 601 according to the lineup of participants we have we have a quorum so let's come to order them at 601. I'm very happy that you're all here. It occurs to me that I may not be alone in feeling a little tired and perhaps slightly on edge. While we let I think some of the board members who were in the earlier meeting with Kari who I see is here maybe let people kind of settle in. I'll just tell you about a friend of mine who mentioned a quality that apparently the British poet John Keats held in high esteem that Keats called negative capability which I guess is basically the ability to remain open and receptive to uncertainty confusion doubt even chaos as a creative source of new possibility. That somehow seemed to hit the spot with me and I thought well it's not only thing for British poets but maybe also for school board members taking on budget at in the middle of a pandemic and with everything else that's going on. So I'm hoping that having killed a minute or two I might then welcome everyone once again and ask if we have any agenda revisions for tonight. Jonas. I would just note that the negotiations update will not be after the IBB training session because that did not happen. We're trying to reschedule that so just a note about the agenda. Thanks Jonas. So we will then skip over 3.5. No let's keep talking about it we'll just mention what's what's gone on. Okay very good thank you. Any other agenda revisions before we proceed if not just a reminder so that I don't forget when you're not speaking please mute yourself and mute button is on the bottom left of the of the window the zoom window if you're on the phone star nine mute you and star nine then unmute you. So if we have any members of the public who wish to speak I invite you to do so and ask that if you're able to raise your hand click the raise hand icon which you can get to by clicking on the participants icon at the bottom and if you're on the phone star six raises your hand and star six lowers your hand. So do we have any public comments? I see Daniel please Daniel. Daniel I think you're muted. I was actually just testing you. I feel like at this point I should just be put on the schedule as an agenda note so if you don't mind doing that that would be nice. I wanted to thank you all and Brian for today it was really nice to see the staff gather together today and to literally spend many hours preparing for contingencies that's it was it was good to have that time. I also want to apologize for being the gadfly that I seem to be all the time because I have two thoughts to share with you all. One I'm I'm asking that you might again readdress the idea of a clear threshold now that our hopes for not having COVID have gone with the wind that we might have like some decisive action to to really know when we're going to draw that line. Two there have been a lot of rumors floating about across at least the staff and maybe some of some families about a possible remote learning session between the holidays. So in my in my class speaking of British poets I teach a poem by Eggy Hausman and it's called Loveliest of Trees the Cherry Now and it's about a 20 year old man realizing that he has 70 years to live give or take and that means only 50 springs to see the flowers and he realizes that's not really a lot of chances to see the blossoms. I missed my father's 70th birthday this year you know it my my last remaining grandparent is probably not going to make it to the next set of holidays and I have a nephew I've never even met because of travel demands and a pursuit of safety and quarantine opportunities as a teacher so I'm just asking if the board could consider either just quelling the rumor and either speaking two or four whether we will have the opportunity to see our families this year knowing that I live 500 miles away from my family and I'm sure other other teachers also have the desire to travel to see their families during the holidays so you know if that could be considered and just some kind of clear decisive choice made again as to that opportunity and that's all I have and thank you all. Thanks very much Daniel we look forward to your next appearance. Other members of the public who would like to speak you're welcome to do so and if you have any problems raising your hand then just go ahead and talk if not then let's proceed to 3.1 student reports Townsend Anna. Unfortunately Anna had a doctor's appointment that she had to go to but she should be joining in like five minutes or like 10 minutes one of the two very soon but I can handle the student report that we made. I guess stuff that has happened so far the first quarter ended and so you know people have been submitting in progress quarter grades and doing I guess work with pretty getting those grades in and ending that marking period. There are there's a little bit of like a virtual open house happening where teachers can like make videos of what their classes look like so that families can watch them and kind of get a feeling of what that's like. We had a pretty unique Halloween I feel for many and I many students had a very new time and something that I hadn't really experienced before with this holiday and there's this big thing not kind of big where I was able to kind of survey the student landscape I think and really talk directly to or get responses from students who were who had questions for the school board or were concerned about different issues and I just wanted to talk a little bit about some of the stuff that I saw in this survey as a way of like you know directly communicating student voice to the board. A lot of people talked about the rumor about whether or not that they had heard a rumor about potentially closing school between the holidays and they talked about how they wanted that they were curious about that and they didn't actually know if it would be happening. There were lots of concerns about from middle schoolers about whether or not like they would go remote and what that would look like and whether or not that would be good for them and that you know that they would understand that if we had to but that it would be a hard adjustment. There were questions about I guess I would not only our response to COVID-19 but how that might change in the future. I think a lot of kids were confused about some of what the future of our school looks like and whether or not that will be changing and there was a sense I guess of that students liked the kind of restrictions that are there I'm not like them but we're adjusting to the restrictions that are currently in place but also are aware that like the future is very open-ended and that they would really that they're concerned about I guess a lack of knowledge of what the future would look like and so I guess these are just you know responses directly from the student body that I think the school board should probably hear. Thanks very much Tans. That's really interesting. Board members any questions for Tans? Flora. How's the college application and all that process going for you guys since you don't get to gather and really talk about that you're spending the whole year so briefly put you in the spot. I can talk a little bit I guess about it felt a little bit I think that there were lots of times where a lot of good information was well conveyed after we had SATs then we got a lot of time to talk directly with guidance counselors about the application process and talk with English teachers about essays I think that was really helpful but I think you know it was there were times that it feels a little bit like you have to do a lot of stuff and that like you're kind of figuring everything out where like other years maybe there would be more support more like group support from your guidance counselor but because we can't like meet as much there is less of I guess there feels like there's less like help that is not being like not that there's less help available but it maybe you have to go looking for it a bit more. That being said I think that there have been a lot of really great changes that have been made and kind of things that have been organized that have been really helpful in times that have that to talk with the guidance counselor that have been really great and I think that a lot of colleges are really open to are like aware that things are really weird right now and that they're a lot very lenient and understanding so you know I submitted an application recently I know other people who are submitting early decision or early action applications and I think that they're they're coming together and they're happening just like you know in a different way than they would other years but they're still happening at the same rate as they would other years. Thank you good luck. Amen yeah other other board member questions for towns um towns will Anna have um something to contribute when she joins us I can keep my uh an eye out or and my colleagues will too um if that's the case we don't want to exclude her. I'm pretty sure you know we kind of make the student reports together so everything if um everything that normally we've already talked about like everything that we each have to contribute so I don't I don't think that there is anything specific but um I also you know something might have come up that she wanted to talk about but I don't think so I think it it should be good great okay thank you very much towns no problem um if I if I might um take advantage of the opportunity at this point just to give a shout out to the U-32 girls and boys cross-country teams um including two proud mom Jen Miller Arseneau whose uh whose son Jacob was number one crossed the finish line in the first place in the state state championships um an impressive feat uh just the boys got just completely locked up the the top places um Jen I don't know if you have any sort of comments on that I would say that our teams results are the are the results of hard work perseverance and amazing coaching and commitment across the board they hear that you know they're told the boys and the girls that it is a team sport and absolutely it's a team sport it was a joy to behold wonderful yeah um and and that's uh I think something that a lot of people may not appreciate that it seems like an individual sport but no it's not it's a it's a very definitely a team sport um thank you so much towns Jen um should we move on then to superintendent uh report and and Brian if I know you're probably already planning to do this if if it's a good opportunity to address Daniel's points um it would be great thanks yes I'll be more than happy to talk about that in my report thank you Scott uh so I uh just wanted to start off that it has been a very eventful uh last week and a half two weeks since uh our last meeting the uh we all know what happened over at Doty Elementary School and I just want to give uh publicly just thank Elizabeth Worth our COVID-19 coordinator and the principal over at Doty Gillian Foucault for their leadership uh and uh help throughout this entire process which began on Saturday uh when we were contacted by the Department of Health and I also want to thank the Evermont Department of Health uh they've been uh very uh responsive and have been working with us uh it through this uh trial I would say trial by fire but trial by COVID in many ways the uh so we just so everyone knows we decided to go remote for this entire week based on uh our conversations with the Department of Health uh they uh there was a as they're investigating and doing contact tracing and and uh looking into the matter uh again we only we have one case I would say it's only one case but obviously one case is one case too many but we were up prepared for that eventuality with uh going to remote we've been working our principals our teachers have been working very hard of course we would have liked to have had this day today that you gave us prior to uh prior to this all happening but uh I do think that the Doty the Doty crew and the Doty school has done a fantastic job in uh transitioning on a minutes moments notice the uh we're going to remain in remote till the end of the week uh we're hopefully hoping to announce that we can go back to in-person learning on Monday uh again we're waiting to hear more final information from the Department of Health but the initial conversations were uh that uh again we I made the decision and in consultation with uh the principal our COVID-19 Coordinated Department of Health folks that it was better to operate out of abundance of caution in this regards uh to make sure that um if we could come back on Friday we could we might not the contact we didn't know when the contact tracing would be over with we're pretty guaranteed certain that the contact tracing should be over with by Thursday maybe Friday at that point it was like we're we're gonna do the whole week and uh and I think the Department of Health was actually very uh uh supportive of that decision as well uh so there'll be more to come more to follow we'll be known hopefully I'll be looking forward to notifying families that they can return to in-person instruction on Monday uh as long as we have the information as long as we get the a okay from the Department of Health uh I don't know if uh Elizabeth or Dodie or Gillian uh want to add any more here about uh about what we just talked about I'll just take a minute to publicly thank my staff and the community of Worcester for pulling together um certainly was hectic and uh it would have been nice to get a little bit more prepared for it but I think we were served well by our experiences in the spring uh and again just really maintaining that open line of communication with families I think is the way to go and letting them know what was going on what we're doing and um Jonas can tell you that I flooded his everybody's email and man you know inbox on Sunday with all the information as it was coming in but again couldn't be prouder to be serving the Worcester community and working with my team thank you for your leadership Gillian Elizabeth is there anything else to add is she there she is um I think that really covers it it was an it was a good experience and I think we've learned from it I just I really appreciated working with everybody over the weekend it was pretty we pulled together and you know um just had instant meetings with the Department of Health who were wonderful guiding us in what we needed to do next and um I just feel like the team it really works you know it does and Gillian's been fabulous you know and taking care of everything all the contingencies I don't have anything to do with that with what's going on with Doty right now but it seems smooth and and we've had lots of questions and I feel good about people asking questions because then you can respond to what people concerns are I can guess what some of them are but it's really helpful to get people to email me you know at 10 o'clock at night and say well what about this you know and uh so I appreciate this community is wonderful you know and I think we're doing the best we can and I think we're doing okay and thank you Elizabeth and thank you Gillian for your leadership we had uh it was a challenging weekend to say the least and a challenging week uh but I can't imagine doing not doing it without you so thank you very very much for your leadership the um other we also had a second school that went remote but not because of any uh illnesses or virus any viruses uh Eastmont Piliar Elementary School went remote yesterday because it was election day and operating out of an abundance of caution again that's been the motto here operating out of an abundance over abundance of caution we what we decided to have Eastmont Piliar go remote in order to limit any possibilities of the of the public that's coming into the building during election uh just to limit any possibilities of exposure and I and I want to say that it was actually a very uh a little side story with uh Alicia here I think she contacted me on the second week I had started it back in July and she said you know we had to do something about election day so I was like okay when is that helpful along but she was she was right very she was all all over it so uh I'll let Alicia talk more but her her and her staff did a great job yesterday uh Alicia yeah um we had a planned remote day which means kids brought Chromebooks home and brought breakfast and lunch home on Monday and we're very well prepared I'm happy to say that we had 98 percent attendance so there were only six students out and that we knew they would be out anyway just because of illness or other reasons we learned a number of things having as I'm sure Dodie has learned this week probably a lot more than us what seems to work and doesn't work in what we might need to do different next time but all in all it was a really successful day and I think those packets uh that uh I know the teachers that created really came really helped out I think especially in Dodie's case at the beginning when we're in the first few days of the school of the of the remote days right so I think that's right right Gillian we had talked about the the packets we had we had prepared some some things but of course there's always things you can't prepare for it you just try to be prepared uh so I just wanted to thank Alicia and Gillian but Gillian uh and we want to talk about the packets and all of this stuff yeah well we all of the elementary schools have basically sent home in case of emergency break glass packet learning packets for students in the event that we didn't have staff or we had to um close really abruptly and those honestly I have to say um were one of the first things I thought about on on Saturday and gave me a huge sense of relief because I thought whoa we'll just break the glass on Monday and use those learning activities and it gave us the opportunity it gave us the cushion to rally the staff and get all of the devices passed out and things connected you know set up for the students so that actually worked really well so some of the things that we you know and like Alicia said we've learned a ton it was a very interesting process to go through um the Department of Health I think Elizabeth and I met with there were four people they just asked all kinds of questions they're so thorough I felt enormously better after talking to them so they they they get what our struggles are thank you Gillian and thank you Alicia uh uh for a uh a successful remote day and I hope that the rest of the week uh goes well uh we're at Doty so we will uh so uh the question I think Scott that uh Daniel Daniel had brought up was also a question that several board members brought up at the last uh board meeting as well and so I uh as you know I attend a weekly meeting with the Secretary of Education and when I get really good questions such as the ones I received uh last uh last board meeting uh I asked them at the uh at my meeting and what what what I was told is that there is there is no threshold that a school board look at the school boards at the local level should be addressing um basically the we have to rely on the epidemiologists at the Department of Health uh to make those decisions of when to move along the step one step two step three continuum so right now we're still currently in step three so recall we opened the year up in step two um the the uh state has the option of moving the entire state of Vermont or a region in Vermont or a locality a local school district from step three to step two to step one they have that they have that decision-making authority uh where we have the uh decision-making authority uh is when we can do we can go remote for certain periods of time so for example uh and of a short short periods of time if there's an operational issue or you have a case so for example the two the two pieces the two schools we talked about today we can go remote until the uh the um uh Department of Health advises us that it's okay to uh reopen and we can we can reopen Doty when that happens we're hoping that's only a week uh we can toggle on and off for school uh remote days if you want if uh we I'm not going to say snow days but you know if you have a sub day or some sort of weather event that would cause folks not to come to school or make it very hard to come to school um we have that authority to go into a remote day if you have an election day for example and you know that's an opportunity to go remote for that one day so so the idea of of going into full remote during the holidays um and I have to say uh you know Daniel has family 500 miles away I'm sure lots of folks have family members I know I have family members further far away um and I have uh the in-laws who live a little closer you know but but uh but where I'm not going to get into that because my wife's in the other room and she's we're having that conversation about how we're going to see your family over the holiday and the reality is we have to be very careful about traveling during the holiday and there there are some guidelines that the Department of Health is asking folks to consider uh we also uh during my meetings on Thursdays which is tomorrow I will ask the question again I'm not the only one asking uh about the uh what what are the state's opinions what is the state what is the state thinking about regarding uh that time period from third from uh Thanksgiving in between Thanksgiving and the uh holiday Christmas uh New Year's uh break so the uh the big question that's been coming up it from lots of folks is what are we going to do we have there's a lot of folks traveling and so I know that there has been it's been a hot topic in my meetings I think it's been a hot topic at the state level and at the state level I've been told it's there'll be some additional guidance coming but we think there's additional guidance coming and that's been happening the last few weeks so I'm really hoping in the next few days we're going to get some additional guidance about that um and so so I do think that right now we're open for business we're open for school we're um you know we're we're going to be obviously looking to make sure that we're operating we can keep the schools open operationally uh and we have to be prepared to keep them open but we're also looking to see if there's going to be any additional guidance from the uh state which could come out any day now which may uh further inform our our thinking here on that matter. Caroline. Do you need or want anything more from the school board around that issue one of our goals that we all agreed to at the board retreat was um now I'm not exactly remembering it but it was definitely around um having procedures that supported what the staff needed in terms of educating students through this so do you need anything specific from us? As of as of right now I'd like to say let me get back to you on that I don't want to say yes or I don't want to say no as of right now we just had our first early release we have an early release coming up next week as parents conferences and then we have another early release I definitely would like to have some time to think more about that see what the with the guidance says if there is guidance that comes out and also to get some feedback from my leadership team about how these early release days have been going to prepare because I know that it was great to get those two early release days for our staff but I do wonder if there's more that we need to do on that regards with regards to going remote or shutting down the district or anything I think that's really we I really have to wait for guidance from the state and to hear more information from the state because I think that's really something that is in the that the agency of education is going to own with that. Other board member questions for Brian on this topic? I may have one Brian is there any mechanism for sharing experience lessons learned on growing remote for other principals who may we hope not well we know that Kat will at some point but we hope others might not is there a way for that experience Alicia's and Gillian's to be shared? Yeah I can comment and I'm going to ask Gillian to jump in here but the because Gillian even though you know I'm the superintendent but Gillian lived it right so and is still living yet right so but but I think that we do get to share experiences I meet with our Winooski Valley regional super intense and they share their experiences from the superintendent level and that's and I'm knocking on wood we've been one of the last districts in our area that have had such a situation happen and so I've been able to hear a lot from my colleagues across the state the Vermont super intense association has also been giving out some pointers and information sharing information about some shared experiences as for the principals the we do have leadership team meetings we have principal meetings which we can share and I know and I just actually want to say that Gillian took it took it on herself I like Gillian talk about how she's been sharing her experiences. Yeah I started a document I think I called it things Elizabeth and Gillian have learned something very eloquent like that where I just sort of went through what the process was from getting the first call from the Department of Health and and what happened and then just sort of tips and things that I picked up or for example then today I because it's you know the documents a little bit old I just sent out an email to the principal saying oh by the way talk to your food service folks about having a sort of a cache of school lunch food available should you need to go to remote abruptly and know when your food deliveries are and all that stuff so working on one of the things I really like about this leadership team is we're really good at sharing information with each other and there tend to be a lot of shared google docs flying around the information so that's that's what we've been doing this week. I would just add to that that we're working on an opportunity for our full-time remote teachers to meet with our in-person teachers to share some tricks of the trade and things that they've learned just having been remote for the past few months. Thanks very much. Any other board member questions before we let Brian continue? Okay um if I might just ask there might be a hot mic somewhere. It's David. David Delcourt. David if you can hear me um if you wouldn't mind muting please. Oh I'm sorry. No problem thanks. Great Brian saw yours. Great thank you uh also uh I want to give a big shout out to all the schools they did up and in particular Amy Molina she uh had helped come up with a food drive during in the month of October for our families and the update that I got and I can have Amy talk a little bit more about it I think she's here uh she usually is. We have a 252 boxes of food we're handed out we're collected and handed out to families across the district uh and uh just uh it's just amazing just amazing how the community comes together during these tough and difficult times uh and and kudos to Amy uh Amy was the one who uh you know approached approached the district with the idea and uh she's like is this possible and I'm like well it's a quick it's a short turnaround time and Amy just said to roll up her sleeves and and do it so kudos to Amy so Amy congratulations for uh getting it done and that was a quite a feat uh getting it done in such a short time too but Amy do you have anything else to say? Thanks Brian um it was it was um what's an exactly a food drive um we participated in the USDA Farmers to Families program um it's similar to the program that operated out of the airports and and other places um over in our communities this summer they were close to running out of food so they didn't have enough to do one of these large scale drives but they offered schools um in Vermont and in other places in New England the opportunity to get these 31 pound boxes of um of food and so we put a we put a thing out to our families and asked who needed them and 252 families said yes um which was uh amazing did lead to a little bit of an issue that we did not have these storage capacity for 252 boxes of food um which didn't really make sense to me um for a little bit but so I wanted to give a huge shout out to the Cabot Creamery on Gallison Hill um woman named Katie and her staff jumped in to bail us out and um overnight kept one of the refrigerator trucks running and stored all the food for us overnight um and sent out a whole bunch of guys with very strong backs to help us load boxes into trucks um and get it out and then that went out to all the elementary schools NTU 32 where we had a lot of volunteers in the community custodians staff principals um who over the course of two days distributed food um to our families so um really really happy with how it went and just really thankful for everybody who was able to help us and Brian if I while I have the mic if I could just do two more shout outs um the girls soccer team won their semifinal game this afternoon a big upset and we'll play in the championship game on saturday the game time is tba um but that's pretty exciting for those for those girls and then the last thing is I just also want to say really from the middle school staff um I know Dan represented the elementary school teachers today but the middle school staff wanted me to pass on um just an amazing amount of gratitude and appreciation for allowing them time for planning and collaboration this afternoon um it was really well received and really needed and I walked around and watched a lot of people taking a lot of good advantage of that time so thank you thank you Amy thank you uh so uh those are my major reports I'm ready to move on into the uh the rest of my my uh 3.2 unless anyone has any questions yeah any board member questions before Brian moves on if not please continue Brian uh the uh thank you Scott the next uh piece was the job description asking for the board to approve the job description for the business administrator uh this was quite a project uh doing we uh looked we looked at the currently the former job the former job description which was a little outdated um and we were able to uh look up uh many different model job descriptions that exist throughout the state of Vermont and uh had Lori look look them over and we went through an entire process so very time consuming process and I I don't want you know I don't want to put Lori on the spot here but uh I think the original job description that uh you had was what two or three pages and now we're up to you know between six and nine pages the last three pages are like the normal HR stuff that come with uh most new job descriptions now but it's expanded as Lori's job since she started expanded I'll let Lori talk more about that part of uh we went from what two to three pages the six pages reminder to me how much um I have learned and have grown in this district um there's been a lot of changes you know at the state level and it's the last job description was updated in 2003 so I think Brian did a great job getting a comprehensive job description so that you can post the job and that's my feeling um I didn't really have anything else to add Brian thank you thank you Lori uh and then of course uh you know upon uh getting approval for the uh job description being approved by the school board tonight uh we we did put a preliminary timeline in the packet on uh posting it posting the business beginning to the beginning the business administrator search job search and where we want to post it uh yep where we want to establish salary parameters beginning uh developing a committee to begin a pre-screening applicants uh interviewing reference tracking and then selecting a candidate I think a lot of that will depend on how many applicants we get we're able to get uh for this position uh you know I will say you know and I'll say it Lori there Lori's do not grow on trees people like Lori are very very hard to find uh and so but but I think by getting it getting this description approved as soon as possible and then uh posting we'll be able to uh hopefully adhere to this sample timeline that we have uh the if you look on your packet the uh this might be a dream but this is the hope and we and if we fall short then we have to fall short but the uh April to June uh the ultimate goal is if we do have an opportunity to hire a business administrator uh to have them crossover with the business administrator uh with uh Lori uh you know hiring them sometime between the April the months of April and June to have a crossover period where they would be able to work uh with Lori to get acclimated to our district of course that may be a challenge in itself because most districts are finishing up their year and uh if we're hiring someone from another district or another place they may have to it may be difficult for them to get away I'm not sure so so we may have to uh you know think about that crossing that crossover period but we won't know until we actually put up the job description see who's see who's applying and um and then move forward with a with this process great so um would it be an order brian for us to seek a motion to approve this um job description for Wonder Woman looks like um would anyone like to move uh that the board approves the job description for the business manager from page three to eight I guess so moved thank you kari uh second second floor seconds thank you very much all right discussion brian would you like to say I just want to say it's page three to twelve sorry here's three to twelve I know I'm sorry I don't know um thanks for the correction the plan though I mean so do we need to amend the motion that it's the job description and the timeline because page three is the timeline isn't it uh yeah I'm sorry it's actually page four yeah you're correct Diane it's uh it would be page four to page 12 page three is just kind of uh letting the board know uh this is where we're thinking about the timeline but I you know I would I would I don't think I need the border I wouldn't be asking the board to approve that just because it's nice to you know if you've approved it today I might try to get it up tomorrow or later on in the week and post earlier than December you know things like that great thanks for that clarification brian thank you Diane um Caroline I had a question um on page nine under additional competencies um specifically stress tolerance and self control I was wondering if this was um something that was going to be like is recommended for all positions as we're creating new ones or if there was something specific about this job that would require that above others I would say that some of these are boilerplate types of things caroline but I would say that in some ways uh this one would be I think this position you would definitely need to have a high level of a high stress tolerance is that right lorry yeah it's true because there's a lot of times when you're dealing with the public or you're getting phone calls with complaints and I'm this is the boilerplate language from another job description from another business administrator um and I just it probably just puts the point out there that you know you work for the public and the board and the superintendent and there are a lot of night meetings so you definitely never know what's coming your way so board meetings sometimes are stressful so um thank you very much um so yeah this is true but we managed to concentrate the stress and and fewer instances um so are there any other questions comments or should we move to a vote all right all in favor of approving just just just one quick question for Brian Brian you mentioned wanting to hire someone sort of in the post-april time period uh so that there's some overlap with lorry if for some reason you find a candidate before then um and you know and there's a window of time where you need to hire someone before april um you know I I think we'd love to hear about it and if you know you know obviously we want you have to spend as little money as possible and not have too much overlap um but let us know if you get into a situation like that I definitely will thank you Jonas for that uh latitude yeah yeah um I would support that as well all right um ready for a vote then all in favor please click yes opposed click no and I'm seeing all yeses so the motion carries the job description is approved and we can continue Brian okay uh so and then thank you all for that the uh next one is just a little update uh from our technology consultant he's been working on uh some uh some several different several projects uh and I can just have him talk I the first thing I put him in here for was about the wi-fi hotspot and internet access uh and the accessible use agreement I recall back in July uh board member had asked me if with regards to how are we trying to help our families who do not have access internet access to our uh to just accessing technology at home uh based on uh you know we live in Vermont there's many different uh areas of our state unfortunately that do not have good broadband access uh so I know uh our technology consultant has been working on that and uh I'll let him talk about it just briefly Jim thank you Brian uh the the policy that you have in front of you is just about um the exchange of uh hotspots with uh with families of uh students um as these devices go home um we have a bigger effort which we'll talk about the future meeting which has been led by uh Lisa around um procuring a new engagement with a um with uh with T-Mobile so we'll get into that separately she's done an outstanding job spearheading that for us but what you see in front of you is the policy and the process by which um you know we'll lend out equipment we'll check it in every three months if not sooner um and it's uh it's meant for our families in need that have limited um you know broadband access in their homes but do have cellular coverage in their homes or around their homes and so um that's the policy you have in front of you and in some ways it mirrors a similar policy you have as far as um you know lending out devices like Chromebooks and things like that um to students as they um as they uh learn remotely so Brian back over to you and and I would just say that uh you know we didn't have this now we have it and I would just also reiterate uh that it's not a policy okay because that's your that's your role this is just more of a uh an agreement that we have an acceptable use agreement uh for using unfiltered internet access for families that were supplying the hotspot for so they can access the internet um in their home in order to access schooling at uh access our schools in case we go in case we go remote or or um if in case they just need it just to be able to access schooling so do you do you need any board approval or any action on this Brian or um I I I mean I don't think so I mean I just you know wanted you to be aware that we have an acceptable use contract for unfiltered internet access which we didn't have before I don't know if you I mean it's it's you could if you wanted to uh but I don't think it's necessary yeah I don't I don't believe it's necessary either if um anybody disagrees and and feels the need for the board to vote on it otherwise if board members have questions or um anything to say about this about the the hotspot initiative just thank you yeah and uh yeah thank you Jim and thank you Lisa LePlant over at U32 uh they've been working together on uh on trying to expand this opportunity for many many families uh and then uh last but not least uh Jim I just give you I'll give you a give you the floor for a couple minutes just to update the school board on some of the projects that you're working on so uh folks are aware of what you're doing thank you Brian I appreciate it there's been many things that we've looked at over the past you know three and a half weeks I've been working here at the school district and I appreciate the opportunity um you know first and foremost we've been working on the the IT assessment specifically the application matrix stores and virtualization infrastructure needs to see where our gaps are and where we have to um you know where we have to remediate those gaps and so that's something that's been very important to us um you know um I had today spent time with various storage vendors we do have a you know our storage is coming up on renewal from a support perspective this year which is pretty important actually it was something I just learned about um whatever I was doing some analysis with doc and it looks like you know we're gonna have the need to either um you know um renew our our storage storage uh support agreement uh at the end of the year or look to uh to procure some new storage we're already having some storage capacity issues as as we speak and so uh we're looking to try to see if we can uh you know get an RFI done and those types of things you know um by the end of the year um I did talk with um a couple of companies today Hitachi Pure Storage and um EMC uh Dell EMC on their storage platforms told them that an RFI is coming given the parameters and we're moving through that process in addition we've been meeting with the IT members uh working through you know several different purchasing items as it relates to different schools application needs that they have and we're finally starting to get through that list it's been out there a few weeks as we've gotten on board and try to figure out you know what makes sense and what should wait and what do we already have versus what we don't I think we're making some progress there um you know um you know finance as well as IT and and Sarah have been a big help there and so I very much I very much appreciate Lori's help as well as Sarah's help in getting that done we did some big major issues with some outages so related to um what we call distributed file services that's like how you how you can find one way what you do file storage uh in the in the environment so I worked with the team and you know clean that up and and rebuilt some of that that work and then took out some things with them and and so we have a stable environment now we have another big issue in the environment for non-google uh Chromebook machines we did have a windows update service that wasn't updating machines properly it was failing for several months and so um we've begun cleaning that up we have you know several updates are running properly uh we still more work to do in that environment we'll rebuild that here in the next couple weeks we also have deployment services we're testing and we'll roll out here in November we did talk about the hot spots we do have a draft process that will be coming to to the board for approval well maybe not for approval now based on what we talked about but it will be about you know how do we identify applications that are needed in the classroom how do we vet them you know how do we go through the purchasing process how do we get that approved and making sure that we don't run into equity issues over time with students and when we offer an application out you know to to solve a need we're going to be looking at that across the district as opposed to on a on a school black school basis and so there's still some work to do but I'll the draft plan for Brian next week that we'll we'll circulate your future means of board can I just interrupt you there uh Jim that last part I just wanted to make sure the board was aware I think this is a very important piece of the work that Jim is doing I mean they're all important but and the storage issues virtualization but uh the piece about you know trying to streamline our processes of how we purchase apps in our technology in our classrooms across the district and how they use how we use them and how do they align to our curriculum and uh I think it's going to be an important process so just wanted to sorry Jim no thank you Brian I'm going to be quick here because I got three more things but I'll I'll try to get them done next 30 seconds here um Casey and I've been working with the electric company on um the EV the electronic vehicle ports um you know over at Rumney um to um they're coming up on um they're coming up due here in the next year and uh we got to decide if we're going to you know continue that process all the recommendation along with Casey to the board you're in a future meeting uh we're working on Cisco umbrella services which is really a security thing uh about uh you know how to manage our our um our devices uh as well as a thing called amp which is anti virus malware protection which we're getting ready to put in place um and um you know again we've been you know looking at um you know demoing some block and object based storage I just back to my first point earlier and most importantly we're looking at a security um a piece called air gap technologies which is uh trying to figure out ways to uh to secure you know it's like a defensive depth strategy to make sure that you can eliminate or at least minimize the risk of of security attacks and ransomware and things like that so there's a tremendous amount we're working on um I will tell you that um my work is in no way possible without you know the help of so many people you know Brian's team you know we've had uh you know Michelle and Jen and the team uh Lori and others who have been incredibly instrumental so far uh the IT team has been great as well and uh you know we've been very fortunate to have such a collaborative team so far and and and you know I've been primarily working with you know Doc and Sarah for the most part but there'll be others that will will continue to loop in as we make some some improved changes here but um it's been it's been a good team and I appreciate the opportunity Brian Brian back over to you thank you Jen I don't know if uh I'll turn it back to Scott uh just any questions yeah that's that's terrific Jen many thanks I'll need board member questions on any of this if not um Brian is there anything else under superintendent uh no I think that's all wonderful thank you then we can move on to finance committee and turn it over to you Flo thank you Scott uh so we'll do a quick update and we'll we'll start just with we had the opportunity to meet with Bill at our at our um finance committee meeting this just yesterday so we don't have a written anything but I took some notes and I'll try to be as efficient as possible so uh Bill Ford as you know has been our clerk of the works and has been overseeing about nine projects right now and they're almost all fully uh finished I'm not gonna elaborate in all of them we do have two projects that might be going past the 2021 deadline so they won't be done uh this December 30th those two projects are in the in Berlin we're gonna need to do some paving work and we're also gonna need have a three year well two year or three year um window to do some um to do two pond is it one pond no it's two ponds U32 and one pond uh at Berlin yeah the retention ponds the retention ponds yeah so it's two water projects and we we're waiting for one permit still in in Berlin but at U32 we we have what we need but we have a two year and a three year a window to do those projects in Cal as most importantly we are in a fast track with that project we do not have a we don't know exactly what the funding is going to be there we're still waiting if Laurie as always has moved many you know put many hats in the air and we're hoping that one of those is going to get hold and we're gonna be able to to do it but they've been coordinating in order to to get this project done that project needs to be done by December 30th in order to go into the CARES Act if any questions about do you have any I know I'm going really fast but I'm just trying to update on the on the projects and then we talked a brief for a long time really about the ability to continue to work with the with Bill Ford so Bill is our clerk of the works which is not the facility person that we're looking for a clerk of the works is required anytime we have a construction project he's excellent and we want to be able to retain him so as a committee we we we were going to propose to you we our recommendation is that we continue this this contract with with bill he still has a few hours left on on this year and we'll continue to manage the projects that we have right now we want to have a you know we we want to have a proposal for him for next year because we know we would need to do more facility work we don't know yet what that facility work is going to be for next year our initial plan is to have a first meeting with the list that some of you have seen and some of you haven't seen yet but the facility committee a facility committee the finance committee I'm so used to being in the facility committee the finance committee is going to take a first look at that if Brian, Bill and myself are going to meet to do a first just general a overview of the work that needs to happen and then we'll meet as a finance committee and then bring that back to you so we don't spend a lot of time going through through that list and let me just continue to go down my notes here and Brian and please jump in if I forgot something about about bill and basically we we feel comfortable with the amount of hours it might be a little less hours that would be that would be using next year but we would want to give some you know we will give Brian the ability to figure that out with with bill so I'll stop there for that first part to see if there's questions about bill Ford's work for facilities update okay and and and the one thing that I forgot to mention in the capital project is that we do have as a target having a capital a plan for for all the for all the buildings and we really feel strongly that we have to we would like to move forward in the future in our future budget to have a facilities director and then yes Brian yeah and I'll just talk just one more thing because I think it's important just for folks to know the bill is an hourly he works on an hourly basis uh so if he doesn't and we up to a certain amount of hours that we already have in the in our budget so it's if we don't use those hours we don't pay him those hours he's under an hourly an hourly wage so uh it really isn't um yeah it's not like a set amount of money but we put the money aside and and I have to say uh I want to commend the board for last year because we put you put extra hours into the contract and this this past summer I think we we used him on all we were not have been able to open the school uh without him uh the schools I mean between the air vent working with the contractors and air ventilation and all the nine projects that you had a pre-approved them last year on top of all the COVID stuff that we had to use for our facilities getting the isolation rooms up and running out there's so many things that he had done and now this callous ventilation project uh it's I think it's just been a very good investment for the district yeah and and last year we had put about a 1,248 hours when we first met with him with Dora myself and he still has about 349 hours left so you know we would probably use them we're not sure but that is right we don't it's uh basically what we're doing is trying to hold him so that every time we have a project we don't have to go out to bed for a clerk of the works so so that's what we're asking for the board so Scott I don't know we want to stop there to make sure that other that the board as a whole feels okay with that recommendation and then move into the budget sure thank you floor um how do you feel board members are you are you okay with what floor is talking about with our proceeding with the um with the contract with bill forward as clerk of the works that I might just add that the um the membership of the finance committee was 100 in favor uh Chris Chris just wants to know more as he always does and I'm sorry that he's not here tonight um he has a client but um floor um looks to me as though everybody's okay with it okay so and I don't think we need board action so Brian you feel that you have what you need yep move forward absolutely okay so then 3.2 is budget draft one and I'm not I think before I could go through the highlights but I think to be fair to the board I would like Brian to present what this budget signifies for our district and then move on with Laurie is that okay Laurie great go ahead okay yeah so uh thank you uh thank you floor so the uh uh school budget uh it's not it's when folks think about a school budget uh a lot of times you tend to just look at the paper and the numbers that come out on the page and what does this mean what does it look like how is this going to impact the the money that we have the money we don't have the money we want to have but it really represents a lot more than that it really represents the hopes and dreams of our our entire school district community and uh I know our board and myself and our educators we know that our our responsibilities to prepare our students for the future and it's also to our responsibilities also to support student achievement so uh any budget that is put forth and put forth to uh the voters later on uh in the school year uh must represent opportunities and defines what our school board values uh as a recently merged school district I believe our budget uh exemplifies our values and uh so and in many ways I and I hear that a lot from board members making sure as superintendent that I uh always try to make sure my actions mirror the values of the community I've heard that many times and I I know that uh you know a board you know should not just be solely looking at cutting costs because a budget is really about kids lives and our collective future as a society and so uh I will say that uh this is a level budget that I know the board had asked Lori to put forth and yeah if anyone asks me the question that if will this budget improve student outcomes uh I would say that uh the budget the current budget that we currently had presented will not likely uh continue the current uh outcomes because this is a level service budget so we're trying to improve current outcomes we have level service so we're kind of uh in making the investments in our uh school but it's really just keeping things the same way they've been uh so currently I know that our student outcomes are uh while they're high they've also been flat for a number of years and they are something that we definitely do have to consider about how to improve our student achievement and so while many folks are happy with the current status because we are a great district right we we we do a lot of great things here how I think that this there are some folks who think that uh we can also continue to to do better and uh so as a result this is why uh I've asked the board to conduct a curriculum management review to identify some things that we need to uh we were doing well some things that we could do better and improve upon uh and it may cost uh some additional funds or maybe it won't cost uh it or may maybe uh at the very least it may require and a reappropriation of resources uh that we have to do for our um to meet the needs identified in our district so I think uh uh this is a a first draft it's a level service I do think that um you know our communities our school board the leadership team teachers staff uh the curriculum management review speaking with students I think that there's a lots of opportunities to get a lot of stakeholders involved uh as we go throughout this process and we start looking into the uh into possibly having a strategic planning towards the end of the year where we start developing a strategic plan based on what we learn from all these things uh but I do want to say again it's a level service budget uh it will uh it does and and will do uh do what it's been doing uh for our students but I do think that the board should be aware that because it's a level service uh we're not actually making major improvements into what we're currently doing sorry for that was a mouthful but yeah it's okay thank you Brian it Laurie do you want to move on into the highlights view the budget process yeah yeah I'll yeah I'll just talk about the budget process um so we began the process in early October I met with each principal we discussed the timeline we discussed the level service budget uh we uh and then over the past few weeks Laurie prepared a Laurie and I also went around and met with each principal uh and we and Laurie prepared a level service draft a budget and we met with each principal to review their respective schools uh and so last year there was a a list compiled of future budget considerations we reviewed that list and identified what items could be considered or should be considered for the fiscal year 21-22 one piece of I wanted to bring up right off the bat is the U32 noted that there were some unbudgeted maintenance items that were previously included in their school's capital budget uh so last year I believe this information was compiled after the budget process concluded and it was in the amount of $179,000 for budget fiscal year 21-22 the total is $363,000 so uh you know we still need this because this list was put together so quickly uh we do need to uh we need some more time to verify and analyze uh some of these items uh some of these items that are on this uh this uh list for $363,000 uh does include some one-time items which we may be able to purchase this year uh just to put that out there and this budget adjustment is included on the on the budget summary of changes uh of the changes page in a separate box at the bottom and I don't know if Laurie you want to say anything else about that or you'll say that for your uh report I'll just cover it when we get to that line if that's okay okay um do you want to do the student information or do you want me to do it Brian yeah I can talk about the student information um and I think uh I want all the board uh I really think that this is uh something that um I don't want to say it keeps me up at night my daughter keeps me up at night it was 80 little Zady who ran in here before so I but uh one of the I guess when I when I started here in July the thing that was uh the forefront of my mind it was the reopening of schools and now as we get into the budget uh the budget the budget and getting into uh and I learned more and more about our amazing district there is something else that's I think very serious that uh is is going to impact their future of our budget and that's uh and you know I know it's there's never a good time to talk about it but I think it's my fiduciary responsibility to bring it up to the board uh there are um two census reports it's really about the student census information that's happening it's happening across the entire state of Vermont by the way so it's not just a Washington Central uh matter here but our census is going down uh significantly each year so uh I will just say that uh in October 1st 2019 the census was 1574 students October 1st 2020 the census was 1487 students uh the total enrollment was 80 is 87 students now there was a decrease of uh 93 students in the elementary schools uh and I'll explain the numbers to you but I can and then also explain some of the ways we've been thinking about these numbers uh but we have 37 less students in pre-k and 56 less students in grades one through six now we know that it's COVID it's a it's been lots of folks have may not have decided to send their kids to school this year homeschool kept up but either way uh our our census is down uh and that really impacts our bottom line of how much money we end up getting from the state for because our the census and the ADM of how many students we have coincided with exactly how much money the state ends up giving us to educate our children uh there was also a um an increase of six students unfortunately though there's one thing I also want to say in addition to the decrease at the in the elementary grades there's also been a a decrease um at students in uh U32 uh there was an increase by the way this year of six students at U32 however uh in meeting with uh U32 leadership and talking about there does continue to be a decline in tuition students at U32 uh so the budget draft that you have that was given to you uh is projecting nine less students and that's an estimated loss of revenue in the amount of 186 thousand dollars sorry sorry to sorry to interrupt I noticed that Jo just put up her hand she may have something related to this Jo is this something that you'd like to address now uh yeah I Brian you can answer this whenever it makes sense but I was just trying to understand if you think we're seeing a trend I mean I we're certainly seeing a change from one year to the next but I wasn't clear if you thought it was a trend well so and uh and that is the big question right so if you just let me fit let me just go a little bit long I think we'll get there so uh we did budget for 53 students this year we have 49 students uh we are projecting 45 next year so we are anticipating so we do whether or not it's a major long-term trend uh it does appear that it may be a trend with the numbers going down especially at the high school um the again we don't know about the elementary school uh and so what we are doing some additional homework I've asked the elementary principals uh to collect birth information from their town clerk's office contact families who were three years or older who are not currently enrolled in our preschools to say hey how you doing you coming to school what's going how you doing I'm the principal at you know ex-school and uh they're gonna contact these home school students also to see if they'll be returning next year so I think we have some homework to do in that regards uh the the research piece uh we're also asking U32 to look into researching the tuition student information and the home school families to determine next year's projected enrollment maybe there's some other information that we can collect to find out so I think in the next few weeks I'll be better prepared to start answering that question about uh next year's enrollment projections and if this is a trend that is continuing or is this a blip in a two or three year radar that is this is a blip in the last this current two or three year pattern which will work itself out maybe because of COVID and that's what we're trying to get our heads around right now but uh it's I think it would be irresponsible of me as superintendent not to bring this up to the board because this is something that uh we we just need to keep our eyes on and uh we do have some uh enrollment projections that have been done by uh some other other folks and so when I get this information I'll be prepared to share more information with the board in a future meeting um and so I wanted you to know that we did provide you with the current staffing that's in this budget draft and it is on page 19 and it's the same format as last year it's quite um quite dense and and it has all the information by school of the number of teachers and their specialties and their programs by building what's not on this report is the Washington Central staff there are some of them listed on the report for special education but there's still others who are throughout the district like speech teachers um occupational therapists job coaches etc so all totaled um this budget draft includes 337 FTEs um and I guess I'm just going to move right into the budget change page which is on page 20 so at the top of page 20 you will see um the estimates we have included in this budget for negotiations we've put in a salary estimate some benefits related to salary increases um we've put in a health insurance estimate at 10 percent we've just learned um that they're asking for a 9.6 percent rate increase so if nothing else changes that would be a savings of about 13 thousand dollars um so the total negotiated items in this budget are a little over a million dollars or 2.85 percent um the early retirement program resulted in a savings of the next line is the savings of 223 thousand and that reflects savings from this year for people who cost less through health plans and their salaries that would continue into next year as well as a savings for the early retirement program all totaled over a four-year period the early retirement program is slated to save 275 thousand dollars um that is a savings of about 2.4 unfilled positions um and there were 15 people that took the early retirement moving down to the next item a level service budget includes positions that are currently funded by covid or anticipated to be funded by covid um we have two full-time positions here those are in this draft budget but they are a budget increase because the school district if those positions continue would need to fund those locally so you'll see the 205 thousand eight seventy five line um our special ed staff has continued to grow um we've transferred staff from being contracted services to employees we also have a number of para educators coming into kindergarten that previously were funded in preschool programs so we have increased about seven full-time positions in para educator positions which is a total of 272 thousand um the special ed budget will continue to be updated so this is just the draft one level service usually by draft two we have a firmer handle on the student information uh the december one is the count date for special education students so by your december meeting we should have a firmer budget that would reflect our current state um so if you add those items together that's a 3.57 percent budget increase for staffing um going down to non-staffing items such as technology and food program there really wasn't enough time to put together a level service budget so we basically level budgeted those two areas at this time um we will have a lot more information once the covid cares act is finished in the next couple weeks as well as working with jim on the tech plan and confirming that we have sufficient funds in a level service budget or do we need to increase or change so we left those with level um budget um the tech education tuition is the money that we would spend um for students who would go to spalding and some other tech knowledge tech programs we've put in a six percent increase as an estimate um we'll know more in december because they usually try to set their prices early december the transportation service increase is related to our current contract next year would be the last year of our five-year contract that we have and so that's a budget increase of about 45 000 and you heard me speak about the increase in para educators at special ed but there'd be reductions in pre-k that would help offset that um so the savings is 112 000 um we also have uh savings and special ed programs for tuition and contracted services some of it's related to us hiring our own staff instead of outsourcing as well as the fact that we've had one group home that's currently discontinued in berlin so we've um had a huge reduction in the cost for our state place students so all totaled our base budget increase um for non payroll items and payroll amounts to a 2.42 percent increase um there's a slight change below that line for the debt service um it i was reminded to tell you that next year would be the last year that u32 would have a bond payment um for the facility so that's a savings next year but not this budget cycle but the one after of about 159 000 uh but for this year it's just the standard uh decline in the bond payments of 18 000 so for the expense budget it's an increase of 237 um and then brine mentioned some of the revenue information that we've learned um that we are projecting and it's pretty much nine less students from the town of orange um all our other towns have been stable compared to our projections but orange so i know lisa's going to reach out and try to figure out how can we recruit the orange students or if this is going to continue for a while and i think it may be one other town i don't want to just say it's just orange i think it's i analyzed it it's only orange oh it's okay right um and the small schools grant we actually um currently have an increase this year and it's projected to be an increase next year of 29 000 um and then the special ed reimbursements would go up with the spending increases of 102 000 revenue and um for those who've been on the board for a while you heard me say that last year we reduced our transportation costs for to and from school and that we could expect a potential revenue decline that would be in this next next budget cycle of 54 000 so the revenues are down which results actually in a tax increase so the tax increase for the level service budget is 2.67 percent um and then the box below is what brian referenced with regard to the u32 operation of plant repair and maintenance budget previously um in the capital budget we did not cut the capital budget to help offset this i know um steven's still collecting information and we can go through this line by line for the next budget process but we felt it was our due diligence to share this with the board so you would at least know that it did miss last budget cycle and if that was approved by the board it would be 3.7 percent net impact on taxes the next page is the format for the town report and what it shows is that we have an actual column last year we didn't um but the thing to consider about the actual column is it was a prorated year because we closed early due to covid so there's probably a lot of lines there that are savings for the next draft i'm going line by line for a three-year history to double check how to modify the budget we're hoping to find savings that would help for the potential need for protective equipment and for sanitation costs that we expect will continue to next year and will not be in a reimbursement mechanism currently those would be reimbursed under covid for the bulk of the year um so you'll see a lot more detail in the next draft um and in the next draft um we put in the packet a list of those areas that we were going to look at on page lori not to not to interrupt you but i know this has been an important question for the board before a when you were explaining the the last draft that you you just mentioned that you're coordinated with the town clerks to make sure that we include the information that that works best for for each town right so um last year we did not include any pages in the town reports we did our own report um and i've been trying to collect from the town the information from last year's reports if they did print something um the town clerks are really busy so they haven't all gotten back to me but i've asked each one of them to send me a copy of last year's town report so we could better learn did they include anything about the schools or not um we were expecting to have a town report format and report conversation with the draft two budget in december thank you and then we have a list on page five of those other items that we would consider for the next budget but i know brian has some uh no initiatives you wanted to talk about next i guess could we could we pause for a minute and see if people have questions and then move into the new initiatives is that okay scott do you want to manage that do you want me to call i see caroline has a question how do you want to go ahead and send it back to you okay caroline thanks um i had two questions so i wanted to make sure my math was right the difference between the savings in pre-k and the extra in kindergarten did it round out to be around 112 000 sounded like it was 200 000 more for seven pairs in kindergarten but then a savings in preschool no that's seven pairs throughout the system some of the whole system not just in k to six correct um the savings yeah it's not necessarily related and if you um think about it kindergarten is a full day and preschool is a part day so the cost would be the difference of currently a pair is like a 0.29 or 0.4 depending on the school in pre-k and they would be full time in kindergarten so there's a differential of 0.6 to 0.7 yep I had one other question um the comment about losing the state place students in berlin I had been under the impression but i'm thinking maybe it was inaccurate that any costs associated with state place children is 100 percent reimbursable is that inaccurate true and i did factor in the revenue shortfall as well as the savings in this draft so though it is dollar for dollar you're absolutely correct so we technically don't save anything from losing state place students true okay and if you lose the equalized pupils which is part of the formula then you've lost some of the state aid that that's what brine's trying to help collect right now for information and it and I want to stress that point not for lori who I think has given us like real detail but for board members to recognize because I don't want there to be a goal that we don't have state place children in our district or anything like that and to understand that there is no cost associated when you house state placed children okay thank you thank you kyleen dorsi I see your hand up on the um on page 20 where we come out with the impact on taxes at 2.67 for one number and the other is 3.7 that I guess includes of maintenance and operation of the plans and so forth are those percentages based on on what number of students on the last year students this year students if there's a lot fewer students won't that increase our taxes substantially if we have to come up with the same amount of money but we have fewer students it seems to me that that percentage would go up in a pretty drastic way um and I'm correct um these percentages are using it compared to the last to the current budget year so those percentages use the 35 million dollar budget that we're currently having for the explanation you were right if all of the students were level then that would end up working out for the tax formula the same but in a year of a declining population then then it will exponentially increase the tax percentage so we will know more around December 15th is when the state is supposed to provide us with student counts they have said at the legislature that they're going to um level our statewide everyone seeing a reduction so they were going to level the current year's students whether you've had a decline or not um but that formula has not been shared with us to verify yet so we will have a lot more revenue information in the next budget draft but because that that really concerns me because if our tax increases are too high we may face um voting down a budget in these times where people are having a hard time coming up with the money just to feed themselves so I'm really concerned about that aspect and I really understand Brian's that we are we are an excellent school district in many ways and that we have a good reputation and yes we want our budget to reflect an increase in opportunity but there are times when families have to even flatline for a while in order to recuperate from some kind of a financial disaster which this is and has been for much of the state so I just I really want to be very careful of that bottom line this year as much as I'd like to put extra money here and there um I think we have to really make sure that that we don't overdo saying how wonderful we are and we have to give more money in order to stay wonderful thanks yeah thank you thank you Dorsey and I just want to say that we did uh Laurie I have a question back to you just on that I thought you had we had talked about December 1st was when you would have more information it's at December 15 that to see if they will hold us harmless about the students December 1st is when they announced the official tax rate and the um expectations for some parts of the formula the child count information just barely went in um they massage it verify it and by December 15th that's the freeze date for equalized pupils okay but but I just want to note that in my memory which is long in some respects and short in others uh the last few years they have not come anywhere near those dates so they're not dates to really depend on um Diane you have a question so you know a couple of things I absolutely hear what you're saying Dorsey about us being very concerned we know what on what it looks like out there I also want to be sure that we understand when we level fund that what that impact is so that we're making as best of an educated uh decision as we can that when we if we have to level fund here or take from there that we understand what that ripple is and understand where those ripples might continue to go the the question I have for you Lori is we see the savings from those who are taking early retirement have their positions been put back into the other positions and at what rate are we anticipating that so um of the positions that um are retiring nearly actually almost all if not all are at the top of the scale so when we met with each administrator we reviewed our our plan which was to budget for a middle of the grid kind of somebody right there in the middle with like eight years experience um to 10 and then at the health insurance rate we put in a two-person plan for all the replacements expecting that down the road some might take a family plan and some might opt out so we felt like that was a pretty reasonable expectation um the principal's feedback to me was they thought it was an acceptable value so on average so it remains to be seen until you actually do the hiring but we did have of the 15 positions 12.6 would be filled and 2.4 would be unfilled just to follow up on that so the 12 point whatever it was um that is included in that one line that's showing all salaries is what you're saying yes that's the net impact not yeah I didn't split it out but I thought it was that's fine okay and um and then um at some point well we will we hear why it was decided that the others would remain unfilled at this time it was based on the the census information that we have so obviously if the census information moves in a different direction some of those would remain unfilled um and it would hopefully you know eliminate the need to reduce staff through a rift process but that remains to be seen we're just still hopeful that we're going to recruit more kids jonath yeah lori I just want to make sure I understand correctly you're you're hearing that the legislature is essentially going to fund education as if schools didn't suffer you know a drop in enrollment okay yes we were told that they would use last year's 8 am so where we would see a slight decrease would be if last year's 8 am was um less than the year before because it's a two-year averaging process and I'll be happy to go through that at the new board training that we're going to have on the seven uh on the 18th not the new board training excuse me the budget training I was planning to bring that information that evening for that training okay thank you any other questions or as we can move on to to brian for the four new initiatives three I'm just putting the other one go ahead brian so uh there are three items that were not included in this level service budget uh I'll talk about uh the first one was having a district wide facility director which would be a 1.0 fte this person would be able to really help us out with our facilities develop a capital plan uh be able to uh supervise our and uh support our custodial staff at right now our principles are doing that in the buildings the ultimate thing is if we really want our principles to be instructional leaders we we really want them to spend more time working with teachers uh and anyone who's a custodian less time with the custodians and facilities uh and so uh the uh and I have I have a few I have a number of principles who who spend at least an hour to three hours a day on facilities types of things just because we've had a lot of facilities uh in certain buildings this year so a lot of facilities challenges in certain buildings so I I think uh uh this would be an opportunity uh to also streamline some of the purchasing of materials and items I'm not going to say that we would get a full return on our investment by hiring a facilities director but there would I believe there could be some cost savings there because it is my understanding that uh different schools in our district are using different uh they're purchasing different materials from different vendors where we may be able to get one vendor to give us a better rate because we're buying the more things in bulk you know that's just an example but uh so that was one thing that uh I thought was some low hanging fruit where we could really move get our capital plan going help help support the principles free up some of their time more time uh to work on instructional leadership and that was one the second thing was that our school district is uh need some more health instruction into schools right now there are three schools not offering health instruction and we just want to make sure we get a we get those three schools the opportunity to offer health instruction to our students and that is uh that would be a point six I believe estimated around a point six I hope I'm not off but that's where we're I think it's falling and that would help out with our three schools uh Berlin Rumney and Doty are the three schools that don't have that so that if we have that we can say all of our elementary schools we have equity of uh of access for all three schools and then the last but certainly not least and this is uh one of the uh you know the big questions you know anytime uh you you have a new superintendent you're trying to do some uh trying to build upon what's already there but also trying to do some things differently and new uh the curriculum management review um if the board uh moves forward if we find someone who can do it and meets our our specs and can do it and we approve it prove it in the December meeting the curriculum management review we believe would have some recommendations for our schools and districts district and that would uh come out later on this school year and then the piece the piece that comes out is you know if they give us a list of things that we can focus on and do what do we want to do and so uh I don't want to be presumptuous and say you know let's let's have this this amount of money put aside so we can be proactive and move in our district forward uh I don't it's just kind of like uh we don't know the official amount what it would be but you know we may want some money on the side or you know in an account so we can start funding some of our newer initiatives that would be coming out of this curriculum management review um I'm not sure if this Laurie yeah I'm not this is a question is this where we could possibly use some fund balance I'm just putting it out there and then talked about um having a fund balance recommendation for the next budget draft so that we didn't ask for money that's one time for things that we try to reserve fund balances and I know well you're gonna have a special finance committee meeting I guess Laura could speak to that okay so Brian and and I think I kind of confuse you so you skipped one you moved the fourth one to the top which I'm excited because it was a facility director but we left out the strategic planning so yeah I'm sorry sorry yeah so you had yeah sorry I'm sorry I'll let you talk about it we talked about it yeah I moved it sorry it's okay it's okay I fully support I'm glad that you've moved the facility director to number one but so you had curriculum management strategic planning and the health instruction yes so do you want to talk a little bit about the strategic planning as the future Matt I think I think that the idea is if we get this curriculum management review document completed we're then going to have to engage in a strategic planning process where we develop a plan and so you know so the vision here is you know imagine having a you know a district wide facility director is going to be around to help us become more effective and efficient with our facilities operations developing a capital plan that is going to help prepare our district to plan for future projects up between a five and ten year process right our facilities and we also are kind of doing something similar with the curriculum management review the entry plan going and meeting with our leadership team or engaging teachers engaging our families and students and and of course our board to engage in a strategic planning process where we can plan a creating a strategic plan three five years so we can then now have these planning documents out in front of us so everyone kind of knows here's where we're in future budget years when we do the budget process you know we have an idea of where we're what we're funding what we're asking people to fund it's very transparent we're asking we would be our communities would be involved they would give input and everyone would kind of know what we're trying to do each year that would that's the plan so I think the you know the idea was you know linking that curriculum management review to a strategic planning process in addition to the entry plan and and engaging engaging our communities with some community engagement piece thank you thank you Brian thank you so so now I don't know if our members have questions otherwise we can move into the timeline the timeline and really talking about a doing a community forum too so and I'm more specific on when the finance committee is going to meet next but I want to give you the opportunity to give some feedback about the initiatives that we talked at the end and the next budget is that okay Scott you okay any questions lindy so the strategic plan what kind of dollars you know it's a plan or it's a planning or what does this mean in dollars I don't think we we know I don't think we know yet unless Brian you have an idea it was just right now it's just putting four things for the future for a future budget not we don't have an idea of costs right Brian until we go out no no we wouldn't know we wouldn't know how much uh well I mean I look at it in two parts uh lindy the uh the piece of like actually a strategic planning do you have a strategic planning consultant that comes in and works with families works with the board about developing a process and that costs some money I don't think that's going to be two I don't think that's going to be a lot a lot of I mean too much money but I think where where things start start uh costing you know costing money is when you get a dot when you go through after you've done this whole strategic planning process you get all these ideas and then you start saying well what are we going to try to do in year one year two year three and how how are we going to fund it and what what this piece do we want to put in year three versus year two or and and that's how uh so it's kind of hard to identify exactly a specific cost because we have to determine what we actually want to be able to get done and do okay because one of my concerns and I agree with Dorothy about um people feeling there are pocket books we're we're basically a very small district as far as numbers of students and keeping that in mind and our price per student is pretty high and it has been so um I was a little um concerned with the way dollars are directly attached to outcomes and that our outcomes can't get better without more dollars that kind of concerns me a bit to say that so um that's why when I see plans and consultants and reviews I am more concerned about those people who are in the buildings doing the teaching and what supports they need versus here comes another initiative here comes another paper I have to fill out or um so that's why I'm questioning it and just saying what I'm saying. Thank you Dorothy we we did spend quite a bit of time pushing a little bit with Brian just saying you know what these are all things for the future that we're hoping that we would be able to implement and have maybe so many earmark within our fund balance for some specific student outcomes but we did talk we we do hope that they come back to us with some specifics of what we're going to do now you know kids do not have a year to waste so what initiatives that we're doing right now whether it's interventions teacher coaching that we know this future a this budget draft number two is going to be more specific of how how we're going to move the needle for those for those students yeah that in essence will move the needle for everybody else Brian. Yeah and I think I think also what Lindy said is you know concerned that hey we're a small district we uh we uh want to be able to I definitely agree with you Floor that we want to move the needle and and definitely uh you know continue to help our kids and not have a you know a lost year or anything like that uh with what we could be able to do with what we should do what we can do what we can't do I think that what's going to happen is at some point at the end of this planning process we're going to have a long list of items to consider right I mean they might say you know I'm just you know they may say you need to really work on math or you need to work on literacy or you need to work on every single content area and you should do this immediately you know obviously that would cost you know probably like you know uh money that we don't have so I think so I think coming up with you know what looking at the recommendations looking at what the community wants talking to the leadership team involving teachers in the process of getting their input and getting their input I I think um I think you know there's a way of doing it which it I think the communities would be proud that we're not just uh throwing money around and wasting money that I don't think that's I think there would be a real incentive I think a real intentional look at what we can do what we can't do what we can do later in the future and push things out it doesn't have to be like everything has to happen tomorrow but getting an idea of how do we plan for if we have seven things that we want to do we can't do all seven in one year because we don't have the money or we don't have the capacity or we don't have the the people to do it so but maybe we can do seven things in five years and how do we fund those seven things over a five-year period which doesn't hurt our taxpayers or hurt our tax base or overwhelm the system so I think it's really trying to be strategic about what we want to be able to do and what we can do in a physically respective and responsive way and the last thing that I would say is that we at least from my point of view I'm hoping that this strict financial times will help transform us instead of decimate us as a district so transform us to better use the resources that we have to get to where we want to where we want to be Scott do you have a question and and I think we can move into the timeline um thank you for I actually don't have any question but um Jonas just before we move into the timeline I'm looking at last year's budget I think this is the final draft the you know total net impact on taxes last year was 3.09% but that was after some significantly more revenue than we're getting this year. Laura you may have mentioned this and explained this and I was just too dense to catch it but looking in last year's budget there was about $312,000 of special ed reimbursement compared to 102 this year. What's what's that drop in revenue? Related to the state place students as well as the shifting population some students are 95 percent reimbursable and others are 56 percent so it depends on the cost of the program I am planning to put together some more special ed charts and stuff for the next budget cycle with Kelly and Brian so you'll see a lot more detail about that so you'll better understand it in the next draft. Great thanks for explaining that twice. Any other questions before we move into the timeline? So we are if you have your timeline in front of you we we are today November 4th looking at the first draft our hope is to have the board budget training on the 18th and the finance committee is going to meet on the 17th in in the morning to look at to come back to you with a possible proposal of what our community budget forum it could look like and I actually would like to spend more a little teeny bit of time talking about that if that's okay with with everybody and then the you know the timeline is pretty self-explanatory as you see it there on the draft but we had a brief conversation about being able to give a a chance to community waivers to give us meaningful input and what does that look like so if you guys wanted to email any of the finance committee people email myself to put together something for the next meeting or if you have some specific ideas right now and I'm specifically looking at the finance committee members to see if I'm missing something or there's any input regardless that that very important part of reaching out to our communities otherwise I send it back to you Scott I don't see any Dorothy I'm sorry but I guess I'm showing my age yeah I have a board budget training and a board meeting on the same night it's going to be too much for me and I don't know if it's for other people too our board meetings are long and I'm not complaining about that but to add a budget training on top of it I I think is asking a lot for our heads so I don't know I can't give you a suggestion of when to put it maybe some other people feel the same way or they don't but I'll go along with the crowd so Dorothy we talked about it as a finance committee and trying to you know not burden administrators too with more more time we felt like we originally were thinking of doing a community budget forum on the 18th but we felt that we were going to be ready for for that yet and it was important for us it's it's an optional training so if you don't you know but it would be great to have the entire board there right now we a lot of our committees are meeting right before the meeting with the quality committee just met before so I would love to accommodate as many people as possible but at the same time the urgency of being able to be prepared for the December 2nd meeting really doesn't give us a lot of options and I hate to put more nights out for people you know Jonas is already meeting twice a week I think for negotiations with some others and their administrators so it's really hard to get all those schedules so I'm not trying to say it's not important what you just said I completely respect that and I find myself not knowing if I'll be able to stay up tonight for example there's just been too many meetings this week but it's just the reality of budgeting season so if there's somebody else that can't do it yes Carrie and Jonas sorry I think Jonas was first and then you Carrie whoever I just didn't yeah I didn't want it okay Carrie well if it's okay to change topics a little bit I wanted to say another thing that the committee talked about is that one of the ways that this budgeting process can work well is when the board doesn't micromanage the line items of the budget but establishes what our expectations are early in the process and provides guidance to the superintendent and the team to go out and develop that and so the committee talked about using time on the 18th for the board to set those parameters if you will so whether they're expectations or or priorities or however we want to frame them and so the request is if people could be thinking about what those might be if you have ideas about them and bring them on the 18th or share them with the committee because the committee's going to talk about maybe making a recommendation on some parameters when we meet next thank you thank you Carrie that was very important anything else on finance Brian or Laurie just yeah I think you covered I mean and I think the community forums this tentative dates that we have were December 2nd January 13th February 17th and then you guys will have more information before that meeting on the 18th so with the specific questions just to remind you about what's going on on that board training are you okay with that Dorsey yeah I said I go along with whatever I guess okay so plan on an EC 17th so you're ready for the 18th okay Scott back to you thank you very much for thanks everybody it occurs to me that some of you have been at it for three hours already so how about if we take five and just refresh however you choose and I think we can probably get back and and go through the rest of the agenda without too much ado five minutes so 802 see you back here oh Brian yeah I just want to say that the principals who are here you know they can if they wish to stay they can but I know they have a long day tomorrow so I'm gonna they can go home if they they can go up turn off their zoom if they would like yeah that's all great thanks terrific thanks very much see you all in five minutes my computer clock shows 803 if there's anybody there we can get restarted wonderful great for okay um as I mentioned before Chris McVeigh is unfortunately tied up with a client this evening unfortunately for for us so will uh if anyone from the policy committee would like to manage this part of the meeting you're welcome to otherwise I'll you know blunder my way through it as usual um anybody want to take it on if not um we have 3.4.1 first reading of policy c12 prevention of sexual cement as prohibited by title nine on page 27 are there any um are there any amendments uh or corrections changes questions on c12 Diane and then Brian so I believe this I mean I'm wondering how much of this is boilerplate that's being required and just wanting to make sure that we understand that um in terms of our responsibility as well so a policy committee person uh Brian please yeah and I don't I don't know if Kelly's Kelly I don't see is Kelly here I know Kelly's been a big part of uh there she is I'm gonna let Kelly uh Kelly's been uh I've taken a lead on this uh policy uh and has been uh extremely helpful in this whole process I'll let Kelly talk so yes you know Diane you hit it on the head right this policy has been developed for vis-vit and the SBA it is a required policy that actually went title nine is a new law that went into effect in mid august um and this is just a template that we received that was developed by Heather Lynn um that you know we're asking you to do a first read tonight then the policy committee will revisit it for a second reading and hopefully an adoption next time thanks Kelly um you're good with that Diane and Brian yeah and uh I also just wanted and it's too bad Chris is not here tonight because uh we had a uh discussion uh and I'll you know full disclosure Chris and I had a back and forth in a policy having a very civil discussion about uh title nine and uh the there was a part of that a part about it in it where there was a disagreement about whether or not we need to keep the procedures uh in the title in the policy and so he he believed that the procedures for conducting a title nine sexual harassment investigation needed to be in it and uh yeah and he's not here today so I was wanting to tell him he's telling this but uh and we had had had a good conversation about it because uh uh I was operating under the uh belief that you don't put the procedures into the policy uh for many different reasons uh well uh we asked Kelly to go back to uh legal counsel after our conversation and after we had sent this out uh already in the board packet and it turns out that Chris was correct uh on this policy in particular that we want to put the procedures for title nine investigation but because we didn't have it out already in the um uh we didn't have it out already in the uh in the packet we did call I called Chris and Chris had said it was okay and that he would speak on it on it tonight but he's not here tonight but I wanted him to tell yeah it's up it's uh too bad because uh you know we were told to keep it in the packet and and so it'll be in the next the next iteration yeah obviously we'll go back to policy but the procedures will also be in the packet for this policy. It's very generous of you and even though Chris is not here today having been right uh it's uh it's great that at least all the rest of us know so thanks um are there any other uh any other is there any other work to be done with um with this c12 policy or shall we just um consider it first reading back to the policy committee for preparation for the second reading and passage sounds good all right great so um we can move on to 3.4.2 second reading and adoption um I would propose uh that one of you who would like to do this um move the policies as a slate and then we can treat them as a slate I see that Scott go ahead Gail thank you um let me just so Gail moves is there a second I will second thank you Jonas okay so um discretion you remember them from two weeks ago I think um I don't recall that uh Lindy yes please I think you were just going to say what I was going to ask generally there's red lines if there were any um changes suggested and I don't see any so my understanding is there weren't changes since the first reading but that's what I wanted clarified yeah um that's my recollection um Jonas is usually very good at remembering such things if um no all all I'm doing is looking in last in the last minutes I I remember good okay so if you'd like to move to a vote then oh wait there there there was one on but is it in sorry f1 right we wanted to look at whether we needed to include a clause about um um making sure that commuting right regular commuting is not reimbursed uh in the travel policy and it is in there uh so that change was made from the first reading the second reading we're not getting a red line copy um but from what I'm looking at in the minutes from the last meeting that was the only thing that we really asked the policy committee to look at thank you Jonas great um any further concerns or um we can go to the vote all in favor of that state of policies as moved by a jail and seconded by Jonas please click yes if you're opposed click no I'm seeing all yeses so emotion passes the policies are passed on second reading um so uh that brings in point five negotiations committee update um without following the IB um Jonas uh so we were going to have a group IBD training session uh yesterday sorry on Monday evening uh with both the teachers and the ESP facilitated by uh woman whose name I forget unfortunately she had to cancel um that there's a silver lining for me because I couldn't attend on Monday um we're trying to reschedule for next Tuesday um which would work for me Diane um you indicated it wouldn't work for you but you know I wouldn't worry so much about that we'll we'll catch you up I'm sure you know that you know that the bones of it at this point and you know whatever materials we've got we'll we'll make sure you've got um so hopefully that goes off on Tuesday uh and it'll give us a chance to talk about scheduling the negotiation sessions who goes first um and uh you know the logistics of getting this rolling that's all I got unless Brian there was something you wanted to okay thanks um any board member questions for Jonas oh good thanks very much Jonas um okay central Vermont career center update is that you floor or sure and Brian is here too and I think Stephen probably I don't know if Stephen left at there he is so Stephen and and Brian and myself are are the little mighty team for the career center uh so what we wanted to share tonight especially is that the BUUSD that means the berry school board now merge uh voted unanimously in October 22nd to start a process to get bids to uh to for a site selection for the career center so basically what is what is happening right now because we are not a we we we sit on this board but we don't we don't really govern the career center just the way that this has been set up for for the state so the ultimate decision to make that decision is on the berry school board not in all the sending districts and Brian and and um Stephen can correct me if I'm I mean speaking in any of those so it to me is exciting I think at least our team is excited so what would mean is that starting they're putting proposals out for year 22 uh to try to find uh decide if they can make it bigger uh in berry where the career center is to meet the needs and the and the hopes and dreams for this new career center or if there's a better site within the sending districts and I will let Stephen speak to this because he's been also in this in this meeting for the same longer than me and and Brian if I'm missing something Stephen or I don't think you're missing anything the uh career center has been looking at uh at expanding their space so that their offerings can um because so they can prove some of their offerings and provide some additional ones this conversation has been going on for at least three or four years now and so now they're at a phase where they want to at least go see if if there are available sites um uh for them or if they can expand where they're at and so it's really just a study it's not uh it's not a commitment um because the biggest hurdle and of course all of this is funding for building a new facility um yeah yeah so that's the update Brian any anything else uh you know it's just yeah we felt we felt like it's really exciting right especially coming from COVID a you know putting resources into technical center and seeing a better way to integrate it uh of course we don't really have governance over it so we're just ascending district we're advisory so um and I and I know the very uh school board would like to share that governance part just for the record that's it Scott thank you Flo are there any board member questions on career center not oh Dorothy yes sorry um I'm wondering if we get to be part of the governance are we then going to be raising the money to put up a new building or we are really going to be part of that it's too early to tell to tell Dorsey but I I think it's a longer conversation I don't want to speculate in in in anything but it would be within yeah it would be within that community right now most sending districts lack that direct control and governance over how to influence direction and you know not just in building but in programming which is which is really huge in and in Vermont we still have uh we don't the way that we're funding a tech education we're not able to expose kids in middle school enough we're not you know this conversation can be really really long and we don't we compete for funding so there's a lot of things that are not quite right in the way and more kids should be exposed to taking that location and there should be more of a cross between some of our for example robotics should be part of the thing you know like there's there's a lot of potential so I don't want to make it sound like it's just the spending it would be spending money I'm not suggesting that you know that we know where that center is going to go it's it's a it's a study so it's just getting ideas for for for the growth of something that we know is really important for sustaining Vermont as that as for for the future I I I totally agree with all of that I I just I I guess it is going to be a long-term thing but we really need to do do more and for more of our students in that regard and even if we're going to have to dig into our pockets as long as it's more or less even with all the other pockets that are part of that center yeah thank you thank you great thanks very much um anything else on your career center if not we can move on to 3.7 the SBA update sounds like you again Floor okay it's a busy night so we we had the resolutions a meeting and a the regional meeting and all of the resolutions the nine resolutions that you guys had I got input from most of you I missed three of you so I'm sorry about that but I did try to reach all of you and we pretty much voted I don't know if you want me to go resolution by resolution or just one and I was just going to update you we voted exactly like the recommendation had been the only change was in the resolution fourth which is the career center they submitted an amendment that was not part of the package so at the last minute at the last minute so so the each representative for each district it had to you know it take a vote without having been able to go back but that's part of representing and pretty much what they did is they striked out is curious enough it's the same thing that we were just talking about so it it's striked out the the part that was trying to control the answer of the of the question whether we should have governors or not and more influence in the career center that was the resolution number four and then instead of it was recommended to not pass it did pass because they take took out that language it's more of a it is now more about exploring a better funding and and the governance issue for for the sending schools to adequate influence that direction without the trying to control because we don't want to be involving telling the legislation try to tell them how to do the outcome right so so they did change that language that's all I have to to share everything else it was it was it was the same and especially the one about holding those harmless for the students is going to be really important for us this year so that's it thank you very much any questions for floor on the bsba update and floor um what's the next step on these resolutions the resolutions are basically guidance for the executive director to they're not resolutions that pass on the state houses guidelines that gives direction for for the board about what are the important issues for the membership during during the year so as soon as the the session opens next year it will serve as guidance for for Susie Glossy and her team to to help move with a policy in that direction that helps with those recommendations along with the other recommendations that are already part of the of the bsba it just adds to our guidance to them great thanks very much um if there's nothing else we can move on to item four board operations board norms which begin on page 49 and i must confess i i wasn't able to attend the agenda setting meeting at which this was put on so i i don't know exactly i see discretion action are we adopting may i ask my esteemed colleagues the proposal is that we move to adopt the the items that are there the proposals to have a discussion about the norms so we have three you know we have the norms that we had before when we were all when for the full what we call the full board of u32 and then we have the norms two other examples of norms ones that you send ones that are used at u32 right now so the idea is to spend some time we have you know a you know it's been a long day so however much time people feel that they have right now to to be able to not do this by a small committee but everybody agree on on on what is important and we narrow it down to these three examples so if you guys had a chance to read them uh gel or anybody else that we want to share from the planning please do it's all you know we keep pushing this down the road and so it's pretty critical that we get to um deciding what these are so that we better understand how to frame our work and how we should be responding so um we're always you know I get it that we're especially tired today but it that's why we put it on there um is so that we can actually hopefully get it done yeah I mean my my feeling as I look at these three is that I actually think the first one is the closest to where I was hoping we would end up because it's the most sort of like what do we do when something happens which is what I was looking for in board norms um the third one I feel like is a little bit more um more like how does the individual operate within a within a meeting which it has value but I didn't think it was the same thing as what I was hoping for in the board norms and then I think I thought the middle one uh had a lot of overlap actually with both of the other two and could probably be partially incorporated into a new draft maybe of the first one and then there's some things that are really are legal obligations that I actually didn't think needed to be in the norm that was my that was my thinking I mean I feel like I could take the the first two and probably a little bit of three and make them into one document um but it would look the most like the first one with some changes as I reflected on it and looked at it again and I'm also I would volunteer to take a crack at it let me just say that you would volunteer did I hear that correctly I have some background right yes I would volunteer but that would be the direction I would be going in so I'd want to get a sense for if that sounded like the right direction um great uh Lindy and then Dorothy and then Jonas um I immediately was pulled to the first one because it looks like norms to me and when I first looked I thought that was our norms document and the only one I had concerned with was the um at the end of the each board meeting reflect on we don't ever have time to do that and it's too late to even do pluses and deltas like I'm used to in meetings um but I think the first one I could adopt without any problem at all um and I agree with Jill about the third one and the second one just seemed like such a list of more or less my duties as a board not as norms so I would go with the first one fine yeah I Scott if I can just comment there were there was one I'm trying to look at it there's one thing in the first one oh I think the public comment was actually not our our current practice so I would want to adjust that um and then it also doesn't get at the what do we do if a new topic comes up which I really care about a lot and so I would want to add one on that okay go for it Jill you have the power of the drafter Dorothy and then Jonas I see Dorothy I'm good with that Jill uh just keep it as okay short and brief as the first one if possible yeah that was my intent great thank you Jonas I think that page two is a really nice summation of um you know the initial new board training that I got from VSBA a couple of years ago but Jill I'm aligned with you on on everything you said I think there's a bunch of stuff in that second page that can be incorporated but I think you're spot on okay okay great I'll work on a draft then unless anybody wants a different direction oh Caroline's got her hand up Caroline please um I just would want a little more definition on the first one communicate to the public about public comments so not only do we not do that but what does that mean we respond to them about their comments um I think I think it means let them know there is such a thing that's how I read it but I agree it's a little unclear so like invite them to come and speak maybe um and then the only other one yeah go ahead I was making that up that's just how I was interpreting it I don't know what it meant yeah I felt like it was a little unclear the only other thing is the role of the board and not spending time in the weeds I would actually define a little bit of because what's the weeds for one person might not be to somebody else and I I really like this document um but I think that's an area that the more precise we can get the better we'll run and the more comfortable the administration can be so yeah okay that one yeah that may be the most challenging but I also agree with you it needs yeah needs some work all right okay go ahead um I yeah thanks I just wanted to speak to a couple concepts that in support of in when you're working on this jill one is um in my opinion the the point about reflecting at the end of the meeting is actually important and I think it's something that we should try to do as a discipline and it's really about um reflecting on meeting effectiveness and overall performance so that we can support our ongoing improvement and I think I know it's an investment of time and it's painful at the end but but I think it's important and the other one I would say is communicating out the top level takeaways from the meeting to to our stakeholders that's another practice that we could take on that would be meaningful thanks okay that's helpful so I I agree with everything that has been said I I do think that the community involvement we should have a little discussion about that because we've been talking as a steering committee about moving a community input into public comments also so we should have that conversation as we move it would be part of the agenda but make sure because that's not our practice like we were saying right we each community that was sort of a previous practice we other it's the meeting of the of the board and we care very much about the the public but we have so much to get done so we've been talking about putting public comments as a steering committee at the end not at the beginning of the meeting that's one thing and then in in respect each other I think there's a couple of things that we could incorporate from from the from the third page without and you can you know look into a jail but there's a couple of things within that line that we should be able to to incorporate you know for example between intent and impact or even just the mindful listening which we practice at our yeah our retreat are just important reminders and that's it that's perfect okay I think it's doable that um I I'm tremendously grateful I think we all are that um what I should ask is does anyone have an objection to Jill um drafting up a norms document for us to to approve possibly even in our next meeting I don't see any expressions of discontent so um by consensus you're the one Jill thanks all right awesome yep many many thanks happy to you okay so um should we move on then to the consent agenda um approving the minutes of October 21st starting on page 52 um would anybody like to move to approve the minutes of October 21st I will move to approve the minutes of October 21st thank you Jonas second I will second since I'm not on mute taking advantage wonderful so Jonas moves Jill seconds are there any changes to the minutes of October 21st oh Caroline yes please it has my name down as attending by teleconference and I actually missed that meeting thank you that also realized I miss spelled Jill's name in that document a couple times so I'll change that too oh I didn't even look closely enough thank you yeah it happens a lot but I mean not just with you all over the place so sometimes I notice sometimes I don't thank you that goes for you too David Delacour you did it too in the newspaper Lisa I uh so wasn't at that meeting okay not at that meeting child that was your daughter's birthday yes okay I'll change that sorry um anything else otherwise it looks good to me all right in that case all in favor please of approving the minutes as um as moved and seconded please click yes if you're opposed please click no and it looks like all the yeses so the minutes are approved um now for the board orders um Lindy I've come uh to rely on you but um I shouldn't impose that wonderful would you mind then please keep me on my toes um I make a motion to approve board orders in the amount of 389,334 67 cents and the other one is 30,964 dollars 20 cents thank you Lindy Lisa did you get that okay yes thanks great thank you uh do we have a second floor seconds thank you um with some backup so are there any questions any um any concerns they look good to all of you all right in that case if you approve the board orders as moved by Lindy and seconded by floor please click yes um opposed click no and all the yeses thank you very much and um I won't shirk my responsibility this time to remind you to kindly send in an email with your with your signature electronic signature in the uh um thank you very much so moving on to six six point one approving new teachers um for new employees um would anybody like to move that please I have it open if you want me to that would be great Lindy thank you I move uh approving the nomination of Casey LeClerc as school nurse at U32 as detailed on the nomination form thank you very much is there a second Diane seconds and Caroline there too thank you very much um so uh are there any questions uh I noticed that um provisional license good um so uh Floyd did you have a question sorry I was signaling to so not it was not okay um great so um if there are no questions um um all in favor of the motion as uh moved by Lindy and um seconded by Diane please click yes and opposed click no and once again I see all the yeses many thanks everyone so we know um unless uh unless there's something else that I'm missing we can move on to public comments round two um if any member of the public wishes to make a comment um it would be great if you could click raise hand or star six if you're on the phone um otherwise if I don't hear from anyone we can move to future agenda items um which are listed here energy project consultants articles of agreement which um I believe refers back to Carries and and Jill's oh oh Jayal sorry did I miss something please well I just have a question I know we had on the agenda for a while the name change of the district and then I thought we changed it but I keep seeing I thought we took out the unified or the union or something but it's still on like all the documents so I don't know my memory is not um serving me well mine is the name or do we still need to have that discussion well we haven't actually formally changed the name um I think it's a discussion worth having um we kind of put it on um on the back burner I think because of everything else that has taken precedence but um it's something I would would you like to have it included on the future it doesn't have to be I just I just for some reason was thinking that we had um had the discussion but um I think it's something we should bring up when we have some space in the agenda yeah that would be a happy day um Scott can I just ask a question about the board orders email yes board I think just got one going that I saw but does it need to I think it only it's only going to the board as you sent it does it need to go or does that go to the administrators too I couldn't tell you should have not CC all of you I just I just resented I usually send it oh you did okay is that sorry I okay just as a note to you guys but the amounts are accurate I just forgot to CC the administrators so I just okay great yeah because I usually just try to send it to them instead of all of you because you don't need to see it just they do okay okay thank you great so um on the energy project consultant my understanding is that the finance committee has first crack is that correct yes okay great on articles of agreement the issue is maybe um reducing the size of the board back to 10 or 11 from um 15 and there is a uh is that in the policy committee or um that has been discussed by somebody no we we had informal conversations as a as a as a whole board but I think that should be something discussed by the by the entire board just like we have thrown a lot of ideas out but when you know when we have the the time and because we need to bring it to vote it has to go to the voters in order to make the change but realistically we're always about 13 so ideally we could go back to 10 and have three uh at large members is one idea to but right that sounds great okay but it should be a huge board decision to the board great and superintendent job description and evaluation um caroline chris and I with brian are working on this I I got off to a very late start but we've been sort of batting things back and forth and we'll um we'll get that together um and um and advance on that and have something for the board as soon as um as soon as we can um lindy I I just got florid's email and don't want to announce it to everybody but the numbers are wrong floor so don't cut and paste her um numbers I'm looking at the board order and it's three eight nine three three four six seven and thirty thousand nine sixty four twenty okay thank you very much some of you are frozen to me now but maybe my internet will get better um many thanks and I think um if this this is a very good practice to just help each other out um and correct each other lord knows I absolutely rely on it from you all of you so and I'm grateful for it um so there's nothing more left on the agenda before adjourning but um I don't want to just peremptorily close out before you have a chance to say anything that might be on your minds current and then brian could I just suggest real quickly on that um board size topic a way we might approach it um and um with efficiency in mind that we just put a short agenda item on to to just kind of go through as a group what we think the pros and cons are and then take a straw poll and see if this is something that we want to spend any time and effort on this year and if if we do then we can quickly assign a small group or or maybe it's an existing committee to develop how the language and how it would actually work wonderful so um pros and cons round the table straw poll and then small group um how does that sound everybody um great okay thank you very much kai I think that's a that's a terrific idea um very good anything else before we um um before we go I'm noticing there is a brian sorry sorry well I was just noticing there's a hand raised in the participants and I'm oh my gosh um right that's is that David yes it is and I just wanted to say real quickly uh David Lawrence from middle sex that um about five minutes ago a comment was made to the effect of um are we considering the name change at all as someone who's never liked the an acronym that has both a literal w and a w in it I would like to also highly support that this be something that's discussed and I'm I'm sure that we had a public comment okay thank you David um and and brian um yeah I just wanted to point out that hopefully I'm not jinxing anything but uh it's 844 and that we're actually going to about to end the board meeting early tonight yeah um just wanted to point that out yeah I thought the board was very effective and efficient so thanks we didn't ask you enough questions then yeah exactly yeah next time I jinxed it there we go yeah it's my thanks to all of you I greatly appreciate it um so if there's no objection we can adjourn by consensus at 844 yeah take good care everyone sleep well yeah good night