 Right, we're gonna call the community meeting to order. It is, let's see, 617. Thank you everybody for being here. I'm gonna, I have a little to say today, very, very little, I promise. I just wanted to first say Buenos noches today is one of my favorite holidays in Guatemala is Fiambre, Old Saints Day. And usually families get together and they share food. And it's like a big potluck. So it's a huge salad. And I'm excited actually to be here with you and be able to serve being community. So thank you for coming as a chat, cold night today and for your willingness to participate. And I know some of you have been here all day already. So even thank you for staying longer. When I think about the families who lost loved ones in May and last week and even about the incident that occurred in one of our school buses right here in the backyard, I'm reminded that we're living in uncertain times, but it's especially during these times that it's important to come together and what we can change is what we can do in our communities here together. We're so fortunate that no one on the bus was hurt. We're grateful for the professional actions of our bus driver and we're waiting for the police investigation to play out. As soon as we have more information we will share this with the community. In the meantime, we're also lucky to have amazing leaders in our schools and they are sitting here with us today. Thank you, Jess, Steven, Megan, who are providing, they're not just leaders but they also are providing the care and support to all our students. Though we may come from different backgrounds and have different points of view we all share the same goal. Everybody here in this room today to provide safe and accepting environments for our children and to learn so that they can learn to grow. And sorry, I didn't have a lot of time to prep but to be caring, softball and successful adults whatever success means to all of you. We want the best opportunities for our kids and we also want to make sure that the future of our school district is sustainable and that's why we're here today. I don't know how many of you have followed the strategic planning meetings and they come on the core beliefs that we've been working on. So I wanted to share just one, one of my favorite all of them are my favorite but this one I feel like we did a good job with the input that we had received of the past few months and the committee met and also did a little bit more work on it and that is important today. So core belief is on transparent responsible governance and this is how it reads. All decisions about our schools must be student-centered. The board makes decisions using data and input from the community. Our processes are clear, predictable, inclusive and transparent. As you know, the core beliefs is what we all believe what we all care and believe as a community. So tonight just by coming here and sharing this night with us, we have something in common. You came out in a cold night and are willing to share your ideas and your thoughts. So we'll get the meeting started with that. I'm looking, I wanna make one adjustment to the agenda but first I'm gonna ask my board members if they have any adjustments to the agenda. So the teachers met this afternoon. So I wanna, we would like to add an extra action on their executive session after coming out of executive session ratifying the contract. So I'm gonna ask for a motion to accept. This is something that we learned at our last learning with our, with our lawyers. So I'm gonna ask for a motion to accept the change to the agenda. Thank you, Jonas. A second. Thank you, McKenna. All those in favor, be signified by saying aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you. So let's get started. So thank you guests for being here. We already said hello. Any of you have public comments that you wanna make before we get started? Oh, yes. Thank you, Scott. Anybody online? Please raise your hand. I can see any hands up. So. Oh, Lisa. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, sorry. Yes. Yes. At the end of the presentation, we, at the end of the presentation, we're gonna have two questions. And yeah, and we're gonna separate just for continue to make it easier. We're gonna separate the people online and the people present. So it's easier to get your input. Okay. All right. You can sign in, but I can tell you we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven community members and some administrators. Do you want names? Or. So with that, Gillian, thank you for having us at your school. You are up to share with us. Are you giving it to me? To the DOG. Yes. Sorry. No, that's fine. Maybe he's here. He might have to do it. That one. How come none of us. Click on all of your screen. This one. And then sharing. Yeah. 2223. All right. Good evening and welcome to. Doty. I'm quite sure why I want to. Sorry, Lisa. My back to you. So welcome to Doty. It's a pleasure to have you all here. In our lovely cafe. Jimitorium. Where I will just point out today, the five, six students used the parachute to. We're trying to simulate earthquakes. I'm not sure how well we simulated earthquakes, but we did actually figure out a lot about. Energy and motion and all that. So there's a lot that happens in this space. So. Is it my pagination or is there. Echo or something. Yeah. All right. Thank you. So part of these traveling board meetings is to give both the board and the visitors of you into what we're doing around. Social emotional learning and supports. So I'm going to go through them and I go through those and talk about what we do here at Doty. So at Doty, the key thing is that social emotional care and learning starts before students even step foot into school. And so every morning. There are. It's usually me, Maureen McDermott and Lydia Facy. And then assorted others out greeting the students every day. So I'm going to go through them. And I'm going to go through this. The first reason is that students need to know that we're happy to see them. They need to be welcomed. They need to be brought in. They need to smile. They need to know that they're wanted here. So that they have a sense of belonging. Another thing that it does for us is it gives us a quick read on students. So if a student comes in and they're just a little slower. They need to know that we're happy to see them. And we know before they even get it to the door, who are the kiddos that we may need to spend, spend a little extra time with and just come back and check in on. Or for students who are dropped off, if the student is looking a little low, we can run out to the parking lot and just check and say, Hey, you know, Susie seems a little low. Everything okay. But we didn't have time to do it. And that happened. It's true. Another key component of our social emotional is the development of our community. We know that students and people thrive in relationships. There's a really, I think a really interesting body of research that's starting to come out about the impact of loneliness and isolation on overall mental health and well-being. And so here at TOTI, we strive to create a community within the school. And across the school. And so we periodically have whimsical bulletin boards monthly. So our October one caught in the web of friends. And so each student made a spider and then contributed to it. And then my lovely colleagues put me in the middle. So I get to be either about to be eaten or get to be caught up in the web of friends. And that really is just that sort of like we put ourselves in there. Everything is. There is no individual. It is Doty. Other things that we do here is in the image on the left, you can see some older students helping some younger students in the library. We do all school morning meetings. On the right, we have some of our pre-k students in the library. In our library, we really seek to have a diverse and inclusive collection. One of the things that we know that's really important for students from marginalized populations, especially is to be able to see themselves and their families and their experiences reflected in the books they're reading. Again, getting back to that loneliness and that need for relationships when students feel seen and heard and validated, it brings up the baseline. Here we have some pictures of some fifth and sixth graders reading with our second graders. Just another way of bridging across the grades, creating that sense of community, removing feelings and barriers and thoughts of isolation. And this one, I had to give its own slide. Our sixth graders, I think it just exemplifies Doty. We've got our biggest kids and our littlest kids. And our sixth graders were helping our pre-k students on the climbing wall a few weeks ago. And that, again, it's that community and that interrelatedness. The next thing is about our social emotional programs here. It's about clarity and teaching. We need to be really clear. Something I picked up a long time ago, a phrase I use a lot is, you cannot expect it if you did not teach it. And so we need to be clear in what our expectations, because when we're not clear, there's a wiggle room and that can create anxiety. And so then you're just setting kids up there. And then we need to teach students. We do not come into school and into this world, learning how to interact, learning how to manage our feelings. So we set the clear expectations and then we don't just say, okay, we'll now go do it. We provide the teaching. And so here's an example of some work that our five sixers did about emotional vocabulary, thinking about what is the emotion and then how does it feel? What are some of the words that go along with it so that then when these feelings and sensations come up within the students, they're able to then say, I'm, you know, I've got this feeling of emptiness right now. You know, what's it about? Oh, maybe I'm feeling sad and helping them develop the vocabulary to do that. Oops. So the other thing about this that's really key, and this is borrowed from Rick Wormley, who's done a ton of work on differentiation is one more working with students and teaching them about any skill. There are two ways you can look at a student gets into a hole, a student is struggling. You can put a ladder down and stand at the edge of the hole and say, okay, come on, climb the ladder, climb the ladder. You can do it. You can do it. But you don't know if the rungs are properly spaced for the student. You know, don't know if the students ever encountered a ladder before. And so the student may be down there in the bottom of the hole. It may just be feeling really nervous and you're not doing the student any favors, but when we put down the ladder and you say, I'm going to come down there with you and I'm going to get in that hole and I'm going to climb up this ladder with you and be behind you and support you. Then that's what we do here at Dodie. We get down in the hole and we climb up and we support the students, giving them the tools along the way. So what are these supports that we have? We have on the left, Nurse Lydia who does far more than just band-aids and bonks. Although today there were a lot of band-aids and bonks, but also checking in with students, checking in, being a place where they can just come in and just take a second to get away from things. We have a student and a para educator up there. It's Halloween. She's dressed up as thing one or thing two. I can't remember which, but they were working together. So again, just that bonding. We're here for you. We're down in that hole. We're climbing out with you. And then in the bottom right here is Maureen. It's a Halloween special for a kindergarten guidance counts class. But even in reading the story, she's talking about what is the character feeling? What might you do? All those sorts of things that happen along the way. This is the credit goes to Nurse Lydia for this one. This is our Zenden, which is a right out there. And it is a redesigned reconceit. I don't can't think of the, it's a re something space where students can come. And just if they just need a minute and talking, one of the things that we're really working with kids about is becoming aware of their internal emotional states so that then they can say, I just need a minute and they can come and experience some Zen and just chillax for a few minutes with an adult, take a time out, take a breath and then go back. Another thing that we are doing is one of our pair educators, Beth Stern took the breathe for change yoga course over the summer and the breathe for change yoga class is really organized around helping kids learn self-regulation skills. So we are incorporating yoga movement breaks. So, and then also doing some, the lower left is some students doing some team building exercises. Then the final thing that we've done a lot of work on this year is listening to what our students are showing us. And that's the behaviors. How do we keep track of behaviors? How do we identify them? What I might call disruptive, you might not call disruptive, what I might call disrespectful, you might say that's just a student's saving face. So at the beginning of the year, we spent a great deal of time looking at how do we track behaviors or things that students are doing and how do we reconcept, conceptualize it and sort of move away from this language of an office discipline referral to an incident report or a safety report. What are we seeing? What are we noticing? And then more importantly, what are we doing with that information? So I just put a couple of snippets on the incident reports. These are for things with, because we use the responsive classroom model, which talks a lot about this, the setting, the expectations and the reminders and what teachers can do within the classroom. And a student is exhibiting a behavior and has not changed within with two reminders. Then, so that could be something like a side conversation or a distracting noise. We actually had a lot of conversations about wandering. And you'll see over on the safety reports, we have elopement or fleeing. And we were talking about, well, what are the reasons that students kind of get up and are not where they're supposed to be. And thinking about what's behind it. And the wandering is sometimes just, somebody's just a little overwhelmed. They come back when you, when you ask them to. And then on the right hand side, we have another Google form, which is for safety reports. And those are the, you know, non accidental physical contact with another person. So really deliberately framing it that way. It's not just about physical aggression in the right up. We might specify that it was an aggressive act, but it could be, do we have a student who perhaps is, is doing some sensory seeking behavior by kind of bashing into other kids that happens a fair amount. So sort of taking the judgment language out of it, non accidental physical contact with another student. So we're able to then it feeds into a spreadsheet and we're able to then look at patterns and discover is, is Meg struggling at every board meeting at 730. And if we look at it, well, gosh, then we can sit and we can talk with Meg and say, bag, it seems like every board meeting at about 730, you really start to struggle. What do you think you're sorry? No, I'm not sorry at all. That's a lie. The, we can then say what's going on. And, and depending on how old Meg is, she may, you know, we may prompt her through it. Oh, just turn out she's hungry and we say, you know, let's just have a snack right next to your computer. And at 730, you can have your snack and we put that into place. And she's doing better. So that's the beauty of this. And just before then we can take this and put it into IC, but this for us is it may seem like adding an additional layer, but it makes it very quick and easy and accessible for us. So what I wanted to do is just end with, I call this a melange of adorableness because we are raising tiny people here and we're, we are growing humans and the social emotional part is key. If students are not ready and emotionally available. Their learning isn't going to happen. And there are about a million different ways you can do it, but it's important to have a sense of care and the relationships and the community. So enjoy the adorableness and thank you. Thank you, Jillian. So talking about students and adorable, I have two students. Members and they are not typically with us at our community forums. And we're super excited to have them here with us. So I'm going to let them share a little bit. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, as everybody knows yesterday was Halloween. And so we did this thing at our school like we do every year. And we're students dressed up for Halloween and did a competition. And our pep squad at U 52 had three jars of candy like, and everybody would try to guess how much candy was in each of the jars. And then the winner who got like the closest number of each jar could pie like three staff members that were volunteering. So that was a highlight, definitely. The results will be in soon. We got to count the votes. And so most of our sports besides cross country. Were finished. So the field hockey girls and the girls soccer made it. To semi finals. That's it. The boys soccer and football made it to quarter finals. So, and then I think the banquet is in Monday. Next Monday. Thank you, Steven. And it was great. I think a lot of participation happened. There was a lot of excitement throughout the halls. Everyone really participated in Team Spirit. People showed up. And then tomorrow, and then this weekend is. Well, boys and girls cross country team are going to New England. Boys have their eighth title this year. And the girls got their second. Jinger Long is in the Burlington Free Press and she's one of our runners at U32. So everybody should go vote for her. Yeah. Yeah, they have New Englands this weekend. It's going to be great. Oh, also the school play is coming up, which is Peter and the Starcatcher. And I learned this morning that it is the, like it's the movie before Peter Pan. So it's just kind of giving you information. So that, I believe, starts tomorrow, the second, and then it goes to the fourth. I believe something like that, I guess. They have a full show this weekend. You guys should all go watch it. So sadly, there was an incident this past last week. And the bus got shot at. So we obviously don't really know what happened, but we know it happened. The next day, everyone went to TA and had a really long discussion with their TA and their TA members. And we kind of just talked about what do we do now? And so I asked the board members to think, what would you do now? We are being sat in our classrooms, discussing what to do now that our community just went through this. And the most unfortunate part is, Maine had a shooting recently, and the timeline is just so unfortunate because there's so much fear about going to school and being shot at. So sit with that for a second, because as students, we face this fear every single day. We understand that it is a lot of out, a lot of out of everyone's control, but at the same time, it can be in our control. We as a community are failing. We need to be there for each other and understand that there is so much pain that people go through every day, but we can do something about that pain and we can be there for each other. So a quote that I recently came across was by S. Kelly Harrell. And I know Jess and Steven know, because I've told it to them before, but we don't heal in isolation, but in community. So going forward, when we were asked, what do we do now? I suggested that we start here. We start in our small community and hope that our nation can understand what to do next, because we are not doing well. And it's up to now the kids who have to go to school to figure that out. So I beg you to be kind to each other to figure out what our community needs to do better so this doesn't happen again. Thank you. Thank you, Luna and Willow. And as we can see, our future is bright with you. And we are gonna get ready. Yep, Spencer, you can share the slides. And I'm gonna thank Gillian in advance because she made some copies for us. So she's working on making some copies for us, which she did not know that we were gonna need her to do. So she's being a wonderful hostess. So if I could start while she's making copies. Yeah, that sounds good. Sorry, everybody. We'll do better. Yeah, it's a little heavy. I get closer so I can lift that up. So we'll get started while they're making the copies. So this forum is about sharing some information about how the budget process works, sorry, and about gathering some information early to inform the remaining parts of the process. We call it building the vision before the budget because our goal is to help the board and the community ground the budget and financial decisions and would actually want for our learners and how a school budget can support all of our students. Best outcomes for kids, sustainability and more opportunities is what we are hoping for our kids. Thank you. So I'm gonna situate where we are in the budget process a little bit. The board and anyone who sort of comes to all of our meetings will see this several times. In October, we had our annual budget training, which is when we remind ourselves how Vermont Education Funding works. We talk a little bit about our current realities and this year got some really early information about just a budget assumptions. And there is a little bit of information in these slides as well about that. Tonight is our community input session. So this is really an opportunity, one of several, to be able to give input at this early of a process. The first budget draft will be presented to the board on November 15th and that includes input we receive here, input we receive from faculty and staff and students. And then the board will discuss that. They'll give administration some direction. On December 20th, we'll have another budget meeting. That's an opportunity to share any changes, any new information. A lot of the information at this stage of the budget process is fluctuates. So we will do that on the 20th. The goal is that our budget meeting on January 17th would be when the board would approve their final budget and start the process of warning the budget for voting. Our annual meeting is March 4th and town meeting day we vote. And this is what we hope to do tonight. We start as floor shared with understanding our vision, our values and our strategic plan because that is what our budget needs to support. You've heard a little bit even today from our students but this is the most important part of the budget process. What is it that we need to do? Then we're gonna share what we know right now about our budget context and some realities. These are things that we need to be aware of as we plan that budget to support our vision. And then it's an opportunity for an input session. And we'll talk a little bit about what that will look like. We will have an opportunity for those folks on the screen and the folks in the room. I'm gonna start, okay, this is our mission. I'm gonna read it even though it's up on the screen. I see copies coming around. It won't be until a few slides in that you'll really need them. There's some numbers on some slides that are small. So you don't need it yet. But Washington Central exists to nurture and inspire in all students the passion, creativity and power to contribute to their local and global communities. The document that is coming around, this is too small to read and I'm not going to read it to you but this is the, I think version 3.0 of our vision and core beliefs that are coming out of our strategic planning process. This document really grounds the work of the district. The board, when this plan is complete will adopt goals and action steps under each one of these and this drives the work of the district. So just in terms of what the five belief areas are it's rigorous curriculum and instruction, well-being. We just talked about well-being. Humanity, justice, community and belonging, community engagement and relationships and transparent and responsible governance. So the budget that we eventually adopt has to support our work in these areas. We internally in the organization we organize all of our work around these three areas we call them our three pillars and that's academic achievement. It's safe and healthy schools and it's humanity and justice. And each year when we kick off our work we situate what we're doing in each one of these. So there will be a number of resources both personnel and otherwise supporting each one of these in the budget that you will eventually see. What some key pieces our multi-layered system of supports our implementation of Act 173 which is how we support all of our learners our work around social emotional learning and school safety and our humanity and justice pillar which is both infused in all of the areas but it also stands alone because we know we have work to do. And so again, those areas as you think about giving the board input in this process know that what we're trying to achieve is those things are those things. And now we're gonna move into the part where we give you some information about just current budget context and realities and Suzanne who's sitting in the audience will kick us off. Hi. Several things are creating pressure on the amount required for local education spending in FY 25, including the loss of $574,000 in ARP ESSER funding for personnel, anticipated reductions in titles grant funding, the elimination of the small schools grant, the reduction in the special education block grant resulting from Act 173 funding changes as well as reductions to meal reimbursement rates. Costs are estimated to increase to support salaries, benefits, transportation, capital expenditures and other areas of operations. Continued declines in enrollment will negatively impact the district per pupil spending but the district does benefit from the changes in pupil waiting that takes effect for the FY 25 budget. Thank you Suzanne. So again, these are things that we need to be aware of their realities in our system and they are part of what we have to factor in. So I'm gonna share a little bit of information about our enrollment. I'm glad the copies have made themselves made their way around. We're not gonna go into detail in this but I'm gonna tell you what's in these slides. And the first two look at our current enrollment, the past few years and projected enrollment based on our own information, actual students in our system right now and the projections are based on taking those students and advancing them and estimating a kindergarten number based on our pre-K. And the theme here, this is not new information, this has been our reality for quite a few years. Our enrollment continues to decline in each of our buildings individually. There's some variation in the how much it declines and then ourselves as a district. And this next slide is another version of that information. So the underneath the bar lines in that graph are illustrative of the fact that we've declined in enrollment over the past five years. This next slide, again, in front of you, it's a lot of information. Those of you on the screen, this will all be linked in the board resources page for you to refer to later. These are a different way of looking at enrollment. The New England School Development Council, I think that is the, yep, that's the acronym. So NASDAQ is an organization that does a number of things for most schools in our region. One of them is they look at demographics. So they look at actual enrollment. We report our enrollment to them and they take a few additional factors into consideration when they do enrollment projections. So they look at birth rates, they look at housing approval and sort of HUD numbers in our towns and they give us some additional projections. When you look at this chart compared to the one before you it is going to look different for a couple of reasons. One, it does not include pre-K. The full report, which is linked on our website and will be linked in this slide if you access it that way has a lot more information. There's lots of different ways to look at this data. This is only one snapshot, but this chart does not include pre-K. They have other charts that do. The other thing it does not include for U32 is any students who access U32 through tuition are a memorandum of understanding or school choice. So U32 serves more students than are listed on this chart, which is different than this. Whoops. This one has students inclusive of that. But again, these are here for purposes of tonight to really just help us understand that one of the contexts we have to deal with is declining enrollment over time. And I'm gonna pass it to Suzanne again for the next couple of slides. So this graph illustrates that the majority of our resources are used to support direct instruction with a combined 59% allocation, administration, operation of plan and other support services account for 30% of the FY24 expenditure budget, the budget that we're currently operating under and the remaining 11% of the budget is split between transportation, debt service, capital, food service, community connections and co-curricular activities. Excuse me, the revenue budget in FY24 is supported by local revenues like tuition, interest earnings, state reimbursements, special ed revenues and other income. But the vast majority of the budget is funded by local education spending revenue. And again, these slides are here, particularly this first one, just to give you a sense of where the money goes, how do we spend our money? And the vast majority of the money in a school district is spent on people. And that's just a reality. So that's what those slides are for. Sorry again. So you're looking at the slide of the budget parameters, the finance committee meets every year and establishes budget parameters that then shares with the board and then the board discusses the parameters and has a brainstorming session and then we decide on those all together. So I'm gonna, I know that you can read them but I'm still gonna read them. So further development of the multi-layer system of supports. We have data to support that. So that's one of the parameters, support accelerated growth for students from historically marginalized identities, support our three pillars, academic achievement as Megan was talking about at the beginning of the presentation, this are the three pillars for us, academic achievements, safe and healthy schools, humanity and justice. Support, investment in school security. There was a new bill on security for schools too. So that's part of that. And as you heard other concerns, consider configuration changes that realizes program quality improvements. This is something that the Ed quality has been talking about. So we wanted to make sure that this was here. And then under the spending threshold, Act 127 requires a tax rate review of spending per long-term weight at pupil increase more, no more than by 10%. And that is just on the pupil. It's not like before it's not the straight day, like before we had the threshold and that was the amount that we would be double the tax. This is per pupil. And if I missed something Suzanne, please correct me. The net impact on the under the October inflation rate, this is something that the board has talked about but it's not a solid a parameter. We had talked about like, you know, we seeing what the budget actually is, is this, I would call it a soft per parameter. We're not sure exactly what that number is gonna be. And we've heard things from 3% to 3.4% but it is not a hard parameter. So I wanted to just make sure to be said that. And then frame the budget decisions around education quality standards, equitable distribution of resources and student need. Thank you. And again, the purpose of this information is because it's, I think helpful to have the picture of our situation as we give input. So the last piece of information we wanna share and the board saw this slide and anyone else who joined us in October but just to give you an idea of the magnitude of our budget. So right now, so budget assumptions are what would it cost to provide what we currently provide next year based on our assumed increases costs, labor costs, you know, material supply costs, enrollment impacts. So this is what our projected education spending would be next year on what we currently offer. And it's an increase of about 12.89%. So every time you think of a 1% increase over the baseline it's about $316,000. So, and again, reiterating what Floor said about a soft target, this is to illustrate but if we were looking at getting down to a 3% increase that comes from ranges of inflation that would be a 3 million, just over a $3 million reduction. So again, this is here just to give you a sense of the magnitude of what we're talking about. So before we move into the input session I didn't know if there will be time in the input session to dig into some of this, but are there burning questions that anyone either in the room or in the room or on the screen needs answered in order to give input? Yes. I can answer two quick questions. There's a state mandate, you have to have a maximum amount of students per class. Yes, so the state has education quality standards. They're not, we did not review those in here but they do have a maximum class size guidelines. And what determines a student needing a paraeducator? Is that just, is it totally arbitrary? Can it be more than one paraeducator for more than one student? So yep, it's a great question. I would answer it in general terms this way. Students who need individual support or even just additional support specific to their disability, there are quite a few parameters around that. So they have an individual education plan that is developed by a team of people. So that's why it's not easy to answer exactly how that decision is made, but it is not random. It's based on the student's data and their disability and how they access their education. So, and Kara, I don't know if you'd have anything to add to that. Yeah. Suzanne, do you wanna? Long question. Can you have more than one paraeducator for two students with one paraeducator? If their needs can be met by one, yes. But it's driven by the needs of the student. Yep. Yes. So what we were gonna try to do just to be fair to everybody was gonna move, break into two rooms so that we can have a conversation with the people that are present here and then one conversation with the people that are online. So we were prepped to break. Kara, are you okay with this plan? Yeah, so Kara and Jen or Kara, whoever of you wanna go and Spencer, do you mind taking the Zoom with you? And then we're gonna, just so that both groups know it's deserted to questions that we were, what did you learn from this overview? We're just gonna be doing around. This is a process that we used at our last finance committee. You can do a pass, but I wanna make sure that everybody in the room gets to collaborate. And this is the second question. Yep, sorry. And then logistically for the purposes of the folks on the screen, I'm gonna create a breakout room because I think on the screen, I'm gonna assume that there may be some people who just want to listen to the conversation and some people who wanna participate. So I'm gonna open up a breakout room. Folks on the screen can go into that room. You will be able to hear conversation whether you stay here or whether you go into the other room, but I'm gonna open that up. So Jen or Kara, when you log in on your own, if I, I will put you in there once you log in. And you would be this computer right, Spencer? Or... All right. Okay. So the first question is, what did you learn from this overview? And I'm gonna go around and start maybe with people that are familiar with this process. I'm wondering, Jenny, do you wanna get us started? And then I'll just, I'm just gonna literally go person by person. And you could say pass or you can go. And please just say your name and to the prompt, please. Thank you, Jenny. Mrs. Gannaylor or Michael? Beth, okay. Scott? Thank you, Scott. Becca? I don't know. I don't know. It sounds to me like it's sort of a trance program. Maybe the thing is that I'm wondering about that program to be up. Is that something that we're gonna find where? I'm just curious about if it's created in mind, is there something about it that we're not working with it to keep it a secret? So we're gonna be working with it to keep it a secret beyond what we know we're gonna be doing. And it remains very about the content for how we're going to be in the process. So we're gonna be working with what we're doing by how we're going to be doing this and how we're going to be doing this. I hear people saying, that was a good one, but it's been done. So I'm not sure whether it's because it's been created from a billion and piloted by the impounder and what's the problem. But it's a lot of stuff I think it's been done and it's been done. Thank you. I'm gonna go back. Yeah. Now I have a date that like I feel like I might get pushed off a cliff. as a staff member. So it's a little scary. It's just a little scary having that date. It's good. It's good. I appreciate all the information, but it's going to loom in my head. Like November 15th, what's going to come out that might change where I am next year? Like, totally disrupt my life. Can you just make sure to say your name so not every board member is familiar with all the staff members too? Thank you. So, hi, I'm Meredith Crandall, and I actually grew up in this town. And I'm now here raising two kids who both go here. And so, when I learned from this echoing what Chani put in was that the board definitely has a lot of really big decisions to make. And the numbers are really important. And my hope is that you will, in your proposals, think creatively as much as possible, both in how to deal with the numbers, but also how to keep the community and the relationships that Gillian's presentation was talking about this morning. And how to keep those in mind, how to keep those strong because they are very, very, very important. My kids are part of the Worcester community, but they are also part of the larger community. They're involved in community connections. And because Dodie is so small, that community connections program is actually at Remney. They're a big part in the community connections program with vacation times. They get to meet kids at East Montpelier. They get to meet kids at lots of other schools in the district. But their strongest relationship is here right now in Worcester. And that's really important. And the Dodie school also is involved in the larger community of Worcester. And the local weekly meal, weekly lunch, all of these things and keeping those connections in mind and making sure that they aren't completely broken, I think is really, really important. Thank you. Hi. I'm Lydia phase. I'm the nurse here, Dodie. But I'm a taxpayer in East Montpelier. My kids went to school in this district. And I hope that we really keep track of what the kids need because there's a lot of need in this area. Everywhere in the whole district, but I'm seeing that here in Worcester and I, I hope that we really keep track of that. That's, that should be everyone's focus. Thank you. That's okay. I'm Lisa Hannah, Worcester resident and parent of two kids here and former teacher here. I mean, I think I learned that the magnitude looms large. I think just the piece that I wanted to say right now is I'm feeling a little bit of maybe alliance. I'm not sure of, I know Linnea, but I don't know our other student presenters name will. I don't know. But when you said when you were expressing that feeling of like being asked in your role, like what do we do next I feel a little bit like maybe I'm feeling that right now like I'm not sure as a community member without understanding more what's on the table like what, what are maybe some of the things that are being considered. Because there's a lot of inferences I can make as a community member in Worcester about what might be on the table but I, I don't know what actually is on the table with decisions of this magnitude and it's hard to weigh in. In my role without some of those possibilities. So, I'll just put that out there. I just wanted to share one thing to be clear. There's nothing on the table yet right, but we had in the budget, you know, we had our budget communications last year. This is a brand new budget. We're here is to gather input. What is important to you what do you learn from this presentation. So, there's nothing sort of planned or, you know, there's nothing planned you're working with your administrators that in your just in your buildings. There's going to be some surveys we have a finance committee that we expanded the finance committee that includes a couple of principles to extra board members so that we can make sure that we are as transparent as possible but there's nothing yet. So that's why you're not being presented with options yet. Yeah, and like I don't mean that in a farious way either that I feel like it's not transparent so much as like a blank slate is really hard and I mean I don't want my school to close. And I don't know if that's on the table or not. So I guess I'll just put that there and it certainly does not mean that I assume things are being kept from us so much as like it is. I'm sure you all feel it's hard to operate. Like this is big. Right. And so those are just my feelings. Thank you. Okay. All right. So I think the two questions kind of blended themselves. Is there anybody else in the back that would like to share what they learned from this overview. Sorry, but then the next question was, you, some of you have already shared some of that but it's developing the budget requires a school board to make choices, given what you heard tonight what do you think the board should consider as they develop this budget. So does that spark any new input. Thank you, Cheney. Also thank you so much for coming here and for offering this opportunity to share input. I have had the privilege of being part of the strategic planning steering committee and there are a couple of things, a couple of things that have emerged as bright lights for me that I think should be resourced. And I will also say I was on the school board for like nine years and these things were not really on my radar when I was on the board. So I say this with a lot of humility. These weren't things that I was paying attention to but years later they seem really important. And I think pointing toward these things would really help us point toward wellness for our students in the future. And the first one is that we're not really set up in a way that supports youth to partner with adults in their education. We don't do business in a way that makes like sharing power and decision making with youth, a normal part of how we do our work. And as really shown up in the strategic planning process, like we, it's, we don't have like natural things in place that allow for working together with youth on the things that impact them the most like our strategic plan. So I, and I think that needs to be resourced and there are really great resources and the change process I think would be, it would take time and be significant but I think it would be incredibly meaningful so I really hope that resourcing that could be part of the plan. The other thing that has been a bright light for me is that we are not set up in a way that makes it easy for information to flow from families and students who are dealing with the biggest struggles and challenges. So we're set up in a way where we hear from, in general, folks who are experiencing more wellness, and we don't hear we don't have like an information flow that naturally allows us to understand more of the really important things that folks have to say. Folks who are dealing with the biggest struggles and I like that can be resourced and it has to do with again like where we're putting, like what's what positions we have. And I, I wish I knew more about this but I think there are probably models out there of schools that have really invested in engagement like real engagement and partnership with families who are struggling the most and I, I think it would be really smart for us to point towards some investments in that direction. I always come back to this like connectedness community connectedness is a protective factor against so many things. Youth violence sexual harm, and I'll say that I really believe that having the community elementary schools is just an invaluable structure to support that kind of community connectedness and I hope will look for savings. In other places, and not by eliminating one of the community schools I thought I've been thinking about this for like forever because this was an issue and I was on the board and I continue to feel like there's no substitute for the community schools I hope that there can be other alternatives that are considered. Thank you. Anybody else. I would just echo. Well, a lot of what Johnny just said, but particularly her second point around just really, really wishing and hoping and dreaming that we can move to a place where we think creatively and differently about community engagement. I mean, I think that I think that is a very true desire of the board and the community. And I think it is also very true. And I think Johnny you said it really eloquently that we often are not hearing from our community. We don't provide avenues that are available for our community who are who are most often struggling in ways. And I think that that like with strategic planning I know that it was put out by the district that that is what you know we wanted to we were trying many ways to see community engagement and I also think there are many ways that we've tried before. And I wonder if we could seek out other models that that access different people in different ways. Thank you. One quick comment. I grew up in New Jersey, and my graduating class was a thousand people. I did not excel. I came to my own when I went to college and ice and I've been so strategic for the last six or eight months and I really wish that I would have grown up in an environment like this. I would have done much better. Maybe changes or potential decisions to make, but it was really weekend. It's, it's a wonderful small network that on. If you can make it work. So just an observation from big to it's and your teachers are just amazing. Oh yes, my name is honey being there and I teach here at Dodie. I would just ask the board. I know you already do this, but I'm going to say it. I know that you have to focus on the data. But behind each data point is a person or child and that child, or that staff member. They come from a whole family like, and they're part of a bigger community like we're way more than numbers way way more than numbers. So just keep that in your heart. Anybody else. Are there any questions that we're not asking that you would like to share since we have a little bit more time. Please. Mr. Dwayne. Thanks. Michael Dwayne Eastmont. I'm just trying to get my head around the schedule of tonight being November 1. And the first budget draft proposed for November 15th, which is only two weeks away. And there can be nothing on the table. That kind of doesn't make sense, but I understand what you're trying to grapple with, but 35 31 million dollars and in the next two weeks and nothing's on the table. Can you give more generalities about how you're going to develop the first budget draft in two weeks involving 31 million dollars and they're being a clean slate and nothing on the table. Just to try to help me understand that. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I think what I would add, and I don't have a slide for it in this presentation, but one of the things we talked with the board about in their budget training is that we have three lenses. That we use. So what I would say an answer to that question is we have a process for how we digest all the information that we get from you and the we in this sense is the administration because that's who brings the budget back to the board. To digest the information from you all to digest the information we get from our staff. We have a group of budget ambassadors that includes students. You know, I work with a couple of students on the student council. So digesting all that input. We have three things we look at. We look at delivering quality education. And we look at that through best practice and and Vermont's education quality standards because that's our that those are the regulations we follow. We look at how we distribute resources across the system, and we look at student need. And are we meeting the need, and also taking into consideration the different needs in each of our buildings. So I can tell you that administration uses those lenses to say, what are the parameters, what do we have to invest in what are we trying to achieve that I'm pointing at a slide and it's not up but that was an earlier slide. And then use that information to bring it back. So that's not answering your question of what's on the table but it is telling you how we approach the conversation. So just trying to understand better and follow up to that Megan on the fiscal year 25 budget baseline when it gives the numbers and the 12% difference, which is level level service. I don't know if I have the right words right but like not changing anything. And then when it says on the bottom need to reduce by a little over 3 million to achieve 3% is that the goal. So that's an illustration of one of the boards earlier parameters was to try to bring in a budget at inflation floor started off the conversation by saying that's a soft parameter on the part of the board but they do need to give administration some kind of direction. And so that amount of money at the bottom is October inflation rate which has not actually it would have settled yesterday. It hovers around 3%. So we just did a calculation to be able to illustrate the magnitude of the distance between the current state and that parameter. So now our job is to say, what do we need to resource to be able to deliver all of those things to students and all of the things that you shared. We know that the board would like us to be judicious in doing that. And we bring a proposal in in a couple of weeks. I can't tell you what that percentage will be at that time. We just need some guidelines as administration. I have two follow up questions to this gentleman's very wise thinking. The first is, can you let me know because I don't know who is on the budget committee is it just board members, or does it include administration does include community members and or staff. So the ambassadors are separate and those I will let her and then I'll do that. I think you might have been referring to the finance committee. Sure. So the finance committee is a subcommittee of the board. Okay, so the board show. So that is a standing committee that the board has always have has always had the purpose of committees and a board structure is not to make decisions by themselves. It's to do the deep dive work that is really hard to do as a group of 15 that's why we have a policy committee. We have an education quality committee and we have a finance committee. And this board also a two or three meetings ago, decided that the study of configuration also needs to be done by a group that deep dives into it and has chosen to doubt to delegate that deep dive to the finance committee. And they also recognize that at the time the finance committee didn't have membership from every town. So they added two members. Again, board subcommittee and invited to additional principles to be a part of it for the deep dive decision making information sharing all comes before the full board, and the board also approved an input process that goes from January until June. And that's where the voices of all of the others will come in. So that's the finance committee, the budget ambassadors that floor is talking about is a newer structure that, frankly, a couple of our principles suggested to say, let's bring folks from the schools into the process. And so we have a new center and more often so that again they can they can do the deep dive. And we have volunteers from, I would say four out of our six buildings at this point. I'm hoping to have all of those by Friday. Hello, just one last question about that. I don't know if you can share this. I think that group that's meeting with the ambassadors and the finance committee. How often are they meeting between tonight where there's blank slate nothing on the table and November 15, because this creative work and this intense job they have I'm just curious to know like, do they have a couple days they're planning to me or is this like a next Wednesday we hope to get the budget ready. Yeah, that's a, you know, that is that is a good question and I just want to make one thing clear the budget ambassadors are completely separate from the finance committee right the budget ambassadors the idea is that we need like you, you guys have all been saying you know we need more people communicating about the budget what the budget needs are what the conversations are so that we have a more transparent way of making sure that everybody in the district is informed and also feels like they have a stake on what is going on. There are some very hard decisions to make there's not a lot of time right between now in January or February. So every year we start a little earlier right we start in September this year instead of in, instead of in October so the committee meets on the finance committee meets the first Tuesday of every month and we do the regular finance stuff that needs to happen right, whether it is facilities, where is a regular board orders whatever is the business of that and we leave a little time for a budget discussion if needed but the, the other committee of the board is meeting right before the meeting finding times to meet as that committee is really hard right so the third Wednesday that committee meets brainstorms we had a meeting on the 19th. The next meeting of that committee would be on November 15 right. So it is not a lot of time but at the same time you have to remember that the board itself and that committee itself is, you know with an equity lens on mind is trying to do its best to support those parameters that we were saying, the three pillars that we keep talking about and hearing from you guys, and the principles, what are the student needs, what do we need and how can we be creative with the amount of resources that we have. So, yes, it is some magic that we need to create but I think we do have a lot of opportunities together and you guys are making those brainstorm, you know better and how to communicate what is important to you. And hopefully, by March, we, you know, we will have a past budget. Mrs. Canaler. Sorry. So the finance committee meetings as the policy, the educational quality, those are all open meetings. Yes, anyone can go. And for what, what I have noticed the finance committee will meet before a board meeting but then they meet at eight o'clock in the morning on sometimes and and the strategic planning committee meetings are those open. And how about the budget ambassador meetings are those open. Can anybody go to those can they either zoom in. Can they show up or where the appointed places or those not available to anybody. Yeah, so strategic planning meetings are not that's not a committee of the board. That's a group that was delegated by recruiting from across the district so while they're open in the sense that we would welcome any audience members. It's often hard to get the entire committee itself all together at one time. So they're open but they're not meetings of the board so they're not warned or things like that. I think that actually was a part of the share information sharing back last spring. The budget ambassadors quite frankly is a tool that administrators have created so that we hear from staff better. And those meeting the goal is to make that a manageable thing that our staff would volunteer for. So there would be a meeting in between a meeting in November a meeting in December. And I would say the community's opportunity to engage is through these processes the budget ambassadors is a little bit different it's a it's an opportunity for our staff in particular from each of our systems to weigh in. And I'm going to do a logistical thing the folks on the screen or the facilitators are just saying let us know when to come back so just let me know when I should close the rooms. And we have are there. Okay. We'll let them come in. It's shiny. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. I'm guessing you may not be able to answer this and I totally get that. I know that this would not impact the current year budget, or maybe even the next year budget but I'm curious if you can say anything about configuration conversations related to potential merger with Montpelier and the kind of long term savings that potentially could be realized through that. So I think what we had we had shared with the board and had shared with the community was that it both the superintendent and the board chair and the superintendent and your superintendent and your board chair we met, and we try to figure out where everybody was at a time. So what we realized is that we are both both districts are involved in the same sort of process right now they're trying to, they're going through not necessarily a strategic plan meeting but they are having community meetings to see what is important what their core beliefs are without really is not a strategic plan but they are involved in the same kind of planning with us to finding they are unified with Roxbury they're trying to decide what they're going to do they had a lot of decisions to make just like us to better understanding ourselves. So we felt like each of us will use that as a as a as a lens or a scenario to call it that and then in the spring get back together, and then decide if, if, if, when it was the best time to come together because there was no capacity to not just capacity but enough understanding of where our districts are to have a meaningful conversation. So that's where we left it so it's not the conversation is not closed by any means we just wanted to have the right information to be able to make it a meaningful conversation. The other thing to keep in mind that I don't think we've clarified today and some people might know and people don't know is that the configuration committee that is meeting right now is, we're going to look at what they propose in the community right that's where we're going to have discussions with our community. So it's not a. We're not going to be able to realize or propose like huge changes right a system can take huge changes in one year right we as a board recognize that so we what we're trying to do is build a path to that join us you have something to share. Okay. So, if that helps. So, if that was our presentation we have some other board business I don't want to be the last one to talk if there's any last comments from the community we really appreciate you coming in this cold night and sharing your input with us and thank you staff in to our subs. Thank you for being here and extending your day and through our community members thank you for being here to cut. Yes, and McKellen had a question. Yes, sorry, sorry. Yeah. We're students, we did whatever. Do we know what that means in percentage for the budget or no. Don't really know much about it yet because I don't know what our pupils are going to be. Okay, so we can like estimate what percentage that would be of the whole budget. I might be able to give you an estimate at the next meeting when we have better budget numbers to. Okay. Yes. Yep. Yep. It's going to be closely aligned with it because the budget is going to be closely aligned. So it all depends on how those pupils fluctuate. But it would be closer to 10% than 3% or no. Yes, I would say yeah definitely closer to 10 than three. That just seems like more of a solid line. Anyway, all right and then I want to say to all of you. I want to hear your frustration that like, let us know if there are, if there are things that are super important to you specific things, because we haven't talked specifics at all, but like, for example, a full-time nurse in every building or, you know, language in every school or whatever specifics are important to you then please email or let us know because I know it's hard with a blank slate, but like, we do want to know what's important to you now if we can hear it now. Thank you. That was actually helpful segue because like we do. I say like we always do but this is only my second budget season here. I'm going to send the survey out so that others who couldn't make it today can provide input. So this will get pushed out on our various channels. You all can also give additional input to your point. Okay, and this isn't the only opportunity, nor is the survey is not the only opportunity but so we'll push this out on our various channels that's linked in the presentation that'll later be posted. So there is another opportunity of one of several. Thank you for that. The link will be in here. Thank you everybody. We're going to move to number four in our agenda is so community input connecting our vision and our, sorry, number four, number five board operations. Where are you going? Thank you. Thank you for being here. Okay. So the communications and engagement planning on page three, you, the executive committee, the steering committee has seen this a couple of times and the board members were able to see it at our last board meeting and the finance committee has seen it a couple, a couple of times. So we thought that tonight we could concentrate on the two areas if you're down there. Okay, it's, you know what, but it's important to the board, as you know, is to engage and to communicate. So we were going to try to focus if you go back down to page four of the communication plan. If you have it in front of you, we were going to try to concentrate in in the board part of it in in the budget development and budget communication part of it. So the whole input session informed community about the process meeting meetings communicate parameters and board updates. I'm wondering if that could be somebody volunteering carries been doing a really good job helping us do an update after each board meeting. You willing to do this one to the next one carry or should I. Today's. Okay. And, and then in budget communication under annual budget meeting presentation and communicate the budget process so it's mostly that we're saying, you know, we kind of have a plan. Megan, do you have something to add to that. We just talked about when the when the steering committee was thinking about this, they thought when we reflect as a board. It's helpful to have something to reflect on and communication felt like a good place to start so that the thinking is that we would just pull this up at the end of every meeting to say what needs to be communicated out is there something in addition to what's bulleted out here. We have like three bullets they think is essential. Go ahead, Daniel. I think I think one thing that came up in the course of that conversation and hearing that input is. We need to reiterate the distinction between the configuration study process and the budget process that distinct timelines that distinct roles the board and its committees are playing in each process. Thank you. Anything else. Go ahead. So it was brought up by our community members. And we've talked about it as a board is that we don't always hear from everybody in our community, especially those who might be disadvantaged. And I think that that's true. Again tonight is we did not hear from everybody in our community that we probably could have or should have. And it's just something we need to continue working on. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So then we're seeing no other hands up. Oh, let's go ahead. So I think what we also heard was a lot of anxiety about what's unknown. So, you know, just reiterating that we're, we're working as quickly as we can to have information put out there so that it's, they know what, what's being discussed. But what I was hearing was that anxiety around the unknown. Thank you. Go ahead. So, okay. I just want to say that I agree with Ursula and I think the point that she made about not hearing from everybody that might be disadvantaged is really important, especially just like in the day and age that we're in I think we just really have to like she said try and keep reaching out to people and keep trying to make sure that people are like communicating about what they need and what they think is important. Thank you. So seeing no other hands up. We're going to move into the personnel on page seven. And who's jumping to do this. Besides, Dear Ursula, are you ready or who's going to do it. Go ahead. That we accept the future nomination for school year. Nicole mentioned you 32 school nurse. Thank you Ursula. Thank you Diane. Any discussion. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. Any opposed. Any abstain the motion carries. Thank you. I move that we accept the extended leave of absence request from Kersen he's from you 32. Thank you Ursula a second. Thank you Natasha. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. Any opposed. Any abstain hearing none the motion carries. Long term. I move that we accept the long term substitute for the 2324 school year of Dylan burns you 32 English LTS. Thank you Ursula and thank you Daniel. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. Any opposed. Any abstain the motion carries. Thank you very much. It's exciting to have. I'm going to go back. Unless my paper copies to go up and down. All right. So future agenda items. It's a budget meeting. We have a lot of work to do a budget meeting. Do you want us to pull out the. Work planners. Can you take that as a. Should we share the work plan or you're okay. Okay. Next up is boy reflection. Any board reflection from today's meeting. What work but didn't or. Hopefully dinner. Go ahead. We've talked about the people that we don't hear from but I want to honor the people that we do hear from. David is still online. Beck is always here. Right there are people Chani shows up there are a lot of people who come out and spend a lot of time at school board meetings with us. So, shout out to them. Thank you, Jonas. Any other board reflections. Go ahead, Daniel. Well, just one reaction. I don't have any answers, but the. The learning we did the presentation we got from Jillian and then the conversation around. The importance of the community and. And also will what you said about community and just I kept coming back to. These problems we're facing. And I think a lot of it. Comes down to sort of how we're defining our community. And that's evolving, I guess, as we speak, and it's. It's a struggle and it's. I think painful and it hurts my head to wrap my head around it. But it's also been done before. And it can be done again. And I think that's sort of reimagining of our communities, like a big piece of our job, I think. Thank you, Daniel. I would also add in reflection. I heard the word creativity from the community several times and. I'd like this to remember that as we go forward, we. You know, the leadership will think creatively and we have to. Realize it and recognize it when it's in front of us and help our community. To see that creativity when the time comes to present the budget. And also just reiterating what floor said about. Seismic change is not healthy and this is going to be a process. This year, but in years to come. We were in the other room and went that would really well, but was there discussion about the parameter, the, the rate of increased parameter. Did people have any feedback about that? Is it on? No, it's now is on a, we, we showed that it was a soft parameter and that we, we don't know necessarily what that is going to be yet. And we are eating it flexible for the staff to come back to us. It's a soft parameter is what we're saying and the rate of inflation. We know that, you know, sort of this 3.4 not necessarily 3. So is it a fair to say that the board like to revisit that and review it and have a real discussion about it. I have to go back to the finance. But because we need to have a budget before all of that happens, we keep saying it's a soft parameter. So I guess we could do a show of thumbs as a board in reflection if you feel like you agree that it's a soft parameter. It's not a hard parameter. I think my, at least what I was getting from the, from the board in. Okay, is that, you know, like, if we're looking at what the numbers that they're presenting to us right now at almost 13%. Right. Okay, going with that 3% or even a 3.4 seems unrealistic right now. So having the having those numbers that you saw there the 1% equals $300,000 more or less, and the 3% are guiding numbers for us to know how to read the budget and how much money we need to take out if we want to go, but not ask the administrators to go to a 3.4% right now but to be diligent and you know, they, you know, we have to be sustainable in the long term. So we're not trying to make it confusing for you guys but hopefully. I can share a little bit of insight into how we're having this conversation I didn't know Chris if your question was relevant. If it helps, just in terms of the work of the administration who also saw that number at the same time you did. Well, maybe a few hours before. We know there's a lot of distance between the rate of inflation and where we currently sit. And so we tried to put some framework around well we could approach it this way we could approach it this way we could approach it this way and we'll show that to you. And it gave us a little bit of a way to think about the distance between the two things. And coming back to you with what we need to actually open schools and focus on programs this year, meaning focus on quality and the ability to deliver that. And so that's probably not helpful, but just know that we've been having this conversation and seeing it as a soft parameter just based on your last conversation honestly. I have a question, Megan would it be helpful to the administration to have a range number that the board might be contemplating. So that you say if it's this, this is what we need to do if it's this, rather than 12% and and 3% which is clearly not. But it will give us more information as to what the potential outlook would be at certain ranges. It's always easier for us to have direction I think what we were trying to do is create direction from that big gap in between the two so. I think it would be helpful and we're ready to bring you, well, we're not ready right now, but we will be ready by in in two weeks to bring you something and explain to you why we chose the parameter. So in other words, I think we can work around either way. Okay, thank you. One thing I noticed in the conversation and I think this is probably pretty common thing is that as soon as you put a number out there that's the thing that everybody focuses on. I think we, you know, maybe should should think more about like how do we frame this that people understand there are all these other parameters that we also put on the budget, and that we can't, we're only going to look at the number we're also going to look at well what one of the trade off that we can't cut one of the other ones completely out to make to make 3% and I think that gets a little lost when everyone's talking about that about the number. I was going to use last year as an example when Megan and the administration team came back to us and said, we can't make your percent increase on parameter and said, in order to keep academic achievement and student health and safety and justice pillars strong. This is what we need. And this is the percent we can give you. I think that that's what I see when we say that this is a soft target. Thank you. So let's move into our executive session so I'm going to be, we're going to have two executive sessions of people that need to go home. One is student residency request and one in negotiations coming out of the second one, we will be taking an action as you heard. So for Orca and others that want to be part of that. So here otherwise we are going to go to the go to the room and come back so that it make that easier instead of because otherwise we have to recreate this whole setup so we will just travel to our room and come back here when we're when we're done. So I'm looking for a motion to go into executive session for student resident request. This is purely logistic on my part Suzanne needs to be with us, or we would request that the board asks Suzanne in for negotiations can we flip it so we can do negotiations and then they can go and leave. Sure. Yeah. So can you want to flip your motion and it's okay to include. Thank you Chris second by McKaylin and sorry, Lisa, you have that. I need like a helper with I'm like. Okay. All those in favor of pissing the fight by saying I any oppose any abstain. Okay, we're in executive session in the art room so walk. We're out of executive session and I'm looking for a motion to ratify our contract day Jonas you have the language. I move to approve the 2023 to 2024 to 2025 to 26 collective bargaining agreement reached with the Washington Central Educators Union teachers bargaining unit. Thank you Jonas is second by Diane. Any discussion ahead Daniel for the record I just wanted to declare my conflict of interest and intention to abstain from the vote. Thank you, Daniel. Any other discussion. I think I just want to say just publicly thank you to the negotiations committee it's a lot of work and thank you to Suzanne and thank you to Megan, and this is a great accomplishment for our district. All right. All those in favor please signify by saying I any oppose. Any abstentions. Okay, we have one. Jonas you have that. All right. So moving on, we have another executive session, but Suzanne thank you for being here. Yeah, try carefully. Okay, and I'm looking for a second. Thank you Diane. Please signify by saying I and we're going back to the same room. Sorry, shouldn't take long. So, before Jonas computer dies I'm looking for emotion to. Thank you Jonas a second. Okay, second by Chris. Okay, all those in favor of accepting their request please signify by saying I. I'm going to do a show of hands for the ones that it because it's going to be hard so can you please raise your hand if you're granting the request one two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight here. Okay. Yes. Nose. Raise your hand, because it doesn't really matter one, two, three, four, five, six. So. The what. Okay. So, the end of the school year. Okay. Thank you. Thank you by your second by Ursula. Those in favor please signify by saying I and thank you for being here tonight.