget next year to help with that transition. Again, it's not, there is no cut in terms of finances. I'm not cutting back, it has nothing to do with money. It has to do with providing better services to students. Right now the special educators at the elementary schools because I've looked at all of their schedules at BAS they're spending 15 minutes providing services to their students. You cannot change anything in 15 minutes of services. So that's the whole thing. I understand the human part of it. It's not pleasant, it's not nice, but the focus is the student. Right now, at least in terms of the analysis, we're not providing what we need. Nothing to do with the fact that the services and so fact is what they are are not valuable or important, they did. They helped us manage the system and keep it running. But they're not helping us get us to where we need. So that cut piece, I just wanted to be careful with, that's. Well, I guess I would just like to add because I know we're running out of time. And I was just, I'm not sure that it's something that the board can really change at this point in time. But I know that when you don't have that pair of support for some of those students that need it, what ends up happening is that the special educator does the job of the parent educator in that they are managing behaviors instead of providing the specialist services that are so badly needed. They're not teaching children at that point. And again, I'm concerned that with this switch and reallocation that that's gonna become worse, not better. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. So we have one other today, which if it's all right. Okay. So I was approached by a teacher at Brookfield recently with some concerns about what's happening in our little schools, Brookfield and Braintrain since we've gone from not having a full-time principal. And it's been something that's been problematic for a while now, but this was a particularly rough day for this teacher last week or the week before. There's many, many days where there is not a principal or a guidance person in the buildings for us. A lot of days we deal with that and we can manage. There's a lot of us, and I know personally at Braintrain we're very flexible and we try to pitch in when we can, but it's a big concern to not have somebody that's there always. It puts a big stress on our admin assistants who are generally the first one to be called to if there's a need with a student, especially as a behavior issue. We also don't have a full-time nurse that doesn't tend to be the bigger issue as it is behavior issues with students. It's just something that I felt, Nora and I have talked about it and thought this would be the best place to just bring it up. Just so you're aware of the situation, I feel very strongly that in both of our schools there has to be either guidance person or a principal every day in our buildings. There's just concerns that something major could happen and to put that on the rest of us that's there that are already, we're taken from our jobs to take care of that when it should be somebody that it's more on their responsibility. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's something we'll discuss. Thank you. Did you have your hand up too? No, I was just trying to get your hand up. Oh, okay. Okay. You're very nice. Okay. Anyone else? All right. Thanks very much for your comments and your concerns and your suggestions and things like that. It's really helpful for us to have people come to these meetings so that we can broaden our knowledge of what's going on in the schools. So we do appreciate it. All right. Negotiations with unions, board management governance. So we've been through first round with those support staff and with the teachers. First round pretty much consisted of an exchange of proposals. There was no rationale or justification for the proposals where that comes out in the next round that is happening. The meetings are open. Folks are able to welcome to attend as part of it. I can give a brief description of what the exchange is where, but it is in the superintendent's report. Right. I saw that. So, you know, hopefully another goal is at least from my side and the board side, hopefully is, you know, finding what's fair for the staff, what's gonna help kind of advance the ends in terms of the students that still be able to go to the taxpayer. So it's three things that we're trying to accomplish, which isn't always easy. Our hope is that it goes through. Do we have more meetings this month or? That's actually the next week. The teachers, I think we have next week. The staff, I believe, yeah. Oh, no. That's what it's all about. The support staff, that's what it's all about. Yeah, I think next Monday we have an e-mail. We have an e-mail this week. Oh, you did? Yeah. What I'll do is I'll e-mail that around so that everybody has what, Kara? Nineteenth. Nineteenth, yeah. Okay, so coming up. Same as the forum, thank you. All right. The board member orientation discussion was something that we started, I believe, last time in the policy governance training, just sort of discussing what it is that new board members need to know and how that time ought to be structured. I'm particularly interested in hearing from the newer board members of what would you like from, or would you have liked to have had sort of as an introduction to the way this board runs? Well, I did the training in Montpelier. Is that where I was in the training? That's fair too. That was really helpful. I think that was a good start. And I don't know how often they offer those. And then, I think I entered at a really awkward time, but generally, wait, I'm gonna put it. It's been generally when we started moving on to having regular maybe trainings at the end, I started to get more understanding of what it was, rather than just sitting and reading through a manual. It helped to go through those exercises, and it really was useful to talk that out. So I would say to do more of those, or at least include those maybe special with just new board members who have been here for less than X amount of time should have their own separate meeting, that's too much for everyone to get together. Okay. Did you have the same experience? Anything else that you would wanna suggest? I guess both Brian and Ashley came in sort of at the same, you know, also recent, or even? I mean, I think I might have been a little bit different because I would have been coming to the meetings for over a year, and I did a lot of research about policy governance on my own. Yep, yeah. So, you know, when I started, I kinda had a head start on my own of it, so I was able to follow along pretty easily. Mm-hmm. Anything more or different suggestion you would have to? I would definitely think if someone wasn't, you know, had at least the knowledge of it, something would be real handy, there may be a class or something. Yeah, the training was useful, and also meeting with other people from different boards was helpful, again, that different perspective. Yeah, I thought that VSPA training was well done. So maybe we should sort of make sure that people do attend those. Yeah, because the governance policy is brand new from where I come from, so it was eye-opening. I did, I would certainly take advantage of training if there was something along those lines. I found that our meeting that we had a couple months back, I can't remember now, with Sue. Yeah, oh yeah, the facilitator that came. Yes, I actually found that to be very helpful because I think coming into this and trying to navigate what our responsibilities are, but really to understand that communication with the community, with staff, the expectation of Wayne, those are the types of things that would be helpful for me to understand what those boundaries are, and expectations truly. And especially with, I think you and I are in the same boat with a student right in the middle of the school system. Yeah. That's what I found was the most difficult is switching the hats between a parent and a board member. Yeah, that is challenging. But it's really important, I think, to have people with kids on this board. Absolutely, and people who have children who are already out of the system. So don't get any ideas about leaving. Any other ideas as far as onboarding new members? For policy governance, we use this in everybody to Atlanta. They don't offer that anymore. Did they offer the one in Canada? Was it Canada? No, now you can do an online. That's all they have now is the online. Wow. That was really helpful. Yeah, Atlanta. Atlanta was really helpful. It was very helpful. It was in February. It was in October, it was lovely. Yeah, well, Sue would probably do something. She would come down. I think one of the things when I was a new board member, I was a long time ago, after the first couple of years, I ended up joining the VSBA board. So that really was interesting. That broadened my perspectives on what's going on in the state and connecting with other board members. And I think if you ever feel the need, the, you have the time and the ability to do that, that's good for anybody to do. I think it really was helpful just to see what the struggles are around the state and kind of appreciate what's going on here and being able to talk about policy governance with people who may not even be in policy governance. It really helps focus on how we're living it, too. So that's the state. The VSBA board, yeah. It's the state board, school board association. So they meet every month. Alrighty. Thank you. And I guess you're running. So maybe you'll be the beneficiary of the orientation. It's fine. Next, we have two EL reports that are new, so that we will read them this month and vote on them next month. Yeah, anything to add? They're both on kind of the financials, financials which make sense because we're just kind of wrapping up at least the board's portion of the budget season. But EL 2.3 is financial conditions and activities. Really kind of focuses on making sure that we're paying the bills on time, collecting monies that are owed to us in a timely fashion and that we're actually sticking to the budget that was set forth and that the budget was created around supporting the board's ends. Nothing to report all is in compliance in terms of EL 2.3. Executive Limitations 2.6 is on asset protection. It's making sure we're protecting our assets, both the money but the facilities as well. Making sure that we're doing proper maintenance, we're carrying the proper amount of insurance to cover us in case there's liability. And then lastly, ensuring that the processes and the procedures that we have in place, all have dual controls, got more than always more than one person looking at it. So at this point in time, that's in compliance as well. The biggest thing, I mean, there was a budget impact to try to make sure that it stayed in compliance. Then that was the 32,000 and the groundskeeper that we added to the budget this year. The 32,000 was to make sure that we were actually providing facilities with what they needed, what they're actually spending on basic things like supplies and whatnot. And then the groundskeeper is needed so that they do not have to keep pulling custodial staff to actually do that work. The schools are hurting a little bit this year because of that. So board members, please read these reports over before our March meeting and please go into the OSSD office and look at those binders with all the backup information that will support his reports there, his monitoring reports. That would be great. Moving on to the consent agenda. We have the minutes from our last meeting. If people look them over, see if there's anything we need to add or subtract or change. We need to approve signers for tentative agreements. What is that, Linda? Sorry about that. So the confidential master agreement? No, signer for the regents. I was reading ahead to check my notes. Signers for tentative agreement. So while we are sitting in negotiations with both the support staff and the teachers, there will be times where we agree on language. At that point in time, it's required that people that have the authority to do so can actually sign off on the wording right then and there so that it's locked into place. And so what we need is we need the board to vote in signers for that. The recommendation is Pietro and if he's not there, me. And again, if there are tentative agreements, there is nothing that's permanently locked in. Everything still has to come back to the full board for a vote before it's finally approved. But it just helps the process along and adds legitimacy to it. Does anyone have questions about this? Concerns? So you would propose having Pietro with you as a backup? Yeah, and just, you know, Pietro had a massive conflict on the support staff night, so I was there. So that's the only reason you've been having me on there. I'm usually just a recommending person. The board is the one that really has the authority to agree. So you guys on these negotiation boards, is there any, do you have any concerns about this? No, whenever we have the negotiation, Pietro and Lane always ask us for our tentative approval. And all it is is Pietro is usually our point person. So he's the one that always talks. So it'd be odd for say, me or Brian to then sign. Okay. The whole time we would just be sitting there silently and then all of a sudden we sign. Which is what we did on our last meeting because we didn't have anybody. So I was the vice chair. So they said, okay, you sign since we have no agreement. So I think the agreement with Pietro doing is, makes the most sense. Yeah, and he understands the language the best. Exactly, yeah. So is that just a vote that we need to take or do we need to sign off on giving him that? I don't know, just a vote as part of the consent agenda. Okay. But you're delegating authority. Okay. Hopefully we can approve these all together, but perhaps we need a special vote for this reserve funds for the driver's ed car. So the driver's ed car two weeks back was rear ended in Montpelier. Was not the fault of our driver. Is it a student driver? Of course student driver. Oh, that's all we had. But they got the forms of the process for that. So the car ended up being totaled. So it was a 2011 Camry. What we need right now is we've got students that are in driver's ed that do not have a car to drive to different powers. Okay. So surprisingly that 2011 Toyota Camry was worth $9,800. What? So that money will be applied towards the purchase of the new. But how this is worded, what we need to do is try to draw from the transportation reserve fund. I'd like to get all the money for the car up front so that we can purchase it tomorrow. And then what we will do is when that $9,800 check comes in from the insurance company, we put it right back on the reserve fund. Okay. The board is willing. That makes a lot of sense. So there is an outline of the costs and whatnot on the issue there. He's looking for a RAV4 as opposed to a car because SUVs are typically what people drive now. The other piece that's new in the curriculum is that they have to be familiar with all the gadgets, especially the anti-collision devices and things like that. So we're trying to get a car that has those on it so the kids who are familiar with that. These at Union, of course. It's new. It's from the state contract so it doesn't have to go out today. Okay. So what's the state contract? The state negotiates with certain vendors around for the best price. And when that happens, we don't have to go out to bed when the cost is over $15,000 because the money's at the best price. Is that this one? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I think that's a might be able to report this that's going up a bit. Yep. So you're saying this, about $25,000? Yep. Okay. You're welcome to run on that road. Just... And then again, what'll happen is if we approve it for the full amount, the 9800, when that check comes in, we'll go back and we'll just try to speed up the process so we can make sure that this goes for another hour or so. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve this special allocation of money from the reserve fund for this? On the driver's side car? So... Can I make that motion? Second. You make that motion. I just went through this. And you're second. Yep. Same thing. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion carries. And we've got transportation reserve funds, and this is for the Ford F-250 truck. Yep. It's an additional truck. We have a couple of the numbers that are driving their personal vehicles around a 55 cents a mile. The trucks are fairly inexpensive on state contract. Plus it's another good vehicle to have. We usually outweigh them with a snow plow and the sanders on the back. They can help out in the winter time. That work. So this would be coming from the same transportation reserve fund as the car. There's currently 1.1 million in there right now. Typically what that money is used for is there's about 4,000. Actually, that's in the regular budget. But that money is used for is typically bus replacement. But we do budget in the regular budget for bus replacement anyway. Any other questions for laying on this request? You guys got to wake me up tonight. I'll make that motion, too. All right. I'll second that one. Just because. That one's under state contract. Ford F-250 truck. All right, so Rachel, move that. I'll second it. All those in favor to approve this? Aye. Any opposed? OK, that carries as well. Then we've got the confidential master agreement. This was for what we call the confidential employees. Yep. Seven employees, primarily the confidential secretaries. It was just a couple of wording changes. A lot of it was to bring it more in line with what the support staff and the teachers have. So the only wording changes are this. The first is to make it a two-year agreement. The state will be renegotiating health care in two years. So it's not prudent to actually have agreements that go beyond that because we don't know what the financial impact of those negotiations will be. The next change is allowing them to carry their yearly vacation leave through Labor Day. Right now, they have to have it used up by July 1st, or they lose it, which doesn't make sense that they've got that whole summer there, and they can't use it during the summer, which is what we'd rather have them out anyway if they're going to be out. Makes sense. Provides three days of bereavement leave. They have no provision for any kind of bereavement leave under any category at this point in time. And that's exactly what's in the support staff contract. And then the last thing is just making sure that the health care coverage is in line with the new state agreement. Any questions about this confidential employee agreement? Let's approve this outside of the consent agenda as well. So do I have a motion to approve the confidential staff appointment agreement? Employment agreement. I make a motion to approve the confidential master agreement. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? OK, that carries as well. So let's go back and approve the minutes if there are no amendments to those and the signers for tentative agreements being the ATRO and if necessary, Lane, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion to approve the consent agenda. I'm kind of hogging the motion. No, go for it. I'll second that. All those in favor, aye. Opposed? All right, moving on to reports and incidentals. Lane, did a lengthy superintendent's report do you have anything to add or elaborate on in that? No, just a little piece on the financials. I did follow up the lettering order. It's just making sure that the lettering in the detail matches the lettering on the summer page, which makes sense. There is one court there that I want to point out. If you go to E on the expenditures page up towards the top under driver's education, if you take a look, it says that it is overspent by $5,394. Let's talk a little bit about why that was today because that shouldn't be occurring. They were accidentally drawing the benefits, the health care benefits, for that position from this line. So that will be corrected in the next report. For whatever reason, they figured that's where it should be being pulled from. It's not. It should be being pulled out of the health care when everybody else is. So that'll be corrected next month. Other than that, everything is where it should be. Where it will go over halfway through the year, 48% of the budget has been spent, which is not what should be. It should be 150% to take a little bit. So are those questions on that or superintendent's report? In the report, Lane, you mentioned over time, they should reduce the cost for the support staff or special education service delivery at the elementary schools. Based on what Nora was saying, what were your thoughts? She's asking for it sounds like take your time doing it. And I didn't get the impression that you were talking about eliminating a whole bunch of people immediately. There are six support staff. We have 26. So to put it in. Are you talking about parents here? Not in parents. So we have six parents. Is that what you said? So I want to put it in perspective. There's 26 parents across the district. We currently have one para for every three to four special education students. Extremely high. It's not unusual across the state of Vermont. And one of the reasons it's not unusual was because para's were less expensive. So what would happen is a student would move into the district and put a para on them. They manage the situation, but the student's not getting any better. They're keeping the kid and they can focus while they're here, they may do some learning. But the true issue that the student has, they're not learning the skills. They could become independent with a para. And so all we're doing is we're taking six of those para's using that money to purchase an additional 2.5 special educators who can provide that service. Am I 100% sure that that matrix is right for next year? No. We'll have to adjust it a little bit after we learn through next year, but I purposely overdid it. I tried to make sure they had much more than they needed, especially given there was a transition here. So six para's, but again, they're being transferred into purchasing special educators. Nora's comments, which is correct, is that there are the behavioral issues. But we've tried to put in supports for that in previous years, right, like the therapeutic program. We've got the adjustment counselor here. And we've been building in those parts and pieces because even the special educators with some of those students, they can't deliver those services. We're also hiring a school psychologist. The reason being is that they can work with some of the heavy hitters. Again, those are services that a special education teacher is not going to be able to provide in terms of emotional disturbance. Right now, they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on contracting out of district to try to provide those services for the students. I can hire a teacher from the school psychologist to bring in 93,000, including benefits, to do the same job, get more out of them, and help the kids. So that's kind of where we're at. Is that going to be a district-wide employee? Yep. So that person will serve all the schools. So what they're going to focus on primarily is the higher-level testing that has to go on. The students have to be tested. And then if there's time left over, if there's one or two or three big heavy hitters in the district that really need some psychological service and their service delivery grid, they'll be able to provide that. It doesn't mean that we're not going to be able to get away from contracting out, but it should cut the cost significantly. Because that's a huge cost. That's contracts out. $100 to $300 an hour. Yeah. I have a question about the allocating of our principals. I mean, we now have three elementary school principals. And I thought that meant that those principals were assigned to the smaller schools. They are. But principals are sick. And principals also go off to their trainings. So those are days that there's not that body in the school. I'm typically out anywhere from one to two days a week at different conferences and whatnot serving my capacity across the state with the VSA that Jeff Francis runs and whatnot. So there is a legitimate concern on that piece. It's better now than it was, but it's not perfect. Guidance, we increased last year to help out. So that was one of the big staff increases that we have last year. Is there guidance in the elementary schools? Hard time. We increased it the full time last year. Well, I know Brookfield doesn't have a full time person. She's shared between Bray and Tray and Brookfield. Yeah, I have to go back and look. But her time between the two schools doubled last year. We've been trying to build it in as we can. The nursing piece, we're within what the acceptable limits are for nurses for kids. But it is not ideal. I mean, that certainly could be addressed. They have not talked about it before. They didn't mention the principal piece before today here. It was one of the things I was working on anyway as of last year. Yeah, I feel like we had that. Yeah. The nursing piece is an important one, I think that's going to have to be brought up just because of the number of students that we serve that have critical needs in our enrollments are going up. So that changes things as their enrollments go up to the only poor staff. So you're Brookfield and Bray and Tray sharing? Nurses that hold up? Yep. Any other questions for Lane? Yeah, in Brookfield, I think there was usually three days only for Laura. There was not a visit there. So that was about one day. He's got a 80% rule, he's got a 30% rule. Is that right? When you're having your superintendent forums, are folks coming? And these are means questions. These are about how are you running the schools? They're not really, I mean, it's information for us to know, but you're deciding these. This is the first time the faculty have mentioned principal or nurse to me. Do you engage some with the staff? I mean, have the staff come to you from the small schools to say our principal's not? I'm one of the big things this year. They usually show up at the open forums, the ones that are just like we had tonight. But a big thing this year is quarterly is going in and having a full faculty meeting. They had one with the elementary, the second round, a few weeks back for about an hour and a half, and that was an open forum sort of session. We did talk a lot about the special education changes and the reason for it and what we're open to accomplish at that point in time, so yeah. Is that done with their principal, present typically, or is this? They were there, there was nothing in the conversation that they wanted to have that would have been affected by that. At the time, they're not shy. And they're good people. They got a lot of good insights and things. But no, that was one of the big things this year is quarterly is getting in front of a full faculty to talk about what we're working on, talk a little bit about data on the first meeting, especially with the elementary, combined elementary, was really just giving them a lot of credit for how well things have advanced academically in the schools the last two years. That was a come along way. They're surging in terms of the performance of the kids. Anything else? Okay, our self-evaluation. Your last, yeah. Wow. I think we did very well. I think we followed our agenda. We didn't get sidetracked. We stuck to, and when we did backtrack on the agenda, it was for the, you know, to the purchase of public engagement, which is an excellent reason to do so. We didn't, there was no one person dominating the discussions here. We all were open and honest and trusting with each other. There was no disrespect or discardious behavior. And that is to our highest standards. So kudos, that was a good thing, good board meeting. Thank you to both Melody and Anne for your service on this board. We'll miss you both. You might see me out there. Is this it? Yeah. It's the last one. Wow. Maybe you'll come to the budget informational meeting. Yes. Yes, we will miss you in our regular board meeting. Thank you so much for all that you've done.