 Okay, it's 6-0-3, we're gonna get started. Welcome everybody. Welcome community members. Good evening. Buenas noches. It's nice to see so many people at our board meeting. I know this important conversations that we're gonna have tonight. I wanted to start tonight by acknowledging that it's the fourth night of Hanukkah. I have my little there. I was gonna light it for you guys so if I can bring us some light for the night and also acknowledge that tonight is, today is the winter solstice. And the winter solstice and opportunity to have a rebirth is what a lot of people believe. So it can be an opportunity to notice what limiting beliefs we have or unsupported habits and that we wish to leave behind and embrace the new aspects of ourselves in what we wanna elevate and see clearly our journey ahead. So with that said, I wanna start by thanking all our staff from our, because it's the end of the year, we're not gonna see you guys until next year, whether it's soon or in person. So we wanna start by thanking our staff, bus drivers, custodians, kitchen staff, teachers, poor staff, administrators, all everybody at Washington Central Unified Union School District on behalf of the board. We want to say thank you for the immense work that you do every day for our communities. We also wanna offer gratitude, gratitude to our community that support not just our budgets, but also supports our humanity and justice efforts. As the board continues to shift through year-round budgeting and continues to focus on student outcomes, we started early, we wanna start as early as possible our budgeting process. And intentionally the board set some parameters that allowed our administrators to be creative and be leaders and dreamers. The idea of tonight is to make sense of the future. What are the needs? What are the challenges that lie ahead? Everything that we discussed tonight is informational and is not set in stone yet. It allows us to be responsible and ask ourselves, are we structured the way that we need to be structured in order to best serve all our kids? The answer to that question is not to take or make any important thing. That's the chair of the board. Yeah? But the information will inform our work to engage our communities as we continue the year-round budgeting and start our strategic planning. There is no question that it is a challenging budget. This year and the next years to come are gonna be challenging too. We are committed board and administrators to bringing oxygen into the system. And that's what we're doing today. We're brainstorming together. What role can we play and how can we open ourselves for future opportunities that we believe in? So the last thing I wanted to say was like, please don't feel like this is the last time that you give us input. I know that tonight there's gonna be a lot of information. Please feel free to email us. I wonder if there's somebody that is not muted. I'm getting some noise. But so feel free to email us. We'll possess the information that we received tonight. We'll possess any information that we received from us. We have shared with you our schedule. If necessary, we'll add another budgeting meeting. We'll see if that's at all possible with what we have. But it's doing budget and especially the way that we're trying to do around budgeting is a live thing. So it's not set on stone. We're continuing to examine. We do need to have a budget in January, but let's brainstorm together tonight. I wanted to move now into adjusting a couple of things in the agenda. I know I did the reception a guest and I just needed to get this out to make sure that we are all present here today. We all have busy schedules. The holidays are coming. So just take a breath. We're all here for the kids. Let's do this together. I can't think of better people to do it together between our administrators and the community. We have what it takes. So let's be kind to each other and let's get it done. I wanted to suggest a couple of adjustments to the agenda first. Move public comments as part of the community because we are having a budget forum. So let's do the public comments that are for the budget after we all have had a chance to see the presentation and have the same context and information. If you are here and have a public comment that is not about the budget, by all means you can do it right now. If the public comment is about the budget, let's do that after the presentation. And it'll just allow us to all have context when we're, especially for board members, we're all seeing this information for the first time. Today, the presentation, we've been talking about trends. We've set parameters and we had asked our administrators to do really hard work. So we wanna make sure that we have the time to absorb that and then also hear your comments. And then we will move into board operations after we have finalized the community part. And one last thing, we will wanna, I wanna move for, let me see, the budget, the fund balance projections that are right now 6.12, move them up to 4.3 so that it informs, so all of our budget discussion is together as opposed to waiting until the very end to look at that. So move that to 4.3 and then education quality will become 4.4 and so on. Could I have a thumbs up from board members if they're okay with those changes? Okay, I see thumbs up and nodding heads, so I'm assuming that's okay. Public, if there's somebody here that has a comment that is not about the budget, you're welcome to raise your hand. Otherwise you would have, we have too many people, we'll have a minute and a half per person. If we don't have too many people that wanna comment, we can be a little bit more free form. But with that said, oh, Elliot, welcome. Thank you, Floor, I'll be brief. I just wanted to make a request this doesn't have to do with a specific budget item, but in the presentation, it would be really helpful to the community members to hear what the program impacts will be of what it's been proposed budget wise. So we know what the impact will be at our school in terms of staff, in terms of program, in terms of courses. Okay, I don't know if it's part of the program, part of the presentation already, but if not, that would be really helpful. Okay, thank you, Elliot. Yeah. All right, okay, with that, I'm gonna give it to Megan and Suzanne. Is that okay? Yes, that is, thank you, Floor. I'm gonna share my screen. Just give me a second. Okay. So I think folks are pretty used to hearing people say this, but I can't see you. So I am gonna, we're about to present a lot of information, so I recognize that. I am gonna keep going through, we have ample time for comments at the end, and Floor will interrupt me if there is sort of a desperate question for clarity that we can't keep going without, but other than that, I'm gonna keep going through. And I also just wanted to kind of expand on what Floor started off saying. And some folks have heard me say this before, but as we start off, I just wanna acknowledge again, this is a hard time for all of us to be having budget conversations. It's a hard time to be thinking about it, distracted by the holidays, and it's a lot to process. So as much as we try to engage in this earlier, the reality is we rarely have the full picture of our budget as early as we would like. So we know this, the board knows this, the leadership team knows this, and I also just wanna acknowledge that the leadership teams spent a significant portion of their time over the past month, really, working to bring this information back to the board so that they can make a good decision for our students. This is just a reminder slide. People are pretty familiar with this at this point, but that orange is where we are in the process. We are here to look at a second draft of the budget. The first draft of the budget that everyone saw in November was a budget that would offer the same services. It's a level service budget, so it would offer the same thing that is happening this year at next year's projected cost. And so today is giving a budget within the parameters that the board has set. So I will show you what that is. And our hope for tonight, really, is to give the board as clear an understanding as possible of our path to a budget within the parameters that they set. We want to then make sure they have enough information to be able to give us direction around next steps. And to Floor's point earlier, it's direction to inform the third draft of the budget. It's not, things are not finalized now. Our hope is that we give everyone the information that they need. We hope to do that by starting with a review of our current budget realities. Some of this you've heard as a theme over the past few months, that some of this information is new. We'll try to give some regional perspectives and we'll try to really lean in and look at some of our own realities as we move forward for the next few years. We also want to be really clear with the board about what the leadership process was to get to this draft, remind the board of the lenses that we've chosen to look through that the board has supported us in doing, what the opportunities were for input and what the themes were from that input and then what are our paths to further budget adjustments. Then we'll present the budget and that does include details so that there's some clarity around what the reductions are to achieve the parameters. And then the board will discuss and the board will, as Floor said here from the community to do that. So that's what we hope to do today. And just a reminder, these are the parameters. This is the direction that the board gave to the leadership team in November after presenting the budget and the impacts of that level funded budget. And just as a reminder, our level service budget came in at about a 9.7% increase. So the board asked us to present a budget that continues to offer and further develop our MLSS that includes an initiative to achieve significant improvement in proficiency for historically underserved students. The board wants us to remain under the spending threshold as it existed previously. That number is about $22,200. The board asked us to bring a net impact of expense budget under 6%. So that is part of what you will see. And a reminder that that number is a little over a million dollars. That's the magnitude of reductions. The board wanted us to develop contingency plans for how we might approach expense reductions. And lastly, the board asked us to be creative. And so we'll spend some time talking about what that meant and creativity. This part of the board has heard many times before, but this is just a reminder that all of these resources we are discussing are so that we can achieve our mission and that we can move forward the three areas of priority work. And that's academic achievement, safe and healthy schools and humanity injustice. So we added this slide because we wanna make sure the board is clear about what is in this budget to support its priority of supporting underserved students. We wanna make sure it's clear to you that the budget we're discussing tonight, even with the proposed reductions includes an effort to achieve this parameter. Budget, excuse me, includes 14 intervention positions across the district. It includes support for district wide professional learning. Some of the areas in lots of areas, quite frankly, but some of the areas specifically related to this parameter is early literacy, effective instructional practices and high quality intervention. It supports our humanity and justice work. And that work is critical to serving traditionally underserved students. And it includes support for our multi-layered system of support. And I think that's important for the board to see even though what we've been charged to do is show you reductions, we wanna make sure that the board understands what is in the budget. So we're gonna start with some information about what's happening around us. And to start, I'm gonna turn this slide over to Suzanne to talk a little bit about statewide budget realities. Hi, good evening. In addition to the statewide budget realities, we have a number of local realities that are, oh, sorry, I'm on the wrong one. It may also be helpful for the board to consider what makes up the majority of our budget. What are the major cost drivers? This is important because when we think about adjustments to programming, it becomes pretty clear where most of our resources are focused in what we do and do not have control over. Some things to consider include salary and benefits. They're up about, they're about 80 plus percent of our budget. They're required services for special education and capital improvement investments to maintain the health and safety of staff and students in our buildings. We also wanna remember some of the budget realities that exist prior to any changes in programming or services include declining enrollment, staffing shortages and changes to the way that remote funds special education needs, specifically in Act 173. Inflation and economic realities here include school budgets averaging an 8.52% increase across the state and the CPI index coming in at 7% at the end of October. So CPI is basically an inflation measurement and then numbers from the December one tax letter from the tax commissioner. Last year during the budget development process, the board requested that the use of fund balance as a revenue be discontinued for this budget. And we are also looking out ahead to impacts from the reduction of our asset funding. Thank you, Suzanne. I think, these are always present for us and I would, what I would add this year is that they're particularly impactful for our budget and it's also true of our neighbors. These are things that everyone is concerned about. In addition to those realities, we have a number of local realities that we're gonna talk quite a bit of time tonight about and perhaps the biggest impact that we are looking at currently and also over time is our declining enrollment. I will show a slide in a second that's a little bit more detailed and provides information about that but this has immediate impact for us budgetarily and it has long-term impact. We know that there is still uncertainty around the impacts of funding changes in Vermont. In this budget that you are looking at, we now receive our special education funding in a different way. Our special education funding used to increase if our special ed spending increased. That is no longer true. We now receive a census-based grant for special ed dollars and in this second draft of the budget our special ed costs increased and our revenue does not increase in this new funding model. So that's an example of uncertain impacts. In another year, so not this current budget season but we will be impacted by the change in how pupils are weighted. That's part of how Vermont funds education. These are things that are gonna impact us over time and impact us right now. As Suzanne said, the sunset of ARP ESSER funds in FY25 is something that we need to start thinking about today. If we aren't careful, then we're sort of prolonging a problem that we're then gonna have to face in a year. We have a significant portion of our budget that is being funded by money that will just plain go away in FY25. We know that we have workforce challenges. We have vacant positions. We know the kind of pressure that puts on our system. We have limitations in our ability to bring in new hires. Those challenges persist. And we have structural limitations. And what we mean by that is how we are organized as a district impacts what our budget is. We're gonna hear more about that as well. So this slide is just a little bit more detail about our enrollment realities. So this looks back three years and it looks forward three years. And there's a lot of numbers on here but if you focus on the right-hand side which is just our full district enrollment we are declining significantly. The projections that existed five or six years ago have played out. So we are consistent with what we were projected to be a number of years ago. The board has seen this information quite a few times and in various formats throughout this budget season and in years past. But this slide really summarizes the biggest impacts that we are facing moving forward. This decline over this six year, six, seven year period represents about a 23% decline in enrollment. It does appear to level off after those few years to the extent that we can reliably project after three to five years. But this is significant. And just to kind of illustrate for folks a little bit more about what that means this is a slide that Steven put together. So I'm gonna turn it over briefly to him to comment a little bit. But this is just to give the board some information about what does this mean for U32 in particular in a number of years? So Steven, I don't know if you wanna jump in. Yeah, thank you, Megan. So when you look at this slide you're looking at fiscal year 23 is our current year. And so this is the five year projection for U32. And what you see is a school that the middle school shrinks as you see from 229 to 165. And what's hard to understand sometimes about the high school is that while we may have an enrollment that says that there are 499 students in the building as it says for physical year 23 it's not 499 kids in the building. We have students who attend the Tech Center which is a great opportunity for them that we wanna continue to support. We have kids who are able to do early college as well. And what those do is those reduce the overall numbers that we serve on a daily basis in all of our classes. They still provide, we still provide some services to those students but they do not take a full complement of classes with us or any classes at all but they still have school counselors and things like that. We also take in when you see that plus 10 tuition we take in students from some schools that have school choice still and those students add to our overall student body as well. We're still estimating that we'll get about 10 tuition students a year that adds to our total but you also see that over time because of the decline in enrollment that we see overall our school is gonna shrink in student numbers by about a little over 20% in those five years with the biggest change happening actually in physical year 26. And that's when we drop pretty significantly and then that will play out through the high school from the middle school. So it just gives us a good idea of a school that is actually built for 950 students will have about 500 students in the building. Thank you, Stephen. And I think we wanted the board to see that information because it's really relevant to the structural piece. And the other thing that I would add is if that will be the reality at the high school in FY26 it means those small class sizes are here in our elementary schools right now. And I think that's important. So we're gonna move from budget context and budget realities to our approach to development. So the board can some of this you've heard before some of it is the next step but this is how the leadership team approached the development of this second draft budget. The first piece I wanna remind the board about is these three lenses. The leadership team started having conversations back in October, long before the parameters were set but knowing that it was probably gonna be a challenging budget season and that we needed a more objective way to approach the budgets. And so these are our agreements about the lenses we would use to think about the budget. And we have shared this with the board but we wanna focus on what Devremont education quality standards say about how we're resourced. We wanna focus on whether or not we're distributing our resources equitably across our system and are we taking into account student need. And all of those things sort of keep at the center of it the work, our priority work, academic achievement, safe and healthy schools, humanity and justice. So those are our lenses. And a little bit more about why we started with education quality. Education quality standards represent Vermont's current requirements for how to resource our schools for quality education. We wanted to emphasize quality experiences for students. If we look at things through an EQS lens we are able to apply reductions frankly universally versus school based based only on individual decisions. It has a greater focus on equity because it's applied consistency and it gives us a more objective baseline and it's data-driven. So for us, what this looked like is that we as a leadership team spent time looking at our current realities, looking at our enrollment, looking at how we currently compare to ed quality standards, how we currently distribute our resources and identified common agreements to use when we approach the reduction within our own buildings. This brought some consistency of approach to the reductions and that consistency of approach doesn't exist when we use a method of reductions that's more of a budget exercise. And what I mean by that is a math exercise by taking the desired reduction, dividing it up and tasking individual buildings. That's a very different way of approaching it. There are limitations to every approach to budgeting and we recognize that. So the limitations that we would highlight for this is a lot related to our structure. So although we largely do distribute our resources equitably the reality is that very small schools tend to use more resource compared to the proportion of students they serve. That means that it means two things, two main things. It means a lot of things, but the two biggest are that our largest school shoulders the largest proportion of reductions. And which we will talk more about when we talk about creativity. It means that some of the most impactful changes we could make to ed quality adjustments in our smallest schools would require structural change. We get to a point where we can't do it anymore within our current structure. So we understand that there are limitations. A little bit more information about process. We wanna just remind the board of kind of the timeline of engaging. Even though the budget timeline is imperfect and we have a chance to reflect on it every year. This is what this year's timeline was. We enter every budget season already knowing the work that we have to do. We know that we have district plans. We know that we have statewide requirements. We know that we have a board focus on the achievement gap, right? So that we know coming into the process. We've had a number of opportunities to engage staff both through survey and through faculty meetings and kind of distributing information. The board has had community forums. We've for the first time this year which I'm excited about and I recognize that it's only a first step but your student council at U32 has a finance committee itself and we've just started conversations with them about how we can engage with them. I would say that's a work in progress and we wanna keep doing it but that's exciting. And then obviously the board's more formalized budget process. There's some common themes from all of that engagement. The two biggest ones are a desire to make sure that our budget supports student learning and supports opportunities for students across the board. And this is community, this is faculty, staff, this is board. We want good quality first instruction. We want a really high quality workforce and we know that that's hard right now. We wanna make sure that we continue our intervention systems really focusing on academics and social emotional learning. And we wanna maximize opportunity. So this played out a number of different ways. Folks wanna make sure that kids equitably across the system have access not just to the basics but to a robust education. Okay, so as we move into this part of the process I just sort of wanna acknowledge that this was and continues to be hard. This is hard work. I would say that the leadership team in all of our conversations when we're just talking about reductions we know there are people behind those reductions and that's tough. It's not just an intellectual exercise but I also know that in the course of our conversations when we started to be able to lean into the creativity part and think instead about not what we're chipping away at but what we could do I would say even just thinking about our being in our conference room the tone of the room changed. So the tone of the room changes when we can think more about what we're providing for students in a really robust way. And Floor talked a lot about this in her intro as well. And I think that's important and I think it's important to start off this section of the presentation reminding everyone of that. There's a few different places where our leadership team may un-mic and jump in and so just so folks know that that's true but that's what we're gonna talk about right now is how did we get to this budget and here's the information that the board and the community needs about what's in this budget. So again, with those three lenses this first draft focused on staying within education quality recommendations this first draft is only showing you adjustments within buildings. So this is before we think about creative ways of structuring, right? And it still provides quality education and allows us to move forward with the board priorities. So we're gonna show this information in two different ways. The first one is just over viewing the reductions. There is an addition actually but over viewing the impact by FTE by department. I'm gonna pause for a second so you can read through that slide and those reductions in total including the addition of health educator FTE which we need to be able to implement our health education program. That represents about $855,000 of the total of a million. So it's sort of clear right off the bat that these impacts that we're showing you don't get all the way to 6%. This is the information by school. I'm gonna leave this up for a few minutes and I'll speak to it in a second. The total at the bottom is the same but that takes those same FTE and shows you where they are located across the system. So I'll pause for a second and then I'll speak for this. So one of the questions that we know folks will have in looking at this impact is why two of our schools are not represented on this list of impacts. And I wanna remind the board that the reason why is when we lead with education quality standards Berlin and East Montpelier already fall within education quality standards. If we were to reduce, it would cause them to fall out of education quality standards. And that was not a reduction that was in keeping with how we've agreed to do this. And I also just wanna reiterate that large school challenge. And that's demonstrated by, you know, U32 when you have the biggest proportion of the budget you also shoulder a bigger proportion of the reductions. If we were to reduce further, it can't be done at the elementary level without changing structure. So that's just, I'm sort of anticipating that that's a question the board will have, okay. So the next slide, Suzanne is gonna go through this is the numbers associated with those reductions that we just shared. So the expenditures are the amount that the district plans to spend. Revenues are the money the district anticipates receiving to offset the expenditures. The net education spending is the amount that needs to be raised by property taxes. The increase in the local education spending for budget draft number one was 9.71% from $28,821,017 in FY23 to $31,619,027 in FY24. As described in previous slides, the leadership team made expenditure reductions of $855,218, but increases in other areas, primarily necessary changes in special education services caused a net change of $611,008 from draft number one to draft number two. The percentage calculation used for the increase in local education spending is a comparison of the increase to the prior years local education spending of $28,821,017. This percentage increase is 7.59% for budget draft number two. Page seven in the packet is a comparative budget summary that gives you a breakdown of the changes in the budget by category. In order to get this budget to a 6% increase in net education spending, the expenditures must be reduced further by $457,742 or the school board could authorize the use of fund balance to use as a revenue to offset the increase. This is a slide that describes our preliminary tax rate projections. The current tax rate calculation uses the property yield $15,479 from the tax commissioners December one letter. This amount was derived using information that the forecasted year over year rate of growth in education spending would be 8.52%, which we spoke about earlier. This is substantially higher than the actual rate of growth over the last several fiscal years. This property yield may change during the legislative session. The final figures will be set by the legislature and approved by the governor. The equalized homestead tax rate is the rate a district would have if all properties were assessed at fair market value. The common level of appraisal is the ratio of each town's listed values versus the state's listed value. The state's listed value is comprised of actual sales generally averaged over three years. The state's fair market value is the equalized education grand list. The higher the CLA, the lower the tax rate. If any of these CLA's decrease, the tax rates will increase. The estimated tax rates project the education tax rates seen on a property tax bill of a resident homeowner in the individual towns. The initial equalized pupil estimate provided by the AOE is a decrease of 3.01% from 1,423.57 to 1,380.71. This number is likely to change again with draft number three, as the AOE will be sending an updated version at the end of December. The town CLA's and the state's final property yield per $1 tax rate will all likely change. The local common level of appraisal used to calculate the estimated tax rates for each town should be known in January. Thank you, Suzanne. We always realized that's a lot of numbers. Vermont education finance is complicated, but one of the big takeaways of this is just how volatile the tax rate is and how disconnected it can become from what we're actually spending. So that's the biggest takeaway for the board is it's part of why we have to be prepared for fluctuations in either direction, honestly. So we're gonna lean in a little bit on the creativity parameter and give some information to the board that's specific to this. And it's important for the board to know that the reason this creative thinking is important besides the fact that you asked us to do it, is because in a sense, we've taken within building reductions as far as we can in if we wanted to get to 6%, we would either need to change our structures or we would be impacting services. And so different structures would allow us to maintain and expand instructional opportunities for students. This is that part that I started with by saying, this is when the tone of the room changed, when we can start focusing our conversations on what do we want for all of our students and what's the right structure that would allow us to provide it? That's when this conversation started to feel invigorating and not just about cutting. The other reason why we're focused on creativity is that our long-term enrollment projections require it. Our ability is limited to be able to serve students in our structures as those numbers continue to go down. And the other pieces, we've already begun the process of finding people to support us in a visioning and strategic planning conversation. If we start talking about it now, we're empowering our communities to be a part of the conversation about what we want for our students and how we need to be organized in order to provide that. And if we don't, then what we will do is be in this constant cycle of reacting and responding to budget realities. So that's the creativity piece. And before I get into sharing a little bit of some of the ideas, I don't know if any leadership team members want to jump in on this part. Megan, is it all right if I jump in? This is Kat. Thank you. I've been thinking about this a lot for a couple of reasons. One, Calis is one of our smaller schools. I went to Calis, I'm embedded in this community. I don't want to see the sadness that comes from these little chipping away that happens over time. That's really, really hard to see. And when I first started wrestling with this information, I was a little angry and I looked at my sort of neighbor's next door. Alicia knows I love her at Eastmont Player. So Alicia, bear with me, girlfriend. I always look at Eastmont Player and I say, oh, they're so well resourced and it's not there. I think the last time I teased her about it, it was a Brady Bunch reference that some of the young people won't get, but Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. Eastmont Player always gives everything. And then I started looking at some of those hard realities that Megan and Suzanne were talking about. Smaller schools, in order to function, they have to take on more resources than is appropriate for our size, for our enrollment. So it's a disproportionate amount of the resources in Washington Central. Go to small schools like Calis. And so I had to be honest with myself and say that's an important perspective for me to have and step back and say, if what I care about is not more, because I got more for my kids and I feel like they're on my kids, my perspective needs to shift to, what do I want for our kids? And I don't care. Sorry, my phone's ringing. I just got in passion too, darn it. I want to care about all kids in Calis and I wanna see who's calling my house. So sorry. One of the things that I want to get excited about isn't being stuck on thinking about what do we need to keep shaving away? But what can we start doing to be maximizing our resources across our district? We don't have to talk about closing schools. We can start talking about really being creative. What do we want for kids? What are our families? What are our communities need? And spreading our resources across all of our district. We don't have to be the same cookie cutter building pre-K to six in every elementary school. We just don't. And that does not serve our children. I'm sorry if that was a little soap boxy, but I felt like I just had to jump in. Is that okay, Megan? You're too far away to kick me under the table if I go too far. No, I appreciate that, Kat, because I think it kind of represents the potential for us to be able to have this conversation about what is right for kids and what will be right for kids long-term and how do we do that in a way that really brings input into the process. So no, I appreciate that. Okay, so I'm gonna keep speaking to some preliminary ideas around creativity and the reason why these are not sort of formalized and have numbers associated with them is because it's for the board to understand what that could look like short or long-term. And then if the board gives further direction, we would be able to flush some of those creativity ideas out because that's really the core of what the board's gonna wrestle with tonight. There are ways to combine programming in some of our schools to rectify very small class sizes that impact our ability to provide a really quality education. One of the places that could be done is in preschool. We offer pre-K programs at all five of our elementary schools. If we were to, in a geographically appropriate way, combine those programs, we would be able to create a bigger group of kids, which is a better learning experience. We may even be able to expand and provide a full day program because we would have scale. And that would also result in efficiencies, reductions. There are very small class sizes at either end of a couple of our smallest schools. So either the sixth grade end or the kindergarten end. There are opportunities to combine those with another school. Again, without kind of going fully into what that could look like unless the board wants us to do that, that would also potentially reduce teachers and support staff. And there are bigger conversations that we can have that probably deserve more time than one budget season. But that would put us in a place where we don't have to talk about how much of an FTE of a school counselor or a school nurse is enough for our small schools. If we have scale, we get to just have a conversation about making sure that those schools are adequately resourced. We kind of turn the conversation into what's that robust programming that we want and how do we provide that at a scale that makes sense? So these are our furthest starting points. If the board gave direction on them and wanted any portion of that to be fleshed out in a short-term manner, we could come back to that. But it's really trying to just get ourselves thinking about, A, just to be able to achieve the reduction that the board is asking for would require this kind of creativity. And even if the board decides that that is not the magnitude of reduction they need in this year, it's still something that we will have to face as we move further in the process. So finally, just wanted to kind of remind the board, regardless of where we land in this budget process, we know that we're entering a visioning and strategic planning process that's gonna be really focused on community engagement so that we can have a picture of what do we want for our students and how should we be structured to be able to get there. And at a smaller grain size, but equally important, we know that in short or long-term, we have to work to identify effective models for school counseling and nursing across our system. These are positions that were increased with SR money and SR money goes away. So whether we decide to have some of that money go away next year or the year after, the need to say how do we distribute those positions is essential. So that's the end of me talking at you. Florida, I can always pop these back up if people wanna reference them, but do you want me to take them, take the slides down for now? Yeah, Megan, if we could take the slides down just for a minute to see everybody for one second and if we need to bring a specific slide up, we'll bring it up. But I wanted to open it up for questions. Board members are gonna be able to ask questions through our operations. So if you would allow board members to have the public ask questions right now or if they have a comment to raise their hand and we'll try to do our best to manage. So it's a vision. I hope that, first I wanna thank you too, Megan and Suzanne and the leadership team. That was a lot of work. Thank you for being brave and creative and for being leaders. It was a great presentation, a lot of information and a lot that the board, as a board we own it, we ask for it and thank you for delivering it. I don't see any hands up yet. Don't be shy. If you have a question, I see one hand up, one already, Tyler. Welcome, Tyler. Before somebody, I'm in the middle of eating and it would be very rude if you had to watch that. So I will have my camera off, but please do know I'm listening and engaged in the conversation. I just don't wanna subject you to my eating. No worries, thanks, Dan. Okay, I just got a lot of hands up. So Mr. Tyler, welcome. It's nice to see you. Oh, I have a couple of other hands. So we're gonna, I don't see a whole bunch of hands. So I don't see the need to do the minute and a half. If suddenly it goes like really crazy, we're gonna try to stick with a minute and a half. So Tyler, go ahead and then I'll move in order that I see them on my Zoom link. So Elliot, you're on deck and Tyler, you have the floor. Thank you, floor. Good evening. My name is Tyler Smith. I'm co-president of the Washington Central Educators Union. I'm math interventionist and instructional coach at Berlin and a parent of a Berlin fifth grader. I wanted to start with thanking you all for the work that you do on our board. As a former board member in Barrie, I understand the amount of time and responsibility that comes with being on a school board. I understand the pressure that comes with creating a budget that will pass in our towns. I also understand and appreciate the goals that our board has made regarding monitoring, student achievement and closing achievement gaps. After hearing the board's response to draft one of the budget, I along with many of my colleagues was surprised to see that the board wanted to see a budget with $1 million cut. The thought that many of us had was we don't have much in our district to cut and still function well. On the contrary, I'm sure if you asked, most WCU-USD staff would say we need more resources, not less. I also want to caution the board for making choices of reducing FTE of current positions. In Berlin, two years ago, we did this. Our music teacher left because the newly created job was less appealing and we didn't find a music teacher until December of last year. In the year where we're still looking to fill the positions right now in December, do we really want to make some of our positions less appealing to current and prospective teachers? I realize the job at hand is not easy or simple but I do ask all of you consider this question before making a decision. Are we making these choices because of money or are we doing what's best for all the students in our district? Thank you. Thank you, Tyler. Elliot? Elliot Bergen, Middlesex. So I have this question about, first of all, thank you for that presentation. It was very helpful, but the slide that's entitled Overview of Impacts, it has, for example, what appears to be a reduction of 0.5 FTE in world language, it's 0.5 out of how much? Is there someplace we can look to find where the denominator is? I don't know how much of an impact that would be on the language program at Rumney, for example. Thank you. Megan or who, you know, I'll look for your guidance in who should I send the question to, but... Yeah, I can answer that, Flor. I wasn't sure if you wanted me to answer that. So the 0.5 would be to reduce, it's 0.5 out of 0.5 at Rumney. Thank you, Megan. Okay, so Jessica, Elliot, do you have another question? Is that that answer your question? Jessica? Hi, I'm Jessica, I'm the school nurse at Dodie. I would like to just say that the presentation continually talked about historically underserved students, and those are the students that we often see in the health office. There are also the students who do not often have access to primary care. Decreasing nursing FTEs would diminish supports to those students. There is a common saying in school nursing, students must be healthy to be educated and educated to be healthy. Education and health go hand in hand. What has been presented tonight is harmful when considering the whole child. And then I also have a comment from the Central Vermont Medical Center pediatric providers dated today. The Pediatrics Group at Central Vermont Medical Center has greatly appreciated our collaborative relationship with local school nurses and the support they provide our mutual patients. We agree with the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations for a minimum of one full-time professional school nurse in every school. We rely on our partnership with school nurses to help keep children with chronic conditions in school. At a time that we are facing unprecedented rates of pediatric mental illness and acute respiratory viruses, decreasing school nursing staffing would exasperate a crisis. Please do not hesitate to reach out with questions or concerns. Thank you for all you do for the health and well-being of children in Vermont. Signed Anna Hankins, MD, Margaret Lindsay, MD and Nancy Sullivan, nurse practitioner, Katie Chasher, nurse practitioner, Katherine Cornell, DO, Gary King, MD. Thank you. Thank you, Jessica. Ellen Dorsey? Welcome, Ellen. Thank you. I'm an instructional coach and I've been working in that capacity since 2014. Prior to that, I taught math at U32. I find it disheartening that in the current draft of the budget, we're having to reject proactive supports like instructional coaching in favor of more reactive ones. Instructional coaching supports students by supporting teachers. So far this year, I've personally engaged in one-to-one coaching to support 16 educators across all six of our schools. When a typical coaching load should be six teachers at a time, during the last few difficult years when colleagues have been finding coaching a unique support because it's non-evaluative and it's confidential. But access has always been an issue for us with coaching. Coaching programs take time and resources to build and over the last couple of years, we've made excellent strides to build our program but we have more work to do. I'm finding it just extraordinarily disappointing that in this district, we're pulling the rug out from under this program just as our investment in coaching is poised to bear fruit. Thank you. Thank you, Ellen. Becca? Mandel? Hi, everyone. I'm Becca Mandel. I'm an alumna of Romney and U32 and the parent of a kindergartner and second grader at Romney. And I have just a couple, I have some questions for the board and then some sort of follow-up comments. I'm curious about where the directive to cut that one million from the budget, sort of not just like the where, I know it came from the board, but like why, the why, I guess, especially and to come in at that 6% increase when the statewide average is 8.25% and we know costs are up, the cost of the consumer price index is up to 7%. So I'm curious about why we're trying to really significantly buck an economic reality and it almost feels a little bit like we're trying to operate under a separate made up economic reality, but I'm sure there's some thought that went into that. So I'm curious to hear from the board about what that thinking was and why that seemed like the approach to take this year. And then I wanna sort of underscore something that Elliot said earlier about needing to have the denominators for all of these reductions. So we see that there's a 0.1 decrease in music at Romney. Well, what is the denominator on that? Is that, are we going down to zero? Or are we going down from 0.5 to 0.4? What does that look like? I know Romney already doesn't have music in our pre-K where I believe others wasn't the district have had music in pre-K. And so I'm curious to see how all that plays out. So those denominators are really important. And I think the other key thing is to have that packet, have that presentation in the packet that went out. Like for those of us who are preparing for this meeting, I spent a lot of time reading 160 pages. I didn't read the audit. I will be honest about that. I didn't read that part. Figured you guys had that handled, but that was a lot of pages of data and being able to have that presentation in the packet would have been really helpful. It's something that I've asked for a lot as a narrative and the slideshow helped to do that, but also a written out narrative so that we can really understand what all of these things mean and what the impact they're gonna have on our children. And then finally, I would just want the board to hear that I as a parent in Romney do not wanna see those reductions and cuts. And the framing around the creative thinking was interesting to me because I really just saw cuts in that budget that you presented. So I'm curious about what were some of the creative ways that you all thought about to keep all these incredible programs that we have and in fact to make it possible for other students to have access to Spanish instruction at the young age because it's really neat to see kids learn language when they are best able to learn it when they're in early and elementary school. So starting language, all the data says starting language at the high school level is really not... I hate to interrupt you, but we have a lot of people that once again we're like beyond the time. I'm gonna just answer, this is just like public comments. I'm just gonna answer one question. The parameter of 6% from the board, in the past we have done 3% and is trying to stay with our taxes and be responsible and we ask them to be creative. Like we said, nothing is set in stone right now, but we have to be responsible stewards of the money that the communities give us and you said the best way we can for best outcomes for all our kids. So it doesn't, in the past, we have said we don't always hit that target, but we needed to give them the specific target so we could see what the impact was. It doesn't mean that we are gonna cut a million dollars tonight, right? We wanted to see what that looked like to make sure that we were being responsible. Let me see, who's next? Kyle, welcome Kyle. And we're gonna try to stay with it two minutes. You're a little muffled in the speaker, is it just my computer? Is that any better? That's a little better, but it's still pretty low. Okay, we're gonna try to stay with a minute and a half because there's a lot of people wanting to speak. Can you hear me now? Yes, way better. I think clarity is really important and it hasn't been there to date and this budget that's being proposed would fire two teachers at Romney, a lunch person, April, who is absolutely beloved at the school and Senora Donovan, our Spanish teacher, who is absolutely beloved at the school and the idea that that would happen in a year when the two biggest towns are taking no reductions at all and so that taxes can go down across the board that's not gonna go over well in middle sex. I think you'd see a big push to vote down this budget because of those reductions and there needs to be a lot more community outreach because our principal does not speak for the people in middle sex but I wanna use the rest of my time to read a statement that my daughter wrote. We have three kids, two at Romney and our oldest is a U32 and this is the one at U32 who spent seven years at Romney. She said, Spanish class as well as the rest of our specials was one of my favorite parts of being at Romney. Music, art and Spanish were fun and integral parts of our learning at school. Some other schools that used to have elementary language offered no longer do and I would be very disappointed to see Romney follow this path by no longer teaching Spanish to kids. I feel the same about cutting or shortening the length of any of the specials. It is very important to preserve the creative spaces and opportunities and learning in schools. Thanks, Kyle, I'm sorry. Maria. My name is Maria Malekos. Can you hear me? I can hear you now, I can't see you, but I can. I have my video on, can anybody see me? Yes. Yes. But can you see me now? Yes. Yes. Excellent. My name is Maria Malekos. You may remember me as the COVID coordinator for last year. It is very nice to see everyone again. I am currently the school nurse for Calis Elementary and I am the teacher leader for the school nurses in our district. We came together and put together a letter that I would like to read. I'm gonna take a sentence from the National Association of School Nursing and start with the thought that student healthcare access is a right and not a privilege. This proposal would cut healthcare access in our most rural schools which historically and currently have the least access to routine medical care. Cutting nursing times in this school is to perpetuate the cycle of poverty in terms of medical and mental health access for these students. There is an error in the original PowerPoint regarding the budget. The statement that the standard for full-time nurses is one nurse per 500 students is antiquated and no longer best practice. This position changed nationally around 2015 and I have attached the current policy statements from the National Association of Nursing, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of School Nurses and the CDC. A lot of the board members have this letter and if anyone is interested in those links, I'm sure the floor can provide them to you or you can email myself. The current best practice is a full-time school nurse at every school every day. Lots of Vermont districts have not been able to find appropriate staffing to follow this recommendation but Washington Central has been fortunate enough to hire well-educated and dedicated full-time nurses in every school. It would be a mistake to reverse this practice. According to the CDC position on school nurses, quote, school nurses not only make a big difference for student health and academic achievement, but they save money. Research shows that for every dollar spent on school nurses, society saves $2.20. These savings come from preventing costly emergency room visits and parents missing time at work to care for sick children. Cutting this budget for the short term will not save our school community's money in the long term. School nurses are the only ones that can keep students in school with our clinical assessments. When the nurses are not in the building, the medical delegates who are administrative assistants send home every student that comes in with a complaint. Legally, they may not provide any sort of assessment in a school setting. In this current climate, we are seeing high numbers of students out with this triple-demic of influenza, RSV, and COVID-19. We have loosened our illness protocols to allow for mild symptoms in school. So without nurses assessing students, we would have many more students missing large amounts of school. Currently, we're seeing about a 20% absentee rate due to this triple-demic. Cutting school nurses is a short-sighted solution to a long-term problem. According to the National Institute for Health, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of children and adolescents is multifaceted and substantial. Survey studies regarding children and adolescent mental health amid COVID-19 indicate that anxiety, depression, loneliness, stress, and tension are the most observed symptoms. School nurses are on the forefront of both physiological and mental health in schools. Students in elementary schools do not have direct access to a counselor. They do, however, have direct access to the nurse, which makes us the frontline. Yes, ma'am. I hate to cut you, could you... Yes, I understand it's a long letter. And I appreciate your time. I will just then say, the schools that will face a cut to their school nursing time are our three most rural and underserved. We continue to hear about the work the district is trying to do in equity and removing healthcare access to the communities that need it the most is a direct contradiction to this mission. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Mary, and we appreciate what you school nurses do for our district. I'm gonna just try to remind everybody, I'm not trying to cut people off. It's really important to hear from you guys, but if you could keep your comments to a minute and a half, two minutes max, it would be really appreciated. So Rosemary, welcome. Thank you. I'm trying to put on my timer. My name is Rosemary Leach. I live in Worcester. I have lived here for over 20 years. Both my kids went through Doty and U32. I'm a taxpayer and I worked at Remney for six years as a para and a BI. And I'm still a resident and taxpayer. At this time, I am just a taxpayer and I'm here to tell you, I would rather pay higher taxes and have none of these cuts. And I think it's really important for you guys to hear that. I'm really just flabbergasted that we're considering cutting nurses and teachers. And any staff at these schools working in the schools during the pandemic, which I did, every single person was so essential and nothing has changed just because maybe COVID has reduced. We still need them all, especially the nurses. I agree with everyone that has spoken today. I can't tell you the service that the nurses give to our students that need it the most, especially the idea that if we're going for equity, we can't cut those nurses. So just to make it clear, I had written a speech but then because you guys gave us a lot of new information, I just ditched the speech. But I want to say that to say again, as a taxpayer, I don't want you to assume that the best thing to do is cut taxes. The best thing to do is keep funding our schools and keep our staff working at least as much as they are, if not more, and that I won't, I don't want to vote for a budget that's cutting these positions. So that's just something, and I'm sure there's other taxpayers that agree with me. Also a couple other things, I'm glad somebody asked about the 6% because it just seems arbitrary. I'm glad you told us why, but I don't think it's necessary. And lastly, something that gets said a lot at the schools is fair is not everyone getting the same thing. It's everyone getting what they need. And it feels like this whole process is just about every school having the same point, something, something, FTE. And so I just wanted to bring that up. Thank you so much. I forgot to say thank you all for all the work you do. You are just doing great service. Keep it up, but keep funding. Thank you, goodbye. Thanks for his Mary, Josh. Hi there. My name, can you hear me all right? Great, cool. Just before my one minute, my minute and a half starts, I just want to say a little about me. I grew up in the Northeast Kingdom. I did all but one year in my schooling in Vermont. After that, I got a tech career, moved to Boston. It was awesome. That was what I was told to do when I went to school. And now I was able to actually buy a home in Vermont, which is where I love to be. And I'm going to, with that in mind to just say in response to the Romney community's understanding of the instruments of the second draft, the proposed 50% or $224,000 savings on the district curriculum services, based on what I've heard, this results in Spanish being cut completely. My daughter, Addison, she's a kindergartner. She loves Spanish. Studies have shown an enhancement of cognitive functions among individuals who learn foreign languages as a child. Learning a foreign language for me helped me learn to code. That was something that it dovetailed with STEM. They're cutting one of the two kitchen positions completely. Schools are identified as a key setting to influence children and adolescents' healthy eating. How will we do that with 50% less staff here in Romney? Especially in Vermont, a place known for food culture, how can we cut out the bottom line like that? There's gonna be reductions to nursing. Bonnie has worked tirelessly to protect our kids from COVID exposure and keep the families informed of what's going on in the school during insanity, right? Library, my daughter loves reading. A library is like the highlight of her week. Reducing library hours or availability would be terrible. Music, I grew up in Vermont, like I said, Vermont-based our education is so special. It was easily the most impactful part of my education. Furthermore, academic outcomes should not be reduced to standardized test scores as there's more to life than teaching our kids to be economic cogs of production and consumption. If you did so, you would be cutting the joy out of school for a lot of kids, including my own. If the point is to save money, what about COVID money? Cutting positions is not a creative way to save money while also helping our kids. And what is this body's directive? If not to creatively solve this exact problem while protecting our kids' educational quality. I see the remainder of my time. Thank you, Josh. Good evening, Mr. Donovan. You're next. Gracias. Good evening. My name is Jen Donovan. I'm the Spanish teacher at Romney Memorial School. The World Language Program at Romney Memorial School has been in the district for over 20 years. In this elementary Spanish program, students are acquiring the language by speaking, listening, reading, and writing. They are communicating in a natural way. They are engaged and inspired to learn. In these classes, students are seen. They are heard. They have a voice. They are special. They are important. This program is a safe place for students to foster relationships, take risks, and think creatively. By learning another language, students are feeding their brains. They are connecting and comparing to their own native language. They are gaining perspectives. They are practicing cultural empathy. In an elementary world language program, students are becoming global citizens. Cutting this program will directly impact students, socially, emotionally, and academically. I know this is a challenging budget. Make decisions that are based on what is best for our students, please. Thank you. This is Jen. Christine. Thank you. My name is Kristen Freeman. I am a middle-sex resident and a parent of a six-year-old in first grade at RUMNI and a future RUMNI student who's currently two. Thank you so much for all the work that has gone into this budget, thus far and for the presentation. And thank you for the opportunity to learn more and provide feedback. I understand it's a challenging process, and I wanna share concerns about the proposed cuts. For me, particularly at RUMNI, illuminating world language to me is devastating. My six-year-old treasures her Spanish language class. She needs this in her education. She's okay in math and English, and she's a wonderful child, but she thrives through Spanish, through music. That feeds her creativity and her brain and helps her succeed in school. The Spanish language program contributes so positively to student development and offers early language learning, which is critical. My six-year-old has an incredible accent. I took six years of Spanish as a teenager and nobody could understand anything I said when I got to Spain. So I am delighted that if she travels and moves beyond Vermont at some point in her life, people might understand her, unlike my experience. Additionally, Senora Donovan is so talented, and this is the type of employee we need to honor and retain and keep at our schools. I also wanna add that RUMNI cannot, in my mind, afford cuts to food service. Students need healthy food to have healthy minds and healthy bodies. April is dedicated, caring, hardworking, and talented. I want us to please, please invest in our quality workforce. It's what makes RUMNI so special. And I'd like to offer some solutions. Does the budget include realistic vacancy savings? I heard the mention that it's hard to staff. I understand that. I know it's a difficult recruitment environment. Are there enough budgeted vacancy savings that could help offset some costs for when positions are expected to be vacant? And if fund balance allows, please consider using fund balance to remove some of these cuts. Please, Rand State, our valuable and valued services. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Christine. It is, let me see, am, Jake Campbell? I apologize, could you give me your name again? Jennifer, Jennifer, sorry. Yes, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I am currently the art teacher at RUMNI School and also at East Montpelier Elementary School. I just wanna say the impact of making these proposed cuts is extremely discouraging. We want our schools to attract families. Providing these services that we're proposing to cut will absolutely, providing a robust, well-rounded education absolutely includes world language, music, healthy meals, nurses, teachers, interventionists, library. That will continue to attract families to our communities to keep enrollment up and also provide a well-rounded education to these students. I just wanna make a statement. I'm thinking back to when I recorded my kindergartners in art class totally broke out into speaking, counting in Spanish out of the blue. So it's an impacted, it's impacted them quite a bit. And it's a wonderful program. I've been at RUMNI for as long as Senora Donovan and she's an amazing teacher as is all the people that are considered or you're considering making cuts too. So I'm gonna stop there, but I want our schools to have a really great reputation, have good programming, robust programming, well-rounded programming and it includes all the positions that are being proposed to be cut. Thank you. Thanks, Ten. Susan. Hi, my name is Susan. I live in Middlesex. I actually went to RUMNI myself as a child and I have two children at RUMNI. I'm also a pediatric nurse in the community. I think it is a huge mistake to consider cutting nursing positions. As has been mentioned already, we are in a mental health crisis right now. There includes depression, anxiety and eating disorders which do start in elementary school. We do not have the resources in our community to support these students. So these nurses and the schools are vital to keeping these kids healthy and safe. I myself have a child with some anxiety and she visits Bonnie every single day and if it was not for Bonnie and her support and understanding, my child would be sent home every single day. And there is no reason for her to come home. It's done appropriately and safely and I really value that relationship that I have with Bonnie and the care she gives my children. I also think that in a time when we're trying to teach our children diversity and inclusion, cutting a language that has really been fantastic for both of my kids just seems like the wrong way to go. It also seems counterintuitive to me that we're increasing a health education FTE but decreasing nursing, food services and counselor FTEs when those are all really part of the same package and are really needed to support our children in schools. It just doesn't seem right to me. Thank you. I'm sorry, I'm just having a hard time keeping track here. Mary Beth? Yes, thanks for the chance to speak. My name is Mary Beth Demansky. I am a middle sex resident, had the privilege of being a teacher at RUMNE for over 30 years. My own children who are now in their upper 40s went to RUMNE back in the 80s and 90s and again, thank you for all the hard work all of you are doing. I have to say what I just heard about this reading it on front porch forum yesterday. My first response was astonishment and I immediately flashed back to 1980 in what it was like to be in a town meeting in middle sex town hall and having to convince taxpayers that our music foreign language were part of a full education of what we wanted for children. Never in a million years did I believe we'd be back to talking about this. That's one thing I want to say. Secondly, the other thing that really struck me is during these last years of COVID, the heroic efforts of staff, administration and parents of the population helping to give the kids as good an education as they could, but those kids, this population that has gone through COVID, these school children have already had to settle for less. Despite everybody's best efforts, they have had less than an optimal school experience with remote learning, not being in school, the constant interruptions and in good conscience. How do we ask this particular population of kids to settle for less again? It just seems completely wrong. The last thing I want to say is that literacy is not separate from art. Math is not separate from art and music, library. We have applied mathematics, connect literacy to all these other areas and make them happen. It just, I got to see that fabulous teaching from Jen Dunlopin, from Jen Campbell. When I was there, it was Lynn Woodard as the librarian. Fabulous teachers and they were the highlight for so many kids at school. And I was always so proud of Romney and often wish my own grandkids who live in other places could have gone to Romney School. With these cuts, I would just feel so heartbroken to see this. And as a taxpayer, I'm happy to spend my taxes to not have any of these cuts. Thank you. Thank you, Mary Beth. Arlen, welcome. Hi, I'm Arlen Berkeley. I am the librarian at Eastmont Pillar and Tech Integrationist at Eastmont Pillar Elementary School. But my question really has to, comes from being a callous voter and taxpayer. Just quickly, a little context. The education quality standard slide that we were shown in the previous budget draft was incorrect for the data that it shared for librarians. For example, it said that my position at Eastmont Pillar Elementary School was a 1.0 FTE librarian. I'm not as per decisions made by the school boards in the past when we were into individual schools. My position and the position I know at callous and I know at Berlin, I'm not clear at Dodie and Romney, but I do know Berlin, callous and Eastmont Pillar were all changed to be portioned out between library media and technology integration. These are two different jobs. They require two different endorsements. They require extra money and professional development on the part of your educators to be able to fill those positions. At Eastmont Pillar, for example, I'm a 0.4 librarian to 0.6 Tech Integration. My question is, if you are reducing the position that it said is 0.6 library for callous, what's left? Are you removing the Tech Integration entirely? Will she only be a 0.4 position library? Will there no longer be Tech Integration at callous? Or is it split point to library point to? I mean, I just don't know. That's my question as a taxpayer and parent of a former callous student. Thank you. And also I do wanna reiterate the thanks. I cannot imagine how hard it is to be in the position of the board. And I know that you have brutal work ahead of you and I do appreciate the work that you do and the work of our administrators. I don't envy you and thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Arlene. Will you be okay, Arlene? We'll discuss more in depth when we start our budget discussions as the board finalize all of the comments from the board and then we'll ask for more information. Okay, but I may note of your question. So we'll ask that question as board members. Thank you. As long as the question is asked, that's fine. Thank you. Yeah, I have it right with me. Thank you, Arlene. Good evening, Alice. Welcome. Thank you, Flor. I just want to thank the board, the leadership team and all of the faculty and staff across the Washington Central School District for all of the work they do for our children. I want to focus on creativity that the board suggested be part of what the leadership team look at. I think that the board, and I'm asking you to please support that flexibility to be flexible in the amount the board feels needs to be cut from the budget. It is a terribly difficult time and I know it is very difficult to balance student need with what budget level will be passed by our citizens. I think all of us here will vote for the budget, but I don't think that all of the citizens in our communities will without our active support. So I'm saying please let's all be sure we can help the board pass the budget and encourage the board to do as little as possible on the way of cuts because our children need the support. And I absolutely applaud them for starting the planning about structural changes because we really do need to focus on our students and what they need. And never forget that our teachers are where the rubber hits the road. That's all of our professional staff. They need our support as well. So thank you everybody. Thank you Alice. Brian. Hello members of the board. My name is Brian Dive-Lbliss and I'm a teacher at U32, but I'm speaking as a resident of Berlin and a parent of a U32 graduate. I would like to address the business and accounting program U32. My daughter attends Castle and University where she's a double major in sports management and accounting. While applying for internships, she received three opportunities for sports management and marketing but received well over 100 opportunities in accounting. For most recent interviews with national life and my failure, I believe the education she received U32 preparator for college and that the experience she had with the accounting program influenced the path she has now chosen. You can tell by the opportunities she received for internships that accounting is relevant, but not only the subject relevant but the way in which her teacher, Bonnie Gaddafi presented the program has positively influenced my daughter's choice to restore accounting as a career. It is my hope that the board will see the relevance of this program and allow our students the opportunity to experience it here at U32. Thank you for your time and your consideration and I appreciate your work. Thank you, Brian. It's good to see you. Shannon. Everyone, I lost my voice teaching this week so I'm gonna do my best. Sorry about that. I'm Shannon Miller. I'm a teacher at Berlin Elementary. I'm also the parent of a child at Berlin and two children at U32. I really am gonna take a position when people have it and I'm sorry if it sounds difficult. Megan, I really appreciate your idea of creativity. I'm interested in it. I wanna hear more about it and I wanna work on it too as a member of the teaching staff. I hear everybody who has spoken that all of these positions are incredibly important. All these people are, they shouldn't go anywhere. I hear you. However, it's also a hard math problem to hear that the enrollment keeps on declining and we just wanna keep spending the same. It's really hard and I get that part too and I appreciate that the board is taking that on. I feel pulled in a lot of directions than I'm guessing a lot of other people do too. I wanna teach in a resource school. I want my kids to have amazing programs and teachers and they have so far. I also want it to be affordable to live here. I know I can't pay never ending high grades on our taxes so I think it's just so important to consider it all. One thing I really wanna advocate for is just considering student viewpoint on how it feels to be in a very small program or a minuscule grade. Sometimes that's not the amazing experience we think it might be. And so I'm really interested in that creativity in just considering how can we let all of our students access this? At Berlin we don't have Spanish. I sure wish we did. That sounds amazing and everyone in Rummy sounds like it's an excellent opportunity for your kids. I wish we could figure out a way to expand that across the district and make it something where multiple schools are being impacted by that one cost. So I just wanted to chime in and say I really appreciate the creativity part. I hope you can talk about it more and find a way to retain all of these awesome people and opportunities in our district. Thank you so much. Shannon, Allie. Thanks. I'm Allie Mayanny. I work at the librarian at Doty and at Rummy. So I'm at Doty two days a week and I'm at Rummy three days a week. And I love my job. And I love the kids that I work at and I love both schools. And it's really, really hard to work at two schools. And I think it would be important for the board to really listen to the part-time staff and the staff that work in multiple schools to find out whether these are really sustainable jobs. I'm concerned about the decrease in positions and I'm concerned about having more part-time positions that are hard to fill with quality people. And I'm very, and I also just wanna shout out that the librarians have been part of our key component to the Humanity and Justice push that we are looking into as a district. And I think sometimes it's unclear some of what we do. And I didn't write a speech, but I just, I hope you'll reconsider reducing the library position at Calis. Thank you. Thank you, Allie. Priscilla, welcome. Thanks. So I'm speaking as a parent of two kids at U32 as well as a former board member. And just, you know, it is, this is a tough balance. Having been on the board for a number of years, I know how awful it is to have to cut programs. And, but I've also been at the town meetings and talked to taxpayers who simply cannot pay more taxes. And so while as a parent, I'm terribly worried about the kids and our system. And I'm also worried about the older members of our community who are not, you know, they're struggling to be able to live here. So I wanna thank the board for all that you're doing and the staff for all that you're doing to try to keep the budget increases manageable. I know that they're very high and there are gonna be a lot of increases. I know nobody wants to see cuts, but I think we do need to respect our overall property taxes and the impact it has on all of our citizens. Thanks. Thank you so much Priscilla. Willow, you have your hand up and your necks and Maya. Go ahead. Do you have that comment? Yes. Yes, so we're the student reps on the school board, but we just wanted to join the community in speaking about the budget cutting with the positions. When we heard the news today, we spoke with many of the students and we kind of got their feedback on like, how this affected them as high schoolers in what they learned in elementary school. And so we just wanted to kind of tell our experience with the programs. Music in elementary school for me was really the only reason I continued music in high school and it helped me improve not only my listening skills, which we all know is incredibly important for an elementary schooler, but also my reading skills, problem solving skills, and setting good habits. My music teacher Miss Dylan, who I'm still like in contact with now and she's an amazing person. She taught me to try new things and fail and try again. And I feel like that's such an important thing for students to be learning through the arts and through music. And we're already drastically losing kids in the music programming 32. And if we don't give them an option and an opportunity to try things like world languages and music, they're never gonna end up trying them. So I'm gonna talk about the Spanish department as well. So I was strongly influenced by the things we did in Spanish class. One moment that has influenced me to this day was bringing in planting hope. Why people coming into a state that lacks diversity is extremely eye-opening to not myself but others. I'm so lucky to have had this experience and it has even led me to do a year abroad in Spain. This wouldn't have been a thought without the Spanish department or Miss Donovan as a teacher. By taking away something that is so important to someone that doesn't even know it's important to them yet is crazy. There's so much kids don't know about the world and by having a second language, it opens up new cultures and even communication to new people. And we know that the budget, it obviously has to be cut and things have to change, but you mentioned creative pathways for that and just involving the community in those decisions and in that planning, I think is a really good idea. And I think you could get a lot of good ideas from the people here. I mean, there's over a hundred people here and that's crazy. And I think they provide a lot of value. That's it. That's it. Thank you guys. Thanks for being here. You'll get to your part in a little bit. Next, Sandy or is it Michael? Who do I get? I don't see you. So Michael, oh my goodness. Welcome. You're muted. It is Michael and now I'm unmuted. So I am the parents of two, you 32 grads from about, I don't know, 15 years ago or so and run the students as well. It's, you know, a lot of the discussion has been about saving this position or that position and the individuals who have always given their absolute best for giving our students the best they can. But I want to go back and I don't remember all the language but if the concern is about test scores, cutting the positions that you're referring to are probably going to put those scores down for a lot of the reasons that people have been talking about. There's a need for a well-rounded, creative inspired education. And if you start pulling the threads and the pieces from that, you're gonna wind up having some students who excel and a lot of students who just can't relate to school anymore and certainly wouldn't do well to be studying for these exams. So somewhere in your balance of quality education, creativity, your lenses, something feels like it's out of balance. And I would urge the board to keep that in mind when you're thinking about revising your budget plans. Thank you, Michael. It's good to see you, Patrick. Hi there, thank you. So first, yeah, I appreciate all of the time that the school district administration and the school board has put into this. It is undoubtedly a brutal and tough task. And so I really appreciate it. I also really appreciate the advanced planning on the budget this year has been wonderful and it's hard to engage with, but the community asked for it and the board and district responded. And I really appreciate it. Tonight, I'm sort of winging it because our whole family has been paying attention to this. Our kids have been listening to their teachers talk, to parents of their friends talk. And it's been a really interesting, our kids who go to Romney, so it's been a really interesting opportunity to do that and try to explain what's going on and why their Spanish teacher has to show up and defend her own position. It's just mind-boggling. So I agree with almost every single member of the community who's spoken up and I want to make two points. One, I believe the principal's budget has increased nearly $100,000. I'm not sure why that's happening when all of these teacher positions are being cut. So an explanation to that would be really helpful. In addition, on the subject of property taxes, I'm just a layperson, I'm no educational policy expert, but I believe that good schools bring people to towns. I expect that good schools lead to higher property values in general. So I encourage the board to think about those things and think about the big picture aspects of this, and not just controlling costs in the short term. In addition, good schools will hopefully lead people to want to move to these communities, to our communities with their kids and reverse this enrollment trend. I know it's bigger than just that, but please take those big picture perspectives. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. Hannah? Hi there. I'm a parent in middle sex and I have two kiddos at Romney and I just want to quickly reiterate. First of all, I want to thank the board and thank the administration for all their work. And again, I really appreciate the obvious actionable steps that you've taken for reaching out and including the community. And I also really appreciated for your clarity in the introduction to tonight and then to Megan Roy setting what the expectations were for tonight. I found a lot more clarity than I found in especially last year and the year before. So I really appreciate that. Again, I know that this is a really challenging time and a challenging task. I want to reiterate a couple of points. I agree with what Rosemary Leach was saying and also Pat Wood. I think that we really, when we're thinking about long term, we really have to think about, I mean, numbers is one of the biggest. I mean, it's one of the biggest issues and challenges in Vermont in general. We need more people. We need a bigger population, obviously, affordable housing and housing stock is an enormous part of that. But the schools really are, really are a foundational aspect of what draws people. And I know it's true in the four other towns besides Romney. And Romney's integrative arts and language program was the reason we moved here. And so it really is a magnet. And I just want to say in terms of equity, like they're saying in Berlin, they'd love to have a language program and I'd love for every town here. I also want to say that there have always been differences in the elementary schools and I don't want any, I've always heard wonderful things about Dodie's theater program. And so, and wonderful things about Berlin and music. And there's no part of me that wants those, just because something's not the same at Romney. I don't want those schools to lose what's special about them either. And just to say, I mean, Senora Donovan is just one of the best assets at school. I mean, my daughter for Christmas asked for extra Spanish lessons and she's in second grade. So, yeah. And then the other thing I want you to think about is in terms of staffing shortages. So I was a sub at Romney during some, a couple of the pandemic years and I will say that cutting April, cutting Gen Donovan, they fill so many more roles than just their lessons. So I worry about, I mean, they're essential. They do lunch. I mean, Gen Donovan comes into different classrooms during lunch and so they have, those positions really help spackle fill holes that are a huge challenge. And so I want the board and you to be thinking about more than just the, more than just losing that instruction but losing them as this glue, especially during staffing shortages. So that's it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Hanna. Okay, for members and community, I want to thank the community for doing this very hard exercise of taking note of all your questions. Please feel free to email us if you have any other input. We're gonna move now into board operations and discussion so that the board can discuss the budget and ask questions too. So let's move to 4.1, review and discuss the budget draft on page four. But before we get it really started, I wanted to let Megan just, it'll be great if you could clarify, we took notes of some of the questions if we could start there and then we'll move on into discussion. Okay? Yep. Happy to. Thanks, Flora. And what I'll do is just clarify a few things that I heard. It's not everything, but I think it's important to tee off the board conversation. The first one is we, one of the comments was around teachers being fired and one of the challenges of this process is that when we notify potentially impacted staff, we often have to notify more staff in terms of reductions than might ultimately end up having a reduction in force notice. And that's just important for the board to know that has to do with seniority and things like that. I am not trying to sugarcoat what the reductions are. Those are what they were in the slide, but I do wanna just clarify, that's part of why we have such broad conversations. And it's a part of our process that the board put into our timeline deliberately because in past years, notification didn't happen soon enough. So that was one piece. A quick clarification on music and this has to do with the person who asked when you look at a reduction, what is it leaving behind? The reduction in music is related to enrollment decline. There is still music in Romney. And I think that's really important for the board to know. There is not an elimination of music at Romney. Quick clarification on the school nurse position. It has not been decided where that reduction comes from. What this budget proposes is to take the 0.9, actually, it's not even a 1.0, the 0.9 FTE that was funded through ESSER and essentially reduce it a year earlier than the money goes away. And what we would need to do between now and the end of the year is study what the best nursing model is for the district and then decide how that 0.9 would be distributed. So it has not been decided yet where that reduction comes from. I think, so the one other thing I would reiterate, and this is just sort of a reaction to several of the comments about this idea of shaving around the edges and reducing the programming and specifically around Spanish. That's why we want the board to think about this idea of creativity because if we think about how we are structured, we may get to a point where we say, maybe we all agree that access to world language or access to a nurse or a counselor all the time, not just on a schedule is a good thing for all kids. It can't be done in our current structure without really prohibitive costs, but it could be done in a different structure. That's part of why we're sharing this information and I just wanna reiterate that to the board. There are probably other questions. I'm just gonna let the board get started on their discussion and if those questions come up, I'll either I will jump in or I'll turn to a principal or central office person, but those were the ones that stuck out for me. Megan, could you clarify a little bit on the library and tech integration before we get started? Yep, thank you. Sorry, I did write that one down. So one of the challenges with education quality is that it is vague on how it defines certain things. I'll give an example. Education quality standards don't tell you how much music, art, FTE you should have. They simply just say you need enough FTE to provide music. So with library, they don't distinguish between tech integration and library. They just talk about library and media. So the chart that people are concerned about, it is true. Many of our librarians by design do both of those jobs. We were simply just trying to create an apples to apples comparison and the apples from the agency event and at quality doesn't distinguish between those two things. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Megan. Okay, that was a lot to observe for our members. We can start questions. It's also 10 minutes of eight and I don't wanna short change. I wanna have this conversation right now. I just also wanna make sure that people don't need to use the bathroom that they're all good to have the conversations right now or do you need five minutes break so that then we can take those three, the feedback, the review, both draft two and draft three and the fund balance together at once because that's gonna take us at least 30 minutes. What is the measure of the board? I would suggest a break, five minute break. Five minute break, yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Okay, let's have a five minute break and we'll be right back. So it's 1951, sorry, 1951, 751 and we'll be back at 57, okay, bye. Okay, welcome back. So I have all the board members, at least I see some of you, there you are. Okay, so do you wanna jump right into the numbers? Do you have questions that you wanna start with questions? Diane. I would like to start with just a few questions just from Clarity and again, absolutely appreciate, Megan, your ability to just repeat to us and remind us as well as the leadership team and their focus and that. It just, it also, you and I had this conversation too about the fact that we can say something and think we have Clarity and then actually we were both right but we weren't saying the things that were clear and so language is everything. So one of the questions I have is about, so we had said 6% and there was a lot of concern about that at the last meeting but and again, I'm not sure what we mean by only 6% because to me it's 6% of a raised tax rate, not necessarily 6% of the budget. I may be the only one that's thinking that way but again that highlighted to me that and if I'm reading it correctly, currently with the current information which we know is very tricky but currently all of our tax rates are going down if things stayed constant, is that correct? Okay, so then to me our parameter and this is Clarity I want from the board too, my understanding is the 6% would be on a control of our tax rate increasing, not necessarily of the budget going up and so but again, I could be wrong, it could be my thinking. So that's one thing that I think we need to, when we give that parameter, we need to be very clear on what's the parameter we're agreeing on. Is it 6% of an increase on the budget regardless of tax rate or is it a 6% we don't wanna go above a 6% tax rate increase and then I also have another question but go ahead Megan. Well, just real quick for that one, no thank you, I appreciate that. Where you go from here is up to you, the original parameter to us was 6% on the expense budget. So that is what that original Clarity was. To your point, there is new information that is ever changing related to tax increase. It's also why it's hard to give a parameter about tax rates in November because we don't have that information. So you gave us direction around 6% on our expenses, what you do from here is up to the board. Okay, thank you. Then the other thing that really it highlighted to me as we're having these discussions is that we gave a, I think we need to be also clear in our parameters around where we want leadership team to look at where those expenses are. So right now it looks like it's really primarily direct line. So it's direct line people. And so where does, where do we create this balance of the cuts should be a percentage of direct line? If cuts are needed, then they should be a percentage that's direct line and a percentage that's that administrative line. If our numbers are really decreasing, do we have the right balance of administration to staff needs? And then also all of those parts around, it isn't necessarily busing or any of those things. Even central office, when do we do audits, so to speak, of personnel and it's not evaluation. So I don't want it to be that, but when do we take a look at given the size of our district, given the size of our schools, given the demands on our schools, what is that percentage of direct line people as opposed and also administrative and top tier? So I think we as a board need to think of that parameter as well. Thank you, Diane. Any other board questions before we take into, I will not respond a little bit to that, but okay, let me see who was first, Chris. Okay, so let me see, am I, okay, I'm muted. So this is a question to Megan. When you're using the Vermont quality standards, are those objective standards? And depending upon how you use them, does the leadership team use them in a subjective way? Well, I'll take a stab. I'm not sure I can quite understand the second half. The first half is those are Vermont, that's it's statutory or what is statutory is that Vermont will have education quality standards. So those are the measures that Vermont has defined at this moment is what all schools have to have. And there is an accountability factor there, we actually get rated on how we are. So they are objective in that sense. Now, people could discuss national standards, may or may not align with Vermont standards, Vermont's in the process of changing ed quality standards, which they do periodically, all those things are true. But in terms of what is the kind of law of the land right now, it is them and they are objective. I would say that we are not applying them subjectively. I would say that what we've done as a leadership team is identified the areas in ed quality that right now we are most discrepant and those areas, one of them is class size. That is the hardest one to achieve without structural change. And what I mean by where we're discrepant, we have far lower class sizes than ed quality would suggest we need. And we believe that it impacts the quality of what we provide for kids. There is a point when too small is impacts quality. So that's one area. And the second area that we, areas that we opted to look at are those places that we are particularly far from ed quality. I think that's an objective way of applying them. So that's what I would say. Because I joined in Diane's observation that cuts are coming from the frontline workers with direct services to students. And I'm a little concerned that we're cutting, we're proposing to cut staff like nurses at a time when we are still dealing with a pandemic and educational coaches who, my understanding is are fairly effective in improving teaching standards, which goes directly to improving student achievement through teacher improvement as well. So was, was any consideration given to reducing administrative staff in this, this go-through? Yep. So we looked at it in a couple of different ways. One of them is there are ed quality standards about principal ratios. They measure it by how much, how many teachers a principal supervises. We are within education quality standards for that measure. Those standards are tricky because they don't give a, they give you a bottom, right? They give you the minimum you need. They don't tell you what the maximum should be. And I would say, although I don't have it in my hand to give to you, we could provide the board with a comparison of our central office, FTE compared to similar sized districts. I think that could be helpful. Our analysis, or I would say my analysis is that we are very thinly staffed at the central office. And in fact, it is, there are, we have individuals in our system working overtime. We have things that we know we haven't gotten to right away. So that's my quick response. So the answer is, yes, we did look at it. We can provide the board with more information about how central office compares. I think that might be helpful, but that is that piece. Okay, and I'll, I have more questions, but before I'm going to defer it this time to give anyone else who has to hand up an opportunity. Thank you, Chris. McKaylin? McKaylin, I'm sorry. So I think I'd clarified part of my question I was confused by the original explanation about why EMS and Berlin were left out. But I understand now it's because of that, like there's a too small that then doesn't need to add quality standards. But I guess my concern is I'm not sure making cuts from the smaller schools is really actually going to result in any improvement in the quality of education in those schools. First of all, I guess my question is, does that bring us into compliance with that quality within those schools? If you make these changes, and number two, not actually meaningful in terms of educational quality. And I would be interested to know as a Worcester resident and Doty mother, what it would look like to bring Spanish or language to all the schools in the district. I know that's working against reductions. But I mean, man, people are super convincing how wonderful Spanish is at Romney. And I think it would be great if we just bring that to all our island schools. And lastly, I guess I would maybe now or maybe in the future really be interested in some of those creative things you talked about combining pre-Ks across the school. If that really saved money or freed up money and we could offer a full-time pre-K that would be super interesting to me. So thanks. No, thank you. I will just say two quick things. One around the first question about do these reductions bring us up to ed quality. I would say across this whole district, even with reductions, we still are, we are still have far more adults in our system than ed quality would say we need. I'm trying to say that just in a factual way. So in other words, it makes us closer to ed quality. It does not get us there. And that's just because as a district, we are small. So that's the first question. What I would say about the second half of your question is when we start thinking about things like do we want our elementary school kids to have access to world language? I actually think that's a great conversation to have. I don't think we can do that on the backs of our current structure. If we thought differently long-term, to me, that is not a quick move. But if we thought differently over time about how we structured our elementary schools to create scale, we could start having great conversations about how do we bring Spanish everywhere instead of how do we shave Spanish from people? So, and you could apply that same logic to Spanish nursing counselors. So that's what I would say. I think it actually, for me, that is my response to several of the things that you shared. So I would want the board to think about that. Thank you, Megan. Thank you. Daniel? Daniel? Thanks, yeah. I want to thank everyone for sort of the testimony that they've offered tonight. Really, really useful and informative and instructive for us. I also like what McKaylin said. I also think like this idea of thinking creatively about structural changes is something I'm very interested in too. So count me in for those conversations as well. I had a couple of questions. One, I guess probably was for Suzanne, I was interested in understanding whether the draft to budget expenditures, what that represents in relation to the excess spending threshold. I understand it's suspended as a penalty right now, but where would we be in relationship to that? So the AOE provided an excess spending threshold of $22,204. There are certain things that we could exclude from our per pupil spending, which our per pupil spending comes in at $22,458. So like $200, $250 more than what the AOE excess spending threshold is, but they let you take certain things off of that, including certain debt amounts and capital expenditures and special ed over $65,000. So we would be below that excess spending threshold more that in place. Thank you. And then I wanted to give Megan the opportunity to respond to a couple of questions posed by a community member. And I realized sort of a discussion of the fund balance is elsewhere on our agenda, but it seems hard to completely separate here. I guess I'm interested in understanding where we are in terms of a recommendation from administration on what to do with fund balance, whether it provides us with flexibility here. And also the issue of vacancy savings came up and I guess I have my own doubts or reservations about that. I'm curious to know whether that's a possibility we can take advantage of without compromising that quality standards. So here's what I would say. Sorry, go ahead. Can I just say something? So Daniel, the budget, the fund balance conversation that was my, I moved that, you know, I was all the way in the bottom. I moved that I didn't want us to like just count on the fund balance to have the hard conversations, right? So I wanted to have the look at the fund balance information after each of you have a chance to say what you absorb from the presentation and then we're gonna move right into fund balance just with the idea that, you know, the past ways that we have had is to, you know, we don't wanna avoid the cliff, right? So we don't wanna, we probably would have to use some fund balance this year, but that's not what we should be using to have the hard conversations right now, right? So we are gonna talk about fund balance, but we're just gonna talk about them after everybody has the chance to ask the questions and absorb the information without just counting and fund balance. That was a long explanation too. I'm only holding back on that one if she wants to defer into floor. Go ahead, Megan. Oh, I was just gonna say, I'm totally fine to hold my comment until we talk about fund balance. But maybe on the subject of vacancy savings, is that a possibility or does that represent a threat? No, those two conversations are connected because vacancy savings is part of why we have the fund balance that we do. So if we hold to, I think Floor's point is well taken because some of our realities are not going to go away and a fund balance application is a short-term solution that may be part of the solution and it's an important one, but it's not a long-term one. So I just kind of expanding. It's a good conversation to have. Yes, it's related to unfilled positions. That's part of how it gets created. We'll come back to it. Thanks. Maggie? I'm on the device where it's easy to unmute, so much easier here. Okay. I feel like one of the things that we heard consistent was attracting families to the district and I'm not sure how we go about this, but I feel like there is this reality that there is no housing. Nobody is moving here because there are nine houses for sale in the entire district currently and like six of them are under contract and the average price is $450,000. So how do we interface with development review and other town committees to have these bigger conversations about how we approach development so that we can actually attract families to move to our district and if the desire is to keep our small schools and their current formation is five elementary and the middle high school. We need to be having those bigger conversations as we're also talking about visioning at the educational level. I can't be looking at this in isolation. So I don't know what that looks like if it's a letter from us as a collective board to just put that concern out. If it's encouraging people who are families in our educational communities to participate at the local level on those boards, but I feel like looking at this in isolation and talking about educational quality without looking at the larger climate of housing stability and growth in the community is we're only going to manifest what so many superintendents before Megan have said was going to be the reality and here we are. It's coming to fruition. We've got it. We have to look at larger scale change than just district educational changes. So that's the thing that just like was glaring at me and I also share McKaylin's thoughts about hearing the vibrancy of the Spanish program at one elementary school with the awareness that we looked at Calis for years to fill a position and then removed that position when we were still our own school board. So what can be done? How can we work like at the state level as a district to attract new teachers so that people might be coming in for positions? Like we have to grow our own. I know those are bigger things than just talking about this budget but I'm also interested in that visioning piece because we're going to have to make some major changes. Thank you, Maggie. I don't see other board members hands but I'm definitely interested in hearing this is your time to share what you absorb. Chris, I'm going to wait. Kari, go ahead. Have we moved beyond clarifying questions? Are we giving our opinions now? Yeah. Yeah, okay, well, so I'll go. Thank you for the presentation. It was very clear. And I'll say, wow, this is a really difficult one. I didn't disagree with anything I heard tonight and yet changes are coming, right? That slide about a 20 to 25% reduction in the next handful of years. Change is inevitable. Whether it's this year, we'll be thinking about it every year. I fully support exploring the creative measures that were mentioned and we're going to need to, I suspect we're going to need to explore more measures like that in the future. And so let's get started. Let's start looking at it now. And then specifically I would support the board giving direction to in addition to exploring the measures to consider a 7% increase on that taxes. Knowing that the CLA information is coming and that's going to tell a big part of the story. And that was clear in the text commissioner's letter. We just don't know enough. So we're going to have to move quickly in January after we have that information. Thank you, Carrie. Jonas. Thank you, Floor. So first I want to talk about process. I think it's really, really super important to that people recognize that the board did not ask for service cuts. The board did not ask for rifts. The board asked that the next budget draft be limited to, as we've seen a 6% impact, which is again, historically, roughly twice as large as normal. I think we needed to see what this looked like. And I think Megan's been really clear through the budget process that these are just drafts. These show the impact. So having seen this draft and understanding what that impact would be, there are three, it seems to me, there are three sort of roads to go down and those roads intersect and intertwine. Number one, start cutting services to limit budget increases. Number two, don't cut services and continue to spend more and more for equalized people or three. Talk about those structural changes that Megan referred to and that Carrie just referred to. And to put that squarely on the table, my understanding and tell me if I'm wrong is that those structural changes, when we say that, what we really mean is where our students go to school, right? And whether that's closure or consolidation or reorganization of school populations, it, Carrie's right, it's something we have to grapple with that that is coming. But that process is going to involve a lot of weighing of priorities and interests and community history and community identity. And it's gonna take a lot of community involvement. And we got a lot of that tonight, which is great to see, particularly after so many of our community forums have been attended by very, very few people. And there was an imbalance tonight, not an inequity, but an imbalance in the community involvement tonight. The Romney community has this amazing reputation for being extremely active and engaged and that was really on display. And I wish that, I wish someone loved me like you guys love Romney. It's incredible. You know, that's been on display a number of times sort of while I've been doing this, but I really wanna urge everyone that as we move into these discussions about structure, as we must, that it's going to be super important to think about the district and the district's needs as a whole, right? As our learning community in aggregate, rather than, you know, focusing on our hometown schools. You know, this stuff about community identity is gonna be really, really tricky, really tricky to balance with the realities of declining enrollments and rising budgets. So what now? I think that any responsible process to address the district's structure or even Maggie's excellent point, right? That we need to address these like civilization level issues like housing, like that process is gonna take, I think it ought to take much more time than we have to put this budget together. You know, if we move forward with this budget draft, we're gonna negatively impact student learning. We're gonna alienate a lot of people. If we go back to something like budget draft one or per, you know, equalized pupil spending gets even higher, right? And makes the inevitable right sizing of the district to meet the needs of student population size even more painful. So I don't know what to do, you know, to hear, you know, someone, you know, that has, you know, the gravitas that Kari Bradley does, you know, say that this is a really tough one, right? That hits me right in the gut, Kari, but you're absolutely right. I have no idea what the right thing to do is, but I hope that the community can see that we are trying to do the right thing. Thank you, Jonas. And in case we haven't said it enough, we love you. So, and we appreciate all you too. So just like the Romney community loves Romney, we love you in the board. Did I said that enough? We love you. Okay. Now- I love you, Jonas. There you go. See? Ursula. Did I do that right? Ursula? I was- Oh, they did. I was gonna say Jonas just said a lot of things very eloquently that I am gonna just brute force through and agree with, but I, this isn't an easy discussion. This isn't something that we're taking lightly. And I wanna take time to thank Megan and the leadership team for the work that they did on it and the community members that came out and shared their passion for our students. I definitely believe we need to look at these creative solutions, which is where do our students go to school and how do we maximize the benefit to the students? Those smaller class sizes are hard. I guess that's all I'm gonna add. Jonas said so much quite eloquently and I'm not gonna be able to beat that. Thank you, Ursula. Lindy? One of the things that I was taken with was the slide of the declining enrollment. And people were pointing out that some schools had no cuts and I don't think it's about, because I think Megan cleared that up a little bit with a 0.95 doesn't mean a particular person, it means across the district as far as that nursing position, but the declining enrollments are huge and it's very huge in schools. And I know sometimes when a school loses 10 kids, it's 10 kids across five grades or something. So it doesn't affect that one grade, but it does require the schools get creative with how they use the personnel so that we do have optimal class sizes and we look at the biggest expense in our budget is personnel. And it's hard. And as we're talking about the Spanish position, when I was on the East Montpelier board before the consolidation, that's when we had the whole music room filled with parents and floor crying because Spanish was important to everybody and it is, I mean, it is an amazing program. So when these happen, we get that involvement that is sometimes lacking because it hits everybody so hard and so personally. And I appreciate what the leadership team has brought back to us to consider, to think about, and I also appreciate that it's been shared, this is not final, this is a discussion, this is to help us see what it looks like. So thank you. Thank you, Lindy. Diane. Yeah, what happens is we get very motivated to talk about things when it's at the budget time and then we get through the budget season and then we bring it in. Even though we as a board said, yes, we're gonna do this earlier, we're gonna work on this all year, we inevitably have other things raise up. So my inclination or feeling or I don't know how to make it, I think we go back to that original budget of what the draft was that didn't have these same cuts, but we know that starting in January, the discussions begin around targeted visioning. And Megan, you mentioned that we have somebody who can lead us in discussions, but I think we make a very strong intentionality behind it and either it's a specific topic about our structure and our ability to cover these things or our priorities or our needs, but that we really, we hit it hard immediately and not let it water go under the bridge again. Because yes, it is inevitable, change is coming, we see those numbers, we know what it is. What happens is because we asked you to go back and do this 6% limited to 6% that then creates this influx of a lot of emotion and people understanding and realizing, you don't realize until it's potentially almost gone. But I mean, my sense is, I don't remember what are in the current, if we applied draft one or if even draft one is what we're saying, we go back to, but if we apply that, what would our taxes look like with this new information we've gotten? And then, but again, if we do that, it means that we're hitting the ground running and you've already gotten in the sandbox and getting messy around that creative thinking and I think launching into that sooner rather than later. Thank you, Dan. I'm gonna, Chris and Daniel, both were able to ask questions. I'm gonna let Joshua go first and then move into you guys. Joshua. Oh, thank you. Of course, thanks everybody for Middlesex for showing up. I'm Joshua Sevitz, I'm new to the board. So this is my first budget go-around. Please be patient with me. I'll respond to your emails, I promise. I was on the job site today, I was like, oh my gosh, this is serious, I need to respond. So I don't really have anything original to add other than I just wanna co-sign what a few people had to say. Kari, I totally support the 7% like looking, like exploring what that looks like and also, I just wanna also support what the enthusiasm behind CAD, FAIR, and also McKaylin of exploring creativity, like getting excited about our district instead of looking at the hardships. I mean, there's exciting things to come, I think. And I think like, yes, it's gonna be hard right now while we struggle through this, but I think that we are gonna come out better for it. Our kids are gonna come out better for it and we just need to all remain engaged and just keep talking about what's important to us, our families and our growth because there are certain structural changes we can't control, but there's also a lot of really amazing things we can control. And I think as long as we look to that and don't get bogged down in sort of the bad, the hard decisions, I think it'll be great. I think there's good times. So anyway, thank you for everyone for showing up and for all the hard work everyone's put into this. Thank you, Tisha. Chris and then Daniel. Thank you, Floor. So you did hear the passion from the Rumley community ranging from Mary Beth Dameski who's a teacher there probably 10 years ago now, but had a 30 year history in the importance of the Spanish program to the community. Each of our small towns have similar passions because the school is such an integral party part of the fabric of the community. It's not like we have a mall or we have a downtown or any other type of central gathering place. The school is basically a very integrative social networking part of each of our towns. And we cannot overlook that because if schools close, then that has a severe impact on the individual towns. I am fully in support of looking for creative solutions and if Megan could share, because I would assume that the leadership team already at least on the back of the envelope did a calculation of what the potential creative solution of combining preschools would do in terms of savings, that would be great to hear at the next go round of the budget meeting. In this instance, I'm fully supporting what Diana said, is that I think we go back to the original budget draft and let our communities tell us whether they wanna support that type of budgeting, but then also set up a very strict framework and invite our communities in. If we're talking about a creative solution to restructure our school district, we have that community in right away, not at the end. They were passionate and showed up tonight because they finally got the details on what these budget cuts were going to mean individually. So inviting community in immediately in our creative conversations would be the way to go, but I think we should give the community the opportunity. They can reject the budget, it's too high. And then we come back and we already have it draft that we have prepared here. So that would be my hope that we would follow that path and not let the Spanish program, which means so much to them from the school and the middle sex community, along with the other cuts there go away. Cause I think I only heard the music teacher cut going down as being reflective of declining enrollment. And Megan, correct me if I'm misstating that, but that's the cut I heard was reflective, directly tied to declining enrollment. Thank you. Daniel. Daniel. Daniel. Yeah, so yeah, just in spirit, if we're in the offering opinion stage, I think I also like this idea of going back to draft one, seeing what that looks like in terms of an increase in tax rate based on new information. I guess I was curious when Kari made his initial suggestion, I thought I heard looking at a 6% tax rate increase or a budget with a 6% tax rate increase. I could have misheard that. I just wanted to give in the average. 7%, 7%, 7%. Not expenditures, tax rate increase or? Yeah, the same bottom line that we've been looking at, knowing that we don't have the full tax information from the state. We will know that next time we meet, we'll have the CLA information. And I think we're going to know a lot more at that point. We obviously will. So Kari, can I ask the platform question to you? So just what is the current tax rate that we're looking at increase for the first draft budget? First draft was 9.7. 9.7, okay. Well, is that expenditure increase or tax rate increase? Domination of expenditures and revenues. Expenditures going down, revenues going down. I think Diane brought up this point before about whether we're talking about wanting to limit it to no more than a 7% tax increase on our residents or 7% expenditure increase. I believe that the term is local education spending. And it's what Chris, what it is, it's the portion of the tax picture that we control. All the other components are beyond our control. This is the one thing that we have some control over. Okay, thank you. Got it, thanks. Orisa. I had some clarifying questions, Carrie cleared up the whole 7%. I would support Carrie's suggestion of looking at like the 7%. I think we need to remember that we have that duty to our communities to keep it affordable to live here. Everybody wants to talk about having this robust program and that's great, but if people can't afford to live here, they're gonna have to leave. If they can't afford their taxes, they leave and they take their students with them which affects our enrollment. And it makes it harder for new parents and new families to come in. So that's my thought there. Thank you, Dan and then Jonas. Yeah, so I do have a clarifying question. So if we go up 1%, how much of that 1 million cut is it? And then two, I mean, I get that that's what we control, but if we're saying we go up to 7% and it's still no, I mean, as a taxpayer, I expect some kind of an increase. And so to be saying I'm cutting personnel and then we end up at a lower percentage, I guess I need to understand what we're saying and that I get what you're saying, Carrie, about the explanation, but bottom line, I know I control that, but how much are we willing to say we potentially are giving as a tax rate too. And then also, what's the amount of money that that 1% will be? Floor, can I respond to that? Yeah, go ahead, Carrie. And I think that Suzanne has, we had the number for 1%, Suzanne, was it $400,000? Can't remember now if it was more. Go ahead, Carrie. So I think the short answer to the answer questions, we don't know, we don't have enough information yet. And we won't until we have that CLA information. I think that what was presented tonight was the state tax rate or local, the impact of the local spending and then last year's CLA. If last year's CLA holds, we will be in great shape and tax rates will go down across the board. I think we'll all be comfortable adding back more. So that's why I'm emphasizing that we can't really make many decisions until January and we have that information. But I just think it puts us in a better position to be contemplating more reductions where it's possible for us to reduce because we can add back comfortable doing that if we have to scramble at the end to identify places where we think we need to reduce it will be harder. But if the CLA information comes in favorable, I'll be the first to propose adding back. Susan. 1% is $288,210. One thing that in addition to the CLA is important to think about is that 15,479 is actually set by the legislature after they decide on other things, which means they might decide to use less of the education fund balance. They might decide to use that to, for instance, pay for universal meals. And that means there's less money to offset those tax rates. So even if the information that we provide the taxpayers says that there's a decrease in taxes, if that dollar amount changes after the legislature sets it, the tax rate still could go up. And you are considering things that Ed fund balance when it's depleted, the legislature will have less money to offset tax rates. And this is statewide, which means in future years, you're still gonna hit another click. And so thinking ahead in that manner is a really good thing to do. Thank you, Susan. And besides, I just wanted to add that besides universal meals, there's a lot of people who are gonna be loving to see her to have money for construction aid. We have another high school that has been hit with testing. There's gonna be, there's other needs. So there's no assurance that that money is gonna go to decrease taxes. Jonas and then Daniel, and then I have a proposal from hearing from all of you and Natasha and Jonathan, I haven't heard from you guys. So what I wanted to say was that I would support going back to the first budget draft. I would ask Megan and the leadership team to identify any budget reductions that they would have enacted in any other year, right? Where this is just money we can, we don't need to be spending this money. And I would support taking that to the towns, right? We heard a lot from Romney today. We heard a lot from Middlesex today. Like we all know how important Spanish is at Romney. We didn't hear from the other towns as much, but I think that those cuts are probably just as important. I would be okay moving ahead with budget draft number one with whatever minimal, whatever tinkering you can do, start that process of talking about structure, right? If that's the word we're going to use structure, talking about that structure, starting as soon as possible and addressing the budget after that, what future budgets look like. Because I don't think we can do that simultaneously. I think it's pretty clear where the community is. I think it's pretty clear where the board is. Nobody wants to reduce services. We've heard plenty of people say they'd be willing to pay more taxes. I would be willing to pay more taxes. I would support going back to draft number one, taking it to the voters and see what they say. Thank you, Jonas. Daniel, and then we'll have a couple of, Daniel. I was just gonna say, I don't think Diane's suggestion and the one that Jonas just seconded and Kari's suggestion are mutually exclusive. I mean, I think we can look at a 7% increase and what its implications are when we look, when we come back to it in January and we can look at draft number one and hopefully Suzanne can inform draft number one's implications based on new information in January also. And we can look at both options. I also, being like Joshua a first time budget experiencer, at least in terms of being in a hot seat, feel really indignant about the fact that the state of Vermont's process puts this much responsibility on school boards to make these decisions and yet doesn't give us the information we need to know what we're asking of taxpayers before we ask it of them. And I think a school board or the school board association needs to take the state of Vermont to court. And tell them to rework their process. Thank you, Danielle. Megan. Yeah, so the only quick comment I wanted to make related to the idea of going back to the first draft, we would need some kind of percent parameter from the board because the first draft is actually no longer at 9.7%, right? We had to adjust it. We already know we have increases in special ed, which means it's more than 9.7%. So I think I know conceptually what you're saying, but we still would need a guardrail because we can't go back to the first draft. It's already changed. So that's all. I want to give an opportunity to Natasha and Jonathan, if you have something to say, otherwise we'll move right along. And you okay? Megan, I'm freeze. Sorry, what did you say? I thought Megan, for me, she froze up. Is she unfrozen now? I said she, were you done, Megan, or did I interrupt you? I thought you were done. I was done, and I didn't know that I froze. Okay, and maybe it's just my device, okay. Okay. Can I, Natasha? Yeah. So listening to public comments that I was really, was really emotional for me. I went to Worcester, I went to U32, I brought my kids back to Vermont, very specifically because I wanted them to have the kind of education I had growing up. And so when I listened to the community members who showed up tonight, and thank you to all 100 plus people who showed up, I feel like they were just speaking directly to my heart and to what I really believe in and believe our district is and stands for. And so I'm like listening to all of this talk about numbers and percentages and I will be, I'm trying to understand all of that, and I'm also trying to separate that from what, I guess, from what my heart wants, which is let's find the money to keep the programs in place that allow our students to have the education they've been having. I know that I have a privilege that other people do not have, so I can say I'm willing to pay more taxes. I know everybody's not in that same position, so I'm not gonna expect other people to feel that way, but I would hate to see us change what we're already offering to our students because I think that what we have here is something really special and that's what makes Vermont special, that's what makes our district special. And yeah, so that's what I have to say. Okay, okay, Jonathan? Yeah, I'll just add a few things too. Knowing what we know about the needs of kids now coming out of the pandemic, moving forward to my mind, any cuts that relate to counseling, that relate to nursing services, just would be a huge mistake. And additionally, I don't think that, I don't view languages, I don't view music or art as in any way extra, I think they are absolutely as integral to a curriculum as history or math or literacy. So that's what I think. So as I've done historically over many years now on the board and I don't support cuts to teachers, I'm fully aware of what as we all are, what the population numbers are showing, the trends. But as I've said many times before, in my mind, if needs of students are going up, even if there's fewer students, we need staff for those kids. So it's not so simple to say because our numbers are going down in terms of population that the needs therefore are also going down. It's just not a one-for-one comparison in my mind because we know the needs are greater in fact, not lesser. So that's what I have to say, thank you. Okay, so we have a long agenda still ahead of us. So I wanna try to somehow wrap up this conversation. And I have a suggestion, I've heard a lot of you say, let's go back to the first draft. I wanna speak a little bit about that. I think that we would just be delaying the cliff if we just say, we would be saying, we put this parameters, but really, forget about them, let's just go back to the first draft. I think that, I know that we, as a board, we wanna be brave and accountability doesn't have to be scary. And we're accountable to not just taxpayers, like it was really hard, it was really hard as a Spanish speaker to be put again in the same position that I was when I was in East Monk either to be speaking not against, but it's just like the realities that we face, right? Yeah, of course we would all love Spanish. I want Spanish in every single school. And I think, thinking creatively, we can get there, right? But what are the realities today? So we can do two things. One, we can do increase our parameter from 6% to 7% and that would have the options to ask. I think I heard agreement between all board members that the preschool idea is interested to the board that would bring some savings. And then, and let's see what that does to our budget for draft three. I don't think that as a board, it would be best practice for us to just put out a 9.50. And I know that it's not that anymore. Back to our voters and expect to be voted down and then come back and do certain cuts. That is not the way that we've been doing things in the past. We wanna be more systematic. We asked them, I don't know if Megan, you could go back to those. It was one of the slides that show what was in the budget from those parameters, the education. I'm trying to think about the slide, but like we, the multi-layer system of supports is still in, which means that the coach, our coaching program should be in good shape because multi-layer system supports does not exist without coaches, right? Is that a wrong statement or is that it's like? Well, what I would say, I think this is the slide, Juman. Yes, yes. One of the things that I would say is when we looked at reductions to get to the board parameter and show you all what it looked like, there was also a recognition that if we had to make difficult choices, we would want to do that and keep people in front of students and hence the reduction in coaching. I would say that that's, and I'm going a little bit not having gone back to the leadership team on this, but I would say that being able to come back to the board with a revised presentation with a new parameter would allow us to have that conversation. Is that a good idea to continue with a coaching reduction because that idea that coaching is part of how we make sure first instruction is what it should be? I think folks on the leadership team would agree with that. So I hope that doesn't feel like a non-answer. I think what I'm saying is the leadership team would appreciate an ability to say, okay, with this new parameter, this is what our recommendation would be. So that we could have that coming. And that's what, we meant that parameter, right? So like if the multi-layer system supports and first instruction needs the coaching and we're giving you a little more wiggle room, please take that seriously from all of us, Diane. But if we read back our notes, the minutes that were kept at the last meeting, there were several who were listing concerns over that 6% parameter. And so I still have some pretty strong concern over what we're saying around those parameters. And we were assured this was being brought to us so that we would know what that looks like. And so, Flora, you're mentioning around the coaching, but we also heard a lot about nursing. And again, that might be spread out. We don't know what that looks like because it's a structural change. So I guess my concern is if we're still, and I completely get the reality of we don't know until, and we will be probably lucky if it's early January that we know about CLA's, but our hands are tied by that. But I guess to me, I'm not willy-nilly approaching the fact that we gave this parameter and now we're not adhering to that parameter. I think the stark reality of what that parameter is going to potentially do when we haven't had completely the chance to have the structural conversation and creativity beyond about a month is what's worrisome to me. It's not that I'm saying I've got my head in the sand and I'm denying it. It's just that we need a lot of work toward that and a lot of firmer knowledge before we just say we're sticking to either a six or even 7% parameter because who's making the decision then about which parts are still in that budget or not? So what I would say to that, Dan, it's like if we give them some guidance, 7%, we hire them to be the instructional leaders. They would figure out what is the best way to use that money for best outcomes for kids. And when I mean outcomes, I'm not talking about test scores. That was a word that was used a lot. I don't think that either Jen or Megan in their curriculum instruction, while we look or when we sit as at quality, we're not looking at test scores, right? We're looking at test scores, but that is not the focus of what is best for kids. So if we at least they're able to agree on a 7% for now, see what that does for the budget. And they come back to us with the numbers. And then we are engaged as you all know, we put our requests for proposals out for hiring a firm to do our strategic planning community engagement, their number one goal we have and gives us part of this year and part of next year to really meaningfully engage the community so that we can be more creative and have more creative solutions that include structural changes. So we're not, like we all say right now, we're not talking about closing schools right now, but there is a potential in the future to changing, it doesn't mean that we're gonna change schools, but doing things differently and allow us that time to do that. For now, let's see what being creative with the preschool, putting that 7% does for the numbers and we have the meeting in January. We will have a meeting as a finance committee, I don't have it right in front of us as the planning right now. And if necessary, we have an additional meeting so that we can consult again with the public and the board before we make any final decision for the budget. Yes or no, or maybe it's not like, I'm not looking for a motion, I'm just looking for a guide, to give some concrete guidance to- So can I ask Megan a question? Megan, what is the sense as to what the percentage increases on that first draft now that we have additional information on the special ed? If you have a sense of it? I'm gonna ping to Suzanne who's shaking her head which means we would probably need to calculate that before we'd be able to answer it. Okay, because what I was looking for for there is that that would give us the number that the first draft budget would truly be in terms of an increase and then compare that to where we are now and get a sense as to, because we're still talking about significant cuts here in very select areas, like first line direct instruction in nursing and counseling areas. So it didn't seem like it was something that was across the entire budget for things like extracurricular activities or things like that. I don't see anything that would reference there. So in the direct line, cutting the direct line instruction is problematic for me. So I'd like to see where we can come more than 7% because I don't think 7% is gonna do much. Susan Suzanne said it's what $240,000 and I'm not saying that's not a little bit of money but compared to what we're looking at in terms of a million, it's 25% more than, so it'd be a 25% reduction of the reductions that we already have. So I'd like to see that other numbers and come closer to a middle number between the six and whatever the higher number is in terms of a goal. I might be the only one who's confused here but I thought that this current budget that you presented came in at 7.5 something percent. Is that, so if we say seven then we're actually asking for further reductions from this one, correct? Or am I, yes. So I'm not personally okay with that. I don't think we should make more cuts or more reductions unless we find a super creative way that doesn't mean cutting programs or positions. I would say, why not try to stay within the state average which sounds like it's 8.5? That would be my vote. Suzanne, and then Ursula. I feel like the 8.5% people have kind of clung onto it because that was in the tax commissioner's letter. That was an average of every school district in the state that reported based on their first drafts. And many of them are in the same position that we're in where we're going back to the drawing board and saying eight and a half is too much. And already we've seen districts around us backing down to 6% in other ranges. So I don't wanna hang our hats on eight and a half as what the average will end up being. All right, well, thank you for that clarification. I guess that my sentiment still stands which is I'm not really okay with requesting further reductions from this current draft. I would say, fine, make it 8% or make it to 7.59%. Well, let's have Ursula and Joshua and then let's move into the fund balance because I think it would help inform this conversation too. And when I think about the seven going to 7%, without knowing the number of what the preschool savings could potentially be and being more creative that's where I'm seeing that maybe it was that half percent. So I'm not asking for further reductions. I'm just saying, go ahead and look at what preschool could look and maybe that brings us down to seven just so that we are coming in within others. Ursula? I had a question, maybe Megan can answer it. I know we just talked for you proposed looking at just flexibility within the preschool, the creativity with the preschool program. Are there other places that we can be creative in this budget that might help us further? That are realistically. Yep, some of the other creative solutions that were brainstormed only far enough to give the board a sense would be combining other grade levels, not just pre-K. Not just pre-K. So one could be moving a very small kindergarten class over to another school. Same thing with the sixth grade class that would be the next creative step that doesn't require full scale restructuring. We could put some more detail around that for the board if the board wanted it. I would like to see in the next draft like not just the preschool but what would we see with those other creative moves that aren't full restructuring that would be realistic for next year or in this budget. But would that include staff reductions? Is that where the savings is coming from? Okay, that's critical for us to know. It would in both. And just a reminder that 80% if not more is the only it's staff, right? So there's very little other places where we can. So let's say, Suzanne, can you, or I don't know who wants to take the fund balance conversation reality check for us. I will gladly turn that to Suzanne. I'm happy to lead that discussion. In your report, I think it's page 144 and 145 are the fund balance. Current projections for end of year fund balance are at $1,563,262. In the past, the board has used a target of 2%, which would be 2% of our current year budget and that's $723,385. So above and beyond that 2% is $839,877. That's based on a projection and a significant portion of that fund balance is derived from unfilled positions. And so we know that that does put a strain on the humans in the building. Buildings, multiple buildings. One of the things that has arisen is what is that 2% or why are we picking that 2%? And so I've reached out to our accountants, we have not been able to connect and unfortunately I can't connect with them until tomorrow, which is a timing issue. But some early indications from them are that we have this unique ability because of the vote that the district does at town meeting that allows the school board to decide what to do with the fund balance. Normally school districts are required to put that money to offset the tax rate. So that $1,563,000, we would be required to reduce the tax rate using that as a revenue. But because you have that article that the district votes on, you as a board have the ability to decide what to do with it. And in the past, you've made decisions to move it over to capital and sometimes just to hold that 2% and a little bit more, I know some people have a comfort level that is higher than 2%, they'd rather keep money on hand. Some of my early conversations with the accountants include designating specific things to hold that money for. So what you've done in the past indicating that you wanted to offset the equity scholar in residence or you want it to offset early retirement programs or adding teachers at certain schools, that's exactly what the accountants indicate they would like to see you do with the entire fund balance, have a certain indication that you wanna set aside $300,000 for equipment purchases and certain amounts for different categories. So there's bigger, deeper conversations that happen. You absolutely can use a certain amount to offset the tax rate, but that is your ability to decide as a board. Okay, questions from board members. So one, just to not get ahead of you guys, so thinking creatively with the fund balance, but let's discuss it before I put my, Daniel. Yeah, I have two questions for Suzanne. One is you're talking about savings, vacancy savings. Are these vacancy savings that are being realized this year through vacant positions or you're projecting vacancies next year as well and in expecting savings from that? This fund balance has nothing to do with next year. It's current year only and it's vacancies to this point in time with the assumption that we would fill these vacancies next week. Okay, thank you. And the other question was, how would allocating the full, just hypothetically, the full 839,877 excess towards budget spending affect our capital plan? Would it? One of this money is currently in the capital plan. The capital fund is a separate fund from this amount. So you've already deferred a certain amount to plan for your capital improvement plan implementation, so it wouldn't affect it. And the amount deferred is adequate? At this point in time, I would say it is. We are coming back to the board. I think it's scheduled for March to discuss the FY26 year of that plan. So the next year to add on. Okay, thank you. Yeah, of course. So Susan, my question was, because you're talking some of the advice is that the entire fund balance gets allocated, right? Like by other places. Do they have sort of like, I'll call it a fund for capital fund overtures. So like if we, if we allocated the full 839, 877, and we had capital projects that ran over because cost increases, where do we find that money? So, Susan, the, so exactly. Exactly, like that's what we're talking about there is your comfort level. So the board has to decide as a unit what the comfort level is. And so maybe that's putting money into different buckets. And that's why I wanna have that fully fleshed out conversation with our accounts is what they've seen in other districts and what best practice might be. We just have that really unique ability that the board can decide this and it doesn't automatically have to go back. Thank you, Susan. Kari? I think I support what Suzanne's describing. I would caution us about using the fund balance for normal operations, because unless something changes in the future, then we would have to come up with that amount of money plus the future increases in future years. And in my experience, we've done that before and it's extremely painful the following years. So it's sort of like the ESSER funds. We should be thinking about it as one-time sources and they should be matched with one-time uses. And so what are those things? You know, it would often be something capital expenditure that's above and beyond our normal spending. And if we can't identify any of those in the coming years then we should develop a plan to sort of rationally draw that down. Any amount that we don't need. But let's do it in a way that's thoughtful and doesn't cause us pain down the road. Daniel? I just wanted to really quickly add for the public's benefit the reason the members of the finance committee have all asked these questions is because we've been looking at bids coming in 80, 90, 100% over our estimates. And it's alarming and those projects often can't be delayed. And so we need to understand sort of what the risks we're taking are when we do away with excess fund balance. I'll agree to that. And also add that as a district we do not have enough money to properly take care of all our buildings. We each, you know, we have enough money to take care of the projects that we have right now but we haven't put enough money aside for the value of each building as it is right now. So, do we have agreement? Is there, is this a year when we wanna make an exception for a certain amount of money last year we did or two years ago we did, no, it was last year. We did Shelley this year, you know, we could say, you know, like let's take it, you know, for this one time money the extra funds are going away for the nurse that could be one option just for this year while we figure out how best to do nursing like Megan mentioned in that across our district if that's something that we can buy in for now but just that one specific and then keep the money for from what I hear from other finance but committee members is keep the money in case we need it because we're seeing projects come in really high and the built environment affects the outcome suffer kids as much and our staff too. Diane. So I don't know where we're landing as to what draft we're gonna get back what the draft is gonna look like but my sense is, you know, notness, I guess depending on the information what we land on there, if it doesn't look like we're really making as many cuts or cuts at all or whatever that we make the decision as part of that package that, you know, because I don't know what I would be agreeing to right now in terms of amount at all. So it seems to me that it becomes part of the package depending upon what it looks like once we know once we have more information. I guess I'm not opposed to potentially dipping into the fund balance but I don't know what amount that would be right now and I don't know what that need would be right now. So I guess to say an amount tonight I just don't know that I would know that. Versa. I would be interested in seeing the numbers for what it would like what it would cost to the capital fund or the general fund balance for covering the nurses but I think we need to look at the harsh reality that things are changing and we can't keep pushing off the changes that we need to make or they are going to be even more painful when we do have to make them when we can't push them off any longer. Okay. All right, see. Yeah. So I think that we have come in agreement that we don't wanna use fund balance to offset our taxes, right? That if we need to dip in just a little bit maybe for the nurses see what they come back to us and then if it seems to me that we might need that extra meeting for the community and for us and maybe cause we have to wait for numbers to come out maybe we talk about a meeting a January 11th or we can send something to you guys but it looks like we might need an extra meeting is that I don't know if it's realistic to try to find the time but it looks like we're gonna need it. So now that we've completely confused Suzanne I don't know Suzanne and Megan we've been extremely confusing in some ways and in some others trying to be really clear. So I think there's appreciation for all the work we wanna be creative. Let's see what 7% looks like it dip into the fund balance just a teeny bit to see if you need it for the nurses but don't count on the fund balance to upset our taxes. And I know Diane I'm looking at you and I'm looking at some others. I know that some, you know that we're really concerned about losing staff realities are harsh. Let's see what 7% looks for right now or 7.5 where we are if it doesn't Diane. I mean, I'm giving that look because it seems to me several of us have said repeatedly 7% and then when McKaylin pointed out that that's actually lower than what we're looking at right now. I guess I'm just concerned. I mean, if you wanna put it to a vote I'll vote no and that's fine. And then, you know the majority can do with what they're going to do but I don't know I'm just very concerned at putting forward and I am again, I'm not putting my head in the sand and not in denying the need for change and for structure. I'm just saying that right now we're making what I feel are some austere moves before we have the full information and to again say 7% when we're already at 7.5 I'm just very confused by that. I'm with Diane we have to come in above this above this draft. I agree. I mean, there's, we're hearing from the community like it's very, very clear what the vocal members of the community want, right? There are lots of members of the community who are not here but I would prefer to err on the side of a higher number and have the community vote it down then come in with a lower number and alienate the community. So I'm trying to process this. So when I say 7%, like I said before I was counting on the preschool stuff to bring it down to 7% or leaving at 7.5. I understand we had a lot of community members show up today and I'm sure we're gonna hear more from them and we're gonna take even more information. Let's look at both, look at 7% and look at what we were before at 9.7 was that we were Megan. So that we're showing, we're showing what that tax rate looks for both and I'm getting confused on my own self here. But I'm here from, I don't know I don't know what I'm talking about but I don't know what I'm talking about but I hear you, you know, Jonathan there's some hard decisions that we're gonna have to make. Let's see what 9.7% looks which is what we had before see what that looks with the tax number and where we land if we are above our 22 if we're above 22,204 from the threshold how high, much higher up of that we are with that. I know Suzanne said we are right now at 22,458 we can offset that by some, by some amount but I'm not, I don't think that we're comfortable going too high up from that threshold. Lindy. I'm in trouble finding my mute. The only thing, well it's not the only thing I'm confused by but you keep mentioning the pre-K I didn't think that was like right now we were planning to have that under control for next fall that we were possibly consolidating some pre-K am I wrong? I think we're saying to them what would that look like Megan. Yeah I would agree in our look at creative solutions that don't involve large-scale structural changes combining pre-K was something that felt like it was worth investigating because it could actually improve access and so it would realize reductions improve access and it would not be like a whole scale restructuring without the community engagement. So that's what I am hearing in terms of why pre-K it's also why I led with that one we're going to get permission to do creative things and again it wouldn't be a decision it would be showing you more detail about what it would look like. So show is what 9.7% is then show is what 7% is including pre-school is that with that satisfied the board and then we make that decision Daniel I see your hand is up sorry. I was just going to just to that point 9.7 we're not sure it's 9.7 right with the special ed funding changes it might be slightly different. Well I think what I'm hearing is let it be 9.7 recognize that it will still require a reduction because it went up a little but at least it gives us an upper bumper that is closer to what your original upper bumper was so it would require some reductions but not to the extent that we had so that's how I was hearing the 9.7. And Megan thank you for that I think that's a good clarification. Thanks. I like this plan floor I think yeah for me just the 7% does not compute anymore in light of new information I mean I think the reality is you know we have a situation with significant inflation we also have this $65 million education fund surplus sitting there and and the 7% budget at least with the best information now results in a tax decrease which just doesn't compute when you look at the pain that we are asking the district to absorb so I am much happier with looking at the 9.7 level again and more serious. Thanks Daniel so for it okay with that we'll look at both yes and we'll make a decision meeting. Okay can I say something I have to leave because I have to go pick up my kids in Lebanon they took the bus up from Boston so I have to leave unfortunately and that's Natasha Natasha and we I have a suggestion because we are so you know we've taken a lot more time can we can we just do 7.1 in the policy so we'll hold the rest of the policy and just do the mascots and school branding today sure is that okay with the board yeah so I'm not saying that you have to say it's okay Natasha can you do it that's comfortable with you we would just do that and then our students are still with us because we still have other business we might be good okay good we still have another little business to go in board operations Chris so I don't want to like shift completely right now before you go but I just wanted to make sure that before you go if that's okay with you can we do that absolutely can do that and if you want to also like address 7.3 the primary clarification I would point out to the board is that we kind of shifted if you want to just stay with 7.1 for right now okay okay thank you see you later good luck okay okay 4 point education quality priorities sorry students I'm not I know you've been so good we're almost there almost there this is going to be super quick thank you for sticking with us Kari it's going to be quick yeah I'm going to suggest we table the conversation and on page 18 there's a summary of the key themes that we took from the conversations that we had as a board and committee about the monitoring report we received in November so we wanted to take it the opportunity to check in see if we're on the right track to be capture everything you have additional thoughts please email me or somebody else from the Ed Quality Committee we'll have time to talk about this in the future but I think we need to move on thank you mail in ballots I want to thank the board members that attended the meetings and if I could have a motion I can read it if you don't have it out I move that in accordance with the votes of the five town select boards ballots for the WCUUSD annual meeting be mailed to all active not challenged voters in the school district to join us I can have a second Lindy was that you I think Daniel got it first Daniel, okay, Jonas and Daniel seconds all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye any opposed any abstain hearing none thank you everybody the motion carries staff appreciation Diane I think we've done a lot of appreciation through the meeting are you comfortable with that and we love you you know that this move into student reports hi guys thank you okay so the student council had a TA representative meeting so all these TAs had someone that they chose from their group and brought them to their meeting and they just talked about issues that are going on in the school it was really interesting my and I went and we just sat and watched and listened to what students had to say and overall it was pretty successful and in the future the student council is interested in trying to work closer with the school board and with us to connect the two yes also earlier this month we had the middle school theater performance in which we sold out and had to turn a bunch of people which away which was a huge success and then we have our high school performance coming up again soon in March I think we also are planning a teacher or staff in service for the district on January 17th run part of it will be run by SSJ and we'll be presenting on clear issues and questions that were commonly asked by teachers and just trying to educate the whole district about that so that's a big project that's coming up for us as well word of mouth is starting up again so that's going to happen when we get back so that is a student led kind of talent show but it's very low key and it's during I think callback so kids it used to happen when my oldest sibling was there and she would perform people sing people dance they do whatever so it's exciting that the music is coming back into 32 and finally we're getting into college acceptance season so we've already had a lot of seniors get accepted and that's super exciting UVM came out yesterday at 5 and so a lot of people found out they got it and that's all we have we will probably be heading out now yes please please save travels thank you for staying with us bye thank you you got to hang out with your principal pretty cool alright it good okay I'm busy myself so superintendent central office report you know I really want to make justice to this report because there was a lot of information there especially the class size we ask you for all this work and I know it's late does board members have questions or one Megan to just do a quick if there's a couple things that you would like to highlight would you like to proceed I mean I know in normal times would have given Suzanne a chance to kind of acknowledge the comings and goings of folks central office so I'll leave it there and the class size piece I mean I think I'll respond to questions because that is so related to the conversation we just had that I could reiterate it but I think you get the spirit of it if anyone has questions though I'm happy to answer them you're good but could I'm sorry could we have Suzanne talk a little bit about the comings and goings there is an important going but yeah sure we had good news and bad news and the good news is that we hired a new accounts payable accountant his name is Tom Hamlin he came on through the temp agency and was a fantastic fit and we brought him in on a permanent basis and we're really excited that he's joined the team but unfortunately Virginia Breer our senior payroll and cash account gave her notice and has a really great fantastic opportunity to be an assistant finance director for Washington Electric Company and so we're in search of a new payroll and benefits specialist to fill her shoes and we wish her all the best she's been a fantastic employee for the district and devoted and committed to making sure everyone gets paid and Penny and I have been doing a lot of training in the last couple of weeks and finding out exactly what that takes so it's um I think she was to fill she's been there a long time she's been there a long time and her and her she's an avid photographer and her pictures will continue to decorate our central office so we'll remember her and we wish her well she was great um let's and thank you floor for being very quick to respond and to share appreciation at her at her party I appreciate that thanks um and I got to meet our new employee and he was great too it was really funny okay principles report page 24 do you guys have any questions for our principal the poor guy our girls are still here okay though I know we've put you to sleep tonight there's I guess I just want to say thank you I know this is a lot it's a lot of work for our principles to put all this information is really clear it's great it really gives us a sense of what's going on in our schools and and really informs you know we're better informed as as board members so thank you I don't see anybody raising their hands for for questions no okay okay thank you again uh report the center of Vermont Career Center uh we're just gonna uh table that for right now we are doing the same thing we're going through the budget process and we'll continue to work on that let's move into our other report because we have an action page 30 I have a motion I moved to accept the audited financial statements for the Washington Central Unified Union School District for the year ended June 30th 2022 from R.H.R. Smith and Company thank you Jonas and Ursula oh oh okay Ursula has it uh well there was there any discussion any questions from board members I know the finance committee got to see it so uh before any questions seeing oh Diane can we just tag on with appreciation that we accept it with appreciation Jonas and Ursula okay with the amendment I don't really know anything about R.H.R. Smith but if they have your blessing Diane well no I I meant yeah you're right the staff with appreciation to the staff for the hard work Jonas comedian okay it's good all those in favor please signify by saying hi hi hi any oppose any abstain hearing none the motion carries thank you everybody policy committee Natasha I want to put you in a hot seat let's have a motion first is that okay and then if there's any discussion you can answer so could I have a motion for the second reading move to approve the second reading of policy F2 yes please I move that we accept the second reading policy F2 could I have a second second I got it yes Lindy you got it all right second by Lindy and Lisa I haven't been checking with you but I assume that we haven't put you to sleep and you're still with us and you got it yes I'm here thanks thank you all right all those in any questions okay thank you policy committee all in favor please signify by saying hi hi any oppose any abstentions hearing none the motion carries thank you and we you know we are tabling the other 7.2 to 7.5 for today then we have the consent agenda and we had several minutes and I'm wondering if somebody would be willing to make a motion for the minutes I move to accept the minutes of November 16th December 1st and December 7th 2022 with appreciation for Lisa Grace second thank you Ursula and we all second that appreciation for Lisa thank you for all you do all year and thank you for the cookies that you gave us the other day all those in favor please signify by saying hi hi I think my name was missing from one of those from the minutes from the community farm at Calis okay did you get that got it do you know which date it is offhand sorry 7.7 yeah okay thank you I'll change that sorry Natasha that's okay thank you now I'll say hi okay you know I was all you know with the small amendment please say hi in case I made that more confusing hi hi hi hi any oppose any abstentions hearing none the motion carries okay Lindy board orders I make a motion to accept the board orders of 1221 22 in the total amount of $1,820,676 $41 sorry can you say it again I'm getting tired 1,820 and then what 676 .41 thank you a second second second thank you okay any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying hi hi hi hi hi any oppose any oppose any abstentions the motion carries alright moving into personnel 9.1 I move that we accept the extended leave of absence request for Daisy Scarzello U32 middle school science teacher floor do we have yeah but let's separate them so it's okay do it individually okay all those in favor please signify by saying hi hi hi hi any oppose any abstentions the motion carries and now the second there's a second one sorry I don't have that if someone else has that I must have the old packet that doesn't have that you're correct Jonas this one was sent Monday if not it was email yeah can Lindy do you have it right there I'm looking for it did it come from Melissa it came from Melissa yeah I got it so it's a request to for 0.25 FTE unpaid leave of absence for Kate McCann for right thank you for base well let me she's in the legislature right yeah I just I was January 4 through the end of the legislative session could I have a second and then we can have a little discussion I'll second it Lindy so Lindy and Diane and then Steven or Megan enough to put you guys in the hot seat could we just talk a little bit about what this is sure I and maybe just we'll start with Steven can kind of give the detail about what that means 0.25 leave of absence was gotten to by a little bit of configuration about how best to maximize the time we have with Kate in the spring and allow her to serve so maybe I'll just start with Steven give a little bit of detail about what it looks like I know it's written in there but sure so the legislatures as you may know doesn't meet on Mondays and it also doesn't start as early in the morning as we start the school so one of the courses that Kate teaches is AP statistics which we don't really have a replacement for and so what we did was we've configured the schedule so that those kids will be able to meet in a first band class of the day and so she will be here on full days on Mondays and then two other days of the week in the mornings to be able to teach that class where then her other classes we have a long term sub and we've hired to be able to take some of her classes as well so that we can do that when you start adding up all the hours that she would be able to be here when the legislature is not in session and when she's here teaching plus the time that she's already spent teaching this year and will teach after the session what that comes up to is about a 0.25 leave of absence so in other words she's giving us 0.75 of her 1.0 FTE for teaching throughout this school year and so we have a long term sub to cover for her other classes and she's going to actually help that long term sub plan for classes on the Mondays that she's here so we have plenty of work to do around here let's not worry about us working somebody and so it will work out okay for us it's just kind of an unusual situation that we might have to consider how we do differently the following year when we have because we'll have more advanced notice because you know she's on a two year term so we'll just have more time to plan for the following year and so the leave might look a little different for that one thank you for that clarification I didn't realize I was muted Lindy and go ahead I just had a the long term sub will be full time is that right Stephen yes because we have more than just the needs to fill Kate's position as you guys might have remembered I'm teaching right now in math as well and so with the return of a teacher who has been out on sick leave and Kate going out on this everything kind of works out for us so that we'll have the long term sub covering some stuff and we'll be okay going forward you won't be having to teach math not right now in the second semester I get to just be a full time principal which given the length of these meetings is more than a full time job thanks Stephen yeah we deserve it it's okay alright all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye any abstention any noes any abstentions hearing non-demotion carries back to you any update they can cease besides the one that we just heard yes I would just reiterate what we said last time which is U32 continues to experience the most pain in support staff maintenance food service yeah it is not new information from before it's been really tough thank you May Stephen everybody at U32 have you thought of taking up Chris's offer to drive the mopping machine whatever that machine is called he said he would do that so I think we should it might be a liability Diane I might like you know some classes moving right on into we have an executive session I want to also try to let go people that don't need to stay for the executive session so after the session we have more reflection and we're pretty we have future agenda items I think the main thing is going to be a future meeting so I want to say that let's go ahead and have an executive session but this and everybody else you know that doesn't need to be inside executive session please feel free to go unless I'm missing something guys thank you everybody for coming all principals, administrators community members it was great we're down to 36 people but it was pretty impressive thank you Jess and Kat Michelle I see you I can't see everybody thank you Jess I know thank you all for staying tonight and also your dedication staff appreciation goes to you all you're in the central office and all the dedicated people and so hope you have time with families and time to be off the clock so to speak yes I have the ready whenever you're ready floor just let me know okay go ahead I'm about to move I move that we enter executive session for the purpose of discussion negotiation strategy who's that it was me Joshua you got it you got it to include Megan you got that Lisa I got it you got it okay thank you Amy I see still thank you Mark oops I missed it we have a motion to adjourn I don't think anybody has the bandwidth unless you want to I guess we could reflect on the meeting today it was hard but I think we did a good job it was a hard meeting and we can always improve but thank you everybody thank you Megan thank you David for sticking with us thank you Orca media good night everybody we have a motion to adjourn move to adjourn second thank you who's seconded Natasha everybody seconded all those in favor please signify by leaving hi happy holidays happy holidays to everybody floor who is the second on that last one Natasha I think Natasha seconded