 have you called the order? Okay good. Call to order Rochester Stockbridge Unified District Board of School Directors Monday October 3rd 2022 at 5 30 p.m. Stockbridge campus or via Google Meet and we'll call it to order at 6 5 32. Any adjustments to the agenda? As far as you know, Jamie, we did add in school about the drivers that I would stress on. And are you, during your report, can we talk? Yeah, and we have the full board report too. Okay, I'll hit a few items in the event. I probably got to be with Granville Hancock for about 25 minutes tonight. Okay, starting at 6 30. So I'll try to highlight a couple things in the event that the timings look like I may not be hearing. Yeah, okay. Prove the minutes of Monday, September 12th 2022 regular meeting. What's your pleasure on those notes? Second. Any discussion? Is there anybody got extra pen? Thank you very much. No discussion. All in favor of signify by saying aye. Thank you. I just have it. Do we have any public comment? Do we have any public here? Let's see unknown. Who are you a member of our public? It's Mitch. Who's a Mitch? Mitch Scanlon. Oh, hi, Mitch. I couldn't recognize you with the light behind you. You looked angelic with your halo of light. Do you have any comment at this point in the meeting? Yes? No. No, I don't. I had to turn my mic on. No, I don't. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. I don't see any phone numbers, so I think you're okay. Board comment. I just want to say it was a real education to go to the State Board of Ed hearing just to see the dynamics, to see what they're talking about, to see where they are, to actually see Mr. French. And it was also rather shocking the result. I was really, I actually woke up Saturday morning like what? So I can tell you, I was not shocked. I expected that, but really that we're still on that one because I, the report came back to us and it said, well, we'd let go a bunch of people and I was like, wow, great, we're done. And then it was like us and Mount Abe and the Addison. Yeah, central. And so, and basically the bottom line is that it says that all three of those need to prepare to be ready to take Lincoln in as of July 1st, 2023, because they're going to make a decision. So, this is sad to say I've already started some of my process. I've talked to Tim Calibro that I think this is an interesting article. I've talked to the education reporter, Ed Vermont Digger, saying I think this is a very interesting education. I think there's a lot of shadows of Act 46. It is our hope to really get this word out. The next hearing will be in November, I think the 15th or something like that. I would really hope that we can load that auditorium with people because I feel personally, and you would have a much more accurate assessment of this, I feel that this would seriously imbalance our SU and really challenge the ability to keep good people, to keep our budgets straight, and to deal with really, if I may say so, is not a cooperative board. The point I made when I spoke was that when Ripton came to us, they talked to Jamie, they met with the SU board. I think they even visited the schools, didn't they? They definitely came to us. Yeah, yeah, and just were so ready to work with us, and they also made a very clear stipulation that they didn't want to join any place where they were, somebody felt forced that they had to be. Lincoln is very different. They want a problem solved for them. They feel that somebody else should be doing it basically, and they're not having an approachist at all. So I really hit me hard, and I think it's probably you'll calm me down, as you always do, with your rational approach, but I do really believe we need to get to educate our public all across the SU. Everybody needs to know about this issue. It's not something that's just something that can be around the board chairs anymore, because I really do believe it has a chance to really disturb us, and all the great work we have done and gotten to this point, and finally gotten to a sort of calm place. Look forward to learning more about it then. You were there Bill. Yeah, I concur totally. I'm a little bit more not bullish, but feeling that the state board is fully capable, and with the Secretary of Education to make the right decision, and the right decision clearly isn't for the students, the taxpayers, to have Lincoln join us. The distance between alone really removes most of the efficiencies that is drove at 46. They want quality education, but they want efficiencies to lower the cost per student. Well, how do you do that? How do you share with when you're 26 or you're an hour away, and the culture and community, how do you link up? One thing that's strong about us is that we see ourselves, we have two communities, but we're one educational community. It's pretty hard to link up with Lincoln. That's on the other side of 125 and up the hill. I've driven that, and in the summertime it's nice in a sports car, but I'll tell you that. I hate to say it. One thing that just to share is that Sarah Root, who's the Vice Chair of the SU Board, suggested that we put together a letter writing campaign to the State Board of Education about this matter, and I think that's a great idea, and it basically follows your idea about letters to the editor. The letters that we can send to the State Board of Education are the same letter that we can send to Tim, letters to the editor, so we get two strikes on that. One is to educate the educational community about what's at stake, as well as educating the State Board, and I think nobody is better equipped in doing that is the six of us. If we each could compose one letter, that would help get there, and through you, sir, I really think that the State Board would be listening very much to our principle about how do you do that when you're on a mountain range away? I was just going to say, I think the next presentation of Big Mapper, I think we have Big Mapper with me. I think they've heard us. Oh, okay, you really do? I do. I think that they've heard our challenges because it wasn't their list. They asked Lincoln to give them. Oh, thank you. It's a big distinguisher. Okay, thank you. And we are a supervisory union. They don't like to disrupt unified districts to make them into. And so essentially, the two that are left on the list are the two closest supervisors. Okay. But it wouldn't hurt to help our hand a little bit. No, absolutely. But I do want to say, I felt heard by the State Board. I felt heard when I spoke. I think that they share many of the same concerns. I think what they're doing is is doing due diligence to make this important decision. I think it's also important to remember ripped in was in the same situation in the State Board appointed them their own supervisory district. That was the recommendation by Secretary French. And that's what they did. So there is that option as well. So there's four options. There's having that actually talk to you and rejoin back in the Mount Abraham Unified School District. They could appoint one of the two closest SUs. They could deconstruct Mount Abraham Unified School District into a supervisory union, or they could appoint Lincoln to be their own operating supervisory district, which is what they did with ripped in that. So if we look at historical decisions in the last eight months, they want would be you made this decision, you left a unified district. There's not anyone saying that this works for them. So you're going to be your own supervisory district. I do want to commend our chair. Ethan, you're right. This is important. We can't. This is not something to say it's going to be okay. We've got to make sure it's okay. And the other thing is the board's role, we don't run the schools. We don't go in the classrooms. And by the way, to walk around the classrooms, I just beam from year to year. I just feel like a kid again. And I want to talk to you more seriously about your spelling program that Jenny Five works doing because I need some help. But one of our roles as a board is to lead the political process, educate the political process, advocate. And this is one way we can do it. And we're not only talking to the state, we're talking to our people that live in our communities that might not be aware of what special things are going on here. I don't think anybody is aware of what this is. I'm not even clear of it either. I do want to find out we are a board comment though. And I'm hoping we have more discussion. Thank you. Good point. Yeah. And I also, as you know, those of you who have been with me throughout, I tend to, you know, go along everything's fine. And then I when I see a problem, I jump on it, you know, like the high school building, like some of the other things we've faced, like the unmerger. So I'm really glad to hear how you feel and how you take and I think we have to do our work diligence. But that's great because I do want to make certain it's noted. I do think the state work. Because that's what I that's what I felt like when I saw it. And I just, okay, good. Thank you very much. Thank you. It's just good. I just, my board comment was I'm wondering if when we get sent out the email that has all of the reports, if we can also include the minutes from last meeting, I know they get sent out separately. That's wonderful. That was like almost a month ago. So it would be really nice to be able to have them again. Thank you so much. You know, I've heard that feedback. Thank you. Thank you. Good. Then let's move on. Oh, wonderful. Hey, great to see you. Enlighten us. You're you're muted now, I think. Yes, I just unmuted. So I'm here to discuss a little bit about what's happening in the third grade math classroom. And we start our day just getting kids to be thinking mathematically. And often kids are so concerned with Oh, no, please don't show that right now. Please don't show that take that down. Whatever your yeah, thank you. Yeah. In a moment, you can share that. So we're always trying to get kids to be thinking mathematically and thinking deeply about numbers and number relationships, etc. So we start our day with a number of the day. Okay, here's the answer. I already gave you the answer. The answer is 24. So then the kids have to come up with some kind of equation, some math problem, a word problem, something that the answer is 24. And so that's how we start our day. They come in, they get their books out, and they just go to work and they can write on the way I have places on the wall with graph paper, I places on the wall that are plain, or they can write on a little sheet of paper and post it on the wall. And so I'm just going to ask all of you to do that right now. If you have a scrap piece of paper, the answer is 24. Create a problem. I was just doing some of this with Wilder the other night. So it was really fun. I love the idea of the answer first. Right, because some kids are real answer grabbers and they think that's what math is. They just have to find the answer. So if you give them the answer to begin with, then they can then start thinking. How many do you want? Okay, so someone share. Go ahead and share. Yeah, go ahead, Ethan. 48 divided by 2 is 24. Wonderful. 12 times 2 is 24. All right, Midge. I just bought two dozen eggs. How many do I have? One. Kind of thinker. Good for you. How many years will it take to get to 24 months? Oh, right. Oh, that's true. I reversed it. Two years represents how many months. You have to think like Jeopardy, right? Okay, so I want to tell you that in third grade, it's a big year where they are really moving from just thinking additively. Like they're very, very used to adding and subtracting, adding and subtracting from second grade. And in third grade, our program starts right out in our number corner where they are actually having to start multiplying right away and seeing from day to day to day, there's something going on multiplicatively. And then in the next month, October, and I've got to tell you, I don't know everything about this whole year program. You could ask me anything about fourth and fifth grade, sixth grade math, but third grade's new to me. So I'm just, I'm catching on, but I love seeing where I'll be taking the kids for fourth grade. So I already know that program, which is helpful. In the October calendar collector piece, they're going to start thinking fractionally as well, because they're going to be starting to measure what fraction of a leader they fill with water each day. And so there's so much, it's so rich, this program. So I have kiddos that are, you know, from the spectrum, still very much in additive reasoning, and they, they create these equations with that they think the longer the better, and they could have like seven, eight, nine numbers going on in there, but it's all adding and subtracting, adding and subtracting. So now if you would like to put up that share of the number of the day, grade three. And I have two examples here. One is a 424 and one is for 145. So I'll focus on the 24. And if you can notice, one kiddo right at the top is already thinking multiplicatively. Six times four is 24. Another child wrote 30 take away six is 24, but the three is backwards. So you know, you get the gamut of, and that will shift up, that will be changed. But I thought, I just wanted you to see kind of the gamut. Here's one 20 plus one plus one plus one plus one equals 24. Then we have a child 1.5 times 16 equals 24. And the, I said, wait, wait, wait, you have a better one, I have a better one. And I said, don't erase it, don't erase it, get another piece of paper. So then he wrote 0.75 times 32 equals 24. Oh my goodness. I've got some work to do to keep this child challenged. And I'm working on it. I'm keeping there. But you know, I gave him a problem today that was like, who he said, this is the easiest problem you've given me so far. Okay. And it's algebra. So then you see another one, 25 take away one equals 24. So we just talk each day about their equations. And I don't go into depth on the child who is super challenged. But I said, how did you know that 1.5 times 16? And then what did you do to these two numbers? They changed a lot to 0.75 times 32. He said, I cut one in half and doubled the other one. We'll be talking about that about with easier numbers, of course, for the other kids as they get into multiplicative thinking. So that's just a little snippet of what's going on in third grade math in Rochester. Wow. That's really fun. Yeah. It is fun because it really gets a lot of discussion going. And the kids talk with one another and they want to know. Do they see like did the other kids see the 1.5 times 16 equals 24? Yeah, it's all that would be really and then did they sort of go, huh? And then they figured it out or I have one other student who is thinking in these same kinds of terms as this student. And so it's raising that child up to be challenged. And they're kind of going at it with each other and having discussion and talking about decimals. And they're trying to relate that to fractions now. So and they're like pushing each other. And in other problems that have come up, they're starting to add fractions and multiplying fractions in their equations. Great. Wow. Yeah, it kind of wows me to when I say third graders doing this. It's like, ooh, there's some good number sense going on right there. Well, I was just, I'm going to say that tape measure, you know, tape measure. Yeah, I did. We had an incredible shop program in my elementary school and measuring was a huge part of that. And measuring is a big part of this program too. It happens both in the main program and it happens in what we call number corner. So we have almost two hours of math every day for third grade. Nice. That's great. Wow, thank you very much. Thank you so much, Faye. You're welcome. It's very fun stuff. That's great. Hope to come have you back like, you know, maybe mid mid spring or something and see where you went. Well, I'll tell you, I spend a lot of time looking for challenging problems because as this child starts to get the least bit bored, I just pull one right off. Oh, they're tagged up right here behind me. And I just pull one off and we tape it into his journal and he goes about solving it. And it's really fascinating to watch these great minds really growing. So all right, that's all I have for tonight. Thank you. Much appreciated. Thank you. Bye bye. Celebration of learning. Thank you so much for those. So good to have them back. Superintendent, report. So you have my report in hand, a few highlights. And then there's a bunch of things that will be on the agenda. But one highlight is just a reminder that the full board retreat is on October 20th at 5.30 as well in South Wilton. That was discussed at the last full board meeting just to get that on your calendar. So that would be retreats in back to back weeks as we're scheduled. One more time again. 5.30. 5.30. 5.30 for the 20th. And we're up on the 13th. Yeah. And that's on your agenda. And I forget, they're both in person only. Yeah. That's the whole point. So there's that reminder to take a look at the draft strategic plan and provide feedback on the feedback form. I'm going to have a letter in the Herald next week to reminding the community where they can find the draft strategic plan and where they can provide feedback. What's that? I'm sorry. Go ahead. And I'll push that all out again. Yeah. I must say I missed it first time this second time the third time and then I found it because you kept saying it's there. So yeah, you were absolutely correct, sir. And I just was fumbling a question on the our feedback on the strategic plan. What do you suggest be our how we do? What's the process for our feedback? Can we go through our chair? Here's a Google share. It was shared with you too. So I'll have Ray push that out. Okay. We created a form that allows you to get feedback on several different components of it. Okay. And so that will go directly back to it'll go back to me and it designates if you're a board member, community member, staff member or parent. And I would think that our thoughts need to be shared to our fellow board members. Is there a way to do that? Or we just CC? CC. Yeah. Okay. And when do you need to have that to fit your your time scheduled to come up with a second draft? My goal would be to try to take the feedback at least that I have thus far and have it in the second draft to share at the retreat. I know twice my caffeine was there. So we need to get going maybe a week from to be nice to have it from well yeah ideally by the 13th that gives me a big turnaround. So gives you a little more. If he could do that again, that would be great. No, I did you same thing. I'll push it back out. And you didn't see it. See what it's just strategic plan on the Google reply. Okay. So somehow we missed it. Well, I might have seen if I didn't click into it. I sent it as a PDF and then it's also embedded the the form drill embedded in the letter I sent to the community. Oh, okay. That's where I've seen the links to it. So I apologize. I'm not sure if it's all it is. Anyway, um, yeah, that's report. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So the community has it and we're getting feedback already from the community. So but we'll mention it in the Herald two just because I want to get as much stakeholder feedback as we can as we as we keep working on drafting. I mean, I'm expecting three or four drafts. Sort of what I'm feeling. Is this like a policy? This is treated like a policy. It's different. No, it's different. Okay. Feedback form. Oh, yeah. I'm not seeing that either. It's in the letter. There's a link. Yeah. Have this. This. Oh, there's a whole community. Okay. Go to the community letter. We always copy you on that just before it goes. It just sends it out like, yes. Last week. It's too bad. The board will treat the cancer because of ESBA regional meeting was that same night. And I was going to go and then I realized, oh, we had the retreat and then the retreat was canceled, but I couldn't register at that point. Anyway, it was that. Yeah. I registered for the annual meeting, but at night it's, it's basically, as far as I can tell, socialization and entertainment. They have a series of workshops. Some too bad because they're all at one at the same time. So you can't have more than one, but they're in the afternoon of the 20th. I think at one o'clock. So if you want to drive up there, and I also think that they're all going to be on a web, you know, an available later on if we want to go in our through a zoom link and just go up there on our, on our laptops and do it. But yeah, it looks the meat of the program on Thursday appears to be in the afternoon. Okay. Interesting thing on Friday on a student form that they brought together and they created a kind of a program and then they're going to break us out into groups and I must say I'm, I haven't been around older kids, high school kids, middle school kids. I'll be fascinated what they're thinking about, what they're concerned about, what turns them on and off. And so that's, that's on a Friday morning on the 21st, I think at nine to noon maybe. So that's another thing you might want to look at. We often have gotten a, a mailer from the Vermont School Board Association that gives the annual meeting agenda, so to speak. Anything more, Jamie? Just that we're, we're starting a budget season reminder, you're going to get your first draft and by not hearing when you start to go through that that is focused on salary and benefits. And it's that budget, that budget, those budget expenses are based on what we have for a ratified contract. So those are real dollar figures based on the staff we have. Libby will talk to you about what some of those proposed changes are. And this, this is like draft one of student support based on the feedback that we get. Remember next month you get draft two of student support and the draft of the rest of your faculty and staffing for all the rest of the programming in November. Then you get the whole budget in December and then you get a second draft of the whole budget come January. So I just wanted to review that timeline and how we do it. And so this is just one piece, but there are some changes on these proposing, I'm sure they'll speak to the board as to why around that. And the, the other thing is EIs not joining us tonight, but I have updates on the work that's going on by EI code that I can hit two. So if I'm not here, like I said, I'm only going to be down 25 minutes. I don't have solid numbers yet because we're finally setting up the last revenue grants that we've been told we're going to get. But I want to make certain we secured those. So you'll have all real numbers in November and Eric will be here in person again in November. Good. The other thing I'll mention is that the, as far as you're building any facilities, the fire alarm system, we're still on a part on that quarter. Still in the pipeline, we're still good. The fire system's functioning, just not functioning at the level we wanted to in regards to it. So it works. If there was a fire, it trouble, like it sounds. That's not the problem. The problem is that our provider that oversees our security systems, the alarm system tells it that it's in trouble all the time and it's not in trouble. So it's really a nuisance on that other backside too. And so it's time to repair it and redo it. And so I just want you know, we're continuing to move forward with that. The other thing is, is that the repair to the boiler, a big chunk of that was done at Rochester last week. They need to come back on Wednesday to finalize it. So those are a couple of things that I want to make certain that I got out there Question I have for you that I forgot to ask to the SU meeting. How is the new schedule working for you? Are you getting home more? Oh, it's great. Good. Thanks for asking. Yeah, no, no, no. My evening balance of being actually to go to you know, one of the kids sporting events, like I didn't get to anything last two years, not like maybe one or two. This was the whole point. I can now go to a sporting event, which is pretty special. I'm very happy. It's been it's been actually really great because that's one of the things how everybody working together. Very good. Thank you. I'm glad that and not just for me. I think Tara would speak. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I would ask this. I'm so happy for all of you that this is working. We're actually happy with 530. I think a lot of us getting home. Okay. Yes. Good. Any questions for the superintendent on his report? I advise you once a month, I'm going to ask a question having to do with a term or a phrase that I don't understand. So that my question to this is on the second page based on a community school grant act 67, we're partner with the big picture learning. And I don't have a clue what and the goal of that is to increasing our students opportunities for mentoring and authentic learning, which are just core principles. So can you just briefly tell us what's big picture learning? Yeah, thanks. So big picture learning is out of the big picture schools that actually came from this essentially magnet process in Rhode Island around taking this concept that students would essentially create personalized learning plans that would embed proficiencies, core content areas at the high school level through action projects. And so what we're there is a big picture. Actually, Rochester had we had Andy West was was running. And so there has been a really successful big picture school in South Burlington for a number of years. And so big picture is now across the country doing consulting on this concept. Is it consultants or is it a program? It's actually a school system. They create these these magnet schools. But what they're doing for us is consulting with us in regards to they have created some really great digital tools that house anyone who has mentored or supported like work based learning community based learning across the country. And so what we're going to have is access to these folks that are volunteers that have supported kids in different projects, whereas aeronautics, you name it, and then it allows us then our pathways coordinators to connect the student with that person. And so that's a big part of what we're working with them on right now is to get to be part of that database to have access to those resources for kids. As we try to build more capstone projects and things of that nature, you know, one of the big hurdles I think we find is not having the mentors, right? And so to have this idea of us sharing across the whole SU, this mentor base, but also larger state. And then with virtual now, we've got a lot better. We could leverage someone in the whole another state to be able to meet with students to work on a project. Cool. Thank you for the questions for our superintendent. Oh, I realized, see Robert. He is in California. So that's right, that's right. Very good. Yeah, not quite. No, he's still dealing with his brother's estate who passed away in June. So. So you have my report in front of you. It's odd to think even though we're in October that kids have really only been in school for 22 days. Yeah. Like that's really, we were looking at some data today and then after school being we're looking at some attendance data. And it was like, wait a second, this out of only 20 days was when the data was full. So kind of a good reminder, even though as we head into the sixth week of school, which a lot of our teachers took responsive class during the summer, which is a program focusing on building routines and expectations. And as we hit week six, it's not really six full, you know, six full weeks of school, but the kids are doing great. And the teachers are with really building routines and expectations. And now we're switching to building academic stamina. So really starting to dig into, you know, literacy blocks, 90 minutes and a math block is 75 to 90 minutes depending on the age of the student and really being able to productively work for a majority of that time and what that looks like and how to work independently. And also with the teacher. So those are kind of some focal points that we're working on right now. I can't think of anything to let going on in the report, but we've jumped into the assessment window and that will start. We are going to be using traffic progress, which is different than star 360 sort of different universal screener and that'll look instead of instead of yep. And that will start next week. Bottom number three. Yeah, the Divils. We heard with the SU that there was some technical glitches, but that people were working around it pretty well. So both Linda and Donna have been working with SU interventionists, literacy interventionists as well as Anna and they've come up with a spreadsheet and they've been using hard copies, which I think they like a little bit better knowing that it moves the way it's intended to move through the screening process. So I think tomorrow they're supposed to be able to try again to see if the technology piece is working. It's supposedly a national problem. Like I said with this Divils background, it's the business that runs it. The testing is going well. Right. And the local and the local level we're doing fine with it. Yeah. But it's just that we don't have the support of the platform to put it all on. Right. So the data analysis part isn't quite present yet, but Anna has come up with this great spreadsheet where they can enter the results and it helps us do our students who may need additional support. Good. Further questions for our principal? Justine, you're good. Okay. Let's move on to our business manager. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, Tara. So you have my report which outlines what's going on in the business office for the month of October and then I also provided the FY22 year end projections prior to our fiscal year audit. So Parker, if you want to put those up on the screen. Thank you. So I set this up similar to what you see in your audit rolled up by category or object code. So you'll see the items where we are projected to overspend was on salary, communications, energy and operations contracted services. And then our areas of savings was health insurance, contracted services and tuition. So between what we have projected to overspend and what we're saving, we have projected a $66,823 surplus on the expenditure side of the budget. And then on the revenue side, wrapped up what we received throughout the year. You can see we got not as much as we projected for elementary tuition. We received more in preschool tuition, more in interest income. We didn't get as much in miscellaneous income. And then rentals, we were shy on the rental side, but clearly, you know, we didn't have our buildings open as we normally did. We got more in our forestry grant than projected, and we received about $1400 in donations. So overall, we were $918 to the good in our revenue budget. So right now, your overall projected surplus in the general fund for $22 is $67,740. So I'll answer any questions there, if there are any, if I can. Can you speak to the potential savings from the tuition? The $137,703. Did anybody notice the irony? That's exactly what the budget is for the fuel bill for the high school. So as Tara's looking, I mean, I look at that and say it's about seven and a half students. Yeah, that's what I was just counting, Jamie, and to say which if it was secondary public and secondary private, we had some students who moved around in there. And then it looks like we have several students who actually enrolled into homeschool still. Okay. So that is, you know, that is quite a big number. And I know that we got hit at one point with a school kind of billing us after the end of a fiscal year. And then I just want to hear that you are confident that all all the kids that we believe you know, that we're responsible for paying tuition for those bills have come in and are accounted for. Yes, there still is the announced versus allowable tuition, which is the billbacks that happen. So that's still a potential, but as far as who was accounted for the school that we had the issue with a couple of years ago, they did in fact bill us on time this year. And we have we done the confirmation with all these students all of all our tuition students been confirmed. Yes, Ethan, we don't pay res we don't pay tuition without confirmation of residency. Thank you. So the 67,740 rolls into our our budget or what do you want to call it our cash position for fiscal year 23. Is that correct? We have to decide what we're going to do with that. We had earlier estimates were a little bit larger than this. So did we make some decisions based on the larger amount that we're going to need to crawl back or is this basically free money that we can dedicate to important purposes. So this is money actually for 24. You're in 22 23 right now. So you this once the audit is finalized, you have two options as a board. You can use it as offsetting revenue in 23 24, or you can ask the voters to put in a special reserve. But it actually goes to I was wrong by a year. So it flips over to the next year, which we're starting to budget for. Correct. Thank you. And so one of the things I think that that hit us in regards to those prior projections is substitutes in the dump being significantly higher than we had estimated in the spring. We had a few staff out who actually see your student support budget. Lindy's recommending we boost the subline out because we've been just finding that absenteeism or long term absenteeism has hit us a little bit. So you'll see that there's an adjustment. So there's a piece there. Oh, we're getting more conscious about not spreading a cold that we might have to, you know, and maybe right. And we can talk about it when we get into a student services budget, but it's definitely an area where it's already today. There are three people out, you know, and it just is where we are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you saw us spalding high school clothes today because they didn't have staffing in Barry and U 32 where where our children go, they had a really released day because they clean staff the afternoon. Wow. Yeah. Because you're sickness, you know, the staffing, you know, or staffing, staffing levels due to sickness. Not in RSU, but in boats, airy, a lot of people are and in Berlin. And I think that people are probably just more conscious about the fact that there is a respiratory thing going around right now and and are rather than coming to work with a little bit of sickness not coming. Yeah. But that that's really tough. Well, I just want to make sure I understand it seems like a function. Two things. One is that we're pretty much 100% staffed where it sounds like Barry isn't. So then when you have extraordinary or in large number of people that are sick, because that compounds the two things together, we still might have the second which is sickness. But as far as our staffing level, it sounds like backup really, really, really strong. And that's a compliment to the whole team and the policies and support and budgets, everything else that people want to be here, it seems to me. Well, and part of our strategy, which has served us well through COVID was to do a better job in guaranteeing some work. So saying to people like you can come be a substitute in every RSU, we're going to keep you busy five days a week. And typically we need them four out of five, sometimes they may be helping with duties that has cost a little more. But it's given us a better bench in regards to predictability of school runs. It also we have some we have a handful of people who we know we have. You know, we don't have subs that that we're trying to see, are you willing to come in? We have this that report to us every day that has helped build the bench. But it did it has cost someone to do that. We're going to hear about that. Good. Anything further on the business managers report? Let us move on to the WRVSU full board updates. You've heard a lot about the Lincoln conundrum, I'll say. The other thing that I think was new was the flag policy. And that's in here. So we're going to we're going to talk about that. Well, at some point I would like a full update and understanding of this linking thing and what their options are, what their structure is, because it's different from ours. And so with what what's happening with them, I just like a good understanding and I don't know if this is the space. Yeah, I know. And I can give you I think a three minute good synopsis. So Lincoln's a K6 school that was a long standing district that was part of a Merge Unified High School, now Abraham Unified High School. That means that they all their students go to Mount Abraham High School. And it is what is it called the Unified School District, where a unified supervisory and so it's a different structure. Totally different structure. It would be like all of us having the SU board, they govern all of our schools. All of our students going to let's say Bethel and then South Royal, that would be yeah. So that's that is their model. They've had a unified middle high school for a long time and independent elementary boards during I-46 they became a pre-K-12 operating district, the one board. Got it. And so the there was a there's a merger study committee with next door at Addison Northwest, which is Virginia's, which is a unified district. Okay, so if you think about the map, you got Lincoln, you got Bristol, and then over here you have Virginia's and Virginia's that unified district has like five small towns that feed into their middle and high school. Okay. They have had a study committee about merging those two unified districts into one state board called a super merger. Okay. It's it's two unified districts coming together as one pre-K-12 district. And they would all go to one pre-K. They could choose which high school. I don't yeah. There's a couple of choices. The what is important to note about that that impacts us, Lincoln was worried their school could get closed based on those articles that they agree. Right. So they decoupled back in the spring. They went to the state board and there's actually if you were to look at the legislation that was drawn up over the decoupling of mergers, it's much different than what we went through with Rochester Stockbridge. There's now a study committee that has to be formed. Study committee has to make a recommendation to the state board. Remember the select board ran the decoupling before. Now the petition actually comes to your school district board if there was a decoupling. So that whole there's a whole new law that has gone around decoupling. Part of that law gave Lincoln an opportunity to onboard back to Mount Abraham if I did a school district and hold a vote like Ripton did last week. By the way, Ripton is now back with Addison Central. Lincoln took this off the table in May that they would have this opportunity to hold a vote. That's one of the things of the state board clearly articulated last week that they were frustrated by because there's not a tool now for them to just hold a vote and join back into Mount Abraham Unified District. They took that off the table, but they'd actually would have to have a merger study committee to have that happen and all the towns would have to vote again. Okay, it was their quick way back and that's been remote. They burned their bridge. Yeah, okay. And so where we're at is that they are a pre-K-12 district. They operate elementary and they designated late in the first time I heard that they had designated us as their priority is in a letter to the state board, which I received five days before this meeting. I knew that we were one of the SUs being under consideration. I didn't know that they had identified us as their preference until Chair Olson, the state board chair, sent me a letter that they had sent to them. We weren't copied on it. Throughout the discussions and hearings, it became clear that out of the supervisory unions in the state, which there's many, it's much fewer. It used to be predominantly before that 46 supervisory unions, not supervisory districts. Now it's actually the other way. It's primarily supervisory districts, which means one board, a district board that oversees multiple schools. Multiple school buildings that all filter into one. And so okay. Their preference is to join an SU. The state board's preference, if you look in legislation, is supervisory district boards. That is their preferred governance, meaning this one board that governs multiple schools. And so where there is, that's what Act 46 was about. And so where there is a, I would say where there's this tension point is, is that the state board is in a difficult position of saying they have said it. I mean, it's in statute that they prefer a supervisory district. And so to have Lincoln join Mount Abraham Unified School District as a supervisory union would mean they're deconstructing their preferred governance model. That's tough. UNO, Lincoln's been working with them for decades. The other issue they have is that there's nobody geographically in a good location to actually provide resources efficiently and meet like school quality standards, like special educations are real concern for me in regards to us providing those related services. I'd have to contract with another district. This is part of our argument from our side. So it has been left with the state board and we are not the closest SU by the way. Central Vermont Supervisory Union is geographically the closest. There are also two districts versus our having six districts. They're also still in the conversation. So there is the state board is looking for a recommendation from Secretary Function November and then the state board will take action. They asked us to budget at the SU level like contingency budget in the event that Lincoln was to join us, which we've run numbers. It's about 450,000. We're going to find two of those numbers. Tara is actually meeting with them out of Abraham Unified School District. Is that 450,000 between what they would bring in and what we would have to spend or that's how much that's how much additional the SU budget would go up until we haven't figured out yet what they would bring in. No, we have. Oh, we have. Yeah. And those those numbers we have shared with the state board. Yeah, your assessment would go up. Yeah. They don't bring in enough with their every daily membership to cover that amount. How many kids are in our school? 30. No, 76. Oh, it is. They're in between the two women. Oh, that's a different number. So the ripped-in is much smaller. Yeah, Lincoln's bigger than the ripped-in. So we're running those numbers. We're going to find two of them by checking with the Mount Abraham Unified School District Business Manager. Tara has set up a meeting already with CVSU and Mount Abe to make certain that we have the right numbers. My sense is that 450 figure could possibly even go up. I told the state board I thought that was a conservative figure. And so where we're left is I do believe the state board is going to take seriously the secretary's recommendation. And, you know, Dan has been a superintendent. He understands our challenges. I mean, he has followed us. He knows where we're coming from. I knew about him. I met with him when the discussion around Lipton happened. And, you know, I do think that they took his recommendation seriously last time. It did result in his recommendation was that Lipton become a supervisory district or onboard back. And that's what the state board did. So I don't know where we'll come out on this, but that's why we're here, is that Lincoln has been appointed its own district. And by statute, you have to have a supervisory unit overseeing the school district. Could you provide us with talking points or? That's already happening. I saw that. Yeah, okay. Because I'm just because some of what I've been saying is most of it's actually been general and accurate. But I think just your specificity and knowledge of this. I mean, I also don't think we need to go into the intricacies of the difference between districts and supervisory unions and all that with our public. We just need to get the point across that this is not it's going to raise it's going to raise our rates and it's not going to give good education. So it's going to stretch our already lean central office, right? We have to provide them transportation, right? So I mean, our bus systems over here. Yeah, so it means either we would bid on that if we couldn't find someone that would bid on them, that means then we're spending time trying to contract bus services with another district. Okay, so it ain't over yet. Thank you. Good. For the questions, I think that's the rest of the updates. A5 WRVSU policy. Patrick, you've been there, so I feel good about being back. Discussion at the SU level. Yeah, no. So we started to move forward with it. Does anybody rest remember to read it? I did. I'm not sure what you want to hear from me other than what would you what do you remember the reasons for it? I believe there's a story behind it. There was a school that had got this asked to put up a flag. Isn't that the reason for it and that they yeah, so I haven't been I haven't been around the discussion since the beginning of it. So that's what I understand. What this is saying is that the flagpole is a form of government speech and it's giving everybody a chance. So essentially everybody, you have to go to your school board. And the school board has except for the national flag and the Vermont state flag, which I was saying I'd love to fly the national state flag because it's in one and not the other. What's that? It's one here but not in Rochester. Oh, okay. I don't know what. Yeah, I would like to get the state flag. It's not in Rochester. The idea is that's the given and then the board would have the right to approve and it would have to go along with educational purpose. It would have to not be controversial as a part of it right where no student would feel offended by it. I believe is part of that. The I'm trying to remember Megan, it's going to come back to you because one of the SU board members had an alternative, which was much simpler. Yeah. And I can't do you remember she said in so many words. Why not? First of all, she wasn't contesting the fact that the flagpole is on school property. It's a governance ownership, a government's rule, everything else. But she thought when you get down to the bottom of it, isn't it simpler, more straightforward to basically have the flagpole wave the country's flag and the state flag. And because I was looking at this and looking at this and this is quite complicated. You need to have a faculty support, the students support, they write a report, they come to the principal, they come to the board. We can support the students that we can say no and all that sort of stuff. And I'm saying, aren't there other opportunities for students? And again, this is students, this isn't like, this isn't a public flagpole. I want to put my whatever it is up here. But aren't there other avenues, valid avenues for our students to express themselves with posters or having a program at the auditorium or having movies or clubs or fundraisers that forward their goals and the things they believe in, as long as the support of the school that is consistent with our curriculum, everything else. What I see this is happening is very possibly dividing our community and bogging down one of the things nice about this year, and I don't have some of the scars you have on all the angst about going on, but we've been able to focus on the important stuff, which is the kids, the kids and how do we further their educational and well-being. And so I see this as a potential thing that could bog us down and bog the administration down. And it's almost like it's not a win-win. If you've got a controversy, one side wins and the other side loses, and it could be students lose and the community, whatever they're opposing of the students, we don't want to be in a situation where we're dividing. And I just see somehow the symbolism could be a divisive tool. So I'm coming around to the point that, and this is what Megan requested, and the issue board asked the policy committee to go back and kind of consider the alternative of basically having our country's flag and state flag. It's interesting that you say that because I haven't even really considered that. And I don't disagree. I mean, I think that even still with this all laid out, there's still so much room for issues to arise, like you're saying, conflict and dividing. But just because some of these controversial doesn't mean we should avoid it. No, no, no, but then also you just raised the point that we only have one flag pull in Rochester. Where's that leave a chance for anybody to fly another flag? Well, you know, underneath it. Is that okay? Well, it's been something that it's been, obviously, the Black Lives Matters and the Gay Pride are the two big ones that have been many schools, not many, I don't know many schools, but I've certainly seen them on school flag polls, and they've gone through a process. So in other words, kids know about this as an avenue to express their beliefs, their support. So in other words, that's why flags, that's why flags are coming up. It's because they know about it, it's something that's out there, and they might want to do it. I understand this point that I said, but then again, we took on an anti-racism policy, and I was on the policy committee when we were getting some very strong pushback on that, that we were creating an issue that didn't actually exist. And I just said, well, I disagree with it, I've talked to people, I've actually talked to actual people of color who have been in this Vermont school system, and it does exist. So I don't know, our input is certainly valid, and I think we can even, even to the sense of a straw poll of how we feel this and what we make recommendation, that's what we can do tonight. That's why this is here. This is why we read it three times. We present it, we talk about it. Justine, do you have a two cents on this? I don't think so. I'm not quite sure. I'm not, I don't have a, yeah, not yet. The question on the second page, it says that only the main flagpole at the White River SU building will be utilized for the purpose of this policy. So we just talked, the front of it talks about, you know, the, what can be, about flying and, and approval, but now, that's a mistake. Okay. No, because they're talking about delegating it to the districts. That's what I thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is a need to make that, that's just point out a major mistake with this. This should actually be the, just the individual district. I think, though, this is a, is this an SU, I'll have to ask Jamie though. This may be an SU policy, but it must apply to the SU board, then have to decide for every, you know, district flagpole here. Yeah, so it's contradicting. I pull at the WRBSU district school. Yeah, yeah, I think, we are guessing. Oh, yeah, this is May 23. Well, that's it. That district being each individual school. Each. Okay. So, I mean, we may not have gotten the correct. I've got a September. You have September, right. And, uh, let me just try to, that it was found on the website. This was what was attached to Christie's emails. Christie's emails. We, in our packet, we may have just been correct. Let me look at the SU. Hold on. Let me go back and look at the SU. I mean, I know I'm a little off on the days of the week. No. So I'm not sure. Usually in the right year. Not sure where this came from. Under management and control of the September draft, the first sentence says the district's flagpole includes our set are under the control and management of the district. So I think we've got changes. It's the, it's the one to the fourth paragraph that says only the main flagpole at the White River Valley issue district school. And ours says, um, building guest. So I said guest. Yep. And then guest. See her says building at a White River Valley issue district school, which is we're part of the, we're one of those districts. So it's correct. Okay. So I want to, I think Ethan raises a good question. That is, are some things important to fight for? And in my opinion, yes. And the equity policy that the policy committee went through, I mean, I don't know how many drafts and, and, and there were people fighting over it up to the end. In my opinion, absolutely. That's what we're part of. That's, that's a core principle of what education is all about. What is less convincing here is that because we say no flag will flag on that on our flag holds other than the United, our country's flag and our state flag doesn't mean that that's the only way they can, we can communicate points of view. We can do it through banners. We can do it through stories, websites, Facebook, whatever the case is, we can to talk about things like black lives matter and everything else. It just, it just seems to me that flag poll knows flag can get people aroused and it divides us when there are other opportunities for, for points of view to be conveyed through our system. And that's why I'm kind of, I'm pulling back from my original thoughts saying maybe that's a role that protects the freedom of speech of our students. In fact, whatever the case is at the same time allows us to govern. Justine has a hand up. Oh, good. I was just wondering, it was kind of what I was thinking about is similar to kind of what Bill was talking about in that, might there be some sort of inclusion in this policy that allows for a discourse or a response, like, you know, such and such platform will be available to anybody, you know, so it's not just like a free for all kind of response system and maybe someone, some committee or something has to field that and deal with that will come up, but I mean, according to this policy, we would be that board that would be presented. No, at first, but I mean, after it goes up, there's going to be some more stuff. And I don't know if there could be some sort of something else spelled out a little more about public response or they would certainly encourage them to come to meetings after. Yeah, okay. If that's what we want, or there could be another group of people that feels the first round of that. I don't know. It was just something I felt like might be helpful to be included in here because it might, it will happen. Amy? I'm not sure what my opinion on this as a whole is yet. So, you know, I don't want to speak to in any way on that, but I do understand what you are saying and wouldn't there be that the flagpole could be just for the state flag and the United States flag? And there are other avenues of flags just not up on that flagpole that could be attached to, you know, like the farmers here get ones that are just, that are indeed flown with the proper approval. But it would be, it's a hard and fast. This is the only thing on our flagpole. Again, I'm not sure how I feel about this. I just thought of that when you were just Can we ask our administration? So I actually, just good for that. When kids are passionate about something and they are shut down the opportunity, like it's taken away from them without even being at the table to be part of the discussion. Because I understand we're talking about flags in this particular policy and also like understand, you know, the American flag and the state flag. But it is a kids building. Our buildings are kids buildings and we are in service to our kids. Like everything I do is to hopefully make a good decision for a kid. And so to have some adults say you can't even have the opportunity to bring forth your case one way or the other about why this should be flown in front of your school feels a little like we're shutting down their student voice. And I have seen that backfire in some situations where oh, you know, kiddos didn't go through the right avenue, but they feel like it's their freedom of speech. It is to wear whichever flag they would like to into a school. Like it can go putting my high school teacher hat on like switching gears. I'm a little out of practice, but switching gears. It can backfire if you take that voice away without even allowing them the opportunity to present their argument of why it should be flown. And I think it's good to have something in place one way or the other at the other than no, we're just not even going to entertain the idea. As you board meeting, Sarah root made this exact point that she thought it could be an extraordinary exercise for the student to have to prepare. You know, they have to go through some process, which is outlined in here. They have to prepare a presentation. They have to get a sponsor. It's not like they can just show up and say, we want to do this flag. It's like they have to do something to earn the right to even present it to us. And then we get to make a decision, which I think we would make very clear to them. And she thought that was a very beneficial experience that we should encourage because it's democratic, the democratic process. Just being active within your community. Yeah, exactly. Ultimate citizenship. So to me, I can understand both sides of the argument, but I'm thinking for kids, I think they should have the opportunity to present something to Jamie, to school board, why they believe this should be flown. And some of that involves a lot of teaching, right? Like why is this the equivalent, or should be held in the same conjunction with our American flag or with our state flag? That's a huge piece of the puzzle. And I haven't really read it well enough to know if that's part of the process that needs to be described in there. But to me, that would be an important piece. There's a lot of history and significance behind our flags, both state and country. So why should this particular flag be flown in conjunction with them? That's an important piece. I mean, did you read this, you know, acquired proposal components, provides exclusion criteria described in the policy. Visual replication, the exact flag rationale that explains the proposed flag supports, how this proposed flag supports the WRVSU vision, which means they'd have to read that. And they'd have to know that. And student learning outcomes, proposed timeframe for raising up to four months. Evidence of support from faculty advisor sponsor, demonstrating student support for the proposed flag. So obviously, if they go out and they get a, you know, one of our schools, they got 20 people to sign that this was a good idea. That's some serious barracking. But I would say, and I would add, or have the conversation at the policy level under required proposal components. But, you know, what is your passion or desire around how this should be flown in conjunction with our state flag and our American flag? Those are two really important things. And that is frequently in my experience, also, where the community will step in, because there will be lots of questions from outside groups about why is this near the American flag, because there's a lot of profile around that for different organizations. So that would be my thought. I'm afraid, Mitch, only can take an enduring public comment. And not, this is just for board communication. Sorry. That's okay. We do have another board comment period coming up later. Public comment. I mean, and we'll certainly please hold your comment to them. We'd love to hear. Well, this is the first reading. It will go back to, if we, I think, obviously, you've heard our conversation, Patrick, you can take it back to the policy committee and hear that there's some we have thinking to do. Yeah. And I do, I would like you to bring what Linda just said about these students. Why is this a passion? Why are they passionate about, how does this work, you know? So we have one, the irrational, rational that explains how the proposed flag supports the way we're validating vision goals and student learning outcomes. But it's more than the, yeah, so that is an important piece, too. I think also that part of their proposal needs to build why is it, why to eat the individual? Because I think in that proposal when it's read publicly, that's an important piece for the public to hear. Yeah. Why is this important to you specifically? Right. Your group of students are trying to do this. Should it be a link for next two? Yeah. In the state flag. In the state flag. I think it also would be helpful to know, we talk about the state flag, does the state, what is one failure of the state house, what are they flag, a fly? I think it's both. But are they, do they, they accountants and agree to fly other flags, supporting important, like a passionate project? I do remember there was a big controversy in Rochester many years ago when they wanted to do the PWO, POWMIA flag. And there was strong controversy about that. Some were very anti the war, but then supporting troops. And I think it did fly for a few minutes. I thought, I remember it flow for a couple of years. And then finally, I think sort of quietly went away. And I don't think it's there anymore. But um, but yeah, I think I, I don't know. I always think it's personally, I always feel it's worth giving a voice and make them make their case. And if they don't do it well enough, we'll know. It'll be very clear to us. And we'll ask them some tough questions. You know, what does the American flag mean to you? What does the state flag mean to you? If they don't mean, well, I don't really know. I don't even know what the state flag is. Well, then before we're going to give you approval, you need to go back and understand what's on the state flag and why it means that. And if we can incorporate what Wendy's saying, I think that will allow us to understand their intentions prior to doing it. I would ask Patrick that because we're, we're divided here. We haven't taken a boat, a straw boat, and we all have open minds. Yeah. I think policy committee has to look at the pros and cons of keeping what we've got now, which is the state flag and the country's flag. So it's opening that up and looking, and I think that was the request of the Supervisory Union Board was to go back and look at both of those and see what makes sense. And part of that might be amending this draft to make it with some of the suggestions here about why it's important and why it's important to the students and that sort of thing. Can I ask a follow up question to that, Bill? So I view policy as a way to be supported in my decision making process and not necessarily have to be reactive to something. So if we, I'm just kind of food for thought something to kind of sink your teeth into and think about a little bit. If you're saying that we're only going to fly these two and that's going to be our policy, are you opening the door for folks to want to why and how come they're not having the opportunity to be able to do that? It's so many other school districts that will add in throughout the state. I hear both sides of it. I'm just trying to be a deviled advocate because then it may be as an administrative or as reactive. That as being a former student activist and marched and did all sorts of things, what I believed in. Again, we're not saying you cannot feel and you cannot express your opinion and verbalize it and communicate it effectively to the public. The flagpole is only one avenue and we're saying that we're not saying no about all the other things that you're learning about in the classroom, you're discussing in your clubs, you're talking with your parents about it and you want action. Again, it's not the only avenue. We're not just slamming the door. We're saying this avenue is closed but you have all these other opportunities to be heard. That's important and you reinforce in that point and being, I remember in college and when the college says no on something and we got upset about that. I think there's risks on both sides of turning off students and angering students and sounding like we're not doing it. Our actions are different than our speech and I think we need to be very careful on how we phrase this. But on the same time, I'm a strong believer that if we're going to succeed in our educational mission, we've got to be very, very careful about possibly dividing our community. We're going to go with some tough decisions. One of them is budgets, for instance. We're going to be asking at some point for, we've had budget reductions tax, this tax rate is paying less, sometimes we're going to be asking more and we're going to need the support of those taxpayers. So I'm just saying, sounds too cautious but that's where I like the apology committee to really look at this and you've raised some really good questions. Let's see what they come up with and it might be, this is the only way and we've strengthened it by doing this XYZ as you suggested or they're going to present us with two alternatives and let us let us know. I just I just asked because to me, if you just say we're only going to do this and that's going to be our policy, it always will put us on it'll put us on the reactive versus being able to encourage people, students, especially to be an active part of their community. Yeah, I have a question. So here we have, you know, it's flying the flag up to four months. Should there be something that say the board approves it, then it flies for a month? Should we be revisiting, you know, how is, like, do we have any, yeah, this is what Justin was getting at, the idea that after a period of two months, there will be a review of the proposal. Well, I think it should just be even sooner than that. I mean, if we approve it one month, the next month, we should just say, you know, the Lindy or, you know, or to Jamie. Well, there is in the actual policy, the last sentence says, it's the wrong board, I think, but it's the White River SU board may remove a previously approved flag at any time. I understand that. I'm just saying like an update as to, you know, hey, the flag's been on for a month, is there been any feedback from students or faculty? Did you get that that should actually be a WRVSU district? District? It may remove. In the current version, it just says the board. Okay. Here's, here's, oh, Justin, yep, go ahead. Go ahead. You know, I also, I wanted to bring up that, here we're discussing maybe having a different platform than the main flagpole and our thoughts on potential division of the community with and our concerns for taxpayers and things like that. But I also wanted to bring up that not using the main flagpole may create the same kind of division having be a secondary platform. So I just wanted to throw that out there as like the devil's advocate because I can see it from the other side as well, saying, well, that's, you know, not the flagpole, that's something else. So I just wanted to put that out there and get it. I would like to see committee to come back with a clear statement of why we fly the American flag and the state of Vermont flag. I think we need that to start because otherwise we don't know why we fly those two flags. And it's clearly stated for anyone to read. And we don't know what this policy is. We don't even know we're asking from anybody else. Yeah. So we need to do the work first before we can ask them to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Anything further on the flag? Let's go to our action policy adoption. I want act to adopt policy B 35 social media. I don't believe this has changed much since when we read it last. But I think I read it the last is the code B. Oh, no, here it is. Number five. Well, we can also move this and then we can discuss it. Anyone want to, that we accept the one revised liberalizing social media policy? Can someone move that please? Somebody who's good at with social media, please move it. That's not me. That's not me. All right. I'll move it to adopt the Rochester, Dr. Juniper. That's where we're at with actual adopting the social media right. We're Valley Supervisor Union social media policy. Yes. And is there a second? Amy moved it. I'll give Patrick Hudson the second. Is there any discussion before we go? Good flag policy discussion. I think you've got a draft that's not the latest draft. No, we've found that. No discussion. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Ayes have it. Social media policy passes. We have a second one to take action on verification student residency for tuition payment policy and corresponding affidavit. So I noticed that the affidavit, nothing was changed from when I had Guardian one and two. Yeah, I had brought up that Guardian one and two for the motor vehicles. Oh, you're right. One, Guardian two is requested. Please let's make a model for a number plate of vehicle you drive the most frequently. Guardian one does not need to provide that. Yep. And there was a capitalization error on Yeah, that was page five in Section 2B. Well, the capitalization has not changed. I don't, I think you could adopt these with those that are not substantive. Okay, you must have discussed that in September. Yeah, it was just that are we are are we asking both Guardians to provide make model and call our number plate of their vehicle them drive most frequently or are we going to eliminate them? Or are we just one Guardian two? Once we move to motion. Have we, have we, did we move this? No, no. Let's move it first and then get to discussing. So make a motion to accept policy C 35 verification of student retency for tuition payment policy and corresponding affidavit. Yeah, move it. Move by Bill Edgerton. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Justine Cavacas. Now we're in discussion and the discussion is are we okay? The superintendent has advised us we're okay with some spelling and inconsistencies in the form, but that that will not substantially change. You've made a note so that that'll get fixed. Good. Sorry, I missed that in your notes from September. Yeah, I had anything further to, and I haven't, there's an article in the New York Times Sunday magazine. For homeless kids in rural America, staying in school can see next to impossible, but open, but often, but often it's their only source of help. And it talks about it. That's just kind of a hidden thing where it's hard to get kids and roll the schools because schools have policies about what you have, the hooks you have to go through. And these are kids that live in, you know, temporary housing, they're moving around. I mean, they're, they don't know where the next paycheck comes from or support or donations. And so my question was, because I have not read this thoroughly, and I don't, just to Jamie or anybody that's that are quick and I have to answer the question. How would we, would this allow us to do the right thing? I give it the flexibility to do the right thing. I guess that's my question. So there's actually federal law called McKinney-Vintel in regards to transitional housing. So that supersedes any of our policies. And what I mean by that is, is anytime a family is in transitional housing and or doubled up, we have a transitional housing person that we stipend that works with the state of Vermont and the other school districts that we work with to identify, do they qualify for transitional housing? If the answer is yes, then we actually receive something called McKinney-Vintel grant that then allows us to provide things like transportation, clothing, sometimes we've purchased like refrigerators for families. That's federally funded program. And the way that that works is, is that typically the team will make a decision that the student stays in the district they were previously attending because you want to provide regularity for them. So that supersedes this. The purpose of this policy is more so in the affidavit to try to fish out when we have concerns actually about second homes. And what this policy is really trying to get to is, is it the primary residency or not? And so hence why the affidavit is cumbersome. If someone is cumbersome to try to flesh out, is this actually your primary residence or is it actually your secondary residence? And so that's what this is trying to handle. The, the idea of someone who has lost housing or is housing insecure and has had to double up, that would fall under McKinney-Vintel. And actually the way that that works is it actually says the student could choose whatever district they want to attend in the state based on need and what makes sense for that family and student. That trumps this. That's reassuring because obviously there's some issues in the state of Ohio and kids are falling behind. And, and so it's nice that we have federal support to do the right thing and we also have a policy that we're tightening up to make sure that the loopholes are unnecessary loopholes are being closed. Is your suggestion on this? Reminder about this part. It's for tuition pain. Right. This is not what we would use to enroll at Rochester. Oh, okay. This is only for tuition. This is someone joins our district. We've never laid eyes on them. They go and register at another high school. Example, Hanover, we get a bill and we've got no way to verify residency. Then we would say to them to the high school, Hanover, we need you to help us by filling this out so we can determine residency. Okay. So this is not our student. This is not enrollment into your elementary school. This is you move in. We don't know you. We haven't, we haven't certified residents. Like school choice, for instance. Yeah. Thank you. Just like I went to school in New York and the town dated, but like who's to say somebody did the same thing, went to some academy. Right. And didn't actually live here. It was just their second home. Right. There's always someone just one point, Jamie. It doesn't actually say that. Right. On the front. It doesn't say this is regards to tuition. Well, tuition, I guess, for tuition, payment policy. I guess it's just that I didn't, it's right on the front page. We have a policy on registry. Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So it does say for tuition payment policy. Yeah. Anything else from this? We're ready to vote. Yep. Okay. All in favor of to adopt policy C35 verification of student residency for tuition payment policy and corresponding after they signify by saying aye. Aye. Yeah, I just have it. Okay. We're on to draft one student support budget. Take it away. So you have a copy of that in front of you and I just want to go over some of really the changes. So if you look at the second my, so remember student support is myself, the two administrative assistants, literacy interventionist, co-counselor, nurse, regular ed, para educators and substitutes. So under changes, if you look at intervention, we have increased that by point five. Currently our math intervention is interventionist is paid through ESSER funds and title and title funds. And so we will that funding will run out after two years. So starting to build that position into our budget as a constant moving forward. So it's not a shock when the funding decreases. Just to jump in there. So I would add that is one of those positions. We expect title to continue to fund half that math interventionist. We don't foresee that going away. The other half that ESSER is going away. And so this is one of those positions as we continue to build the budget and look at the yielding things. You may see us adjust whether it's point five this year or just point two five and then we add it another point two five. I just I share that to let you know this is all of it in to make it whole and cover it moving forward. That is one of those areas though as we start to really fine tune this budget through the upcoming months. There is a little wiggle room there. I would certainly advise that we try to budget part of that point five in so that we're building it. So that is not a whole one time expense. I love a bigger sense of how we can do as all the rest of the figures come in as we go. And of course the yield. And then the other adjustment is under regular education pairs. So this includes a parent educator in each preschool classroom which is licensed each preschool classroom. Yes. We also have a parent educator who supports a student on a 504 plan and includes that one. And then this year we have hired a parent educator to support our one two classroom in Rochester. And I'd like to keep that position because it's proving we have several students who need just additional support and it helps benefit the teacher to have that extra set of hands. She's running everything. She's been trained in our spelling program. She's been trained in literacy things. So it's been an added benefit to that. Right. It's helping keeping everybody generalized. Yeah. Ideally early intervention there and then the flexibility with having one regular ed parent that you have on the district. Let's say a student all of a sudden spiked and needed you know significant behavioral plan needs. Right. Right now the way that our district worked is we would do a special ed referral in order to get the para. Right. Like that's a crazy way to go. Like it shouldn't be that's why we do that. Right. Like we have a student who all of a sudden had a crisis happen in his family outside of school and spiking behaviorally. It would be great for us to have a regular para who's working with Claire Martin our board certified behavioral analyst to implement a behavior plan. Like immediately. Right. Like within a week not waiting for the whole special ed referral process to go through. And meanwhile the students have been struggling from. So that's how special ed has been misused. I feel like we just haven't built up our targeted when you hear me talk about targeted like before special ed. I just don't think we've done a good enough job of building that up. It was really like we had classroom teacher and then special ed. And our menu of supports in between just wasn't vast enough. We didn't have a bench. We didn't have depth to it. It really has ranged to what Sam and myself can implement. So it's really giving a person that could implement an intensive behavioral plan with the idea of being that that plan would fade. So we're not like contracting a BI service as example from another service provider to implement. Like we have someone who was trained that could do that type of work when the need happened across either of your bills. Question where is I thought that outdoor ed was funded originally by answer funds. Is that true? And is that now worked into the budget? It will be in your first draft of the rest of your teaching. Okay. Yeah. You'll see that. But that is one of the things we're changing over from answer to us. And we're adding it to pathways and outdoor ed. And then substitutes. There really is a need, which is why you see quite a large jump. We do have one floating sub between both buildings and it's already been utilized. And to continue that, but then also just, you know, as long as people have to quarantine for five days with COVID or with symptoms, like that forever impacts your, your substitute line for a certain period of time, as well as we did have several other health issues happen last year and better to be prepared then. Plus subs hate to say it, but they're economic, they're actually an economic way to help out in the classroom. Absolutely. So is this increased for a full-time sub that you're talking about? No, that's in that's already been in the budget. And this is just in addition to this is in addition to the whole time. But this would be a regular position. We're looking. We already have the regular position. This is like looking to cover what we've been spending the last two years. We're adjusting the budget. Sorry. These are just your sub list that you call and can you come into that? So this bump, if you look in some of the items we overspent, subbing was one of them. And so this is to try to adjust to get us more aligned in our actual excellent. Help me here. I forgot the substitute teachers. Their salary schedule is something that was separate from what we just negotiated as part of that. They're not part of the CBA. They aren't. So we pay substitute teachers. I believe right now we are at $108. $108 a day. And does there need to be any change of that number to either attract or keep substitute teachers at all? So I've been trying to pay attention of it and stay on the curve of it. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. So that's one of the things when we come together regionally as superintendents, we talk about like, where is everybody at paying their subs? How are you doing with subs? We are in the middle in regards to competitiveness around it. And I feel like geographically we do all right. I have not received feedback on us losing subs or not getting subs based on what we're paying. I have bumped it every year since I've come on a little bit. And that's my bump has been based on what other SUs around us are doing. To keep competitive, I support that. Second question is that you've got a goal that by 2025, we're going to meet or exceed our literary and math aspiration goal set by Act 46 and the State Board of Education. And so my question to both of you is, will these increases, particularly an intervention, regular ed, paraprofessionals and substitutes help us achieve that goal? Or has no real bearing to whether or not we're going to make it or not? In terms of intervention and to have the support of an additional regular institution fair, I do believe it will help us reach that goal. I mean already this person who's filled that role has been attending all the trainings so she can also work with students for early intervention purposes and just provide more learning opportunities for kiddos, which is great. And the same with intervention, students who need to receive targeted intervention support and academics are receiving that support. So obviously the ultimate goal is for them to work themselves out of a job, but right now we have what we need and substitutes a the stressor that puts on a classroom teacher to decide whether to call out or not because they're not feeling well. I think that stressor is not here for us right now, maybe a little who's going where some mornings, but I think the fact that they know that there will be coverage means people are taking care of themselves, which helps prevent burnout and other things in the long run. My question comes about with our detailed lesson plans being left because I know certainly in just from my my son's class that definitely with substitutes, the behavioral, educational, a lot of stuff goes on. That's what I actually thought you were asking is that, you know, if you've got a class that's suddenly getting two and three substitutes a week, but that is definitely affecting the educational forward movement. Well, and I'm just and just how rigorous are we being about if there is a sub that there is a there are some plans. As rigorous as I can be, obviously, if someone is really sick to their plans, we have emergency. So that's not quite the same as like this is a planned absence or we're not super sick. And for instance, I had a teacher who called up this morning who's sick and was able to take her own lesson plans that I had seen at the end of last week and she turned them into the sub plans for the class today in the class one. Okay, that's I mean, that's those are steps that are in place because, you know, they used to require remember when I was teaching, you know, you used to have to have a series numbers of plans and you used to actually have all your lesson plans. Not that I'm saying we need that because that's, you know, draconian, I think in some ways and doesn't trust your teacher. But I do think making sure that we're getting as rigorous we can in the educational absolutely. And some of that is also part of the evaluation system too and conversations I have behind closed doors for the folks when it comes. Obviously. Yeah, good. Just so long as you're aware of it. Thank you. I have a question. The guidance line underneath is the the blank line with the one FTE? Okay, that's what I was right. So, so the guidance line, that proposed amount as I see it says all object codes. So that's encompassing that entire department just like all of their salary benefits supplies and their supplies and everything. Yeah. Okay. That's what I assume. All right. For the questions. Good start. Good start. Thank you. Thank you for you. Oh, please, please get dates on these drafts. Please. Good point. Because I pull my packet apart and put stuff in different locations and it's like which draft is it? I don't need to know which draft. If I just know what date, then the policies, the policies have draft five, nine, twenty eight. Yeah. Yeah, that would be great. Very good. 10-2. You can give us a little feedback, Jamie, on the. Yeah. So, so right now what's happening is, is for us to be able to leverage SR like you saw in the proposed budget, I have to do concept approval with the agency of education on how that money is being used. And so what that means is Eric's been sitting down with Tara in building out the budget and saying, here's how this 80,000 SR is going to go towards improvements around. Yeah. It's a big chunk of its SR. So I need, every time we do that, we have to get a concept approval. It's just, it's a lot of lightworks and work behind the scenes. We're doing it. Feel good about it. Everything we're doing is around controls, fresh air. So the extra money is not going toward lighting. It's going towards controls, fresh air heat. So I'm confident we're going to get it. We're just, I don't want to come to you without having secured that money. Yeah. Right. I'm not going to ask you to approve a budget until I know the ALEE is giving us concept approval. All those things. So that's what's happening in your district and others. We are still good to go. The poet grant for the 250,000. I just saw email come back from Chris Heine about that. And so I feel good about that revenue. And the other big one is we got some money from the agency of education through our SR to do some work here around control upgrades and fresh air. So, and that's looking good. I saw an email exchange happening around there. So that's what's happening behind the scenes. And Eric will be here with those final numbers for you to look at in November. I think he'll be looking for you to take action either in November or December. I know we still have that like one little chunk of revenue around 100,000. I think we'll know whether that is smaller or not by then. The hope is it is. But we'll have that number in November as well. There's two ways we can go about that. As a board, you could budget it as a one-time expense. Or we could use capital improvement funds. Or you could do a little bit of both. We could budget some in operations in our budget for next year to cover that one-time expense and use some capital improvement funds. I think we're just going to have to wake that out as we go into December. High school, the high school issue being an extraordinary expense to the heating. But that's this year's budget. What you're deciding in December is next year's budget. This proposal for me is just so extraordinary and the price tag is really so small compared to the entire project. We just, yeah, you just saw a budget proposal that's up that much. And this deferred maintenance has been going on for years. The time is right that we should act. Oh, I just had more of a, I never really heard from EI about like the actual pellet acquisition. And since we are just, we're just discussing that we got our locked enterprise for our oil. How does it work with the pellets? Do we, what are the providers? Do we lock in prices? I buy pellets already. Yeah, we lock in prices. Sharon has a pellet. Okay. And not only is the idea of Sharon, remember part of this was efficiency. They're guaranteeing it that we'll both buy pellets. Yeah, okay. So the proposal is tumbers would go to pellet, baffle would go to a pellet. Oh well. Sharon would go to pellet. That's Rochester. Okay. So we can both buy pellets like we bought them. Okay, very cool. Thank you. Remind me because I have no memory. Does this include the roof at all now? So we've still got it because that's a big deal. You'll see that, that is that line item is part of the strategic plan. Okay. You'll see the Rochester roof as one of the highlights that we have. We have a number yet. Do we have any number on that? Yeah, it was, it's close. I mean, a year ago we priced it, it was almost 300,000. Okay. You're going to see it as a higher number in the strategic plan because I'm expecting everything to go up. Yep. But it's one of those things that we're going to need to be budgeting for. And I think I have placed it in phase two. I can't remember. But example, that would be feedback from the board DPS. Yep. Yes, we proved that or just like we need to move it up because we think you have it in stage three, I think it should be state phase two. Yep. I broke our capital improvements in the three phases is what I tried to do. Okay. And you'll see everything you've been hearing about with controls heating and lighting in phase one and then some other different maintenance in phase two and phase three. You said we're going to talk about this at the retreat. That was your idea. Yeah. Give the feedback and then we, you get, okay. That's how I work. Just kind of click, click, click, click. Good. Further questions on EI? I think we're in good shape. Okay. The Rochester High School Winter Heating Updates from Facility Committee. Oh, shit told me. Take it away. In your packet, I think phase five or six should be minutes and I want to commend our scribe for the excellence in really both in format and in presentation and just get into the beat of the issue. It's a great job of telling the story of what happened. We had the task force that Ethan, you set up meet. We met on Tuesday, September 20th at a wonderful meeting and really got into it. I mean, we really talked about issues and alternatives and different approaches. And I think these minutes tell the story quite well. And the issue was how to best cover our heating costs, projected heating costs for this winter. And we're talking about over 17,000 gallons and approximately $66,000. And we didn't, you know, we're not going to find to that. This is just an estimate anyway. And we won't know until the end of the winter, but it appears to be if we have money left over up to the good. Vic just got, so just if we need anything. Sorry. Oh, hi. Vic, thank you for having me. I don't know if you've been listening. Yeah, he's been on for a while. Oh, okay. He just turned the camera off. Very good. Thank you, Vic. The second point was that Pat Harvey, representing the Rochester Select Board, was very eloquent in saying that the town budget is under distress right now with the unanticipated increases, a lot of fuel costs that are, and they're talking about having to roll over somewhat of a deficit spending plan for this year because they can't, their budget doesn't meet it into the next year, which would be fiscal year. They're on a fiscal year basis, 24. So she was, just said that she supports the project she wants the high school to have a life that can serve not only Rochester. And she told us that back in the day, it wasn't the Rochester High School in the sense that kids from all neighboring towns went there and were educated there and benefited from the education and excellence there. So, but it was very hard for the town to directly support this effort to cover unanticipated heating costs. So we talked about options on how we might do that. And we came up with a kind of a three-legged plan where we divvy up that $66,000 into three pieces, each piece around $22,000. One would be to, and we've got a wonderful start with the repurposing committee and what their fund release in just minutes does a nice job of explaining, Patrick had three or four wonderful ideas of how to advance fundraising from the communities, not only Rochester, but the surrounding communities that will be benefited if the high school repurposing project is successful. And Vic can talk about it much better than I can, but they seem to be willing and hopefully able by the end of this fiscal year to come up with a third of that anticipated additional cost. The second leg of this thing that we were talking about was the support of the trust funds in Rochester. And Rochester, this is new to me, has trust funds that are administered through and under the control of the Rochester trustees of public funds. But they're also, and Amy was wonderful in having that in our annual report on page 20, the bigger trust funds that are actually under the control of this board. And the largest one is the per-patrick fund, which I don't believe is restricted. So it's under control of this board, it has the most money. And so it seemed to be a possibility, a real viable possibility that we would have the town trustees contribute and we would vote to utilize our largest trust fund as well. And I haven't heard any report back on whether the Rochester trustees of public funds have been approached and whether or not they're supportive of this, but that would be the second one. And that would lead 22 and 22, the final third, 22,000 for SU or ARSA budgeting. And I think we believe that everything possible should be made to raising that $22,000 not to have a negative impact on student outcomes. That's the gold star here. But we thought that would be doable as well for a year. And then the budgeting process that we started here for fiscal year 24, because this is not only a one-year issue, we would have to be looking for ways to incorporate it into the ARSA budget. But it would be a third of the 66,000 of that number is good. It's not 66,000. But we'd have to revisit this next year. But I think we need to be thinking looking ahead strategically that and that was something we discussed that we need to look forward next year into adding this to our budget. Was that also something that adding what Harvey discussed also having that discussion as well with this left-board in Rochester? Right. Well, the thing that we do know is that there's going to be a vote of the Rochester town on March, at the March town meeting, whether they want to acquire if they would like the town to acquire this building. And then we'll know. Well, is there no yes, the town is going to take it and we can go from there or no, the town is not going to take it. We do kind of need to be ready though that we could continue to have this building after March. And therefore, we do need to be thinking that way. If the town does not want to take it in March, we're going to need to sit down very seriously and very quickly and decide what we want to do. But it doesn't make sense for us to think it's just going to just go away that quickly. We should really be prepared. But we do know that if it's not taken over by the town, we're going to have some serious decisions to make. So do we need to include that full budget ourselves for next year? You know, with the possibility that they might not be able to help? Well, we're going to get voted down. That's what I'm saying. I mean, we don't want to end up very seriously, at least it would be a very divisive issue. To put the heating the high school back into the budget. I mean, even just us taking whatever funds, and this is the part of it that you told me that I haven't heard yet, which is that you came up with a plan, or Lindy, and you came up with a plan for where we could find this money, that it's coming out of unfilled staffing positions. Who knows what the reaction is? In positions, it's not like we haven't tried to settle it. No, no, no, of course, it's more of that. Well, I think at this point, we don't need to necessarily decide our 23-24 budget, but we do need to be looking towards that and thinking about what we do if we want to put it towards that. And I think we should talk with the administration about what their feelings are as well. The immediate is that our current budget that we're in and heating it for the year and that we've come up with this plan that we would hope is acceptable, that we take endowment money, that Rochester endowment money, we put towards it, and we do take a portion of the current budget. What do we know, Vic? Do we have a recent amount on what Rochester has raised, and Rochester, and Midger Rochester has raised? Repurposing. Repurposing. Yes, hi, Gideon. We have a little over 2,000, and we really haven't gotten going yet, but we had a conversation with one of the members of the trustees of Public Fund Statement, Barbara Hart, who is very receptive to our appeal to provide some funding towards this initiative, that she's asked us to submit a letter and include in that letter some briefing on what happens tonight at the school board meeting to get an indication of what's the level of collaboration and mutual interest, and they will meet again on the October 17th, and so we hope to have a decision by October 17th about whether and if so to what extent the Rochester trustees of Public Funds would be willing to commit funds to this initiative. Pat Harvey has provided the alumni list for the school graduates and will be in touch with the alumni group and make an appeal to them. We're still, as I said, sort of getting organized, and we've got several people who are committed to working on this project, and we wanted to see how things went tonight, and then I think we'll be in a position to really get this going. I've raised the possibility that we prepare to be paying the whole amount ourselves, because we just, I mean, this is my thing last night, we can't count on donations, we can't count on the trustees. The only thing we can know is that this bill has to get paid, and that we're the ones who pay that bill, because it's our property. So I guess for me, and this is what I was saying last time, I just want to be very clear that we have to be realistic about these expenses and how we're going to pay for them, and if it turns out that they can raise $15,000, $20,000 is their goal, the trustees can throw in $15,000 and we're at $35,000 and we end up, you know, great. That would be wonderful, that's the best of all positions, but I think we have to be ready to pay the whole bill and to also follow through on any pushback we get on that. Well, I think this is a, I think this is an enormous asset that we really need to protect, because we, I do see that the plan, I do see that there is a viable future in this, that something that we are just nourishing along just a little bit more, and I think we, I think we should do what we can to protect it. So then I was, I agree with you, I also think we need to come up with a rationale to the people that say, why are we spending money on keeping this building going, and to the other people of saying, why are we, if we're spending money to heat this building, why are we not using it? Because I think though you're going to get the two sides of that, and we need to have an answer for them. You know, and I think Kathleen at our meeting talked, Catherine talked about having a direct link from the repurposing committee's website to the SU website when you click in our website, so that people wanting more information, and we also can utilize letters, the editor of the things, and social media, why all this hard work is being done by volunteers, multiple years, to preserve, protect, and give this building another life. And that story, I totally agree with you, needs to be told. It's, I don't think it's hair on fire. Let's just say that there's no alternative. You have to tear it down. How do you educate kids at the Rochester elementary school when that building's being torn down? I mean, just think about that for a second. You can't do it all in the summer. And then the loss of the potential, like the auditorium, like the gym, for educational purposes. So what we're doing is keeping alive the possibility the school can sell via an important educational and community resource for very little money. You talk about this. What's the cost of tearing it down? A million dollars? I mean, so 800,000 now, and who knows? So we're talking about 22,000 or 30,000 dollars, because we've got a building block here versus 800,000 to 900,000 dollars. So I think it's a gamble. It's an educated gamble that we're taking. Sure. But I think it's an educated one. And I like to think as a member of the trustees of public funds, that's why we have public funds. And that's why Rochester has public funds. And the nice thing is about if the Capactric Fund is under the control of this board. So one of the decisions we need to make is how much do we want to tap? We talked about 17,000 or so. Maybe we want to tap more, maybe we want to tap less. But that's one thing I think should be on a future agenda for us when we're doing our work. Well, I think maybe at this point, we just need to agree that that is a avenue that we would like to take. That's all we have to do. And then when it gets down to the nitty gritty of, okay, we need to now. I don't know the current. You don't know. Well, is there a timeline? I mean, I asked last time, obviously, the money will come at some point from our general fund to pay the heating bill as the bills come in. Yeah, of course. I mean, yeah. Just to remind everyone, the voters vote the bottom line budget. Yeah, right. That's what they vote on. And so within that bottom line budget is a whole lot of budget lines. And so we have unanticipated expenses happen in school districts like any other organization, right? And so what we do as we sit down as this manager of principal and myself and say, where are we reconciling these budget lines to come out at 66,000 to the good, right? Which is what happened last year. That's tight. When you look at the overall budget, like, you know, that we always want to follow the good within there. There wasn't a lot of percentages there on the overall budget. So the same thing would happen this year. What I would say is that we will have a better sense next month to say to you, because Tara will start to run her quarter projections, right? If you remember, you get a first quarter projection. Here's what we're at projecting wise, and we'll project that whole expense in it overspending. Here's what we look like we're going to be coming out of. So here's what we're looking for maybe to possibly use this trust to help offset what we don't think we can make up the difference. So the one problem is that we were pretty categorical saying that we were not going to use the high school for educational purposes and that that was going to be, and we were very proud that we took it out of the budget as far as heating it. So I do think we have to accept that we're changing our direction and we're changing the way we're talking. Just to be aware of that. I totally agree. And that we need to be forthright about that, that this is what we're doing and not, we don't want to hear that, oh, because I know this is the way and it gets worked out. But the fact is, I don't want somebody to say, how did you pay for this? I think we need to be very upfront in the minute saying, but we're going to pay for this. And we're going to pay for it. Hopefully we're going to get a lot of support. But we are going to pay for this to heat the building for this year. And I think we have to be very clear about that and maybe even vote on it. And I think what changed for me was that this incredible work that has been done by this repurposing committee and the grants that they've sought out and what they have done has made this a real possibility. This is real. And so let's get this. Yeah. No, I totally support that. I'm just saying that we need to be very clear about our change in how we view this and that we, I think, I don't know if it's appropriate to vote on it. So does that go in the minutes, like you're saying, as far as that we redirected our position due to the well thought out information that we've gathered from the repurposing committee? Is this a statement? You're going to make a motion. I mean, it's not one for action. It's not binding. It's not a binding. It's a statement that faces you. I think you could say that you're directing the administration to heat the building. I mean, that's really, we work for you. So I think your motion may be that, right? But I think putting the reasons in there, putting the reasons in there, which is how, as I said, because of the extraordinary possible vision presented by the repurposing committee. Thank you. I think maybe we're not bringing up the fact that the vision by the repurposing committee is, in fact, if the town or to purchase the building, right? Yeah. So I think that while we're talking around this, our motivation for paying for it, we have to also talk about holding on to the building. And that's all the possibility of the plan either. I think we should wait until we get all further down the road. Oh yeah. I just I'm saying if we're talking about it right now, we want to be open with everyone. If we're changing our tune about how we feel about paying for the building because there's a plan by the repurposing committee. I think it's it is changing our tune and how we feel about owning the building. Well, we're speculating that the town's going to buy it still. Well, I think that is we have a hope. We have a vision. We have a vision that because of the work done, and because I have to say, I'm a little more hopeful just talking. I've been talking less to older people in Rochester and more to younger people in Rochester, and they're rather excited about it. They're excited about the potentials of that building. And I think and I said to them very clearly, you need to be at these meetings, you need to be at this remote meeting. And I think that's going to be one of our jobs is to really get out, get the parents of the kids out, get the younger generation out to vote to talk about this and vote on this. Because I understand fixed incomes, all that kind of thing of an older person. This sounds like an overwhelming thing to take on possibly. I don't want to speak to them. So yes, I think we have to we have to take on that. But we are we are I'm full going full speed toward the idea that Rochester is going to take this on. Megan Payne brought up a great thing that I had forgotten about. She said, this never should have been part of the merger. It should have been taken out and it almost was at one point when she was in the work. It almost took the building out and just gave it to Rochester right then. And that it always should be it should have been Rochester's from the first place. And that that I think is a really great argument. And I think it's something to say to Stockbridge that they sort of felt that too, from the beginning. And I think all of us sort of wish it had been decided back in that time. And maybe they left it open for the options for us. But that's an argument that I think could potentially carry the day when we get to March, and we're really at a point where we're voting. So, I don't know. What's the will of the board? Do we need anything or does our discussion do it? I think our discussion does it. Okay. We feel our discussion or do you feel that we need a clear I'll have to pick that because it's we want to send a message seems to me that we're excited about the possibility. We've said that before we're certainly well it's we support them we support their vision okay we've allowed people to go in. I mean we have done said this before so I don't know but that's fine. It does feel like heating up to the minutes and the minutes reflect some of the key reasons as Patrick was saying that it's so important that we can get that from from Vic and the repurposing committee. But it would be great to see something up on our son's website a link. Yeah, soon. Yeah. Oh that's a good idea. The notes are going to reach out. Yeah, the link with the repurposing. Yeah, we're just putting the link to their site. I think it's already happened. Oh, that's right. Because there was a conversation about adding a task for community names. Perfect. And I think we already took care of it. Well, okay. Do you feel like you have what you what you need for to go towards the trustees of public funds? Yeah, you know, they haven't participated in any of these conversations obviously and I think anything that we could provide them in terms of any formal I know there was a vote the last was the last school board meeting where the school board did vote its support for the project and and you know maybe that's sufficient. Okay, well, we definitely are going together as part. I mean, all of us seem to be in agreement. Yeah, talking about fundraising, though, we have drunk retreat, correct? Is that coming up? It's not officially approved yet. So it is. It has to go through this left board because it is a one-off. Tonight would kind of be our chance to discuss matters since we're organizing there. Well, we need to, I mean, maybe the heating committee can be the fundraising committee. I think we should put it back on to the refurbishing. I think that if any of the school board members want to on their own be, you know, volunteer to work with them, I think that would be our responsibility. Our responsibility, we were volunteering to take on is the community-wide community-based fundraising across the province and we'd love to have, you know, individual members of the school board, the school community, for that matter, participate and be part of and that'd be great, you know, we'll be in touch about opportunities to do that. But we see that as that's our role. We'll take that on and and, you know, the meeting that we had together was really inspiring. It was a great conversation and great sense of collaboration and this and the trustees of public funds will be really heartened to hear that that's what the approach we're taking together. Wonderful. I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Just to finish, so we, we, I just want to make it very clear. So we feel like our discussion has covered and we don't need to do a further vote tonight. So can you say yes? Yes, we don't need to do anything further tonight by a thumbs up. Good. Okay. That's clear. Thank you. I do have a question about logistics and this task force. We've had this meeting. We have minutes. We're not planned to meet again. Not going to meet again. We had not planned to meet again. My sense is that you'll probably meet at some point in the future and then we can approve those minutes at that time because just the EI work. I think there could be times once the full board approves the EI work, that I may need to pull this task force together. But you may get an overall thing in November. My sense is the board may not be ready to take full action to December. It would make sense to use that task force if there was follow-up questions from the presentation. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Moving on. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. Driver's Education Proposal Program for Tuition Voucher. Let me just give you the background on this. I got an email from Burley Griffin, our pre-K, one of our two pre-K teachers. Oh, he's on. Good for you. He'll be here. Because as I heard today from some students at Sharon Academy, they used to have someone there who was actually teaching Driver's Ed as well as other things. They no longer have that program. And Burley was looking for possibilities for his son who wants to get his learners permit. And we, I reached out to Jamie. Jamie got back to me that there is a program at South Royalton High School. He's having trouble right now finding out if it's full or not. He's talking to three different people. Okay. But nobody seems to be able to tell him that specifically. So that was just one issue that he ran into. So we came up with this idea that would exist of a voucher program to pay for it. And I'm not sure exactly what we're paying for. But the idea, and we came up with some numbers that he thought there were four kids right now who are at TSA. So let me explain how it could work. What are you, Amy, shaking your head for? Oh, this has been brought to me before on the board. And so please, though, go ahead with. So I have a modeling Grandville Hancock that we do this. There is a voucher program. We would need the budget for it because it wouldn't be just for TSA students. Right? You couldn't say we're just going to pay for Driver's Ed for TSA. So it would be what the Grandville Hancock did is they created a program that specifies that it's one-time voucher for $700 up to $700 for students who cannot participate in Driver's Education through their secondary school. That could be programs full, could be the school that they chose to go to doesn't provide it. There's costs associated with that that we would need to budget for. And so my one thing I would say is based on just like the heating, for example, like if we were to pursue this, I think I have a recommendation for you now even as the suit would be next year just so we could budget for it. We had some students participate in Grandville Hancock this past year. One of the procedures is it actually requires the school counselor for the receiving school to confirm that there's not a Driver's Education option. Again, this doesn't just impact independent schools. It impacts public schools too. Example, I've got a 17-year-old home. U32 didn't have enough Driver's Ed. We paid for him to have private Driver's Ed in order to get Driver's Ed completed. So there's definitely a larger ramification to this decision than just the students who go to TSA. Got you. Right, because we have at least 35 tuition students in each school. So that's potential 70 kids times $700 or that's about $50,000. But I'm saying they have to apply. Yeah, I mean, we have to just give it, will they nearly know they have to apply? What we would do is what we did for Grandville Hancock is we ran the enrollment data and what we said to them is based on the students that you have going to these schools, we're estimating and we estimated high that this could be your impact to the budget. And so if the board was interested in continuing this conversation, some boards like Grandville Hancock pursued it. This comes up to first branch every year. They don't want anything to do it. And I think it's come up here even maybe since I've been here. I remember it's come up in the board didn't pursue it. So if it's something you wanted data on, what we would do is I would recommend the next step be is that you ask us to do some research around our students who are in that age range, what our average number of students typically is. And then I can estimate based on where they go in regards to TSA versus going to Harwood. Harwood has some capacity issues sometimes that's part of our issue with Grandville Hancock. They're not able to meet all the students needs for drivers education and give you at least a ballpark range of what it could do to budget wise if it's something you wanted to even pursue. Well also, a child not being able to participate in driver that could be due to they need to drive after school and transportation isn't provided for them to come back to Rochester. This was the way we word it was capacity, like either they didn't offer it or the school couldn't provide it. It's a hardship. Like there's a lot of different gray areas that I can see. I mean, it doesn't cost us anything to run the numbers. That's my thing. Well, take some administrative time. I'm not against that, but somebody's going to stop what they're doing and run the numbers. I have two questions. One is strategically, one of the visions I think many of us have is that in fact, it's one of our goals is to make our high school, River Valley High School, the flagship of our SU. When you're talking about attracting students, and we're talking about K through 12, we're not talking about K through 6, we're not talking about K through 8, we're talking about K through 12. So my question is, does this have any implications that can help us move towards that goal at all? And then secondly, if not, is there things that we could utilize or need that, for instance, the Sharon Academy could support our Supervisory Union with? And with resources, with curriculum, with teachers, whatever the case is. We're in a competitive environment, and I'm very much aware of that. And one thing we've got that other schools possibly don't have is we've got a Driver's Ed program. We also have great sports teams. We also got space, a music, and you name it, but that's one of them. And so I don't know, I'm feeling, let's look at this strategically as well as, gee, we will take on the administrative burden of not only figuring out what the costs are, but administering it. That's my two cents. So we do, we meet our needs at our high school. We're not sending kids away. So at the WRVSU River Valley High School, we're meeting our students' needs for Driver's Ed. We don't have capacity to meet our needs plus Sharon Academies. My one argument and what I've said to parents in the past that tuition to Sharon Academy is your tax dollars, you are spending 18.5 per pupil to go to Sharon Academy. And don't mean this critically, but the tuition at our high school is lower than that. And then you provide Driver's Ed. And we provide extracurricular activities, and there's no fee involved for those extracurricular activities. So I just, my one thing that I think I have a hard time with is I wish I would, and I've said this before to families, I am very supportive to advocate with you to Sharon Academy, that especially now that you say you meet a quality standards and you get to set your tuition, Driver's Ed should be part of that package. And so that's the other option too is that as a board we could craft something to advocate to Sharon Academy that they consider that for their students and how they're going to provide that. That would, that would be my, that would be my stand on it. All right, how do we, what's your pleasure? What do we want to do on this? I agree with Jamie that I think that we pay, we pay tuition to Sharon Academy the same as we pay tuition to Woodstock. And it's a, to pay an additional amount so a child could access Driver's Ed whereas it's included in the Woodstock tuition. It doesn't actually even seem equitable to me because now why doesn't that could get something extra? So I hear the parents and I understand completely, but that is one of the things you have to take into consideration when you decide where you're going to send your kids. So are we saying we do not want to go for, no, no, no, I'm, this is a vote. Okay. I think we need a motion on this, that we are not going to go forward with having our administration look into the details of the tuition voucher. Is that the consensus? I'd make that motion. That's my inclination too. I'm not sure from you and from Patrick or from Justine. Okay. Justine. I feel the same way. Okay. That's my inclination. I think that's very clear. Okay. I think would someone be willing to craft that letter? Oh, a letter to Sharon? Yeah. Oh, I think, okay, let's just say we just, we just, well, we know, we just said we did not vote for a tuition voucher. But I don't know. This is just suggested by Jamie. That was suggested. But I don't think you just say what we want to do. You pay the tuition dollars to Sharon. I get it. You could craft a statement to them saying that you have concerns that students are electing to go to Sharon Academy and that driver's education is not something being provided. I would support that. No, I was actually actually going to volunteer who would, no, I think that's something that our administration could do quite well and quite easily. And it advances, I think, our strategic objectives. Berling would like to make a comment now. This is our last item. Well, do we need to even make a motion on this because it's, it's a discussion and not an action. So it's not a, not a motion. So public comment is coming up and we allow him to speak down with that. How did the board feel about that? Well, since we're not making a, do we have any new hires and reservations? We do. Oh, okay. And Berling, if you can just wait, it's literally two items on for public comment. And then we'll, we'll hear your, your your two cents. And this, that we're taking new action doesn't mean it's dead. It just means we're not taking action today. And we, this would only be a discussion anyway tonight, Berling. We would have to warn it as an action item and they would have to do some work. So, you know, it would be a process. And I think as you might have heard, Jamie was saying it would be in next year's budget, if we did it, not for this, that would be my recommendation. So it's a long term process. Let's get through this new hires and reservations and then we'll get to public comment. Yep. So I presented the board, Cynthia made features is resignation from Rochester Stockbridge unified district as the art teacher and Rochester school as the school library effective immediately today, October. Very good. We thank her for her work and push her well. I'm going to have a motion to accept the resignation of Cynthia make features. So move with appreciation. So moved by Bill Edgerton seconded seconded by Patrick Hudson all in favor signify by saying hi. Hi. Hi guys have it. Thank you. And you do you have a plan to we do have a temporary plan in place for coverage. Good. But we will be in searching for his position. Okay. Very good. And now we move to public comment early. Please have your say. Yes. Hi. Good evening. I just I hear the board's discussion and I would just request that perhaps some investigation be done on the cost analysis like was done in the Grandville Hancock district. I'm not asking for anything specific to Sharon Academy students. My my son is a Sharon Academy student. But my my thought was a voucher program like this would serve all the students from Rochester who are tuition to other schools that don't are not able to access driver's education and not let's not you know be the Sharon Academy is not offering a program right now because they don't have a teacher for it. It's not that they they don't offer it or they don't have the budget for it. There's just simply a shortage of qualified teachers for driver's education and they don't have one. So I'm trying to expand options for our students who choose to go other places for high schools but certainly not specific to Sharon Academy or you know or my student even there's there's a need that I see for this sort of program to give all of our students no matter where they go equitable access to driver's education training. So that that's what I'm what I'm asking the board. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Burley. Is Mitch still on? Is Mitch still on? I don't see her. No. No. Okay. Sorry about that. Do I remember the days we used to let them break in all over the place? That was brutal. I'm sorry I just had a flash back there. Next meeting date Thursday October 13th 2022 at 5 30 p.m. Rochester campus in person only for the board retreat and Monday November 7th 2022 at 5 30 p.m. Rochester campus Google Meet regular board meeting. Future agenda items. We're going to be on there. Probably have a high school high school. We'll probably have a think we'll have another reading by then the apply policy. You think that's too fast? No, the committee will take feedback on it again if it has come in one. Okay. So we'll probably get another draft. Will we have a educational what is it? Celebration of learning. Celebration of learning. Great. And actually you're probably I think the calendar has academic data for I don't know. I like to celebrate some learning more than academic data myself. But that's great. It's all important. It's all part of it. It all feeds different points of our brains and we all have different parts of our brain. Great. All right. That said, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. I'm in motion to adjourn. Amy makes a motion to adjourn. Bill all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you very much for tonight. Thank you for participation.