 I'll call this meeting together. Two together. Call this meeting to order at 6.42 p.m. This is the regular meeting of the Rockbridge. Rockbridge? Rockbridge? Rochester Stockbridge Unified District. It's because it's the summer camp. Yeah, there you go. Rockbridge. So, there are two additions I'd like to make to the agenda. Number one is to put under others slash new business under six. Make 6.1 be the principal search. And as a discussion item, I'd like to add a 4.4, which is the, I want to discuss the community engagement, technical assistance grant, and actually the planning guide for communities that came out with that. Assistance, security engagement assistance grant? Technical assistance. Yes. Community engagement, yeah, like it's short. No, they can't. So called, we don't need to discuss, I just asked which, we don't need to discuss the last day of school, because that's not this board. Why? Okay, okay. Right, right, that would be the regular project. Number four, technical assistance grant. Check. Technical assistance grant. That's like I said, the old board. I wanted to get filmed. All right, it's your better side, right? Before we tear into those media subjects, we have in our packet minutes for Tuesday, April 3rd's meeting, the April 12th special meeting, as well as the April 17th special meeting. I would entertain a motion to approve them all, or if we want to discuss them individually, approve them individually. Either approve them as a slate, approve them as a slate, or we can go through them one by one. What is your pleasure? Slate. Yeah. All right, I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda, being the minutes of the regular meeting of April 3rd, the special meeting of April 12th, and the special meeting of April 17th. Second. A motion has been made and seconded, does someone make a motion? Oh, I'll make a motion. I second it. Okay, so a motion has been made and seconded to approve the minutes as a slate discussion. This is Jess, right? No, I believe, do you look at the bottom or should say respectfully submitted by, right? If she did them, she would write that at the end, otherwise I'm going to move. Oh, okay, thank you. Should write that anyway, I think it's part of the legal jargon there's supposed to be. Yeah, it's supposed to say respectfully. Yeah, I think that's the legal jargon that's supposed to be ending. Okay. So I'd say that up. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny, for your typing up of these minutes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Any further discussion? All those in favor of approving the minutes of Tuesday, April 3rd, Thursday, April 7th, 12th, and Thursday, Tuesday, April 17th, so you're probably saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, the minutes are approved. And actually, even though I said I'm going to make it 4.4, since it's a simple matter, and I don't want to slip through the cracks and start with it. The grant that I mentioned, the application is actually due today, and I'm not sure that we could get it submitted, but the thing I found that was interesting, and this was something I actually saw from the ESBA in my inbox today, and I just sent you guys a link to it. There's a guide they have about strengthening, and the title of it is, Strengthening and Sustaining Public Engagement in Vermont, A Planning Guide for Communities. And when you look at the table of contents, it runs under 20 pages, so it's not a long read, but I think it's, and when I skimmed for, skimmed kind of through it, it seemed like it talks about a lot of the things that we've been sort of wrestling with, so I would suggest that we all take a look at that and we all use that as maybe some stepping off points for our conversations about A, how to engage the community at our two informational meetings, and B, what kind of outcomes or outreach or objectives we're gonna wanna do going forward, because I think we certainly had a lot of work to wrestle with that budget in such a short time, but it also meant that we haven't really talked about how we're gonna engage our communities and then how best to do that. So this is a grant that we're going to apply for? Well, the grant itself was actually due today. They just said, remember, today's the last day. It was the email that I saw. But the key thing is, and I sent the link to the PDF, is there's a fairly nice document about engaging the community and building the community, and then something that we could maybe look at. Did you forward that to us? I did, I just sent it today, so you should see that. So I wonder what the grant, I guess the grant just provides for money for the community. Right, what do you pay people to engage? What was technical assistance for technical assistance? And you get a car. Yeah, really. Yeah, what happened to Tammany Hall? The RFP basically says that the VSBA hosted back in the middle of the month, apparently a workshop on engaged equitable governance that they had a grant, or they got a grant to have this seminar that they also now have some money to distribute to three districts across the state to, you know. Is this going to be an annual grant? Does it say anything about that? It does not, but the big piece is again, and I mean, if you look on the web, as you can see the link, if someone wanted to write an application tonight, you could. But basically it's about, we need to come up with a plan to, I'm not sure we could come up with a plan we could stand behind to do it, but it's, you know. But the information is. I think you're saying the information is very useful in that. Right, right. And well that was one of our comments in our last meeting as we were wrapping up was like really, we need to figure out how to talk to our communities and all that, and then I found it kind of serendipitous when, you know, I'm like, oh look, here's a 20 page PDF that's been, you know, professionally put together about doing exactly what we think we ought to do, we should take advantage of, you know, maybe, sorry it's too bad we missed the grant, but we can, if it does recur, we can certainly look for that. I think we need to be looking for grants ourselves and beyond what, you know, the grant rating at the SU level really seems to be about the CFP, the federal grants, and consolidated federal programs like Title I reading, and used to be like Title IV personal development, I think they can that. But they, but it seems like really her job is to get grants around, you know, educational objectives and staffing and things like that. I think that grants around community engagement and outreach and stuff like that we're kind of on our own, but I do think this guy might be a good thing to look at if he can. Can't at least build some strategies in our toolbox. No, I'm just looking at this as engagement works best when it is interactive, timely, inclusive, authentic, transparent, informed, accessible, responsive, and these are all a lot of the words we've thrown around since we pulled those out. Yeah, like I said, when I skimmed through it, it said, you know, it said, wow, this is a lot of the stuff we've been saying and it seems to, you know, mirror our directions and our intentions, so I just wanted to get that out there. So next we have, let's do backwards actually. So go ahead and give us the update on the things happening with the Rochester Board. Okay, well, just to keep everybody abreast of what's happening, shall we say? Here's my map. We, to sell the Dandelion daycare building, we have to subdivide the property because it is part of the Rochester School property. The zoning in Rochester is such that a parcel has to be a half of an acre for it to be subdivided. So the Norm Smith came out and surveyed and put pins in and it, I have a copy of the map. We have to get a variance because the property goes through our bus lane in the front, very front of the school, so everybody knows where the sign is, right at the very front. Basically, then there's a concrete divider, so the very front all the way over to that divider would be on the new subdivided property. And then all along the actual concrete of our, with the bus lane and to, up to the concrete in front of our school, literally like 10 feet off of our front door, which is really scary. And then it goes across the front of the elementary building over to the other side of these two trees over to the shed and that gives it a half of an acre. Now, as we do have to relocate the preschool playground and the fence and everything that we are put, the PTO and put all this. The greenhouse. And the greenhouse is a big one that has to be moved. We also have flower beds and stuff that are gonna be. There was a railroad ties, you know, full of dirt. So all that stuff is gonna need to be moved. Well, wouldn't you just, I mean, I can understand if you wanted to move the greenhouse, but wouldn't we just decide that the flower beds came with the property? It's possible. It's possible, but the preschool equipment has to be moved. Yeah, I would. And the fence. That's definitely, then the greenhouse are probably the two top priorities. But yeah, if we can move. Yeah. So the potential buyers have agreed to let us keep the playground equipment on there until school is out so that the children don't actually have to see their playground getting ripped up. They are going to be able to use it for that last week of school because the new owners don't want the liability of the kids being on the property. But Bonnie has a shirt for me and she's spoken with our preschool teacher, Lauren, that they will have other activities for recess for them to do. I mean, the sale can't happen unless there's a. The sale can not happen until the zoning committee approves this subdivision, which is what is currently happening at our town office right now. I, we had our Rochester Board meeting. I zipped up to there to see how things were going. There definitely is a lot of concern, with the proximity that that line has come up to the edge of our concrete there. There was, there is talk about getting a, is it an easement or a variant? Is it for, put in the deed that the Rochester, those kids would be able to still, you know, basically like walk across this area here and be able to be on this property. And I asked about it, could we, if it's their property, is there any way we could install fence, like even a row of green fence, even like, you know, well, I don't know if you could sell somebody a piece of property with this saying that we're gonna use this area and put something on it. I just don't know if you can get it. No, it's right of ways, I mean it's right of ways. I mean, I have right of ways in my life, I'm sure. And all the right of way, too. Yeah, absolutely, that's right of way. My uncle has a right of way on my brother, has it for 50 years that the water line can go through a water line. So I guess if we could. There's all kinds of things you can put in that as long, but you wanna put it in before. And the planning commission doesn't seem to be, they think this is a better answer, making it, keeping it the full half acre rather than saying the property gets a special variance where if we did a same version of like what this lot might look like. I mean, did anyone get any figures that said if to make a reasonable lot that works for both parties, it would be a third of an acre, point four. The potential that people are looking at purchasing it were expecting it to be 0.3 of an acre. But it's in the hands of the zoning committee right now. I spoke with Norm Smith about if we drop this line back 10 feet, even just 10 feet, how much would that change the acreage? And he left off and said it would be about approximately a tenth of an acre. So if you could move this back, it would drop it to about 0.4 of an acre. So that's the, we are going forward with the sale as we acknowledged that we would do. We are, this is what we're at with this. Sorry, how much room does it leave in front of the school? I mean, is it like a three, four feet? Something like that. I'm talking about in terms of walking up the side of the building. Oh. To get to the front entrance. I mean, is that? On the grass? Yeah, sort of. Because you wouldn't really walk on the grass here. You'd use this to access. Is this pavement? This is pavement. This is pavement. So you come into the school. But it's just, wow. It is directly on, you know, the puddle that all the kids jump in to go get on the bus over here. That would now be on the neighbor's property. Oh man. Oh no. You're selling the puddle? Yeah, exactly. I was okay with moving the green house. I thought you were selling the puddle. The unfortunate. I don't have something to say about it. I know. Also, I don't get the good, I don't know what to say about it. Also, there's a memorial tree that is now going to be going with the properties. That's a shame. What's the status, I mean, the memorial tree, is it a recent thing, is it a long time thing? No, it was on, it's a long time thing. It was a... Is it an old tree, in other words? It is a... You've got these big scoops now that can pick up a tree and move it. It's a flowering crab tree, so it's a short tree, but it's been there for, you know, it's short, it's not tall, but a flowering cherry or something like that. Can move those. Well, we might, I mean, it was... There's a lot to move right now. Yeah. We'll have to see. It was planted for a child who died of leukemia when she was nine, who was in school, and that was 30 years ago or something, exactly. So, people, it's definitely something that's remembered, but it's definitely something that's not fresh. Right, exactly. Hey, Amy, could you show that sketch to the camera so that people... Do you want me to walk it over there? No, I'm good. No, no. Okay. Okay. I mean, one of the things to consider then is, you know, if that's how it has to be when you sell it, maybe we look at, you know, moving and entrance or changing, you know, changing something with the traffic flow of the building, because, yeah, I mean, you know, having to walk down, yeah, you know, the narrow side, I mean, snow, so you would push the snow back over here, maybe? Oh, that's the other, right. Where are you going to put the snow? Yeah, we would need to, they would have to, right now, there's no room, it will be a little. This is the door that has the, it's the locked door. It's got the video entrance. We do, you know, there is one other door over here that goes into the gymnasium. Right. But I mean, again, it's, you know, we may not fix it this year, but that would be something that you would want. Don't think about it. You'd want to do it. What's the suspect of all those? I don't know, I mean, I know the name, I'd have it in paperwork someplace. They are somebody who stated a local address on a grandvillar or a handcuck address. I'm not sure, but I do wonder about the idea of people with right-of-ways and things like that and do things, I mean, I'm not an expert by any means, but I think you can, once you've done this subdivision, you bought the property, it's your property, and if you want to give, donate to the school, such a sense of, I think that's perfectly legitimate. So if they want to give, yeah, so that it goes through on these conditions, the sale happens, and then with the agreement, maybe it's just a handshake, afterwards it would come back in. You'd probably want it to be formalized. But I mean, we do the, they're not going to want to have the property right out. Right, they're not going to, and you know, it's really not necessarily these people that are buying it right now, but we have to protect ourselves for going, okay, all property transfers, all this property in the future. Right, exactly. Yeah, so what else would you like? Exactly, because, so that's what's happening with that. We have to empty the contents from now on. Right, empty the contents, I'll read as well. Okay, thank you. The cubbies from the handcuffs school, when that was open. Yeah, the little cubbies, you know, the little tables and chairs and stuff. God, it's just like one. I know. So let's bring those back in here. Well, that's what we're going to do. I know, so where are you going to put this off? I'm like, am I going to go find the room? Yeah, I think I'll find the room. I think I'll find the room. Any storage. This whole building becomes many storage. I apologize, I apologize. I apologize, I apologize, I apologize. I'll just leave it to you, I'll be a hell of an income provider. I'm glad you could buy some. And we had talked about the, I'd brought the forest property a little while back. And of course, we were right in the throes of a budget. So the, let me, maybe I should get my information out here again, the forest property, as we've talked about, is not owned by the Rochester school. The forest property is actually, I don't have the deed here, if anybody wants to look at it, it is actually a trust that is being administered by the principal and the high school students. And if at any time the students or principal have said high school shall vote that they do not wish to have the youth benefit control said real estate, the officers have said town school district shall re-convey their interest in said land to said town of Rochester. So to go about trying to change the language of the trust to try to pull it into a, to change, it'd be changing the language of the trust. It has to go to probate court and it has to, if it's not contested, it could be between $3,000 and $5,000. If it is contested, it could be between the bottom number of $7,000 and $10,000. Now the, you know, it is nice to have, it is kind of neat to have a piece of forest property, but realistically with what we're trying to do, I don't see it being real beneficial for our elementary school kids. If we're gonna do a unit of water ecology, our kids, if you have a river right there, they're gonna go to the river that they can walk to. They're not gonna get on a bus and go out to Bingo. Isn't there trouble just busing there in terms of? It's a very narrow dirt road. It's a narrow dirt road. Very beautiful. Yeah. So I'll just say that. It is extraordinary. But it didn't develop. It didn't develop. It's also a much smaller river, so it's much more specific. It is, it is. I think this is a very dangerous river right now. Yeah, kids aren't one. So if we went to probate, the person, the group that would be opposing us would be the town of Rochester. Or anybody who wanted to do that, on behalf of the town of Rochester. I mean, it seemed like it would have to be somebody representing the students and the principal. No, if somebody was contesting it, is what you're saying. Anybody could contest it. Right, but if they'd be contesting on behalf of the town of Rochester, if that's where we'd go. They would contest it probably as the terms of the deed to stick to what this person's original intent. Right, but this is getting the town forward. The town wants it, it's going to be a principal, but it's not going to get any high school students. Right, and therefore it goes back to the town. Automatically. Right. So we could, could we just do nothing? Yeah, it is cleaner if the students and the principal vote to get back to the town. And that's, I believe, the direction that, that it seems to be. That seems to be something we have to do. Right, no, I'm just trying to let everybody know, because the town wants to swap it with the forest service, because isn't there some forest service land that the town. I think it's really unknown. Backup. That was something that, we brought this up and then came back. Well, it is on, it's on a mostly sloped area. I mean, right, I mean, like I said, I think it's great. I think it's a really neat idea to own the forest property. I just, I don't see it. If we have high school kids, it'd be a cool thing, you know, they are being middle school kids. You're not, you can't even build anything on the property. In the deed, if anything gets built on the property, it's a violation and automatically goes back to the town. So it's not like we could build a little shelter to go out there and do stuff with. And I really, I think that we have such good natural forests around all of us that we could find some other places to go. Yeah, I think, I mean, what it would be cool is, it'd be cool to say, you know, we'd give you that land if you could let us have like a 0.3. Oh, so you just keep that land right now. I'm not sure that that kind of horse traded. It does bring up the issue, and this is an unrelated thing, but I think it will come up eventually, is that we're gonna lose the forest where Forest Friday currently happens. That's where the new septic field is going. I've been told by... I've been told by... That's really all I've ever heard. You were so happy with yourself. So the idea is, you have to keep the existing. This was told to me sort of confidence somewhat by an engineer who's working. Well, I'd be curious if anybody steps up and knows more about it. But the idea is that they have to build a, they have to keep the existing one working until the other one's going. So basically it's right next to it, just north of it, which is where that whole area is. So if we are... I know I've been talking with Amy about where, where else we can do it, because I mean, it is now... I would love to see it expanded and you know, engaged down in Stockard's too, to find an area for it too, because it's a great program. Right. It's just extraordinary to see what the kids do with that. But anyway, it's something that's gonna change dramatically in our... Well, that's good. Well, that's good. Well, that's good. I'm gonna be kindergarten, I want to make sure she has space. Forrest Fred. So the forest space is going away when? Next year, five years. Next year, five years soon. No, I think the next... No, they're doing work on the subject this summer. Yeah, so it's gonna start... Which is gonna dig up our soccer field, portion of our soccer field. Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna, and most... And it takes away the forest lands and... Yeah. Because they're gonna basically dig that all up and put the new subject system in there. And then where it was, is the existing septic system. I don't know what they'll do with that. But the woods going down to the river, that whole area, they're gonna clear that allow? I don't know all of it, but certainly probably to that wash, you know, where that wash is, that's going out there. I wonder if she'll just go right to the rest of the woods. I don't know. I don't know the plans. Well, no, I'm just gonna work with Amy. Where it's now, it's no good. Is that it? It's the end of life. It's the end of life, yeah. The septic house... This isn't gonna happen, yeah. Well, I just, I've been working on the properties and the town owns a portion of the soccer field on that side of the elementary where this septic site three is, so. And the septic field we're putting in, or that's being put into replace the failing one, is that size for the current student load that's gonna be in there? This is town septic. This is town septic. This is town septic. This is town septic. This is town septic. This is not, Roger. This is not the school septic. This is not the school septic. So it's not the elementary. Correct, it's not the elementary septic. It is site three of the town septic. We have three sites for the town septic. And they have to put it there, or? It is there already. It is. It'd be nice to know a little more about this. And I'm sure we'll be able to tell. Well, do you wanna know? I have a call into Terry Severi right now. I call him up to be at a meeting all night. Oh, so? I just think we need to know. Well, you should have looked, it'd be nice to see a map. Ready? There's a map. Okay. Are you ready? Now, that is the back of the elementary school, as you can see. So you can see that this is the soccer field. This makes it look like it's on the other side. Well, that's what I'm wondering. I think we need to confirm this on the first Friday, I think, because see, this is right. They are gonna have to come up into the soccer field here, but it might, I don't know. We need to confirm what they're doing. So this is where it exists now, or this is where it's going? That is where it exists now. Yeah. And there is, down there, there's, I think where this is, there's fences around the equipment there, or whatever. Oh, I've seen those, yeah. I have to paste that, so basically, if you wanna know. So that would be, I actually hadn't really heard a lot about the repair that the town is doing, or what I haven't either. So we should find out from the town. Anti, anti, Antonio Sons was the one who's... Since I'm going to be... Since I have a voluntary summary anyway, I will make sure to get information about what the town is doing down there. Who knows exactly where it's happening? Bonnie knows. If we can reach out to Bonnie and Bruce, can we have Bonnie see what she knows about this and when this work is being done? Because if it's going to change where they're holding for us Fridays, that's kind of a sort of next year curricular shift that we really should be a little prepared for. As opposed to coming back in August and going... Yeah, because it took like half a year I think to find where to put for us Friday. It took quite a bit of work. I mean I was... You were there, I mean there was a bunch of parents. We all went down in this camp. Tell Sean we've rebuilt the bridge. Alright, so we need to... So we need... I'll talk to Terry about what the plans are for that septic and... Plants and dates. And then also to confirm location. It'd be great if they put a stake with a tag on it so we could walk in and see exactly how much is going to be taken away. Okay, sounds good. Alright, anything about Stockbridge? And what's going on in your school board? We know about that too. We have, you know, our interim principal has started. See, that's big. He's apparently going gang clusters. People are believe this. Is this a footage to show... No, he skis. So he only had rooms and he doesn't have much season. So he's found his niche. You know, he can ski... Basically. Welcome to Central Vermont. Wow. What is his name called? Donald Schneider. Citizen Schneider. Very good, well that's... See, that's important to know. I'm very glad for you all that you have that. Yeah, everyone's very positive. Yeah, that's great. It's been a week, but... Oh no, hey. To go out with something easy down there would be really nice. Yeah. Well, and to get... You know, to stabilize things. I think to show, to remind parents of what... You know, when you've got a functional school administration. What that community feels like. Apparently, Janie can say it or something. But he came to Bingo. Yeah, I went to Bingo. The PTO did Bingo Friday night. He was there for a while to greet the parents. That's fun. He's in the classrooms where he should be. Right. That's a good problem. Old school hike on Friday. Great. That is... It's so nice to see him. Yeah, he's really... He's not in the office. That's great. All right, so the main discussion item that we need to kind of... Dig into is the... Both the information we need for the informational meetings. As well as the information we need to put in the booklet to send out. Claire, I guess this is part of that. My instinct with this was to jump to big numbers in the budget. That people see one of those being that $49,000 for maintenance. Bonnie said she was going to have a breakdown for us. Does anybody know if she has a breakdown for us? I don't know. I talked to her today. She mentioned it to me last week. Just the other day and she pointed out. She goes, I don't know. Ethan wants a list, but there's just so much. I don't know. It doesn't matter. We just need an idea. Exactly. We need to... All of this is about defending it. We need to be able to stand behind it and say, this is what this number is. Right. I totally agree. The more detail we have, the more authentic our answer can be. I guess we just put brand new ceiling tiles in the hallway of the elementary. One of the ceiling tiles, you can see that there's a leak from the roof. One of the repairs is definitely to get a patch whatever is happening on our brand new ceiling tiles. This was really my instinct as I looked through. I took a moment last week to just look through and see what's the kind of... What are the kind of numbers that people are going to go and just jump at? And what are the kind of things we've been hearing about? And those are the questions you should probably be answering. But then the other part of it would be, what do we want them to be thinking about? What are the things we want them to be thinking about and giving information there? But there's also the things that they're going to pick up. Right. The biggest one probably is going to be... Buildings. Buildings. Definitely. Using this zone is probably going to be the biggest single issue I've imagined for a stock bridge board. But also for Rochester in a different way. Yes, yes, exactly. Both sides. So that might be our first point that we grabbed the bull by the horns since... Right. I think that... I agree with you. I think having a 40,000 foot overview of the budget is a block that needs to be done. And that both... And then besides talking about the big numbers, I also think it needs to talk about the things that are positives. That we're increasing this, we're changing this, music is full time. We're doing those sorts of things. I think we need to... We definitely need to discuss the building and our feelings about how that's being dealt with. I think that... Remind... I think one of the things we need to clarify and point out is that while... I think part of the narrative needs to be that while the previous administration had said, yes, everything can fit in the elementary building, the first principle is saying that let's take a more measured approach and let's try... There's a language thing we have to be careful about too, is to say principle as if it's a Rochester principle, because neither of these principles are exclusively principle for either. I think that's a big change to tell people about that. We're getting principles that are floating back and forth. That's the last time I heard of it. Right. And that's the administration for all. I think I've certainly heard this very clearly. We heard it after that last Stockbridge meeting, that there was some bad feeling about Bonnie and Stockbridge because of that... Yeah, I had a question too. One meeting and people felt he was sort of running the meeting and running the board. So I think we've got our work cut out for us there in terms of presenting this plan. And I think we should look at it as a plan of the dual principles. I think your language should be we're a unified district, we're working together, and this is a team of administrators. Right. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to unify this small district and we're a team. Right. So what I was trying to say is one of the things I want to... I think it's important to point out, because one of the things that I think was a big boat of contention at the last meeting was the particular point that there was a promise that a Rochester building was going to be closed right off the bat. There was a recommendation from the previous principal that a building could be closed right off the bat. And that was not backed up with any kind of analysis, drawing, plans. There was just, I think I can do this. And we said that's good, because we don't need to necessarily operate two buildings. The current administration says, and again, I think it's important that we emphasize that while we are in charge, we're the people that make the decisions, we're not educators and that the recommendation of the current principal is to close the two large zones of this building, but keep that one particular zone operating to house these services while we figure out if and how we can transition them into a single space. And I think along that same lines as we're talking about that, we need to actually set up a committee that is actually evaluating what we have and how the best way to go forward is to do it in a thoughtful way. I think that's the biggest thing that we need to do. The time has been so quickly that we haven't been able to do that. And we need to tell people that. We need to get people to understand that we are thinking and trying to move forward and we understand that promise that was made. We have to slowly work on how we're going to fulfill that because it would be irresponsible of us to just jump in and shut a building down right now, which is we don't have the time. We haven't had the time to really evaluate this. I thought it was crucial last meeting that you two spoke up about this. How uncomfortable it might have been for you in that moment, but I do feel like it's an issue that is different if we're speaking up and I'm thinking about it in the annual meeting. Obviously, the Rochester information was probably mostly going to be Rochester when you were talking to that crowd and their concerns. But that seemed very crucial to me, you two, saying that because that's certainly what you're left with. I mean, they're definitely still going to be concerned. They're still going to be the question with Rochester Elementary being twice the size. But I think the biggest thing, like you said, is really the time and being able to do it in the right way. Well, and to all of you... I need you to explain that it's not a question of if this is going to happen. It's a question of when this is going to happen. And if you take the cake out too early, it doesn't matter what the recipe was that you used. And I think we need to validate their feelings and say that we get this and we're going forward, but we're going to do it the right way. I mean, there's all sorts of space in that elementary school, but that's going to take time, whether we open those two small classrooms into one, whatever. And I think we also need to structure this so that we always call it the glows before the glows. If we start out with what the conflicts are, then by the time we get to the other things, it's going to be such an acrimonious atmosphere that that will happen. I think we should start with the positive things. And I think one of the positive things should be what we're going to do with this building next year. The auditorium or whatever we do, make that a positive part, and then when we get to the building, get it straight on, get it straight on. And if we could have more numbers by that time, what does it mean if we keep this zone open, if we close these? I also want to talk about the meaning of closing a zone too. I think at this point we need to reduce the heat, reduce the lights, but I don't feel that at this time we can actually shut everything off. No, because we can. You can't mean the fire extinguisher system in here has to stay. I think what was it, 55, was what Bonnie kept saying. I remember saying that it actually made her a little nervous with a cold wall somewhere cold. Right, well that would be, I think you would, my thought would be if there was a cold spot, you'd maybe have a heat gun or something. Right, but I mean that's, when I had problems with doing work like that in my building, that was the way that my contractor advocated solving it. So I think our maintenance people could deal with some of the cold wall problem with the cold, be prepared for it. I'm just thinking in terms of time and place, welcome all, by the way. Did you all come for the planning meeting? Yeah, what was the? No decision yet. No decision, okay. Not yet. It does seem to be, maybe we should brainstorm things that should be on the list first before we get into detail. What are the positive things? Well, yeah, let's go through what the positive is. Well, I'm one of the things that should be on there. So the information sheet that was the one that came out, that right here was really, you know, this one. We really covered a lot of the agreement. Right, and that's, we would like to do that again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we have to kind of get it out like immediately if we're going to be able to get it out. We really do. So we set a figure out who's on it, and I wonder if that's even, well, we need to say that we should be. Besides the building, we do need to explain the new administration model. I think you were right about that. The last thing I wanted to say about the building piece was just, was that besides talking about this building, we also need to be talking about that we are looking at, the space utilization in Stockbridge. Right. And, you know, if and how to expand that we've discarded for them. Do we have the money for the seven panels? Yes, it's in the budget. It's in the budget. I couldn't remember. So, you know, that's one of the positives we're doing, but the building committee is also looking at how best to use the space in Stockbridge and whether, you know, there needs to be some more spaces there. So there's, you know, there's decisions that are being made about both things, about both campuses and it's about making the best for the kids. Again, we need to be, you know, we will be starting a building committee to go forward and really look at this. Right. I think that's what we say about that. Right. It's looking at all the buildings. And I think we have to look at the little details. I mean, for example, Casey's going to be, what did she get? Ten more days? The administrative assistant. Let's show the equity. Let's show how we're building up this. Right. No, I completely agree. So what are the, sorry. I just want to say, I think, you know, we know what the Stockbridge concerns are. The Rochester concerns are this building and it being Mothball and in terms of real estate integrity. I just think that we have to be really conscious of both towns. Yeah. No, I, I, I, I, Because it's all going to set you. That's why I think it's important to explain that we're really, we're reducing heat. We're reducing light. We're not putting up plywood over windows or, I do think there's also been, I think we both different, but our towns each looked at that agreement that agreement and looked at what closing meant a little differently. And I think that from the reactions I've seen in our crowd and our meetings, from our sister residents when you guys said that we were going to shut this whole building down, I think a lot of people did not realize that, I think we were really thinking the money that we were being saved was in the operation of our high school and our middle school. It wasn't necessarily really anything to do with the building budget. So I watched reactions in our crowd and in reactions to people from staff right to making statements. I think we have a little bit of a gap of interpretation of that statement. Sure. So we have to address, I'm going to address that. It's definitely. It's official that we now, as a supervisor union, own three million things. School district. School district, we own, well, four if you include Dental and Acre. We own four buildings and that's what we're going into this meeting. I would love to include Dental, Acre, and Acre. Yeah. That would be a great answer. Yeah, we'll just move it. Move it to stop. So good. The last big area I think we need to talk about when we briefly brought it up at the last meeting, I think in the report, we need to be able to talk about the curriculum and the curriculum changes that are happening and how that matches up to the survey results we had about what our big people, what our people, what our community and our parents want to see our kids being taught and then we need to be able to talk about that. We need to be able to, and then talk about Forest Fridays moving or something similar being instituted in Stockbridge and things like that. This is one of the teachers brainstorm. Two guys have all seen this. This was the teacher brainstorm from that first week. We all had copies of it, but I just thought maybe this would be helpful as the curriculum, as we're going forward to remember, these are some of the really important, exciting things that we get to do, possibilities we can do together. Could you review those so that? I can read a bit. So this was some teacher brainstorms cooperative learning opportunities for the Stockbridge Central School on Rochester students. Steam, STEM, sorry, STEM, STE, but the steam could be odd. Yeah, I couldn't for a steam phenomenon. It's out of the arts. Okay, learning opportunities in Steam sounds, I mean science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And this was identified as an area to increase opportunities for our students based on the recent survey to Stockbridge or Rochester residents. This was when, this came out when? This was the survey, no. No, this is when the teachers got together. September, October, September, October of 2017. So the STEM learning opportunities cooperative teams of K through sixth grade Stockbridge and Rochester students meet two times a month for an afternoon throughout the school year. Each school hosts once a month for a full afternoon. I never heard that one before. I just think it's really important that we take a variety of challenges. We also have for the first time one in the lecture to go back and forth. Right, and I just wanted to just point out that this was stuff that the teachers had talked about and maybe we can use some of this as jumping off points for when we're talking about what the things, the positives that we're gonna be able to do together. Yeah, that's gonna be a real job, is to keep it positive. Right. The input from that being put in the report. I'm hoping. Yeah. Yeah, and what we're talking about, what we talked about at the last meeting, Frank, was the idea of looking at some of this and then revisiting the Stockbridge and the Rochester survey data when the communities were surveyed and talk about the commonalities and what we want in our curriculum. We like wellness, we like an outdoor component, we like, we have a big emphasis on step-steam. You know, so. No, sir, this is the end of the story. But trying to, again, report that out and report how this is what we're trying to do in alliance with what our communities have asked us to do. Exactly. Because I think, again, it's important to be responsive but I think that we got some good information from those surveys and it should be tied to the report. I think we should be a little vague on how often I know we have a special program. Oh, exactly. I didn't mean to put this out here. That's what we said. I didn't know if this was gonna be handed out or what. No, no, it's just for, just to remind us, we've all seen this before. It was just more true. After we just went through that draining budget process to get back to some of the reasons that we. But the point is, there were surveys, they developed some valuable ideas and they have resources to draw on in the development of ideas. Right. Are we thinking about doing something similar to this? This was the merger of what does it mean? We were talking about trying to get something out and would these be the three topics? The report or at the meeting? I thought we said we wanted the report that I handed out out before the information. I know we talked about trying to get this handed out before the information was now. Our time frame is getting really short here. I made first. When do we send out the report again? The 12th. It has to be in their hands by the 12th, right? No, it has to be in their hands by that the meeting is the 25th. 25th. Or 22nd, rather. It would need to be in their hands, it's 10 days. So it would need to be in their hands. I guess that is subtraction. Because I was thinking it was the 15th. Because I was doing, I was still going on the 25th. All right? Okay. So by May 12th, it has to be in their hands. So I guess really it would be not enough time for us to try to put something like this together and get it mailed out prior to sending out that annual report. So maybe we should put this as the beginning of the annual report. I think that's where it needs to be done. I think we also need to think about how are we going to get this word smithed? Because it needs to get, you know, I certainly am willing to, I'm used to writing about budgets. I can certainly handle the budget piece. Are you talking now you're looking toward the annual report going on? So kind of, or the actual word smithing this document? Well, I'm sorry, I thought we just kind of agreed that we don't have time to do two mails. Correct. So we're gonna do one annual report. Could we save ourselves some time but just handing it out at the informational meeting? I think it would be really beneficial for people to have this. Especially as they're moving forward the informational meeting. Yeah, you want the people to have the budget. And so for them to open the budget and start looking at that budget. And then be able to have maybe something like this that kind of decodes what they're looking at. What do these numbers really mean? This is right. Because otherwise they're not going to be listening to us. Right. We could either stick it in the book or we could actually get it printed. Yeah, I think you're gonna get more readership if it's not attached to the book. But I know that makes things more complicated but I just feel like putting it in the book, I mean, you know, I look at the book and I look at what I want to look at. Why don't you both? Why don't have it included in the book you're sending out and have it available also at the meeting? At the meeting. Oh yeah, we could have it at the meeting. I guess the idea was to get out ahead of the meeting where when people are looking at the budget and trying to understand just what the assumptions are. You know, this thing that we sent out was on what does the merger mean for our town? Right. So I think it was something like what does this budget mean for our school? Right, no, I agree. I think that's the whole, you know, the 40,000 foot, here's the big numbers. You know, this is what this number means. This is, you know, the repair number is high and it's high because of this. Where it's a kind of a question and answer that steps through, I think, the first, the positives of the budget where it says it's going to, you're going to be increasing music to this and you're going to be consolidating guidance into one unified model. It's answering everybody's questions that we've already had that we know everybody else still is going to have but let's get it out there with the budget so they don't have to wait to the meeting to come and ask about it. No, they shouldn't have to know. Right, I would be willing to take a crack at writing that piece. But, what's our, what's our one sentence pitch? Why do you want this, why do you want this to be heard? Because it's the best thing for our kids and our teachers because it will improve the curriculum. It will improve student achievement. It will certainly enhance the social aspect and emotional aspect of our children being with more kids. And I think for teachers, the research is clear, collaboration. Now they have somebody else on their grade level. They have other prices they can talk to. So, I think that's crucial. Somebody just record what she said. That was very, very good. That's been, yeah, we're coming back to you for that. No, we're coming back to you. No, that's exactly what I want. I want to be able to, you know. For sure. That's the preamble to this. But the bumper sticker is this proposal gives us more for less. More for less. Maybe that's that, that's more for less. Sure, here we are, we're paying less. And we're getting more. And we are getting more. I think. Oh, definitely. I mean, again, it's not a question of if. It's a question of when. What this does, I think those frames it for us nicely is it's sort of like you put this first and you put your part and then it's like, okay, what are the bullet points, bam, bam, bam, that support that statement that you just made. And that's our beginning of this informational. Right, then we can go down and then we can say, then we can have the individual questions. Well, what about blah, blah, blah, what about blah, blah, blah. But I think this goes back to pitching positive. I think that's a great change. The first is that we really, we hit the Franks and we hit yours. And then we have the bullet points that we think, you know, full-time music, full, better, more guidance, more. These are the things that you're coming to do. Why don't we each send to each other the positive things that we think should be listed. And also those things that we know our community. The questions, I remember when we did this, we talked about this when I came to a meeting. They were sort of asking for what are some good questions that should be on this questionnaire. And I think that's great if we all put out a good short. So positive points that we want to include first. And then what are those things that we know the community is going to want answers to? Frank, what was yours again? We get more for less. More for less. Right, we need to add to that. I'm going to try to write a draft of a bunch of this tomorrow. We sent out two frequently asked question sheets. Can we draw on those? Right. Though the questions have shifted a little bit now that they've been. But we should review what we sent in, write that frequently asked question. That's what I was referring to. Can you send that anything? Do you have that in a moment? I don't want to see it. You want to see it? Yeah, it's the same one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I have it in an email. I think it got sent. Yeah, let's see. I might even have it here. Jenny did. This is the one Jenny did. And we copied Jenny's because she did such a good job. That was really good. I remember, actually. I think she was solid. I think it's both of them together. Right. And yeah, so I think I have copies of it. I would have to search for it on the computer. But I kind of feel like it, too. Where does it stand? Oh, yeah, that would be a lot smarter, wouldn't it? OK, so I will scan this in and send it to around to everybody. Do you want me to send, I'll also send the stock for you on it as well. OK, I'll scan those two in and send them around. And the point of this was to answer what frequency. So should we have everybody's responses by Friday? Is that? Yeah. That is Tuesday? Yeah. Today's Tuesday. We're going to do it by Thursday or Friday. That'd be great. Yeah, let me just take a look at the calendar so we understand what we're looking at. Yeah, by Friday it needs to be put together. Are we including it in the book? Yeah. OK. And we need to get the book over to print, I would say, by Tuesday. I would think. I think it'd be nice to drop it off on Monday. Yeah, so Tuesday at least, because the 12th is on Saturday. So it gives a couple of days to get it back. OK, so everybody get right on it. Has anyone, I have not reached out to Spaulding. Does anyone know what their workload is like next week? I think you should call them and tell them this is coming. Right. No, no, I ever gave Penny a grip and a heads up that it would be coming. Yeah, I have information and that is an agenda item. But again, you don't have to drop it off. If you can email it. You can put it into PDF files. I can absolutely PDF it. You can actually, they'll take over. She'll love it. OK, well, can we all have what we're all trying to, because you're going to pick. Who are we sending it to? Let's send it to each other. Well, who's putting it together? I can take leave on that. The biggest part, the biggest thing that I would have, so the biggest thing that we've talked about that I feel least confident about writing is around the survey results. I can do that. If you could, that'd be great. And then tie that to. So if you have the bullet points for the positive stuff, you can do that. I shouldn't say that. OK, great. I think that we should probably aim to get this to him by Thursday so that maybe he can work it up. Sure. I mean, and then send it back out to us over the weekend to take a look at it, over the weekend to then get it back. That's the content information. OK, great. For a month or so to support everything over there. Yep. Now, in the past release with Stockbridge, we've sort of let Spaulding tell us which cover stock they have that they have, you know, extra of, because they always seem to be like, well, if you use this color, it'd be cheaper. We've got lots of that. You mean, are you trying not like this? Yeah. I mean, I'm assuming that we're going to have, I'm thinking that we're going to have that same sort of booklet, the same kind of thing, and just, is that what everyone's expecting? Yeah, earlier this year, I sent you guys an email with questions I had that I didn't have answers for. But like, what is the, I mean, I just ran through it. But like, what's the address of the Rochester Stockbridge Unified School District? No, Frank, if you could send those questions, that would be great. No, I did. Right. I can resend it if you want. We're going to, obviously, you'd be using, we'll have to split the print run to use the two different, you let it or do stickers to do the. Well, are we moving on to talking about the book now? Sure, we can. Sure, I've written so you might as well. OK, yeah, we had talked about that we are going to need to do two separate. What we did do is much easier for Rochester for the 800 that we need to send out to just print this and then our postal code. So we're going to need to print a separate back for Stockbridge anyway, with Stockbridge's postal code. And then so you can decide if you want to attach labels or if you want to do, because I've noticed a lot of your stuff has labels attached. Right, that's often the way Kathy does it, gives us a set of labels. So I would say that would be something that would be up to you. Right, once we're saying, I'll ask any if it's going to be cheaper to split the print run and do so many with your code and so many with our code or to do one that has no codes on there and just putting a sticker on some that has the Rochester or something has the Stockbridge, I think. No, your postal code is what you need for running through for the postage. Right, I don't need for them to do 400 covers. We're going to need them to separate the print run anyway, because we don't have a budget yet. So it has to be, it has to be, take this out of the current budget. Right, that's what that is. So it'll be the same information for them. So I don't feel it's going to be a problem. There's currently enough money now in the Rochester Department to do the mail. You know, I think I made that clear in that email license. Yep. Right, well, we still to print the book, but we're still going to need to do two more. I mean, printing the book is another budget, but once the book is printed. And we can quite possibly because we've got, you know, that again, hopefully at the next SU meeting, we'll have gotten, the SU board will have gotten some questions they wanted to answer about where that merger fund is, but there's, you know, there certainly is going to be enough money in that fund that our share will cover, you know, the handling the printing. But in terms of, I mean, the printing itself, that's just an invoice that gets sent. Right. Right, and that's my, I don't know where the somewhere is. To the Stockbridge school, to wherever they get any of the rest, other stuff set to it. But if you have a certain number of books that are printed. Right, and they'll need to come up with the amount that you'll need. But they need, they need an address to set the invoice to. Okay. But in terms of. Okay, so you're going to have separate invoices that's going to be in the Stockbridge. Right, right. Is that the way it's going to be, or is that just? I think the way it should be, just the share. Yeah, we'll figure that out. Once, oh, next year, we're going to have a budget. It's in our budget that we have printing costs. So they can just write the check. I'm sorry, I'm very nuts in books. So you're going to have a few separate mailings that are going on? Correct. We have two separate, we have two separate postal codes. They're going to be identical, but there'll be two separate covers, two separate mailings. Right. That's correct. And the one will have the Stockbridge code and it will probably say Rochester Stockbridge Unified District, Stockbridge campus and put Stockbridge's address on it. And this one will say Rochester Stockbridge Unified District, Rochester campus and put Rochester's address on it. Three point right. The schools are fun. I'm going to go and get a chair of the Tom Claude's. Oh, that's so good. That would be awesome. There's enough money in the Stockbridge permit to do the mailing. I'm sure there is. It's not. If there's not, we'll put a check in. All right, but there is enough money to do the broadcast on the mailings. Yeah, I'm good. In terms of numbers, I'd suggest 670 is the number. 670, I thought you told me 800 last time we talked. 670? And that will cover any needed for the meeting and everything. Are we going to put labels on it? Or it's simply current resident? Current resident. I think what will happen is that if you put current residents with, there will be some people who will get the booklet at the post office who decide this is not of terribly much interest to me, right? I mean, if you want to be really safe, you go to 700 for Rochester. OK, I'm sorry. I had written down from our last conversation 800. So we probably need to send mailings 670 years. OK. You need to, what's your name? 670 was the number of voters. To put labels on every one of them, the number came out as 652. But I think if it's current, I think it's 50. But no, but I think if it's 50. I'm sure we can do it. OK. But I think what you want to do is go for 670 and assume that some people will be not using it and drop it off at the post office so they'll have extra salary. OK, thank you. But if you want to make sure that you have enough books for the meeting, you might simply want to put down 700 for Rochester. OK, thank you. OK, all right. And so you're getting together the picture for the front. And we'll have to come up with the wording for it. Just be Rochester slash Stockwood School Unified School District annual. Annual report and proposed budget. Yeah. And then this will show where the district meeting is. And then we'll have the warning on the inside. Correct. We will not have minutes from the previous meeting. The you're going to do a school board of directors report, OK. Then supervisors, the superintendent's report was printed already in both of our reports that were sent out. So let's say it was good. Don't need it, OK. Principal report. Now we got one in the one that we sent out earlier this year. Same, probably like the one planet. I think we can leave. We can skip that. Yeah, RTCC. And then so we don't need the Winsor-Roth-West Supervisory Union budget, because you guys included that as well. Where are our questions going? Where is our hand out going in this? I would think it would go right in the front. I think it has to be second. Does the warning have to be? The warning has to be first, but right there. And what's our big, bold title that we call it? What are we calling it? We're calling it the reasons you should vote for this. Points to consider. But you want a table of contents on the inside cover? Sure. But I do think what its headline is, because if there was just one little thing about this, is that it didn't have a title that really, this questions were great. And most people wanted to read it. But I don't think it hurts to have a nice big title. I understand what we use. Should that be part of what we tried to send to Carl? Title, suggested title. Suggested title. OK. In order, as a marketing point, you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, I'm all about that. I thought all things considered. Oh. There you go. And then there'll be a PR as a lead-in, and then a PPR. OK. I know we don't have time to change anything, but all along we kept saying that we need to know the total number, and then between then and the next couple of weeks, we can tweak things. Is there anything that we need to change before Monday? Like we have more information about? Right. Do we have any more information? Well, I don't know. That's what I mean. Some of the things Bonnie was supposed to be getting back to us about in terms of the point that there isn't a handout for $29,000. It's one of the significant out of tuition, out of teacher salaries. It's one of the biggest numbers in there. And it directly relates to the building issue. And I just think $49,000. She said, well, you know, we had a barrier for the day. It was $15,000. So a lot of it goes fast. And I'm like, that's still not. We have to stand up there and support it. That's right. We need that from her. We really need that. Can I call her? Do I have the authority to call her and say, I need that by Friday? Let's try to put that in a list of her as an email. Can we get that to her? Is there anything else you want to say? What you were going to ask about was the septic system project and how does that impact our property? I also heard that. I thought I understood that an engineer was getting scheduled. I'm hoping so. And that's either proof that it wasn't just a plumber. And where is that? Is that a summary of that? Right. And I think that's going to be important. So we have a list. Right, well, I'm not sure that we would have, if the engineer is not already booked to be here the next day or two. No, no, no. It's not going to make the book. But I think what we need to be saying, again, that gets back to that business, the building business, is saying that we were having an engineer coming into a site evaluation. We need to be able to say, yes, this is happening. Right. So there hasn't been an appointment. What is there? Even if it's an appointment that we can tell them about, that's part of this whole thing. Or these are the things that are going to happen before the end of this school year to do work on these particular projects over the summer. For example, we need to get someone to build a similar door. Like that is, if they're going to close off that zone where the room is, there's no door there. So you say, OK, we're turning off the heat down on that and whatever that zone to or whatever. There's no way to separate the hallway that you know. Where's that going to get paid for? Well, we certainly have money. I mean, again, you could use the money from the murder support grant. You're using it to help segregate and separate the buildings. Do we have any idea? I mean, because I read the minutes of that meeting. It didn't sound like it was going to get decided any time soon. It should be decided at the next meeting. Really? I really think. The questions were the biggest hang-ups in the Congress. David did not have a clear document for us of what had been paid, what hasn't been paid, what there was some concern that maybe some stuff that could have been reimbursed for Chelsea and Tumbridge wasn't because there wasn't an idea of how much money there was at the time. But we're supposed to get what David was charged with bringing to the next SU meeting was a, here really is. Here's $100,000 or $150,000. Here's what's been come out of it. Here's what is left. And the general feeling seemed to be, I mean, there was some pushback from the Tumbridge representative around saying it should be by town. It shouldn't be by necessarily student count, because every town's got problems. Maybe we should just split it up evenly. If that happens, we're in better shape than it would be if it was by enrollment. But the general feeling seemed to be, and correct me if I'm wrong, Bruce, that the idea that enrollment seemed to be the fair measure of how much money. Well, most everybody around the table wanted enrollment, but this kind of last gasp of, we ought to just split it down the middle and everybody going to get a share. Of course, people like Wilton and Duffel were popping up saying, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Kind of like House of Representatives versus the Senate. And now that's all we're going to go. Right, so I think it's Bonnie's number, so I can text her. So do we know the things that we're going to ask Bonnie to get? Well, I was just making a list of, as you said, the maintenance number budget, the engineer building schedule, the septic system, though you're going to get some information from Terry. Yeah, but I'll do a lot to have Ethan go forward with trying to get this information from Bonnie. So just try to disseminate out. So anything else that anybody? Wasn't there one other thing we wanted from Bonnie? It was the septic. Oh, you'll have the $49,000. That's here. The repair and septic, it's number of budget itemization. Engineer report if she has. Engineer report or schedule. Or schedule point, right. Because I think that's one of the things that's important for us because we won't have an individual meeting before the annual meeting, except we'll just have the informational meetings, is sort of how we're going to handle things and who, if there's a lead speaker on different issues and things like that, I think is very useful. Because the more we look put together, obviously the more put together we are, the more we know the better it looks to people. And right, well, that's for fumbling for idea. No, I think for somewhere, you know, it's like, right. I also thought that it was supposed to be, I remember reading in the minutes, somebody coming over vacation. Right. Plutia. So we don't know what happened. Oh, that's right. He was going to do, I was checking the ethanol and stuff like that. Yeah, so we don't know that report. So that's another thing. Right, so the heating, so heating upgrade, or heating maintenance, heating upgrade of color. Right. Well, why do we have the informational meeting and the, I would hope so. Yes. Well, that's my question. Yeah. What's the stock bridge informational meeting? The 15th? 15th. That's not our schedule we need to. Yeah, I noticed it wasn't on the morning. Yes. I think something we need to put in our booklet is, you know, we've returned up to $40,000, changes to how we run our school. I think that we also have to note that in our proposal, we were dedicated to doing things at a pace, you know, so that it was comfortable for everybody in terms of the buildings and all this stuff. So I just want to make sure that that. No, that we, that definitely needed. In the proposal. We are moving forward in a deliberate and measured fashion. Exactly, like we said in our proposal that we all move forward. Yes, absolutely. And so, OK, the last, there's like. Just say, if anybody thinks of anything else to go to Bonnie, just send me an email and I'll put it up. And I'll put out an email to her. And then everything else, the title, the positive, and the questions need to be. That's set to a Thursday. We set Thursday night. Yeah, that's fine. I just think it's earlier possible. I think that you can get it back. We can work on it and then we have over the weekend so we could tweak it and get it out. What is the rule about all of us replying all to emails and talking to each other? That's really. You can't. You can't. So can it be informational? I mean, just like this number is blocked. Send it out to everybody. Or like with Bonnie's answers. Can I send that out to everybody? Yes, you can. You can distribute it. You can distribute it. Distribute. Just don't reply all to it. Is it opinions? That's just not a conversation. Right, you can say, and especially because we've just said in open meeting that we're tasking you with reaching out to Bonnie. And so you can reply and say, reaching out to Bonnie, I've alerted A, B, C, and D. Because I know we can't say. I know we have discussed things since we've been formed. We haven't had discussions. Right, and we've had like, there's been conversations that like Jenny I and Amy have had, or where I've sent a message to C.C. and the two of them to talk about finance after they're going to our manager. So that piece of it, but I think you can report out. Here's the results of that conversation. Well, we can't just, we can't come back and say, no, tell Bonnie to do this. And then start telling you that it's those reply bits that are the open meeting no-no's. Can't decide to take action. You can't make a decision, right? Right. You can't take your word. But isn't it the quorum of you? We're going to have to be four of you? Yes. Right, four is a problem. So it's when you're talking to everybody, you can't take action or make a decision. Correct, correct. But he can, he can report out. Do you talk all day long? Absolutely. Right, so you send stuff out and then like, I can talk back and forth with you. Right, you can reply eventually. I can't reply at all to everybody telling me. Yes, that's a good point to clarify. What is your six? It has to be really just four. Right, so we can reply our thoughts individually to you, same with drafts to me. But again, and again, it's correcting a report isn't making, you know, isn't making a policy issue. So there is a level of information that can be exchanged. Ethan, at one point you mentioned that your wife does at proof reading? Yeah, this week. She has a huge, we have actually on my way into the Stockbridge meeting, Frank offered to take a pass at proof reading. So we have that resource. Thank you. If anyone can think of anyone else. Other times she would love to. It's her passion. It's a passion for proof reading. Yeah, it's very much a passion for proof reading. Very much one of my family, my mother-in-law, you know, there are all these people who work at ITI, they have that passion. Yeah, you've got a whole ton of proofreaders up there. They really do. Erica, one of the provinces was leaving town. No, she didn't want to take it off. She could take it on herself. She was left to march and leave tomorrow. OK, so I think we have a plan moving forward on our next steps with the booklet. The last thing we need to talk about is we need to, we have, what did you say, Bruce? 18 or so? Oh, you have 11 right now. 11. 11, we have 11 candidates for the principal position. Does that sound good? Yeah, it's only been out a couple of weeks, so yeah. But what we need to do is we need to figure out the principal search committee and a time for them to meet and some time frame a window to start the interview process. So it needs to be a combined committee for both towns, not just one. And I think the first thing you want to do is I think we need to keep it not gigantic like I would say. Could the Ed Committee do it? Would that be something that would interest them? Six to eight, maybe, something like that. It doesn't have to be all a bunch of board members. It could be just one or two. It could be teachers and some community members. Right, so it could just be one or two board members. We have parents, teachers, community member, and a school board member. Bruce, how many positions? No, no, how many? How many applicants? No, just one. Is there a principal position in Rochester and Stockbridge? Stockbridge. Well, there are two principals in the Rochester Stockbridge Unified District. Bonnie is going to be contender. I mean, right now there's two. There's Mr. Schneider and Bonnie. He's only been on board a couple of days. Come on. Come on. As we said earlier, Mr. Schneider, with his skiing, only did versus in the interim during one season, so he will not be continuing. And Bonnie will continue for at least another year. So the position would be, I mean, the model is going to be the principals are going to rotate between campuses. Yeah, all right. And we'll fill in the other positions. We'll fill in the Stockbridge campus. Do we have a letter of confirmation from Bonnie? Or do we have a letter of agreement? Or is there a contractor? It's all oral right now. She's just told me early that she wants to do this, and that hasn't changed. OK, so I have asked to get contracts out to people. Because I remember once we talked about music teaching, I was sort of jumping to subjects a little bit. But there were agreements that had to be gone out, and we weren't sure if they'd be around. Butters have been 10. Butters have been 10. And they did go out. Could I get an answer to my question now? The administration, can you explain to me how it's going to work? Sure, there's going to be two full-time principals. And they're going to move between the campuses. One will be here three days, and the other side two days. The other will be there three days, and the other side two days. The idea is to try to get the children seeing different points of view, getting away from the idea of administration in a silo. What we're hoping and it'll depend on the strengths of the candidate that we end up with is that maybe we can try to assign some duties functionally rather than locationally. In other words, if we find a candidate that's very strong with a curriculum or staff, staff for view and evaluation, rather than, I mean, first of all, equity, if I'm a stern grader and you're a soft grader, having a teacher that's under my review is going to get a different kind of evaluation from my stern sort of issue. So it's something we've talked about is the idea that maybe we would have someone, for example, doing all the 504 evaluations and all that sort of work rather than having it done individually in each building. We're trying to. And that's OK with the association, I guess, as long as you designate who the evaluator will be. Correct. Well, they're going to work as a team, I think. I don't want to. Or do you even know? What was that? Are other merged school districts doing the same? Yes, in Bethel and Royalton, they're going to share the two elementary schools are going to share two people. And they're going to go back and forth. And I think what we're trying to accomplish is them working as a team to get everything done that needs to be done. And Carl started hitting on some of the things, you know, evaluation, supervision, and how much? How much should we be worrying about how this works? Or do we let them figure it out? Well, I mean, part of the reason that this is important to do it this way is that Bonnie, who's got thousands of years of experience, I would say that, is going to be able to mentor whoever that other person is. And that'll be a lot about the growth that takes place with it. I don't have any concerns about that. It does seem to know. I mean, obviously, we know one of the quantities that we have. The other person has to fit in with that. So knowing more about what Bonnie, it seems like Bonnie has to be part of this process. She does. And I would absolutely. And so how that happens, because obviously we're not looking for just a great principle. We're looking for a great principle that complements. That complements Bonnie. Yeah, no, exactly. And having some idea of how Bonnie thinks this arrangement should work would be really useful for us when we go to the search. Well, I think that's critical, actually, because I know. I think that's especially important. And mentoring should be on site. So there might be a time when, for example, they need to be together at one school, not one or the other. So to really to say that it's three days here and two days there isn't really correct, it's they are going to work together collaboratively between the two campuses. And that's a much better thing. I think it does sound better in any case. Well, I want more of this or that. It's like, no, they're going to together, they're going to be. And based on the needs. They're going to one school or the other. And I think it's important that, as we put together the search committee for this, that those are the kinds of things that are thought about in terms of forming the questions that are going to be asked to the candidates, looking at sitting down, I think, and looking at coming up with one of the things you're looking for, the resumes and things, whoever's on that. Do we have a timeline? Yeah, what are next steps now? We need to find out who's going to be on this committee. And then we need to, like how soon? Like within a week or so. I mean, I would like to see this concluded, but first of June. But I mean, there's a search. There's a search, OK. I want to volunteer with this board to be on the search committee. Oh, I will. Oh, I have to. OK. OK, I will. Oh, yes. I mean, you have to send me. Send you're out. This is not accepting you, how this position. How do you see yourself getting into this? I think, right, exactly. So Jenny, you and I will, and we would like to enlist. Community members? But let's reach out. I'm booking out to all of our community members out at Star Protector. Hello? Please consider. How many do you want to advertise? Well, I think what we need to do is we need to. I say, I say, I mean, maybe we don't want it. We do want to leave room for community members and a teacher and a parent. Right. My body is going to be on it. And I'll be on it. Right. And we should have a faculty member from. I got anything. Jenny, Megan, Bonnie, and myself. Maybe not my students. We didn't pass. We had a student representative. Absolutely. Megan said she would let somebody else. If it would be too many people, I mean. If Megan said they would let somebody else. I mean, alternate. She would. She would. I'm putting a list from the route. Just a little tackle. So that was your turn. So we have four more slots. But we have to do a community, parent, teacher. And we need to have two probably. She's probably two teachers, right? Two teachers, OK. And community members? From each? Most of our teachers. Would it help if I owned property in Rochester and Stockbridge? Would that cover both communities? Would you be interested in being on the committee? If it would help that I come from both towns. Yeah. Community members. Which community? Well, that's a thing I think. You promised not your favorite. Now, what are you looking at? Somebody who's a resident of each town? Or someone who owns property in each town? No, necessarily either. Not yet. Should you have one community member from each town? Or you should have a community member from Stockbridge? I think residents, sir. Yeah. Yeah. Another community. Stockbridge. Yeah. Yeah. Maryland. I think she was on the search community. I think more likely Faye Sebregh. No, I think, no, I think well, Faye Sebregh done it. I wouldn't mind that because he won't be a teacher here. I'll get to Maryland. So that's a, that's not. All right. Well, what do we, we need to let I'm down for what our teacher did. Let's form, who are the board members that are going to be on this? All we can really do as a board is a point. As a point. As a point. As a point. Ourselves. Okay, so I would entertain a motion that we, we, we, we established a, an ad hoc board committee to facilitate the principal search and interview process. I send them to the, I second that. I second whatever you said. Anybody knew? Yeah. Sure. The motion has been made and seconded to form an ad hoc principal search committee with two board members on it. I entertain nominations for those board members. I nominate Janie Feinberg. I accept. You have to be seconded. I know. I second it. I second that. For the nominations. I'm not going to leave it. There you go. I second that. Okay. You're not paying attention. No, I'm not. She's just so excited she's on it. The motion has been made and seconded with two nominated candidates for the board ad hoc principal search committee. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay. So now we have that. Now you guys can deal with, because it's a board committee and you're the board members on it. So you're the leaders and you can facilitate adding the community members and the teachers as necessary. As of now, so we have, we want eight. We have six. And I'm going to call him out and she'll be on it. Jamie and Ethan. My husband can be a parent. Not a teacher. So then we need a teacher. Because he is going to be advocating for his kids in a school he does not teach at. Anymore. Yeah. Right. Jamie. So then we need to teach him. What is the, as your recommendation unanimous, is it majority? What's the, how does that go? You said you read. You have a higher vote? Do you have more? Yes, he does. You read through all the boards. The official way that this process goes is. I'm official. The suit, well, officially the way the law works is the superintendent submits a candidate to the board. And the board thumbs up or thumbs down is that candidate. This board. Not that. This board. Right, guess what? I'm not stupid. But I mean, traditionally the way, you're coming in around the board. It's not the way that things you do interviews, you talk about it. Right. Generally there's a consensus, you say, I mean, in general, if my feeling, what I've been part of any kind of hiring, whether it's in corporate America or in boards or whatever is, you come to a consensus, you say, you know, we all pretty much like, and you may say, well, he's my second candidate, but I could live with it, you know. Really, if it comes down to the committee, you know, the board is five to four, you know, for someone, that's not a good, you know, you want a candidate to whom everyone can leave. So basically the people that I won't recommend are people that aren't certified. I know something about them that, you know, basically is something I don't feel good about. And most of those people will be weeded out before we ever get in to crunch time. You know, first of all, you've got to have somebody that's licensed, and usually I make some phone calls and try to find out what we're talking about. So. Who's there other than two and a six? Janie, Ethan, Bruce, Bonnie. Sean. Which side's Sean? And Marilyn. And Marilyn. But that leaves no teacher. Oh, he's got two months. He's got two months. Oh, oh, we want to do any? Right, it's a duet. Yeah, I'm a duet. Yeah, no, he can be a parent, actually. He should be a parent. Yeah, he should be a parent. So I'm going to ask, first we have an elementary teacher on. So let me ask some people. Sure. And I'll ask them. I think that would be perfect for you. It seems to be the good deal. And what do you want to choose some dates that we can meet with the applicants? I'll do it in a doodle poll. Yes, because we would also start to do that. How many meetings will this take? And then there's interviews after that. I'm just curious. Just getting a sense of the scale. A lot of it will depend on how many people we want to interview. So the first step will be we'll read the other resumes. Yeah, you get a stack of resumes. Yeah, you get a stack of resumes. I think probably we'll let you look at it electronically. Yeah, far. Having gone through the process, I think it's important, without saying it, before you start interviewing, you're going through the resumes that you make your list of what you think are the priorities for the qualifications, which then means your first step, of course, is to get her inputs as you've decided before, and then get your heads together and say, what are we looking for? What specific leadership, education, you know, adding to the civil law. So then that becomes your framework for when you're doing the inter-op doing process to see where the candidate is. It's not that it can be eliminated just through the resumes, but in this case, I have eight of 10, so it's not a big deal, but I don't want to write it. So I would just recommend. No, I would say. No, you definitely want to set goals before you start looking at people. So that's. And that's a process. So it's not what I'm getting at. It's just like 20 minutes you sit down and come out with it. It really takes a little while to get the consensus from a board, especially a unified board, of what you're looking for. So the first meeting should be probably looking at those resumes and figuring out which ones would be the first thing you should probably need to offline. And also I've got a bunch of banks of questions and they are separated by curriculum, discipline, all different kinds of categories that are possible. Now you can bring your own. I mean, if there's something, but we try to keep them pretty standardized so that we ask the candidates the same thing. So you can look at the mistakes made over the last three principles. No, please don't even get me started. You just make those mistakes for those concerns and turn them into the qualities that were looked like. You can take those problems and make them the qualities that we're trying to search for. We really need to uncover a collaborative person. Somebody who really wants to work with everybody else. A good communicator. Somebody that's really flexible, innovative. There's a lot of good ideas, hardworking, all those things. And I'm not sure we shouldn't go to the site where they are and see what they're doing, you know, and see them on site. Because I think that the interview for my past experience now, I think an interview doesn't always show you. I think we can say that in your answer as well. So I think we can both our schools have suffered from a lower ratio. Don't you start thinking it frozen? Bruce, is this position full-time or...? Yes, it is full-time. It's full-time. Correct. Okay, so we can send out a doc. Before we end, do I need to... Does this board need to make a motion to create a fund that we were talking about in the Rochester board? The Rochester board is created like this, you know, we're doing these funds. There's a fund we are creating. We need to create it here too, right? Well, you have certain warrant articles on your... You talked about something else? We can't add... Right, I can't change these. Right, we had talked about in our Rochester board meeting a setting up a fund, and had a specific education fund. Do you have the word? I want to create the pocket so that they can put funds into it. Correct, we don't have it in our Rochester site. I know we've made one of those... This is specific to the building fund, to building the building. We wanted to create a fund that is a little broader than that, that can be used for any educational purposes. I think we have to do it in the Rochester... At the meeting, I think we can do it. Education in Richmond? It has to be one 30 days, though. I know, that's the problem. And I didn't know if we needed to make a motion to do that here and to get that created. Yeah, probably. Probably. Okay. This is the... You don't have much time. Right. This is the motion to the general public that you have the specific fund. We have created, for the new Unified District at our budget meeting, we created two three funds. One is a reserve fund for capital improvements and to maintenance of the district's facility in Stockbridge. And then we've created another one for capital improvements, maintenance of the district's facility in Rochester. And then we created another one to, for any fund could be used in whole or in part for tuition. And so that is district one. Mm-hmm. That's right. It's a reserve fund. Right, it's a spark. So at our Rochester Board meeting, we discussed the having funds that we would like to put into a reserve fund, but not specifically just for building maintenance and building capital improvements. We broadened it so it wouldn't actually pigeonhole it specifically. It could be for educational, it could be for enrichment programs. It could be for curriculum. Anything to have to do with education. I mean, could it be used, we'd said it could also be used for our helping when we move our preschool playgrounds because we're gonna need to dig up and put in probably six, chips, probably $6,000 worth of. But that way you can just stick that whatever bit of money into the building reserve fund because you could do moving stuff as capital improvement at the building. Okay, so we could take money from this fund to fund that. Absolutely. Right, but if we had any other, anything else. Right. That is if we wanted to do right, like a specific enrichment program. Right, so this is, and we're talking about like the proceeds from the sale, is that what we're thinking of? Yeah. And that's gonna close before June 30th. Yeah. I heard that. That's what we said here, too. We're hoping. I'd have to, I mean. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a great idea. Right, so and we made, we're talking about not pinning it down to like, oh, just to do an environmental program or something. Like that would be awesome, but I don't want to restrict it. I want to. Right, and at the same time, you don't necessarily want to say, let's stick it all away from the building. Exactly. Exactly. I guess all I'm saying is I'd like to, I'd like us to create a fund, stop a fund for an education fund. I guess we have to have the exact same word. So is it, these things here, these 4.11, 4.12, 4.13, it's another one of those. It is correct, and unfortunately it's not, it's not going to be on our annual meeting, though due to timing wise, and it just. So it's at another, the next board meeting after that. It's gonna have to be a, a special, posted thing, and well Rochester's gonna need to do that too. So hopefully we can just do it at the same night, you know, kind of like. It would have to be a stock, it would have to be an RSUD thing because it would be an RSUD fund. This, but Rochester to establish it still has, we need to do the same thing. Right, you need to, you need to place the, you need to place the, the same night kind of thing. What I would like for our attorney to draft it is the, so the idea of the language of the purpose. Right, well we, I thought we had that and it was recorded by our, in our minutes. I just, I didn't actually write the exact wording down of it. I think she called it, you called it enrichment fund. An enrichment fund. An enrichment fund is what I wrote down. Is it something that's gonna be an RSUD? I don't know how that interacts with Stockbridge. I know someone in the past had talked about like it going towards debt, that sort of thing. I don't know how it gets voted on or whatever. Well, it's to, it's to take the money, it's to take the money and not roll it into the budget right now. Right. And which would just become the fund, is the fund balance. And it's to take it and be able to separate that then. And like your, do you guys have a building reserve fund? So to be able to take that building reserve fund that you currently have, bring it, it has to go someplace. It can't stay because Stockbridge is not going to be. That is also that fund needs to then come into the new district under a fund that's set up the same way. Right. For Stockbridge. So it's coming into the new district for specifically for Stockbridge use. Right. And so, so Rochester has, is hoping to have be able to do that as well. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And again, we're doing it for general education. I wonder, there's a part of me that just that says, might be similar is to put it into the building fund and then move it next year into a different fund. Can't do that. Right. You can't move it. If you can, if you can order an article to move a reserve fund. I'm just trying to think about how to get the, so we'd have to do, we'd have to, if we decided to write another article, we'd have to warn it and warn a special meeting for it. Right. And. Right. And again, Rochester doesn't have this fund to start with anyway. So we have to, to create, we'd have to do a special meeting. And the time comes, Rochester says this need to be done before July. Yep. Okay. Yeah. So you're going to have to put the money somewhere. Right. Right. So what's the, what's the, is there anything to start with? So I, Any slides to, we don't have, we don't have a, we don't have an unexpected source of revenue to need a place to talk. But would it make sense if we're doing it to create, I don't know what money we would put in it. Well, and also what, isn't all of this become unified after July 1st? Well, in a way it isn't unified along with everything else. It is, I mean, it is going into the new district for specific use. Like the, the Stockbridge Building Reserve Fund is going, coming into the new district, but it's going into a fund that's specific for use on the Stockbridge campus. But as a unified budget next year, we're going to have a unified budget within everything else in all of our funds. Being unified. Well, what, I'm just, No, no, the difference with the budget is, We're trying to make a campus specific. Right. But that's just a, Like a, I'm not sure what it would be for Rochester, but what program, Well, we didn't really have us, I mean, I'm just trying to figure out what, I mean, what would you be, be, be, Forst Friday, maybe we could use it for, now that we're going to need to move Forst Friday stuff. We need to put money into the building reserve, because, Right, well you could put it into the building reserve now. The, it could, if there was a, if there was a Rochester, if you made a Rochester Building Reserve Fund, you could land it there and it would roll into the, into the Rochester, RSUD. Right, but if we, I'm just trying to think of something that would be, Well, Not a unified program, but wouldn't be a building or a capital improvement. Because doing land work, if you needed to make a new trail, or move, you know, move, you know, Right. Moving the greenhouse, moving all those sorts of, you know, all those, a lot of those things really fall under building reserve. So now that you're a unified board, and I think part of what this thinking is, is looking back at yourselves like you're just independent schools of one another again. And since there's going to have to be a decision made by all six of you to move money from this fund, wherever it's going to go, I wonder if maybe the fund shouldn't be for both campuses. That's my favorite. And therefore, Because you're supposed to be moving in unison, rather than one. Right, well, I think, I know where Amy's trying to go with this, but. We've never had, We've never had an unexpected amount of revenue. Right. And, you know, it's, The building, I mean, I understand the need to have separate building reserve funds, just because if the school closes, if something happens, all the statutes say that the school buildings, the town is first or writer, writer first or for refusal to get it for a buck. And I can understand wanting to say, okay, this was, you know, a real estate asset of the, you know, of the Roger School District that we wanted you guys to be rid of before the consolidation or the merger happened. And, you know, but it's, I, I, I don't, I'm just trying to wrap my head around what a, what would be a non, you know, putting it in there and saying, okay, it's, we can relocate, you know, do anything on the Rochester campus with it. So here's the vision, where the thought is, you don't have any money left for field troops, but you want the kids to go to a nature's classroom. And it's a really kind of a high quality, unusual type of field trip that you want the kids to go on. So you tap into the trust fund because it's for enrichment purposes. And this is a high quality science, environmental, something that you're going to do. Okay. Same thing could be some kind of really cool field trip somewhere. They can do any unit on mummies and they need to go to a museum now or something. I don't, I don't see how that wouldn't be, you know, so that would, because it was a Rochester fund, that's to make sure the Rochester, well, no, I'm not advocating for it to just be a Rochester. I'm thinking it ought to be for both. Yeah, it has to be. Because all of you are going to be making a decision to let those funds go when it's time to, you know, use them. So that it's a, it's a, it's a unified district fund. Well, and not only that, can you see kids going to Rochester to this fabulous trip and not allow them to go to campus to do that too? Yeah, that's the whole thing. Well, and, you know, the other reality of being a school board is, if some giant opportunity comes along and it's not necessarily in the budget, the board can just say to do it anyways. And just deficit spent, you know. And yes, maybe the board has to face the voters and say, you know what, it's an opportunity to join with Randolph and share their bussing expenses and go on this, this trip to, to, I don't know, report news or go to Washington DC or whatever it might be. You know, just like, just like you don't say, well, the roof fell in, but we don't have it in the budget this year. So, we'll fix that, we'll fix that next year. I hope it doesn't rain. So, you know, I think, I mean, certainly we, we can try it. I just, I would think that, that if you wanted to protect it, you know, it came from a Rochester real estate asset and should the buildings here get, get, you know, or something happened to the schooling here, those buildings become part of Rochester. I can understand, I wanted to tie it to, you know, to the, to the facilities that are, that are attached to the town. I think that that's what they were trying to do. But I think that, you know, if some great field trip or some enrichment activity came along, I think that we'd find a way to fund it. I know, see that's the thought, I guess, is that I just want to make sure that we can, we have money to provide opportunities for the kids. Yeah. That are maybe above and beyond, what, if it was a unified, if it was a unified, but we're, we're still fine. Okay. Can we go back a minute? Sure. Before the deals are cut, obviously you're going to sell the building. And that, that money would go to Rochester and not be part of the unified budget, or unified property. So, particularly the net money, has that been in this process in the conversations, already kind of thought about going somewhere? Was that money, that building going to go into Rochester Building Fund? Was there any kind of preconceived ideas of how that money would be spent, when that money would be sold? There had been some discussion during the, during the, the, merger conversations that that money, might have gone, might have been put towards the principle of the debt, the Rochester's bond debt. But that was, you know, that was, that was less debt on Rochester. I remember that as well. That's way bad. Otherwise, we could have just sold the building from the Unified Board and not be rushing to sell it before the Unified Board takes over and then the Unified Board now has the money. We could have taken our time. Well, why don't we do it? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I still don't have the answer to my question. So part of it was discussed that it could go against the Rochester debt. Basically, the answer is that money that comes from that sale goes to Rochester School Board. Correct. Or Rochester's owning purpose if you push the Unified Board. So in that case, I guess I'm kind of wondering why, why you want to set up a separate fund. What are you going to do? Let's say you set up your fund for education and enrichment and you put in $5,000. What do you plan to do with the other $35,000? Is that going into a reserve fund for what? Or just floating out there without no head purpose at this point? Well, I think that was the idea of doing a general education fund because it can encompass so many possibilities of use for that. I think now, from my point of view, that now you're kind of narrowing, you've got your $35,000 and you're saying, okay, we're going to use all that money to put in a general education fund. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, I mean, this is all, we're all brainstorming about this, but yeah. We do have a motion that was approved by the school board, which is now talking about to get approved by the U5 board. So I was just kind of seeing how much has been committed in terms of what people expected from that money that comes to Rochester. And at this point, I guess there were no expectations other than it goes to Rochester, right? So then it's up to Rochester to decide whether they want to put in a reserve fund in general to go against the debt now. And I don't understand how, because the assets as of July 1st, the assets of the one become the assets of the Unified District. So even if it wasn't an exchange fund. Except for specific funds. Well, but then who would decide what that would do with that fund if there's no longer a Rochester school board? The fund has to be established in the new district. That's what these funds are. It has to be established in the new district, so the money from the, and the easiest example is because Starbridge has a building fund. Sorry, I'm not even saying this again. It's just trying to. It's okay, so Starbridge has, I'm sorry to use that example, but it works. Starbridge has a building reserve fund that they have created and they have funded throughout the years. When we joined on July 1, that entity is gone. So that money needs to now come into the new entity, but it still needs to be, there is a specific understanding for that money and it needs to carry to the new district. And so that's why you have to set up fund in the new district. I understand that. Right. I understand that. And I understand that's why, because we had to vote on that before because we could be right in the morning because that was essential. So I guess I still don't quite get why this money is coming from sale from as of July 1st, which would be a unified property. Well, we would, we could have- It's the same money before you, you know what I mean. It's going to be a whole lot more with Rochester. Afterwards, it's that money's sitting there. I guess I didn't, everything's off everybody's, you know, I mean, after that. Well, then we should have had to sell it before part of us. See, I don't get, I don't quite understand why- We get the debt. So why don't we get- Well, because why did it have to be sold before July 1st? The thinking, as I recall, that it was much more of a, trying to hold the feet to the fire. Rochester had all this real estate. Right. And there was the concern that, you know, that there had been work already been done towards divesting that. And so it was kind of, you know, let's see Rochester put some effort into that and do that. So it's less, as opposed to, it's less that- It makes sense if we have lots of money. Right, and so- We, you know- So therefore, you know, we're trying to get, take care of this before we come into the new district. Right, right. I don't know how fair it would, I think we'd like to pass on to it into a fund to be able to, for Rochester. Right. To get rid of before we came. Yeah, no, and I understand that. And I, like I said, I understand too that, you know, if there's money that's tied to the building and the school closed and the building went to the town, that money, you know, that reserve fund would follow the building. So, you know, I could see that, I could see that, you know, that protects, you know, the Rochester gets, you know, a real estate insurance for their building to keep it up. Now, certainly, just like with the Stockbridge fund, this, the people that, you know, the new unified board would have to vote on whatever was coming out of that fund. But the, and hopefully going forward, next year, when we've been really efficient and we've really saved money on this building, we found that we over budgeted and we have a surplus, we're gonna put money in both building reserve funds again. Right. Just because, you know, it's kind of like, you know, you know that the town's backhoe is gonna die in 10 years. So you put a 10th of a backhoe away every year so that, you know, it comes up in the same thing. You know, the furnace is gonna go, we put money in. I think, well, it's to be answered a question that, because I think there will also be a perception on Stockbridge's part that it was going to go to pay down the debt. That's what I was going to say. Is there a reason to not consider bringing down the debt? Using that money against our bonds, bringing down the debt? That's what July won. That's what they, that's gonna have to be answered. Those are the things right now. I also think it's not a foregone conclusion that we're gonna, that it's gonna sell. No, with these variance issues, with these variance issues. Oh, no, I said. No, I'm confident that the board will bring the subdivision. Oh, but the subdivision with the variances? Because we don't, we're not interested. No, there's not a variance. There's no variances. There's an easement, there's two easements. Change is the law. Yeah. An easement means that that property can be used by the school, even though he's still on. So there will be an easement. So there will be an easement. It doesn't mean there's not a variance. Okay. A variance would be to sell it, just like it is today. Without the new survey. What are, what are we talking about? I think we're, we need to make it, I think we need to make a decision. I'm really concerned that this budget isn't providing for, I mean, I mean, we're talking about closing buildings or talking about maintaining buildings. We're not concerned that this budget doesn't have what a building fund, what a building reserve fund would cover in terms of maintaining this structure that is three and a half million dollars in value. What's the problem? I mean, I see a value of a fund that is right at the site specific in terms of maintaining this structure as an asset going forward. And I also see the use for site specific funds for some kind of magnet programming or some kind of special use programming that in this case might involve, you know, what are unique opportunities offered by the structure? I was saying, well, what would be, well, for Christ's sake, we have an auditorium here. I just mean, just think about, just think about this. Think about, think about that money in terms of what the site has uniquely that, for example, Stockridge doesn't. And I would say an auditorium, which is a performance space. But I mean, just, I think that's, I think your question, Carl, has actually some fairly simple answers. But it's probably a fund that should combine a building fund and some site specific enrichment capacities that make use of the unique resources of this space. And not only the unique resources of this building, but the unique resources of that building, which has a gym. I mean, it's just like, I mean, that's the answer to your question. Right, so the fund is not for enrichment, just for Rochester students. It is enrichment to bring John Gallo to Rochester for all of our projects. It's for enrichment that makes use of the capacities that Rochester has. I mean, and that could be such a fund for Stockridge, too. That is making use of its special unique attributes. For all the students. For all the students. It's just site specific. But it's site specific because there are some resources here that are site specific. The benefits are available for all the children. We're trying to merge. It seems like why are we being so site specific on everything seems like the point is. Because there are some site specific but it sounds like part of it is going on field trips. I don't know. I just disagree. No, well, I think this is part of the bigger question. Oh, no, it's. This is part of the bigger question because it's connected to this building. This building is the big question for both towns in different ways. But I think that, I think that. Well, that's not the question. The question on the table is do we set up this fund? Right. The question on the table is do we set up this fund? We need to decide this because we're going on and on and on. Right. Let's make a decision. And yes or no. We need to see language. We can't set up a fund. No, I know. I've been on the same week. We can't instruct him to set up a fund. We can certainly take a look at the edge that also puts it out another month. Do we still have time before July 1st to have it set up? To have the special meeting and to have the fund created if we instruct him and it's going out to now June? No, we don't have time. Yeah. Well, no, we can. So that's, we, we could certainly. You know, if you announced a meeting and then said at the meeting on the 22nd and said here, you know, by the way, we're going to be doing this and there'll be another special vote about it. You've got, if you're announcing that meeting on May 22nd, you know, you've got, you know, any time after what June 21st because there's 31 days in May, you know, you've got that window in there to have what should probably be a special meeting procedural vote. It seems like it's what we're talking about. We will not have a meeting before that to individually talk about the language and we would get, we would get, well, I mean, it's given the legal language and seeing what it, seeing, seeing what it said and seeing what, you know, the, you know, the lawyer said about it, how that, how, I mean, have you talked about this just amongst yourselves or have you talked about the demon? No, this was very briefly brought up about two hours ago in our last meeting during because of the essence of time. And I'm not going to have this conversation prior to. Yeah, I mean, we had a 45 minute meeting prior to this that we urged at the level of the very rushing throughout through this. So was paying down the debt ever considered guys? Oh no, that wasn't a consideration. Well, we could talk about it, I guess. I don't know the mechanism for doing that. We could talk to David about how that would work. I mean, I think what I'm saying, it's going to be a question because it was discussed and that's what we thought was going on. At least in part was going to happen. And so if it's not going to happen, then that's going to have to be addressed because that would be something that brings up this vote of a special bond or a special reserve fund at the meeting. I see that as just a potential red flag. Yeah, I know why. Over trying to pass it on. Yup, I agree. Right, but we also don't want to not mention, not talk about this special vote at the annual meeting and then just kind of quietly, quietly afterwards say, here, we've done this. Well, it's just a reality. I guess I feel that it was a deal. I think, what kind of dollars are we talking about? Are we talking about? We can talk about that in an open meeting. It's a different concept. I didn't know if it's because it's under contract, it's a matter of public domain. I don't know what the deal is, but again, if there's a difference here. It's notes in the paper last week. Oh, that's right. In fact, in the classified section, it's noticed who's buying it and for how much money. And it's posted. It's public notice. It's posted all over town today. Okay. So, 75,000? 75,000. 75,000. Okay, one more. So it's not trivial, but it's also not like, it's the money. Right. No, no. You know, what do you think it's going to take to do the work on the property that needs to be done to make the property ready? Movie, the plague. You said, we talked about, you know, a ton of mulch. Yeah. I was told that probably a ballpark figure was about $6,000 for, to move the place forward. Two. So another $6,000 to move the, or another $5,000 to move the house. I don't know how much to buy that greenhouse. This is awful. Right. But I mean, let's, let's, let's, let's just spitball this for a minute and say that, say that, you know, the, you've got to, out of that 75 grand you're getting, you've got to spend about 10 to get the, to, to, to remediate the property the way they want it. You could play ground right to get here. So, I mean, again, I'm, it seems like if a lot of it's being spent on that, well, certainly we can put that, the money away for that, right? They were even to spend it, right out of the proceeds to do the work. That's right. You suggested that. I just don't know, yeah, I just don't know timing wise about, you know. Right. And that's the stuff we really want to pay for out of the sale too. We want to make sure that our preschool has a playground that's, you know, we're destroying that playground. Right. And if you need to fix that entrance or rear, not, not fix it, but rearrange the landscaping or what's going on over there if you don't want to. If we're putting on some kind of. Right. Those sorts of things. So those things all again, come out of the building reserve fund. So you can transfer X amount of it to there. Then, you know, let's, let's get some idea. We still need to create a, our Rochester's looking out to create a building reserve fund. The town would. Yeah. Yeah. Town. But I mean, let's get, get those, get those numbers together. It's not town. Let's see. I'm sorry, that's what I mean. The, I meant by town and at the original board. Right. The, the, the, the town board. The town school board. But I mean, I think, let's, let's, let's, I, I wonder if we're, I wonder if we're, if we're, we're, we're working ourselves into a ladder over something that really, by the time we do the work that needs to be done. It's going to be spent anyway. Yeah. It's already, what's already been left. So we're going to handle on those numbers. Do we have a reserve fund? Right. Yeah. We're going to have a reserve fund now. The fence directed where the easement is just so that children know. If we're able to, then yes. I would. That, it may, it may be defined that you, you should. Liability purposes. I think. We have an easement with children on one side. There has to be a line. I think that if we're allowed to do that, that would make me be very okay with the, the property in states as it is. And then there's a tree on the property that was part of the discussion. The royal tree. That in effect, it becomes an issue to be moved. But so we're pulling, right? It's all building stuff. You guys want to get me, it's a Rochester. Right. It's, it's, it's part of the Rochester school legacy. Right. You know, what, what would the board do with it? Absent this, this, this merger. You know, again, this is for the, for the most part. Yeah. You know, a, a, a current Rochester decision. Right. Basically Rochester doesn't have a building. Well, they, they, they, they do not have a one that's got any funds in it. Yeah. Both towns, both towns, both towns have one. I would, I would need to find out if we have one. But do you have one that's funded and we have one that's not funded? Is that what you're saying? We don't know. Yeah. We've been, we've been. They have one that's funded. We have one that's not funded. So. Absolutely. Yeah. In a sense of knowing both buildings and you weren't working or another, to me a logical thing would do set up a reserve fund with the monies because it's still retaining the funds from the building that's going to be theoretically transacted before. Yeah. We definitely could just put it into a building reserve fund instead. I mean, you know, here we are trying to think of education more and, and opportunities for the kids and try to just keep that money like more accessible to and not like specific to, well, it can only be used for professional development. They can only be used for environmental programming. Maybe the wording of the fund that you're establishing the amended or whatever you need to be more broad to help say it's not just for leaky roofs, it might also improve some of these enhancements to the building as you say that would help your education and help your adventure. But make sure you have your, your fund has enough broadness to it. Well, that's the idea, right? The basic fund would be a quote, building improvement or building fund to kind of keep this place going without passing that burden on over to Stockbridge which is passing out over to us. Right. I understand it. Right, well, and, and again, I think I'm, I, I, I do think there's probably enough wiggle room in, you know, again, a capital improvement can be put in a facility for a, for a, for a program. You know, it doesn't have to be, it doesn't, it doesn't have to be limited to, you know, furnaces and, and, and windows. You don't want it to be wrong. Correct. All right, there's a lot to think about. This has all gone super-duper fast. So, not be able to process. That's so many of these things have. Yep. So, you know, it is definitely a sensitive issue because Rochester has given up so much. Absolutely. We've given up a high school and a middle school and, and, you know, our free school playground now. And it's a very, there's a lot of, it's very sensitive, you know, never, ever going to have a graduating class again, you know. That is, that is, well, and you'll have, you'll have, you'll be, you'll graduate kids from sixth grade. Yeah. We have, we have, you know, it's not safe. And, and I know it's what's best. I'm not saying that it's still, it's, it's, it's hard. It's very hurtful, you know, we're wounded. Yeah. Right, no, I, I, I understand that. And town property is, it's, I mean, for you guys, it's, the last, the last thing that I would suggest to you of the current Rochester board, the other thing you can consider doing is going, because you have trustees of public funds that has a school account, correct? Yes. Yep. You could always, you could always, as the Rochester board, this year that's having a closing before June 30th, you could decide that those funds would be designated to be added to the Rochester school town, trustees of public funds, funds. So that might give some of the flexibility Frank wants without having to have, you know, a complicated third party vote and, and, and, and, and put something together, you know, certainly, you know, I mean, it's, there's, there's, there's, there's inequities in the coming together and there's always going to be. You know, we, we, if you look at that top line, Rochester's rolling over a six-figure, a six-figure surplus into the budget and Stocker's got like a $15,000 deficit. So there's, you know, there's, there's, there's some inequities that's coming in, in, in that phase. You guys have to have a long-term debt, we don't. There's some inequities there. I think that, you know, in the, in, in, in the big picture, you know, we've, we've done a lot of work and I think we can get the rest of this, you know, get the rest of this right as we, you know, step through it. Yeah. I wish Frank had been here, but, or I thought of the comment about the, the public fund. So it would become another fund like the, that list that I was talking with you about today. And it's, and basically it's not, trustees have public funds at hand and it happened to be. The treasure. It's really belongs to the school, but it happens to be managed by some of the funds that the trustees manage, but it's a school funds, not a town fund. Right, right, well, there's, and that's been a, that's, that's been an issue in Stockbridge in the past has been the money was given to the school district. Is it, you know, and the, the, the, when, when I was on the board a number of years ago, there was a question that a former board member raised and got an opinion on as to, you know, is it the trustees of public funds that say we're designating this much money to you? Is the school board saying, we want to draw down this fund to this level? The legal opinion that the former board member got said that it was the school board's decision. The town's general feeling was no, the trustees of public funds are the people that should be really making that based on financial advice because it's not about using it to pull it down for a short-term gain. It's about their job is to keep that money and then husband it and then grow it and then, and then shepherd it into the next generation. And so we never, we never push that, that any farther than that. We generally just take what the, we, we have a dialogue with the trustees of public funds that kind of come up with, with, with things more together. And they've, they've been more recently a more, more collaborative than, than some of the, the members were in Stockbridge in the past, but, you know, it's, it's, it, it would certainly put that money into a different pocket than necessarily trying to, to have a special meeting to make a fund. Yeah, that's true. They had money that school board could say would invest in the rest of the year and just set up a name for it. Yeah, to the bank. And that's, but that's also something that, you know, there's a different culture around the trustees of public funds at Stockbridge. Oh, I don't know. I hope. Well, just, just, you know, it'll be something that going forward, we're going to need to be, we're going to need to be discussing and working on and then figuring out how to level that playing field too. Yeah, we have this from you. We have so many different playing fields with so many different levels. So do you guys, do you have special funds and endowments and such? We have, there is, there is, the town has traditionally the school has gotten money from the, it used to be before welfare and before social security, that most towns had a, had a, had a, had a poor fund. So we still have a poor fund that has, that, that, that we've used to help with kids, making sure kids get all, you know, the free and reduced kids. Yeah, the wooden fund helps. We use that to help make sure we have equity for the families that might not be able to, to afford things rather than, cause the way it used to be is you would go to the poor fund and you go and meet with the, meet with the commissioner and say, I need some wood. And they'd say, here's two cords or, you know, go tell, here's a chip, they'll take it over to him, he'll give you two cords of wood. The way we do it in the school now is rather than making someone having to go hat and hand. We say, we got to usually get a few hundred dollars to buy like a ton of mittens. So that every kid, you know, when it's time to go outside, there's mittens available for everyone. So that's the stuff we've done, we've taken from the wooden fund and then the school fund, there's a separate fund, the wooden family also gave money to the schools of Stockbridge. And that, the trustees in general have usually done often just a blanket, a blanket check of here's, you know, here's this much money to put into, to put in as a revenue. This last year, they gave us some more focused money that we used to help us with our administration decisions. But that's how that's been. In years past when the trustees of public funds put money into the Rochester budget, is that what the money was is from the Rochester funds? It wasn't, it was separate from the money from your school fund. Okay, I don't understand the whole fun thing. Yeah, I'm deferred into that, yeah. But thank you. That's what I have to do, right? Just was kind of wondering, thank you. But I think there is still the question of standing with some of these funds which we've discussed about last year, that the schools under their offices, how are they going to be technically administered? Do they still stay with the school? Or is it something that funnels into a joint school situation? And that, to my knowledge, I don't know, I don't get to sit and write a union that involved in that one yet. But it's going to have to be looked at by a lawyer, right? Because the fund's specific to the students of the Rock the Stockbridge School. Yes, that's part of the reason why I think we originally said we built this budget not to try to draw down on that because we weren't sure if doing that would break, because it's a trust. And how to do that is without breaking the trust. But I would say it's just one more, you know... Yes, it's another minefield we'll get to. It's a high-altitude minefield, right? Is that something we need to figure out before July 1? I think it's something that we say that we're going to be getting some legal opinion on and addressed, and that for now where we're sitting on the sides, we have clarity. So we don't have to decide... There must be dozens of towns that are in the same... Oh, we need to make sure from the lawyer that that is ending true. Well, and Jeff is going to pull out all of the material. Right. And get it for Roger. Right, because it doesn't have to be figured out right now. That's what we're saying. It's in process. Well, we need to know, which is good because you've got enough to do between now and July 1. Right. Yeah, that's right. Right, okay. It is now nine o'clock. We are half an hour over when we said we were, which actually was kind of good. Yeah, I was like, oh, 30? Yeah, I was like, oh, 30? Please note that when you look at the agenda, that while the Thursday, May 17th date is listed for the Rochester informational meeting, there is a Tuesday, May 15th, Stockbridge informational meeting. Right, and that's on the back of one of the... Right, it's on the back of the minutes, but I just wanted to make sure that the... Yeah, it's all on the calendar, yes, you count.