 Would it be absolutely the worst thing in the world if we had one of those situations where we begin to look at, you know, not closing either school, but just having children attend school in a different building. I'm saying is that in one grade, Rochester is whatever. Pre-K through four, three. I mean work the other way. One of the things. Yeah, good going. Right, that late soccer was the younger grades. Pre-K through three. That's three or two and then four, five, six. How much do you value a peer group? That's what is really, you know, that's what we're really talking about. To have kids the same age. If we could build up our early childhood program, like we could have an early childhood school and the older grades. That article that Carl passed on about the over where I live, the districts over there that are putting daycare in their schools with their preschool programs because they have empty classrooms. And the preschool members are jumping through the roof. The model is Sharon. They've made money every year on kids. They do a program where they have kids and then they do aftercare. The parents pay rather than send them to a babysitter or nursery or whatever. They keep them there in the school and they pay. And they make $80,000, $90,000 a year on that. And every time there's a budget deficit in Sharon, we don't have any problems because that money's there. I want to cover it. Although I think that it's important that we, they don't make $80,000. They are able to afford at least an extra FTE or another person. I think it's important that when we think about how we're framing our conversations, we try to think about the opportunities and the resources and the expectations and not the costs and the taxes. That's when we start talking about, we're spending $18,000 a kid. We're throwing a pinto at every child every year. It frames things in a whole different argument. Look at this. These are the broad, really great. The last time in Stockbridge, and this was a few principles ago, when we felt that we were in a place where we could have this kind of conversation, what we talked about as goals for curriculum and faculty was, well, first of all, we were always multi-h classrooms. So we wanted a two-year curricular cycle so that the idea that whether it was more on environment one year and more on state history the other year, but that the idea that the kids wouldn't be repeating material in the same classroom. So having a two-year curricular cycle, but then really trying to reach out and understand what the schools that were receiving, our rising seventh graders were finding deficits. Was it about literacy? Was it about communication and speaking and presentation? I thought at some point we had talked about tracking our kids. Again, as you start implementing Otis, we could be trying to get some of that feedback in there. Because when we talk about how the kids are doing well going to college, yes, it's our problem because we're their local education authority. But really what we need to be thinking about in terms of focus of our schools is just getting the kids, so that if they choose to go to the seventh grade of the Sheridan Academy or Woodstock or Randolph or whatever they pick. I mean, you know, they're successful. Well, Otis, we're going to have a training. We talked to the Otis people yesterday. We're going to have a training with the principals on next Wednesday. We have loaded in it the latest Star 360 scores. We have the state tests, the SBAC tests, they're all loaded. We want to put in some other evaluations that we've talked about, PNOA and POA, that's math. And there's primary operations, that's what that stands for. And we've identified exactly the tests that we want or the assessments that we want to put in there. The main thing about Otis is just knowing who those kids are and getting them what they need. And that's the purpose of it. It's not like anything else. I mean, we're not recording stuff out to the state or anything. Right, no, I just think it's important for us to be able to use that tool to track the kids just like you're going to be tracking the WRV kids from K to 12. And that's a place where the board, I think, can help administrators significantly. One of the things I would just like to throw on the table is that when the board does their whole setting this year, they're very specific about literacy and mathematics improvement. Boom. I mean, there's other things I know you have to do, and it's your choice what you decide to pick for your goals. But one of the things I think is beneficial to a school system and some of those school systems where you see academic progress is where this academic progress goal starts at the board level and works its way all the way down. So Wendy and I would be asking teachers, when you put in your individual goals, please make sure one has to do with improving the mathematical understanding and the literary understanding of the youngsters in your class. Because then I had a teacher tell me once that they couldn't do the extra intervention that a youngster needed. And this was in our district. They couldn't do the extra intervention that a youngster needed because the parents did not want the youngster pulled out of any activity that everybody else was doing and the board supported that. Well, then there is no time in the day to do intervention because other youngsters are involved in activities every minute of the day. But that's all going to change. It could be a push instead of a pull out. It could be, but this trial needed even more than that, Janie. So my only point was, go ahead. We can show that they're gaining progress. You will have to keep them away with wild horses, the parents from wanting that achievement. Once they can see it. The same way I'm going to say to you, and I go by the dad and the research, everybody can be really, really excited about this. If they don't see success within the first six weeks, it goes away. It goes away. Right. And I'm most convinced that with our lowest kids, they are not going to see any more success with this. Are there infroquent tests with FNP? There aren't, from what I could say. There's benchmark assessments. We're going to load those into Otis, too. So we'll be able to see how they're doing within the program. I didn't want to have just one test, one thing. No. We need to see them from a lot of different sides, but if you can show parents that their kids are improving, that their grade, you know, being on grade level or approaching grade level is coming along, they can't help but wanting to know if a watcher can be successful. Speaking of which, can we think about putting a column at the end of that that said Hancock, Granville and Pittsfield and tracking what their population is? Because when we think about our potential students and our student counts, those are the three towns that send us. And if we're talking about, if our goal is to build a quality and attractive educational program, we should, you know, when we think about the resources that we could be able to pull on, you know, it would be those children. I mean, when we say, okay, how can we gain or how can we maintain enrollment, you know, managing or courting or putting together something that draws in. And if we have an attractive program, that's who we're going to pull in. Do you know, if Stockbridge used to have more Pittsfield, there's only a handful right now. Yeah, we used to have, I mean, it went in waves. There used to be a number of Pittsfield kids that came there. A lot of it had to do, I think, it seems like it has to do with parental, which way the parents go. We had a lot of parents from Pittsfield that were coming towards Bethel and towards 89. So there was a whole wave of kids that went to Stockbridge and then to Sharon Academy. But there was also that personal, I mean, when I lived here the first time, it was the Pittsfield Stockbridge School. We held it together. We did it together. And then there was some falling out between the two towns, and Pittsfield took away. It's marketing, folks. It's marketing. That's what we have to do. We show our good side. Well then, this is not that good. But it's still going back. That's not on tape. It is. I was there for this special ed. I mean, they put a kid in a wrong program for the whole summer without ever realizing they did. This is kid LinkedIn. We could get, well, we could get these things. I think it is marketing. We definitely need to do with marketing. I think we could do to improve our program. But one grandmother this summer really told me something that opened up my eyes. She's losing three or four grandchildren. They're not going to stay in Rochester. And she said the reason is, Rochester is a very difficult town for young families. There is no place to work. Or to buy a house. That you don't have to try. So they're going north of Wadesfield and one of the other families is going over to Middlebury. So we need to market, but we also need to be realistic. It is a difficult place for young families. And most of the kids, as far as I know, every child that Rochester is losing this summer is all about employment. Because I've had conversations with the parents or grandparents about why they're leaving. And most of them are very sad to leave, but employment is what's forcing them out. Well, now, so let's go back to that. Why employers will move if there's good schools. People won't move there. So it's kind of like, well, I think we actually have a changing demographic in our valley. I think Granville, I joke around that I call it South War, and now just like Pittsfield has kind of become a Wellington more town. And I don't think those people are moving down from like the member of our valley to our valley. They don't acknowledge that they're even in a different valley anymore. But they don't even look at our schools. And I don't think the Wellington folks who are living in Pittsfield, are looking at software, and they need to know what we have. That's what I'm saying, all this stuff is wonderful, but these are like the givens of what a school should be doing. And of course we're starting from pretty close to zero in a lot of ways, or at least 10 or 20 out of 100. So yes, this is the stuff we're marching forward for, but it sounds like the marketing stuff is about stuff we haven't really spent much time on, like outdoor education was a big thing, you know we've got this whole thing in Moscow, those are the kind of buzzwords that I think are going to bring people in, if it's a really integrated part of the curriculum, and not just something we're, you know, single-handedly supporting on her own. There's that, but I also think that the good things that we're doing, no matter what they are, need to be publicized. I think the one biggest thing we need to work on in terms of a marketing message, I think that's a very savvy group of parents, now people are checking things online and looking for this and that. You go online and you see our assessment data. I wouldn't necessarily put our schools at the top of the world. Yeah, but if you just look at our website, we need to get some resources behind that, but I do think that our achievement data is one of the bigger things that's standing in our way of being a very attractive school. I read in the book once that we should look at our achievement data in such a way that if you went to a physician and the sign over his or her door said, 46% of my patients don't make it, would you go to that doctor? And the answer is no, none of us would. Who would go to that physician? When I saw my house in New York, they were, let's take the other side to me, tell me what district did they go to school? That was the only thing that she wanted to know. What district do your kids go to school? And when it was a good district, that's all that. Well, and down there, all they see on the internet is the good school ratings, you know, and how do they get them? Well, you know, all the realtors use them, and a lot of it has to do with test scores, you know? It all has to do with what they see. That's all they see, they don't see the other. So one of the things that we're going to do, I'll tell you this right now, is each one of the schools on the opening day, if I can get these done in time, is going to have a banner over the front door that says Raising Readers, and we're going to shift them around. They're all going to have a little different say, and after about five weeks, we'll trade banners with one of the other schools, and they'll get a new one. It's kind of like a poor man's message board, I guess you want to say, but we have to tell people what the initiative is, what we're working on, what we're trying to do, and I'm hoping we'll get a little airtime for some of those pictures, you know, of them. But, you know, I'm talking to the principals about marketing this. How do we tell people what we're trying to do? No, the scores aren't there yet. They will be there. I'm confident they'll be there, but they're not there yet. And how much time do we have before people start, like Stockbridge people start saying, that's it. I'm done supporting this empty high school. I'm just saying, and I think it's how we present. I don't think we're at a point where we can make decisions about these buildings. We have until, let's see, two more years, we have three more years before we're supposed to have that five-year conversation about where we are. So, I mean, there, that's pretty much where that conversation is going to be. And it's also how we say something, not just what we say. I think we should prepare the community. It takes three to five years to turn a school around. It's happened for a long time we've been failing. I mean, my adult went all the way through all these schools. So, you never want to mention that we're failing in a PR thing about turning a school around? No, no, I'm just saying. The dilemma for the board, I wish one of our elementary schools was bigger and had like an empty wing sitting there. Our dilemma is if both of our schools kind of continue to tick down, and we do have to come together into one building, there's only one building big enough to do that in, and that's the one building that we're trying to figure out what we do with. That's the high school. I mean, I wish that either Stockbridge or Rochester had this wing of four classrooms sitting empty. Right. Because then that would be the fallback when we need to. Well, I mean, that's one of the questions. Do you spend the Black River design recommended $1.2 million to expand Stockbridge? Or do you say, you know what, if we put fifth and sixth graders in Rochester, we could pull back that classroom there that we could be converting into the art space and the nurses' space. I mean, that's a question. Do we say, okay, let's move into the high school because then that gives us space to have a classroom, one of Deb Matthews' responsive classrooms because right now, if a kid in our, if a Rochester kid wants to take advantage of that, they're being trucked to solo. We actually have three kids that are taking advantage of those. Right, but they're, and they're, right, but I mean, the point is we have, you know, we say, okay, well, this empty building is sitting here mothballed. Again, we have to look at it and not say we've got an empty building. We've got to say we have these assets and we have to figure out how to deploy them. Right. So I'd like to propose a bigger vision. I think we need to explore like the Head Start Montessori model because there's no realistic daycare options in either community that can house what we need to do. And if we get those kids in similar to what Carl shared in the art. Sooner we get those families into either building or our school system, which is what we are, the more likely we can keep them. Keep them through. I mean, I think that's a great opportunity for space, however you want to configure it. You know, whether, you know, use the Stockbridge building for that and then move it. I just, I see that as a great opportunity and that's also a great way to help see test scores improving because then they're provided a structured, like the Montessori model works because they're working on such important skills that some parents may not know how to do that. So just connect those two, those two ideas. I'm just throwing things on the table, but just for us to think about. If you take Carl's idea about fifth and sixth graders at Rochester, that would free up a room. And if you took Lindy's idea about the Montessori school for preschoolers and aftercare for parents who can't drop everything at 1130 or 115 and come and pick kids up, that would free up a space in that building to have that for the Stockbridge area. The Rochester area has a building already that we could expand into aftercare if the board decided to do so. So that's kind of the, kind of the dot connecting I think that can come out of these ideas we're throwing on the table. What does Capstone do with it? Well, what doesn't Capstone have in store? So Carl's idea of, you know, the fifth and sixth graders in Rochester, we couldn't do it currently in our elementary building unless we take a class out of there, though. We would have to remove a pre, because if we were sitting in the library, if we assumed the high school was staying open, we could move the library to the high school and that would free up a class. Because we were also discussing that the projections for our preschool next year are to be able to offer an extended day program you need more than the one classroom that we have. That was one critique I heard when somebody chose Stockbridge over Rochester was the idea that I think a three-year-old could stay the whole day. Right, four-year-old. Four-year-old. And that Rochester didn't and it was very hard on working people. My guess is if you did that and we went to three o'clock in the afternoon or five o'clock with aftercare our three-and-four-year-old program I'm sure they would which in turn helps the education of our kids now. Because they were this person who wanted to be in Rochester and felt they couldn't be because of the times given. So we explored when I was on the Rochester board we explored obviously trying to do aftercare and beforecare in the day-on-day care. And we went through the Orange County that was who's chair and who's chair and who's the Orange County? Yeah, Orange County child center. Right. Parent child center. And at the time it was not feasible to do that in that daycare building. They looked at it they really explored the possibilities and what it boiled down to was again space. Because that building was licensed for 15 kids and due to a half-day program and the change over between there would be a time that there would could potentially be more than 15 kids and the aftercare. So I totally think that I agree that this is probably a really good way for us to start thinking about it. Well I agree. And I think Lauren's an amazing resource too. She's got that whole to expand. She's actually almost certified to be a director so she could move into a different role. She's the preschool teacher at Rochester. The other thing that I was going into a lot of detail because I don't think the board should spend its time today on this detail but we have a great problem to solve but it is going to be a problem is that we've got 13 or 14 three-year-olds coming in to our preschool in Rochester. If we continue the same extended program of three-year-olds we would have no availability for three-year-olds. Zero, not even one three-year-old. Well I guess we could have one three-year-old that could come in the following year. So we're going to have to have more space because of this increased population which is a wonderful problem to have but we have to solve it. And I think we need to work our hardest to accommodate this because as we're we don't look at Islamic kids absolutely not. What do you feel about when the is it sub-grade, was it widening, was the other one? When they split the week grade so we're about two years ahead three years ahead I guess and I was the chair of their 46 unification committee and we brought seven schools together under one school board so there were seven schools while under one and actually well from what I hear about your efforts ours weren't quite as bad so now we're at the point of redesigning schools and we had four schools that were 40 kids are under and we just simply said point blank we cannot continue to run four schools with 40 kids are under it's four roofs, it's four eating plants it's three principles we just can't do it the numbers just don't support it so it wasn't easy for everybody but most of the people who had youngsters in school meetings we have to kind of look around and say who's here it's not that everybody the tax meeting was here yeah so we, let's see they were all pre K6 schools and now we have Whiting who's just a preschool they do the aftercare they do the till five o'clock at night care Sudbury is just five and six and Lester is K through four we're probably going to do additional how do they like it now that it's they've done that I'm still on the board I'm not the chair of the board anymore because I stepped down from that so I don't hear as much as I used to but primarily I only heard from five or six people who didn't like it and their opinions were valuable but they were five or six people we have heard from very few parents, no we've heard from very few parents who don't like it because this started to happen pretty quickly we expanded second language program we expanded PE we've got instrumental music one or two schools that never had it before so we knew the minute we started to make these structural changes that opportunities had to come pretty close behind because that's what we said we could do if we combined and that's true as we combined we freed up dollars I'm just going to mention this but you have an opportunity right now to add language because we just hired a phys ed teacher she's a native Spanish speaker I didn't think about that I could I just interviewed her yesterday she's we're originally from what country? Uruguay for very bright she's going to be your phys ed teacher in Stockbridge two days a week and I'm sure we're not paying her it's a family that just came up here from Miami they the parents the father works at GW plastics she's a teacher of color he's a private pilot is that what he does for GW plastics? I don't know what he does so do we have the money to do that? no not that I know of but it's a missed opportunity we're looking at we just have extra time and her day so on top of movement we're going to do a little mini 20 minute enrichment plot she's working two days a week how can we get her each day is about $10,000 for the year so if we were to add one day a week it would be $10,000 two days a week 20 and I think if we looked at all our hirings and the vacancies we've had over the summer in some staff positions we may come close to that amount of money we've heard some newbies and we've had a couple of that would be another thing that would bring that would be a huge issue well if we're going to hire a second language teacher we'd have to get into the certification but she certainly could do something we're just after this is what we were talking about with Kristina but it begins getting there I don't want to frayle the conversation but it just came to us does she have the availability? she's not doing anything else except teaching two days a week for Zen so she's got three days a week probably free she wants to be more she was disappointed that winter wellness might happen on a day full time would be $30,000 the other thing we started doing full time would be $30,000 besides the $20,000 it's about $50,000 for the full contract and could we hire I mean isn't this on this executive section let us think about that and we'll bring you back up the other thing the other thing we want to let the board know is that we spoke with Alhambra when we hired her about Wendy's and my desire to have her working very closely with a PE teacher in Rochester so that in their individual areas of expertise I'm just pulling these out of the air they're not accurate but if hers was if hers was folk dance and his was juggling he might go to Stockbridge and do a four week juggling unit and she'd come to Rochester and do a four week I know that he has a big focus on the garden so we're talking about exchanging staffs that's right the more we can do that the more we can make that happen Carl's thing is talking about you know looking at these rooms these buildings as resources and this idea because I don't really think we get to look at these things we're like oh we gotta spend 500,000 here or 220,000 there and as opposed to okay what have we got and what can we reallocate to make it a lot cooler and a lot more efficient and a lot more attractive with just what we've got in other words if we have a Stockbridge Rochester elementary show in the auditorium brings the Stockbridge people up and they see their kids on this big stage that's using our assets well to show off what we've got we actually just had a conversation a couple days ago about we're thinking about getting the date set for this year's concerts I was disappointed last year that they were broken out there's two components to that you have to think about little kids all in one spot late at night that's not ideal for any person whether you're the teacher or the parent or the principal that just results in kind of multi-day meltdowns but it really does you change a little kids routine you change a little kids routine messes their world but how do we make that work what's doable and how do we get there maybe we ought to be thinking about thematic units you know, certain times of the year we're working on a thing together with bringing both teachers together, both classes together little by little I don't know what those units would be but maybe something that they're doing maybe we ought to try to do that more intentionally in the year and what would help us there really good handle on what would it cost to turn that second zone on in high school because that picks us up a classroom a good size classroom where if Faye was doing robotics she could invite Maureen's 4th, 5th and 6th graders over or if Maureen was doing something she could invite Faye over but they have the classroom there but that one classroom would give us more opportunity to do these kinds of things so I've got an appointment with Frank Severy who's a retired guy from Greenmont Power he's going to try and explain our high school power built on me because to me it makes no sense it's going down virtually nil even though we've got everything shut off but that one's on and he says it's all about load over the last two years and they build on these averages and blah blah blah well I'm using the word average I think we're used to averages two-year averages is what we're dealing with I really want to find out from him before I do it but it's virtually going down not much at all and we can't figure out why one of the things we've talked about initially and I think you just need to jump in and he's going to call on you a random, not a random idea I've been thinking about the high school building and how it offsets some costs have you ever considered selling the high school building back to our Rochester town and then renting the space that we need from them so we're not waiting for spots what do we know that they would cover all of the maintenance and everything like that of that building yeah I guess if we're focused on that's exactly what we're supposed to switch on at the second hour the second hour is Black River Design we're kind of moving into it one of the things we had said at our meetings when we were talking about the buildings the idea that in September and October and in April, May and June using that high school building is a lot cheaper than it is at a winter I can't do that for you sorry we just lost you I don't think we've proved that that was just our assumption that in September, October we don't have to turn it I think we actually disproved it this year I remember saying that the buildings were exactly the same yeah that's what you're saying now not exactly, but they're not going down much considering what we have to offer unless we have some two year cycle that we'll see something except for the oil the actual oil expenditure that went down a little bit but a small amount compared to when it was running at full steam you would think it would have dropped a lot can we know what was the average temperature during the winter was it a mild winter or a heavy winter it was a long winter it was a heavy winter it was a long winter so as far as heating costs that would explain why even cutting it down it was long and in some ways turning that second zone on maybe the only solution for those 13 preschoolers coming in because we're probably going to need a second room probably and the art class is now in the only classroom is the only classroom that's here when we leave on can I just go back for a sec just because I want to make sure we feel like we've finished this you know what I mean just to say we agree on all this we agree on all this we don't have second language up there we don't have enhanced art curriculum up there with two things I would love to be part of that I'm going to ask the board for money to buy a second banner that says Raising Mathematicians yes definitely no mathematicians is a hard word don't be clashing with my agenda no more experiences tell me again I'm sorry so racing reading will raise outdoor education will enhance arts and second language I think those are three three educational areas that we feel strong about we all agree I support your math farming farm to cattle nutrition as a grant I think that might be out right now that we do enhance our second language I missed it by like I remember I just read I just I just I just I just read 25 heads of broccoli that came from our school garden so we can use awesome I was like oh no I had to run from all on but I just want to go back to something that somebody says if we're really interested in raising achievement levels it would be crucial that we figure out this pre-school program so every single child wants to attend pre-school expanded and a full day pre-school that's pre-school for all for all three and four year olds now the opportunity to put our first money but we have to well that would be if we say that pre-school is important that's not food we can ramp up outdoor education or we can ramp up food during the year we really can't start pre-school in November if we're going to say that we want to have these kind of pre-school opportunities does that mean we need to be offering that in a month you know what my work is if we got this pushed out maybe we can send this money maybe we'd break off into two groups these things might break up into two big umbrellas curricular program pieces and facility pieces maybe we could light up and people could brainstorm around next steps or further clarification or so on action items at that point we could well of course that's really about building how are we actually going to do some of these things that they told us we need to do go into the Black River design to really look at what's going on with our buildings that will help us then be able to focus on runs a roof is going to come in we are already at the second hour so it is definitely time for I just wanted to I just did feel like we hadn't put a cap on this I don't think this is capped that's stone that's stone if anyone wants to flip the beige I'm just going to add this here because I think this would help us too this is a tactic we use over in our district after we're done with one of these closer to the end of the day we ask this question so what what are you doing what are you doing I thought it meant so what like who cares let's just get drunk I'm just going to put a lot of you into accountability maybe you should say so who so who I think you're right so who because so awesome we're brainstorming these things you're right brainstorm without action it's admiring the problem what you need to do that's a very good way to put it admiring the problem I didn't like that bro did you hear that I said about our problem we're not talking about it but you think Washington does 9 days out of 10 what what does Washington do 9 days out of 10 9 days out of 10 they admire our problem they admire our problem thoroughly I can say more about that you might take the lead on this in some ways just because you've studied this maybe we should just wait remember we aren't here 3 of left did everybody get a chance to review the study I just look at the priority of this I'm going to be honest you're just like Chinese I think you want to bring you say girl I'm going to bring you're right Vani could I just have Chuck cheese Chuck cheese which kind do you care the least amount of things in it do you want crackers no thank you it's an electrical priority one I see I just like the things that you said about the one day this morning I was looking for a regular knife hold on you know what happens I thought there were bagels I've never had one without a bagel I know we're going to have a lot of classes we'll have to do this well but I'm just saying that's it I know what you're going to take a look okay now Vani, not conversation time Vani with the focus we're finally going to have a workshop actually it would be a good idea anyway sit down bring your food to the table don't stand around the table because that's un-condusive that's what I do I'm good at this because everybody in rehearsals unless you have a good stage manager it's like 5 minutes for you 20 minutes for you I was the board chair over at in our case when you were there I said but I just started she had a bag a smear I love a smear that's not a bag I love a smear okay Carl I'm coming back okay Carl teny teny somebody hit me at some point I've already passed I'm going to do that they're going to hit my back I don't know I'm just wondering if we need this because we may need a building the thing with these numbers is there's too few years to really have a trend I mean I think it's good that we start and we keep our eye on it but there's too few years to mean anything my math skills weren't fully functioning figure out canvas scale for you Carl let's just have a picture of that then because Rochester used to have more kids that was because there was a high school they were all high school there used to be what we called the friend town that existed it's more disjointed I used to think it was all wrong and I don't think people that I've been moving here lately think it out that way like I think that is a thing to re-educate re-educate people thinking about hey Rochester is right here we've got a grocery store I mean people in Granville this is the Mad River Valley I'm like no you are in the White River Valley geographic they're pretty big difference you spit on one side it goes to the Atlantic the other side has the Long Island Sound a little go and I don't know what this means but two of the last four families that have left Rochester have just moved up the valley they've just moved up the wait zone because of employment so what do they find no one of them is going to they have to talk about the buildings but it makes it close enough to drive we're not talking about the buildings it makes it close enough to drive when they get up and wait maybe you ought to have a even if you live in Granville you're 15 minutes closer to an hour and 15 versus an hour and a half maybe you guys ought to have a conversation with a select board in the Chamber of Commerce because it seems like we're all intertwined it's definitely maybe there ought to be a joint meeting of a planning with the town fathers and the tridors well there is a new group that's got together it's called Envisioning Rochester I noticed do you have a new fitness center I drove through to get gas yes we do it just opened this 4th of July the pierce hall we have a fitness center they redid the whole downstairs it's beautiful down there there's classrooms down there and stuff that they're going to get some things in there it could be a variety of things it kind of makes it hard for us to sell the elementary school and say you guys can make a fitness center out of our gym one day I started doing that I was like not now that's a little big Rochester we have a lot of buildings what are we going to spend money on I mean clearly it sounds to me we have three buildings for support for at least I'd say a year or two more years we certainly can't put in any building I mean we could I suppose but it doesn't make sense to try to I don't think we can planfully close a building this year no I would agree yes I would agree so we can figure we're going to keep a status quo the status quo is going to cost us some money just to get the basics just to get the roofs well like lighting I know lighting was a big one around the high school and elementary school exterior lighting I think all three buildings the emergency lighting yeah exterior lighting was the big one in fact Vermont roofing is over Rochester today we're actually pushing them the first response was and these are my words so they're uncertain that the elementary roof it's going to require huge repairs to repair it they said it would be better to replace it but we're not in the position of replacing the roof at the elementary school so Rochester so they're over there so roofing is going to be an issue for spending money at both the elementary and the high school and I understand at this point we'll do just repairs I'll let you know what the repair cost is because again sometimes if repairing it is going to cost $800,000 and re-roofing it's going to cost $100,000 but my point being it's that whole kind of we may need to think about replacing it because it's silly to spend if repairing it's 80% of the cost of replacing it but even if we replaced it we couldn't do it before this winter I don't believe so we're going to have to repair it to get through the winter I think we should consider going to the town of Rochester to assist in some of that money to pay for it because I do think that if the elementary school is our first aid Red Cross Center and Stockbridge School and we're asking Stockbridge Town to put some money forward for the generator I think that if the public the town has to use they should probably put some money into it as well so roofs at Rochester I know that both elementary and high school yeah where are we with the generator well that's our next meeting go to the select board when the tax bills go out it's changing yes I went to the select board unfortunately the same day that the tax was going to go out so I used the article I said please don't turn me down on the store I don't need the newspaper they want to help and they want to be supportive and I think they will be they just wanted especially with the tax they wanted to know and rightfully so what grants are available how much money it would be so I've told Linda that and we're going to get information to them but they are receptive to wanting to put that's good is that a this winter solution is that the timeline that we have that's what we said we needed it because we lost an instructional day we can't have that can we also get cell phone service can we figure out a way to get cell phone service at the Stockford school you know I have to get Rochester either really? that should be an association with Rebel Angel who's our new tech guy because they did kind of a hotspot type of thing in Tundbridge last year so that they they got some deal that they could so we'll need cell service at the school I mean I know that's convenient for us in meetings but how does that increase our kids education it doesn't accept safety things but if in the Rochester school we still had to have that emergency landline we could not use a cell phone so has that changed? no but here's the deal when you have a real emergency such as an intruder into your building that landline's not very much used to you somebody's got to have a portable phone that they can so one of the things I was going to ask the board to do is if we could get a cheapest plan we could get AT&T and only use it in emergencies that would solve the problem of cell phone reception at Rochester in the short term that's what closed us one day was phone service in Rochester all through the Lisa's cell phone right but that was with that Rochester and that's where I'm asking is because most of the teachers have AT&T cell phones that worked in Rochester so we still weren't able to have cell phones well the issue was parents didn't know to call one of the cell phones they wanted to call them everything goes down because our hub is in the high school right and there's no power in the high school the power goes down the generators only on the elementary we were on the phone saying I don't know what I should you know I mean yeah they can't call into a main number that's a problem absolutely we could call out to people but so for Rochester's no power situation because we have a generator for us not to lose an instructional day we need to have a designated cell phone emergency that we only use in those cases we don't have that number as their emergency number we don't have that we are going to need an ability to have an emergency phone when we get this generator so we can still have our instructional day but we don't want to lose our instructional day without it I don't think so well this is outside my realm of knowledge I don't think so though because when we lost power our emergency line still was functional two separate clubs telephone wise like you guys are so when the power went out and we had to send everybody home that day early we were able to plug into our emergency line and use it just fine so we had no problems we would have to publish that well actually people could call us back parents were calling us back that's the weakest in Stockbridge's power the weakest in Rochester is the phone we want to make sure we're covering all the instances to yes we got power we had power for some reason we still come out of school so we want to make sure we get that all covered in Stockbridge so we don't lose an instructional day it seems like there's two things we're talking about there's not losing an instructional day when there's no power and then heaven forbid there's the event that there's a real intruder in the school principal and counselor somebody's got to have a mobile phone we've got roof repairs these have to happen these are the places where it's leaking it leaks over the stage tremendously every time it rains it leaks in Lisa Blair's office there's big open cuts in the edges there's vents in the theater I mean nuts I was up there in a lift doing lights I told you before and you could see light there's no air seal and there's these big terminals but if the ventilation is not working then you actually don't mind having all the leaks but in the winter but in the winter we have to repair those two buildings and that is was that in our our report here from Black River about the roof I don't think so we've had Vermont roof look so it wasn't part of the Black River let's see just so I know when we're looking at the priorities or I just was clarifying that this was the dishes in addition to whatever Black River I'm plumbing mechanical now we're roof speed mechanical so what kind of big picture thing that I was kind of surprised at was the sort of the square footage per student so stock bridge with their addition their square footage well before addition was 151 and after was 180 and I'm curious what other despite what the old regulations say what other schools are standard per student because they have the Rochester I mean it's different because the elementary and the high school but after was 317 square feet per student the public sees this that's a big difference is there any way to so you can figure just so I can be on the same page as you it's the first page in the 151 square foot I see stock bridge it doesn't tell you what it is 231 per student in Rochester and I had calculated the proposed area down at the bottom they have 29189 on page 6 and so if you divide that by 92 students 992 kids so is there any way to reconfigure like there's some spaces that I don't remember what they were but were bigger than what we might need that didn't seem like they looked into is there anything that can be moved around right in Rochester Jenny just refresh your memory because I don't recall does that square foot it's Rochester include the gym I think yes see I think that's what kicks it out for Rochester that's a lot of space one thing that instructional it's not and one thing that so the stock bridge their requirement for multipurpose room because it's not called a gym it's called having lunch in there 1200 square feet they said under 60 students it needs 1200 feet for so line item 10 on Rochester is called gymnasium so they have a different requirement because it shows a different exactly in the way that it's being used in Rochester now I mean it doesn't look like that because it's a gym but it's being used the same way you use yours as a multipurpose room we eat lunch in there so yes it is a usable space in the school it's usable yeah so right but as we were talking about it didn't seem like they looked at reconfiguring anything it's just where can we add on like they talked about the locker room I mean it is for the emergency but that's town thing like if we're adding space because we need a locker room that should be the town you know they should be looking for maybe how we can reconfigure some of the existing spaces that we have to provide more space in a different way right I don't it's the way they did it so if they have the red there it actually means that there's more space than needed these should be the opposite but just they did it is there enough storage in Rochester Elementary School to make art in the multi classroom like we do well as the 22 general storage for Rochester yeah other ways we use it says they have 900 square feet but they only need 184 but I know I think Stockbridge said that they needed some space so that could be one I mean some of it you might not be able to you know and this little hallway there you can't bring that over to Rochester every day but I'm sure there's some stuff right some storage but I was just even thinking you know you're comparing the gym like off the top of my head we also use a multi-purpose room for art and music how do we make art in the gym but we've are identifying how can we identify in Stockbridge that's not really the ideal way to teach gym art and music in the one room all together I mean she goes into I'm going to say for music it's not ideal which is why I wouldn't put music in that branch of trying to put it into the gym right and at the same time you have to schedule to make sure that they're out of there early enough so that they can get lunch set up in there the stuff's cleaned up that you can't have art you can't have the second graders going to art and the third graders going to gym because it's in the same space we're also on the different day is passing through while special ed is being done in the hallway so I guess I think we've not I thought we'd identified that that was not really the ideal way to teach those classes so rather than bringing that to Rochester I'd rather change that one conversation one conversation so I would say it's not ideal but I would never put music in that lunch space I mean it is better now that we have acoustic panels it's still not ideal I would say it's not impossible it's not ideal yes we want ideal but if we're looking for cost savings I think we have to be creative and I think to me one way to be creative is art is not that terrible on a cart so young kids do we put our K1 or our preschool in the multi-purpose room for art no she goes to them older kids it just depends on what project they're doing it just depends on activity the way art now our table situation is a little different in the multi-purpose room and that they can become benches and a workspace pretty easily I don't think it's impossible to do is it ideal would I like our art teacher to have an art room absolutely but I think if we're trying to I can't imagine having to bundle up kids to walk to a different space for art which is what's happening right now in Rochester I think an interesting thing to look at in Rochester we'd have to spend a little money at this obviously the gymnasium we have there now is close to a full-size high school gymnasium not exactly people tell me but pretty close it would be interesting to look at how much of that do we need to have a quality FIZED program and then how much of it could be designed with petitions and siblings and obviously you'd have to do some soundproofing because you're right next door to a gym but how could we make that space more usable for either a library an art room so there we go and do we having been crammed into the elementary school building do we see do we think that's still the best place to be or do we want to be in the high school building I mean again we said well we thought it'd be when we made that decision that we were going to be in the elementary school building we said oh it's going to be really really tight but we're going to save so much money by basically closing off that building so that's going to be the more efficient place to be do we say well we've got the only thing we don't have in the high school building is a kitchen but you know is that a better space to be in you know educationally and they did say that big commons that big commons are you don't have high school kids doing that and we're trying to get our kids outside more anyways and we're trying to expand our preschool program so the blind teacher I don't remember what it says in the report but I remember their presentation would say that they wouldn't need in addition that they could I don't know where it would be but fit the kitchen they talked about taking the shop and the classroom shop and make that the kitchen well just looking at those two buildings and how much work it needs to be done in either building to to maintain but to you know the boilers and everything from what I read I thought that the my impression was that the high school was going to need at the last of the elementary school building I thought so as well because the piece that's my understanding and I'm not more active in my roofing business today but I'm trying to think long term my understanding is that the roofing needs at the high school I'm not certain of this I'm just thinking in terms of replacement are less than the roofing would cost less than replacing the roof at the elementary school and it sounds to me like both either building is going to have to have a new roof at some point they're both way over all right let me just the heating system that's what I was saying is like ready to go no yeah right that you know we don't want to be in the middle of the school year and suddenly have the heating system go that's talking to distribution piping as we're talking weeks of 60s and dangerous the the hot water system filled with glycol the system appears to have become corrosive the hot water system needs to be flushed or replenished I mean here's a basic thing Carl's talking like maybe we need to do this just to make the elementary school useable I think we're dealing with a little bit of a ticking bomb of costs of potential breakdowns and costs in the elementary the Rochester elementary building do they have a table somewhere to report that summarizes we got it I just don't know I actually skipped over all the tables and went to all the and because that was the information I really wanted to adjust everything's in the table but they don't have a summary well there is a summary so well it's a written summary it's broken down operational system deficiencies page 31 is the civil assessment and so that gives talks about general site description circulation parking sidewalks we don't have like a summary somewhere like total if you want to do this well I feel like we saw that he did a presentation and says it in each individual they should have a summary there's no one sheet but we could can we pull these pages out I think they should add because we need to probably do some hard numbers of they're talking the stuff that has to be done and we have to today if we get done I would like to walk out here knowing exactly what we need to spend money on and whether we should really right now be saying we need to move to high school for this year because the elementary is about to break down I don't think what about that heater if we had to do it an emergency we'd have to do it we'd have to move to the high school wouldn't it be nice to have a plan it would be nice to have a plan so that we're ready for it because we gotta heat it it sounded to me certainly that the heating system let me back up a little bit I have this sketch of a plan in my office because unbeknownst to me I guess unbeknownst to the board the system has been operating without a backup circulation pump for like three years the heating system in the elementary building because it was like a $7,200 fix or something like that and I said we've got to get a backup circulation pump because if the other circulation pump goes even if the boiler's still fine we're out of business but we can't circulate our water so they put that in I understand the boiler is old and it cost $7,200 or was it cheaper no it was pretty expensive $6,800, $7,200 so I don't I can't say for certain anything but I don't see anything different about the heating system in fact it's slightly better with the backup pump in so I think it's probably too late to try and move into the high school unless we were doing an under a half to situation so I have this little plan sketch I haven't sketched out who would go where shouldn't we also have a plan of how what it would take to put the high school in operation in a short period of time because you could lose a week or a week and a half of instructional slums I don't mean just where classes are going to go I'm talking about who do we call and what do we do actually the first thing on my list is called Bruce Labs what I do I'm going to be a lot of help and fix it what I do but I have like call PTL call community members because we would have to move desks and chairs that's what we're talking about here are we talking about looking towards that high school because that really seems like there's more space and more opportunities to bring in more things rather than trying to limit our space in the elementary school so therefore we should put the resources towards that high school the political aspect of that when we talked about that with the unification Stockbridge just went whoa whoa whoa whoa get their high school I think it has to be part of a bigger plan I don't know what the actual cost is side by side because they don't have a summary but at the presentation it kind of seemed like it was a washout I mean you're either way you're still going to pay a lot of money and that's what I remember them saying Jenny because one of the consultants said to me if it's pretty even would you consider going to the high school because for the money you're spending you're getting more space and you're getting different kinds of space they don't go into that they kind of put a red flag with the flood mitigation it doesn't seem like it would be a huge right there was you just have to bring someone into that area for that which with the courtyard area to just re-grading there to fix that and also for also for also for like Irene and flooding that came up into that lower part they did have some pretty simple mitigations that we could do like retaining wall and stuff like that I just feel like we could sell the move to the high school so much better and it would also unify this whole district which is still essentially not unified in a lot of ways if it was part of a bigger plan like we're saying we're mixing the schools fifth and sixth or root of stock bridge somebody else is here we sell them in a whole package where everybody's getting something and it's not just Rochester's getting something Stockbridge is still not getting something I can't speak for the public but I think that I think for some people I think adding in addition to the elementary would be a harder style than Oh Dr. Lise Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah, no I mean if there's any building that has to happen if we're going into it it seems to me it has to be in Stockbridge and one of the proposals was tear down the Rochester elementary building leave the gym in the cafeteria a freestanding I guess it's called Jenny freestanding building the boiler's right behind there so that kind of that section right there is the cafeteria, the heating mechanisms and the gym and put the money into the high school building it costs a lot to raise the building yeah to take it down I know it's a cost loss there are a lot of questions it's one time cost to take it down it's a long term cost but I think we'd only do that if we offered it to the town and the town said no we don't want it because there are some there are some town government bodies because they're turning down the school's offer because to be frank they don't want to bear the cost of either raising it or maintaining it either if they don't have a particular reason for it wouldn't the elementary school lend itself more if we kept it or pretend to renting out that space I think that would be better I would take the elementary school or the K Center but it's certainly much more conducive for us to raise money from that building than the high school building because the high school has complete access once you walk in that first set of doors the elementary building has exterior doors on some of the you have to worry about visitors and finger premium and all that kind of thing so the high school doesn't have those doors they do on the back side but it's not immediate you have to get all the way around the building to see them if we're going to be using the gym businesses down the hallway that's and they might not want to rent if there's the gym right next to the door well I think we would need a real what the real rules are about how close in proximity to a school or a school building different types of industry could be there's a school in New Hampshire that I went to my niece's school the police station is in the parking lot of the school in the parking lot of the school it is closer than the elementary school to the high school and that is their police station see one of the what are the real rules on it what's the real right and unfortunate situation is your community structures have such good infrastructure they have a town clerk's office they have to put a lot of money into that building there's a lot of mold they should be the board should be talking to them because what many towns are doing is they are buying the elementary school for the dollar they're accessing the act 46 process and they're moving their town offices sometimes they don't have a library they designate a space for a library in a senior center now we have a senior center in the library now we have a fitness club now I know but your body is looking for space well the school society is looking for both display and storage space that's another reason to talk with the town clerk but as I say this is it seems like this I think we get in trouble if we start piecemealing it making these decisions without a vision a vision for the whole thing it just feels like you know for us to suddenly say oh we gotta go to the high school I don't know it feels like I see Stockbridge being left out very clearly whereas I think it's such a great you know this idea of how we play around with the ages and where people are going it's so exciting and different and and expensive and as Carl said using our facilities using our resources as opposed to saying give us five million dollars to build all new stuff you know I just think but it's a challenge do you think parents would be on board with moving different grades to different schools but we have to sell it but we have to sell it to them but I think it's a lot more of a unified or a lot further from Stockbridge but I think we have to plan for the gift we got I think we have to you have to I think if you want to do that quickly there would be resistance but I think if you start to get people prepared like I was saying thematic units are working together field trips together down the road down the road that's why we need a five you know what helps let me back up a little bit I wish I had a grander we're just finishing up a five-year plan where's that place I live the board as a board we took some of these I call them lightly I call them lightly outline circle so we took some stuff like this so we took I'm going to make a little I wish it were lighter so we took pre-k all day pre-k for all and then we put and then we took then we took second language and then we took facilities costs and I forget I forget what the other boards were and that's all we took to the communities then each board member because we like I said we had seven towns so there's like 15 of us each board member went back to their towns in this plan you're asking about they had the community help them flush this out now you got to be a pretty skilled facilitator because five or six people are going to show up in every town saying this is the worst idea and we're not just here we don't want anything different but then you got to take those ideas and say thank you and then move on to the other people but they helped us over a period of two years flush out this grand design and I think two years is a key time you put it in there and I'll grab that for your fan and get it to cross so they can get it out to everybody but I don't I think we have to have a little bit better sense of where we're going than we do right now but I don't think this has to in fact I think there's a benefit to not having it look like well they've already made up their mind with it I agree with you but I think we have to be on board with I mean I think the idea of splitting up the grades between the two campuses is a big thing that we would all have to get on board with to put out there even if we put it out there for them to talk about because one of the things that became apparent when we took this out to people we had another sheet we had a second sheet that would be that providing additional opportunities for our kiddos at a cost we can afford so for example let's just say we put all our fifth sixth graders together it might save a teaching position which might free up seventy seven I don't know what's the average cost seventy seventy five when you get salary insurance and all that ninety whatever okay but it's a fair amount of money right and that started to find its way into the discussion about okay we can take that ninety thousand dollars and we can have a full-fledged second language program in both schools not just an enrichment a few you know a few hours a week and um well that's then I would say then let's do it that way but I feel like we need we still don't have a process looking forward and I think Carl's thinking where's the five-year cutoff you know four years from now whatever it is what Stockbridge can say we're done or re-evaluate um what's our plan for how we're moving forward clearly academically I think we're doing pretty well with it you know in terms of what we're doing the steps we're going to take for that but as far as facilities I just we don't have a plan still you know we're just getting this information we know we've got these things but I think um what are the pieces that you want to take to community because I think we're pretty close to that to say well I would break community into two categories too taxpayers and parents well I do think we need to get more parents feedback of you know um kids whose families this is going to affect at the greatest I mean there's the financial effect to everyone obviously but then there's the like this is going to be a change for it changes our you know potentially how do we get those change cameras the survey home of the packet I think a survey I think it would be good to try to figure out where our communities are in terms of how they're feeling about their school and the future of it so is it time for another questionnaire I don't think it's a bad idea we should have a good introduction with some of the things that we are talking about what we see we want this is the type of things that we want we want to see foreign language we want to see all day pre-school what are the things you guys think well I guess my concern is I just don't want to make any big decisions on combining classes and grades if in four or five years you know we come to a point where you know the community of Stockbridge I would think more so would just prefer to close a school and have full choice like that's my concern about rearranging everything in the long run each of our communities feel like we can maintain, afford and want but that's why I think first of all I think change is anxiety producing and we need to look at it and I think the two things that we're looking at is number one a transition so you do take it over two years and number two to have the community feel as they should that they have a piece in this so if we dictate then it's going to be over if we do this what Bonnie is saying they're going to come because the bottom line is we don't care about the kids I think if we do this the right way they themselves, the community themselves will come to the conclusion as your group did hey we got to do something here this makes it better this saves us money and I think we can transition everyone to that situation if we do it quickly I'm not sure the survey shouldn't come out after a meeting because I think maybe let's give all people the background knowledge that they need we haven't presented this engineering report that's the next meeting we've talked about already is to present this then a survey but give them the knowledge with the knowledge to answer it appropriately and the only thing I'm going to suggest we do is because I can tell you with certainty right after this meeting right after the first time that it gets televised some of us are going to get calls about why did you make this decision when we haven't made a single decision so one of the things we did is we had a very visible online page for the board and basically the chair put the first thing up about understand that everything will be posted here every decision the board makes will appear here shortly after the decision is made about a decision about what you're disturbed please call the superintendent to make sure it's and so we were the board was very very visible very early on about things and basically we were saying unless you hear it from us don't believe it Bruce can this IT person for us I mean do they do webpage stuff so we could tell them we want to revamp our webpage and we want to have this current we want to stay current we want updated we want and then he can ask us for okay give us some photographs and providing us that's what I'm just saying you know I thought we were going to have to hire our contractor I thought we had it he is good enough to give him a problem like this to solve it we have a communications issue we need really good websites for our website for our two schools cause I think it should be one I like this idea a lot especially with this whole tax thing that went around we had a way to communicate this is a place for the public to go to get an update the most current information and we have to be diligent about posting the most current so that as she said as soon as the decision is made within a day it'll be put up there because for example when I brought up the idea of moving the five six was actually just for the functional you don't want to put a million dollars into putting an expansion on Stockbridge the only other way you can make some room is to get rid of grades and get rid of the oldest kids cause they're the ones that are old enough and mature enough to be able to be bust you know and that's it's not at all it wasn't at all brought up as an educational solution it was brought up as a you know putting that kind of question out to the community and say the spatialization in Stockbridge is unacceptable we can't teach special education in a damn hallway that's not fair to the kid that's not fair to you know to have to kick the principal out of our office when they need a private nurses visit you know that doesn't work so we need to fix that and either we have to expand or we have to reduce the grades we're offering in that facility it's very clear it's also a good argument for the people there cause it's like here's your school here's the situation you choose what would you do I think we need to be able to in our meeting we need to be able to say here are some of the obvious questions like that one and then be able to back that up and say well it's you know this would mean it would work like this if we went to fifth and sixth grade here's the advantage like there would be a bigger grouping these kids are capable of traveling so we can spell that out versus the spelling out the if we have if we bonded it like this and the uncertainty of the population in the future and the fluctuations of it the other thing that's the advantage that we have is that our preschoolers have their one class that is a Rochester campus and a Stockbridge campus class they know each other so well right now Bonnie was saying that the preschoolers would come to the Rochester campus and they're comfortable they knew the classroom because they've been there so much I would say K-1 does as well K-1 okay and so this is the group that's going to be our next four or five years so by the time that you know that third and fourth grade they are going to be the other thing I'm going to say that we were very early on is change for kids is nowhere near as problematic as we are we like it if you guys could hear some of the stories that you're wrong seventh and eighth graders have come back with Jody it's incredible I mean when are we going to see our Rochester friends again I can't tell you the other thing you could think about that we did and it worked for us and we didn't do this in Rutland or northeast we did it out in Bridport is we had a series of meetings we had these surveys we did all that all working toward March and on the March ballot we put four or five non-binding questions and because that's the only time you're sure you're going to get a good read from the community surveys a certain group will answer a certain group won't answer parent letters a certain group won't answer you're a valid percent no no the March and the questions were something like if we could increase opportunities for your students would you send your sixth graders to Middlebury Union Middle School if we could blah blah blah would you and those questions came out of the meetings and the presentations that the board had done throughout the year and they generated these four or five questions that they put on is non-binding questions on the ballot and got some surprising input was surprising is Rochester a paper ballot at their town meeting none of them are it's all together town meeting is not a school town meeting is Australian are you Australian for your town meeting no that was a school budget it's no the school budget you can do it at your annual meeting town is not Australian budget you vote for in the world are you Australian both town and school yeah we're school now they're on the floor on the floor Australian ballot paper and pencil for some reason I flipped that around in my head sorry ignore me we are not Australian they're not Australian on the ballot when it's paper and pencil I think you get very honest answers it's from the floor I think people go with the majority they do just based on some feedback I got just from our annual meeting you could hand out something at the meeting at the door that people could it is the thing how do we get these other people to the meetings how do we get how are we having a meeting like this if parents heard this kind of meeting what we talked about in the first hour parents would be thrilled to hear us talking about that kind of stuff because they'd hear that this is where we're working toward this is where we're engaged in but we can't get those people to believe okay so when we were in poverty schools you don't get parents to come they don't want to hear the things they're going to be told and they're working four jobs and the only way we got parents to school was to feed them and to have their children do some some reading activity and they could see what their kids would do people come to theater but I'm talking about a parent night what you said where a teacher gets up and says this is what we're going to do this year let me show you reading groups that we're doing let me show you how the reading program works let me show you the math problem so they're watching their students parents will come watch their students and then we had a dinner and parents will come for food and if we had to we went out and we took the parents in our cars and we brought them and there were things all over and a critical thing is we just didn't have the bright kids we had those kids who were struggling performed because we wanted the parents to see that they're successful those kids the other kids always performed we wanted the bulk of our population to show up on what we were doing so to be even more specific to that there's this thing that's called full service school model it was done in Bennington at Molly Stark Elementary and my mother-in-law actually helped with it that's a little weird to call it that I was going to say I was going to say I was going to say I was going to say just knew don't forget you're on TV I'm sending this to Bennington she would say but she gave me the book which explains the whole process that she and the principal went through together because she did early at like a Head Start program that's what her background is so one of the things she and I were talking about I said how do you get the parents that don't travel up out and she said feed them but you feed at the end of the month when people like there's a whole chart of how to get people out and what communities they she and this other principal Sue McGuire knew they just they went with meals to the homes to get parent and community feedback because those were the areas that just wouldn't come out yep see that's the other piece we can't just worry about getting parents we have to get people who don't have for these kinds of questions like what do we do about our buildings or our facilities that's a whole we're interested in the whole so we have to figure out ways to get to those folks who don't have a child connection I know let's just have a tax problem every two months show up for those it's the parents that are not coming the tax people meeting the other parents we see you Mason parents need to as well get out and talk to all the parents that was like 20 people right or 25 people but there's far more community members in our community than 25 the whole technology here you guys have incorporated into communicating with the parents just now I heard all this getting trying to get the parents there but there's this whole technology where they can feel obligated to actually participate in a home setting with you even if it's a teacher communicating about the class directly to those parents so there's a whole technology you guys can look at here if we had somebody editing the school board meeting videos or this video because you don't want to ask them to sit through an hour or two hour or three hour but if you had them editing it so that it was part of this web page so that they could see and hear our sound bites you know that's to remember though the same people who don't show up necessarily have access to we need to we have to include it as one of the actions that's what you're saying we need to use blackboard to invite them I don't want to spend anybody's money we actually hired a communications person over there to help us generate just like mason said ideas for how the board could communicate about this five-year plan that we developed well that's also for the teachers to communicate to the parents and she actually came up with some ideas that nobody else had even thought of because that's her area of expertise action issues okay because we really made a lot of progress on that but this is more action items like right there we gotta get a couple of things up there we gotta get fire alarm panels we need to I think one of the things we need to do is we need to go through and say because all the reports are here's the priority one things these are the things that have to be fixed because they're code so we need to go like that mechanical priority item number one inspect underground oil tank test and inspect all ventilation equipment this is Rochester High School I don't think you have to rewrite this one because we've got it we just have to decide which ones we're doing so what is it what if you go to my building and read the priority item should we start start with all the priority ones those are supposed to be the short terms right can I ask you a simple question are the priority ones aren't you just planning on us doing those because those are high priority things no but they're not all urgent are they I'm looking at well there's code deficiencies according to them priority one is in that quote, code violation or conditions which appear to propose an immediate hazard to light safety issues so page 41 code deficiencies for stock bridge our heating system ventilation system and control oh no, no control we should this is the money that we're doing if we're saying we're doing all this priority one this is the money that we're spending and it's in the neighborhood it's a little confusing here this is 41 inspect underground oil tank verified tank is not leaking this is for stock bridge schools mechanical priority item number two what's the dollar figure for that first one is 10,000 to 15,000 so let's call it 15 where are we this is inspect underground oil tank so that's 15 plus 15 mechanical priority number two item replace warm air furnace let's do the three priority one so it's 15,000 for the no I see what you're saying so then plumbing priority none noted electrical priority what about the lead thing that the state has mandated well that's not all this report here's electrical priority number one is provide emergency lighting within the building replacing central battery equipment that's 3,500 to 4,500 no that's 8,500 to 12 no electrical priority number one item page 43 page 39 8,500 I have stock bridge here I have electrical priority number one is provide emergency lighting and to relocate this meter and bus plug in that's enough yeah that's page 43 clearly where are you electrical priority number one add the two of them together because there's a priority A oh I see where you're saying I'm on the primary page so you do have a summary page I do it's page 39 that it doesn't give 39 do you have training capability here yes no the summary it's on page 39 the difference is that when you're looking at the pdf it's page 40 something if you look at the bottom of the pdf it's actual physical page 39 they start numbering after the cover okay it's 1015 for mechanical and it's 27 27,000 is the stock bridge priority ones 12,000 for electrical 15,000 for plumbing hold on a minute can we ask Janine to make a copy so we're reading the same document page 39 that's just stock bridge we've got three summaries page 39 page 39 then the Rochester one and then we're all looking at the same document Rochester one is here is page 40 45 page 45 so 39 45 then the elementary I'm going to beat you to it the elementary you have to look at that second unit it's right here page 14 it's an 80, 98 I don't need it I have it okay copies I'm going to make sure I'm doing the right one there's one more here's plumbing we need tools for Rochester I have stock bridge elementary I have executive summary should I have something else or do you want 45 let me just kind of paste a separate page alright just let me tell you what I have I have Rochester high school executive summary and stock bridge elementary it's Rochester elementary school it is the executive summary no it's not in the back it's that tall one it's the elementary school that's right tall one aren't you bored aren't you bored so this one that's Rochester should I have to do the back of it so it's 27,000 if I add the electrical and the plumbing for stock which is 27,000 is a priority one cost for stock bridge okay but I have a question I have a on priority one for all schools it talks about replacing our batteries for our emergency lighting they tested the emergency lighting and they all the batteries worked but they just didn't test it for the 90 minutes as provided by COPE can't we just test it for 90 minutes first before we replace all those batteries I understand we probably do need to replace the batteries but they said they worked right and it's just that they didn't know if they didn't test it for 90 minutes which is what CODE is that the emergency lighting needs to be on for 90 minutes after let's get all our priority list number one and then we can go back and look at each one and see which ones are the ones that really do need to be done and which ones are the ones we can okay go back I thought we were doing it as we went okay so it's $27,000 is the listed total cost for stock bridge for this one right well $12,000 for that so it says the electrical is $12,000 so the whole thing all priority one for stock bridge is $27,000 and that's at the high side yeah and then all priority ones for the high school $176,500 if you add those three things up that's the high school thank you and I didn't add up the tall one and what are the three things what are the three things make up that $176,000 inspect the oil tank right yeah it's mechanical priority ones is $80,000 which is oil tank equipment dust collection for the shop we don't have to do it because we don't operate the shop as a shop but it's just it's what they I'm figuring if we go by the high numbers we're never going to spend more than this right so that and you also want to figure that yeah half the time they open something up or try to fix something there's always the unforeseen oh crap that's asbestos and I read nothing that said we had to do that dust collection if we weren't operating it as a shop it did say if we were not operating it we did so we had to pull that amount out it doesn't tell us what that number is it does let's just go through like we said before let's just go through let's get the elementary school so was there anything else the electrical systems so the plumbing systems for the high school are reviewing the number of fixtures and backflow protections and mixing valves is the plumbing system of the high school the electrical of the high school is all the distribution equipment the emergency lighting and the inside and out and that's 176500 distribution valves specifically the federal pacific electric that doesn't really hold it's still in the 70's and then emergency lighting well again it's all about priorities where we're putting our money and you said that was 176500 total how much is that okay we have first priority mechanical priority item number one is $15,000 in spec underground oil tank it's the same first time priority plumbing priority number one there's no cost to this review the number of plumbing fixtures in the gym for code compliance so gym for compliance I guess oh this is three things here so sorry I need to have these in backflow and thermostatic mixing valve that's for a total of 6500 right you're plumbing right now we're just about to go to electrical what was that for the backflow backflow was mixing valve and the total cost was 6500 6500 yes okay and then I'm going to electrical number one estimated priority provide emergency lighting within building replacing central battery equipment this is 4500 central battery equipment and so that's a total of $26,000 for the Rochester elementary school I don't know the high school what's the big one in the high school ventilation ventilation but all the ventilations and all the buildings were not tested so how can they say that the new ventilation in the high school were not in elementary or in Stockford I was out of priority in high school when they couldn't test it it may just mean getting it up and operating that would be our good luck so we don't know what is the problem with ventilation in high school since they couldn't get it started is it shot or is it just there's a feast so we need to know so we need to assess the ventilation and that's less than some of these other ventilation systems general the existing ventilation systems are not operational so concerns here's a concern the high school is going to be page 48 the high school under ventilation for page 48 top right hand it says air handling equipment is over 40 years old the air handling units have exceeded their useful life and should be replaced existing air distribution dock work systems should be professionally cleaned to maintain proper indoor air quality existing wood shop area does not have adequate dust collection system to control dust buildup Jamie here I got these oh thank you alright so the question there becomes though that's a number one priority does it need to stay a number one priority given the limited use of the high school we know it's a problem we know it has to be addressed do we know it'd be nice to have a cost for how much it would be to fix let me just then compare it to what they said about the element ratchet elementary school ventilation system in general the ventilation system the buildings were found to be non-operational because equipment is no longer serviceable and should be replaced original classroom areas where served by rooftop heating recovery unit which includes ducted fresh air to each classroom the dust is ducted from the heat recovery unit each toilet room and over each classroom closet unit is installed as part of the 1990s project so there must be some type of ventilation going on that is just not main big system so then we have an error in this column don't we because we didn't put anything in this column above ventilation they did not interestingly enough when you look at the elementary rapport it like it has $700,000 as a priority too so I'm not sure whether they just think that um so it must not be a code issue but if it is the high school one I'm on the elementary school page three where it says that the priority one items are $10,000 to $15,000 and that's the oil tanks but priority two is replacing all ventilation system and new boiler system and new controls so they say that's interesting because their final cost for that when you say the priority two which is the non-immediate piece is $710,000 to $900,000 and it's just interesting to me that the non-immediate ventilation piece is in the building that we occupy fully and the immediate ventilation piece is in the building that we barely occupy right that's all I'm that's what's interesting oh I think I have yours she has some copies coming out here's some one of the extra copies I believe that that one is mine and that one is mine I believe that one it's got the light benches in it oh no it's a copy I'm missing a they should have hole punch actual hole punch okay so should we no hole punches she needs her original back I think that you took upstairs I have one she needs two more do I have just a high school but they have I need a separate whatever you took upstairs I mixed it all up so somebody may have some with hole punches they go if they look like they're hole punches but they're just half moons what pictures in the CD you don't have I do I mean I haven't got did you leave it in the pocket give me just one of the one please as long as I have one do you have these no this is not the one I want it's the stock fridge one that I need there we go if you look up in the corner it says what it is okay so starting with the ventilation system is where we're at so ventilation so you're and you're saying ventilation I would agree with Bonnie right now ventilation system I would say where higher priority is a new heating system for the elementary school than a new ventilation system for a high school wouldn't we say even though one is priority two which we're going to occupy yeah exactly and if we're our goal right now going forward we're going to go ahead with the status quo for this year at this point except in an emergency we're going to have an emergency plan yes I said yeah so far that's where we're at but I think maybe looking at these it may change because I would say if we're going to spend $100,000 right now all these are right Bonnie I would say that most of these numbers 15,000 12,000 they're not break the bank kind of maintenance numbers I think we have like 56 or 57,000 budgeted in maintenance okay so the big one would be if we're going to spend 100,000 on something what do we spend it on if we you know if there's some big ticket items well we have a roof well we don't know how much that roof fixing is going to cost I believe the elementary roof is in the vicinity of 200,000 so that's more like a bond issue oh for fixing no I'm sorry I'm still trying to find out what's the extent of the fixing I know I was like 200,000 so I guess I go back to I don't know Jamie's point or Jenny's point but if they come back with a repair number of 132 yeah then it's what's the point what's the point but if they come back with a repair fix of 40 or 18 to 40,000 that's much different then we can work that in so it's about priorities obviously the buildings we're in right now full time should be the highest priority yes not necessarily I mean if you're looking forward you definitely want it to be safe and we want to make sure that everything is safe but I mean I would putting a large investment into a long term fix of something that we are not necessarily going to be occupying which of course gets back to the big picture thing of what is our vision for when I go back to this ventilation because Stockbridge has a thing a code deficiency it says ventilation says some fresh air units not operating to provide required ventilation but they don't put it it's a code deficiency but they don't put it as a priority to that needs to be so I'm not sure a safe hazard in the Rochester elementary building one of the things they said about Rochester and I'm guessing it might be true about Stockbridge is because of the conditions of our windows there's probably enough fresh air coming in that isn't brought in by the system that may be why it's down Anna I mean I think Amy's point is a good one we wouldn't want to make a financial decision on repairs that locks you into something so that you feel we can't change this building we just put 700,000 hours into these buildings and then we're locked in that's the safety issues I mean it's the safety and understanding you know what is how much is that dust collection system because the mechanicals for the high school are 65 to 80 grand and that's for the underground oil tank we're testing and just inspecting the ventilation system and then installing the dust collector I don't think we have to do it we wouldn't be operating a shop but right so here the mechanical dust collection is 50 to 60 okay so there you go we can take theoretically 50 grand off the high school repair 60 because we were going on the high side so it's now 115 the high school so it's 115 to 55 okay so here in the priority one for the high school and again in regards to the ventilation it does say on estimate cost work would not be required if controls and equipment were replaced under priority two oh I see right so they do still yeah but now you're down to the oil tank was 15 grand at every other place so you've got $5,000 for ventilation inspection and 15 grand for an oil tank right because you take 60 grand out of that top it's a mechanical box it's still a hard sell that we're spending almost four times as much on a building that's hardly occupied right well the majority of that becomes the I bet you when you look at because the other big cost for the high school is the 78.5 for the distribution panels of emergency light I bet you the majority of that is the distribution panels at the high school right which are operational right now so they're operational and we don't want to be spending on that until we know long term whether we're going into that or into that building because that is functional they just say that it is obsolete and it does need to be changed but if we're not going into that building there's no reason for us to change it we did fine last winter as far as all the buildings and stuff like that let's see I don't have any expertise in any of this so I'm just going to throw it out and see if it makes sense I would get the oil panels inspected oil tanks inspected I would get the roof repaired I don't know that I'd do anything else in the high school because the limited amount of time that we're in there in the close proximity to the front of the building Jenny correct me if I'm wrong but a lot of this emergency lighting is if there's a heavy smoky fire and people have to figure out how to get out the art room is right there right around the corner from the front door and there's a door exterior door out of the art room so I don't think we have as the risk for the theater yeah now the issue becomes public use of the facilities non-school hours but it seems like investing these kinds of sums in either building until we're certain yes absolutely good good good at least now thank god we have the list you know we have the list that tells us where we're I guess my thought would be if we're looking toward the future there's only as I look toward the future of Rochester there's only two things that's going to happen that I can think of either both communities are going to grow and we're going to need more space for kids or both communities are going to get small enough to the point where we're going to need to come together those are the two things I can see happening if we come together neither of our buildings are large enough to bring that school population under one roof so it would seem to me somewhere in the future we're going to be having to look at the high school for one reason or another the problem is we just don't know when we don't know if that's for years so here's my question though and I don't know if that's true what I've just said but if we decide that it's true then we could begin to make significant repairs in a time that we can afford them to the high school move Rochester kids into high school expand our pre-care expand our pre-care, maintain stock where Dwight word is until one of two things happen hopefully solve the problem of space and start investing in the high school building versus putting much at all in a building that's going to be too small if one of those two things happen and when I'm looking at this and it's just the general thing but Rochester high school that overall this school is in as good as or better than any similar schools Stockbridge is this school is as fair as or better than similar schools the elementary school is not overall the school is in fair condition compared to similar schools obviously the elementary is in the worst condition, Rochester elementary and I also think Rochester elementary you said this Megan Rochester elementary I think is more conducive to rental space whether the board did it as a financial way or the town does it so in some ways it just might be we have to push ourselves to say do we have enough information to make a decision before we start putting a lot of money into even building my concern with down the road once again is in our agreement when we come back together it would be left to the town to decide that they were going to close the school the school building the Stockbridge to close I just don't know where Stockbridge is will it be at that point whether it's all in Rochester or let's have choice and that's where we think school choice versus going to Rochester if we've got four more years four more years to convince them that they should be coming to Rochester for their population there may be some blips here and there but all the projections statewide for young people but I could see for the next until 2000 I see more of Carl's idea that there's just less classes in Stockbridge but that again gets to a tipping point of how far down the line I don't know but if there is a full preschool program in Stockbridge as well well I think the biggest thing that I found interesting personally was when we had that first initial presentation in Stockbridge whatever her name was Patty or Jenny or whoever the woman came from and we talked about that in one of the comments was that as she was going through Stockbridge you need this much room and we were saying we can't have special education in a hallway we really should have a private nurses phase the town the pushback from Stockbridge residents saying we got by, my kids were great in there my kids did it too but it wasn't ideal necessarily but the interesting thing was just the general resistance to the idea of if our populations are going down, why are we building additions we're rounding out to build more space and if you follow that logic it means that the Rochester High School is where you end up because that building they can sit there and they can say we can put all the Rochester kids in here we can just make this part into a kitchen and it won't be super expensive the biggest thing is just that Rochester you spend all that money on those electrical panels because they're all not made and obsolete and there may be some more significant roof gains down the line in window issues but really if you look at it that's the only building that everyone that could be, everyone could fit in without because the recommendation as you put in that you spend that million dollars redoing the elementary the Rochester elementary heat system and you put an addition on it you know so I think that just from what I think our communities would be supporting saying that in Rochester you're moving towards using the building that everyone fits in without putting an expansion on it you know is perhaps a direction that we might want to try to see what people think Is it time to fight the bullet and start saying that? Well I think we need to I think, yeah I mean I think that needs to be something we say in that bigger meeting I think we say this is the only building that doesn't require an addition Well we want to be careful, I think following Bonnie's instructions we want to be careful that we don't make it sound like it's correct but I do think it's okay to say the board is confronted with the decision that has to be made sooner or later if we're going to be good stewards of the taxpayer's dollars because we can't go another two years and not make some of these two years like if you're within two years I don't even think you're right I don't think we have that some of these things we have to do now so the issue is are we doing them in both buildings because we haven't made the decision yet because if you just look at the elementary school and the high school we're going to pay $30,000 high side to inspect boiled tanks but maybe we only have to pay $15,000 because we're only going to be used to one well yeah and the biggest I mean my biggest fear is about staying in the elementary building is the massive heating system failure you know January 8th exactly the Rochester elementary school the Rochester elementary school building because as they say there's no backup boiler so if that dies we're deciding okay we're going to take a week off school and move everyone to the high school right quick you know or are we saying well we bite the bullet and we're putting in we're renting a boiler we're bringing it outside and we're trying to tie into the building while we rip the other one out or find the boiler we can buy in a week making a plan full of that's always going to be a lot of money you know when I go back to the preschool we cannot have full day preschool or any expansion of our current preschool in our building we cannot next year that's not even more long term that's next year fat and that's coming school year after that and I just keep going back to that I think that is going to increase our scores I think it's going to increase the learning of our kids so much even if we did nothing even if we assumed the stock bridge is going to stay right where it is right it seems like we are wiser putting money into the high school building that does give us more space for some eventuality whatever it might be than putting money into the elementary school building that we know is it's an okay fit we did find this year but it's a tight fit and the other thing I heard he's getting even with me for writing mathematics up there I also heard at that same meeting very strongly that the stock bridge community does not want to bomb this out that they want us to plan and start to put money away to have a multi-year plan absolutely to fix things and I think that's a fine that's our thing multi-year plan I think that's a good point I don't blame them see I think we're with I think we're being better stewards of the tax dollars by investing in a it's kind of like do you use the money to put a down payment on a relatively new car or do you use the money to buy outright a 12 year old car we're spending a lot more money by the longer we wait to make a decision the longer we wait and we've already taken by some peoples reckoning an extra year than when we should have decided one way or the other so we can say okay how about we give ourselves another six months it's sounding like I mean I don't know if we're at a quorum or turning point or whatever the word is there but we got to make a decision soon and we save a lot more money the sooner we make a decision well I think that it seems like we would be super hard pressed to move to the high school building this year I think you could do it in an emergency but it's not ideal it's not a planful it's not a planful thing to do and that's just for the purposes of the conversation we can't that's not a viable option for this year but I think we need to be saying this is a decision that needs to be made for next year so we need to be building out I think a timeline that we are committing to making a decision and picking the building at this point from our initial research we hired a company to give us numbers and information and they tell us that really the best investment it seems to be is in the high school we don't have to put an expansion on it it seems to be cheaper to repair and it's a better condition than the other school so we need to say that and make that point clear without making it clear that's our decision and we're just asking you to come to these meetings and rubber stamp things do we as part of that decision extend it out to what I'm hearing from to saying about decreasing population that we've also got another decision to make three years out maybe 2002 or 2022 about how if we can actually keep two schools open and what that means I don't think that decision is committed I think that's something you can put as a next so that the decision is imminent I don't think it's necessary because it's not in reality because it's going to cause panic yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no and I think when we present that but the fact is that by but don't forget but just by moving to the building that was the thing that everybody a bunch of Stockbridge people said last year once you're in that building well it's inevitable that everybody's going to go there once we look at that choice so in other words they're going to make that decision before us so why don't we control the message and what we can say to folks is before really kind of putting the elephant in the table right square in the middle of the table it probably is inevitable because of the declining population in the state of Vermont when Stockbridge gets to I don't know, 39 in Rochester gets to 72 just a little bit I know about the ed formula, you will be down to bare bones, basic offerings and you'll be lucky if you can do that if we're going to stay in two buildings because there's so many duplicative costs this is why I don't I think the more cohesive and inclusive we are in our decision when we finally present it not decision but what we're presenting to them is not just okay there are tricks in the roof but it's like here's our two year here's three years this is what we're going to be looking at what do you want to do and if Stockbridge wants to go full choice well then that's the choice and they'll do that but I'm just saying that we're giving them we're serving them best I think by not giving them any illusions about what we're looking at I think being a realist is Japanese transparency and it's not that if Rochester moves into the high school it's not necessarily that it's inevitable what it is is that it provides space if it becomes necessary that's another way to look at it it's a choice and if you want to spend some money on one building yeah so it's like I want to get my head around this so we can write it out somehow we've just made a good policy statement and we actually put some timeline dates in it next year, two years, three years and I would love to write it down right now so we have a draft policy statement about the future of facilities in the RSU and I think if we somehow captured the discussion we've just had for the last two hours I'm just a fundamental believer that most people are reasonable and there are some of us who get very passionate when we hear something when we have to get all our passion and our thoughts out but if we presented who's that? if we presented I'm not stepping between Bruce and Mitch on that what I will say is that I think there's a very logical explanation for why you would choose the high school over the elementary school to begin investing money there's certain people that we're never going to convince that it isn't an opportunity to close the Stockbridge School we're not going to convince them of that we're simply going to say I hear what you're saying this is the reason we chose the high school over the elementary school and we can't control our thinking all we can do is control what we say and how well we communicate it and I think the vast majority of people are reasonable I agree and that's the vast majority now the vast majority of people may not always show up at the meetings but they will understand Mike Courtney is doing drag queen story hour at Randolph at the library tomorrow she's been taken I thought you said a drag cleaning story hour show up for that they're really great readers because you just sit there and watch the machine all the time they're really good so I heard two things one question so direction in terms of action item from where we've kind of overflowed to from this list is that really there's the roof repair situation at Rochester and then inspect the whale tanks is what I hear us doing right now yes well we have to test the repair of the emergency lighting right because we can't if something happened and we were told that oh they're fine they may not go full 90 minutes but they're fine and then we find out they're not tragically that would be bad and I think the best way to check those I do think it's worthwhile to run that 90 minute test and then either fix it or say cool it worked and I think the best way for you to do that is to find out which consultant made that recommendation and have them come right back and do the full testing because they already know a little bit about what's the idea and some of it my brother-in-law is in electrician and he explains to me some of this is that emergency lights have been updated so they're charging the batteries charging all the powers on like there's something about the fixture itself so it may be that too so we don't need to update the system to this fancy new to make sure our existing system works and we will look towards upgrading as we go forward and maybe it's one or two that need to be replaced first of all just kind of high school clarification so on the oil tanks we're expecting just the high school one well actually there's two in the high school we're inspecting those two or are we well also of course Stockbridge I know Stockbridge the elementary building and the high school building well I mean if we think we're we're going to put out these actually there's four tanks three schools yeah see what the so that's a cost of $80,000 $15 per tank $45,000 total of a wealth inspection actually it's 60 two tanks at Rochester have we done Stockbridge do we know what we expected I know it has not been all three should get done we're going to do one do we want to do the elementary building there's a lot of implications of this that there may have to be repairs done after the inspections are done but you don't know you can't repair you know they're I say that on camera well that makes so do we want to do that to the Rochester elementary school we're doing it to the high school they're going to be there this year we have to look at that I think that's where we hear the town at the same time that's an emergency shelter we should look to get some of the money for the oil tank we should be asking we'll put it out to get all of them inspected at once Rochester 3 and 1 should we go to the bed no actually if it's our weekend and I'll then sell it we have an emergency shelter gosh the story oil tanks once it's inspected the state might come in and pay for because we're talking about polluting the white river and the state will be interested in they actually we're going to back up an insurance policy or whatever what seven years ago or something when the tanks were supposed to be inspected so the state was going to jump in so I'm not sure what type of cost the state but they might contribute to your memory the tanks were not inspected seven years ago I do not think so because you have to dig it all up and I don't remember any digging activity that ever happened no I don't think they have to dig it up they have to open it if they're double which I doubt they are because they're so old but if they're double walled tanks they just check for either oil or water otherwise they have to dig it up and check otherwise if it's not they have to dig it up cause problems on an old tank removing the dirt that's been around they may have to remove it depending on what they find wrong we may have to do repairs that's what I'm saying there's no reason not to get inspected it's just be ready for that but once if the tanks fail then you might want to go to a different heating system what do you have to look into what all of our options are because you're a carbon footprint slippery slope and you know even if the tanks if that's something the board is interested in doing even if the tanks don't fail you may want to look into that because if the tanks fail let's say they fail three weeks before school opens up you don't have five months to look at other types of heating systems and inspect them out and all that you've got to go right back to fossil fuels you can have above ground tank temporarily right you can have above ground tanks they don't do it in ground tanks anymore well no they do but it's more expensive just put that new diesel tank at that skip mark because what they quoted him for an underground tank was just the Indian ones so the idea of putting it above ground is much cheaper can I just read this and then that was my second thing what Ethan said we should have some sort of well this is just something I just decided to write and it's just because it seemed like it was two pretty strong statements which is within the year to save money on facility repairs the school district will need to make a decision about which building needs to house the Rochester campus for the twenty twenty one school year yeah beginning with the twenty twenty one school okay beginning with okay twenty twenty one and then the second one and I'm totally within I put three years due to trends before because that's the five year turnaround of evaluation within three years due to trends of declining population both student and town the school district will need to make and this next part totally open to this to need to make a decision about which campus needs to house the combined school I don't think I should put that out there but I'm just saying I think I'd let that come up as part of the discussion Ethan I wouldn't put it out there right now I'm not saying it was put out there I just wanted to write it down because it sound like we're talking about it plus the fact that anybody watches this if anybody does watch these you know they're going to hear us talking about this well they hear us talking but to place that as a I'm just saying but talk to me I mean talk about a major action issue that we want to I think we need to know that it's out there that we need to make this decision and I think four years reappraisal time is a very valuation I think you might want to be you may want to get a little less specific about that that we'll need a discussion discussion about future I think what we really need to do as I said this is for us this is not for publication I think what we need to be to be thinking about is what we really need to do is I think get our administrations to really let's you know have a discussion of how many kids make survival school because it's going to be I think it's going to be less determinant on three years or five years or seven years or something like that it's going to be determined on when we get below 40 kids when we get below 20 kids where do you say this isn't a cohort that really should be educated by themselves because that's what it does in my mind the same thing is just doing it in a different way I think the trigger that we need to be watching for I think think about now because it's really hard to say if we said okay 35 is the number that we need to that really makes it hard we at least set that and then we're not going and saying gee we're right around 35 is that too many kids or not enough kids let's keep it going for one more year and then we go down to 30 and then I think because what I watched when I was first coming on the school board was the closing of the Grandville Hancock school where it just became there was kind of this group of parents that really just were like oh we could just be a K through two we could be really this really because they didn't have a plan full and really an analysis of where when it was educationally worse for the kids to be there versus be on a bus having some of that thought while we know it's not but we'll visit at the door so that we're making a plan that's based on science versus emotion because that would be my first inclination is just what you said they did in Hancock or Grandville well we'll just go to K2 let's just go to K2 is that really what's best for those K2 kids so we needed a discussion within our communities within the next within the what's coming we need an ongoing discussion we need an ongoing I think one of the things I tie it to just two things if I could say I'm just going to push a tiny bit to use your phrase I think the wolf may already be at the door and we're just now starting to recognize it because we do have things like special ed in the hallway which is where it should be we do have things like three grade levels in a classroom which is going to work none of us know if that's ideal we do have we don't have a full how am I going to say this we do have a full time principle to be a leadership we acknowledge that was important for raising student achievement data we have it but we have it in a sort of kind of salary in that budget so I think the wolf is somewhat at the door and I'm not saying that that's how we present this but I think the kinds of things that Ethan's typing up right now we need to preface by you're having this very rich discussion because you try to figure out how to offer educational opportunities to kids that you guys were talking second language when I came two years ago we still haven't been able to get it in the budget about an elementary math lab ever since I've come along we don't have that in the budget so I think we're talking about some of these changes investing in the high school versus the elementary school because it's we'll have a better facility when we're done and maybe we'll invest a little bit less money because we want to do things for kids it's not just that we have a vested interest to go in here they are in the other place we're trying to figure out how to offer to our kids everything we know they should be offered and that you turned me around with that because my real thing is having seen towns destroyed I didn't want to close the school I still don't want to close the school however when you think of it from the kid point of view three kids in third grade not so cool not so good not a good thing to have I think the way Carl phrased it is absolutely right I think our tax payers are going to tell us it's a viable school they can afford it and we need to have a plan ready when they start voting down budgets because they're too far what I guess what I'm trying to say isn't it I guess I'm not being very articulate about it I can take you to some schools right now we could drive in a car and I could take you to some schools right now or staying open but in my opinion hands down they have no business staying open because kids are not getting what they need but the driving question isn't what opportunities do we have to offer our youngsters the driving question is how do we keep our school open and I too don't want to close the school but my number one focus is on those kids that win and I agree every day and to be frank I don't care what school we do it in or if we do it in 10 yeah I concur as long as they get a solid education there are so many that happens where you have less kids means less programs less programs meet more kids leaving which causes you to have well the problem it's a spiral the problem becomes is that it's often the families the families that recognize or value education and have the ability or the means to relocate because they go out and then you're often left with the families that don't have the means to share an academy this is what's just happened at Newton half fluid families who sought to have their kids in middle school somewhere else have chosen to do that the ones that or that Ferd or other places are paying because they can pay and also there was some scholarship money that was out there because the communities these schools feel like if they can get them early they'll stay and that just allows them to have more viability so it's that plus it's the kids that are carpeted is now the kids that are behind who can afford to go are now saying I've lost my whole social group that I've been with and why can't I live well we don't have the money to send you to a class of higher or lower performing kids right brings can bring but then it's not an equal access to I mean it's access but it's not equal opportunity it is not equal opportunity if you can have absolutely we don't want this discussion to be about buildings we want it to be about kids the reason we're focusing on the buildings is so we can create more funds to provide opportunities for kids I think it's also important to say we started initially kind of talking about about marketing and vision and again let's keep in mind that your second scenario or your first scenario actually because your second one was the things are going to decline and we might have to combine into one building your first scenario was we create something that's sustainable and that attracts families I mean if we have if we have a quality program what is not going to make a family in Grandville say okay do I want to let my kid up over 125 to the Middlebury or do I want to just come down scoop down 100 to Rochester and then my kid can go wherever they want to go for high school I've seen total black schools 100% African American those kids succeeded beyond the white parochial school we got the whole school integrated all they wanted was to see those test scores these kids are doing this I want my kids to go in that program okay great basically yeah in reference to possibly the high school being converted and all this and promoting and all this I want to emphasize the environmental aspect of it the carbon footprint and how important that is if I was a young parent right now or even thinking about having a child I'd love to see a school system that was facing reality and participating before I decide to even have a child alright look at Sol around that's a good story well I'm a little guilty I'm like two kids right now you know I have to apologize constantly it has it has been brought up many times oh well has anybody looked at putting Sol on the roof of the high school perfect Sol yeah that's the right orientation right you know that we could start looking in that direction well that's it there's a decision being made that is the building we're going to put on the back exactly it's brought to managing our money to the educational situation so if you take those three bubbles yours I think can someone else's amasons and put them together Wendy and I have to get those tanks inspected my guess is at least one of them is going to fail because they're all ancient if the board we're sitting here saying okay we're going to do and let's say one fails we're going to do an above ground fuel tank whatever that takes because we have to keep the buildings open while we plan for what type of fuel of permanent heating system are we going to put in this building that's sort of seizing the moment we're looking forward and saying that's worth this that's why we're spending $15,000 it starts to make this so much my brain just clicks over this whole idea of focusing on one place what could happen in this one place and if we think about for the kids what opportunities do we want to offer to those kids and it's a great physical space to show these things a couple of things a couple of things that this is for a couple of other reasons and I understand it's the board's decision but I would advocate strongly for us not losing complete control over the high school building is that you can't find an elementary school in state of Vermont that has any better music room or drama facility in terms of that like a gem sitting in the middle of that high school certainly I guarantee you're not outside of Chittenden County definitely the auditorium it's wonderful the shop the shop is great we had a great elementary school shop program when I went to school excellent that's why I learned to be a building really those kind of things we didn't put it on our list but it's such a basic thing all makers face they did this part of one planet all of that I was sitting there they were making jokes the morning is very quiet because the rest were lessons it's woodworking I feel that we have to educate our kids more wholly now than ever before meaning take over a lot of what we maybe learned from our parents that the school really needs to be teaching it now so it does that space does offer some more opportunities with the FCS room that has small kitchen area canning we could do a lot with parents certainly kids succeed without parent help but the data is clear that they do better with parent help think if we had parent classes how to read to your kids how to reinforce this what toys how do you speak to kids what language do you use if we could offer those total community kinds of programs the pre-k, parent programs all of that after school care they'll come they will come and that will fill up the space I have a I like all these ideas what is your superintendent what do you guys feel the state because I feel like the state is making the AOE has this constant kind of changing of rules making new requirements that make it harder for small schools to exist in rural areas where is the state going to stop and saying are we going to close I just I feel like they're closing everything in rural areas and I think it's really disappointing I get concerned about us being so enthusiastic but we've got the best intentions but in the overall sense from the state are they going to allow our communities to even have elementary schools in like 10 years because I don't feel like we're being supported in rural areas at all by our state I think if you look back at where they've been going the conditions changed and legislature changes and they have different priorities and things like that but pretty much what's going on is this we were not going to be sustainable with so many schools and they just needed to consolidate in order to be able to stay viable because these places were just not not viable anymore the other thing is they seem to I and I'm not advocating for this but they just seem to lay in more on SU's than they ever did before and it's really difficult from audits to busing to special ed to all the different accountability all kinds of different accountability to data we just we're being asked to do an awful lot more and I'm not whining it's just the reality of every day they don't not want these things coming out of individual little school districts and I know that every time we get to town meeting time or before when SU budgets are about to be passed nobody wants to add to the SU budget that's like taboo and I don't want to take things out of your own budget to put into the SU I mean we've had this big debate about technology services and how much we want to take away from where is the budget for tech people we've left it in your budgets for your schools and their discussion was should we take that on as the SU no because I don't want to make the SU budget go crazy because it won't pass no no no you'll have it out of your budget it will cost you less but it's going to cost something and we're going to have it in there so I don't see it I mean that's what the trend is I think they feel like they can control or dictate the SUs maybe more than they can to local school board do you think it's can I also follow up with Megan do you think it's do you think there's another act 46 is out there that's going to reduce well there's going to have to be some time go by first but I don't think it's going to be it's going to happen naturally if you look at the projections that I gave you you know by it's supposed to go down another 8 to 10 12 percent the next couple years I mean and this is this projection goes all the way out to 2026 this light line is the future this is currently you can see we hit our pinnacle in 1990 and it's been blipping a couple of times but mostly it's just down hill people just aren't moving here people don't have anything there's not a lot of families around here that's right there was a big bump the last big bump I remember Vermont was after 9-11 but a lot of people left the city not that I would ever wish anything like that but with some of the environmental costs and things like that I think some people are thinking about rural environments and we could be that we could be that place when we moved up I moved up to 1969 in the first time we almost doubled Gaysville population there were 24 of us who moved up within this area and our kids went to school and we were on the select board in Rochester in Gaysville we got a big family what they're saying is I agree with a lot of the environmental changes people are trying to get away from the seaboard as well there's a lot of populations in the cities and again back to us having a really great school that has great scores that's part of the advancing community the other thing is too this is a big retirement state guys when I told my eye doctor he said you're like the fourth person who's retired from Vermont and these grandparents are bringing kids with them there was an article called the Gray State and just talked about the numbers of people that were retiring here my whole mountain it's all interconnected there's not affordable housing there's not the job opportunity in these amazing valleys that we live in but Bonnie and I just had this conversation the other day at 22 when I graduated college I could not afford to come back to my home state and work I would have to move back and work back there which was like... that's what they were saying that's what they were saying you wouldn't have that conversation about you being the black student they were saying no but it's one of those things or I could live somewhere where I could afford to live on my own as a young teacher at the beginning it's all intertwined it's that chamber of commerce peacekeepers was talking about it really surprises me that I would actually step up and defend the state of Vermont at this point but I don't think what I learned going through Act 46 is that they weren't being sinister Vermont basically Vermont's finances are doing this they are shrinking our bond rating bumps against being dropped every few months it's not like they're holding all this money up there they don't want to give to schools they simply can't sustain the number of schools we had some schools in Vermont when Act 46 kicked in they had fewer than 30 students in them it's just not sustainable on one side it's not sustainable on the other side it's probably not necessarily great it's part of all the regulations that you have it's not a one of schools it's gotta stand up for a while continue with the population aspect I think it's really important to start getting away from the stealth denial the fact is with the temperature rising in many parts of the country Vermont is one of the sweeter spots and I think it's time to start recognizing that it's not going to be about the economy why people are moving here the economy will be recreated when they get here so in your projections of five years they're already talking just this summer new records in Greenland temperature heat bubbles I don't know for sure but for my lifetime I'm looking at the science and I'm not seeing this connected it's referred to as stealth denial because we're all don't want to believe it but how do we deal with the influx of population that may be banging at our door shortly within five years by having that infrastructure and this is more on a town base to have the internet to have the broadband because a lot of people can come up and they don't need a company up here they can do a lot of remote work there's a lot more remote nowadays so again, let's just back to we need to draw them to our really exciting, highly performing school just I just want to say that we're global warming is going to save our school it used to be said it's horrible I think they might have heard me say another 9-11 we are at 12-15 we are at 12-50 right now which is what we started about an hour behind is there any more action items that we need to finalize before we need to take another little bit or is it time for lunch I think it's time to get up let's move around and have some food I think let's do it but can we keep lunch to as fast as you can make those burgers I'll try all the quail no, no, no, go so let's check it out I mean, the herpen it does feel like there's been a massive progression to this yeah, okay it's here well, they flowed into each other instead of melding it Carl, it's a masterful thank you next steps we need to do this could we do annual meeting and report review could that be a subcommittee that some people could go off and take the input we could spend 15 minutes saying all the things because I wouldn't mind being on that committee if someone else, two other people could come with me I mean, we haven't done that much and I think there was some good points brought up yeah, yeah, yeah there was some things I think, yes, you should think about doing something that Rob Gardner said as well with the budget, just say the description but little notes for every change of number for every different section there's a little sentence that just says what this is recommendation for number 7 just to actually create a committee that just takes it over well, but I think we get 10-15 minutes of everybody throwing out our stuff we take some notes and then we go off and we do it and we meet back with you and you know, lost over or something and so can there be three people on the committee without it being a quorum what's everyone else doing well, I what's everyone else doing I wanted a committee so I can honestly step down for any committee what's your list committee? this is a lot easier to meet because it's three we can meet if we get a couple from other districts you can just use them as models well, I have my vision, my head is like no other annual report I've ever seen I mean, I'm talking like really animated explained journey we'll draw people into the reports we'll actually look at stuff in the water meeting when I heard broken up into sections general elementary with this total and then it was we'll be missing okay so I'm going to be setting the timer for 10 minutes so that we only and I'll keep a running list up here and given that we have 10 minutes whether to surface the topics and not get bogged down discussing so one of the questions I had though is our postal permit for bulk mailing is it true that that is the only bulk mailing that our school sends out that requires that postal permit if so, yep, go ahead we don't send out any others can we use the SU postal permit both postal permit we pay for our own postage but we don't have to buy our own permit you were going to be I don't know that we have an SU proof okay, so I guess that would be a question I don't even think we have one, at least if we do I don't know I'll ask Kristie if we have anything to the entire yeah, we we'll send that to the school board that might help with your transparency who sends out the we don't get mail from the SU the SU annual report that's included in our wouldn't be yep, this is the kind of thing it's like just we're going to look at all the reports and we're just going to break it down but so anyway, things that we should let's start with this, things we should improve for the annual report number one, what the entire budget the entire budget but that's vague, what do you mean explaining explaining the budget more proof reading more proof reading, okay good yeah, yeah, yeah and have it out earlier so we can have a meeting before the vote we also talked about information that we can have earlier so that we're not putting everything together for the last minute, like there's certain budgets and certain things that we can have months in advance if you have a picture of a kid from one activity or a class you've proved it that it's okay that everybody be in it pictures throughout the report but get people to look at the report we'll have to discuss about spend on that but even if it's black and white black and white doesn't cost that much throughout the years things come along it would be good to have one point person that it all gets to I'm going to suggest that we ask Tara to help us put together a working calendar because that makes all of this happen in the right time we've got a number eight as calendar, if I'm at a working calendar to develop the annual report who does what by when calendar well, yeah, we need intermediate action points so we can make sure that we're hitting whoa, we're hitting our never heard that before student count by town and by grade level I heard the committee's ask for student count by including the study right because we have to break it out and what by student count town and grade level thank you we're going to see where our kids are going the tuition and I'm going to have explanatory explanatory notes throughout that's true, I think we're also the physical count in the building well, the tuition was in that but they wanted the physical count somebody asked for that this is four kids going to Woodstock eleven kids the seventh graders are all in these schools so we have a grid, here's all the receiving schools here's all the grades at the bottom of the tuition count they wanted how many, because we put them all together they just wanted to know how many of that total were Rochester students and how many of that total were Stockbridge residents so they were charting out like a lot more specifically a lot more data we need to tell more data, many of your tuition students from Pittsfield they wanted that in the building, but for the tuition yeah, they needed to know that X number were Stockbridge residents total, they didn't and X number were Rochester although we should think about it if we wanted to we just have that I mean it's how much do we want right, how much do we want to differentiate the kids by Stockbridge versus Rochester because I don't want to start having a conversation about well all those Rochester kids are going to that fancy Woodstock, or going to Middlebury and Stockbridge kids are going to Sharon Cattaway's chief but I think we could just say 50 of these 100 kids are Rochester and 50 of them are Stockbridge yeah, I think that would be fine Carl, that reminds me too, because sometimes the data is inaccurate around tuition, so we should probably list all the schools that our youngsters go to and want the actual tuition to have in those schools I agree with that. I think we also would be nice if we had a formal we often talk about it in the principal's note but it would be nice if we had something formal about kids performance and student outcomes so that we're saying in here here's the grading or here's the testing scores or here's just the general how the kids are performing student achievement beyond like I said, beyond anecdotally and the superintendent of principal reports now when Ralph Garger was speaking was he speaking of what in details of like, okay so the PE budget does he just want a description of like this pay is for two days it was like a quick list of data well I don't know if that was what he was asking other community members were I do, so I can understand what that dollar amount pays for that's what I'm talking about but this is where I think as each number changes in the thing, we put two lines there that say the following numbers all of that reflects this for this particular position this person teaches this number of days at this school and I think let's err on the side of too much information this year you know, I don't think there's anything that's you know, confidential but he also Rob Gardner also wanted that for the SQ yeah well I think that's what we're telling you I don't know if that actually happened on the SQ level no well we could do it we can take that data and we can break it out and give it our explanation and make it our job I think Tara being in from the beginning well we're not going to have the same business manager in 2020 that we have now give her a bonus the toast toast to Tara if she sticks with us after these last two weeks she'll stick with us she's doing for her evaluation this month and I'm very happy with what she's doing it hasn't been perfect but she's had a lot of stumbles but not because of her in fall but because of what she's been presented with to get over and those stumbles improve her performance because she learns from them and I'm very she's tough she's really tough she's done very well I think the other thing that would help us flush this out is at a meeting like even at our meeting down at the that's coming up would be to just put a general community members if there's anything specific do you think we should include the annual report please drop an email to the board chair Carl I think a little blur than Harold too was in her I mean you may get no response but at least you've reached out and said I think student not just performance data but just what we're doing with our kids in general we want to know their way of being a part if it's a book of numbers very few except for the wonderful loving geeks of us are actually going to look through the whole thing you know they want to know what loving you know it's a wonderful loving before right all the time so I'm ok with it Geek is a company I saw my teacher pass it out and Carl was the first people on our board and maybe this means you know what the students are doing you know we talk about what we want from our principles report what kind of things you know is it illustrated do we have students write for do some writing in there the thing is if you put some creative stuff through the thing people are more likely to look at the thing I think we should have student art work yeah student art work I'd like to see there's a hand up about your homestead tax and how the tax rate that we're voting on the gentleman I guess passes it out every year I think it would be something like the implications of these tax rates keeping in mind your homestead tax and yeah it's a chart that's going to go beyond a lot of people but there's some people I think it'll be good information for you that is a very complicated page we've gone over it several times some of that one page and this is a holy smoke I'm not even talking about that this is a statewide thing this is your property this is how much your taxes are that is 10 minutes I think we've got enough to start moderator we've got to talk about moderators because I was killing me and do that I'm going to tell them what are you doing do you type this out or what because I thought it was a problem for me well the guy who did it the previous year at Rochester he was good yeah that's what I'm saying this guy did not control the meeting and it's totally the joint moderator's job to control the meeting and I had a real problem I thought we have to be careful moderator you might be a moderator yeah well I can't do it I mean he'll be in Rochester this year yeah I think it should be on the list of something that we're not setting up prior to but he's been elected as the moderator he was elected as the moderator so unless we unelect him he's here to be here he is our moderator for the year but when so we won't be offending him if we elect Dan McKinley I don't think he wanted to do it anyway no he did not okay good also as she brought a list double check we're supposed to have a residency just make sure we're double checking so technically the town clerk should sit at the door and check people before they come into the gym so this is all communication we just need to make sure we have set up prior to in the first motion should be to let people like Lindy and I and Bruce join the assembly because we shouldn't even be sitting with you guys until you guys approve us to do that because we're not town residents we gotta we gotta follow it by the book and I just added this one I don't want people to think I snuck anything on here our business manager every year for the last like seven or eight years has get up and in three minutes explained explained it explained the big pieces of the funding and we're hearing back from people they're finally starting to understand it because it's really not all that complicated once you get to the bottom of what we need to raise and then it's pretty straightforward where our income comes from exactly in the common level appraisal and she takes about three minutes and she's done it for five or six years and people are actually starting now to feel like they understand some of it well that's because you've had a business manager the same business manager well we're gonna have the same one too okay is that all for this page? is that it? I think that's good I think the committee has read and Megan and Bonnie and we will really just kind of keep going forward with this and get back to everybody and make sure okay good so let's just be clear let's set a date by the October meeting we'll have something we'll have a basic outline and maybe some examples okay be excellent October whatever that is first Tuesday in October is first October 1st it's October 5th it's going very quickly what's that? it's my 75th birthday happy birthday now we'll get out of the way now what do you think? oh let me have a rehearsal well anyway got to have you good next okay so so efficient we had started talking about creating now we're only 15 minutes behind today yeah look at that we caught up about a calendar yeah I think we talked about I think you would have talked about it too Google Doc that we said other people could put in just kind of stuff to remember throughout the year like contacting the Board of Trustees I don't remember what else we talked about I don't know if we want to well again everything to do with meeting prep for the annual meeting we even missed teacher appreciation meetings that's definitely now who's going to manage this calendar I can start it I don't know if it's something that since it's Google Doc anybody could go in and work on it since it's Google Doc it's linked to all of our SU emails as a new board member comes along they would as well immediately have access to it and then once it gets set it's just we follow it and tarot should weigh in on it because there's certain times we have to set tuition rate we have to actually announce by what else do we want to set well should we put on this I mean I think this has been really a helpful meeting I think it's been effective and I think we move forward should we have it more than once a year should we have it as well when school is actually in session yeah well we're actually we can party at the day but your private attention is shortened so we have to read it four hours and that's the thing we do we either need more meetings more often so we're not long or maybe a retreat that we think how about we combine the retreat with sort of the early budget work of January or February so the part of the retreat the six hours or whatever we do a retreat is just focused on the budget and then do you think we would be I mean I don't know what would that be January or February is that too late or is that we're voting May we want to make sure we can identify all the numbers but we can even put together I would say February would be probably a good time we're starting to have an idea of where families are going to be going well our annual meeting has to be warned by the beginning of April so we should be on at least revision one or two of a budget by February though shouldn't we we may still be waiting for something in February let's think about doing a retreat and then if course laws are doing budget work at the same time great if not then we're just going to we also have to keep in mind that beyond just the regular business of this next board here we're also dealing with our building and our building's ongoing figuring out who the how we're reaching out to the community so we can't wait until we need to enter we do and not try to ducktail it with any budget but let's just look at a February retreat I think it'll just help us make sure the things we're talking about right now will be moved in that direction further so the next quarter we're not scrambling we're moving with intention can I just put an action item out there cause we mentioned a while ago and I don't want to let it Doug was talking with a tech guy about our webpage that we should put somebody on them before we leave today but on our website we need to have our board emails so if we could have maybe one board member be the task master with Bruce over here to make the connections with the technology guy I know right so you would and then you get up to us okay we need pictures okay we need stuff like that we can manage that stuff I'd also like to suggest besides the website is that the schools have been putting out newsletters and I know the school I know Lisa has put it upon herself and Bonnie and Lindy to update the school board portion of it but maybe the school board should be putting out if there's a monthly newsletter that we should be giving a monthly statement yeah I've been here Jenny used to give a statement I thought you did Jenny and she said to us okay thank you the lines of this new web the updated web pages that we will as things happen be able to make a decision on something or as something happens we'll update that page immediately we just need to get the word out that please go to check this page we're that's where we find the latest and greatest information one of the first things is also though about the web page is to get an active school board page that we can all have access to very know so that we can I think the other thing that will make the budget easier this year now that as Lindy said we've played a year of whack-a-mole here we're sort of starting in different places it would be our intent to get pieces of the budget out to you the budget information the annual report information to you throughout the year there's no reason in October we can't tell you how many kids are at Sharon so you already have this this is what I'm talking about we should have a template for the report a template for the report but then we're eventually just saying right picture here or maybe the designs are a little different look at the information together there should be a more smooth flow of information happen just coming to you all at once and I think we it goes back to the report we discussed it being in a word format rather than a PDF format so then we can adjust headings hand change as I say I work with this very nice design program that I use for all my posters and all my publicity for the theater man you start getting used to it and it's just you really can design stuff and it's just a word that you you can insert anything like that into that but anyway I think just working with word word these days too has got a lot more design elements than it used to it's just funny because a couple versions of the Stockbridge book ago there was the decision was made to move away from word to PDFs after they there were some cut and pasting issues that happened and stuff got dropped because the documents were heading to Berlin but again I think regardless what it comes down to is having more time for proofreading and more time for for approval process and not a okay we gotta get we need to be in the mail on Friday so we gotta get a print on Tuesday and just stand you know stamp all night stamping it yeah exactly you get one of those postal meters it makes it a lot easier to fridging, vidding, vidding, vidding and if we use it once a year good but we still we're actually past that we're on calendar so I think that would make sense for Jenny to start Jenny can you help or do you want to do that well I think I passed around and everyone else couldn't I don't think we should eat separately for it yeah definitely I think it was November it's when you have to meet December yeah I thought it was November but I don't I think it's December I'm like no we're doing November it's gonna be a month on time do we have to do that the calendar for the end where we do it oh yeah I think maybe that's by April by their April meeting Stockbridge Trustees we did still that whole year we did can you I think we actually have to go to the meeting oh no absolutely on to a work page I'll talk about export it to the excel on tour you can come to control the public well that's what I wanted to see you have to make sure that it's finished then every time you get changed you have to go back in the school money if you can't just thinking about if we want to do this we've got our own time can you go to the tables for the text I'd like to see how that prints out because I just feel like it's boxier there's more space whereas excel you can adjust everything so they're all equal well in an excel sheet though you can also unhighlight the columns and rows so they don't print so you can just write within the excel I guess that's something I mean hopefully you know because that's just something I think if you do the report in word it will look fine just copy and paste it we just have to know and know which one has to be replaced when they're updated good calendar so should you want a list of all the things that should be on there we want to I will wouldn't that be helpful November meet with the board of trustees in terms of time Jenny could just put the calendar up so that we could all list our things instead of taking time now to identify oh no I gotta take time now our flexible the thing you should have put on is our annual meeting well you want to know when report cards come out I mean do you want that kind of stuff I think it helps us know do our job to know to know all the stuff that the administrators know of dates not a chance I know way more than parents no I just meant I wasn't telling you everything I know there's no school calendar that has all this information on it already that's actually our plan to get out a calendar that has the concert dates the comps if we had access to that we wouldn't have to put it on our own board calendar it should be more of our action items I can count our working calendar it's not that you have to do something yeah that would be a school calendar and then the school board calendar it was an SU calendar because you work in calendar you need to take actions your SU calendar show up concert you're just mom that's the thing one of the goals I thought part of the calendar was to say these meetings are the meetings about the budget so they're going to be sucked up by that so where can we fit in when do we have that lull so we can address talking about building our second language program or talking about our whatever when can do we have more opportunities for Jane to teach us about literacy I would love that stand up Janey we want to see your shirt stand up we want to see your shirt so here's the deal if we don't learn it means Jenny has a topic about what not yet do I have anything to say I'm stopping you're anger on you're looking at everything she has all what can I say we can't so are we happy with the calendar then enough discussion Jenny's going to create one and it will be our working calendar and we'll start to Janey I'd like to and maybe I think our first action should be the timeline it will go into this calendar what we think a timeline is for the annual report working back from the meeting working back from actually the mailing day and then working back that way then we know when then we start to figure out okay we can find out from you when most likely DOE or whatever it's called is going to have us AOE it's going to have budget budget numbers and stuff like that that's what we'll do in our committee and then we'll plot it out Tara on the list so she can add some important things too are there grants that we should be putting on the calendar or are there school board should be aware of the make sure that they're getting attended in case we switch that's it you guys are here forever that we know that's a principle you wouldn't put grand deadlines on your working calendar your working calendar is really stuff that the board has to take out Cynthia Powers tells us that's us knowing the grand deadlines right? no no you had that part of school that one and it's that on anybody's radar is that on the people who would tell you that there's grants coming up is that a grant that's on that radar I guess the question I would ask our principles is do you feel like you're getting enough sometimes the grand coordinators seem to focus more on like the titles and the bigger grants you know and are we getting do we need to be are we getting enough support we're getting the farm to table grant opportunities we're getting the tobacco and some of the wellness grants and the various matching grants for kitchen equipment and things like that or is that something we should be doing I think they're pretty regular now if it's like something that's local fun not driven by like a large brand start you're egging people on again where's my money from the burn foundation without me farm to table like what Megan's talking about might be something that's more localized so those would be good to know about but I'm not sure if it's to go on working when I was getting it was more when she was mentioning grants not so much about the calendar but are we getting the support we think we need to get all the grants that we feel we should be getting granted for whether it's funding we usually just go to a Cynthia and say we're looking for money to do this $78,000 cut in our grant funding this year title fund it we seem to get a robust amount of whatever grants grant funds are available I never feel like oh geez Rochester Stockbridge got short change now farm right I don't feel short change farm to table is probably something that's I knew like it was not new it sounds like maybe it's a different source so we should pursue it because we did because of poverty numbers went down and just like you I think that we they changed the way they collected that information from a almost a hand count to an electronic count I believe that's been accurate I think we've been short changed because of that and you know you were I mean we think there's 14 kids at stake here they're all varying degrees of work in other words the preschool first the high school kids first of the poverty kids but you know and only because we spent the last two years federal assessment the collection numbers the free reduced lunch is certainly something we have to work on we have to make sure we get those forms to apply those families to apply somehow we're going to do that okay so okay so I was talking to to somebody about this because and I understand it totally parents don't want to reply okay they don't want to so what the school did was they sent out at the beginning of the month whatever it was a statement parents paid through the mail who gave it directly to whoever and then everyone just got lunch so no one knew it was free and reduced no one knew who was paying no one just got the lunch the only people that and maybe high school I know high school is a little bit different but at the elementary level the only people who know are the parents that qualify they just go through the line and they just go through the line and just checks off who got lunch and then it gets to entry well some school districts some schools when the parents come in for the first you know like if you have like an opening picnic or something like that they try to get the paperwork filled out there or send it home there you know and try to get it back the thing is we want people to fill it out because then we can do the rest once they do that because we need to know who's eligible and who isn't can we reframe it? can they send it directly to the SU if they're worried that people might it's not so much that they think somebody's gonna see it there's just I'm not surprised it's a statement more than I'm gonna repackage it somehow I don't know but we've got to get a better way I've called a couple tough families at Rochester who historically have never applied had great conversations with the mom in both cases but she just said we simply don't accept journey she sees it as journey and she was very polite, very respectful but that isn't what we do I can't argue with that I don't know that you can repackage that there's other kids that we just simply have to get on top of I think it happens in Stockbridge as much as Rochester we had some pretty significant balances and we're just gonna have to be a little more aggressive in trying to collect them um not like the national most right? these are all the paperwork you need to provide for your child to come to school what if anyone fills one out? they don't get sent home they don't get sent home what if everyone gets the same form to fill out and we just know that it's not a mandated form they're all still have to present some sensitive information on how much they make all the parents get it, that it goes home with them it's just that they don't fill it was it always this laborious form? always well I think we need to get the word out that it comes how can it help we can't we can't have sides it doesn't work is this a question I'm sorry I know we're right in the middle of it but I'm trying to keep us it's 235 so is this I love all our conversations we can talk about this in our media is it part of the retreat the retreat is closing remarks it's an open discussion not that open and I just I had 5 seconds left it's about to go off I think for the closing remarks we should kind of make sure we all understand what the next steps are I think it's always a good thing to go back and what's stuck with people from today what sort of the thing you're walking out with you asked me to collect this information I haven't had a chance to go anywhere you haven't I mean I've been we should have done it at the beginning I'm sorry about this extra pages in a couple of hours do you want to go in those groups one statistic yeah I basically used there was in my agonies actually information from the permanent and free press article that just came out about 2 months ago about this for some of these the others are pretty much to us and the state so if you go to the first one I think we pretty much explain the numbers and where they're projected to go if you could see the light line this is Vermont public school enrollment historical data and projections the darker line is the history the darker line is where they project that it's going to go over the next 10 years or so the following the next one is some of the towns around Vermont that are up in population and others are down I dispute Roylton I'm not sure it's as rosy and Roylton as they look on here let's say it's a Vermont law school they've had some hard times we haven't gotten some of the families that we had but Bennington destroyed that much that's what it said Bennington College is closed we'll figure it out if not Bennington College they might say Southern Vermont this is under 18 so it shouldn't be the one with the job so the next one is the towns with the biggest gains in our childhood population 13 to 17 like I say again Roylton won I'm surprised at I'm not sure it's right but where does this come from the BSPA this came from a Burlington pre-press article that came out and some of it was census stuff some of it was BSPA some of it was the agency for education then they have the ones that lost the greatest numbers which are Bennington, Burlington City Wilhelm, it's here Randolph and Lyndon on the next next place we do have Lindy and Bonnie did the work on our own schools to see where that is there's another one here it gets a little more current data instead of the big picture one that was in the beginning these are the FTC full-time equivalents FTEs from 1996 to 16 and how that went you can see it's just hovering above 80,000 kids in the state now and here we we got some of the information from the AOE the base education rate and what that is is the average of the schools in the state what it is this is in high schools these are all schools in average doubt that the base education rate is $10,130 the contract renewal date growth limit is I would say if we had a multi-year contract with a bus company and we wanted to decide whether or not we would work with them to continue that contract if it was over 2.7% we could we had to revid you have to stay under that 2.7 if you want to continue a contract with somebody does that the same with the teachers no it's not but this is more or less stuff and we support employees no, no, no this is stuff we buy and so that 2.7 is the number that if we go beyond that and this year the bus company's rate of increase was almost 10% and they didn't want us to they didn't want to talk about continuing because it would have to be that or under for them to do that look we're bringing in new buses we're improving things and we can't stay through that number I don't want to make the bus company the escape code here but that's one of the things that comes to mind is when this is do we is there such a number like this for teachers contracts and support contracts well we have certainly where it's been running how much the increase per the last couple contracts for us have been around the 2.9% range I think it might be per year is that in the whole contract I think it's in there a little farther along so just to finish up this statewide thing the pre-k tuition is $2,356 that's what the state will kick in for the preschool students and this is current data as of today yes it is and then of course you know about the excess branding threshold but that's more but that's more because it's new year this is all current stuff then we he wanted to know a little bit about the price index and I tried to get an idea about what that is it's over 30 years percentage change always and this is 16 through 19 and how it's changed the dotted line is if you take food and energy out of that you can see the difference of that so if you ask for the CPI mm-hmm so moving right along we wanted to one of the one of the index is that the state uses the New England economic partnership government goods and services index and so this gives you I think how many years are this 10, 12 an idea of how that this is not people these are things, government things goods and services that and what it's been in the average we put at the bottom so you can see what all those things total up to so I also have well yeah mm-hmm you wanted a little bit of information on heating oil and that kind of thing and where that's been so I did include that in the back but you can see how that's been through 2014 2014 to January 2019 October through March that's heating oil and propane and let's see yeah cost of living increases um each one of the state employees are in a different group I know that Section D is Section D is judges under state employees Section C is emergency personnel, state police I think teachers are be or they may be just state workers there I had to look some of this up because I wasn't really familiar but teachers have three different groups the ones under group A are probably the ones that date back to entering the system back in the 80s and they have their own group for the time that they were employed and then more recently B and C have been involved so and then municipal employees have their own group status and a lot of it has to do when they were employed that's how that works our support staff our school municipal employees they're in with the teachers they're not in the same category as the teachers but they're in the they have their own category if you should have added thank you for all of us this is great information the thing I was getting at was if we added all these percentages together and I wouldn't know exactly how to do that but the idea that then we can look at our budget and sort of go boom, boom, boom projecting out four or five years what are the fixed costs or at least the ballpark fixed costs that we have no control over and that's sort of the next step with this is that I would love to just see what the totals of each do you hear what I'm saying just that way because it sounds like it's so much a part of what we're talking about understanding what the future and if we know some of it, let's know it now let's know it now I'm looking for health insurance I thought I had a page on here I didn't see that well, I looked it up I think I rolled a group of teachers because we don't have like three parents between the two schools so the other groups there are no way near enough to fuel costs fuel costs going up supplies going up, food costs going up all those things are fixed busing going up these are all the things that are very much fixed that we can project out teacher contract is renegotiated every three years so we're up this year we will be negotiating when school begins kind of forces it wasn't in my world is it every two years just then for the teachers there was a two year agreement that sunset I mean they got one they're going to be on that agreement this current year but we're negotiating this current year for beyond that and the big thing is are we going to have health insurance included they asked everybody to slow down until the state health care thing got going that's why I brought this what's the normal period between negotiations whenever we go up to one year two years but we were told that we really couldn't go beyond this year because they're trying to do this which is the state health insurance discussion yeah this is the NEA position you can have this I made copies for you all that's my part well they're doing their dance you know so it's the school districts I don't know whether we're ever it's really important that we know because going forward we're not going to you know it might be difficult if we don't know and this is this is the this is the states side this is their position that's the NEA position and this is the state side oh so they have two different positions yeah they're trying to work they're negotiating it I just saw a question everybody's evaluated absolutely they everybody's evaluated that's what I told you earlier this is the first year I didn't know if everybody else wanted to anybody else wanted to yes please okay well to look at his talking about his projections I and I would take away kind of what we talked about this meeting I'd again go back to our youngest population this preschool population I don't know what happened in Starstridge the kids that were born in 2016 are going to be our three year old so there's 11 of them that were born in Rochester in 2016 now of course some people move some people come in but just looking at what I know then the year after that there's nine of them that were born so that would be the next ones coming in and then the year after that there was seven so it still is for quite a population of children and if our space is only for 15 but we already know of 11 births that happened three years ago it doesn't leave a lot of space for anybody else to move in or anything and the worst thing we could be doing is turning away pre-K from Granville Hancock anyone wanted to put their kids in for us like I said earlier just to summarize that the number of kids with three year olds we have coming in this year is great it's 13 at this point unless somebody's changed in the last couple weeks no it's 14 I'm sorry which means we will have room for one three year old or we can't all stand as close to the same so we're going to have to find the same space so that's going to be the stuff where are we in Stockwood um low I would say there's five four year olds and three three year olds and that's not to say Steph Colton pointed this out to me the other day that last year like the second week of August we had seven kids register in Stockwood right first school we're not thinking about three and four year olds on the same calendar they think about kids who go K6 right yeah so so your point being well that wasn't what you asked for my takeaway was that we don't have space for these guys right now and we need to make space for that expanding pre-K but for this year of our conversation if we do have that one for August that we could say that there is a Stockbridge campus that has a rigorous programming and it's part of our school district we try to keep them in our two schools some of these kids are from families that don't have transportation or the ability to go down to Stockbridge so they will just not go that's a little bit of a wonder we do have us going every day from our party lot our process of school going to South Royal to see if kids of the year are supposed to have someone that rise and then they have to come back to the day sure all right so that's going far that's going far okay have one takeaway additional room for pre-K my takeaway is just this decision that we've got a year to make decision about Rochester school space we have six months well that's what we were talking about before that we have but I think you're right we need to make that decision right in six months so that the school can plan for the move right so we have six months plan for community meetings so that they don't feel like we're just telling them what we're doing that seems to me I like it because it's awesome to take away because we're really good we're moving on that community meetings we don't we didn't schedule today a meeting for the engineering to be presented I thought that already happened not for the general public sorry they just drove in but what else it did happen in June that one because I know I wasn't there they presented the whole thing that executive summary it would have been June they presented something they presented twice I'm not sure if we were expecting more of a presentation though no they told us they would be willing to come to a community meeting and they'd be part of that if we wanted them to you know but I think we do need to my takeaway is that we do need to move with a quickness on this whole process because it would be very easy for us to get through a bunch of it and then realize we don't have time to make the decisions that we need to make in a timely fashion I think we need to commit to making that Rochester building decision so that it happens in the next year and we have to it may mean like I said I think it's important that we commit to making that decision and then if we can't but rather than saying well we'll make the decision and we'll get all the information sometimes perfect is the enemy of good exactly and I think it's important that we there's some real reason to not be moving to making this decision we need to make the decision to come out of high water even if we don't maybe have all our teas dotted or our eyes crossed so do we need to as a group do we need to go to a select board meeting in the town of Rochester to talk to the select board do we need to invite them to a special meeting that we have where is that communication where should we go what we said last time because we were talking about that meeting somebody said you make your decision leave all your options open right now we own both buildings before anybody gets attached to one of the other buildings so you're thinking we should we should tentatively make our decision and then approach that this is what our board's inclination is right well I think part we did a good portion of that I think we said it really is it looks like the high school is the building that we should be making our investment in unless we come up with some sort of compelling reason because educationally we see it's the building that doesn't need an expansion it's the building that doesn't need a million dollar heating plant upgrade to be viable so for those reasons at least the engineering study directs us and I'm not saying talking to them about here we're ready to sell no more of just this is where we are in our process I think you have to do the community meeting first I don't think we want to say I think we're trying to solve I think we're trying to solve well that's what I'm saying we say that this is where we are no I want this building we just had a meeting you know does the town see any value does the town select board have any value in the elementary building because they probably need some time to do their own study and decide what their needs are or if they have any need for or use for it I'm just going to jump in I think we're trying to solve something we don't have the rest of the people's takeaways yet I want to make sure we're almost done with time literacy over and monitor yeah aren't you surprised that's my goal well that's a takeaway take away from the meeting it's not your ongoing agenda it's a takeaway but it's a good one because the whole time we were talking about everything else we were going to see well and we keep talking about seeing the testing scores but we still haven't seen it that's why I said monitoring you said that by next meeting we should have so that brings me to two that brings me to two takeaways one big picture what is a viable school but two I think we really need to um answer that but I think we really need to start to have the commerce we need to think about the structure of our meetings we get in the weeds really quickly and not that I don't enjoy our time together but I feel like we then go back into the same weeds every month are we going to start to move to more smaller committees like we did in the annual meeting and then a group comes in and presents so we can do things like give an hour and a half to get student achievement data and still feel like the other businesses are happening without all of us staying being part of every right shortening efficient efficient decision right and there's multiple layers so there's different ways to go about it time tasks that's it, that's all we're giving to that subject or like you said if there's a need for more well they'll need a subcommittee that they need to go and bring this back to the forefront. It's the one thing we really haven't done much of at all with subcommittees and it really is a way. We started to last year we had the education committee and then kind of like the budget. I'm just going to add mine to Wendy's because it's kind of connected to hers is I'd like us to look at um this whole relationship of meetings I'd like to figure right away for that you guys charge the booths and Lindy and I to do the things we've been hired to do and then you guys work on the vision and the goal setting and the really important conversations because sometimes you spend a lot of your time talking about just figuratively who's going to put the snow tires on the bus and that's what you hire us to do that's not how you should be spending your time. I would love a list a list of what we should be focused on and what we should not be focused on. I mean I know they send us policy and budget there's a whole strand called policy governance that we probably know a whole lot more about tonight but a lot of boards are moving in that direction so they can create more time to talk about the things that are really important to them so who else there's a policy governance there's there's a lot more trust that needs to be oh yeah it's built on trust there's no question about it the last takeaway we didn't talk about is we need to have our marketing a plan put together and that may well be maybe should be a subcommittee as well but figuring out how you know how we can tease out what our strengths are I mean obviously we can't put out a brochure talking about our incredible test scores this at this particular time or our campus but we can we need to start thinking about what are the strengths that we can have and what can we be saying that's positive and then starting to collect those stories and those anecdotes so that we can put together a promotional material that says you know this is what's great about our school this is why you should you know send your kid down from Hancock to our school or send your kid from Pittsburgh to here in South Killington tell you what well the number one thing was the high school though and if we're making a decision I'm very happy that we are moving towards making more concrete actions moving forward the cost of all these repairs I think is my takeaway that we need to keep in our minds about not maybe raising the money through bonds but trying to find money from within so we can not be putting more tax burden on our community members but mainly I like moving in a direction of making some really big decisions about the buildings Bruce take away me he wants me to get your way oh Denny that was classic well I you know I know that there have been missteps in the past and we've been set back in helping all of you to get the things you need and have them correct I just need time to work on new staff to be of assistance with all of you but from the meeting today I think the biggest thing you're working towards is the facilities and how you're going to deal with that we've talked in a little length and maybe at the beginning of a calendar of when you're going to do things most important with second and let's anybody else I think we're creating a blueprint I hope what we're doing right now for any principle any board to come in five ten years from now and be able to continue our school and not having to start over and no more starting over no more reinventing the wheel let's do diligence right now to make it as easy as possible no no ten years I'm 75 I'm no longer I last I just want to see that's what I wonder I want to ensure that our vision continues our commitment to having these two schools I want to see them and we have to be really specific in how we monitor this because I've seen vision statements students being wonderful students in that world I mean we have to have specific goals that we need that are measurable measurable goals and affordable yeah good we're done with this good nice job everyone