 We'll call the meeting to order at. Are there any adjustments to the agenda? Yes, we have one. You have one. Sorry. Sorry, I couldn't get my button on clicked fast enough. Ray and I wanted to present the cannon renewal lease agreement for the copiers for the supervisory union and just have your approval to move forward with that. Okay. So do you want to put that under action items under eight? Yeah, that would be great. Okay. Got it. Anything else? All right. We don't generally assign it to people. We seem to be able to move along. Is there any public on any public comment? Okay. Hearing none. We'll move on. Act to approve the minutes. Monday, March 22nd. Ethan, can you mute your glorious wind chimes? Yes. Sorry. They sound lovely. I'd rather listen to them any day. All right. Where is it? All right. So act to approve minutes of March 22nd. Do I have a motion? So moved. Seconded. Is there any discussion on the minutes? Hearing none. So moved. Thursday, April 8th. I moved to approve the minutes from April 8th. Seconded. Any discussion on the minute? Okay. Hearing none. So moved. All right. Report to the board. Jamie, you're up. So I, I, I wanted to just give the board a heads up as the SU board. It's with a really heavy heart that I'm going to let everyone know they just received word that Sue Barnaby. Has passed away. Today who was our. Pre K interventionist. I've been working with the Winsor supervisor union. For many, many years. And then it was serving as a interventionist for the pre K. Programs across the SU. I just wanted to bring that to folks attention and. You know, it's, it's pretty shocking. And we will make certain that we get things to the family and. You know, it's a great opportunity for us to get to the board. And I think it's a great opportunity for us to get to the board. And I think it's a great opportunity for us to get to the board. Actually, my brother works for them. So I definitely have a connection with the family. And just wanted to let folks have that heads up. Thank you, Jamie. It is very, very sad. Can we send our condolences as a board? Can you send a card or something? I was going to send an arrangement. On behalf of the board. That's kind of the practice I put in what we're asking for. No objection, no objection. You know, after that note, it's hard to add much past that, but I'll just let folks know that. It's a busy few weeks ahead. It's course hiring season. In addition to that, we do have four district budgets coming up for approval. So I'm excited about that and putting that to bed and being able to move forward with the important work this upcoming summer around professional development and best laying the foundation to leverage our ESSER funds and recovery plan. A course included in your packet was the retirement letter which was a very nicely written letter by Don McMahon but I'm going to greatly miss Don and I also just wanted to take a moment and to thank Don for all his contributions to the Orange Windsor Supervisor Union and then this year at White River Valley it's going to be big shoes to fill. Don as only Don gave me this heads up at the parking lot in passing and the joke behind that is as Don told me that he felt like it was time to retire of course this is when I don't know if the timing had anything to do with all the talk that was happening until you're done or just you wanted to get your golf clubs out but but I went down the gas station that day and put prepaid for to fill my tank and didn't even get the gas in my tank I drove off and almost ran out of gas after a board meeting that night because I forgot to pump it and so just send me that bill because I've heard that story four times. I will I will I've been waiting for you to contribute because it cost me 40 bucks that day but um anyways I'm going to miss Don a lot I I've really enjoyed working with him I had always heard about Don's good work and then got to experience this year so I've articulated to you the timeline that we're going to follow for hiring Don's replacement for next year. I am pleased to let you know that Onda our Chief Academic Officer Onda Adams and Tracy Thompson are both going to step up to co-facilitate the hiring committee and so I'm excited about that I had a nice conversation with Onda just last week as we get to know each other better and she's excited about taking on this task with Principal Thompson so I think we have two really strong facilitators as much like we did with Onda we had a central office rep partner with a principal so we'll do the same for this and we'll have community representation student representation teacher and staff representation and then we'll also have an additional community form as well so stay tuned about that I hope to bring you guys a finalist next month and our main meeting it's important that we get that position filled as we move forward there's a lot of work to be done as you know within our multi-tiered system of supports and this is a key position to get that work done so we've laid some good foundational work and I look forward as we take and move to phase two of that work and I'll take any questions folks may have I guess we'll wait to hear from Don I'm going to convince you to reverse your retirement decision done so you have a few minutes to think about how you're going to respond okay I tried that too Stacy he's he you know I couldn't quite get it done yeah but I have a full tank of gas so I don't have to worry oh there you go well you want to jump right into my report I'll just add one quick thing I just want folks to know I've invited um Jean Crow here tonight she's our pre-k coordinator and she's going to present some data to you around pre-k during the curriculum instruction report so I just wanted you folks to be prepared for that too Don you're up so Jamie um his lead right into my next uh my report here my report to the board is that you you do have my letter of resignation and retirement uh it's been a uh privilege really to work for you folks um in uh the last uh well nine years out of my whole tenure of 21 years as a special ed director uh started down here as green as green could be and learned a lot under a couple three super four superintendents came back and I was not planning on retiring until 2023 uh but as events have changed in my life personally and professionally it it's just uh it's just time so I really it was hard I mean uh I'm feeling a little emotional right now so I can't talk too long about it uh but it's the 33 34 years is uh whittling down to like 40 days wow and I just want to say we didn't even get to meet with you in person we've been all pandemic with you yeah yeah like yeah but you know it's it's this uh google meets has been I think one of the best things that came out of this stupid pandemic because no one's late for meetings anymore uh you're not waiting and it's uh it's immediate so I think that's a good thing um it is a bad thing we don't see people in person but I think eventually we'll get back to it but it's a it's a good tool but I want to thank uh the current board and the passboards uh that gave me the chance uh of a lifetime really so thank you question sure can I ask you a question yeah I've done two two questions um uh yeah sorry I mean I you know I can understand what I guess what Jamie probably said was hey can you give us six more months or can you give us another year you know um just to see this transition and into you know because you've started a lot of important work um and uh I I do hope that you will leave one a very good template of what exists and what your plans were so that the new person doesn't have to reinvent the wheel because I think that's hard for all of us yeah and you know I would I would even go as far as to say and I haven't told this to Jamie yet but I'd be willing to volunteer to come down and work with whoever you you uh uh hire and just to let them know the groundwork of what uh we've we started down here I mean if I've have a what I've I've received a lot of feedback from the field all positive of where this trajectory is going to go for this supervisory union and I think uh and I said in my letter under uh Jamie Canarni's leadership this is powerful you you know I really feel this uh supervisory union is going going somewhere I'm not just saying that because I owe them gas money but I really you know if it's 20 years ago you want to see me leaving here um so I really appreciate working with Jamie and I and really appreciate working with the boards and all the faculty and staff of this this district is is phenomenal um I have a second uh I'm not on the search committee nor have they haven't asked me to be on the search committee for your replacement um what what do we need you need somebody who's not power hungry you need somebody who's going to distribute leadership uh empower principles empower special educators to feel confident to go to their principles and go to their special ed directors with questions make sure they know their regs and rules of special ed um and and and uh and be honest when you know when they're behind because we're here to support them we're not here to you know uh pound on them and say we got you uh it's a growth model we need really of leadership cool well thank you very much and thank you for your changes that you've made as much as I've struggled to understand special ed and all its intricacies um I certainly understood your interface with all the workers um around and throughout the su yeah well it's it's it's a it's a system that you're going to make mistakes so the more knowledge you have about the system the less you're going to make the mistakes because you know you don't cross it to your dot and i correctly you're you might get in trouble but the more we know about the regs and the rules uh the better off we're going to be oh thank you I would like to call heartily say thank you you're leaving us in a better place than we were and I really appreciate that you're going to come back yeah I'm willing to help jammy I mean it's it's been a it's been a good road you know and uh you know whoever comes on board they might not want my help but I can I can point them in the right direction and they can say okay done that's enough and I'll I'll move on I'm not going to come in and you know because everybody has to have their own you know statement so but if somebody's willing to listen and I'll be there uh yeah don just to just to echo thank you for that offer because I put it in the minutes so you're committed to it and this call is being reported um thank you for everything I think that what Ethan and Kathy said was was right you've it's the Boy Scout rule you've left it in you've let us in better shape than you found us which is great um I also think you know you have a couple of months to make sure that everything is in even better order which is awesome so while it's not a ton of time at some I did have a question about your report so I'm not particularly concerned about the shape you're leaving us in I think we could find someone great as great as you and you can get them in place your report also noted notes that a number of people within your department are leaving and that is also a bit concerning to me I'm wondering if you if that's an average level of turnover or if that's something we need to be concerned about well it is every year there's turnover turnover and uh but you know we we as a district and again I think under superintendent canarnes leadership we have a philosophy that we need to produce and we need to we need to be in this business for the right reasons and that's kids and so some of these folks are leaving because they they need to leave for family reasons or other reasons some of these reasons people reason are leaving because you know they're not gonna you know they I don't they just they there's not fit in the mold at what we're trying to create around here which is fine they there's no hard feelings I think that you know there's some uh reduction in force we're we're trimming some of the the the fat off that we really don't need uh we're empowering principles to take over some lead in out of district placements and really trying to find that working mechanism that we're not spending all kinds of money on on staff that we don't need and so if we empower principals we empower the director of special services we empower teachers to become uh leads in taking over some of the lea responsibilities you know people leave and we can read we can we can absorb that now um you know if we look at sue sue clark she's been with us 28 years that is uh remarkable uh and and and she's leaving in distinction of what her services were in our for this community um the next one is Marilyn white she's been here 19 years I think she started as a para educator and and worked herself up to as as a special educator which is you know great we we've grown our own you know so to speak um christie coch she's she's worked for five years as an slp and a program director um judy bickford our our old superintendent that I work for mr bickford uh david bickford uh she's been with us for four years and she's she did a lot of good work for out of district kiddos um we just I just think that we ought to take over that as a system of when we're sending kids out to another school we got to know where those kids are who they are what programs they're being provided uh and not an outside that was a contracted service by the way it wasn't under our contract but uh so you know um so you know we we can absorb that um next is delilah burns from she was then started out in tumbridge she worked as a you know regular ed special educator we moved her into a specialized program uh the wildcat institution institute formerly known as the alternative program she'd done a pretty good job for us we provided some good training for her for her but she's moving on she's she's found another job close to their home and that's great um emma bailey s lp um rising star in the s lp world top shelf um she is she's she in her future husband are moving to the boston area so there's all kinds of reasons people leave um but when people leave to you know that they're not following our philosophy of working with kids and and and really building systems that are going to support kids better than what we're doing and not the status quo and that's okay if they leave i hope that answered your question and good i mean we'll survive i mean i think that this district is on the the uprise you know this is we're it's going places this is this whole quarter through uh the valley it's going to be you know hopefully really takes off thank you you did answer my question and uh i have a lot of confidence that you are correct all right any other questions of don again thank you very much don thank you really thank you um department of curriculum and instruction so you have my report um there were um three main highlights i just wanted to um mention this evening the first is we've uh at this point completed our um training in lli with all of our interventionist if you'll remember back in the day um we had many people um using lli that didn't have adequate training and so um i think that's a big celebration i also want to just call out um the tremendous contributions that interventionists are making within schools as we're building um our data systems and ensuring that there's strong classroom connections um there are i think the other point with that is just that we've had an increase in the amount of people that are actually seeing kids outside of their universal instruction time which definitely was not the case two years ago so i just want to highlight um you know if you pass one of your interventionists please thank them for their dedicated service and supporting the literacy initiative and growth of students um this is kind of assessment season so as you know we've had s backs going on and um just a little reminder that we um use these for a variety of purposes and um currently i'm i'm diving into them to uh justify our investments within recovery as well as within our cfd and then finally i think the other thing that um we want to celebrate is just that um some of the progress that we're making in reviewing and collaborating together as we build an interdependent system and that's certainly something that um you know jamie's leadership has really contributed to and we certainly have seen some uptick in just the monthly and weekly um progress of we're now up to 67 percent are reviewing student progress together in a collaborative fashion either weekly or monthly which is a significant gain over last year um i'll entertain any questions amy it's stacey um hi i thank you for this report it was really fascinating to look at i'm wondering if it's broken down at all by um in person versus the remote academy and whether there's a a substantial difference uh both in terms of um interventionist participation and just in terms of kind of overall progress um i i did not disaggregate that uh stacey um mainly because i think at this point we're kind of forward facing toward um you know reintegrating those students and are putting more efforts into ensuring that supports are in place for this summer so um you know i think in building our system you know um this year was pretty pretty heavy lift for everybody involved um on all levels so um you know really focusing our attention in those areas where we'll continue to grow and create that interdependence has been a priority um but you know i think uh as that we're reintegrating students that's definitely an area that we'll want to make sure that we've got a mind uh mind's eye toward awesome thank you thank you i mean i have a quick question if that's okay um so we can see the different and uh the pie charts at the end 2018 to 2021 there's certainly more um daily and monthly sorry weekly and monthly but what would you like this to look like ideally um i i want a hundred percent meeting weekly or monthly i mean honestly um at elementary level i would love for the interventionists and teachers to be collaborating on a weekly basis um i think as as any survey you know everybody kind of brings their interpretation um to it and so they may have been um thinking of reviewing progress in a more formal way through data teams so that's why i feel like uh including the weekly or monthly weekly being more of the formative assessment um and strategy work and monthly being really analyzing uh next steps as a collective group so um both things i think are positive um signs of growth and something that we'll want to continue to support um to ensure that there's adequate time set aside thank you all right anybody else no good thank you okay i think we have jam it's going to do some oh yes the pre-k data right jam hey there um so thank you for letting me provide some information for you all and just help put preschoolers uh on your on your radar in a sense um and actually re can you just switch to the slideshow that i showed you that i sent you because i'll yes there we go so i just wanted to take a few minutes to talk about and give you some information about both enrollment and some assessment information for preschoolers across the white river valley supervisory union and when i'm talking about uh preschoolers i'm talking about children that are three four or five years old they need to have been three years old by september first um for this current school year and they need to end some of them are turning five within this school year um so quickly there is just this is sort of a breakdown of what the enrollment looks like um so any child that's between three to five years old can access uh pre-k um anywhere in the state of vermont and so in terms of the number of children that are in your different school districts these are the number of children that are currently enrolled somewhere in the state in a universal pre-k program that's pre-qualified and then just a breakdown of sort of how many children are enrolled in a public school-based pre-k program versus a private pre-k program or a pre-k program that's outside of the white of our supervisory union and the reason i say that or outside because there are a couple of children that are actually enrolled in a public pre-k but that public school is outside of the white river valley and then i just did a quick little breakdown of just comparisons from last year to this year in terms of children in just in the public pre-k programs so this is so um you have your 2019 numbers and your 2021 numbers i do want to say that just since i gave these numbers to jamie what end of january early february probably february i think um we've had five more pre-k students enroll so those numbers change a lot not as much they change more at the beginning of the year than they do now but they still sort of ebb and flow a bit and then i um you know i just wanted to talk a little bit about so in terms of assessments so young children um you don't sit them down to whoops whoops backup please thank you um you can't sit a young child down and give them a test so assessments for young children are really looking at their development across several different domains and doing that in is that in as naturalistic as way as possible which is throughout daily routines and um throughout instruction time next slide so um the state of vermont has a system that's um i mean it's part of a national system but any any pre-k program that is considered to be pre-qualified that receives tuition money um is required to administer the teaching goals the teaching strategies goal assessment for every child and that's required to be administered twice a year and there are two different checkpoint periods one is in the fall and that runs from september to december 15th and then there's another one in the spring that runs from february to june 15th and the assessment is um it's a reliable valid criterion reference assessment and it's also aligned with the early learning standards um that are like aligned with the learning standards for children that are in grades k through 12 as well so all so um all of those there is an alignment for what is it that we're thinking about children being able to learn or do during the preschool years as well as what we think about what is it that we want children to be able to learn and do during their elementary middle and high school years next slide and for young children we think about developmental domains so we think about social emotional development their physical development language cognitive development literacy math science and technology social studies and the arts and all of those areas are assessed in t.s. gold and the way that they're assessed is by teachers during that checkpoint period gathering um photographs of children's work samples of their work sitting down and engaging with a child in really specified ways to find out what a child knows and understands um and for each of those areas there is documentation that's required in order for a teacher to be able to complete the assessment next slide and so what i'm going to show you are what are called snapshot reports and they look at how the children in the white river valley supervisory union that are enrolled anywhere in the state of vermont how they are doing in terms of meeting exceeding or being below widely widely held expectations in terms of developmental milestones and it's really looking at knowledge skills and abilities that they demonstrate um what i want to say to you is that the graphs that we're going to look at that the percentages of children that are below this is just to keep in mind that this was that beginning of the year assessment up through december and the expectations that they're sort of being measured against in that sense are what where we would expect the child of their age to be at the end of the year so first are just the uh the early learning domains and so as you see we've got some really um nice data in terms of where are our children at these are three four and five year olds that are enrolled in a program and the percentages of those children that are meeting or exceeding the expectations and those that are below the expectations and then a breakdown within the social emotional domain then we look at what are those sort of objectives or what are the pieces that make up the social emotional domain for young children and we look at things like how does a young child manage their feelings how do they follow limits and expectations are they forming relationships with adults are they responding to emotional cues do are they using you know words such as happy sad angry mad surprised excited um are they interacting with their peers are they making friends and are they beginning to solve social problems now for a three-year-old solving a social problem might just be that they know to go get a teacher to help them out or to go get an adult to help them figure something out with a peer it's really that you know that they're they're beginning to understand how to negotiate and how to share with somebody how to take turns how to wait for their turn but these are all the foundational skills that um there is so much research about these kinds of skills are essential for young children as they enter into kindergarten and first grade and the sort of the demands for more academic learning if these pieces aren't in place then it gets in their way of their ability to learn next slide and then looking at literacy objectives again for young children um when you think about rhyming um for a three-year-old we don't expect a three-year-old to be able to rhyme so you want to think about these in terms of a development what's a reason what are developmental expectations so a three-year-old you might just expect them to participate in some kind of a song or a rhyme and to have them maybe be able to fill in one of the words um and then for four year olds you sort of up the ante a little bit and you would expect them to be able to generate rhymes for some common short single syllable words and again for units of sound or identifying letters for a three-year-old you maybe by the end of the year would want them to at least be able to identify the first letter in their name for a four-year-old you're going to expect them to be able to identify and label more than 10 letters um and hopefully most of the alphabet letters so again all of these are looked at and evidence is collected with um that's consistent with a child's development next slide and the same for math you know for counting we might expect a three-year-old to be able to count you know to between five and 10 where is a four four-year-old turning five-year-old we're going to expect them to be able to count to 20 and again but again if you look at where the where our children are at the percentages of those children that are meeting or exceeding what we would have expected them what we expect them to know by the end of this school year um it's quite impressive and to me it says a lot about how hard our teachers are working how hard our families are supporting their young children at home and that they're doing pretty well especially given this last year that we've all had and that's sort of makes me feel good um and that's those are the pieces of information I just wanted to share with you all all right and I'm open to any questions no thank you very much um Jamie's go go ahead Jamie I'm contemplating my question Jan when I saw this data I found it fascinating and I sort of digging into it and one of the things that I was curious about is because the trajectory doesn't demonstrate across our SU that our students stay on this progress right like our our our percentages of achievement have not maintained at this level so what what I started to dig into is that speaking to the fact that our students who are at the greatest risk we're not actually getting into our pre-k programs and does it speak to that and then I said to myself all right well one of the things I'd like us to start to dig into is what are the barriers to getting them there and I could be wrong maybe that's not the case but that was definitely something that I wondered about when I saw that data and I just think it's worth us looking into further I'm just curious about that well Jamie I agree with you and I think it is really worth looking at um because this is aggregate data um but it can be teased apart it can be teased about part by the classroom and by the individual child and I do think that it's really worth looking at who are those children that are really outside of where where what you would expect them to be and can we identify those children and then how do we get supports for those children yeah and I wonder what are the barriers are that's not even allowing them to access our public pre-k you know what I mean yeah most of our districts now but my sense is that maybe some of the students who we who need the greatest support and we know it's all about early intervention there earlier we can get to these students and better support them the better the trajectory for them I just wonder what are the barriers that are not allowing them to even access our pre-k program well and I think um you know we've been exploring that a little bit with one of the school districts um I mean I think there are a number of barriers whether it's transportation for a family whether it's cost because what the only thing that's um supported for children unless it is 10 hours a week in terms of money for a child to attend um particularly a private uh pre-k program and so you know if we're thinking about even you know Tunbridge if children are enrolled at the Orange County Parent Child Center then their pre-k program can be supported for 10 hours a week and but if a parent can afford beyond that um then is that a barrier for that child to attend there or if a parent lives far away and there is an opening at the Stockbridge Elementary Pre-K program that's actually runs you know full days five days a week but the parent doesn't have transportation is that a barrier so I think it's a couple of I mean I think there are not a number of factors um excuse me and maybe I missed out for a sec um maybe you just answered this this idea of when a child has a problem later if if we can track back to whether they were in pre-k or not it's not going to help maybe that kid in that moment but it would help us to understand would give us some hard facts about whether it makes a difference to be in the pre-k or not there um yes there's I mean within the supervisory union yes there is a there has there is a lot of research and there's a lot of evidence of the positive impact for a child to attend preschool and um that's both urban and rural across the country and I mean in a sense that's something that we already know um and we know just in terms of children that attend preschool are less likely to drop out of school they're less likely that you know they um their income levels over their lifetime tend to be higher I mean all the things that we kind of know about the impacts of a child not graduating from school you can begin to identify those in the preschool years and there's a lot of research that's already been able to do that is there any any program to if the if the kid can't get to the program is there any way to get the program to the kid I mean obviously we've been talking a lot about and whether that works with pre-k or not um I know we did it some time but um is is something better than nothing in terms of trying to get it to them in that way I you know I mean I would always say something's better than nothing but sometimes a band-aid on a gaping wound is not I mean I sort of hold both of those um and and yes remote we did when we had to and when it was absolutely necessary um but children young children learn in terms of hands on and relationship-based learning and so computers and screens are not something that we really want to be putting children in front of any more than they need to be I hear you thank you Jan this is Stacy along those lines I was wondering if we have and I'm sorry if I missed this in your presentation uh I didn't get I didn't review it ahead of time I don't think I saw it in the document yes I don't think you got a copy of this um do do we know what percentage of incoming kindergarteners have never been in a school and did not attend a preschool that's not information that I've had access to I've um or that I think has ever been collected I've only been working in this supervisor union I started in the mid to late October of 2019 so um I'm not I'm not aware of that I mean I think that's something we probably could check in with the principals and that is data that I could certainly try to gather and and get a sense of yeah I'm just wondering if if that's quantitative this this notion I mean we I feel like we all know that it's we all know what an important step educationally it is for kids and I think it would help us as a district if we understood how many of our elementary age kids had had been through that process um because that would help us try and like fill those gaps if we could understand them a little bit. Stacy one of the things that I've talked to Jan about is really wanting to pull our pre-k and k teachers together as a professional learning community next year to really look at some common like kindergarten screening tools I think we need to better leverage our SLPs in regard in regards to screening for early intervention so that's a cohort that I really want to pull together to really make certain we have some consistency around our approach to identify early intervention but also to gather data like that. Yeah right now we don't have a consistent approach around kindergarten screening and not even all districts are doing and what we're doing and the tools we're using are different so that's something that I'm looking for us to address in the near future. Cool thanks I think Aaron has his hand up also Andrew. Yeah um yeah my my question was similar to Stacy's in that like is there something do we have any way of knowing the total preschool age population in a town so we can see like what percentage it's currently attending? So what I've done in other supervisory unions that I've looked at that data is hard to do but you can extrapolate if you look at your k to three enrollments over maybe the last five years you can then begin to project sort of trends in your three to five year old population but it's really an extrapolation of what your current enrollment is to sort of look at that in reverse. The other thing I did just think of is so there is a ready for K assessment that kindergarten teachers fill out in the fall every year for their incoming for their new group of kindergartners and there is a question on that as to whether or not the child attended preschool and so there and and then that report is published and then it's broken down by supervisory unions and I I believe there is a percentage score for you know what's the percentage of children that are currently in this year's kindergarten that have attended some kind of pre-k and so I could look at that. I think sometimes that information though I'm a little skeptical because if a child went to a home daycare then the kindergarten teacher might have said yes they attended pre-k but it may not have been a pre-qualified pre-k so those percentages might be a little skewed. Any other questions? I had with Stacy again sorry I'm sorry to come in here tonight I'm feeling chatty I haven't left my home all day. I wanted to just raise a quick point about the percent proficiency and the disparity between the the kind of language arts and the math it seems like this follows the trend that we've seen in other areas of our schooling where there's a greater percentage of kids in math programs who haven't reached a level of proficiency I think something like shapes was like 40% not proficient and I'm just wondering what gives with that like you know is there you know I don't know historically it seems like we're trending in the right direction but what's the goal and can we get closer to filling that gap? Right and actually I met with a pre-k teaching team and we we also looked at some of this and we're doing a little bit digger-deeping and digging deeper sorry and you know one of the things we were looking at was that in terms of you know so quantifying is was pretty low at the beginning of the year but those are also skills that you really that as a preschool teacher they really don't start focusing on or introducing until later in the year so I would expect those scores to look very different by the end of the year that was the kind of the highest piece because until you unless you know I mean some of these really need to follow some pretty clear developmental steps and unless a child really can just you know sort of count without any association to you know just knows how to count and then knows how to count with association you can't do anything around quantifying you know which is how many is that or can you give me fives if they can't count to five you can't ask a child to give you five. That makes sense like it was not long ago that I was a preschool parent so I kind of remember vaguely teachers telling me to slow down okay thank you you're welcome all right anything else for Jan no thank you thank you for the report all right thank you Jan yep bye bye bye um Ray hello everybody I'm up here in my report I talked about SPAC the evaluation system in this department and ordering Chromebooks and I would be happy to answer any questions about these or anything else in this department hi Ray I have a question about the Chromebooks and this is something that I sort of heard about anecdotally over the last few years and then it actually hit home directly for me this year with my daughter but the Chromebooks don't all have great screen resolution and she ended up having pretty consistent headaches which were being caused by the poor screen and so I was wondering if screen quality is something that you're looking at and purchasing new ones no absolutely not uh what I mean by that is that's the first I've heard of that Andrew uh Aaron apologies yeah no that's okay I don't think that there's a lot of data on this yet and I even looked into it before tonight's meeting just to see uh if it was anyway it's just uh you know anecdotal in my case sure I appreciate the feedback and I'll see what I can find out before thanks um I had a question along those lines kind of more broadly which is um do do we what percentage of devices have needed to be purchased um for differently abled people have we needed to purchase screen readers or like different resolutions for visually impaired people have there been any need for any kind of special assistive technologies beyond just the Chromebook as part of this program as part of this program I mean with ESSER money yeah I get I mean I guess like I am certain that we have assistive technologies more generally but I wonder like in terms of the ESSER money and Chromebooks for home if we've needed to supplement that with with any assistive technologies so um unless the student is covered by a 504 plan meaning um any AT would be in the I for a student uh serviced with an IEP I see right so that makes sense we provide services and devices in this case as part of the plan got it okay right so so from the past um I can think of examples of course iPads um dictation specialized dictation software um scan and read pens right you take the pen and scan it over text we'll read it out um but since most of that comes from um whatever outlined in the plan it would be something we already know about is Don still with us yeah I was just going to follow up if if there's a child we've had I'm not sure the number but we've had uh kids working with uh different agencies who I'm thinking like voice uh in in my pay or come in and there's kiddos who have assistive technology and that's all tied into their IEP as well so we get reimbursement on that so it's it's really individual so um anybody hear that or yeah am I on here yeah that answers it I'm sorry for the segue no no no I think that's a great question so um I don't think in terms of that reimbursement but I think what Jamie would say is that uh we're using the money in ways that provide the most value to the system so since we're already being reversed for the AT devices we that wouldn't come out of extra money thank you anyway it's at least partially agrees any more questions of Ray all right thank you Ray sure Tara good evening everyone you have my report highlights on it where the next couple of weeks are really insane here this week we are working and preparing for our pre-audit meeting on Friday so that means we are scanning and uploading all bank records and general ledgers for all seven of our entities so we're working through that plus as Jamie mentioned we have four votes going this month or next month so we're preparing for all of that getting the mailers out ballots being done and getting prepared for the informational meetings and then announcements the USDA announced last week that they have extended the summer food service program all the way through next school year so our children will continue to eat breakfast and lunch for free in all of our buildings so that was huge news and other than that we'll be starting to work with infinite visions which is our software company to get prepared for fiscal year rollover at the end of May and then as far as the revenue and expenditure summary update more than a lot of changes that I made for the month of April primarily just updated the COVID expenses as we continue to accumulate expenses there so I've updated both the revenue and the expenditure side of the report to match that and then we've had some additional savings in the contracted services so you'll see that increase there so with those two changes we're looking to have a projected surplus in the supervisory union of just a little over $90,000 currently so I'm not entertaining any questions you all may have Tara Ethan here hello um just wanted to know where where are we with a payroll change we are right in the midst of implementation we got the initial file loads on friday so we are going through each individual employee confirming their demographics and their deductions and their direct deposits to make sure all that information was crosswalked correctly and then we start our training in their system once the implementation process is completed so our first training is scheduled to be may 4th so right now I'll know more after wednesday when we have our weekly implementation call but I believe we are looking at starting payroll either the second payroll of May or the first payroll of June right now good and and how are we doing um before that how have we been doing sort of since the uh I don't want to call it a crisis but you know the the Jason is doing a phenomenal job good good okay he really has just you know taken the the whole program and worked through it I mean he made it through all of the retro pays for the contracted agreements and made it through all of that getting everybody where they needed to be for those increases and as we're gearing up for next year trying to prepare both systems at the same time so that we're ready for the fiscal year rollover as well as that so he's done a phenomenal job excellent so we're we're feeling confident where we are yes good good thank you so much you're welcome any more questions of Tara all right hearing none thank you Tara WRVSU policy committee we did not have a meeting this month the last meeting was canceled so there's not anything new to report there as far as I know correct Jamie I got one thing okay I did meet with our consultants uh based on the feedback was provided the prior month okay and they made several revisions uh I sent it to our attorney to get feedback from Dina and once I get feedback from her I plan to share that draft out to the full board with a third draft and then we will take that up at the policy committee um next month I just wanted to give an update I didn't want folks thinking just because the committee meeting was canceled that we've stalled there is still work happening thank you Ethan is my audio better tonight by the way I got this new camera Ray set me up with and uh yes I was noticing you did not have my little clip mic on but I was noticing that you seem to have better sound so uh uh Ethan bought me a gif just so you know I use them in my theater work on the online things and it just makes a big difference and I was losing the end of Jamie's sentences and that's pretty important that we don't have that happen whether it's the superintendent um so I just encouraged him to improve his technology um with a gift and it sounds better sounds better so thank you Ray if you're a part of that yeah it's also nice Jamie to see your head and face and not your fingers typing from that as the primary view and yeah yeah the perspective is good too all right energy committee sorry that's me again I apologize I'm right um so the WRVSU energy committee met for the first time we're still trying to secure a few students most of the other membership was in place we had a really productive meeting we're going to look to analyze some data Chris has stepped up from the Rudd board to chair the WRVSU energy committee and he's going to help us put together a two-year overview of our data in regards to energy usage for all of our buildings and so we're going to start to look at that next week and the other update is is that all of our districts other than Aaron Strafford have decided to and I was going to update you on this tomorrow Aaron have decided to move forward with the RFQ process to do to select an energy efficiency group to look at you know do an audit which for a reminder that if EEI presented it there's this free of charge that's what we decided to go with at each district and then to look at our performance review contract to see if there's any upgrades the WRVSU energy committee gave a lot of good and positive feedback about our work in that direction so nothing's stalling there I just want folks to know that you know there's good work happening and we're continuing to move forward now all those projects would take my goal would be just so the timelines laid out is that we would capitalize on efficiency remote monies and ESR money to then leverage that work over the next two summers we're not looking to do it this summer it would be that we get everything in alignment to leverage it in the summer of 2022 and 2023 so that's that's kind of the timeline we're laying out and then of course once we select the provider they'll do the audit and then they'll come to each local district board to talk about here's what they found in different options so that's what if what if the audit finds crisis conditions you know something like a leak or a potential leak or you know sagging beam or something like that well even I'm chuckling because I know of a couple of crisis I already have yeah there you go that issue that we have I mean we'll take care of it and so example like in Bethel we're doing some patching right now to ensure that their ducks are in good working order for their heat they have ducks underground and we didn't want to lose steam so we're going ahead and taking care of that we've done some work in tumbridge this year to add a second compressor as a backup for them because they were having compressor issues so while in the case that he thinks we're in pretty good shape to get through the next winter with the idea that we definitely have to take some action the following summer the issue we really have is is finding folks that are available to do the work and that's why I want to get a year ahead too by all indications is that it's going to be hard to find the vendors to do the work so that's a concern I have as well with you thank you oh just just to be meticulous how is that getting paid for the work at Bethel the work that they're doing that's based on just savings that we found and that that's getting paid for by their local district budget okay right now yeah thank you all right and anything else for the energy committee discussion all right if not we're moving into discussion items the first one is ripped in and the desire to join the right over valley district some people from ripped in are here tonight Jamie and I have attended a meeting with them so we are opening discussion for that Jamie do you want to yeah I'll just jump in um the I don't know what the group from ripped and actually formally calls themselves but I'm going to call out the community friends of the ripped in school or something of that nature but I've had really a nice correspondence with Joanna and Molly and Kathy and I went to one meeting that they invited us to we had an informal conversation it was more about just information they were asking us a bunch of questions about how we do our business and we just shared that and I did indicate um you know one of the the mutual positives that I saw in this and he's I think you'll shake your head is just the fact that ripped in has a like structure to the Rochester Stockbridge schools and so that there could be possibilities uh down the road at looking at um partnerships there you mean k k through six pre k through six yeah pre k through six okay um and so you know what I thought that it was worth doing is um letting allowing the board to talk to the group um from ripped in and get some questions answered um I know that they had a presentation with the state board last week I believe the state board doesn't plan to take any action um on their decoupling and or where they may be assigned until maybe next month is my understanding um but I do think that this group's interested in maybe gathering some data about um what their finances may look like if they were to join us um and as as our partnership within the SU as a standalone district at least for now the other thing is of course is a lot of Granville Hancock students do attend ripped in um and I see Stacy shaking her head and you know Granville Hancock those are our students and so um that seemed to like something um that makes sense for us to at least have a conversation with the ripped in folks so Kathy I want to turn it over to you um and I thought we could just kind of have a conversation um from both sides I really felt like the why was important um to hear from the ripped in uh group about why they are actually even interested in WRVSU and why they think that that might make sense for them all right Molly you have your hand up all right hi hi um my name is Molly Witters thanks so much for having me and a few of us here tonight we really appreciate it um and it's so nice to be in so many places in the state I'm actually in Westford tonight which is far far away from any anywhere near the watershed but um here I am on a high-speed internet connection um I um I hoped I I could take just a couple minutes um and and connect you all to our story and where we're coming from and why we're particularly drawn to the your supervisory union um and then maybe there are a few of us here if you all have questions um please fire away or interrupt me if um I'm going off the rails I just have a few minutes of of talking points and then we can get into conversation um again my name is Molly Witters I'm the ripped in town moderator and also a parent of a first grader um and I was um uh appointed as a part of a group of citizens by our select board after ripped in um town voted to withdraw from the Addison Central School District back in January um and we're actually now in an awkward position of not being legally allowed to elect a school board um and simultaneously being required to gather lots of information in order to make plans for the future of our independent district um and one of those most important questions is is to answer the question about to which SU we might be assigned um and we've investigated and had conversations with three different groups Rutland Northeast Addison Central District and yourselves and through all of our information gathering we've felt most aligned with your institution um and and so the question is why why do we feel that alignment um and and it's because you're a collection of independent and successfully functioning school districts representing a wide range of sizes we've been part of a district who is forcing homogeneity by its consolidation efforts small schools are seen as a liability and not an opportunity we are drawn to your model of overriding structural and academic support that bolsters and supports the independent character of individual communities we in ripped and believe that our school is at the heart of our community and that it serves not only our youngest citizens but all members of our community because we are facing closure or because we were facing closure in spite of incredible community support we began this journey if you'd like to hear more about the details of that challenge we've faced in defense of our school we can schedule another two-hour meeting suffice it to say witnessing what you are doing in the wr vsu has been like spine land after months of floating at sea our identity and individuality is strong and ripped in and our resources are deep and varied but clearly we cannot we cannot go this alone to imagine that we could join a supervisory union that already has practiced in supporting uniquely individual schools is not only exciting but inspiring some specifics about how your system aligns with our vision include you support schools with multi-age classrooms and even believe like we do that there is value in that arrangement you are adept at tuitioning students for secondary education there is a geographic connection between ourselves at the headwaters of the white river which has already fostered a tuition relationship with towns such as grandville and handcock who are who are under your purview so then the question is what can ripton bring to the wr vsu ripton's always had an elementary school and never voted down a budget we have been located our at our current location since 1989 we generally have somewhere in the ballpark 55 students pre-k through six with another uh with uh another six to 12 students tuitioned in from handcock and grandville for those of you who haven't visited ours is a beautiful ours is a beautiful school with low maintenance needs and a great learning location we have solar panels that meet all of our all of our electric demands recent facility studies by the acsd showed the school to be well maintained our children are happy and encouraged in their individuality what is lost as far as professional numbers in having a small school is gained by the fact that each child is seen every single day seen fed challenged loved our school sits at the heart of a geographically isolated community we host community dinners pizza bakes ripton ridge runs and grandparent events if we were to be part of the wr vsu we hope that we could add to your community as well with its altitudinal overlook to middlebury college ripton has benefited from the trickle down from this higher education institution all our students all learned to ski nordic and alpine at the colleges facilities we are able to invite incredible visionaries like france walk lemons into our fray and here as our kids come home with personal stories about fred rogers we have student mentors incredibly wise community members and grit ripton proper is predominantly national forest land and so we raise children who are curious and knowledgeable about the natural world we hope to collaborate with other institutions about how we can use our strength as a small mountain town to be better better educators and better citizens of our world and that's where we stand today before you asking for you to let us in thank you for that questions yeah well if i may start off what you find attractive in us is a really nice description that i'd never thought of about rsu is that we're this collection of independent schools and that that is very much against the state you know sort of move of consolidation who knows how many more you know tired and hungry and out there wanting to wanting to join us you know obviously there's there's some distance between you know i've done that drive many many you know i live in rochester so i'm you know i do that drive a lot and and i i look at jamie and if jamie's enthusiastic about this because of course he's the one who's going to have to be doing the drive you know to the meetings and things like that i know there was some concern in our among some board members about do we want to get bigger and i think that's one of our big you know questions we really have to just think about among ourselves is you know this is a model it's it's a crazy model and in some ways but that you put such a you know positive spin on it makes me very encouraged obviously you know i i you know where where rochester stockbridge unified district is right now this has some attraction for us because of our the tenuousness of our merger currently so i'm very interested i think we need to talk some more i want to know a little more about jamie about how he thinks it could fit in with all the other schools we have but i certainly appreciate your presentation very much anyone else yeah this is stacey from grandville hunk lock i think i've spoken joanna i think we spoke a few months ago nice to see you um in pixel form um yeah so as everyone knows we do send quite a few kids over um we get a bus he said a bus over which is really great um it would be great to have to have that be even better integrated for our kids i think if they were part of our su we could do more in terms of you know after school and extracurricular additional busing and kind of taking more and broader advantage of you know everything you have to offer there which is um which would be terrific i um to echo ethan's point about the size a bit i would you know i think about what we've gained in terms of shared resources and the feasibility of sending someone from the morning and chelsea to you know work in the afternoon and ripton and just how big of a geographic expansion that would be um jamie i don't know if you have any top of mind thoughts about how to make that work or perhaps it's just like those are resources that are not shared it just seems like it has the potential to be a scheduling catastrophe unless someone really likes spending time in their car well i mean i've given it a lot of thoughts around the idea i already joke about the west and the east of the su and how we try to navigate uh you know when when us at the su office are in buildings i mean one thing that i've i've talked to principles about is the plan for next year is that my su team will be going into buildings i'll be in building more in addition to this um as well as you know our chief academic office or our special services director but we are going to have consistent full su ceo will go into each building monthly to sit down with principles and tarot will meet with the principles and go over their revenue and expenditure reports ray will talk technology special services will talk special ed um on it will talk curriculum instruction and my plans to sit through those meetings i think one it also allows me to do a better job evaluating principles as i'm in those conversations two i think it's predictable and i think there's a lot of progress monitoring that happens at the building building level that way in addition to our regular admin team meetings um and just my you know meatloaf throw downs and things of that nature that i do in buildings in addition to those um you know planned agendas but um you know i think in general as as far as the size goes if we hadn't better leverage technology like we are now as don talked about around iep meetings and things i would say this is crazy the su's already huge i think that the idea that we've become more efficient around the use of this tool um you know it was only a year and a half ago as a principle i would have never thought to meet with a colleague this way i would have gotten the car and driven to norfield we were uh to meet with my principal colleagues over the hill um of the pain mountain and now i think nothing about meeting with the example today i met with the rochester stockbridge principles i met with the chelsea principle and i met with the south royalty and betha elementary principle i did that all within a two hour span um and we had really productive meetings i couldn't have done that previously um before leveraging this tool so i think that this tool provides an opportunity for us to at least consider um what i'm going to look for the board tonight is to just give me a direction on whether or not you want us to spend the time and resources digging into what are the financial advantages of having another district within the su so that you can weight those pros and cons in regards to that that's what i was hoping to just get some direction from you tonight i haven't spent any time and resources on it because we haven't had this conversation thanks and that was going to be my next question which is like uh if we did like what action do we need to take tonight and if that is like decide kind of vaguely what direction we want to go um i guess what level of access do we have to any audits you prepared uh budget state like any like that roi work itself is a pretty significant investment it would seem so do we have the capacity to dig into that or is that another budget item that just to do the research to figure out like you know what the what the end of what the end of line roi looks like you talking to me yeah i'm talking to you and tara i guess yeah i mean i think terra and jump in here feel free i mean what i would want to look at is uh their finances and try to tease those out the tough part is they're a unified district now and so i need to get a better sense of what is the per pupil spending occurring there i need to get a better sense of what would the assessment be for the su i mean the big plus for you would be spreading out the su cost and terra and i would have to look at their average daily membership and get a sense of you know what would the contribution be that way i think don and i need to dig into um special services to just get a sense of you know what's the impact there um those are all steps i would want to take to provide you more information to make an informed decision uh what i was looking for tonight just was like all right yeah taking those steps make sense to us i also know that this group uh is going to want some support in regard so what does this mean for them financially right like what would their su assessment be and that's all data that the state board is going to want before the state board makes any type of decision and i would also be interested in and our friends from ripton did you get any inclination whether the state board is even open to this concept or were they really thinking that attis and central needed to become in a supervisory union uh if they had an opinion they held that pretty close to them they didn't express any preference and by statute it it is as likely in terms of like legally as likely for them to reassign us as they are to create an su umbrella over a unified district um i think we in the meeting i i said that we met with you and kathy and um that it was a productive meeting i think you read what i put in the letter and kathy did too um and so they didn't balk at it or anything they didn't respond to it but um in terms of information for us i think before we get to even like the nitty gritty we could start with just even like your salary scale like some general information that's not really specific just so we can gauge a little bit because they are going to be looking for that information um from us next month and that's all located on our website but i'll make certain oh it is okay yep thanks and just so you guys know they did lay out a timeline the sbe did for this transition um and the timeline has already been pushed back because they are having us come to another meeting next may but they ostensibly we were supposed to sort of answer these very simple questions for their um in this in this most recent meeting and and then from there go for then we were allowed to elect the school board um and from there there was going to there were going to be meetings about supervisory union assignment in september of um so we're with the acsd for another year um and the structure of our school under the acsd next year is changing quite substantially we're losing our pre-k and and our sixth graders are going down the mountain so there's quite a lot of shifting that um on one level um is is going to force some hands on the other hand it's going to allow us to um maybe be kind of nimble as far as how we compose ourselves for the future as far as you know groupings of classrooms and how many teachers we have and those sort of things we believe it's very important to keep pre-k support in our town um but there's just so you all know there's sort of changes up front already because of what the acsd has imposed on us for next year um um i'm kind of wondering jamie if this is something we should bring to our individual boards um because i i mean i i don't know obviously you can get a headcount from the executive board here um but it's a you know it is a big move um uh and i yeah i mean my thought even was just to get a direction on whether running numbers made sense to the executive board and if it did i would bring it back to the full board got you okay um next month in may to get a sense of whether or not there was support behind this like just mutual like yeah we would after which we'd all have a we would all have had a meeting and if we can add that to our agenda too well let's get a sense of can we get some sense of what the executive board fields right now kathy can you pull people yeah can we do um can we just do a thumbs up of those in support of jamie uh taking a look i don't think it's something we have to vote on or take action but we just need to show support so if we could get a thumbs up that'd be great i'm trying to get to where i can see everybody all right everyone says go ahead and move further with the numbers and so i'll do that um and i'll have my plan would be that i'll have all that information in the packet for the may agenda and i'm glad to hear it's september that gives us some time to continue to have these discussions um and for what the ripped in community needs i think most of that's already public access the audits and master agreements which are all made available already um but i could you know just let me know exactly what the state board was looking for we'll get that for you thank you all right thank you guys for coming thanks for having us um jamie i did have a question any other questions of them before we move on this is a question for jamie i guess um have you talked to your staff about like how they feel they are capacity wise like whether they'd be able to handle adding you know like we i feel like we just got the business office to kind of a nice place and it's kind of um i'd be concerned about overloading if we add another you know i would say we've had informal conversations andrew i don't think we've sat down as a ceo team on our monday meetings and said what does this really mean um and part of it was i didn't want to spend a lot of time talking about that seriously until i got a sense from you all um and so i think that we'll be ready to respond to that in may i do know ray took a drive over um and spent some time on their really nice playground over the weekend so yeah we it's we've definitely been talking about it informally you didn't stop by my house ray you drove right by and i also have a nice playground i'll remember that for next time and i i'm not even did my conversation with on da on last week i mentioned that this was on the agenda tonight so i i did have a you know just a conversation with her around that as well so i think i can more answer that next month all right nice thank you everyone um seven point two july meeting board will once again discuss the desire to not hold regular meetings during the months of july um so i had this conversation with the um my the the superintendent evaluation committee um and so i just wanted to add it to the agenda here um since i had the board chairs i totally understand if um we have budgets that go down like we did last year which i'm hoping very much so that that's not the case but that you know then then we need to navigate special meetings and things of that nature but i was hoping otherwise that we could get a commitment that we wouldn't hold any meeting that wasn't an emergency um and or that we're navigating a failed budget um in july just so i can send some folks off to rest and recover i totally support that jamie a two all right so let's get these budgets done stacy kathy ethan yes she went i don't want to be out of more than one no problem no problem ethan go in you think we don't want to hear and say we've already taken care of business nice all right board training um so i just we had a really nice uh board training today it was recorded for those of you who couldn't attend during um so i'll reach out and make sure just find out how to get that copy of that recording unless you already know how to um i didn't see that information communicated but i do know it was recorded so you should get access to that um and maybe they'll just email it out to us later i don't know but it was uh i thought it was a productive conversation today and that training series will continue um and the other thing i wanted to just get a sense from you is we talked about as a board um having uh the vsba come and do a training with our full board and i wanted to get a sense of um whether or not we would want to start that in june potentially and then continue it in august or whether you want to just wait till august i've just seen what your thoughts were i didn't think it made sense to start it in may because we got many districts voting um and we're going to have new board members so i'd rather catch them all um so i think the earliest we could start would be june that was my point we we have as i remember right don't we have a new board member training that we created for the esu well i've definitely met with every new board person um and i provided a folder ethan but in addition to that the vsba does also provide their own new board member orientation but i was looking for like board development in general across the esu even for uh not just new board members all of us no i would my recommendation is because we're going to have we're going to have two new members um um i would like some time for them to be at a meeting or two um and then we get together once there's some cohesiveness a little bit of cohesiveness then they have some general idea of what's going on and then we start in august i think is a really good idea um um because something's happened they got they got some understanding if we jump right in i i know i didn't have a clue you know if you started training me right away i wouldn't have even known what we were talking about yeah sounds like august jamie right so i'm going to go ahead then i just wanted to get some direction i'm going to reach out to them and next month i'll give you guys like all right here's the topic in august here's the topic in september and what i'd like to do is try to commit like an hour at our esu meetings for like three months each meeting just to do that training if that sounds all right um but i'll propose it based on meeting with them next month does that sound good sounds good yeah you really think we need an hour just i mean you know we have record long meetings at our side so it's really nothing but i mean i i just don't want to lose lose people that's all well let me yeah let me talk to them and see what they think um we've gotten pretty efficient at the full board meetings typically um so i thought we might be able to attack if we're gonna attack a training on those would be the meetings i think i mean i personally i thought that thing today i mean i i missed some of it but i thought i could have been done very well in an hour that was my feeling so just just the efficiency it's always good not to waste people's time and keep it precise okay 7.4 in person versus virtual meeting i think virtual meetings are good i said i wouldn't have been able to attend until probably seven o'clock if this wasn't if i hadn't been able to hop on virtually well you know i i'm bringing it out more so like so for our committees and for the full board um with the su and stuff we could have always navigated this and they haven't changed um the requirements right now we can continue to just hold these virtually but even after those uh once that changes um and i think it will at some point we can always warn this as the location and still have an open meeting that's virtual as long as we provide access here at the location location of the su office for su meeting so i just i wanted folks to bring brought up to speed that this is something we can leverage across the su um and then just to say to you as board chairs um at the local district meetings just for us to be thinking about as we move forward um around in person versus virtual you know i thought it was interesting uh to hear today one of my takeaways was just how uncomfortable still some folks are about meeting in person and so before boards decide to start to meet in person i think we're going to make certain we have um good access to hybrid technology um to make certain that we can just navigate those so um but i did want you to know i think our attendance is up on these su meetings andrew i agree um and so and for committees and things if we wound the location is here at the office um and that i'm here and provide access for folks to join that's a legal meeting even prior to coven um i would just add that the advantage of having them as having the recording works in our favor you know like we i take the minutes they're i take great i take five minutes but um you know pre-covid we weren't recording meetings by any means and so to have this as an additional document on record is a great thing for as a public service all right anything else on that do we need to like is there some equipment we could get um that would help enable the hybrid meetings i mean they work pretty well um for when you're in the conference room of having the screen up and being able to have virtual participants and in person participants um is there something that we could get so that when the board goes back you know we're back to meeting in our schools and stuff for our local districts we'd be able to have something similar in places that aren't the conference room those um those full room like conference microphones are really good for that it does not work we tried it last year to have someone's laptop in the room that's not good but some type conference microphone can work well ray what are your thoughts uh depends on the place we had mixed luck with it we worked fine in rod and fine in strafford but not in tumbridge although it worked fine in chelsea there's even with the same equipment there's something about the acoustics in tumbridge where uh we had a really difficult hybrid meeting if we're running at the conference room uh you know the public attendance will be light i'm not sure who would show up um that but that is how things started a year ago um before we were allowed to be completely virtual so ray do you think it would be better in the library at tumbridge than it is which is where we normally held our meetings to in the gymnasium where we we we moved to just because of the space yep um we can test it out okay so we'll move along as we are for now and and keep an eye on ray that you can up you can up those technology needs in your ask around our recovery efforts sure it's not it's it's more audio uh right like you can give you that mic there uh you know tomorrow i will reach out to sess stoddard who's somebody who's worked in bethel and roilton in this area uh and chandler in terms of it's not really the video that's the problem it's it's picking up the right voices at the right time in ways that are uh legible for everybody we we've also used uh for performance uh the yeti microphone it's uh pretty common i think they're a couple hundred bucks or something like that and it's it's like the old radio ones that hung from the ceiling they're sort of big and round but they're very very good for picking up a group but i agree i think you know this is a little cart before the horse uh i wonder how how comfortable people are going to feel even in the fall um being together um so both sitting and you know the state's guidance on gathering as of right now is people can gather indoors as long as everyone is fully waxed which is like two weeks post your second dose um because of the pause in johnson and johnson like my vaccine is not going to happen for another like i was on that list and got cancelled and put to the back of the line so i'm still a good month out from my first dose so i think that because of because of some of this like finding that point where everyone is like sufficiently vaccinated and kind of trusting that everyone else in the room is as well because there's also no guidance around that um it's something that a lot of people still haven't navigated i trust you all if you tell me you're vaccinated if you're not aware lots of has that stuff and be keeping suits around you all right you know i think i think again it's like trying to look at this glass half full like i think we learned that leveraging the technology will help us going into the future and so i think you know even when we get past coven we are all vaccinated there could be some pluses around certain work we do holding it virtually like i think full board executive like i really think the su stuff you know i think there's times that will want to get together because i think that's good for a relationship building but i think to get work done um our attendance is definitely up right and i heard andrew say he wouldn't admit it on the make it tonight so i just think that it's worth us keeping that in mind um as we look to continue initially that's all thank you jamey um action possible action items ray copiers terry are you still here i am so ray and i really a business office thing ray and i would request if you are willing to allow us to continue our lease with canon financial solutions uh they are the ones that currently maintain our copier contracts in all of our buildings they are the state approved vendor we did um look at some other providers but had some hesitancies with moving and given some of our restructuring that may be happening ray and i had a very detailed conversation with paul who is our canon representative and has been for many years um and feel that this is the best thing for the supervisor union at this point in time it is a 60 month lease and given um we would upgrade the copiers to the same type of copier that we have now with a few exceptions you'll see in red where we're adding a fax board to the copier at some of our locations so that they can do faxing right from the copy machine rather than having to have a separate fax machine so over on the last page ray you can see the current fleet cost versus the proposed fleet cost and the one copier that we're not going to renew is the chelsea copier uh we're going to just leave that on a month to month basis because they may not need that copier upstairs in the elementary wing after the restructuring happens in two years so that's the 10 plus one that you see on that last column there so by doing this 10 plus one going with the 60 month lease we have um overall monthly savings of 264 dollars and 32 cents and after the effort we consider configuration and if we drop that second copier at the chelsea campus we're looking at about 450 dollar savings per month given our usage and quantities that we were using these copiers uh paul felt that we were right where we needed to be as far as the number of copies for black and white and color that we have so you'll see there isn't any changes there all right do i have a motion to accept the copiers uh i make a motion to accept the recommendations of the business officer and technology director as to uh continuing the contract uh they exist uh is that a new contract or existing yeah a renewal of our a renewal of our existing contract with canon do i have a second a second is there any discussion all right hearing none um all those in favor um i'll vote for each of you um erin yes yes daisy uh yes eason yes andrew yes um and that is all of us and i'm a yes so we pass unanimously thank you all very much thank you terry enjoy a copy of freedom um any other resignations new hires i know we talked about and then i think don hit him in his report uh we are don we did bring on a triple e teacher though for special ed for next year what's sorry i didn't hear that jimmy i was hoping i think don froze on me we uh due to the fact that we had a retirement in triple e sue clark we did put an interview committee together and we're bringing on a new triple e teacher for next year don you want to talk a little bit about that can i i met with her i was very excited about her oh is he there don you're gonna tell the boy to get off the nintendo games plants singers her name uh she's been uh i believe in the randolph area for are you hear me anybody hear me let's turn off your video turn off your video and just talk to us please anyways can you are you here am i there you'll hear can you repeat is that better repeat the candidate's name don susan lansing thank you and she's a veteran triple e teacher early early childhood educator out of uh randolph thank you don okay so so i'll just have a nice um 40 minute uh interview with her as well after the committee was done and um she had a lot of ideas about early intervention and how to strengthen our our multi-tiered system of supports and i think she's going to assist us as well with reviewing data at the pre-k level data teams and to ensure that we're getting interventions in place early um and that we're progress monitoring those interventions before we just moved for triple e um and she understood her role in providing those early interventions and supports even without needing an iep prior to implementing and so i was happy about that um and you know you're going to continue to hear me say like early interventions where it's at i mean we've got to get this right in pre-k k one and two uh we need our students reading in grade three and we need them to no addition and subtraction going into grade three for multiplication so um you know we got to invest in the pre-k and so um that's why i wanted jan i won't think we need to continue to talk to jam about our work in pre-k and k and um i think she's going to be a really nice addition to the team for references we're glowing as well all right is there any other business tonight next meeting date is monday may 24th that'll be a full board meeting were we going to try and move that one because that is when we're doing your informational meeting kathy oh yes we did talk about that jamie we're reviving the pre-k right now karen how do you have time to know that because i just put their mail together i'm joking i'm joking the uh the issue is we have the strafford board the next night that wednesday of that week's open i don't know if a wednesday evening works for folks uh hold on a second it's time for me jamie it's aaron right that wednesday would be open right right look at that what what's the last day of everybody's vote jamie you're the final one so what day are we talking after our vote what day are we talking please know may 26th be able to do any reorg or anything that night because f bud would have to meet first for their reorg meeting that's fine i wasn't in the reorg until june right yeah uh we're not reorganizing until june either yeah that may 26th the wednesday that's good good for me you got it in the note state so i don't forget it it's all over the rainbow send me an invite he's good about that with that being said we can entertain a motion to adjourn so moved so moved thank you everybody good night everyone good night