 which ones are something that, you know, and then also talking about it with the board, sharing it with the members, sharing it with teachers, trying to make, getting everyone, getting their ideas. And of course, there might be some other things that come up from the entry plan, from other areas that we may wanna consider. And I think that's where we start thinking about what can we do this year, next year, the year ahead. And so we kind of come up with, and I think a lot of that could be in-house figuring that out, respecting the local educators and board members and leadership team members to really look at those documents and start making some decisions around what we can do. Cause they're ultimately the people that are doing the work, the teachers and the administrators, you know, really need to have a seat at the table. I think the, and also involving parents, so letting them know here's what we're doing. I mean, that's a huge piece. I do think that there may be, we may have to consider looking at having a, you know, maybe, again, if these people are available or not, that's the other thing. Look, seeing if we have a strategic planning consultant or someone coming in and helping us devise a process that we think is inclusive to get all the stakeholders to at least be heard and given a voice at the table for the strategic plan. Cause the end product is ultimately the strategic plan. Right. Okay. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Scott. Thanks for that. I'm perfectly fine with making a motion, but before I do, I'm just curious what the Education Quality Committee, what position the Education Quality Committee has taken idea of the review. I guess that's for you, Kai. Yes. You'll see in our board goals, proposed board goals tonight that one of the two goals is that the board would be involved in supporting and participating in this review to the extent that we're needed. And that along with the first goal, which is the student achievement review process, that basically that's all working towards getting to a baseline and being able to start a strategic planning process from a position of strength, I would say. So this is very much in line with what the committee imagined. And we think that flows pretty well from what was discussed at the retreat and in other quality committee meetings. So will you be making a motion, Scott? I would be delighted to make a motion to authorize the bid process to begin. Is that an adequate motion? Does that do what you need? I think so. All right, that okay? Yeah, I think so. What do you think, right? Authorize the process to move ahead or? Or a curriculum management review. Authorizing the spending of any money without board approval. So I would think that a nod from this group, you could just up prize the board later that it meets the goals of the board. It meets what Carly said, the ed quality committee's recommendations and why aren't we gonna go out to bid? We're just collecting information. Right. Yeah, so yeah. Sounds more than adequate to me. Yeah. And I'll second that for Scott. Okay, so Scott and Chris, all those in favor, please raise your hand or say aye. Aye. Okay. All right. So passes unanimously. And that brings us to the end of that discussion. And now we have a future agenda items. Brian, you said you had a couple. Yeah, I had a couple. So I know one of the things that we have is business administrator succession. That's one thing I don't wanna skip that over, but I did say I was gonna talk more about it today at the finance committee. So I'm gonna talk more about it right now very quickly. So right now, if you notice that, we're looking at the job description of the business administrator. It hasn't been updated since 2004. So yeah, so right now what we're doing is we're working with Lori. Lori's gonna be the expert here and is helping us with looking at lots of different job descriptions around the state of Vermont, incorporating what she does. Some of it, I'm sure her job has changed a lot since 2004. So there might be some things that need to be updated. The goal is to bring that to the board for a job, for a few approval at the next board, not tonight, but the next board meeting. And then ultimately, I think I should have some information for the board regarding, once we get the job description approved, which would be next board meeting, we can start looking at establishing salary parameters, posting it internally, throughout the state, nationally. And then coming up with a interview committee and identifying when we're gonna actually try to hire this person to replace Lori and hopefully have a training crossover time. So there's still some work to do, but we're trying to be very, what's the word, strategic in how we do it. So I think the next board meeting will have more information about the job description and the actual timeline to, as this timeline becomes solidified over the next few weeks. Okay, great, Brian. So besides, so. Not to rush you, but, so the energy project consultant for next agenda item, we also had, we wanted to talk about the facility coordinator, right? The, we wanna talk about planning for capital projects. Yeah, and. And I talked to Bill Ford and he's been doing fabulous work with the project management, as far as I'm concerned. And he's still doing some closeout on some projects from the pet summer. There's still some things that are, he's doing closeout right now. But I did, you know, I did start talking about the list of projects that you had had from last year. He did share that with me today. There's a lot of projects out there that we could be doing. I mean, like a lot of people. We have the point. Yeah, we, yeah. So, so I think the question comes down to is, should I be inviting Bill Ford to our next finance committee meeting to talk about how we want it? I mean, this could be a very big topic. What have you done in the past? That's what we had done in the past or we had done a separate meeting with the, just the super in the past I had met with superintendent and Bill and sort of have a strategy of what to show. And that's how we came up with the little timeline and stuff and then have a meeting with the board. But I think we should try to include it on the fourth but Lori and I were just talking because we don't have a lot of time of just pencil your calendars, finance committee members for a meeting on November 4th before our other meetings so that we can look at the budget before. That'll be the first draft. So considering that we can, you know, just be open when we start to prepare that agenda for November 4th for the finance committee and see if we are gonna have enough time to be able to meet, to make bills time meaningful too. So it's a plan for to meet next November 4th for the finance committee to discuss the next parts of the budget that what Lori will provide us and also invite Bill Ford to it to start talking about capital planning. Yes. And Carrie, you have a question. You know, I'm just curious is that, is that date in conflict with the next ed quality committee meeting I thought we were meeting right before the first meeting in the month? I can't keep it all straight. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right, Lori, when we were talking about this, so maybe that's what I think it's gonna have to be a different day, Lori, because we do need to meet for budget. Well, sometimes we've met in the morning at like 8.30. I also didn't know if that was an option for that day or I mean, should we just let Michelle try to figure out a date for us? Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. I know that Bill Ford prefers mornings too. He doesn't like evening meetings. So like early meeting, it would be great, yeah. Okay. Okay. And I know that, Floor, I know we're gonna wrap it up here, but the energy project consultant has been on the docket for a while. We just need to be prepared to, we need to, I think I need some help with about what is the plan for the energy project consultant? What do we need? What do we wanna do? Yes, we can do that when we're planning for the next agenda meeting because we wanna have some input from Bill Ford on that too. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions or other comments by finance committee members? No, thank you. Okay. We will adjourn at 1758. You have two minutes before your next meeting. Sorry. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. I'll start a little bit. Many thanks to everybody. Bye. See you soon. We'll see you soon. You see how you, how are you? Good. How was it? You're not muted, Chris, just in case you wanna know. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Good evening, everybody. I count seven board members so far. If I'm mid one. Oh, Diane, I think has just joined us, which I believe makes eight. Let me just make sure. Great. We seem to be at nine even. So let's come to order at 601 according to my clock. We just moments ago wrapped up a finance committee meeting. So I'm gonna take it nice and slow at the start to let some of those who can participate in the last meeting, whoever needs to just take a bit of a break before starting in on this one do so. But I'm very happy that you've all joined us. Once again, star six to mute if you're on the phone and the mute button at the bottom left corner of your screen when you're not speaking. When you're recognized, you're welcome to unmute or if you're on the phone, press star six to unmute yourself then. If you do want to speak, it helps me a great deal if you can click the raise hand button that you can get to via the participants column on your, which also is in the menu at the bottom of your Zoom screen if yours looks anything like mine. Okay. Well, we're into month eight of the state of emergency and Washington County has unfortunately vaulted into first place on the list of new cases of COVID relative to population. So even though we may be getting used to this situation, it's still very far from normal and I can't tell you how grateful I am and all the board members I've spoken to about this are for the work that's being done to keep our schools open under extremely difficult conditions that in spite of all our efforts aren't necessarily getting any easier. So if I've managed to kill enough time by now to allow everyone to get back in who was out or to join us who intends to do so, welcome to all participants, board members and members of the public alike, staff, all of you. First, 2.2, a gender responsibility revisions, do we have any agenda revisions from board members or superintendent Brian? Yes, I have, I would like to make a agenda revision 3.7 school year calendar change request. School year calendar change request as a new 3.7 board members anybody object to that agenda revision? I don't see it, great. I see one thumbs up, but no expressions of objection. So we'll be done 3.7 school year calendar change request. Now, any other agenda revisions before we move on? If not, we'll go to public comments and once again, it will help me tremendously if you're able to kindly click on the raise hand button in order to sort of line up. And so I have Ruben, old Frank Ruben, please go ahead. Hi, oh, long time no see, it's good to see you all, even though it's not in person. I wanted to quickly pop into this meeting because I've been approached by a few community members now who called or ran into me or whatever expressing concern about the process by which Keith's replacement and interim IT coordinator was selected. And I thought it might be useful if I came to you and just gave some quick background or at least maybe I'll ask the question, would it be helpful if I shared what communications I've had and what involvement I did or didn't have in the selection of that interim replacement? Okay, I'm seeing Scott's thumb up and I see Floor's thumb up and I see Brian's thumb up. So I'll, so I was contacted by Brian, I don't recall exactly when, but he called, we had a wide ranging and very friendly phone call and he gave me, you know, my first question of course is I would love to help, I want to help. We're a technology company. This is kind of what we do. And there's obviously a natural affinity there. And so, you know, my first question to Brian was, okay, what are you looking for? And it took probably 30 seconds of him listing off what he was looking for before I was like, we have the, you know, we have the talent and the skills to do all of the things that the school is looking for, but we don't have an excess of any of it. And we don't have one person who can do all of it. And we definitely don't have one person who can do all of it for a period of several months in what is very clearly a full-time or more capacity. Like we're a 10-person company. We just, frankly, nobody in Vermont probably has excess employees in IT who have management and budgeting and, you know, strategy and frankly political and all of the other skills. Like this is a huge, really diverse skill set that is needed in order to effectively do this job. It's not just a technical thing. It's not just, you know, having an MSP come in and sort of run your infrastructure. So really the short version of it is, I was like, boy, that sounds like a serious need for a short time and I really wish I could help. But the reality is that we don't have anywhere near the capacity that it would take to do a remotely effective job at what the district needed. And I did not want to, in a well-intentioned effort to help end up making the situation worse. So I heard, again, sort of through this same process that Brian, you are actually able to find somebody who sort of ticks all the boxes that you guys have. And honestly, my professional opinion is that that is amazing and remarkable. And because these folks are not easy to find, especially that have capacity to do it right now. So I guess I just wanted to share that. Like, you know, there was some concern that it was somebody from out of state or out of the area. And I understand that. Of course, we all want to hire Vermonters first, but there aren't a lot of these folks with extra clock cycles hanging around in the state. So that's really all I had. I just wanted to share that. I wanted to share that Brian had, in fact, reached out. We had a long, wide-ranging conversation. I shared my admiration for sort of on a separate topic. The job that WCUUSD has done with the pandemic all the way through, I honestly expressed deep gratitude and I'll express it to all of you directly for the job that Washington Central has done with managing education and reinventing the wheel through this pandemic. And, you know, all of you deserve really serious kudos for it. So that's what I had. Too many words, too much talking, but not at all. But I did want the record to show that I was at least contacted. I greatly appreciate that, Ruben. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And Ruben, thank you for coming here. It's good to see you in face. Right. Likewise. And I would be very happy to help with the search. And I said that to Brian as well, you know, when, when the actual search is underway, I would be happy to, you know, come in and ask the, you know, the hard technical questions or however it is helpful. I'd be delighted to do that. We'll be looking for your Ruben. So thank you. Thanks so much, Ruben. Yeah. And I neglected to mention beforehand that the board will not respond directly to the comments at the time, but we'll deal with them during the course of the meeting in the appropriate, in the appropriate place. But again, Ruben, many thanks. Are there other. Other members of the public who would like to weigh in. Again, it would help me if you could click the raise hand button. I apologize for not raising my hand. I can't find it on. The screen. Is that you speaking? It is, it is I. Go ahead. If I could, um, Drop a couple of quick comments. Um, one, I would like to publicly thank the board for the work that they're doing. Um, while I don't necessarily agree with everything that the board does, uh, I do appreciate the time and the effort. Um, that you all have put in, in the sense that, uh, it's a hard situation. And I certainly would not want to be, um, having to make choices right now. The choices that you all have to make. Um, so that's, that's one thing. I know I give you all a hard time, but, um, you are appreciated. Uh, That's, that's one, um, Two, I would like to thank Brian, um, publicly for his, um, openness to listen to the staff. Um, We, we just got some news today at our staff meeting. Um, that, uh, Felt good about being listened to, um, And starting to be aware that, um, Though we may be pushing in ways that other districts are not the boundaries of education, the staff is burned out. Um, and it, it's, it feels good to be heard and to understand that like this is not sustainable. Um, And, um, the last is, I was just wondering that with the new spikes in, um, especially in our, our county with COVID numbers has a, a threshold been set. Um, In terms of when, when we, it feels unsafe at this point, um, seeing how the numbers right now are higher than they were in March. Um, if I, if I did my math correctly. So I was just also wondering about, um, Has there been a fail safe number that can be publicly shared? Thanks. Thank you very much, Daniel. Um, And your question is, is noted. Um, You got it to Brian. About the threshold. Yeah. I can, I can respond to that in my report. We can wait if you want. Um, Okay. And until we get to your point. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Just to be. Not at all. Um, so, uh, other members of the public who wish to speak, you're welcome to. And if you can't find the, um, The raise hand button, please feel free just to pipe up. We shall move on to 3.1. Uh, student reports towns and Anna. Hey, uh, I think Anna had to, It's going to be a little bit late because, um, Of a volleyball game. Um, but she was a huge help in, uh, And crafting the student report. She just, uh, Couldn't be here for the actual reading of it. Um, As far as news goes for this week, um, This week is the senior night for athletics, um, Where the seniors are, uh, Seniors who are doing sports are going to be, you know, Um, uh, recognized for their sports contributions and such. Um, Today was the pre ACTS for, I believe, The 10th grade, um, at school. And today also held the first of two club fairs, Virtual club fairs as, um, Clubs have had to adapt to not having a lot of in school time with, uh, The, um, they have had to adapt and the virtual club fair today for The 11th and 12th grade and virtual club fair next week for the ninth And 10th grade, um, Are there so that students who are interested in joining clubs, There is a, um, Reachable way to engage with them and to talk with people who run Clubs and to kind of get information about how they're going to Happen this year, um, because it's really different for each every, For all the different organizations. Um, this week, uh, I think that, you know, on a more, um, emotional level, I think that I have, I've heard a lot more, um, Nervousness coming from fellow from students and also teachers, Um, regarding the increased number of cases. Um, and I think that is impacting. It is really impacting everyone in our school and everyone in the Community. Um, I think people are feeling, uh, wary and, uh, Nervous. Um, Yes. Um, Um, the U 32 Chronicle, um, has started publishing new articles. Um, We're probably going to see a bunch of profiles of new staff members Coming up being published pretty soon. Um, And, uh, hopefully some other interesting stories. And then, um, I guess finally this weekend is the, um, High school cross country state championships. Um, which we, which, uh, Our district will be competing in. And I, I hope that we do well. That's all for the student report. Are there any, uh, Questions or comments? Wonderful tense. Yeah. Board member questions, comments. I have one question and it's not related to any, But it came up in our finance committee. Um, Are you ordering lunch or breakfast through the food program? Do you have any input on that? Um, I think, uh, I am ordering lunch and breakfast. Um, I think that honestly the school has done a really fantastic job. Um, Not only providing lunches, but also meeting dietary restrictions. Um, And I think that, um, I think that it's a huge, Huge thank you to anyone who has helped to make that possible. Um, Because I am, I'm very impressed with, uh, what is, what is being done. We'll pass your gratitude along to the federal government. Towns. Um, are there other board members who wish to, um, Ask towns questions. Uh, if not at the moment, maybe I could just, um, I'm wondering towns. You're off. You're on an off week. Correct. Yeah. So how do you, and, and Anna, Anna's an 11th grader, right? Yes. Um, so how do you, how do the two of you sort of stay connected. To your, um, to the ninth and 10th graders. To the middle schoolers, let alone to the elementary schools. That's a really good question. Um, I think that, uh, There are a few ways, um, as far as middle school goes, I'm, I'm really lucky because my younger brother is a middle schooler. So I get all of the direct information right from him. And he is, uh, Very open about his complaints sometimes. Um, as, as far as, um, Actually, uh, as far as engaging elementary schools, this is something that I think is really important. Um, and we are trying to figure out a way where we could potentially, uh, Zoom into elementary classes to talk to them, to talk to elementary schoolers directly. Um, it's still in like the very early stages of, um, our ideas and development. Um, But that's something that we're, we're hoping to be doing. Um, I different points throughout. Um, But that's something that we're hoping to be doing. Um, I different points throughout the year. Just to get a handle on things. It sounds wonderful. Yeah. Um, I'm excited. Great. We, we encourage it. Um, for sure. Uh, okay. Uh, anybody else board members. Questions for towns. Before we move on. If not, then, um, we'll go to Brian for the superintendent's report and Brian. Um, uh, you can continue before I so rudely cut you off. I'm going to go answering Daniel's question. Yes. Yes. Uh, thank you, Scott. Uh, the, uh, and I appreciate you holding me to, to, to the rules. I really do. So thank you. Um, the, uh, yeah. So basically, uh, the state has the agency of education has not yet set a threshold. I am not sure if they're, they will be setting a threshold. Um, I'll be having a meeting with them tomorrow, um, with the secretary. I have my weekly meetings with the secretary. Um, there is a lot of conversations right now. I can tell you about the, uh, holiday travel. Uh, what are, what are different districts? What are different states even doing around the country with regards to, uh, holiday travel and our schools going remote during that time? Are they not? Uh, they're not. They're not. They're not. There's positives and negatives about it. So, uh, we're maybe getting some guidance. I'm anticipating some guidance. From the AOE either as early as tomorrow, but maybe even, uh, Sometimes by the end of the week, maybe early next week, that's what I'm hoping. Uh, but, but, uh, we're just waiting to hear back from, uh, the agency of education. I think I'm sure that'll be a topic at our meeting tomorrow with the secretary. Um, and, and, um, I don't know. I don't know what the point is. I will say that yet. I think within the last week, I've, I've, I've definitely noticed a lot more folks getting nervous and rightfully so. Now that we have more reported cases in our, uh, backyard, um, and the towns right next to us. So we are definitely keeping a close eye on that. Um, we, so there are people feeling anxious and I do get that. And I, and again, I understand that we, uh, have a lot of, uh, we've had a lot of, uh, we've had a lot of discussions today. Um, and we did talk, I talked with the principals today, uh, about how we can, uh, support our teachers and staff during this time period. Uh, and, and, uh, you'll see them. I'll talk more about it at 3.7. That's why we asked for a calendar change request. And I'll go into that in detail there. Um, The, um, other pieces we had from the last meeting, we did have some updates, a quick update on, uh, some of the, uh, some of the, uh, some of the, uh, from our last time, I know that's been a hot topic in our, in our community. The, um, numbers as of September 30th that were enrolled in our remote learning, uh, Academy was 84. And we are now down to 76. Uh, so the numbers are going down. Families are returning to the, uh, I've in person instruction. Uh, so that, that, that is what's been happening. We anticipate that we may have some more families. Uh, and we're going to have some more, uh, some more instruction, uh, by the end of the first quarter. So we may have a, so that numbers may continue to change the, uh, big piece. I know that we talked about with the VTV LC. Um, was, uh, the transition and what are we doing for our families? And I can have Jen, uh, Jen Miller talk more about that. I see she's here. I would like to, she's been doing a leading a major effort in this area. And I thank her for our leadership in this area. Uh, the sketch she's been working on developing an opportunity for kids to. Attend the VTV LC, but also have some time with their classmates in the, uh, with, uh, the two teachers that they had all previously. And I can let Jen, uh, talk more of Jenny, if you have anything else to add in there. Sure. Um, so I just want to say, you know, I have had the opportunity to reach out to families, um, to attend the remote, uh, faculty meeting the other day. And did, um, to spend time and a lot of email back and forth with, um, with Kate and Lisa to try to do our best to, um, to wrap around families and provide a level of connection with the remote learning school at Washington central and also a level of support and predictability for VTV LC as that change has been a big one. So, um, you know, helping to establish a routine calendar, uh, providing, uh, I'm working right now on providing the packets of materials to accompany the modules and making sure that, um, kids and families that VTV LC know that they can reach out anytime. I've also spent a lot of time talking with a VTV LC teachers themselves to ease the transition. And, um, while obviously nothing is perfect, I think that folks are really committed to being constructive and, um, and working hard to, to make the best of the situation. We all want the same thing, which is to make sure that our students are successful. That's what I would add. Thank you, Jen. And I just want to publicly thank you for your leadership, uh, in this, I know it's not been, uh, this has not been an easy, uh, task for anyone, anyone involved. So, uh, thank you, Jen. Um, seconding that. So those are my major reports. Um, I know, I know, uh, you know, that, that's basically my major report from 3.2. Uh, I don't know if you want me to go into central office job descriptions or. Maybe first, if, if any board members have, um, Have a question. Uh, to ask Brian about where we are so far. Chris, yes. Um, you said, Carrie, Carrie have his hand up. No, he was shaking his head. Oh, he was. Yes, okay. Um, have a couple of questions in terms of the, um, The question that Daniel raised, um, and you just did a little bit on, in terms of the threshold, um, can you describe what. What's the threshold coming to an analysis of, of, of setting a threshold, what that criteria that would involve. Um, Um, Um, whether we should establish a threshold that might not be the one that the, um, A OE sets. I mean, especially in light of the, you know, the sounding that, um, Some students and staff are becoming nervous as the case load increases. Okay. So, so, uh, yes, I can respond to some of that, uh, that I, that I put the information. I know they look at certain metrics at the department of health. I know one of the big ones is the infection rates. Um, And I think that's a good question. Um, I think we're hesitant to give a, an exact number of what the threshold would be. And I have not seen anything of that changed. I can definitely talk about, uh, Establishing a local threshold and ask that question tomorrow. I mean, I'm, I mean, it's a great question to ask. Should we consider establishing a local threshold? Um, You know, I don't want to, you know, I'm not going to say anything else, but you know, it's right outside our door zone. So I don't want to be naive. I say it's not going to happen here. Right. So, um, So I think establishing a local threshold, maybe something, uh, I can, we can definitely look into, but, uh, We are following the AOE and I can definitely raise that question tomorrow. Okay. And I have a couple of followups. One is that, um, Do we currently have capacity if we needed to, to shift to all remote, um, Um, Learning. So, uh, the question you're asking is one of the reasons why I've asked for 3.7 tonight. Um, The, the, uh, the capacity to shift to all remote learning. We have a lot of capacity developed. Uh, I think it's also about developing our teacher capacity to deliver, uh, the remote capacity, Um, to all remote learning. Um, Um, And I have one more follow-up question is, um, Do we have a specific policy on communicating to the community at large? Um, If we have a positive COVID test result. Yeah. So we put out a, uh, the COVID-19 coordinator myself has worked with the department of health. Uh, I'm sorry to all the communities about it's called the COVID-19 action guide about what folks can expect if and when we have a positive case. Uh, we have sent it out to our communities. I believe we're working on getting it posted in our website. We are trying to update our website, especially the reopening website. As now that we've reopened, there's a question about do we, how much do we need to keep on the reopening website? And how much do we just want to make sure that folks have something that they can refer to? So we do have a COVID-19 action guide. Uh, I'm making sure it's getting posted on the website, but it has gone out to our communities. Okay. Thank you. And the communication plan is in there. Sorry. Scott, this is Jill. I have a comment when you have time. I'm, I'm just phone only. Um, May I go to Jonas first and then to you. Please. Yes. I just wanted to let you know. Very good. Thank you, Joe. No, no, go ahead to Joe. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just had a really a comment, Brian, as you're going into talking to the AOE about the idea of thresholds, which is just to make sure we're distinguishing between. Um, you know, the numbers matter, but it also matters if we're talking about an outbreak where, um, the contacts are traced and we sort of know, uh, who's being affected versus a community spread situation, which doesn't appear we're yet in. Obviously I'm not the health department, so I will rely on them, but I just want us to be careful that we, you know, think it through. Um, we consider those distinctions. So just as you're going into that meeting, I think that's an important distinction to consider. Okay. Understood. And I know that, uh, our COVID-19 coordinator, Elizabeth Worth has been doing, she's on the phone with the department of health. She's on the phone with families. She's on the phone with teachers and staff members. Yeah, I don't know if she sleeps, but she's around the clock on this. So, uh, well, I'll definitely, uh, uh, make sure that when we talk about it, I'm sure we're going to have a very good conversation tomorrow. Jill. With the secretary. Oh, I'm sure you will. Sorry. Before you move on, Jill, can you say just distinction between what, just so I can get it in the minutes? Oh, sure. The distinction between a cluster of cases. Yeah. Where all the cases are connected to each other from a known, uh, source or event versus a sense that we're having a community spread. Okay. Where the, where it's not in community spread, it's not clear where the, where the cases are coming from. So it's a very different, um, level of causes me a different level of anxiety. Um, you know, if we don't know where the cases are coming from, that's more, more concerning. Thank you. Community spread versus an outbreak. Yeah. They're a cluster. Very good. Thank you both. And Lisa, um, thank you for breaking in. You have blanket authority to do that whenever you need to. Thanks. Jonas. Uh, so I wanted to talk about, uh, contact tracing and, and testing. Um, I think probably most of us have seen the digger article from this morning talking about, um, you know, who's considered a close contact. Um, and you know, you know, just like, you know, I think it was Daniel, uh, who asked, you know, what is the threshold for, for closing schools? And should we think about, you know, a higher threshold in that the, you know, the, the, the digger article indicates that. You know, if masks and distancing and all the protocols are followed, that if someone in a classroom, uh, tests positive than the teacher and the other students in that classroom are not considered close contacts, right? For the purpose of testing and tracing. Um, you know, I don't know if Elizabeth is here. I don't see her name on, on the call. Um, but I'd just love to hear about, you know, what your thinking is and what her thinking is about. You know, who is a close contact, what the repercussions of being a close contact are, um, and whether any thought has been given to expanding, you know, our definition of what a close contact is. So, uh, this, you have a very timely question, Jonas up a teacher had recently reached out to, uh, Elizabeth today asking the same exact type of question. And so, uh, uh, she did respond to the question and I can tell you what she said. So I, so she's not here. So, uh, so normally I would defer to her. So, but I'm going to try to answer the question is, is it regarding the contact tracing and it says in this article, every situation is somewhat unique. Uh, and we would ultimately depend on the contact tracing team to help advise, to help to advise us on who should, who should be considered a close contact. The department of health has a great, has been a great and reliable source in these matters. Uh, they take into account all factors, including time spent unmasked in the classrooms while eating. Uh, because I think that this is where it came out of where students were eating in classrooms with the, and didn't have their masks on. Uh, we do understand that there is, that the concern about being unmasked with, with unmasked children in a classroom. Uh, Elizabeth has spoken with professionals at the state level who acknowledge that though there is some risk, it is not considered a major factor in the transmission, transmission of the virus to this point, especially if staff remained vigilant in following the precautions that we've set up, uh, wearing a mask and maintaining at least a six foot distance from the unmasked students. In most situations that Elizabeth has heard about, and there have only been a few in Vermont, the contact tracers have identified some staff as well as some students to be close contacts. Of course, in these situations, there can be a lot of fear and no one would ever be prohibited from taking a test if they felt they may have been a close contact, even if the Department of Health did not assess them to be at risk. Uh, Elizabeth is in the, is in constant contact with the Department of Health and the COVID coordinators from throughout the state of Vermont. And we'll reach out to them in case there is more information that is valuable to share. So I, I, I hear that, um, you know, and. You know, that, that all makes sense. Does the district have. The ability or the authority to. To denote who is a close contact. Act, you know, you know, above and beyond, you know, what the Department of Health may determine. I mean, we all, I mean, six feet and masks, right? There's nothing magic about six feet, right? You know, these are guidelines to prevent the majority of cases. A mask doesn't protect people 100%. Six feet, you know, six feet of distance doesn't, you know, protect people 100%. Um, I, you know, I would, you know, just like, you know, has the district considered, you know, have you considered, you know, should this happen? Do you have at the back of your mind that, you know, maybe we need, you know, maybe we should be calling these people close contacts. You know, you know, even if the Department of Health says no, don't worry about it. Yeah. What I can tell you is the COVID-19 coordinator has been sending, making sure that anytime someone has a sniffles or is not feeling well over an abundance of caution, she has been making sure that letting parents know that, you know, we can't tell parents to take your kid to the doctor or go to the doctors. But what we can do is recommend, hey, you might want to think about going to the doctors if you have the sniffles. And I know that she's been work talking to families and they go to the doctors and the doctors almost 100% of the time say go get a test. And so we've had a lot of folks get tested over the last two months with COVID, COVID testing, you know, I'm not going on wood, but, um, you know, we've been very fortunate so far. So I think that we have been operating over as over on an overabundance of caution, uh, with regards to this. However, uh, if your question is, does the district have the authority above and beyond what the Department of Health is defining as a close contact, that's what I'm hearing you're saying. Uh, I think that, uh, we, uh, we, uh, we've been deferring a lot to the Department of Health and she's been constantly working at the Department of Health with these cases when they do come up. And I don't want to say cases of COVID cases, just cases where someone's sick. Right. She's been working on that round the clock with the, with the nurses and the families and our schools. And I know most of the time they're ultimately getting COVID tested. So, um, so we've been, uh, so Kim, I can ask more about that with her when she's here. And I can also, uh, reach out when I can ask that question tomorrow, because I think it's a good one. But the reason I asked great in the, I think the, the one of the opening paragraphs of that story, uh, you know, an unnamed Chittenden County teacher said, uh, you know, I had no idea if I was teaching in a student in my room, tested positive. I would not be considered a close contact and I would not be given the ability to stay home and stay safe. So, you know, what I'm really thinking about here is, you know, our teachers and staff, you know, I got to tell you, you know, if I was in a room, you know, with a bunch of people for hours and hours a day, you know, six feet and masked, regardless, if one of them tested positive, you know, I want to stay home. Um, and so I, I, I can totally understand that sentiment. I'd love to hear, you know, more next time about Elizabeth thoughts about that. Thank you, Jonas. Um, first Monday and then Chris. This kind of is a good follow up to Jonas because I work in a district where we had a contact and the next day we had four classes go remote while they waited for Department of Health to decide who was a close contact and who should be tested. Um, there were no questions that people who had been in that community of children, um, it just was, they immediately went remote those classes, then the Department of Health contacted people if they felt they needed to be, but all of our communication was, if you feel you need a test, go have a test. If you have the sniffles, don't come to work. And the teachers have a dropdown menu that's absent because of COVID versus just absent for something else, I guess, but I'm not going to keep track. Um, but I think that the schools, we've never been told there's a threshold where I'm working, but obviously the reaction was the minute they found out that there was a positive test in a family, the, those classrooms that had had contact were on remote. Um, so the schools, I think have the right to do what they need to do. And as a citizen, we have the, if I had been around any of this group that's in Washington County, I'd go have a test. Um, as Dr. Levine said, it's not from the playing and competing. It's from the car pooling and. Getting together before and after and things like that. So, um, I think if our COVID director. Is contacting people and doing things, it'd be awfully hard to put a threshold. So we know what's going on and our schools are so different in size and how many people are in the buildings. But being transparent and public with information is very important. And I just see our COVID director has joined us. So, uh, hi, Elizabeth. So maybe we can ask some questions here now. One of the, uh, I got a couple of questions that came that I was tabling and writing down. Um, the one was, uh, should we establish a local threshold? Um, Elizabeth, uh, at our district level. Um, and it has the state set a threshold. Uh, for closing schools. And then does, we should be aware of the distinction between a cluster of cases versus community spread. And, uh, does the district have the authority above and beyond? Uh, what the department health is defining as a close contact. Um, Before Elizabeth answers those, Brian, should we have Chris and floor? Oh, sorry. Okay. We can lengthen that list perhaps. So Scott, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay. So I, I agree with Wendy. I think the district can set, um, There's their own standard and anything from the AOE or the Department of Health is probably a floor. Nope on, on our colleague. Uh, and not a ceiling, um, in terms of requirements. So, you know, the, the, I think the AOE and the department health can establish the basic minimum, but we can exceed that. Um, I think through, through policy making. Um, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. Actually. So, um, Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Uh, and floor. Mine is not super, super important. I just had a question. I love the COVID. Action guide that you sent. It was super helpful. One question before we put it online is a, was there any reason we couldn't use any, are the kids in the pictures from our schools? It didn't look like that, but. So it's pictures to some local color, just a question. We don't need to resolve it right now. Just that. Yeah. I was, uh, I, I've actually been, uh, I, I, we probably could add pictures. I was so, I, I really just wanted to get it out because, uh, every single district around us has had cases and we, we've been fortunate and I just figured the mom, we just gave it out. Um, but we could add pictures if we needed to. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it is the question. Thanks. Yeah. Um, art is important. And, uh, so, um, uh, Brian. I have no one else from the board with a raised hand. So we can go to Elizabeth if you like. Elizabeth, do you need me to repeat the questions or do you got them? Well, let me just start. I think there's some general comments I can make and, and, um, I do think that, um, we will depend a lot on the department of health. And I think that they've done a great job. So thus far, as far as I can tell, and it's not been a lot of cases in schools, you know, this more recent outbreak is, is distressing. And it points out how easily spread this is. Um, I think that, um, as far as protocols and my only hesitancy with that is that, um, our schools are very different and cutting, putting a number on, um, you know, this many cases means we shut down the district or we shut down a school seems. I mean, I think that we have the, uh, that opportunity should that should it happen that we could do something like that. You know, in Montpelier, I know now, you know, they, they closed a couple of classes and, um, they didn't close the rest of the school and there's a lot of people nervous. And that's why they opened all those, um, sites this week to get tested. So people can always go get a test if they're concerned, even if the department of health says you, we don't consider you a close contact, nor do we consider that there's, that there's, um, a risk to keeping that's the school open. And I think people asked about, we can always do more than the department of health says, but they're going to, they will set a limit and say, really, you need to, if they say, you need to shut this class or close the school for this amount of time. Of course we're going to buy by that. And there may be some situation that we know about that makes us feel like we should do more. But I think that's more individual than setting a policy at this point. I don't know. I don't know how you would come up with that. I don't know how you would come up with that. I don't know how you would come up with that. I don't know how you would come up, come about. It depends on, um, how many cases, who the cases are, how they spread. If they have spread in the, in the school or not. Um, so there's a lot of factors to consider. And we'd certainly do that. Um, and the other thing I wanted to just mention is that. Um, you know, in terms of a lot of questions have come up in the school, I don't know if we're going to know, will we know if there's a positive case? And, um, I think that, you know, in the document that we put out, we tried to explain that, um, I don't have any hesitancy about letting the district know if there's been a positive case in the school that has, has the potential has, has they considered that there is possible spread in the school. Um, I don't know if there's a person who's positive, maybe if it may be part of the district inside at some level, but they have not been in the school while they were infectious. That's not something that we never want. We may not know it unless a person has told us the department of health doesn't call us and say, Oh, you know, this person is positive, but they weren't in the school when, you know, when they were infectious. They're not going to tell us that. So we depend on, you know, you know, you know, the rumor mill is great and people hear a lot of things. And I've heard a lot. I keep hearing about this case at U 32. It's positive, but I have no knowledge of that. Nobody has told me that I don't know that, but, but it's, it comes, comes around. So I think it helps people to understand that we would absolutely let people know if there was a case in the school, we wouldn't say necessarily we wouldn't say if it was a staff or student, it was somebody who tested positive, who had been in the school during that period when they were infectious. And then that particular pod, you know, depends on how well the pod is organized and depends on a lot of factors where they would consider how to close which portion of the school. And, you know, all the situations that have happened thus far in Vermont, except for the one in my pillow, which is still, still not finished. I don't think there's been no spread in the school and they've closed whatever portion they have, but there's been no, no known spread that we, we have been made aware of anyway. So I don't know if that helps. Were there other questions? I think Jonas, Jonas may have another question. Yeah, just real quick. Elizabeth and anyone else who may have information about this of the schools, of the schools, you know, locally, you know, in the Harwood district, Montpelier, you know, and the district where, where Lindy works, do we know if any class or school closures that have happened because of those cases have been done, you know, on the, you know, with the guidance of the department of education, department of health, or were those determinations to make those closures made by the district itself? I think what I know, what I understand is that the department of health made recommendations. Oftentimes in, it seems as though the schools have done more than that. They've decided to close everything, you know, and it's been new for everybody. People aren't sure what to do. They're afraid. And plus it has to do with staff. You know, I know that the case in, um, uh, across at Brooke, the, the fear was when they initially did the, um, contact tracing, they thought the school thought there were going to be a lot of faculty who were going to be a, we're not able to teach. And so they didn't think they'd have enough faculty to run the school. So that's why they made that, you know, they shut this. I think they shut the whole school down for a period of time. But that was why the department of health didn't feel like that was necessary, but we have other factors like, like staffing, you know, and so there may be situations where, and there may be situations where faculty, even though we say you, you are not at risk, they may not feel that way. You know, fear is an important thing to address. And we have to, you know, support those teachers. If they want to go and get a test, they don't necessarily have to stay out after they get the test, but they may want to do that. And we, we need to be flexible about that. And we have been so far, you know? So, um, so anyway, I know that particular situation. So I think that nobody's done less, but some people have done, have done more. I don't think, I don't think in Montpelier, they've done more than was suggested, but I'm not sure about all the details. Thank you, Elizabeth. That's really, really helpful. Yes. Oh, great. Thank you very much. And I know this is, um, this is the number one issue. Not only here, but across the land. So, um, it's the number one issue of the city that you're talking about. I think it's the number one issue that we need to address. Nevertheless, I must, um, remind us of our pros a duties to get a certain amount of work done tonight. Um, are we ready to move on to central office job descriptions? Yes. Okay, Brian. Okay. So, uh, if you look in your packet, there are. You know, the central office job description. Some of our folks are head custodians in our district. I also worked with Bill Ford, who's our current clerk of the works and we came up with a, we were able to combine and create two different job descriptions. One is for the clerk of the works and one is for the director of facilities. I'm not asking the board to fill the director of facilities. I just want, I'm just asking the board to approve the job responsibility. I wanted to delineate the differences between the clerk of the works and the director of facilities. They're really two different types of jobs, really two different skill sets. And we do not have a director of facilities job description, nor do we have a clerk of the works. So we had to do a lot of work asking the different districts around the state to send in what they have. It's been a big project to get this, to get these two job descriptions up. But so I was asking for the board to approve it to look these job descriptions over. If you have any questions, I can answer them. And then if there's anything else that scans out to you, I would ask you to adopt them. So I guess we should have a motion to adopt first and then we can have the discussion. Oh, Brian, yes. There is one thing here though that I've been continually looking at with any of these job responsibilities I ask you to consider. I always put in an area that should be in every job description just because I'm the superintendent. I like it. I like it like that way. But it's having other duties and responsibilities as assigned by the superintendent. And so just adding that, I did not under the clerk of the works piece for some reason in our last edit, it did not get in there. So I would like to add that under the supervisory responsibilities just because it gives us more leeway to use the clerk of the works as I can. It gives me more leeway to use that per person. Yes, that sounds great. So it should be understood that each of these job descriptions has that other duties as assigned wild card. As assigned by the superintendent. As assigned by the superintendent, right. Okay. So do we have a motion? To move. Yeah, so move both descriptions. Thank you. Second. Second it, it's Diane. Thank you, Diane. So floor moves, Diane seconds. Discretion of Diane. Oh, sorry. No, no, no. Thanks. Oh, sorry. Maybe this was explained last time because I know that tech, the IT job description was long as well, but is there a reason why it's each one is six pages long? Yeah, well, I think the idea is the, if you, and I work with the, even though I do not have an HR director, I have an HR coordinator and she works with the HR group around Vermont. And everyone is adding in these other pieces in here for communication, interpersonal skills, qualifications and the physical effort and stress. So they're adding these pieces in here. And this is kind of like just what best practices now for these job responsibilities, even though I know that sometimes if you've usually been a page or a two pager added these, they now become much longer because we need to make sure we're documenting physical effort and stress and frequency of how they can, because apparently that could open up districts to liability that we may not want to have. So I think the HR is becoming a HR best practice to add those into job responsibilities. Thanks, Brian. Chris. Yeah, so I have just a couple of questions. One is, is there a specific evaluation process in these documents that I missed? And if it's not there specifically, should it be added? Second is, who is the actual hire or is it the, is it board or is it superintendent? So the, we don't typically put a evaluation in the evaluation process in the job responsibilities that's separate. And that's for all positions. The other piece, the second question was, you wanna repeat that one more time, just wanna make it. Yeah, who actually hires? Is it the board that hires each of these positions or is it superintendent? So the superintendent will conduct an interview and or set up an interview process for any of these positions and then make a recommendation to the board if we're hiring a personnel, an actual person to fill these positions. And then you have to approve it. And it would be, it would kind of, the person, if it we hired a person who would be full time or half time and receiving benefits, they would appear in the section on our board packet personnel item, usually number six. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Thanks, Chris. Any other questions or comments or are we ready to move to a vote? I just have a, I just have a comment. I heard Brian saying that he's not trying to fill the facilities director yet. I did wanna put that into our next finance committee meeting just so that everybody's aware. I think that it's a position that we, on my opinion, we do wanna fail to make sure that our superintendent and our principals are doing the instructional leadership rather than facilitating facilities coordination. That's just my, so just because you said that, Brian, I wanted to make sure that people didn't think that that didn't mean that we're not looking into it. That's all. Great. Thank you, Flora. So shall we vote then? All in favor of approving the motion by floor seconded by Diane to approve these two jobs descriptions with the addition of other duties as assigned by superintendent. Please click your yes button. No, click your no button. And I am seeing 10 yeses and zero noes. And I'm a yes too, Scott. Oh, that makes 11. Thank you, Jill. Excellent. Okay. So the motion carries and we can move on to 3.3 leadership team report which consists of school update, facilities update and upcoming events and all of which sounds very upbeat. Is this for real or is that just sort of natural educator optimism? I'll let the leadership team answer that. So, but I know I'm very upbeat, but I'm always upbeat. So I'm just extremely proud of our district and our teachers and families leading the way through this reopening. So I basically, I'll just let each principal present their update and they can also do their, do they usually do their, this is new for me. So this is our first time. So do we usually do school updates and then facility updates or should we just let the principal do both at the same time? Would that be helpful? Yeah, let the principal do both mixed together with their usual economy of words. Yes. I see someone has their hand raised. Yeah, actually, Lindy has her hand up. So maybe we'll, Lindy, would you like to weigh in before we go to the leadership team? I wanted to weigh in because of your comment about the optimism and is this real? And as a board member, I appreciate seeing such an upbeat report and the details about the activities going into it. When I read it during the week, it re-energized me about my faith in the leadership team and our schools and what we're doing. So I appreciate getting this in this world right now, having something that's optimistic and I can feel the dedication of these leaders through the writing in their report. So I really appreciate it as a board member. Beautiful, Lindy. Thank you, thank you. So take her away. Okay, we'll start with Berlin. Hi everyone, can you hear me all right? Great. So some of the things in my update just really kind of tried to capture the reopening and just how the first month has gone with the feeling of positivity. I think some of us, we've prepared for the best and didn't know exactly maybe how things would work out, but I have to just say the students and the teachers and even the families, just their patience and understanding of the changes have really made it come together in just such a positive way. It is hard, it's stressful, it's different, but kids are so resilient, they've just been amazing. So it's been for us a really good opening considering that we're in a pandemic. Do you want me to keep going with facilities or? Yeah, okay. In my facilities piece, I talked about our driveway and our circle. Thank you very much, our paving is complete and if you drive by, it just looks wonderful and it is even more wonderful to drive on it and walk on it and it's just great. So thank you very much. We still are waiting for the parking lot lighting to be complete, there are still some pieces on order for that, but just a really fantastic job. With the whole project. I did mention also, and I definitely have to announce this, our state health inspection in our kitchen got a perfect 100 score this past week when the State Department came to do our inspection. We usually get 98 or 99, so we're really happy that we got 100% and just it's a proud moment. So thank you. We can move on to call us. Thank you very much. Getting that 100 is no small feat as a former principal. That's you sometimes get into high 90s, but 100s very nice, Mr. B. Very nice job over there at Berlin. Moving on to call us. I think I put this in my section of the report. I, all the hard work that we have done since last spring to really think about what it means to reopen both physically and emotionally safe for kids and families and staff has begun to pay off because despite the worry and it's there, despite the nerves and the hard work, and it is a burden at times, despite that, I still see the joy and the passion on my staff's faces every single day. They see the beauty in connecting with kids and connecting with their colleagues and feeling like we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. And that is a really beautiful thing to see. The, I have an intern and an admin intern this year, Kelly McMartin. She has decided, crazy girl, that she is considering, she might wanna be a principal someday. I don't know what she's thinking, but she has taken on the sort of tackling how to continue to improve our approach to instruction and intervention and using some of what I think she learned with Erin's team when she was at Berlin. So I love that because it's allowing us to build some alignment across our schools. The, I will share that there has been some challenges for our staff and I think this is probably true in all of theirs. And I don't have any staff member who's complaining or upset or feeling like this is a terrible place to be. I think they feel like this is exactly the right place to be and exactly the right work to be doing, but they wanna do it well. And it's, they're getting pulled in a lot of directions. And I think it's important for the board to know that the leadership team recognizes that and that we feel the support of the board and our staff. So thank you for that. When it comes to facilities at Calis, the, I was joking, but not really joking in the report when I said, it's great when form and function and beauty all come together. If you haven't been out to Calis and I know it's hard to come in the building, but even just walk up to the door and look underneath the portico, the lobby, there's some beautiful cedar ceiling that has been put up underneath. The, we are a much more secure entrance into the building which is great, but it looks great. We had some terrible rain and that sideways rain that always seems to find its way through our terrible old roof and ceiling tiles. I don't know how many times I've seen floor walk into our building and say, Cat, what about the ceiling tiles? They are fixed, man. Thank you. The ceiling and the roof, rocking. The HVAC system is also underway. There are about four steps in the process, a little something to be done in September, October, November and December. We are planning to go remote. So Calis is feeling a fair bit of urgency to feel like we're really well-prepared. So anything that we can do to give our staff an opportunity to prepare is really important, but on our way. Thank you, Principal Fair. And thank you for your leadership and it sounds like Calis is rocking. So keep up the good work. Moving on to Doty. Hey, Doty, I'd like to take some credit for it, but I really think that the lion's share of the credit belongs to the teachers who every day just step up in ways that are unimaginable. Everything about teaching has changed. Everything about what we know is effective and best practice is, I would say 90% of that is really no longer allowed under COVID, the small group, the flexible grouping, all this kind of stuff that we do on a daily basis. So the teachers are consistently adapting as well as no joke, but teaching, getting a bunch of six and seven year olds to wash their hands for 20 seconds in an efficient fashion without water and soap going everywhere is no small feat. So I really feel like if anybody's gonna get credit for successful reopening it, I'm really gonna deflect it all onto the teachers because they're really working hard. I think selfishly, this school closure was really boring. The job of being a principal is not really very much fun when there are no children in the building. So it's wonderful to have the kids and the kids are giving us endless sources of energy and amusement and just sort of reason for being there and getting things done. We're doing a lot at looking really flexibly and creatively, how do we do intervention? We have a number of students who have backslid over the closure, but we are just making, getting kids the intervention services really our priority and we're seeing kids bounce back really nicely in terms of it's just a matter of being back in practice of being at school and just sort of really remembering what they forgot in a lot of situations. So that is going well. In terms of facilities, I did just recently send Bill Ford an email about the thing of a jig that the guy from wherever he came from came in fixed today. But I think the big news is the siding and I really can't thank the board enough for their support with that. The exterior of Doty really finally matches the quality and the beauty of the education that happens inside the school and my staff is thrilled and I think it's given them a new sense of self-esteem and a little bit like, wait, we're really pretty now. So can't we have blah, blah, blah? So that's sort of fun. We are doing some multi-tier systems of supports with the letters, the E and the M I think I mentioned in my report are having some challenges. So a couple of weeks ago they had a reteach. Tomorrow they're getting more specialized intervention services and I'm hoping that that works but basically once those two letters decide to actually stick to the building the envelope finished project will be finished. So thank you all sincerely. It has been just an absolute gift to have the building look and feel so good. Thank you, Principal Fuqua, and I just have a, I have to say that when I was reading the facility update when you submitted it, I had to chuckle a little bit because that last and the second paragraph of the facility update, our new HRV unit is installed and operational. And the funny story that no one may know is I literally not even set up my office yet and my phone rings. It's like the first day on the job and it's Gillian saying, hello, I met you once before I need an HRV, we need to get this immediately. We need to get this going. And I'm like, what is going on? I just started like an hour ago officially and I was very happy that Gillian had spoken up because apparently getting an HRV is like hitting the lottery. It's very hard to get. And it took almost seven weeks just to even get it into the, into the, into Doty. So, you know, the school will not have been able to open if she had not called them like the first hour of me being a superintendent in our district. So just thank you for your leadership, Gillian. And moving on to Principal Weiford. Yeah, so I would echo much of what my colleagues have said just so proud of the staff, so proud of the community that we live in and work in just for rallying together, coming together. We have been incredibly fortunate with the weather. I think we've had maybe one day a week each week where we can't be outside, but that has been it. And that has been a true gift to not have to be in the building. And we also have had plenty of time to practice what it looks like on those rainy days when we all have to be in the building all day and we've had a little taste of it. But I think that, you know, we certainly as a leadership team didn't plan to just have all of this glowing optimism and positivity in our report, but it was nice to hear that's how it came out because we were, you know, just being honest about the start to the year. A couple of highlights at East Montpelier that I mentioned and I'll go in a little bit more detail. One is our student leadership team of sixth graders that is up and running and going strong. Our announcements in the morning are happening. You know, they're doing the recycling and the composting and supporting the building and the teachers in ways that they have in the past and also in some new ways. We have them bringing out all of the recess equipment each day. They don't do any sanitizing or cleaning but they do a lot of the heavy lifting and helping out which has been a huge help to the teachers into the whole recess process that we have which is quite a thing right now with pods. The other thing that I'm just so proud of is our staff and the professional development. For years, our Wednesdays have been a professional development day from 8.15 until 4.45 every Wednesday and this year is no exception. So regardless of what's going on in the COVID world we're still learning and growing together as a staff. We have data teams that are up and running. Today we did a formative assessment module together where we watched videos and read articles and participated in a protocol and discussion. Now more than ever formative assessment is so important to see where our kids are at and where they're headed. And then the other thing that I'm so proud of you know, regardless of COVID is we did some learning last spring together around our MTSS model. We used to have intervention blocks called Reteach and we actually have gotten rid of them and we have extended blocks of time for in the content area. So for math, literacy and writing and our interventionist support students during extended blocks rather than pulling them out. And so that we started this year and I'm very pleased with the outcome so far. It's a lot of work and it means we have some of our teachers going into a lot of the pods and working with students from across the building but we really felt like that would meet our students' needs in the best way and it's been going well so far. The only other thing I would update, I have nothing to really update for facilities. We have an amazing facility. It's been beautiful and it continues to be beautiful. We did no work on it this summer but the one thing I would say is we have had new students join us every single week of this entire fall. So we are bursting a bit at the seams and we're getting really creative with figuring out how to fit our students into classrooms. And the most recent thing which has to do with facilities is we had beautiful rectangular tables in the past where kids could all sit around and work together. Those are a thing of the past this year and we have moved to purchasing small individual desks and we've had to purchase them a number of times this fall because we keep growing. So our classrooms look very different facilities-wise than they have in the past and kids are getting accustomed to it and they're doing well with it. Thank you, Ali. Thank you, Principal Lyford. I appreciate all the information about the assessments and talking about MTSS and the great facilities that you have. I will say I've been to East Montpellier a number of times and every time I'm over there I get a very warm feeling and you just know something good is going on over there. So keep up the good work. And now we move on to Principal Provost Rhomney. Thank you. Great to be here with everyone. And I'm happy that the report was received with positivity and optimism. That's a relief. Know that it doesn't underscore the daily challenges that our students, not our students for the most part are staff do such a great job working around obstacles and overcoming some challenges for students. So I'm really thankful for the group of adults that we have who are working tirelessly to problem solve some really challenging, some challenging situations for kids. Things that are complicated some days and our staff is very dedicated in working through a lot of things. As many of the other principals have mentioned a number of things that we're also doing over at Rhomney. Really proud of the way that students have adapted to new routines. Students have been really flexible every day. We remind them of the expectations and they do a great job with masks. They need reminders about keeping distance from other people. They've learned how to wash their hands in interesting ways and they have processes in different classrooms. So in many ways, the kids are doing very well and they figured out how to do this. Again, with some reminders this month we're finishing up like all of our schools. We're finishing up our fall assessment to get a better understanding of where kids are at. The previous data that we're referring to was from early in 2020. So we weren't able to complete that in at the end of the school year. So we're trying to understand where students are at and where we need to help them to grow. But all in all things are working out okay. And as I mentioned in the report and I've shared in our newsletters, a big celebration for us is that we've been able to spend lots of time outdoors. We borrowed the Middlesex Town property and we spent a lot of time out there. We have some tent spaces and we've had community members and staff members who have helped set out some great outdoor learning experiences. And we have North Branch Nature Center working with us next week around how we can continue that into the winter. Regarding facilities this summer we had the sidewalk replacement project that was completed. And if you hadn't been to Romney in the winter it was there were parts of the sidewalk that were multiple inches above others. So it was not a safe place to be. So we're excited that we have a safe place to welcome kids and families at some point. But our students and staff are right now into the building. We also have an acoustically sound gym and cafeteria that we look forward to welcoming students into some day. Right now we're using the gym and cafeteria as a breakout space. Staff sometimes use that for planning and prep. We have meetings there as well but it's not a traditional gym or cafeteria right now but a lot of challenges but a lot to be thankful for as well. And thank you Principal Provost for remaining upbeat despite these challenges. I know it's been difficult across the district and across the state and across the nation from folks that I talked to about reopening but I know Romney in particular had a very, very probably the most difficult opening of school that I've ever heard of before. And I just wanna give a shout out to that entire faculty and staff and community and Principal Provost for his leadership and working through this. It's that's probably one of the most difficult openings I've ever heard of before. And I just wanted to give you and your staff it's due because you definitely deserve it. Thank you. And last but certainly not least Principal Dellinger-Pate, we have a U32. I don't know this Principal Dellinger-Pate by but Principal Steven, I'm pretty up on. We go by first names at U32 so it's, I would just, there's a big ditto to what you've heard from all of the elementary schools at U32. Really and truly the best thing that I can say is that we have in this district, one of the best staffs of teachers and support personnel that you could ever hope for. And it's one of those things where we stand on the shoulders of giants and they are doing such a good job of making our kids feel welcome of really starting to educate kids and unique and a new opportunity. It's just amazing to see. I would offer that we've been setting goals with our teachers for their supervision evaluation cycles. And a lot of those meetings right now the conversations that I'm having with many of our high school teachers is how do we help kids be fully engaged in the learning process and a hybrid model? So what do we do when kids are remote? How do we make sure that they're able to continue with discussions? How are they able to do all these things? And I just, every teacher is so on top of this right now as to what can we do to make sure that no matter what our learning environment is that the kids are able to learn, they're able to engage and that they're able to thrive. And that's the part that I think is so important to stress right now. I would say that since we wrote that report, a lot of the adrenaline at the beginning of the year is starting to wear off. And so you can start to see where people are, they're tired, but because they put so much energy and thought into getting the school year started. And I think that we'll talk more about that at 3.7 as to how we can help some of our faculty. But I would just say that overwhelmingly, the emails that I've gotten, the words that I've gotten is the community is pleased with what we're doing. They're happy that we have kids there and they're all nervous. And so that's to be expected across the board, but right now we're doing a great job. Facilities at U32, they're fantastic. Surprisingly, we finished the track this summer. I mean, it only took us a year and a half and an entire COVID outbreak to get it done. But if you haven't walked on our track or run on our track, it is a thing of beauty. It's like running on marshmallows now. So it's wonderful. And so that's happened. We also finished up a bunch of concrete work in front of the school so that ours was even, like we had the same problem Rumney had, where it was just a very uneven sidewalk and then did some work in the kitchen so that it's ready and able to get hopefully a hundred when we get our inspection here pretty soon as well. But everything's going good at U32 overall. It's just a great place to be right now. And so thanks to the board for your support and us getting ready this year and thanks to the community for being here for us. And just two things to follow up with Steven. I knew he was going to say that to me after I already called principal fair. After I said I knew it, he was going to say it. The other thing is just to give him a shout out with and his team and teachers. It was a reason I was meeting with a group of teachers from and some of them were at the high school and they did, I was talking about how the great work that I hear from parents. And one of them did mention to me that how much they appreciate hearing from their principal the quotes of what some parents have told him because he shares it out with his faculty. So I've just given him some feedback and thanking him for his leadership and the U32 staff and teachers. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. This has to be one of the we're invigorating leadership team reports that I can recall and greatly appreciate it. I don't want to discourage board members from asking questions, but I do note the passage of time. And also I note that next up on the agenda is scaling policy mountain here. So are there Jonas? I would like to. I, thanks Scott. I'd love to hear from Principal Fuqua about our seventh school in the district. We heard a little bit from Brian about the remote teacher challenges, but I'd love to hear from Gillian about how that's going and how the last couple of weeks have been at the remote academy. Okay, so the remote school, thank you Jonas because I did try to figure out where I fell on the alphabet and I lost it. So the remote school has, it's been a really interesting experience and has had a lot of struggling and the challenges and things that we've come up have, we have been completely unable to predict all the things that we thought were going to be really hard have not even arisen. And some of the things that we thought were going to be really easy actually haven't been really easy, just sort of figuring out some of the endless stream of logistics. I have an amazing team of teachers working, providing the remote elementary education. Every time I meet with them, I just honestly feel like the luckiest girl in the world because it's really a bunch of rock stars from around the district who are really just out there working to provide and replicate the classroom experience in a remote environment. And they've been working on figuring out assessments. We have figured out how to provide intervention services for our remote students, how to adapt to the MTSS system for remote students and the feedback from the teachers is really good. There are lots of hiccups and it's a really great bunch to work with. And as far as I can tell and Jonas can let me know, it seems like the kids are doing really well as well. Just a sample size of one, but yeah, it's going really well. Thank you. I really appreciate you're asking that question, Jonas. Good one. Any others? If there are not any others, I might suggest that we just take five before we tackle the next bit. So back at 733, we just had a brief intermission, point of order type of thing, but we're back with agenda, sorry, one moment. Agenda item 3.4.1, the first reading for policies to be adopted on November 4th, 2020. Chris, as policy committee chair, would you like to present these? I'm glad to do that. And I propose since there are so many, what I would propose to do is move them as a slate, but then go through each one, name each one and ask board members for any comments on the individual policies. I will make that motion. So Lindy moves. The policy is as a slate. Just point of clarification though, what are we moving? Because isn't this our first reading of them? Yeah, I think we're doing. Yeah. Right. Moving it for review. I just, I don't want to put forward a motion. No, they're not to be, they're not being adopted. Yeah. They're not being, you're absolutely right. We don't need a motion. I'm sorry. You're absolutely right, Dan. Okay. So I'm going to take that one to the bank. I don't hear that very often. Thank you. I will say it at each meeting from now on. So first up is policy C7, student attendance. Any comments or concerns? Hearing none. Next is policy C20, which is student conduct and discipline. Any concerns or comments? Before Chris, before we move on, I just like to make sure that Jonathan Goddard has a chance to weigh in if he would like to. I'm not hearing anything. Steven, look. Steven, if you have any comments, I'll weigh in, Scott. Sorry, Steven. Say that again, please. If I have any comments, I'll weigh in. Very good. Okay. Thank you. All right, Chris. Go right ahead. Next up is policy C46, interrogation or searches of students by law enforcement or other non-school personnel. Okay, next up is a C49, kindergarten entrance age. Okay, next up we have policy D3, responsible computer, internet and network use. Next up we have policy D4, title one comparability. Next up we have policy D5, animal dissection. Next up we have policy D6, which is in deals with class size. Just said, Chris, Brian has his hand up. Yeah, I just wanted to point, I know I've already kind of approached this policy with the board previously, but I just wanted to just let you all know that if you look at the implementation of this policy under number one, you know, it says the superintendent or his or her designee shall in consultation with building principles, develop school-wide, district-wide class minimum and optimum average class size guidelines. That just want you to be aware of that. So it's up, it would be under this policy, it would be up to me or my designee to set the minimum and optimum class size working in conjunction with the principles. It is my understanding that this has never been done before in a policy level. I know that this policy is, it's all the districts throughout the state have some sort of class size policy. But just so you know that, and I know Lori, if Lori's also, it is my belief that setting such class size guidelines could impact the budget one way or the other. Just so you're aware, is that correct Lori? Yes, we just have never really talked about minimums. We've always talked about maximums. And so I think when Brian and I reviewed this today, it became a question mark on, this might be the first time that we set minimums and it could really change the way that we structure the budget. So just wanted to let you know, I don't think anyone has a copy of prior work that was done with a minimum class size, but we could not locate it in our office. Thank you. Thanks, Lori. Chris, could I just ask a question? This one doesn't seem to be a BSBA model. Was it based on anything from them? I actually think it is. Because this was not, I would tell you that this is not one that the policy committee created from scratch. It doesn't have all the little footnotes on it. So that's why I was asking. And if I might just jump in too. I think the references to sections 15 and 16 of Act 153 have since been codified and statute. But of course I can't find it at the moment, but that might be something just to check, to have somebody check. Thank you, Scott. We'll look into that. And if it has been, then I would propose that we amend the policy to be specific in terms of the statute. So it's easily found. That sounds good. For next time. Wonderful. Thanks. Okay, just make myself a note. I just a point of clarification. Chris, will you be looking into that piece or would you want the other? I'll look into that. Okay, great. I will look into that. Great, thank you. Okay, so next up is E1. Title one parental involvement compacts. Chris, can you just describe what the intent of this is? I think I'm going to ask, is Kelly with us? You know, Jonas, it's a policy that just came to us. And go ahead, Brian. Yeah. I've worked in districts with parental involvement compacts. The idea typically comes out of a title one, I believe a grant. I see Jen's ready to jump in as well. From my understand, there's the title one, you come up with a way of defining expectations for the school and for working together with families. You come up with talking about ways to improve student achievement, school performance. What are some ways and strategies that parents and staff and students can work together to improve achievement? Jen, do you have an additional? Yeah, I would just add it's, you know, as recipients of federal funds, title one monies in particular, we have to sign off on assurances and all sorts of things. And this is one of them. So it's a requirement that we have a title one comparability policy and a title one parental involvement policy with a compact. This was something that we hadn't had in place when I came on board. And we had the really pleasure of having a program monitoring visit that first year that I was in the position in 2012-13. It was a finding for us. And we remedied it. So we have the policy, we have the compacts and we have not reexamined them since then. So that was something that we could take a look at now, given our time and circumstances now to see, but our principles ensure that they are in handbooks and or posted on the school websites each year. Thanks, Jen. Thank you very much, Jen. Any other comments or questions? Next up we have E-45, the role of religion in our schools. And our final consideration is E, I'm sorry, F-1 travel reimbursement. Okay, so next board meeting, the policies will be moved as a slate for adoption. The, from based on the conversation tonight, I'm sorry. Jonas? Does F-1, does there need to be some kind of language in there that this doesn't cover basic commuting? I think that is probably covered in the, Brian. I would think, I think it could be covered by the prior approval from the superintendent or designate will be required. And I think there's the seat. It says for school business and commuting to and from work isn't for school business. That's to get you to work. You know, you can, someone can make that argument because if you're right, should we will add a clarification that says this is not intended to reimburse any employee for traveling, for commuting to and from work. And in the case of a mid-year transfer, you know, we've talked about, you know, we've talked, yeah, I see Brian nodding, right? So that would require superintendent approval, et cetera, it's okay. Okay, thank you, Jones. Wonderful, many thanks everybody. So are we ready then to move on to Kari's domain, education quality. Kari, would you like to take over? Sure, so page 41 is the performance report. This is an FYI item. And I believe it's a relatively new report that's required annually by the state regarding special ed standards. And the committee had the opportunity to discuss it in early October. You'll see in the report that there's mixed results, there's some positive for sure. And there's areas where we're not meeting the target. For example, the first couple are graduation rate for students on IEPs and dropout rate and some others. And we talked a little bit about implications of this. And basically what this is saying is that the district needs to improve in these areas and the assistance is offered in these first, the first year, it's voluntary whether we take advantage of the trainings and other kinds of assistance. Two years, I believe would require, it would be required if we were non-compliant. So I take it from a staff's report, specifically Kelly Bush's report that there's optimism about this and appreciation for the supports that are offered by the state to help with the strategies to improve in these areas. So that's what I've got. Do board members have any questions? Brian? And I just know that Kelly had prepared a presentation to go over some of this with the board tonight, just so you're aware of this report and to give you more background about this report. And we get this every year, this is a two year lag. This is from 2018, and again, it's a glimpse in time, but Kelly did prepare a presentation, a short presentation to the board tonight. Sure. Yeah. I think, I mean, Cari summed it up pretty well, but I'm happy just to review, I summarized it in a different way actually since the Ed Quality Committee saw it, only because I've been to a training since we were last together. And so I broke down the presentation in a little different structure. And I'm happy to take a few minutes and go over that if that's what folks would like me to do. Yes. Okay. So first of all, what is the annual performance report? So this is actually only one component of the general supervision that comes out of the agency of education, specific to special education. Every three years, every school district is in a cycle that folks from the AOE do some onsite monitoring where they come in and actually look at some of our special ed paperwork, our policies and procedures, and next year is our turn for that yet again. And it does seem as every three years that process change and changes and looks quite different, but this is only one sort of prong in that puzzle. And so in the report, you'll see that there are 14 indicators and they group these together in terms of special ed compliance. And then I just put in parentheses here the which ones represent compliance within the special ed rules and regs and then the others around results. So assessment data. And so to share with you this evening, I broke it down within the compliance and the results sections to show you how we're doing. So in terms of special ed compliance, we are actually meeting all of the state targets in all of those areas except for indicator 13. And if folks have questions about what these indicators mean, I'm happy to do my best to explain them. Some of them are a little complicated, but indicator 13 is the transition plans. And so students who in the year in which they turned 16, there's a new section in the IEP where we talk about life after high school and set some targets and some goals to work with the student on what their interests are in terms of what they wanna pursue after high school. I will say that this is actually one of the areas in which not a single school district across the state of Vermont met the state target. And so this is a very concentrated effort this year. Yesterday, I attended a training that the AOE put on specific to transition plans. And I know that Julia Pritchard, our director at U32 has earlier in the year went to a training and she actually just presented to the U32 special educators last week that I joined her in that. And so this is an effort that she'll not, she and I will be working together on this year repeatedly and over time to support the special educators so that we can make sure that we are doing what we need to for the kids in this area. So in terms of results, this is the outcomes for students. Again, let's have to move my camera here. So we did meet criteria around the proficiencies for children on IEPs and their reading assessments. And in terms of the school age, LRE. So we're actually above the state target in terms of including kids in the general ed setting. So in the least restrictive environment. And we are meeting the target in terms of the number of students that we send to alternative programs. And again, we are above the state average. You'll recall that just two years ago now or in year three, we have created some continuums of support on campus. We have our own in-house alternative program. And so that's helping us in this effort as well. And then in terms of parent involvement. So parents receive surveys. So parents of students on IEPs receive surveys on an annual basis in terms of how they are included and involved in the special ed process. And we are meeting the state targets. We're actually above the state average in this area as well. And then as Kari had mentioned, we did not meet the state targets in terms of our graduation rate and our dropout data. And then in terms of the percentage of students who participate in reading and math assessments. And again, I gave an example last time, in the 2018-19 school year, we had students, we had 148 students eligible to take the SBAC assessment in grades three through eight. So that's 148 students on IEPs in that grade range. And four of those students for one reason or another, could be a medical exemption, could have been a longer absentee period of time. But four of those students did not participate and that caused us to not meet that state target. And then the percentage of students proficient in math, we also did not meet that target. And then the last one was around the percentage of triple E students. So this is our preschool kiddos that are eligible for special ed, receiving services in our programs, right? So if we have students that are eligible, that might go to childcare centers outside of our district, or who stay at home and come in for services. And so this is saying that, we are providing service, not enough of our triple E students are enrolled in our programs, is essentially what that means. So what does this mean for us? Just this overall summary of the data. We are at a 72% and anywhere in the needs, or needs assistance range is from 60 to 79%. So we are in year one, it's called cyclic monitoring. And as Kari had mentioned, there are lots of opportunities that the state will be providing that are strictly voluntary for us this year. And obviously I'm gonna jump into as many as I can to get smart about it. So help us try to avoid being in year two of this when things are no longer choices. And then if this is an ongoing systemic issue, the agency of that could come in and force our hand to do many other things. And so, and this next slide here, just to give you some perspective around how things are looking across the state. I did link here, the Vermont Digger article that was written in the fall when this report was first released about special ed in the state overall. And as a state we're in needs assistance, right? And so this information, that's specific to Washington Central contributes to that overall state data. But you'll notice here that there are 16 districts or SUs that are in the meets requirement and a majority of us are in the needs assistance. And then just sort of what's next. Again, some of this again was updated since the Ed Quality Committee, reviewing this with our special educators, talking about it with them and understanding what this means. I plan to participate in voluntary trainings. There's one coming up next week. And then Julia and I will be working together on indicator 13. And I mentioned earlier, there's been a training just last week and that will continue to be working with our special educators at U32 to make this a focus of our work. And then we'll just continue to be also involved in the continuous improvement process and ensuring that special advice is heard in all of those conversations. Questions, comments? Anybody have anything for Kelly? Not just Steve, look. Please, Steven. More an observation that I think we need to continue to work to have the entire district and all the employees in the district understand that improving the performance of any particular cohort. So in this case, students that are receiving some form of special education is a obligation of the entire. I just don't want to, I don't want the board to feel like, okay, there's a special ed group and the special ed group handles this stuff. Everyone handles this stuff. To me, it's the same thing as race. It's the same thing as gender. You don't have a special group that's in charge of what you do have a special group for special ed. But for me, that should be because of the technicalities and the legalities in providing specialized support. I think it's important as a board member that I impress upon everyone that it's everyone's responsibility to help these students, not just special education. Thank you, Steven. Understood. Yeah, thanks, Steven. Jonas. Kelly, what's the best indicator here? What's the indicator of this list of indicators? What's the one you're most proud of and what's gonna be the hardest one to get from a no-do-yes? I think in terms of the district as a whole, I think the least restrictive environment is one that I'm very proud of because we work really hard to keep all of our kids in the general ed setting as much as possible. And it shows here that that effort is paying off and it does go back to what Steven was saying that that's an all hands on deck. Everybody has to be in it for that to happen and to support our most vulnerable kids. And then the one that's gonna be the most challenging to turn around, is that what you, I would say probably the graduation rate, simply because that data and the way in which it's calculated to me feels incredibly arbitrary, right? Here at U32, we have an outstanding transition program. So for our kiddos in that age 18 to 22 bracket, where we're working on independent living skills, workforce, work habits and types of, for students that have intensive needs and because they don't graduate in that four year cohort, we get dinged in that data. And so, there's an entitlement that they can be here in school until the age of 22 as they're working on those life goals. And because that's an opportunity that we have that it really does not support us in this, increasing this data, if that makes sense. Thank you. Thanks very much. Anyone else? Okay. Kelly, many thanks. And Kari as well. So we continue then on to 3.6, finance committee. Flora? Where are we gonna do the, I don't have the agenda right in front of me. Where are we gonna do the education in the quality to carry the goal or that's for later? Do we miss? That's later. Okay, sorry. So moving into finance, we had a meeting just before the meeting. And Lori, are you with us? Yes, I see you. And Lori shared with us several highlights. So I was wondering, Lori, if you wouldn't mind just going by that first page just quickly to give us the highlights. So if everyone could go to page 47, this month we did a huge payroll update. It's been several months of worth of work. We began in May updating employees contracts and their personal benefit elections and comparing that to the budget. What you'll see tonight is a culmination of all that hard work. And the principal's helped with that. I had acknowledged in the report four employees in our office who had also worked so hard because we've had so much staff turnover and vacant positions. We've had negotiations settle late and the four employees that we were recognizing were Carla Messier, Virginia Breer, Michelle Sepka, sorry, and Melissa Tuller. They've worked together to make sure that employees were paid in a timely manner during this complicated time. So having said that, there's still 11 positions that are vacant right now. We put in the projections an estimate based on history for those positions. But this update will be taking place again in January due to the benefit enrollment opportunity that staff have. So it's not like the last time you're gonna see it. We update it quarterly. And again, I work with each principal and tomorrow beginning tomorrow, Brian and I are meeting with each principal to kind of go through this level, service staffing and roll up a budget draft for your next meeting. So having said that, what's not included is the special ed staffing changes because of the service plan. So we're gonna double check all that in the next two days as well. I've listed quite a few changes, but at the end of the day, what you're going to see is that we are expecting to save $410,000 in staffing this year. It's based on the fact that we did not fill some positions and the positions that we haven't filled, I'm going to list those, they're on page 49. We did not fill two instructional coaches. As I noted in the report, district employees were offered those positions and respectfully declined because they felt their time might be better served in the classroom due to the epidemic here. So next year, we're gonna be posting those again and hopefully we'll have a new turn of events so that we can fill those two district wide coaching positions. We did use a little bit of the savings for some professional development and some supplies. We also have not filled a full-time U32 food service position. We're still not 100% sure whether or not we'll need to fill that mid-year. But if you consider the fact that we have about 200 less students in the building due to the on and off week for the high school, somehow Brian Fisher's been able to pull this off with the current staffing he has. The other position we haven't filled is the 0.6 U32 social worker. And in talking to Steven, we didn't anticipate filling it this year. We're going to have the conversation whether or not that position will be in the budget next year. We did add a full-time special ed social worker this year. And so we'll be discussing how this is all gonna tie together. So in total that sums up to 3.6 FTEs and the other 0.4 Scott, Tom said mentioned was for preschool assistants that have slightly different hours due to the scheduling. So that covers the staffing. As far as revenue changes, we were unable to have potential tuition students shadow at U32 this spring due to the closure of school. So we believe that that's the reason why we've lost four students and primarily they're from Orange. The town of Orange. So hopefully this cycle will improve for the coming year where we can have in-person student shadowing. But on a good note, the small schools grant has come in almost 29,000 higher. Sorry, I forgot to quantify the loss of those four students is almost $83,000. So at the end of the day, everything is going well. The net impact to fund balances of projected surplus of about 357,000. The CARES Relief Fund is still up in the air and by the next meeting, I really do expect to have a better update for you. We have been given a verbal on our grant request. I've submitted a lot of different expenses that we haven't really been able to validate. For example, I put in a lot of money in that request for cleanings of the schools. I need to go back through and confirm how much of that is really happening and how much was just an estimate on the part of my application. So as far as the construction projects go, that's on page 52. And the capital fund is projected to have $1.2 million left. 906,000 was from the East Montpelier Fund that was established prior to the merger. 117,000 is for the central office capital fund that was established prior to the merger. And 182,000 is the Washington Central Unified Union balance that I'm currently projecting. The projects are still not finished, but when they do, I'll have final numbers in the next, I think, few weeks. So we're looking forward to putting together a budget draft for the next meeting. And I think that covers the highlights floor. Did I miss something, Floor Brian? No, I think those were all the highlights. I guess the one thing that we did talk about so people don't think we've forgotten on the transition for the business administrator and we would have something to share at the next meeting as far as job description. So we're working on it. And I think just to reiterate, you did a great job, Lori. Thank you. Just, I don't know if we mentioned food service that was extended through June 30th. Oh, that's true. Yeah, that's true. And we had that question. They're looking into how to get more kids to take advantage of the food service. So we talked a little bit about that and just to make sure that everybody is taking advantage of it. Yeah. And fortunately, Towns at least is setting a good example. It's true. Yeah. So are we good then on the financial report portion? Anything else, Floor, in that domain? Do we want questions from board members if board members have any for Lori or for Floor? Sounds like not. Should we continue then? So Floor, would you like to take the lead on this? Sorry, on the curriculum review bit? Yes. So the finance committee review, the curriculum review with Brian and Carrie and Chris McVeigh today. And we are recommending to the board that we move ahead. We made a motion to suggest to all of you that we move ahead with getting a bit, continuing this effort and getting a bit, which would be really just getting more information for the board to make a decision. We had a pretty long discussion about what this means for our district. And I will let really Brian speak to that or first, depending on timing Scott, I don't know how you wanna do this because it's eight o'clock already. If people have time to read that, if they have specific questions or how would you like? How about if we make a motion to approve proceeding with the bid and with the bid process and then we can have discretion of the motion and have the vote. Does that sound right? Sure. So how about a motion then to go ahead with the bid process for the curriculum review? The move. Thank you, thank you. Jonas, I'll second it. Jonas moves, floor seconds. Thank you. All right, open for discussion. Maybe Brian first and then Diane. Yeah. Yes, so I, oh, sorry. Sorry Scott. You're good Brian, you're good. Yeah, so I did just let everyone know I did send out a communication to staff the other day to let them know that the board was interested in looking at this process and possibly using this information to inform the strategic planning process after once we get through looking at conducting this curriculum management review. I am also going out to schools to meet with teachers and staff to talk to them. I met with the leadership team individually, principals twice and the entire leadership team wants to discuss this plan. There have been, and then I've also, we also talked about doing something like this in our equality piece and in our board retreat. There have been about three questions that I have received that have been common themes, common questions. So I can try to answer them now so that I know fit just so folks are aware. One of the things was budget. We were looking at a budget. I know we just went over the budget piece, right? We went, Lori just went over the budget and I know it's continuing to evolve. But the one thing is how are we gonna pay for this? Well, we, first of all, we need to get a bid to figure out how much it's gonna cost. But we do think in my, in studying what other districts around the country have used for the curriculum management review cost, we believe we could pay that in grant funding. We might be able to do that, but we won't know until we actually put the bid out. The other questions was, well, have we done other types of audits or reviews before Vermont does do an integrated field review? This would be something that would complement the integrated field review. It would also, Washington Central has always been kind of a leader in a pace setter in doing these types of reviews and then developing some sort of a plan around the review of what we learned from. So we're hoping to build on that. And then, again, there was a question about, we're in a pandemic, why are we doing this? If we do pick people to come into our district, is that safe or are we gonna be able to do that? And so, ultimately, I think we wouldn't have to know who the vendor is if we ended up selecting a vendor and trying to figure that out, who that would be and making sure we work with them or even including it in the bid process that they would have to qualify with either doing remote options for doing the review, a hybrid model, an in-person piece. So there's definitely different ways of doing it. And the other question that came with it was, is it gonna be a tough, a lot of extra work for teachers? Not supposed to be any extra work for teachers. They have enough to do with, this is really just an opportunity for the district to get an idea, a sense of what is our processes and procedures at the district level, at the systems level, and also looking at instructional trends. Thanks, Brian. Diane and then Lindy. My question is, as looking at the timeline, will we be sure to put some language in there that should we be delayed due to COVID that it either pushes it out or that there are safeguards in there? That's a great question, Diane. We were actually, I was actually literally talking about that with Lori and our finance committee. Lori, can you answer that one? Is she still there? I'm sorry about that. I didn't know, I was gonna get called on. And just so you know, I have popcorn. So anyway, so I'm sorry. So what we've done in the past was we've had some contracts that we've learned from this past spring with regard to students. And one of the things we've had legal counsel advise us on is some of the wording to use so that things do move along and that we're only paying for what we get. So we would definitely want some of those clauses incorporated in a final contract. Thank you for your patience. That's great. Thanks, Lindy. Yeah, I read the kind of description of the timeline and asking for a bid. And I couldn't really make out what it is you're asking for in this curriculum review to know it just was, it could go from $5 to $50,000 depending on what we're asking, maybe even more, I don't know, but I am a skeptic. I'll just put it right out there. So I think understanding better what it is you're asking for in that description was one of my concerns. Thanks, Lindy. Brian. Yeah, I know on page 55, we do have the statement of needs. And the idea was to get an idea of looking at the curriculum assessment and instructional practices and pre-K to 12 and all content areas. We wanna look for someone who has conducted curriculum and instructional practice review slash audits before. We want to, I mean, it's all in here from eight. I don't wanna have to read through all of them, but they're in here kind of looking at instructional practice across our district to evaluate the status of curriculum within each content area. And making sure it's, when they look at it, it's looking at, and here's an important point I wanna point out too, Lindy, is making sure it's relative to the Vermont and national standards and our student learning outcomes. So the idea is that we're looking for someone who's gonna work with our local, like this is what the leadership team and the teachers and this district have committed themselves to with the student learning outcome piece. And so the idea is we wanna make sure we get someone that comes in here, it's not gonna say we don't believe in student learning outcomes, we want you to do something. No, we want them to make sure they work within our local context. And so, and I think the idea is this, I would be looking for someone who is very supportive of local control. And I think that, and I know that we just had Kelly go over the local annual performance report and what happens when you don't make certain things. And the state starts off with these little, you're gonna do trainings and then you're gonna do this. And before you know it, they're telling us a lot more to do things. So I think the idea really is how do we make sure that we meet these performance requirements from the state but also keep our own processes and keep our own local pieces like the student learning outcomes and being able to make sure it's our content in different grade level areas are vertically articulated and are horizontally aligned across grade levels. So I think across grades across schools. So I think that's really a lot of the part of it but we're asking them to come in and give us a better idea of what we're doing and what are some areas that we could go into and then get that report. And my vision for using this report, I think aligns with the board's vision as we had discussed in our retreat to include all stakeholders. So now that we get a document, how do we, you know, we're not doing something where we're gonna throw out the baby with the bathwater, you know, that's not the plan of this at all. The idea is, you know, how do we strengthen what we've already been doing and what are some ways that we can learn, you know, maybe identify some areas that we're not aware of and how do we actually tackle those and then using that in the strategic planning process. Sorry, that was a mouthful, but. No, that was very helpful and how far or wide or whatever the net is going to be thrown out to get people because the education world can be very polarized on and we've put a lot of money into professional development and training and all the work they did in picking the math curriculum in the last couple of years. So those kinds of things are just the SLOs. Keeping all that in mind is very important to me. Absolutely, and I hear you loud and clear, Lindy, it's very important to me as well. There's some really great things happening here in the district and we need to build upon them, not remove them, in my opinion. Thank you very much. Floor, is that a raised hand or? Yeah, actually, I was not sure, but I'm just gonna say that we had a little bit of a discussion and I just wanna say it in the bigger, because I didn't find the right words, but Brian was open and the rest of the board to, I don't wanna lose sight of when we're doing this curriculum review. I know that it's more for aligning standards, but also to do it with a lens on equity and how culturally responsive or I don't know, accuracy to historical events comes later, that's more content, but how can we put an equity lens in maybe that's a spot that we're missing within our not strong enough in our SLOs, for example. So just to throw that out there, especially if we're gonna have somebody reviewing what we're doing right now. Thanks, Floor. Are there other comments or concerns, questions? If not, are we ready to go to a vote? In favor of Jonas's motion seconded by Floor, approve the proceeding with the curriculum review bid, please click yes. If you're opposed, click no. And Chris says, aye. And Jill, are you? I said, aye. Jill say, aye. It's not working, yeah. Jill said, aye. Okay, sorry. I'm hearing yeses and no knows. Great. I have nine yeses and well, plus Jillian and Chris, which would make 11 and no knows. So 11-0, the motion carries. Thank you very much, everyone. Good. Now, we move on to board operations. Board goals, board governance. No. Sorry. Oh, no, no. I take that back. We're at 3.7, the agenda, the revised agenda. Yes. 1,000 apologies. It's really your calendar change request. There it is. Yes. So the request is, I met with the leadership team today they have a really good pulse of our teachers and I rely upon them to advise me. And we had talked about, we had a long discussion earlier today about how we can support our teachers, how we can support our communities. And one of the big conversations that's going on across the state right now is as some school districts are talking about, how can they add more days and add more time to their kids coming to school in person? I think our conversation is, how do we keep our schools open for our children? As long as these infection rates don't change and we already talked about the thresholds and everything else. And I think there were a few things. First of all, there was a concern about teachers burning out, staff burnout, right? That's a big piece. And the other piece was, what happened if we go remote? Like tomorrow, would we be prepared? And I think the idea is, we'll have any experience of last year and having Canvas and we would be in a better spot. However, it also, it became apparent to the, everyone in our leadership team, we're talking about it that we think some of, we think while our teachers would do a great job, we feel that they would need some more help in getting prepared with the Canvas piece. There are a lot of things that they're learning. We've, you know, you go to all these trainings. We had all these trainings in the beginning of the year. We front-loaded it and that was the right thing to do for teachers and giving them opportunities to get ready. There's still a lot more work that they have to learn about and build their capacity into Canvas. So the ask right now is to have an early release days on November 4th and November 18th. And that's what we're asking for the board tonight. So we can start notifying families and notifying our teachers and letting them know. We really want to make sure we support our teachers. I said at last board meeting, I'll say it again, without teachers, we don't have schools, we don't have classrooms, we have empty classes. And so we just feel like this will be necessary to make sure our teachers have more time to prepare in the event that we have to go remote. And also, you know, this is probably something we may have to also continue to revisit as we get closer to the holiday season. And, you know, we may have to consider, you know, adding more days for teachers to have these, you know, early release days at some point later in the year if it's necessary. Thanks, Brian. Brian, would you like to give us the language, the precise language for the motion you'd like us to consider? Yes. And I saw Steven with his hand up. I don't know if I want to give Steven a chance to add any more to it. Just a reminder that this is not high school. Oh, yes, yes. We have a hybrid model with high school. We need them in as much time as possible. Yes. Thank you, Steven. It's element, it's basically pre-K through middle school. And so the language would be, the proposal would be to the board approve early release, changing the 2020-21 school year calendar to add early release days for elementary and middle school, middle schools on November 4th and November 18th. Thanks. Lisa, did you get that? Yes, thanks. Okay, now, who would like to move that and second it? I so move it's Diane. Okay, Diane moves, Floor, was that a second coming on? Okay. I was trying to give another person a chance, but yes. Okay, so Diane moves, Floor seconds. Open for discussion. Go ahead. So I just wondered, and maybe I missed it, when you say early release, what is the time that, I mean, is it fully closed or is there a time of day they're leaving? I'll let Principal Leifert, we were talking about that, I'll put you on the spot. Yeah, so this is something we've done in the past for inclement weather. We have specific times. So in order for us to school day to count, students must be in school through lunch. So at U32, I believe dismissal is 1130 and at the elementary schools dismissal would be at 1230. Thanks. Pardon me, Lindy. What right now, are you still having the Wednesday early release, what is the schedule right now that's going on? Right now, I think you're asking, what other days do we have early release in November? No, I remember on Wednesdays, there's been early release when, for the last few years, is that happening now? What's happening right now? Yeah, Alicia, do you wanna? Yeah, so as in past years, U32 dismisses it two o'clock on Wednesdays and the elementary schools dismiss right around three o'clock. Give or take a few minutes on either side. Thank you. Any other, Brian? And I just wanna say that, we're obviously, this will help us in November, but this is gonna be something we're gonna have to continue to monitor to support our staff and our teachers. And again, I'm also waiting additional information and guidance from the AOE regarding the holidays and what we may have to consider during the holidays with holiday travel. There's different schools of thought around that. So I'm waiting to hear more information in the next several days. Great, thank you. So, are we ready to move to a vote then on changing the school calendar to have early release on November 4th and November 18th as moved by Diane and seconded by Fleur? If so, please click yes or fear four, no if you're against and or say I, if you don't have access and it seems that all yeses, I have 11 here. So thank you, everyone. The motion passes. I noticed we've hit eight 30. Is there, would people like a break or would you like to just, oh, sorry, Brian, go ahead. Regardless of we go to a break or not, I just wanna just say thank you for doing that. And I wanna thank the leadership team for speaking up on behalf of both teachers. And I just wanted to also say that it's eight 30 and I would like to send my folks home to go to bed for the day because we will continue but the principal's got a long day tomorrow in the morning, they gotta be up early and as does my central office staff. So if that's okay, no matter what we do, I'd like to send them home. Absolutely, absolutely. They can stay if they want, but yeah, it doesn't. Yeah, if they have unusual tastes in entertainment, they're welcome to stay. Otherwise, with our thanks and respect, please go enjoy the rest of your evenings if that's what you'd prefer to do. Thanks. So board members, do you wanna break or do you wanna plow through? Thumbs up on a break or how about if you need to go, just go and we won't do anything super important if too many people are not here. But we can then move on to, I believe, unless I'm forgetting something again, board operations, 4.1 board goals, first item board governance school. Floor, would you like to go? Sure, so we had a meeting with the MITE committee and I was planning on sharing it on the screen, but I think it's considering time. I'm not gonna share it right now, but we're working on a board manual that takes care of that first part that we were looking to achieve, which is the norms. This is gonna be a collaborative document that I'm hoping we can schedule blocks of time for us to work with you. I would like to just be able to send that framework to everybody, that's sort of what we agreed on our little committee, to be able to see it and we would start populating that document. And then the second part of our meeting for board governance was trying to establish, getting some achievable goals. So the most important that we're gonna do tonight really is on the executive session part of the meeting. Which is the other goal that we would take considerable amount of time. So, and then we also have this quality, the student achievement goal that I want us to have enough time to do. So if we could concentrate on that part of the executive session as our board governance goal for today, if that's okay with everybody, that's what I was planning on, unless we have, what do you think? Thumbs up? Yeah. Got it. So then that's it for me, I'll give it back to you, Scott. Thank you, Flo. Great, and I think at this point, we have the student achievement goal that you can find on page 57. And Kari, if I'm not mistaken, this is your baby. Okay, thanks. So page 57. So the committee has is recommending two goals and we're drawing on our discussions at the retreat, as well as some prior committee work and the charge that the board approved. And then additional discussion with Brian and Jen and the committee. So start with the first goal is really about the system for board to review the student learning and achievement. And I think you've seen this concept before, but the idea of using the student learning outcomes and defining a calendar, there's a draft in the goal. And then really just systematically working our way through each of the outcomes to better understand both what our efforts are as a district to deliver this information, this education. And then also what are the outcomes? How is it actually going for the students? And so the model here is that the committee will go in depth and we'll bring our findings to the board for discussion. So the committee usually meets the first Wednesday of the month and then the second board meeting of the month, we would bring you our findings and structure a way to have some discussion about that to go appropriate at the board level. And really the goal here is for us as a board to become more proficient in our knowledge and our use of the information about student achievement. So this is central to our mission as a district and the practical part of this is that with time as we become proficient, we can use it as the basis for planning and for budgeting and for community engagement. So should I pause there? See if there's any comments or questions on that part of it? But this is great work, Kari, from the whole committee. Much appreciated. Do you want us to make a motion and then have discussion? Please. I think that would be appropriate. Okay. So I'd entertain a motion. I'll go ahead and move an option of the two recommended goals from the Ed Quality Committee. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second. Sorry. I didn't hear where that came from. Dorothy, Dorothy. That was Dorothy. Thank you, Dorothy. Okay. So Kari moves Dorothy seconds open for discussion and questions. Anything else? Brian. So you're muted, Brian. Sorry about that. Are we talking about both goals here? Just the first one. I thought. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. If nothing, I'll move on to the second. Should we. Should we vote on this? Are there two separate motions or one singular motion? I was going to do it as one. I'm sorry if this is confusing. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Why don't, why don't I move on to the second one? So the second one relates back to what Brian was just discussing about the curriculum review course at the retreat, we were focused on this curriculum review. And in our discussions, we realized that that was actually a piece of a larger project, which is the strategic planning and updating the strategic plan for, for the district. And so really the goal here is for the board to support that strategic planning initiative. We in fact started that tonight by authorizing the beginning of the project. So we're going to do a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a bit process for the, for the review. We really imagine this is going to be a collaborative process, a joint effort between the board and the leadership team. I guess I would say that the timeline on this is still emerging in this goal. You see, we contemplated wrapping up the strategic planning in the fall of 2021. It looks like Brian took a closer look and in his memo, he said that the strategic planning will be in the fall. But nonetheless, the focus of this year will be that curriculum review. And then this goal. Also addresses our role as a board in the strategic planning. So a couple of things. We will be drawing on our better understanding of student achievement of the student learning outcomes that we're going to develop over the course of this year as, as part of the first goal. And then we will also participate in. In the next year. In the next year. And then we will also be able to move into that strategic planning process and continuing the work that was, was done last year in that regard. So. So just keep in mind, this is in some way shaping up to be kind of like a two year goal of the relevant to our work plan next year. So I'm going to stop there and see what questions and comments. Brian. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and this is the one I was a talk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Working and working in collaboration with the board and the community and the teachers and their leadership team. And developing a strategic plan that everyone could be really proud of. I can't tell you how excited I am to tell you the truth. I'm really excited that the board. It is. Very interested in considering this tonight. The. I really would love to have it done by, you know, the board. I think that's just way too asking for way too much. We don't know when the. You know, pandemic, you know, I know, Diane brought up, you know, what happens if we do it? We're looking to do this curriculum management review and we have a, we have a two month hiatus. Well, we would have to build that into any strategic planning process that we would have to, you know, things we have to be open to the fact that it may take a little longer than June 30th or may take longer than the summer. So I'm really interested in making sure that my leadership team gets a break this summer. They did not have a summer yet. So they've literally been going all out since last March. And, you know, we also talked about, you know, the burner. I know we talked about burning out teachers. I want to make sure they're not burned down either. So I am concerned about them as well. They're not here. A lot of them left. Which I'm glad that's why. I want them to go home and get some rest. So. Okay. So I'm going to go back to September 2021. Kara and I were talking about it. I'd love to have it done by June, but I don't think that's, that's. I don't want to create a false deadline, you know, and let people down. Thanks, Brian. Any other. Comments. Questions. Otherwise we can move to a vote. On the motion to approve these two. Board goals for student achievement. All in favor. Please click yes. And opposed. Click no. And I'm seeing. Unanimous. Yes. And thank you very much. Everyone. And once again, great work to the education and quality committee. All right. So. We proceed. Two. 4.2. Review proposed VSBA resolutions. Do we have proposed. VSBA resolutions. I saw an email from you, Dorothy. Yes. Yes. I sent this to the agenda committee as well as to the whole board. But I'll read it again. To sends to the annual meeting. School board association. Whereas Vermont school board association. Provides advice to school boards regarding labor and professional contracts, staffing levels. Working conditions and legislative actions. Provides advice to school boards regarding labor and professional contracts. Therefore be it resolved that the BSPA shall maintain. Complete independence from professional associations and labor organizations. Including but not limited to the Vermont superintendent's association. The principal's association, the NEA and any other labor or professional organizations. Representing administrators or workers in our schools. Complete independence. We will. I'll read it again. Office space legal counsel mailings. Staff or officials in any capacity. Now I know we all received a letter from the BSBA. Explaining how. They share. I'm going to use the word housing sort of. It's a building which they share. And so forth. years when we were having disagreements about the Act 46 that many school districts felt that the BSBA was not really working as a school board association. They seemed to be following line with the superintendent's association and the principal association. And in many cases, our particular district at the time, they were not really looking to the things that we asked them to. And I think now that we're seeing the outcome of Act 46 and many districts who kind of fell into line and discovered that they really hadn't been represented in the way they should have been are sinking along those same lines that we think the school board association should be the school board association, not the school board superintendent principal association. So I would like us to vote to send this as a resolution to the BSBA for them to consider with their annual meeting. And I will make a motion to that effect. Thank you, Dorothy. Is there a second to that motion? Oh, Scott? Yes, Chris. Did you second it? Okay. So thank you very much. So Dorothy has moved that we accept that we approve the resolution for transmission to the BSBA for consideration at its annual meeting as she read. This is the kind of thing that we could probably discuss at length if we wanted to. But I have a feeling that most people's minds are probably made up at this point. So if anybody really wants to weigh in before we go to a vote, Dorothy, I don't want to give short shrift to do you agree with that assessment of mine or would you like to have a fuller discretion of this? Since I sent it out ahead of time, if people read it, they had a chance to consider it. And if somebody else has a comment, I appreciate it. But other than that, I don't want to lengthen the meeting any longer than it has to be. Thank you. Chris, is there anything that you'd like to say? And then, Flora? You know, I would like to hear an explanation as to the process. If we vote in this resolution, it gets presented at the BSBA annual meeting. And then what happens there? My understanding is what happens there is they then consider it. They have a committee that considers all the different resolutions. And I assume the committee says, yes, we should look at this resolution and that one. And maybe if they didn't like this, they wouldn't consider it. But I think it would give. I see it as a message that we really want to focus on board issues and not really get together with supporting superintendent issues. Brian, I'm sorry. And all principles, I'm sorry. But it does, its identity is a board association. So it seems to me it should focus more on board stuff. And I have appreciated some of the board stuff they have done. And that's fine. I think they should focus more closely on that. And I do appreciate the fact that there have been some changes with some new people there. And I remember start sending that information around. But I still think that this is a message I would like to send. Thank you, Dorothy. I see Flora also has your hand up. Yeah, I just say about just about process. If if you guys don't know, I did get reelected to my old seat. We have new regions and now we're a Washington Central region that includes memorial. So the regions have changed a little bit, but I don't want to go into that. But what I do want to say is that what I was hoping the reason to change the title of the agenda item today is that for us to go through the resolutions that actually have been submitted. So just to be clear on process, if we approve this right now, somebody would have to bring it up at the meeting on the floor. Because the resolution because we were not members last year, the resolutions for this year have already gone through the committee, the committee that appointed it last year. So if you receive your email, we have about nine resolutions that had already embedded by the BSPA that those are the ones that would be. So if this one was to happen, it would have to be brought up on the floor. Obviously, it's going to be a Zoom meeting. I just wanted to put that out there for for you guys to to know a question to floor. So I'm understanding that we voted to pay the dues. But then there's a time lapse. So officially, we are not members for this annual meeting. Is that correct? No, no, we are members. We would get to vote on the resolutions. But we just missed that timing, Dorothy. So the timing for submitting that was before July. But I think I think for I just wanted to make that clear for process. So I think we should just vote and then see. I just wanted to just put that out there when you're voting. That's all the information that I got is that, yes, that committee would have brought stuff, but that, yes, somebody could bring it to the floor. So that's what I would say. Yeah, to the floor at the meeting. Yeah, if we decided to pass this. Yeah, thank you. Yes, Chris, I myself restrained and not making another pun. So, is there any further discussion? Or shall we to a vote resolution? I actually have my hand up. Sorry. My concern or my disagreement with this is dictating where people have their office space. That is not something that's easy in central Vermont or Vermont in general to find space. It adds cost. And I think people can be in the same building and not necessarily. Well, maybe they're influenced. I don't know. But I do not feel comfortable with telling somebody where they can have their space and adding the cost of moving and resetting up an office and all of that. And there are several organizations in that space. So that's my concern with that resolution. I, Scott. I think you may be, well, you're, I'm reading it differently. As I understand they share a building and, and, and I understand to have them pick up and move, find somewhere else is, is not reasonable even, but this reads share office space. So they could be in the same building. It just means don't share the office space, you know, each every separate offices, which they may or may not, but that's the resolution that was passed around as, as appropriate at the time. I don't think it had been meant at all to dispense with the building and start over. Right. So the resolution is essentially. Identifying a vulnerability. Perceive vulnerability. That and offering a corrected. So are we ready to. Go to a vote. Is there any other discussion? Am I missing anybody else? Otherwise. If you're in favor. Of the motion by Dorothy seconded by Chris. I would like to approve the resolution. As read by Dorothy a few minutes ago. Please click yes. If no. Click no. And. What I'm seeing is. Five yes and six no. So the motion fails. Thank you everyone. And thank you for raising this. I think it continues to be something that needs to be paid attention to. Scott, before you go, can I, sorry, can I ask for clarification? Since the motion failed, does it, is this a moot point, but would someone email me the actual verbiage of that whole resolution or does that not matter at this point? I'll do that right now. Thank you. To the record. Yeah. Excellent. Thanks. Thank you again. All right. Very good. So are we ready then to go on to the consent agenda? The minutes of seven. Would anyone care to move those? So moved. Okay. Thank you, Chris. Second floor seconds. Thank you. I knew if. We waited long enough, you, you wouldn't be able to hold out. Good. So discussion. Any changes? If not, are you ready to vote on the minutes? Vote to approve the minutes of October seven. As moved by Chris and seconded by floor. Please click yes. If you approve. No, if you disapprove. And I see. All the yeses. So minutes are approved unanimously. Now. For board orders. Does anyone have them handy? And I will not neglect my duty this time to remind you to kindly send an email for your electronic signature. I'll move that we approve board warrants in the amount of 308,308,746,059 cents. And in the amount of 18,525 dollars. Sorry. Can you repeat the first one? Sorry. 308,746 dollars and 59 cents. 50 or 60. Sorry. I'm getting tired. 50. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Okay. So Chris has moved at Kari. You're, you're seconding. Thank you. Any, any comments, questions about the board orders? If not, we can go straight to a vote. All in favor, please click yes. Opposed click no. And once, once again, I'm seeing a unanimous. Yeah. And the motion carries the board orders are approved. Thank you very much, everyone. Next, we have personnel, but do we have personnel? There is no, there's no action, no report tonight for this one. Wonderful. And we have the ever popular second round of public comments. If any. The public is. Interested in, in speaking. Please raise your hand or identify yourself over the phone. If Ellen. Hi. I'm not sure if you can hear me. I'm. Can you hear me? We can hear you just fine. Oh, okay. Great. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm an instructional coach in the district. And I just want to thank the board for agreeing to the two half days. I've been supporting teachers with canvas. And it has been a heavy lift. And they're working really hard. And there isn't a lot of time. So I'm just incredibly appreciative on their behalf. Thank you. Thank you as well. And I'm not only for your kind words, but also for your work. Any other members of the public wish to anything. If not. We can go then to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, a motion to go into executive session. To discuss both negotiations. And superintendent evaluation. Someone would care to make that motion. I move we enter executive session for the purpose of negotiation and superintendent evaluation. Thank you very much, Jonas. Do we have a second? Wendy seconds. All in favor, please click yes. Opposed no. And everybody. Click. Yes. I believe the session. We will have board members. And Brian. Only, is that correct? No, I. No, I, we need Lori in the negotiations and. And Carla, if she's yet and Carla. Yeah. I see Carla's here. I'm not sure if Lori's still here. That's the only issue. Oh. When I'd spoken to her. I know me. I can try calling her. Brian, while you're calling her, I have a technical question. This is Jim. Should we stop because it's a super intended. Evaluation component. Should we stop the recording? Yeah. That's taking place. Okay. We should be recording. Executive session. That's correct. Okay. Just real quick. Real quick. It was, it was breaking up at the end. I just want to confirm that you said that. We will, we are stopping the recording during executive sessions. Is that accurate? That is accurate. Yes. Excellent. Thank you. Well, we'll be in a breakout room as well. Correct. That's right. I'll have to, just as I'm learning the board, I'll have to, I'll have to put each member into that, into that breakdown. Scott. Yes. Do you expect any action? Oh, David. Yeah. Hey. I don't, I don't think so. Jonas. No, I don't think so. Okay. There is no action to be. However, I will note that there are future agenda. Future agenda items. 9.1 energy project consultant 9.2 business administrator, both of which are on the docket of the finance committee. So. Are there any other future agenda items that should be noted? Not. Let's adjourn. Oh, Kai, please. Yeah, just, sorry, quick one. Do we want to revisit the topic of adjusting the bylaws or the articles of agreement on the size of the board? Yeah, we can definitely discuss that. I didn't catch that. To revisit the articles of agreement on the size of the board. Yeah. That is 15 versus some other number. Jonas, you were able to note that. Okay. Did we lose? We lost Jonas. Shame. Okay. Well, I'll send him a text right now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for. There he is. Good. I think he's locked in the other room. Stupid internet. I know. Yeah. So Jonas. You can propose a future agenda item. Of revisiting the articles of agreement. Specifically about size of the board. And otherwise, if there's nothing else, shall we adjourn by consensus at 1013? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Good night, everyone. Good night. Brian, Brian, just give me a thanks. I'll give you a call, Jonas. Good night. Good night.