 I do not have any adjustments to the agenda, does anyone else? All right, all right, I have one tiny one. Okay. All right, that's student council, creating an elementary student council. Okay, so we'll call that discussion item 8.3. And it's actually Wilder's idea. Totally, it's idea, yeah. That's nice. Yeah. All right, the consent agenda in your packet, we have minutes from our meeting in Rochester's library last week. Last week? Last week. Last week. You have to wait, last time. I think Jenny did a fine job, so I would entertain a motion to move the minutes as submitted. Second. Second. Okay, any discussion? Anyone see Tycho with the 1.2, the intended speech and her appropriations of commas and semicolons? Is there a period? And hearing no other discussion, all those in favor of approving the minutes, I have a first name in the packet, student council member saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, the minutes are approved. Reports to the board, Bruce's report will be given when Bruce arrives. He is flying in from North Carolina to date and is theoretically on the road. Do you know about woodlanding? Do people report commas, or do you have a comment? No, I didn't purposely skip over those. I just went right to report to the board. I was just thinking about talking about Bruce. The one thing, I'm sorry, just with your agenda, I think, it's definitely because I'm living it right now. There's been, I'm just wondering if we should discuss some of these emails from Tim Pratt about the, have you been in anybody else's community? I have been. I have been. I don't know if we can wait till Bruce is here to ask about it. I'm just curious about it. Yeah, what the comments you do is you mentioned that and I realized that I had asked for there to be executive session on here. There is, there should be. And there is not any. So we're going to have executive session on here. Isn't that another thing? Sparrow? No. We'll call it item 10, where it says other. Other. We'll just kind of switch out the words other, write in the word executive. Thank you. I think that's something that we might want, I don't know if we want to specialize, but we should maybe discuss. We need to start on that conversation about equity, I think, in terms of different schools. We've had a couple different people come to us about, you know, drivers are being paid with this tuition and books. Show them the best. Yeah, exactly. The best discussion is part of that. Anyone who wants to put something in the newsletter that holds the board. That is our secretary. Lisa Flora. Lisa Flora. Yeah. So we should decide what we want. So I have that too. Do you want to put that in the newsletter? Yeah. So it's executive session. It doesn't talk about it fast, but it's not personal. Yeah, it's not. I think it's a large conversation. Maybe I want to get my head back. Like you should have. But maybe that would be the best. I think it would be worth getting. I think everybody has to speak rather than. Sure. When we go into the next session, I would think it would be going into executive session to discuss a student matter that Ferro would like to discuss. Right. And student matters that are personal. If you want to add as a discussion item something to address the emails concerning driver's ed and vast. Yeah. Just as a discussion. They're different, but kind of the same in terms of what everybody is. Yeah. Just to bring it up. 8.3. Let me say 8.3. Driver's ed and vast. That would actually be 8.5. 8.5. What did we put in there as 8.4? 8.3 is student council. 8.4 is the newsletter. 8.5 would be driver's ed. Yeah, 8.5. It would be well thought out. Driver's ed. Pigments. Vast. Vast. Right. Vast. Sorry. Okay. I can actually look at some of these. I do have some. Okay. So, we've now completed our adjustment to the, into public comment. Is there any public comment? Anyone comes in the door after this? Okay. We'll bring this up again. Is it Todd on the agenda? Yes, he is. Where's that? That's that. How's it going? Okay. Thank you. Present it. Thank you. I just want to make sure. I actually just assumed that that was what he was there. Because I'm like, he's here. He's not here for fun. He's not the principal, business manager, the one black director. He's going to be in the mentoring program. Correct. I want to congratulate the CEO and the great work that they did in the book fair. I think it was really impressive that we used a local bookstore to do our book fair. And I think it's really impressive. And I think the work that went into it was commendable and I wanted to thank everybody involved. And I've just heard from Courtney, obviously, organized a lot of this from Donna that is going Gangbusters. gangbusters. Just close to that. The kids loved it. It was really cool to watch. She complimented how much better it was to use a local vendor as well versus a national distributor. And just that it was a really age-appropriate, kid-friendly, lots of variety. It was really impressive. I think Barton included a lot of work in discussing the books, the list of books to get, and I just think everybody's really wonderful. Anybody who thinks of it, I know she would appreciate an email. Just that, you know, thank you. She's also full-time and full-time for her, so it was just... Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, you're right. We could get a little car together. That's not a good idea. I think the work was well done. Again, Starfish and T.O. They pay for one book for each of the software dice. The profit from the book fare off sets it so it's not really a big cost. That's what it is. And the community books that they sold don't even give you the number. It's like over $500. I'm like, are you serious? Yeah, yeah, well, good. That's great. Any other board comment? Just a comment about the show and the outside. And just that, you know, this was a really great use of this space that we control and that I'm not sure final numbers, but something like the realm of 700 people, 800 people came to see the five shows. A lot of comment, a lot of interest and just that this is a really viable use of this space. Just to put that out. I would like to answer that because having worked for Shell for those seven weeks and being about, being at Rochester High School, this is a gem to this community that we should somehow work through to see if it could be a viable place. I really saw how important this place could be for miles around. There's no auditorium like this. I'm not sure, for example, that we should call it the Rochester High School auditorium anymore. Maybe it's the Rochester Theater or the Rochester Community Center or Rochester Stock Exchange. I'm not sure what we do, but I think we can utilize this space much more than we all. We can get, perhaps, money. Maybe it's a profitable thing, not just a detriment to the sure thing. I think that ties back to this whole general conversation of what's similar, if all the assets were in one building or the other building and it's a tough call because you know would the students be better served to be in the building with the auditorium or the building with the gymnasium? I walked in where they would build in the sets. That would work in the building. It's a treasure. What are we doing having that room empty when our kids could do... This is in the high school? Why are we not using something fast? Because I'm sitting in the music room and it's a windstorm outside so I look up and the ceiling tiles are flapping back and forth from the wind outside. You can't use the bed as we discussed last time for everything that we've done. So it's something that we really need to look at. We can turn the whole assessment right? We have some discussion and action. There is an issue that looks great, the physical point is the furnace went out a couple of times before they got it going finally. I think it's going right now. The furnace is in the high school building. There was one day when one was a problem with the furnace that they fixed and the other was that somebody coming to the auditorium and turned the thermostat which controls the music room and the whole macro and turned the thermostat to five. We said for the whole school but not for those areas. We're not sure how that happened but anyway. With that space for every child to get the opportunity to go up on that stage I think. We definitely have more of a conversation. We do. The gymnasium floor is tile. It's not a hardwood floor. The kitchen is in that building but it's not a super fancy kitchen and you could move. In many ways it's easy to move ovens and you can put a new vent in the other building because they don't really have a kitchen space but which do you move where? We should open up the light and play as next time. I was so sorry that we didn't open it up to stop these kids as well because it's an experience where both your daughters it's an experience they will never forget. That's the first time she did anything like that when we changed her. They were kids in the audience who had been where my husband started in the 70s. They were kids in the audience who had been in that. This is something that we really need to take a look at because it's a jet. This is part of this most weird. We're actually getting a timeline for having a plan for this building I think that's good. People are going to really start asking us that question as we get to our budget. I have a question. We haven't really made any progress. Maybe we should continue this discussion in the future. Sure. I also think that we also need to keep in mind that in the speaking comment about being thin we had also said we're going to open this conversation up to the community which we're talking about with local theater groups and things but it means that in the last meeting we said we really need to have ourselves as a way to frame that conversation before we bring the community to set us so we need almost two steps. We need to really get our minds around what we as a board think would work because it's what we're set up for some project. This is it. Spittball is going to be really fun. We're in delayed superintendent's reports till Bruce is blessed. I think I would add that other thing is that our kindergarten grade classes are doing a lot together. It also includes nutritional components and cooking and just different activities and I frequently hear and I think I said a couple pictures but I've gotten them snapped. I can't wait to see my friends from Rochester. Also while the Boston trip definitely created a lot of good relationships the younger kids think it's awesome and it's really cool because October is the first time I went out to the classroom all playing on the playground together. It's really cool to see. Does it end up being across the line? Yes, but it's a nice population. Roughly. It's a good population. It's a great opportunity especially during the coming time. That's great. So it's really cool to see. Can I add an invitation from the friend that you've got, Joey? Yes. To be his birthday partner this last weekend. She's taking quite a lot of pictures. I can't because of the show but I played the game this weekend. And we were supposed to go to Spartan today to do stills. And the 13th is the next one today. And that's our joint building. This is kindergarten in first grade where we sat down and used to utilize both the music teacher that we share as our support nurse to help you with a lot of the nutritional components and then the teacher separately. So that's kind of like it. Thank you. Do we have a decent amount of documentation of that to get pictures or videos of things because I think one of the things speaking again to what we're going to need to be presenting to our community at budget time is she's great things. It always works out better if you start out having some coffee and some cookies and some snacks and a slideshow play of all these things going on and they're able to, before you say here's how much we're going to take out of your wallet to be able to say here's what your money got you and to be able to be able to speak not just have a slideshow going but be able to speak to the opportunities and it's always at least in our past last couple of years it's been hard sometimes it's been more almost Jenny saying oh yeah remember we did this remember this happened because we weren't getting that kind of work with the administration but I think we started putting stuff in the file for me it's all right here despite some complaining that kids weren't allowed to bring electronics we actually sent them with disclosable cameras and the kids went to the school bus and loved it you know we talked last month about the idea that and you guys said you want to hold off on doing the whole choosing an aid thing and figuring that piece out and we had said that as a board we were discussing the merger that we thought that would be kind of something that would give them something they could share and have as an identity and this may be the thing that we can do for that it might be good to see it to ask if there could be some fifth and sixth graders that might want to work together to make a video or a presentation or a slideshow that could be shown at an annual school meeting where the kids are saying here's what us coming together has meant this is what the students counsel right this isn't something that we can pull together you know February 15th and have them reflect they have to be kind of gathering and thinking about that and staging their moments and all that fall role you know through that and I think that's showing the communities how the kids are getting together is what's been demonstrating that this is either successful or not right so you know I think the more authentic it can be for the kids to be developing that material for us would be awesome sounds really good the book affairs in there both participated in learning walks using the Daniels and Evaluation tool with Laurie Singer both here and in Rochester and people from other schools and the SCU things were a great opportunity to work on buildings to get back together and not people do that all the teachers in both buildings have written two to three professional goals that they're going to work to achieve on this school year and that is part of their supervision and evaluation process currently interviewing for an administrative assistant here started that process and then I think the big thing on the back is Rochester Elementary School is going to do a shelter drill and I don't think it's the 17th early as ever right it's not really school oriented it's like the town emerges to shelter but if you're planning on attending good support thank you questions, comments or thank you very much thank you so much for your report Ginger is up to you you're next I had a new payroll person start on Monday we received another reservation in the office gave her a reservation on Monday so she'll be done on the 23rd of August working with a consultant mentor that's been a business manager for over 30 years working on the FY20 budget we've sat down with Tony and Bonnie to cash out a few numbers your budget is staggered about a month off from the schedule from everybody else's just because you vote so much later the pressure for to date that's due to October 31st usually that was the middle of the week but last month I was knocked out with the second S still who tell me some of the big changes some of the expenditures that we've had that are way higher than the 35% here through the school year and I'm being concerned that we're going to be over budget in those areas or purchased or looking at the physical education 66% through spent already or like 35% through the year and then you don't have a specific for physical education I definitely look into that we are most definitely still learning our new software program and it's very possible that maybe somebody's salary is put in the wrong area but I will put that on my radar right now yeah it is out of the there's the one that's 41% which is the library where it just was higher and then I have a question about the SU assessment that is 53% so like that's actually built quarterly and it's built in advance so half of your SU assessment has already been built half of it's going to be built it's a little more of a horror way so the next question is and the SU assessment number does correspond with you know our business office I guess what didn't seem to be in there was the SPED and the transportation assessment I didn't know if that showed up that also is actually farther at the top underneath the record especially on the assessment right there at the 12% we are building that on a monthly basis and where is that transportation down here so that in the support services is actually our SU assessment that's the that's the assessment on that one it just didn't have an assessment didn't have an assessment next to it so just looking for where all that money was okay then my question with the revenues was when do we bill for tuition when do we expect to see bill for revenues coming in but we've got no tuition revenue today okay so those are billed by semester so it's usually usually billed out in like December for payment in January and then later like April for payment it's going to be done more like December this year because budgets are taken and maybe we talked about this last time about how we receive those payments if we maybe I don't think we have the option to interact with those states if we're going to pay in fall or if we're going to pay in portion but how do we usually receive tuition do they pay in fall or do they pay by semester they pay by semester so does getting the tuition money more towards December because we're building it later we expect to cash from the law or at least from the law and the dirty mail had stated that we probably are going to see the final numbers for FY18 until another month so our auditors are coming back over here tomorrow actually to complete the SEO audit they came in and they audited all of the school districts themselves but didn't have time to touch the SEO so they were here tomorrow and they had a timeline with him but adjusting entries way more in advance than that but all that more information we want to use in the house tomorrow because we often don't and without general value the blocks would give us any adjusting entries that they see need to take place and then they work on building the draft audit and due to the change of the last chapter the problem is more adjusting entries than it would have been you know, reclassifying expenses that weren't coded correctly or certain transactions that didn't take place correctly so the corrects are basically correct yes, absolutely they're not because I attended adjusting an entry it's not really adding a dollar or subtracting a dollar it's putting a dollar in the right bucket is that an accurate? but you would also said last time that there was the SU assessment there were spendings that we could change it was a special ed assessment which we discussed with them when they were here in September and we got that all finalized but those numbers should be solid so if you were to print out a new one of our financial summaries for last year and have new numbers on it then then this one it's not a new thing that you guys saw in the last year the policy was a little bit political in the last year but the date just said that we talked a lot about that because the number might change yeah, I have a note here that said it was likely to change lower it was provided on 9, 4, 8 and so September 4 but it still has the same date on the top of it that's the June 30th I don't know exactly exactly the draft if you code on that would be correct any sense of why we're getting a tight turnover in the business office with this or is it just going to be a normal thing at this point we have one part-time person in the office and next year I would like to increase that to be full-time and maybe even have her on staff for one day a week for next year also she's specifically famed for retirement and then you can tell us what is the cause of this stress in particular I think a big piece of it was the new software transition so we transitioned to a new software and a coding structure which needs to be revamped again for July 1st according to state statute to revamp it again is that coming from the state of Vermont the state of Vermont has to be replaced by July 1st and they closed the new consolidate and here's how the description is the charter the final event that's what they're doing they want to be universal across the entire state which is what we thought we were working with when we put this in place in 10 in May we received the final charter of accounts and then they changed both those changes retroactive for all of the buildings the support staff, the teacher everybody was sort of going different directions it was a really really rough summer health insurance the data passed I'm not sure what you guys are up on no that's so it was changing the health for the teachers that have not gotten their medical insurance paid and have gone into collection the districts around the state are loaning them to keep them out of no I think we're in a better circumstance than that thankfully with the restructuring of the health insurance plans we now have HRAs in place and initially we had a vendor that sort of worked as a third party in tracking, reconciling and getting payments out for those and that third party vendor quit resigned, however you want to put it somebody assumed the responsibility of I would say 80 to 90% of the entire state so they're trying to figure out what the other company did and didn't do and reconciling it's been a big disaster across the real estate department maybe our staffing is a little shorter but the majority of the stress has been from the purchase to arm over the union contracts health insurance the software changeover the leadership changeover because you've been the third business manager of the year have we do you know if we have looked at the size of our business office staff vis-a-vis the number of students we serve and compared across the state is our business if you looked at comparable issues to us and this is probably not a question that I expected to have my answer for but it's a good question I wonder if it would be interesting I'm asking this more to you because Bruce isn't here to be asked to end and I may forget but it would be interesting to see if our business office in terms of our staffing levels is right-sized to comparable issues across across the state I've done a formal evaluation but on a monthly basis I meet with business managers and chat with my group that I've sitting with for the day to find out about our business office and I'm definitely finding that we have way more districts than most people most ex-news and about the same more less staffing than the business office so they ostensibly even a year out from now there could be each of this that things are more settled you understand yeah yeah no because it's been a concern as far as this year is business office is going to revolve the door and that's a big concern should be in the executive committee too right and it's good and I certainly want to support you you know we're trying to nail you just you know we want this working but it is a very valid question that I could see someone in our school meetings really feel the choking in my office and we're all we sort of feel like we just put the fires out each day and survive day to day and it's not a proactive approach at all well and it makes it hard for the planning part of your job to get done it was frustrating last year when the busing contract came back so much higher 11% higher attendance and higher whatever it was last well would we save money by going back to owning our own buses and employing our own drivers and just a look of fear that went across Bruce and thought of trying to be able to to do that analysis and put that together but you know again in a better circumstance that should be something that we should be able to expect from the office but absolutely I think not just the fax numbers which is very important obviously but just so we know thank you close to what we have this year I did try to shave off a little bit I think I might have cut it by $8,000 or something like that but you can see the Rochester Stock Bridge school year district total and then our combined summer program so on the backside of that page you will find our sorry 15-20 and I've highlighted the school local funding so the I think the thing you should know up front is we're not asking for anything more than what you contributed in the last three, four, five years that we're asking essentially for the same amount but what I wanted to explain is that I presented at the September we're in the midst of my goal was 2% of our overall budget is $74,000 and then I looked at two data points at each of our schools student hours to a student hours in attendance to figure a percentage to the school so whatever percentage that school would take from $4,000 so if you look at it's actually the last page, that pie chart you can see what that contribution would be by school I mean that would be in the school budget yeah yeah, exactly yeah so the percentage we came up with the Rochester with 7.5% and Stockbridge with 6% so if you look at what that means in terms of the 74,000 that means the Rochester contribution would be $5,550 and Stockbridge contribution would be $4,440 but what I am encouraging you to consider is just maintaining your current contribution of $10,000 for Rochester and $9,300 for Stockbridge and my main argument for that is that the fees and subsidies that we collect in Stockbridge and Rochester and actually all of our small schools still continue to fall into this category it doesn't meet the target percentage which sorry, I'm flipping you everywhere if you go to the first pie chart what I'm really trying to shoot for is about 40% of our overall income and by sight coming from fees and subsidies so if you think about it 50% we can ask a poor up to 50% for the explainer's degree ideally we have around 40% coming from families or state companies and in Rochester and Stockbridge we're in the high 20s right now like 27% or something so if you leave in your full contribution that you've got in there for this year that's how you're essentially could look at it as subsidizing the fees and subsidies and that would push you up to about 33% in terms of the care and fees that are paid by the capacity that the program receives because of eligibility is only 20% right now it's about 27% 27% 27% and there's a couple of reasons why that is in Rochester and Stockbridge for income your best case I mean in this way best case scenario is a situation where you have a high free and reduced lunch rate and a high percentage of those families qualifying for subsidy because we get way more money for subsidy than we would charge a family and that's happening like in South Wellington we get funds of subsidy income there because there's a high free reduced lunch rate and lots of families the lowest income scenario is what we have in Rochester and Stockbridge where we do have a high free reduced lunch rate but not very many families qualify for subsidy well you know I was talking to Bonnie about this the other day she's noticed it too what we both think is that there's a lot of subsidies and you really don't know how much and it's like a whole cultural shift happening there and now it's kind of automatic like families just qualify for subsidy and I think there is some amount of I mean we've done a lot of educating I've sent out a letter that I think really clearly outlines the benefits to the program and to the families for applying for subsidy and Stockbridge actually does I think you know for the number of kids they ask you know they currently have three kids on subsidy and there's two more that are in the midst of applying so that's not bad we have zero kids in Rochester on subsidy so that's one reason I think our fees on subsidies are low the other thing to think about because this is also the case with Newton and Chelsea the bigger your program the more efficient it is so Bethel might be twice the size of Rochester that doesn't mean Rochester's budget is half of Bethel's budget so you have a smaller population trying to meet that 40% on a higher budget so that's you know I don't think it's a bad thing I mean it's not the worst thing in the world it just means that we have less capacity those schools have less capacity to meet that 40% so and it's not something that we're going to get back on we'll continue to educate families about subsidy and the families are paying the fees we don't have a hard time you know there's a family here and there that we will let attend for free because their kids really need to be there and we're not going to make them to basically pull out but the families otherwise they are paying the fees but they're paying the $4 a day fee and not applying for subsidies for one reason or another so subsidy is different from the free and reduced lunch and you get money for that there's a parent or a child they let pay $4 because they're not free for lunch does this program get the balance of what is actually owed to them for the day from another source not from a subsidy so the only finding is the subsidy now if you look at the second page the revenue page so you got the school contributions of $10,000 in the Rochester school budget the $9,300 and then below the second from the bottom the town funding line is the $2,920 that's in the Rochester town budget and the $5,000 that's in the Stockbridge town budget so is that I mean number one is though one of the things that we hear at least here in Stockbridge is that there's kind of there's the double dip we started out the first time that the 2011Z program was run here the first years were like 100% whatever the coverage was the way that grant the decades both the KM the math the drops and then there was well let's add it into the towns for some money to contribute to this and then we asked the school board for some money and so one of the things that gets brought up is that there's kind of you're taking out of this you're taking some out of this pocket and some out of that pocket and is that common across the SU and other percentages that is double the school budget and the town budget correct well it looks like there's $22,420 that is from all the towns in the district that is being contributed so if I'm not sure where the 20 the Rochester 29-20 came from when I went to this walk 7 I thought it was only a thousand so it's 6,000 8,000 of that amount is from our you know where's the small percentage of the work that's going to come out we were discussing the fact is normally normally wants to keep that separate from your market for certain things and I don't know about Stockbridge has not given me very much direction in terms of what they want their funding for lots of towns that specifically specifically for scholarships so with the towns funding a lot of times they have the same things that's usually where we both pay in terms of the budget towns they haven't paid in every year that's one reason I went to all of the boards because we had schools that were paying nothing but we do have some programs that are newer than others like Chelsea and Newton, they're new programs they're only in their fourth year but they're making a big jump from nothing to I don't know between the two of them might be they're young right there so I wanted it to be a little more reflect a little more you than me across the school and then Chelsea and Newton because 30% of these are low we're using different strategies we do have big factors to pay that here if we get to contribute the larger amount then I think we'd have to make budget cuts we'd have to get those to match up a little bit better I mean I would surely like to keep our because we have one school budget now we're a unified district that's us so it's less important that you know the amount of $19,300 I mean there's not a minimum number but I think that it needs to be it's more like the percentage of your overall school so a small school like Stockbridge and Rochester you're gonna have you know smaller numbers but you know they yeah I mean so far so good we had a site visit last year and they were really impressed with the programs I think we're always trying to get those numbers up a little bit in Rochester and Stockbridge I would love to see every single kid in these schools utilize this program it's just number stuff but we've had a lot of fun events so far this year and I was going to mention if you do put together like a slide show I posted a video our kids did together during the Rochester game it was a stop motion it was a video highlighting with the kids making stop motion videos it was really yeah check it out it's not on I was trying to find it it wasn't on the Stockbridge Facebook page it was on the unified district page so I don't know if I can post things on Stockbridge's Facebook page but probably not but anyways it's about 45 years it's a many big organization it started kind of big brother, big sister in mind but it has some significant differences to big brother, big sister we started children in 7 middle school but sometimes the kids stay with their mentor through high school so we don't have to continue through high school it's a non-profit organization we get referrals for children largely through the schools which is one reason I wanted to come today thank you for supporting this primarily from the guidance counselor very often there's a child in the school that can use an adult in their life and the guidance counselor will take trouble to do an assessment of the child seek out permission from the family and then interact with us so that we have authorization to proceed as you can imagine that is hard part is to find the adult the mentor and for the first 44 years of his existence Windsor County Parks was a one person operation who had a plundering and then the guidance counselor and so on sometime in the last year the organization received some grant money to hire people like myself so the county was divided into three tiers each tier now has a coordinator who's job and business to go out talk about the program and try to do a better job of finding the matches so you might be wondering what's the big deal about mentoring how does this affect things I spent five years on the Newton board and I was very much aware of the special needs of children and I think that there's an overlap here statistically there's some stats on the sheets I gave you about which are probably more national and origin and regional but kids who have it tend to attend school better, there's lower cruancy rates, they're better prepared for school there's higher graduation rates there's a greater frequency of going into secondary education there's a reduction in teen pregnancy there's a reduction in the use of drugs and the use of alcohol and the sort of dependence on violence to express themselves so what they see is that through mentoring children get stability in their life which allows them to mature into more productive healthy adults and as board members that's the first one you're all about that's what I was about is helping to create a better society one thing we find is that although the child is the primary focus of the program the child's family is also a big part of what we're trying to assess I can't go into lots and lots of detail about all the families but very often the child's coming from maybe a single parent household maybe a married couple and maybe they're both working but they're having a hard time or possibly the child is looking for intensive care or having a grandparent that is more and more common these days I'm sure you see that so one example would be a single mom who has a chronic illness that requires periodic hospitalizations she has two children she works her time as best she can she saw she picked us we have a mentor for both of my children so that there's an adult who can take time to watch our museum take them to vins take them out into the country so we've been able to satisfy to find a mentor for both of this person's children and so it gives her a sense of extending her parenting she's physically capable of doing herself so in that sense we see it as a benefit to the family and then as a contribution to the schools and to the broader community from that place forward so I'm not trying to go through a lot of things every once in a while I am respectful of your time we have just to clarify a couple things first of all winter county partners has been the name of the organization for 45 years that's about to change and as a result none of our promotion materials are great every day we have a website which is a little funky but if you want to learn more about it there's a website directly on the back I have two business cards but if you want to reach me directly it would be Cal's P-A-L-S North is to try to find adults who are interested in this kind of involvement as a mentor we ask that the adult will spend 6 to 8 hours per month with that child one more time that's all it can be longer the mentor who took his mentee to Boston took this child down to the quarry went to the science museum this mentor told me the story they went to the science museum when they were leaving he asked his mentee what did he like the most or what did he want to go back and look at so I want to go to that big room and ride the moving skirmish because we're looking for people who want to share their time with a young child and help that child broaden their opportunity their awareness, their experience the mentor is it's a role model it's a reliable adult and a lot of statistics say that with children who suffered childhood trauma and there's a lot of brain science around that now which is quite compelling one of the things that can make a difference in whether that trauma has continued out through their life is whether they have one or another and that adult can happen when they are this age group so there's lots of interesting reasons to get involved with this the mentors obviously said it's a big commitment on their part we asked that they come into a 12 month period as a mentor with a possibility of renewing it annually if there's something that they want if it's working out for them I feel like 12 months is less than that it can do more harm than good for the child because it reinforces the world as an unstable place but more than that it can put a burden on every country so it's a chance to reassess currently most of our parents want to point out so that you probably have heard of things like Everybody Wins which are school based programs there's a new coverage from Chelsea Everybody Wins and this is Hartford it's a program where adults come into the school for like about an hour a week to meet one another we have a program like that in Springfield and we're just starting one in Windsor so we call those school based programs most of our programs we call community based and the things I was talking about where the mentor will go to the home of the child take them out do something, it can be something very simple kick a soccer ball then take them back home other times it can be a little more elaborate and yes I can't believe that I'm talking and extending this meeting but I know one of my friends has done this from the time his mentee was nine and now he's I think 17 he's about to graduate from high school this kid would not be graduating from high school no way unless he had this particular mentor this kid would call if he had too much to drink please come and pick me up where he would call his own family he would call his name and the mentor ended up he traveled 20 hours to see this kid play basketball someplace else in the state it became an extremely close relationship and what you said you really need to look at this guys because it is I found this Dr. Robert Brooks who's associated with Harvard and he looked for patterns of poverty children what allowed them to escape the culture of poverty Harvard was a good teacher was an education and the one generalizable thing was just what you said it was one caring adult it could be a clergy person it could be a teacher it could be your next door neighbor but it was one caring adult who thought this kid to be persistent and resilient and get through what they needed to get through so I think it's a program that I'm sure many of our kids would use so I've seen who you're talking about with a former high school teacher yes, so valuable I think I would be a crucial path that you have and I would guide them in Grand Walter Park Rochester and we should put them around town and maybe put it on social media but I do think there are people there that just don't know about the program we've got an increasing guitar equal with time and their answers in the nursing community survey people didn't say they wanted to join me because mine is to help people so I think it's just really putting those together I really enjoy these we need to go through them when is the new song hopefully it comes out in January I'm not in charge of that do you have any names for it are you going to go to Windsor County Mentors or Windsor County Mentory the notion of partners was one of the original concepts in that they wanted the mentor and the mentee to be equally invested so they called it partners but the mentors were all said they're welfare they don't have a good service so I'll put mentoring out there to be on top how many mentors and kids are you supporting at any given time yeah we're in a little bit of a low I think we're in the 20s for our community base 1400 cents the coordination was founded one of the things that we we're really honest about this we do have a lot over several years and that's why they hired folks like me to come out and try to facilitate this process and so I think it's going around and talking to some of the guidance officers and saying we know we crossed the ball and the school based programs they're small but those are easier once you grow because the time commitment is much less I think if you look at it as you bring someone in you say well okay I understand that a couple hours it takes to take someone out of their home or to do something else and do you activate them and then maybe it's cool or maybe I want to help out there's certainly a synergy between your organization and what we're trying to do I think that's the kids really besides from disseminating material is there anything else you're looking for from us well I'm just wondering I wanted to know that you are supporting through your guidance you're spending you are funding someone you should know through that secondarily I want you all to sign up to be mentored so much time that's great tomorrow she's not around so we're not expecting that every week throughout the year someone has to be here but if you're not here we have to find some way to stay connected stay connected one thing I want to mention quickly is that once the kids get to high school we offer a slightly different structure because we know that kids are too busy to meet every week so we say find me once a month but make sure that during the week you're contacting them or calling some sort of contact that's great thank you thank you alright well actually I just jumped back to 6.1 and Bruce can I couldn't get past it thank you so I wish I had been here a little earlier but I included this month the superintendent's goals that I added close to the executive board last week that we met or you might want to see them try to be a more comprehensive than I was last year meeting several of the areas board relationship community relations staff relations, budget, finance and structural leadership and there's certainly more goals that I had that I could put in here but I thought that was probably pretty comprehensive for this next year on the second page I tried to include the time talking to the boards about these things and some kind of cycle so that I'm making sure that I'm hitting all of them it's pretty disappointed last year because the evaluation that was done only included 14 board members which was less than half and hoping that we have some kind of organized way of getting these feedback on how things are going and things you might and so more feedback I can get honest feedback if there are any questions I've been a little out of the loop although I have been in phone contact over these last six days while I've been in a couple student matters especially that matter today the administrators come to me to feel like I've been on any of that goal to seek These are the goals that we should hold you to I always like it when there's a little more specificity to say make regular visits to classrooms and buildings as a priority is there some way to say at least to visit this first school for you every school every school here in Rochester tomorrow that's the kind of thing that detail makes a big difference to people in town this is something we can say is in every building of every school at least once a week that has been my routine since I started but do you see what I'm saying that this is a good it gets to the community relationship part the more we can be specific the more you can be specific the more useful it is as a selling point build up support same thing with that visible approach to members of the community what are the specifics of that returning every phone call I get trying to return every email I get I've been watching you it's very impressive that's a whole other topic meeting people one on one sometimes I do that when I visit the school sometimes it's in the office or phone conferences you know it's a a bear an SU to try to cover and I'm not making excuses for that I try to be as visible as I can be Ginger just said that we have more districts than a lot of the other SUs we're third in the state second third in the state it doesn't mean we have more kids we're spread out we're district wise I think we're North country's first and then the one south of us the Wichita it's North country three questions are recent career change assistance it's that time of year where we as a board here's the question actually the previous contract the career change the career change assistance program that's what I was about to do before I realized it ties to our contract issues the program we have to have been a teacher here for ten years and the board offers a number of slots but the number of slots is we could offer zero we could offer slots teachers apply for it there's two most senior teachers because we offer two seniority and it has to be over ten years would then get it so the benefits of the kids that year and then the benefit for the board is that in general you let go of a teacher an expensive teacher and you have the opportunity to look at bringing in someone that's probably going to cost less and it's going to be younger or not younger but enthused in looking for a position in general and what usually happens is the administration makes a recommendation and says we think it's something the board should think about sometimes it becomes a personnel matter it's discussed with executive sessions but it needs to be the way the contract works we have to tell them by December 1st right and then they have until January 1st January 15th Merle says here's the people so you're saying specifically for this year this program is only if we decided tonight to offer it we would have to approach the person by the end of December we would say that we will offer one golden parachute or two golden parachutes whenever it works to decide if we want to offer if you want offers, have this on the air it was never in the orange Windsor contract it was always in the Windsor Northwest contract but the board can decide how many slots they might want to allocate because it's quite a good contract financially in the end you'll probably do better because you'll be bringing in some people that are younger and going out so we have to find out what the candidates that fit I was trying to find a fund in our last budget there was actually one that Rochester was looking for that was a secondary teacher who had taken the career change assistance program and when we were looking at the budget it was always a way to second wide secondary education salary even though we're not going to have a high school it was because we were still carrying forward the career assistance program of a certain individual whatever their second or third year as part of the Rochester A&M budget and we did have quite a number older teachers that were possibly thinking about changing the situation you still do have some that would qualify if they chose and the principals might have a better indication of this but I don't have any indication that they're interested the people selling the contract it was pretty obvious that the Windsor and Northwest districts had had some success for this in Orange Windsor those districts said yeah we want to do and it was pretty much unanimous so it's in the contract for it's still the way with the Orange Windsor because we have we're still under that it's the same basic burden you're following the new contract you're still doing new rates to decide on it's November so you probably should decide we should decide now is there a recommendation from the administration? I would say too if you feel like two spots I would say that to any of the districts quite frankly do you have anything very specific? no I don't know I can name names but I'm not sure they're interested I don't like to offer the we can say we're not now to have the opportunity is that what we're doing now? I think you probably want to set it in stone will we have to set it in stone by December 1st we have to say the teachers need to know by December 1st whether we're offering zero positions, one positions, two positions three positions, four we need to know what those people are the first thing that happens is we say if we agree to have two positions but then we decide not to use them do you want to still stay in the budget? no that's what I'm saying once we say we have two we if any teachers take us up on it that has to be done but I'm saying if they don't take it up on it can we take it up on it? we won't be in the budget because they'll have to decide before we wrap up we would say by December 1st there's this slot and that slot and then Steph Colton or it's a matter of public reference all the years of service of our staff all their salaries as the four example that I was waiting for if we say two slots we don't have to use them well I'd say one or two and so we're comfortable that if we lost one of our senior teachers or two of our senior teachers that we have the institutional knowledge or whatever to bring in if you point it out the money's nice but we also we still have our six cents off this year's tax burden we made all this great because that will happen over a soak period so you keep your veterans to mentor your younger folks and it just kind of easily does that I think we were very successful in finding people this way you know they weren't all really timely but it was eventually we got a couple why are you recommending that we put in one or two what is the rationale just that that's usually what the words have done in the last couple of years that's all I know it can be used it has been in the past for example the board decides that that we would like to replace a teacher and they're at a time but they're not exactly near where they should be and so we offer this golden parachute because we want them to leave and we want to so I think in some ways it can benefit us as well if we want to leave it sounds like it sounds like what we're trying to avoid we'll put it out there and get a surprise of somebody who we really thought we were counting on you know what I think they do not want they're willing to do this and they don't want to stay how does our budget to be able to take on potentially two teachers at 60% salary for the next three years wow I don't know I think we're so tiny they just we do get to do it we've been done a budget for the past I would say that's a very good point and I would say no for that very good point that our budgets are so tight right now I don't think we want to do that I think we also want to at least in my mind this year it's already been so far as the transition and everything else that keeping I mean we can't keep a teacher who doesn't want to stay anyone can resign and that's certainly allowable and certainly like Jamie's alluded to sometimes you say okay here's the carrot and the teacher would say well you know I would rather have the carrot the career change system than the executive session put on to discuss this you know meaning that I don't believe there's I think we should I think we should the only thing I would say to you is in the past some of the teachers who have wanted to do it have come after the deadline and I don't think that's a good practice for any of us to do it I think once the language is in the contract about when they can comply it's on them to do it within the confines of that timeline and I would not what we haven't heard from yet is our administration and I feel I'm really nervous about making any decision for this without all of you here for the projects and what's your so I actually think and I don't know the numbers but our stuff is very separately things have changed like everything I think in both buildings there's some really strong senior teachers nobody would want to see go but the thing about strong teachers is they know when their time is done is that in sense not in any teachers some of our senior teachers are and I it is I would make a motion for any positions for career change assistance for the upcoming school year do I hear a second? second okay any further discussion for the next year signify by saying aye opposed I'm not in a position decision without the other that's so much a part of this decision and it feels a little strong in the sense of I would have rather I feel like you would be something that you would have talked to the teachers about and they'd come to us and said I think if the teachers know the program they would think the same way well that's we're only concerned about finances okay okay that's a I think based on what you initially directed us to do to offer the following request for proposal conditions and co-compliance of high school building architectural and engineering services to conduct a conference and assessment and co-review of an existing school building the existing conditions assessment should include a review of all structural mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems and that assessment should also include accessibility, allowable occupancy level, egress fire suppression systems and overall closing time so the question and I think it kind of came up in an email do you want it to certainly at least the two access buildings because that's what we're comparing you know because yeah it's part of the whole thing here to say that ventrility for the school for the school to at least the two access buildings and I think it would it would just be a benefit for us to know this building yeah I think that's fine the only thing I would say about that is it becomes egregious to this ability that we would skip on do we have any speaking of ballpark numbers of what this might cost I mean not even 20,000 50,000, 60,000 I think everybody said how many buildings there are so we need to be aware of that because I obviously think it just comes in which is out of the question does you all the ballpark are we saying that they were when they were built but since every pose has changed accessibility, accessibility there's carbon monoxide once you make a decision to do some renovations you have to bring things up to code but prior to renovation you were kind of grandfathered in for certain codes life safety codes plumbing things like that I'm not sure until you renovate those things well that's what I'm wondering it's changed well because if we're not renovating we don't necessarily have to bring it up to code but we would need I think it would be good to know how far the building is here's the thing you know I'm a commercial addition of my property once you get into talking to the fire you can't take back conversation can you forget about that part because I don't really want to do that it's like once you open the door and that is a valid question that said, I don't think we can go forward with this unified district without as much information as this information is because we need to be able to give people it's not committing to do anything about it it's just you know it's saying I'm just going to say $80,000 we used to do the camera didn't you make something it's in a fund it's not like you're destitute or something I guess my concern is it kind of what Ethan's saying is we had students in that building we have students in our buildings now is there an issue with our building that is going to be discovered by doing that stuff where you are massive, you know. I think it's more of a big start, it was. Yeah. We're running into these facilities, facility fixings that have to happen that cost close to $100,000, whereas the right maintenance, the right gas. Just fix your property. What's that? I have an income rising asset for some $75,000. They finished all the work and she came back the next morning with no heat. And she was just like. Why? I just paid for like $17,000. And I think other $1,000 should pay for it. I think beyond the idea of just bringing the building up to code and whatever that may mean, I would also, I would imagine that bringing an architect and an engineer who's going to be able to say, you know, I would like to know not just the things that have to be done in terms of, you know, that's a 32 inch doorway, it needs to be a 36 inch doorway, blah, blah, blah. But I would also like, you know, the recommendations of what, you know, is the building's own property for heat. Is, you know, is the fist first more effective or these windows better, just, you know, without going and spending a bazillion dollars valuing everything, which is, besides what the buildings are in terms of code, what, which buildings are more sustainable and which buildings are more efficient and, you know, how can we make these buildings modernized? I guess that's what would make these. What would make these to be modern school education? Well, you know, there's the cost of putting in on, you know, like, you know, the stakes that are electric. Show people voters, tell them this is what, it's not.