 So let's just get, let's get started. I hand it over to you, Mike. Welcome. Thank you, Floor. It's really good to see folks again and thank you for the time tonight. As we talked about before, tonight will be the launch night in terms of getting things organized and straightened out and ready to go. Floor, thank you for forwarding some of the documents this morning to board members. I'd like to go through some of those now and just touch base. I know that some of you have been through this kind of process before. I know others have not. So this is a great time to be asking questions along the way to ensure that you understand sort of how I'm approaching things and just be sure that you're crystal clear on what to expect and how things will unfold. So with that in mind, let's take a look first at the drafted charge that would be document A and if someone could pop that up for me, that'd be awesome. What this refers to is the board formalizing what the work is of a bunch of VIPs. This will be a very important person committee. And what this does is really define the board's expectations around what the committee will be doing on behalf of the board. One thing that's different in this search, perhaps from the last time, is you'll see this as one single committee. It's a screening and interview committee will be undertaking both functions as opposed to separating them out as you might have experienced in the past. So talks about a single committee. Purpose of the committee is to really serve the board and that's understood along the way. I'm proposing because really research tells us the committees of this type, roughly in the 10 to 12 range is just about ideal. This shows a group of 13 and there's some reasons for that. One is you're in the bit of an unusual situation where you do an interim superintendent who can really meaningfully inform the committee's work. Hate to layer one more committee on your shoulders, Jen but I think that your participation in the committee can be very valuable. And also in recognition that the board will be taking three seats on this committee. We're looking at a distribution of a couple of students in this committee, a couple of parents and citizens, another central office administrator or person beyond Jen. Jen, a couple of faculty and staff members, a couple from your leadership team and then again the three board members. That's a total of 13 and that looks like a pretty typical, pretty common way of approaching a screening and interview committee. The big idea is that the board will universally invite participation on the committee and invite folks to volunteer for their services on the committee. And that will go out in the next day or so, I imagine, Floor probably come off of your desk. And in this way, the board will then have a list of folks to choose from in a couple of weeks when you reconvene on December 15th to actually name that committee. And with your staying on schedule and doing that in two weeks, we can actually get that screening and interview committee up and running before the holiday break. So with that in mind, I'll know which 13 people you've got me working with and will be up and underway in a very purposeful way at that sense. The charge goes on to talk about working in the direction of me because I'll be the one working with a committee. That's a heavy part of what you're expecting from my services. We're looking for the committee to start when it convenes on December 20th. On December 20th, the committee will be really getting orientation, getting some training. Carla is gonna be a big part of that conversation and we'll have them conclude the work roughly around the time that the board will be identifying your final choice for superintendent in the middle of February. We're gonna talk about the committee's task and that's a reminder that in some districts, they, I think inadvertently or improperly call the committee a hiring committee, it's not. You are the hiring agent. It's the board's role to do the hiring. So we're not gonna call us a hiring committee. We're just reminded the board retains a hiring authority. That the committee really is the face of the district in many ways. So there's an ambassadorial and representational role that the committee will be taking on. We'll talk in a little bit about the board's position posting what the advertiser is gonna look like and the board may be supplying some of the materials along the way to the committee to think about as it gets after screening the paper applications and starting to interview people on your behalf. We want the committee to screen all complete applications once we identify those who are gonna be called semifinalists that it wishes to meet and interview. So that will be the first cut of folks that the screening interview committee will actually sit down and interview. That committee will be in charge of the first set of questions asked of the semifinalists and we've got some mechanisms in place to reach out and invite folks suggestions for what ought to be on that question list. They'll interview the semifinalists and narrow down to a group of finalists. And that's really what you're after is to have this group forward to you, a list of unranked finalists. And I emphasize unranked. It's really improper for them to tell you who their first choice, second choice, third choice is. It's which people from this list are worthy of your consideration as finalists and that way you won't be biased or tainted by that sort of influence, but you'll be getting the best of this committee's efforts in terms of who really made it from the pool to meet you as a board. And then later, we're gonna have a long day for the finalists that will end with their interviews with you, but they'll be very busy in the district throughout the day. And this is an elective opportunity for that committee who folks who wanna help coordinate and manage the details for their visits to the district that day, we welcome their help in doing that. And obviously we want folks to conduct the work on your behalf in an ethical and lawful fashion and we'll be sure to help instruct the group on what the laws refer to and what's important and that sort of thing. So Carla and I've talked a little bit about that meeting. She and I'll do some more deeper planning around what that looks like, but this is a charge, it's a draft charge open for a conversation, but once you're comfortable with what the charge is gonna be, Floor, I understand the board will be taking action on this later in the meeting. Any questions on this draft charge and why it says what it says and what things mean? Go ahead, Scott. And just one clarification, everything in this draft is up for conversation. Okay, all right, Scott. Thanks, I've heard that some people think it's a good idea not only to have the finalists make a site visit to us, but for some trusted person to make a site visit to where the finalists are coming from if that is feasible. What do you think about that? Scott, are you asking me that question? Sorry, Mike. Yeah, I figured with your experience, yeah. Kevin, it absolutely is a practice. I can't really tell you how common it is, but it's a good practice. And it's one that I think will need to be discussed later depending on where the finalists come from because you could be incurring some serious costs to send some trusted responsible person from the organization out to Oakland or out to Spokane or what have you. If they're all local and so forth, that's a different sort of conversation, less of a budget impact. It would seem fair to me that if we're gonna do it, we do it for all of the finalists and not just some of them. So there will be time in the calendar for that to occur. And it certainly can be a valuable way of gaining more data, somewhat subjective data, but certainly more data points to consider and think about how are they doing now in their current setting, current situation and what does it folks think about their work? So it absolutely can be valuable information. So I'm a fan of it. I think it's a sort of a lot to talk about that later and see where we stand relative to the board's budget as well as a capacity to undertake it for all the finalists. Okay. Jonas and then Joe. So I'm already anticipating a lot of awkward Valentine's Day jokes on gauntlet day. So let's just all prepare for that. My question is about the screening committee. How would you suggest, what would you suggest be the mechanism, the voting mechanism for how the screening committee would select finalists? Would you anticipate that every member of that committee has one vote or are they weighted or some are advisory or not? My thought on that is that the board members, frankly are members of the committee. Sometimes they're members of this committee. Sometimes they're not. In your case, they are. No disrespect intended. I think that they should have the same status as all other members of that committee. And that way, they're really getting not an extra bite at the apple, but are participating along the way accordingly. On the front end, one of the things we'll decide in terms of the paper screen is precisely what elements of the application are gonna count most and second most and third most and so forth. So where will we put the weight? Will it be on their essays? Will it be on their resume? Will it be on their experience? So those will be decisions that the screening committee will make and also in terms of how to assess the interviews, the semi-financed interviews that will also be a conversation for the screening committee in terms of how it wants to approach it and what it thinks it values most. So a little awkward to front load that now. I think that really is more the province of the screening committee to really assess those things and to figure out how to judge, how to gauge. Jill? Yes, nothing says Valentine's Day like we're in a gauntlet. Jill. Thanks, Floor. My question is just about the screening and interview committee. Is it typically hard to narrow down interested parties to that committee? I'm just sort of, I guess backing up a step to how do we select that group of folks if we get more interest than we can manage? I would expect you will have more interest than you can manage. And I don't envy your burden on that. That really is, your work is a bore to make those decisions. Within the I volunteer opportunity, folks are gonna be asserting what their interest motivation is. So perhaps that might help you. You might think of some distribution across your broad school district in terms of thinking about the geographic implications. I frankly think the most difficult seats to fill, believe it or not, may be students. It's a bit foreign, I think for students sometimes to be thinking about this kind of work. I think the schedule may be something of an imposition sometimes on students based on their co-correct or extracurricular activities. So their availability may be a challenge. But I think you're wise to foreshadow that you'll probably have more than nine other people looking for those nine seats. Okay, thanks. Sorry, I just took out the screenshot to make sure I was not missing somebody that had a question. I can put it right back up, the charge. So how does it look like the charge? Does it look like you think a charge like this should look? Does it sort of meet your needs? And are you comfortable looking to adopt this charge later tonight? I guess we'll discuss this more later, yeah? Well, I think the discussion, if possible, if we need any changes, Jonas, should be now and we were just gonna do the motion after. So anything that you would like change, this is the time to do it with our consultant, right? Because he's helping us drive the process. And then in board operations, we would just make it official, so. Okay, with absolutely no disrespect to Anna and Mia and everyone else who has participated in our meetings as a student, I feel uncomfortable having students have a voice, have a vote. I think it's really important to have students there observing, but having students have a vote on that screening committee makes me uncomfortable. We have had them in the past, Jonas. I think that they really bring a very valuable point of view, just seeing them from the perspective. That is just my- Absolutely, I completely agree. We're all about student voice. Everything we do is for students in how things have evolved now, right? I think, but is the will of the committee, right? We, last time and Scott, you can correct me if I'm wrong, we ended up just with one student because the other student ended up being sick and not being able to participate. But it's, you know, they really think about things in a different way. I'm looking at Jen and others particularly I'm teaching to help with that. Jen and Scott? Yeah, I would say in my experience, the having students be fully involved, which means full participation and that vote is one of the greatest things that we do in our discharge. I've always been impressed with the seriousness and commitment with which they approach the work. And I think that being able to have sort of a say in an authentic vote in that process ensures their commitment as well. But this is the only area in which students have an actual direct active decision-making power when it comes to the operation of the district. The students, you know, the student members don't vote here with the board. I, if this is the will of the board, I'll let it go. It just seems, it makes me uncomfortable. Scott? I understand, Jonas, and but if it's any reassurance in the various times when I've seen students on these kinds of committees with a vote, nothing has ever gone wrong and it's never been a problem on the country as Jen was indicating. I think the students really rise to the occasion and recognize the seriousness of what they're doing and really give it their best judgment, which is often, you know, quite as good as any of ours. So I understand the misgivings that you might have, but I think the kids are all right. Any other board members have thought of that or feel the same way, Mackaylin? I think it makes sense to have the students have a vote also. I think their voice is extremely important. And, you know, we have a say, it sounds like in who we picked to be a part of this. And so I'm assuming only responsible, thoughtful students would even want to volunteer. And, you know, it's their day-to-day that probably will be impacted more than a lot of people's on the committee. So I think we should include them. Vote wise. Okay, are you okay with that, Jonas? And being, I don't see any hesitation from, get, get, Mike? Any other questions or concerns or observations about the charge? Okay, let's go on to Document B. This would be the search process calendar. It's a somewhat aggressive calendar, but not overly aggressive in my opinion. I think it's absolutely doable. And this is coming up on Document B and there you see December. We're here already, January and February. I thought it might be easiest to just sort of categorize the different functions and Carla, I know your name is Carla and I don't know how you became Carly, but we'll be sure to fix that. Carla and I met earlier this week and I was very impressed with Carla's two four inch binders of materials from previous search. So it was really helpful for me to see the context and sort of flow of the previous activities. This may not look very different in a lot of ways, but what you see is the vacancy, hopefully get posted on or about tomorrow or certainly this week. So we should be good to go with that. On the 15th, you'll be appointing the screening interview committee. I'll be working for the first time with that committee the next week in the 20th. That committee will then be ready to start screening applications once we had that first organizational meeting. So for the next few weeks, they'll be screening applications. There's gonna be an opportunity for community input into the process, which is gonna springboard off of Scott's work from a couple of years ago on the board to work then in terms of my goodness, 12 pages, single spaced of assets, attributes, experience, credentials, characteristics that citizens and others were looking for the next superintendent. And it looks like a lot of that could still have legs and be viable. So that'll be a deadline for folks to respond with the input. We're gonna close the application on January 9th, so that'll give folks a good solid five weeks or so to consider this opportunity and get the materials in. Screening committee is gonna meet on the 10th and begin our work on assessing the pool and perhaps if we're ready that night to screen down and get the semifinals identified. Next week, committee will work on interview questions and structure the interviews and make the details clear to us about how we're doing business. Next week after that, we've got multiple nights potentially for interviews. It seems civilized to perhaps not do more than a couple of interviews per night. So this looks for multiple engagements, multiple evenings doing interviews. A group can be starting to plan ahead for the site visit on 14th or 15th. We recognize this gauntlet that I described earlier is gonna be on or about the 14th and you'll figure out later in terms of what that looks like for your date and that'll define the gauntlet day. The board will interview the finalists on that day. And then after that, there's a whole lot of AOE contact, contract details, entry plan, public relations. A lot of administrative occurs in the week or so following the board's tentative hiring of your next superintendent that night. So this what it looks like and you see very much in the middle, the screen interview committee will be doing a lot of the heavy lifting on your behalf and then you're gonna be plugging back in when their work is completed. So you see the sort of flow of activity here chronologically and how that looks. Any questions on the flow in the process calendar? I had one afterthought and that was January 17th. Jen, do you know if that's a school day, Martin Luther King holiday, are you in session, not in session that day? All right, I'm gonna double check. I think it's an in-service day, but give me just a minute, Mike. Holiday, it's a school holiday. In-service is the next day, the 18th. It's the 18th, thank you, Barbara. So we'll have a conversation within the interview committee about how they feel about meeting on that day. And if not, we'll find a different day for that activity to occur. It's not a mission critical date on that date. We could be flexible as need be with that. Any other comments or questions about the workflow? How it's gonna unfold? Just one question. This is, I guess, a statutory more than anything else. Are these public meetings? They are public meetings. The interviews will not be public interviews. I'm gonna stop the share again for a minute so I can make sure that I'm not missing somebody's question. As a committee of the board, Jonas was at you who asked that question. These will be more meetings posted, so forth. Minutes will be taken, all the things you'd expect. Let's jump into Attachment F. Lord, do you want me to cover this, or, yeah, why don't I walk through it? Yeah, one second. So this has been converted already. Carla, I think you and Michelle worked on this. Thank you for converting this into a Google form. And it looks good. It looks identical to what this would look like, except it'll be in Google Form format. This is gonna be a part of Floor's Outreach to the broader community across stakeholders and so forth with an initial broader memorandum. This will be a link that folks can link to. But they think they might be interested in serving on the screen and interview committee. It describes who I am or what I'm doing. It describes the composition of the committee. Goes into a general overview, which we pretty much talked about, not being a hiring committee, it's in service to the board. What we're gonna be doing, reviewing screening paper, people identify those for interview, forward finals to the board, and optionally to help with the gauntlet day. High ethical standard of confidentiality is expected. Folks need to have access to and be in facile with internet connected device. Understand that some of the meetings will be in person and some will be remote, as well as some independent work will be going on as well. Roughly 25 hours of work is what I gauge folks volunteer efforts to be during this timeframe. And that'll take place mostly over about a five week stretch, including some independent work, possibly over the end of December holiday period. No meetings during that time, but independent work could well occur during that stretch. And an expectation to folks to be honoring deadlines. It goes on to talk about the calendar, which this is just the screen and interview committee portion of the calendar, what the dates are, what the mode of meetings gonna be, and where we say in person, that's gonna be obviously dependent on public health recommendations. If things change, then we'll have to switch those to remote opportunities. Start time for those meetings, approximate duration of the meeting and what we're gonna be doing during those meetings. So it gives folks a handle on it. So, we invite folks to let you know what they wanna volunteer and what seat they wanna volunteer for, just going down a little further as they cheerfully offer their services, their name, their email and what their interest and motivation is. And these will be the list that you'll get on the 15th to work from as you isolate and figure out who's gonna be filling the other nine seats on the committee. Jonah says a question. Yeah, sorry. January 7th is a Friday. Do we mean that to be Thursday the 6th or Friday the 7th? Well, we should take a look at that, shouldn't we? Thursday the 7th. Thank you for flagging that. I'll correct whichever way it is. Carly must have put that in. Appreciate it. Yeah, no, that was me not reviewing. The 7th is the Friday, the 6th is a Thursday. So it's meant to be Thursday. Okay. So we'll adjust for that. Thank you. Good catch. These are board members get the gold stars for reading materials in advance. Good for you. This is great. So that's what that looks like. So as part of the outreach, this is the way in which folks can let you know of their interest to be on this committee. So if you're okay with the wording and so forth and the tone and center and that one correction. And I've read the above information and cheerfully volunteer my services. So hopefully that resonated. Okay. Let's go into document C. That's the posting. The primary source of the posting and Carly's got good experience with this. Perhaps Carly too good experience with this is using the platform that you use for all of your vacancies. And that is school spring. School spring was developed in Vermont by a former superintendent. It's called national. And it is sort of the place to go for education jobs. So it is a primary source of information. And if we can call up document C. Okay. It's a little clumsy in terms of how it sort of clumps and organizes things, but you get a flavor for what information's out there for potential applicants and how it is you're describing the vacancy and why this folks might wanna apply to your district and what they can expect and so forth. So as that comes up, we'll take a look at that. This won't be the only medium through which you'll advertise. Carly's got good solid foundations elsewhere. There'll be a number of professional organizations and other groups, newspapers and so on that she'll be also co-advertising in. So you see here, the posting will be, we said tomorrow, see if that's accurate. Starting days can be July 1st, deadlines January 9th. Talks about seeking superintendent for your recently consolidated district, where you're located, how many students you've got, what your annual budget is and what grades it is that you serve. Districts governed by your 14 member board, single budget district, five towns and one regional middle high school. There's your towns. Historically, as you've said before, townspeople strongly support both their schools and public education in general. Not a lot of diversity, which is a Vermont way, but describes what to expect in terms of the demographics. There's some links there about your district, which is fundamentally your Washington Central website and there's links to the area, which is the local chamber of commerce website, which does a nice job in describing different assets in the region and what it is the quality of life assets can be. Looking for somebody who has sufficient trained experience from a high level as laid out in statute, want folks to communicate effectively with stakeholder groups, including all those folks, maintain positive support of working relationship with the district based on, board based on those values and so forth. Ideal candidate, love the language you used last time and why not use it again, leaning toward, leaning away from and that's sort of your historical bias in the recent past in terms of the sort of character you're looking for. Continuing on to the next page, continues. Talks about superintendent's team and who it is they'll be working with in the central office as well as the leadership team. Talks about the board's salary range. That's unchanged by the way from last time and does seem to be a responsible range within the state. So I think that that will serve you well. Talks about a two year contract. As you may know, it's required in Vermont that superintendents be offered contracts between one and five years. Two is a strong recommendation from me in terms of an initial contract. If and when you choose to renew your superintendent, you can then have the conversation about other years. Obviously you should be proud of the benefits package you offer. It's generous. You're an equal opportunity employer. Job requirements are to be licensed in the state of Vermont or be eligible to obtain a license. The secretary of education requires that new superintendent have familiarity with Vermont State Board of Ed's rules and practices. Looking for someone with an advanced degree or experience as a superintendent or some comparable administrative experience showing a successful track record. We're not gonna play games within complete applications. Folks are responsible for giving you a complete application. It gives my contact information if folks wanna talk more so they won't be pestering you or your central office. And that's fundamentally what the school spring advertising would look like. Carla, any comments about that? Well, I think that's pretty normal. It's pretty much the format that school spring uses and if there's any content difference that you'd like to add into it. This is the time that we need to do that because we can then complete the full description as we post it. And this will be the venue or the application that all the people will be going through to review the applications that come in, so. So within the posting, thank you for sharing that. It will detail what's required. Things are gonna be required include things like the resume, things like their college transcripts, things like their letters of recommendation. I'm gonna recommend this time, unlike last time, that they provide you a couple of writing samples and responding to a couple of essay questions that we'll talk about. So those are the kinds of things that would be required as part of the application package. And those are things in which the screening committee, once we organize, we'll figure out which to wait more, what counts more, letter of recommendation or college transcripts, what counts more, resume or experience. So it will give the screening committee the opportunity to really decide how it wants to score, if you will, the paper applicants as they move forward. So you won't see this elaborate ad in the free press, but you'll see a link in the free press to the position to the opportunity. Carl, I think you said to use another Vermont newspaper downstate, maybe a Rutland paper. Yeah, in the last search, we did the Burlington free press because it also has online applications that are out there for 30 days to get it out there. We did local for the persons that might be locally established. We also do other online applications. We've done a couple of the ones that we have is the diversity, it's diversity education or something. It's something diversity, I can't remember the title of it, I have to look it up. We go through NASDAQ, because we can do a free affiliate there. We have Education Week, which we actually can do two venues of advertising there, which is one is their regular, and then we can do a spotlight, which we've already paid for this year. So that's one of the ones that'll help us get a little heavier exposure. And then there's a couple other listings. Last time I think we did the NABSE, which is the National Association of Black School Educators. I think it is something like that. And one other, and I can't think of the name of it, but we've done a couple other sites. I'll also forward the vacancy notice to the state principal association, to the state superintendent association as well. So it'll be blanketed across Vermont in that way. So you will be getting really good exposure, but all roads will lead back to school spring, and that will be the platform through which folks would apply. So make just one comment. Just one comment. Sorry, Jonas, because Diana asked this question today at our meeting. So the list that Carla is talking about is the list to try to apply that principle of diversifying the educator workforce. So the list is very extensive. Maybe we can add one more, Carla. It's time that we're putting it out, but we already tried at least four or five that were part of that list. Yeah, actually, can I ask you, Florida, resend that to me, because I think that's one that I didn't have a hard copy of. I mean, I've looked at some other things, but if you could resend that, because I have actually, I think there's another one I've used, and I can't think of the name of it. I'm also thinking it's more of the Hispanic Latino website that I've used. Yep. I just couldn't remember the name of it. I'll send it to you, and I have it highlighted with the ones we used the last time, so I'll send that to you. Perfect, thank you. Jonas, you had a question? Yeah, just one little small knit. We're a 15 member board. We just happened to have one empty seat right now. Sorry about that. And just a quick comment. I mean, it looks great. It's got all the right information. It does not seem to give a lot of detail about, there's nothing in there that's sort of uniquely identifiable about our district. Would you recommend against trying to put in something a little unique, that might attract? I'm just not certain, it seems generic. And I think that that seems intentional and strategic. Two schools have thought about that. One is no, I wouldn't argue against that. So that's the short answer. I like it when folks who apply do their due diligence and actually do some exploration about your organization, about your district. We have offered the link, which makes it easier for them to at least get inside your platform to learn more about your organization. I think there are a few attractive things. A, I think the salary is responsibly attractive. I think the term is attractive. I think the single board is wickedly attractive. And I think that a single budget is attractive. So at least within the states of Maine and Vermont, folks will recognize those as being real assets. Beyond that, I'm open to other inclusions here. I didn't want to take liberties, Jonas, and make any assumptions, but it's fair play to certainly put your best foot forward and to include things that you think would want to be there and wide open to it. Diane and then Carla. So I just wondered, don't we have more than five principals? I mean, that would just be the elementary schools, right? When U32 have a principal as well. And then just clarification about the expectation of writing samples. Would that come later on in the application process or will there be questions attached to the school spring? Yeah. Carla, do you want to answer that or should I? Go ahead and answer that, Carla. Well, you can actually put into the posting those questions that you'd like to have them write the samples to. And also to address a little bit of Jonas' question in regards to identifiability, we can actually put more descriptive in the posting about us as part of the ad as well. So we can make any of this written information or however you want to place the ad, we can include additional information that may be more personalizing if you would like or identifying that describes the district itself. So there's a small blurb that's kind of automatically in it but it's not significant, I think is what you're saying, Jonas? So yes, we can do more. So Diane, there's a link that will be a part of the school spring ad that says, you know, do you want to apply when you hit that link, it then opens up here are the requirements for your application. This is what's required for a complete application. And if you choose, as I recommend you do to include essay questions, that's where those will be found as opposed to in the ad itself. Okay, I was just wondering because if the ad goes out tomorrow, what are the questions, but you're saying that would be, I mean, when do we put those questions on? Yeah, I want you to be comfortable tonight with those questions and I've got some examples for you to look at. And then as far as the posting, we were hoping that it was okay with you guys to have Ursula, Maggie and myself look at the final wording to go out in the posting, which is part of the reason I didn't send that document to you today because it needed some changes. So I just didn't have the time today to make those. So the principles, the amount of board members and there were a couple of things that Mike and I talked about adding so that there's more gender equity friendly advertisement too. So if you're comfortable with that, that's what we would do before the posting goes out. I would check in with Ursula, Jen and Maggie. Is that, and try to have it out by tomorrow is our goal. Okay, great. And now I'll share the questions. Yeah, let's look at the essay questions. And these are just my thoughts. You may have others and again, I hope you recognize I have no ego in this. I really want this to be of service to you. And the reason I'm just crafting some templates and drafts upfront is to just give you a starting place to work from. The first one, I frankly I was enchanted with and it's something I think that Scott received a couple of years ago was a petition. Is that right, Scott? 100 plus citizens signed onto it. And at the time, this was a group that was really imploring the board to consider these kinds of interests among your candidates. So I'll let you read that. So on the first one, I take no pride of ownership or authorship there. 90% of that is directly taken from that petition of a couple of years ago. Second one is I think going after perhaps what Diane was asking earlier, Jonas, and that is, oops. Sorry, sorry, sorry, there we go. This is the assumption that again, the candidates are doing some due diligence and taking time to learn about you and your communities and what especially makes them the right match. So part of the issue here with this one is how well do they understand your organization, your district, your communities? And secondly, how much energy do they put into that? So it's not just a matter of seeing how well they can write. It's also a matter of looking at their research as well. And then the last one is just the more of the wide open softball. Use the opportunity to tell us more about you and more fully get to know you that perhaps you weren't able to express in the formal constraining application. Two essays is pretty traditional. One is probably the next most frequent one. I like essays. I just like that you're seeing another facet of your perspective, superintendents writing styles. Laura, may I? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I think the first two are excellent and I wouldn't have any problem. I'm just gonna offer a third one just because it occurs to me. And I'm thinking that from my point of view, collaboration and communication, collaboration, shared decision-making, these are really important qualities for us. Specifically, so I might offer a third that would say something like, collaborative decision-making is very important to our district. Describe a team that you have led or worked on and how it was successful or something like that. So we get a sense of how this person participates on teams and leads teams. And I'll just offer that. Very nice. I'm gonna stop sharing so I can see everybody. If you need to back up, please let me know. It's a great question. Lindy? I noticed at the top, it said it allows for two. It seems like I've applied in places that had more than two, but so I'm just wondering about that. Three, Carla? Oh, good. Good to know. Because I really like what Kari said about the collaborative process. We have a strong leadership team. They have for years worked collaboratively across the schools. And I think it's important to have somebody in the position who's willing to listen and collaborate. And I think that's a good question. Good, Mike. I'm gonna give it back to you unless you need another document shared. So is it the will of the board that we go with three questions and that we strike my third one and replace it with the suggestion? Okay, beautiful. Love it. Great. Carl, thanks also for knowing that three is allowable. So Lindy, I'm glad you raised that. Let's see, that was the essay. Floor, should we talk about the community letter? Should we go there next? That'd be E, I think. Yeah, I'll share the community letter. And then we have one last thing. I just wanna do a time check with you, Mike. We have the community farm starting at 6.15, okay? Yep, I think we're gonna have any schedule. Second, and everybody has the community letter with them so you can start talking. All right, I need to make a correction. It is only two, but I think you can make a question two part. I think that's what we did before. Okay, so I'm not sure the community letter got distributed in that email this morning, Floor. Oh, maybe I forgot to put it in. This one? Maybe I didn't send it. Yes, this is it. I meant to say, I apologize, everybody. I thought I sent that with those documents, but here it is. So I think historically, your board has sent this sort of communicate out from the chair. So this would be in Floor's Bailiwick. First paragraph, explain the context and thanking Jen for the hard work she's doing this year. Encouraging folks to give you their thoughts and input. Language you used a couple of years ago about this is your one school district that you directly supervise and employ and so forth. So it's a very important position. And then it goes into how it is you're inviting participation. One is about thoughts around the character qualities and experiences and so forth. Here would be a link to the survey. Well, this would be, what questions? Yeah, I'm sorry. There's gonna be three links here. Two are shown right now. One is gonna be, what are some interview questions you suggest that we be sure we ask? So folks will have the opportunity to do that. Second link will be around, here's that 12 page list from last time. Take a look at it. What themes continued resonate today from that list? And what are some other things that perhaps come to mind or last couple of years that you want to be sure we value and place importance on? So that would be a deadline of around January 3rd. Give folks the holidays to really get some responses back to you. And it's a way of collecting feedback on that. And then this point two here is the letter you saw earlier and that is a link to the volunteer form for those who want to volunteer themselves up for the screening and interview committee. And then lastly, obviously, if anybody knows folks or has relatives or friends or what have you who are worthy of application to please let them know about the opportunity. And thanks from floor on behalf of the board. So it's explained the process is underway. It shows three ways in which you're looking for stakeholder involvement. Again, one is what questions you wanna ask for us to ask of them. Secondly, look over that important document that you collected from two years ago and goes after the character and qualities experience skills and attributes and which ones really resonate what themes are important and what's missing. And then lastly, here's how you volunteer for the screen interview committee. So that's the general flavor of this one with those three links in there. And thank you to Michelle for creating that one link to the, when you already saw the volunteer form. She made it into a serving monkey. That's what he's talking about. So it's easier for everybody to fill it out instead of. Let's take a quick look at G just because we're talking about it generally as a link. If the stars are aligned tonight and I'm able to make this happen with a professional colleague in Vancouver, we're gonna convert this next document into a little more of an exciting link. And this is around the survey itself. So, thanks for your interest. Deadline is January 3rd, a few things to say. Two years ago, we collected a lot of information and here's the document linked right there. What themes stand out from 2020 and remain important and more additional traits would you add to the list? And then down below, this will actually be a discrete link. Just go down a little bit. Not all applicants are gonna be interviewed but two runs of interviews are gonna happen for those who make the cut. And what are some questions that you suggest we ask of those that we do interview? So a few ways, three ways for your stakeholder groups to plug into the process, get involved and help contribute their thoughts and input. Just one thing. I want the process to be in the other document. They were talking about paper documents. When being that most of the time will be remote most likely it'll be online only. So I just wanna make sure that there may not any confusion that they may not have a packet like we had the last time cause the last process it was all in-person meeting. So the process was a little bit different that way. Thank you, Carla. And Mike, maybe to close up, do you mind describing this new platform that we were about to use that thought process just for the people that are not informed? Cause I think it's really exciting. Yup, it's a Canadian application which is just dominantly used primarily in the United States. I'd say about 20% of Vermont superintendents and school districts are using it right now. It's called Thought Exchange. It's really a very dynamic platform in which folks get a chance to springboard off of others' comments and thoughts. So you get a chance to see what others have put into the system. When it closes out it then summarizes it uses different AI algorithms to really break it down for you to give you points, emphasis, themes, trends and so forth among your respondents' considerations. So it's really quite seamless. It's easy to use. It's really radio button click and a few word entries very user-friendly in that sense. And we've been blessed with a free trial and thank you, Jen, for making that happen. And if it's a platform that you end up liking then you might consider using it later for other things but it's a way for you to try this on for size for free. And it will, as Carlos said, just save a whole lot of paper and allow things to be collected in a little more modern sense. Thank you, Mike. Any other further questions? Lindy? Just on the Thought Exchange, we use it all the time in Essex and I've gotten used to it in our meetings with our community and it drills seamless and seems to do a nice job. Thank you, Lindy. That has been my experience too. So yeah, any other questions? Everybody, most important, everybody feeling comfortable with the process, having no information, we'll share those two documents that I didn't send you. I'll send them now that you have read them. And thank you, Mike. Thank you. So important work will continue. Carla Floor, other board members in your committee, we'll be getting things just tidied up the next day or so and get things rolling. And everybody jump in the pool, the water's warm and welcoming, and we'll have some fun as we swim together for the next couple of months. But looking forward to this, I think you're off to a really great start. And I thank you for all the work you'll be doing in two weeks as you identify and name that committee that we'll be working with. So that'll be a really key function for the board to take care of that detail. So thank you. Really appreciate it, folks. Thank you and six minutes to spare, Floor. You're awesome. Thank you, Mike. Good night, folks. Thank you. So I was gonna give, we're scheduled to start at 6.15, give everybody just a minute to use the restroom or just collect yourselves for the next hour and a half. And we'll be back at 6.15, okay. Floor, I'm gonna try to sign back in on the other device instead of this iPad. Jen. Oh, she popped off. Sorry. I can't share my screen quite yet. I'm not sure who to ask, but just. Okay. Mark, if you're there, can you make sure that Alicia can screen share, please? I'll see if I can too, Alicia, real quick. Okay. So one way or another, we'll make sure. Yeah, thank you. Alicia, please try now. Sure. Yes, I can. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Floor, do you want the recording stopped and then restarted for a new one for the community forum? Sure. Yeah, let's stop and restart it and then it will depend how Orca wants to share it or whoever is using it. But let's not try to remind me because I forget about this. So just get it started as soon as we start. Good evening, everybody. Yes. 615, welcome to our community forum tonight. I wanted to start tonight by reading something and getting us grounded in this meeting. Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance. Tonight we, this morning, we have lost a community member from East Montpelier, Tom Morse. And I just, like Wer said, term is now in a place where there is no suffering. And I just wanted to acknowledge his passing today. He's a member of a community at graduate from U32 and a music man and a friend of many and lives at Young Child in one of her schools. So just wanted us to take a minute to think about that and take a deep breath and get centered in this community work. So with that note, let's get started with our community forum. Maybe we share the first slide and we have multiple people helping present tonight. And I'm going to get started quickly just first by giving us some, everybody that's been coming to our community forums are getting used to this community, this farm norms, but just taking a quick moment to remind everybody to be present, to respect other people's stories and points of views, to assume good intentions. There is no wrong questions, recognize that we need each other to make any changes or to bring any caring to our community. Be kind and I already said, there's no wrong questions. We're going to break up into groups at the end as we've been doing and now we're going to get our first, the second budget meeting. We're a budget in season and the school board, as you know, makes decisions in behalf of the entire community that support education and all of our student needs. Engaging our communities in this conversation helps us to make sure that the community voice is at the heart of any decisions we make. We all want healthy communities and families and good budgets do not happen by accident and planning and collaboration are key components of drafting a budget that is also grounded and driven by data. So with that said, Jen, take it on. Thank you. Next slide, Alicia, please. So again, tonight we want to provide a little bit of context for you about what we've done. Some of our data remind you of our mission. We'll talk about strengths and challenges, you and both of them as opportunities for continuous improvement. We'll review the school board parameters that were established at the last meeting. We'll give you a little bit of a detailed overview of the timeline and what's contained in the first draft. And then we really want to spend the vast majority of our time hearing from you all. We have some guiding questions. We'll divide into small groups, as Floor said, and then we'll come back and do a whole group debrief. And tonight again, you're gonna hear from a lot of folks. So as we get underway, I just wanna remind everybody that a good budget should be a reflection of our community's values, our students' needs and grounded in our mission statement. So I'd invite you to take a few seconds to read the mission statement to yourselves. Thank you, Alicia. Next slide. And again, just a reminder that this is the third of three community forums that we've held so far that have been based on or centered around the budget. In October in particular, we really did an overview of where we are in our implementation plan or strategic objectives that we had held for the district between 2016 and 2021, recognizing that a lot happened between now and then. And that it's still really relevant for us. Again, budgeting being ideally a year round process because it's grounded in those needs and values. We as a leadership team have been focusing on budgeting since about September and most recently have been thinking about any new programming or staffing that we need to ensure that we're meeting our kids' needs and thinking about how are we gonna prioritize, especially given the parameters the school board had articulated. And then finally, we also know that a budget should reflect not only our community's values and our values as a leadership team, but we also wanted to hear directly from our staff. So there has been a staff engagement survey that has gone out regarding budget priorities and we've done some analysis of those data as well. Next slide. We'll talk a little bit more about that, the crosswalk that we did and right now, Alicia's gonna share some of these from our November forum. Yeah, so on November 3rd at our last community forum, we asked for questions of the community and the responses for the first question are bulleted here and that first question was, which aspects of our district are most meaningful to you? And I'll give you a minute to take a look at these, just a few highlights, the strong community engagement and support opportunities for our students, expertise of our staff and responsiveness to student needs. The second and third questions we asked were what are we spending too many resources, both time and money on and what are we spending too little resources, time and money on? And so you can see some of the highlights for where our community felt we were spending too much and too little. And then finally, we asked our community to list some programs and services that reflect what they value most about Washington Central and what our community feels should be prioritized in the coming budget. And just some highlights for here, addressing some staffing shortages, including substitutes, enriching opportunities for students like after school programs, outdoor learning opportunities, place-based education, cross-curriculars and also around equity, our multilayered systems of supports, social-emotional learning, STEM and personalized learning plans. We also, over the course of the next few slides are gonna share some data with you. This first graph that you can see here shows the five-year enrollment changes since fiscal year 2018 to now. And as you can see as a district-wide, we have a decrease of about 5.5%. And only one of our schools has an increase in student enrollment, while the others have seen a range of decreases. Hey, I have the next slide here. I'm Aaron Boyden, Principal at Merlin. This slide talks about the number of students seen by school counselors. And this is data that was taken in the spring of 2021, so last spring. This information and this data was used to inform our moving forward plan or our recovery plan for the AOE last spring. And it was simply a snapshot of our needs in about April of last year. I can speak for Berlin in saying that the needs have definitely increased due to some of the stress in the pandemic that we are experiencing. This data informed our decision-making regarding social emotional learning, mental health and well-being support, which is one of the pillars of the moving forward plan. For this year, 2021-2022, we are using the ARPSR funds to increase school counseling services across all schools. And again, it is very needed this year. So you can see here on this slide, just a snapshot from the spring of what each individual school, number of students seen by school counselors. I believe Michelle has the next slide. Michelle, I can't see you, but if you're speaking, you must be muted. Sorry. We've experienced perpetual differences in performance among various groups of students, specifically students on free and reduced lunch and students who are not and students who are on individual education plans and students who are not. These next three slides illustrate the differences. This slide here shows the sixth grade SBAC. Each of these dots represent a student. The black line represents the cut score for proficiency and the yellow line represents the median of the scores. And the gray lines represent the different cut scores for the other levels. Next slide. Again, this one is using the star 360 data from grade seven. And again, each dot represents a student. And again, the black line is the proficient score. The yellow line is the median score. And next slide. And then this one is using the Vermont science assessment results. And this is in a different format, but as you can see by the colors, the difference in our students who are on free and reduced lunch and our students who are not on free and reduced lunch. And same thing with our students who are on IEP and the students who are not on IEPs. Okay, so this is Gillian. I'm the principal over at Doty in Worcester. And so what we did after we gathered information from community engagement forums and staff surveys and receiving directions from the board and brainstorming as a leadership team then had to make sense of all the information that we gathered. And we did what's called a crosswalk, which is where I actually kind of life them as I think about it, it was like taking my little fingers and walking across all the documents and finding all the commonalities. And we were able to find out that in many ways we were closer together in terms of our priorities and things that we value than we were farther apart. So if you can take a moment in the left-hand column, you can see the things that were identified, the priorities that were identified by all three groups. And the right-hand column with the yellow highlight is the priorities that were identified by two of the three groups. So looking at those two lists together, you can really see there's a fair amount of agreement. Okay, so next slide. So now that we've gathered all the information and gotten taking the input and sifted through it and looked at some of our data, then what we need to do is begin looking at sort of what are our assets? What are the strengths and the opportunities that we have to build on as a district? And as you look at the list, you will notice that some of the items on the list have or do not have price tags attached to them, but basically looking at our beliefs and our values, excuse me, that we have that we can put in our plus column and then moving on through near the end, as you look, that's when we start to get into the financial assets that we have. So this is really just what we have to build upon. And I believe Kat, you are next. Yeah, this is Kat from Calis. The last slide, Gillian was highlighting the strengths that we have to build upon in this one really focuses on some of the challenges and concerns. As you can see, there are a number of concerns and challenges here. I think it's important to emphasize that not all of them are about money. Many are about time and time is a finite resource. How we spend it matters as much as how we spend our money. I think it's also, this may be just my perspective, but I'm a positive person and I think it's important for us to keep mindset at the forefront and see some of these things, not as challenges, but again, as opportunities. These challenges in my mind are variables that we need to consider in our planning. I would like to kind of invite us all to think creatively about how we can build on those strengths that Gillian shared in that last slide and our resources to address some of these challenges. Refrain the mindset of my student versus your student and shift towards the mindset that these are all of our students. Consider how we can use the strengths and resources creatively to create a vision for all of our students that is grounded in our mission and community values. Let's me again. So the school board, after looking at all the information and after our past two community meetings, it came up with this parameters, knowing what our student needs are too. So we are trying to use an equity lens in everything that we're doing. So we're hoping that these parameters are viewed from that equity point of view. So the first one was that our social emotional pillar that we have already committed funds from our ESSER funds. I continue to support a multi-layer system of supports including professional learning for teachers because we know that that works. We have data for that. And then to try to stay under the penalty threshold, even though there's no threshold this year, Suzanne helped us create an average. And this is from prior years, this is the average. And then number fourth, as educational spending increased under 3% is one, it is an arbitrary number that we gave them but we failed strongly that we needed to have a number. We have finite resources as we all know and we have to fear our opportunities and how to be more creative. Hardening for cybersecurity, it must not be a surprise for all of you, but that's something that we need to invest in to keep us safe now that we have learned a lot through this past few weeks. And number six, we're invigorating or a boost on one of the various initiatives. These are some things that we already have going on school that we heard from the community. So we were thinking about, how to either redesign, reinvigorate or boost them a little bit. So arts and music, outdoor education and farm to table working themes that came up through our community forums. And last, a contingency plan for expenditure reductions if the tax rate is not favorable. So have a list, like a long release that we can take off if needed, if the tax rate doesn't come favorable. I'm Suzanne, the school district business administrator. In November, we prepared a level service budget for the board that included updates to salaries and benefits, current special ed student needs, inflationary increases for professional services like auditors and insurance. Debt service payments were updated with a reduction of $155,000 from the payoff of a unit 32 bond payment. The capital fund transfer was increased by 155,000 to support plans for future capital improvement projects. Other non-payroll expenses were level funded. These changes to the budget resulted in a 2.66% increase to expenses before revenues are fully known. The board has requested that we try to keep net education spending to less than a 3% increase. Net education spending is simply the expenses list of revenues. I believe Steven has the next slide. I do, and good evening everybody. I'm Steven Dellinger-Pate from U32. And see here, this is our budget timeline. So we're sitting at December 1st. That's that highlighted one in the left hand column for our community forum. And our next community forum is going to be January 12th. And in between those times, there's a lot that will happen where a lot more numbers will come in. So you won't have as many unknowns in that last slide that we have. And we will be presenting the second draft of the budget from the leadership team to the board for them to be able to see how did we incorporate some of these things that you have seen tonight, as well as what we learned tonight as contributing to some of our decisions and what we're gonna produce for all of you. And then you will see there that by December 15th, the board will be reviewing the second draft of the budget. And then the next slide is our next steps. So you see for the board, they're going to continue to refine their budget parameters, the finance committee being the lead on some of that. And then refining our goals and initiatives to our community values from what we learned tonight and continue to ask those great questions. And from the leadership team, we're gonna continue to work with our staffs and with the board and the community to streamline the budget so that we meet the priorities that the board has set and we provide the services that we need for our students. So we look forward to presenting a very physically sound and responsible budget in draft two and then we'll revise that as necessary as well. I'm Caroline May. I'm from London. And we are going to be, the next part is to move into breakout rooms. And we've, there are focus questions that will guide the discussions. And so everybody will get to share what questions they have, anything that they would like to know more about and then given the board's parameters, what would you like us to consider as we prepare the next budget draft? And the final one is regarding the budget, what ideas do you have for the board about sharing information and engaging the community? Next slide. So for the breakout rooms, so the board members and administrators have been pre-assigned. What we had planned on was the, that there would be seven breakout rooms and that we would adjust it based on numbers. So since we started screen sharing, I'm not sure how many community members we have, but I suspect we might reduce from seven. And so then what we are asking is that guests join a breakout room of your choice and just pay attention to how many are in each room because we're hoping to have equal numbers as much as we can. And we are asking that we ensure all voices are heard during these conversations and that they are focused on the focus questions. And then each group should have a spokesperson who's identified that will share the takeaways from the small group when we all come back. And we're thinking that these will last about 30 minutes. Next slide. So this is the important part is getting feedback. So we have a feedback form that is specific to tonight's forum and it will be linked in the chat. You can also find it on the school board's webpage. And we ask that you also share your ideas about how we might engage more community members in this process and think about what inspired you to join us tonight, what other topics might be of interest, once we get through budget, what are some things that would be interesting to you? And we really appreciate your participation tonight because it does take the whole community to design these budgets. And we definitely hope to see you at the next community forum, which will be on January 5th. And the next budget forum is January 12th. Great, thank you, everybody. So we had thought based on participation that we might need to pivot and reduce our rooms. And indeed that does seem to be the case. So, Floor, did you wanna say something about that? Yeah, and I just wanted to do some clarifying points. I know that in the past, the budget is always owned by the board, right? But we're still at that collaborative. I'm already getting some questions. So we're still at that collaborative part of our making, not making, but working together stowage the budget. At our next forum, it would look a little bit different and it would be mostly the board presenting. But we want you to, today is a snapshot into how the process work. It's very collaborative. So now we have, with Mark, we have reduced it to five, we have 10 community members. So we have reduced them to five groups. We have moved the step matter. So the pink and purple room are no longer there. And we have moved Steven, Kari, Jess and Maggie around. So, community members, if you could join groups at just a two, if there's already two there, move to the next group. So that every group has at least two community members. Eric, please see your hand up, yeah. Could you please put the presentation in the chat because a lot of the slides, I did not have time to digest as they were presented. Sure. We also, it's right now that both the presentation and the feedback from are also in the school board resources page, if that's an easier way for folks to access it. So Alicia, thank you. She just put it in the chat. It's also on the school board site. Okay. So Mark, can you do your magic? Is there any final questions from community members? So Mark, if you could move us into our small groups. Thank you. Or any community members who don't get moved automatically, if you need any assistance getting into a room, just let me know. I can help you do that. So community members, again, you should have an option to join a breakout room. It's nice to see you. You should have an option to join a breakout room and then just choose one of those color groups that doesn't seem to have as many people. And if you want us to move you, I am happy to help with Mark and we can just move you into groups. So let's see. Right now I'm seeing Alice and Erica and Ginny. Would you like us to just assign you to a group? Would that be easiest? Yeah, I can't see the groups. I can't see them either. I can't be there. All right, then we'll go ahead, Mark. Why don't we just take everybody and assign them so that we're distributing the assignments, okay? We'll do. Thank you. Mark will work on that and then it should pop up for you an invitation to join and just go ahead and join. I'm getting there. Erica, while we're waiting, it's your information that has given me both the link and the information I needed to be here. So thank you. You're welcome, Alice. We'll work on getting that together earlier in the process. This time I really didn't know when we were meeting. So what time? So it was a little late, but I'm glad you're here. Well, it worked for me. Yeah. Mark, can I do anything to help you? You want me to? No, I'm moving people. Carla, do you want to go ahead yourself or do you want me to put you into a room? I would say go ahead, Mark, and focus on the, I see Alice and Ed and Matt made assignments. Right, I think I have, Lisa is assigned. She just hasn't left yet. So it's just you and I and Carla left. Okay. And then I guess my other question, Mark, before I pop into some rooms, is did you set a timer for this or should we keep track of the time? I did set a timer for 30 minutes. Perfect. And can you just, how much time is left? When do you think, I forgot to... I'm going to say 29, 28 minutes. So at about 7, 10 ish, 7, 11. Okay. Yeah, I don't see anywhere to see what time is left, but I'll keep looking. Okay, that sounds great. And then we'll put some, we'll broadcast. I'm going to stick in the chat, the question or the broadcast the questions again, and we can give people some warnings around time, just some advanced to-knowness. All right. Okay, thanks. See you later. Lindy, I have a quick question. Mike DeWeese was talking about using a tool that you use to Essex, and it sounded interesting. And I was like, oh, I'm going to Google that, but then I didn't write it now. Thought exchange. Thought exchange. Okay, thank you. Welcome back everybody. We're just going to go in order, I guess for the groups and start with red. If I can find the names of my red. And we can debrief. Lost my red. Oh, here it is. Jonah, Scott, Erin, Michelle, and Julia. Who's going to debrief from you guys? Erin, Julia, Michelle. I'm sorry, Flora. I was just finishing typing into our notes, and I missed your introductory question. I apologize. Can you repeat that? Oh, no. We're just going to report back like we usually do. And I was just asking for your group, your highlights from your conversation. Absolutely, I'd be very happy to do that. We started out our session actually talking about some of the challenges that this format presents to community members, that feeling of being sort of one or two members with four or five administrators and board members in that forum. And how difficult that can be to be the one voice given your opinion. And in addition, though the presentation was appreciated and thought to be well done, that it was a lot of data and information to also process and then give feedback on with short notice. So that there was a suggestion that maybe in the future actually providing our community members with real life scenarios of challenges we're experiencing in our school, things we're trying to tackle and sharing that in advance and then opening it to our community to give input for ideas and problem solving to solve our challenges in our schools that that would be better received and would have significant budget implications. So we could be problem solving and driving some of our budgeting through that process. So that was a strong recommendation in our group. And then we talked about more integrative learning opportunities that might exist that could enhance social emotional learning for our students to the arts and music, outdoor learning, maybe opportunities to partner our counseling staff with our teachers to do integrative work to get that double benefit as well. So those were the general highlights from our group. Thank you, Julia. I'm gonna jump orange and go to yellow and do Chris and Lindy, Kat and Lisa. Yep, sure. Hi, Flor. It's Lisa. I have the updates for yellow. Our group also concurred a little bit about not having such small breakout groups. We had three community members in our group and I think they would like to have conversations with more community members or bigger groups. We had conversations about the ESSER funds, how they were being used and can they be used for disadvantaged students? We had conversations about the insurance and the rising medical costs and how those are paid for. Are they split between the employer and the employee and the taxpayers? Kat was great because Chris asked a question around what the results of the staff survey were. So Kat spent some time going over those, the results from the feedback from the staff survey. Let's see. And then we had some conversation about how to possibly engage more community members. There was one suggestion about not having a combined board and then also that having one board is very attractive to hopefully a new superintendent. So I think that's the basis of what our group talked about. Thank you, Lisa. Moving right along. I'm gonna jump back to Orange, Steven or Caroline. Caroline, I'm sorry, I have to take care of an emergency at home. I'm sorry. That's okay. Give me just a second. So there was talk about wanting to know, some of the questions was just knowing more about the process, knowing that the budget currently has the type parameters. How do we then get all of the needs met? And some questions about the process, wanting to focus on the mental health of staff and students due to both the pandemic and mental health issues that were there even before the pandemic, wanting to serve the whole child, but keep the balance of also having a robust curriculum. The great quote was we want our kids to be good people and we want them to know something and really have a boost for equity through both personnel in schools and professional development. And hold on, I just have to move my screen to see the rest. There was a lot of discussion around outreach and the continued piece of getting information out to the community, from the board, from the schools in a way that is accessible to everyone. So that was our group. Thank you, Caroline. Green group, Jill, Gillian and Suzanne and Carrie. Okay, so we talked actually a fair amount about graduation rate and dropout prevention programming and wanting to look sort of at some longitudinal data about how our students graduating seniors comparing with other area schools as well as looking at in terms of the access to school counselors and behavioral data, looking at some comparative data, pre and post pandemic about, excuse me, that. My apologies about the cough. I like to say I have consumption, but I think it's just a sinus infection. And what we're talking about also is how do we get it so that it's not just restructure our group, so it's not just one community member and five of us staring at them and how do we engage the community more in it and how do we look at how we're spending our money? How much money are we spending on sports compared to how much we're spending on students who are not athletes? And then we also talked about how do we engage people more in the budget process too? We bring in actual students into this process to present and I let people really see what it is that their money buys, but also really thinking about starting earlier and that systemic and strategic change doesn't happen in a couple of months. Thank you. Okay, blue group. Alicia, Chris and Jess, Ursula and Diane. Sure, so some questions that came up from our group was just in looking at those slides around free and reduced in IEP students and those who are not. What is the focus then and what are we doing to narrow that gap? And we talked about the work of the Ed Quality Committee and definitely more work that needs to be done in this area. Some questions about how we're meeting the needs of students in SEL, both on a mass scale and also personalizing and individualizing those supports as far as like to know some more about just some more specifics around the increased need for SEL. It's been at the forefront due to COVID but also what specifically are we doing? What are our efforts? We talked about the celebration that on one of the slides that was mentioned, the SPARC program went away last year and came back this year and that it's been very successful for many of our students. Some ideas as far as this next budget goes, there were three big ones that came up. Of course, number one, a strong focus on our number one priority is the students. Good relations and support for our teachers. There was talk about when people, especially our staff, feel appreciated even under great challenges as we've had these last few years. When they're supported, they will do great things and for our students and our families. And then the other piece was just making sure we don't have to worry the state of our buildings and that that oftentimes is a place that we cut during or that is typically cut during budgets but just the strong multi-year planning, preventative maintenance and repairs because it will catch up with us if we don't take care of that. And then just some ideas for engagement. One place to note, I think it was Erica Zimmerman's email to the community through Friends of Education. That's how some or several people came tonight and that's how they were made aware of this forum. If people don't know, they won't come and make sure that we're providing through lots of different areas, both the announcements for forums like this along with the links right in there. And then we spend quite a bit of time talking about our staff and making sure that our staff have the same information that's going out to the communities at forums like this because parents and community talk to our teachers and they need to know what's going on. Our staff are great ambassadors of our budget and how can we make sure we carve out time to let our staff know what's going on so that they can help support this. So great, thank you. And I think that's it, right? Did I miss anybody? Jen, I'm gonna give it back to you. Great, thank you. So again, our hope is to continue to engage the community and our staff as we build this budget. And we will bring draft to the leadership team as meeting again next week. We'll continue to work on this given the feedback that we got and the priorities and next steps. So we can have draft two ready for December 15th. And I would just ask again for folks who were in attendance tonight if you can complete that feedback form that's really helpful for us. Your ideas are most welcome and we will continue to do our best. I know there was some concern about materials and the timeliness of materials. And I will say the Thanksgiving break that right in the middle threw us off a little bit in terms of how quickly we could get things ready and sort of the real-time challenges of operating the schools during a pandemic certainly contributed to that as well. But we'll continue to try to get better and better. Thank you everybody for coming. We're gonna move on until the second part of the meeting tonight. We are giving you five extra minutes but we are gonna move into board operations. Thank you community members for coming. We really appreciate your input tonight. Board of Board, we had the COVID-19 MOU, 4.1. Any questions you received the materials and I'm also gonna give the driver's seat on the MOU to Jen because she has been working with elements with the MOU drafting. Yeah, thank you. So the Labor Management Committee has been working on this memorandum of understanding throughout the fall and it has taken us a while to get there a little longer than we would have liked for a few reasons. One, the conditions were changing a lot and the guidelines or lack of guidelines from the state had been changing a lot. And two, to be completely honest with you my learning for around this process has been so steep. So it just was taking a little while for me to know how and when I needed to consult whom and how to make it all happen. But I wanna underscore a few important things. First of all, the process through labor management has been hugely collaborative. And as you all were just summarizing that what came out at the forum tonight, Alicia at that point that was made in that group that Alicia underscored about the importance of our staff feeling supported, I think is so important. And I think that this memorandum of understanding accomplishes that. We want our staff members to be safe and healthy in order to do their best work during uncertain times. And so we really wanted one major effort was to make sure that they had the equipment that they, the protective equipment available to them but also the time that they need for leave in terms of when they need to stay home if they are sick and experiencing symptoms or if their family members are and they have people to take care of that without having to worry that they were gonna be running out of sick time. And so that was something that was really important. We also have been emphasizing the importance of vaccination and getting boosters. And we wanted to continue to incentivize that by having that be part of a leave time that would be separate from sick time. And then a big thing also in terms of incentivizing without mandating vaccines is that again, in the spirit of making sure that our students and our staff are safe and healthy making sure that if for whatever reason somebody is not vaccinated that they are undergoing regular testing. And then finally, we wanted to ensure robust learning when there needs to be opportunity for learning from home which hopefully will be less and less and has become less and less through the fall overall because now we have tests to stay and now more children are eligible for vaccines. So those were the major pieces. I wanna say that again, it's been a collaborative process and at 501 I received an email from Kate McCann the association has been working on ratifying this agreement and that poll closed. They had 115 votes, 96.5% ratified this memorandum of understanding. So there's a lot of support from this association around this body of work as well. And I would say I'm hopeful that there will be from you all as well. Happy to answer any questions or Jonas to sat in on some of those meetings. I think right now he might be the only one from LMC that's still here. Anyway, I would just invite any other comments or questions. First, I'd move that the board approve this MOU. Jonas, did you see the language that I sent you? I did not. Oh, okay. So I just sent it to everybody yesterday. I'm just gonna put it on the chat right now. Jen, what I'm understanding is that the language has been ratified now. Correct. Okay. I'm saying now. So maybe we don't need all of that. It's just as of yesterday, they hadn't ratified it. So I wanna make sure. So if you don't mind amending that one. So you move. I move that we ratify the memorandum of understanding between the board and the association and authorize the chair to sign the MOU. Thank you. Second. Thank you, Chris. Any more discussion or questions? Thank you, Jen. I know this was really hard. Yeah. Thank you, Jen. So all those in favor of authorize if the motion as read by Jonas, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think everybody's gonna be really happy. We already did that. Screen and interview committee charge. Could I have a volunteer too for that? It's in the document that, and I'm happy to post it in the, but basically it's just authorizing the charge for the committee. Let me just open it up. I so move. Will that work? Yeah, that works. Lisa is gonna need the charge, but I'll give it to her in a minute. Any discussion? We had plenty of discussion in our work session with Mike Dewey's, but if there's any other comments, now would be the time. I think we need a second, so I'll second. Thank you, Lindy. So Diane, Lindy, any other questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Okay, we have an update from, Lisa, I'll send you that in a minute. We have any, let's say approve new teachers and resignations, if I almost jumped one. Lindy. I have it open. I make a motion to accept the new teacher nomination for Jacob Kaplan as a Calis and Berlin music teacher for the remainder of the school year. A second. Who was that? Sorry, I didn't, Ursula, thank you Ursula, and a little happy dance from everybody. Questions? Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the new music teacher? Higher, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries and welcome Jacob. We are so glad to have you. It's very exciting. Update on vacancies, Jen? Sure. So we are still looking for a driver's ed position. We'll refresh that and continue to advertise. You know, last time you approved a part-time literacy interventionist, we're still looking for more literacy intervention at Calis. We are still looking for a special educator at Berlin. Again, that position is filled, but the instructional coach was contingent on that. So we're still looking for that position. We still have a number of paraeducator and BI positions to fill across the district. We are looking for a behavior support position at Rummy still. And then we have a few custodial positions we filled, but we still have a few left to fill. So those are the major vacancies. There is some movement and some direction on some of these positions, which is good. And we're still actively advertising. Great. Thank you, Jen, for that update. So that concludes our meeting at 7.35. Thank you, everybody for coming. If I could have a motion to adjourn. Move on to yours. I'll second that question. Thank you, Jonas, and all those in favor, please say aye and have a good night. Aye. Aye, have a good night. Thanks, everybody.