 634 we have any adjustments to the agenda I'd ask for an agenda item to bring out a subject that didn't get put on so I'm more than willing to do under board comment or feel like we should make an item on either one but yeah I think we're coming okay consent agenda anybody want to make a motion to approve the minutes of Tuesday August 16th second all second hi who first who was the first who was the second I'm sorry Chris made the motion and Shannon second it thank you okay my favorite say hi yeah hi do we have any public comments at this time yeah so I had probably maybe for some of us it's a little bit of a surprise but I'd asked to put the topic of bullying and harassment out for discussion and I know you know we have policies in place for it but you know I I'm sure a lot of us in the room here understand the importance of bullying and harassment in schools but I'm sure there are individuals that may be watching tonight or we'll watch it on a video that that may not understand so so a couple of things just so everybody understands and this comes right right from the government websites 42% of students between the age between the grades of fifth and ninth grade experience at least one form of bullying and harassment incident each day in school another number that was kind of shocking to me was 160,000 children a day in the United States do not go to school due to the fear of bullying harassment and then you know a very sad statistic is 71% of school attackers were bullied in school and reported being victims of almost daily bullying in school some of the psychological facts with this age group that we're dealing with is you know bullying and harassment in schools increases in the late childhood so you get in the fifth grade area and it peaks in the early adolescence so ninth grade we'll call it so specific not to pick on mr. Bradley but a majority of it happens in the middle school a little bit on the tail end of elementary and a little bit at the beginning of the high school pieces of it and typically you know this takes place in unstructured areas so recess lunch in between classes before or after school and then most recently that we've experienced is social media right and that social media happens in all these you know what we'll call unstructured settings and and three reasons why bullying harassment typically happens at school is due to insufficient or ineffective adult supervision so during those times and then staff and or students have an indifference or accepting attitude towards the bullying so not agreeing you know what is bullying and then you know in some cases no bullying prevention program in place which you know we have a policy for bullying harassment so and and I think we can all agree that in order for students to learn they need to have a safe and healthy environment and some more statistic students who are victims of bullying are less likely to participate in classroom they tend to be labeled slower learners and or require extra help to complete tasks I think we've kind of all seen that with either own own children or students in the classrooms you know these students often go on to be underachievers and perform at a lower level they also experience a lot of days out of school of course through this whole thing I was kind of asking myself the question you know looking at the testing scores if you look at the testing scores you know fifth grade through ninth grade is where testing scores go down and they start to come up again and it kind of correlates almost identical with the bullying and harassment peaks that we see with our students I know we have policies in place just like every school in the country does because it's law but I guess I have some proposed solutions that I really would like you know this isn't just for but it's just I feel typically if it comes from a board level down you know it comes with a form of support for us below but even though we have policies you know the removal of cell phones during school day especially I mean I don't think there's a whole lot of elementary school kids that do but you know elementary especially elementary and middle school I think would be effective I know we have the policy but I know there's kids having lots backsist of those I think we should have a strict social media at schools so you know restricted access to use those in a round of our schools I think that you know that bullying harassment also also usually is paired with when the structural setting of our schools isn't at its peak performance being that if there is disruptive behavior going on in class and students are more apt to want to join in with the disruptive behavior and when that disruptive behavior isn't addressed it tends to lead to more behavior which often leads to bullying and harassment you know looking through looking through our proposed and in the school handbook you know punishments for for issues you know we we talk about restorative justice for you know talking through why we're doing things and how can we do things better going forward and I think that's great but I also think that there's a very fine line between you know that first time that somebody is doing have an offense versus that repeat offender and getting them under control quickly and it and it seems like from the experience that I've seen in this age group that we allow this behavior to manifest too long and then it becomes a greater bigger issue that we have to deal with and I and again I think that just comes you know a more strict classroom behavior policies and then and lastly and Owen and I were talking about it is just you know in order to make this work you know I think we have to empower everybody in the process so you know students teachers administrators volunteers parents the empowerment of you know say it's you know say stop do so if you see something out there point it out if you're you're a student you see someone doing something and you say hey that's not appropriate or a teacher in the classroom immediately addressing that you know we can get those under control so and and for anybody that's kind of maybe a little shocked on why is he bringing this up today is you know this has been a obviously there's a theme throughout the United States at this age level but we have most recently dealt with some I would say severe cases of bullying and harassment at the middle school high school level that just happened without any details and I guess on my end I would just like to see us come together as a collective whole really really enforce the policy and any punishments that would come before again just on the record that this isn't nowhere you know a direct point at Owen it just happens to be the age group is you know mostly middle school a little bit on the elementary school a little bit on the high school level where we find this so how we can get this better under control so our students can learn something in the right direction for us don't know any comments on anybody on the board or how they feel about it or so just from kind of our role in this thing you know like I do think the board's kind of role is to set policy and then the administration is to implement policy so you know I think if if there are things that you think we can do to improve the bullying policies that'd be one side of thing things and then the other side would be you know giving feedback to the administration so that they you know this would be something that we kind of would do and the evaluation of how Jamie's doing and kind of the things that we wanted to focus on so I guess like are there policies you think that we should change from the board perspective you know looking through the policies I think you know the policies pretty sound as as you know majority of the schools policies are through the mandates I think I would like to see a swifter stricter guideline for dealing with behaviors from looking through our policy right now we're more we're more dealing with this on a on a restorative justice end of things rather than a swift swift punishment end of things it's difficult because you know for some individuals you know a restorative type works for people and in some cases it doesn't and you know some kids you know a more you know gavel type responses is is quicker to to get so I I think on my end of things and I know it's nothing at the board level you know we do policy but I think just you know I think us just maybe reiterating that you know the board has you know the backs of the administration to do everything in their toolkit to bring and again it's not at just our school I mean there's all these schools are dealing with the same age group of you know pre-puberty post-puberty issues that come with it and social media is running out of control right now we're seeing and but you know what can we do to empower our administrators and our administrators to empower our teachers and our teachers to empower our students to get this under control so so I guess what I'm hearing is there's a concern from board level about bullying and really how our policies are being implemented and I think that's just a question that we have for our our principals and Jamie and I would love to hear their response but I'm not sure other than that where to go aside from just asking them how we're responding to this very challenging issue. Sure so you know we're working all the time to strengthen our our behavioral supports and part of that is proactive but it's also response to misbehavior and that it's predictable and clear and that in general folks really understand that when you don't meet the school norms which is part of restorative practice is that you have classroom and building light norms that that there are really like agreements is that if you don't follow the norms or agreement that there would be some type of response cost or consequence right and so part of that sometimes is happen to make it right now I agree with you that there's like there's the restorative piece but there also that there there needs to be clear response cost and I use the term response class because I think that when you're responding to misbehavior sometimes there's a cost to it and so that's work that we're doing and I would also make certain that the board knows that our we're tomorrow I have my whole administrative team and all my designees for Title IX harassment investigators in training tomorrow I believe it's tomorrow right we have three three years and we hit HHB last week so we are doing work in this as well to just make certain that our systems are fine tuned and that we have consistent reporting mechanisms too they're actually I'm working right now on reporting forms that look the same across all the member schools of the SU so that it's really clear how that process works I think sometimes we don't get the information that we need to to open an investigation as swiftly as I'd like to I think part of that is folks not knowing who to report to where to go and so we need to do a better job with that and so I would tell you that I definitely think that there's work to be done in this area but that we that work is underway in that we're trying to get better at it I'd also offer the board that I'd be more than happy to have our student support team come do a presentation on the work that we're doing I think that that work looks different at each grade level based on what's developmentally appropriate but in regards to strengthening our system of supports I'd be happy to have the board get a presentation from our system supports coordinators in the administration on the work that's on the way there in what how that looks different based on what's developmentally appropriate at each level because I think elementary middle and high school looks different yeah no I think for a future agenda item yeah we can talk about you present that yeah but I think we can talk about that focus on what do we do with that data and talk about the work that's underway universally and I think we kind of look at the data as a whole and that includes you know other disciplinary things that aren't just sure focusing on that one issue and I know in order to combat the total issue you need you know complete buy-in from all parties right and I know this you know the school is only half of the the piece and the home life is the other half is there any there any piece to what the administration does that links the parents and the two you know any type of bullying or harassment training or pieces like that you know it's a great question Chris so part of what I think is the work of the community schools grant to is to start back up with having regular like informational we've done this in the past even under my tenure where we're offering like what does math look like in WRVSU what does literacy look like in WRVSU I think it can be also like what is HHB investigations look like in WRVSU how do you report it like what are next steps like what is our process and protocol I've I've been kind of holding off on doing that HHB one until I know that we're coordinated and how we approach it across the schools but I definitely think we need to get back to having those monthly informational opportunities for families and having them both in person and virtual because I think some families virtual just works better I would recommend that if you know put it in plain language not your people show up for an HHB no yeah right I guess the other question would be would some sort of electronics in the classroom policy from the board be helpful or is that more of a straight issue well you know it's so we just took on social media right for staff that's a focused staff policy I've talked at the policy committee it actually was it was raised by some boards in policy committee members about how do we approach this for students am I I'm going to be gathering kind of a temperature check from that committee to say is that something you want to pursue you know I think in general at the high school Mr. Thomas can talk about the procedure they use I think that we have tightened up on the use of cell phones at the high schools I think having a policy the back the why we're doing it is helpful yeah well I think currently now it was written well in the handbook and so we just started following it so first day of school I told the students that there'll be no phone use in the classroom that you need to be locked in and focus you know too much of education as you're here and not focus looking up and so and I told the staff was there and I'd already talked to the staff but I pointed to them with the student body there and I said and so if there is any phone use the staff will be in trouble so students be aware of that and I've caught two people using their phones and it was at the end of class one time and it was because a game got canceled so one of the players was in both times I called that individual out in the hallway and then I called the teacher out in and the kids are in there looking and it's been I think amazing because I go by as so often in the halls I'm looking in the classrooms I feel like a little like right no one's on their phones they're all looking up and I've seen those two people all year and we just had a meeting faculty meeting today and talked about that and one of the staff said yeah but you know it was always the rule but now we're following it so that's good AARP just had it an article on on kids and what's going on lives of kids and part of that is that social media thing so they're allowed to use their phones in the hallways but they don't because it's three minutes are getting the books and they're going to class but during lunch I see them out and that's about the only time in after school so excited right unless anybody has any other comments we'll move on to the no celebration of learning this month it will be back rolling in October right and the exciting is I don't know if the principles I have certain of your faculty reaching out to me to get on the agenda which is exciting good some good ones coming up so sorry about the delayed report I was traveling but no excuse I tried to always have the reports I had a time so you have the report and some highlights I mentioned it we we lost an interventionist late at the Royalton campus in the school year and so we've been trying to hire for that position haven't been able to do it we also had a higher that was going to be a really strong third grade teacher and they never moved to the state and so that was challenging so we had to move an academic intervention is in we do have licensed teachers and all of our classes at the elementary level but I also it's another it's a good problem to have but I highlighted in my report we have a very large kindergarten class right now at South Royalton that we hadn't planned for and typically we if we had a bigger bench with interventionists we would have moved to having two kindergarten classes but due to the fact that we had a late resignation by Amy Bowdoin and then the teacher who didn't end up coming to state we found out about that literally two weeks before we opened it's made it challenging and so we're looking to push more staff in to support that kindergarten class and think outside the box of how we make certain that that experience is really strong and so I expect that that's going to get better and better as as we go here at the start of the school year and so just so the board knows that's 24 students in that kindergarten class which is large for a kindergarten I will tell you that last year in one of my districts we had 23 just because there was no actual at other classroom space even in that building they tend to run larger cohorts so I just I try to be really transparent know that that's a work in progress and we're working on it to strengthen it in that setting so I wanted to highlight that in my report the other things that I wanted to highlight in the report and we will talk about at the full board meeting is that this linking discussion and I've been communicating directly with board chairs is growing momentum in the sense that they have made it really clear to the Vermont that the state Vermont State Board of Education that who just so the board knows has the authority to change the borders of supervisory unions that that lies in the Vermont State Board's authority and so Lincoln has requested formally that after they've done all their explorations they believe that WRB SU is best suited to support their district as you know Ripton had come to us last year looking to join our supervisory union with the same argument around that we have light member districts then they're small and that they are adjacent to us geographically our SU already is very large and getting east to west in this state is really difficult and so I had shared a letter and shared it with the full board that just again reiterated our our sentiment last year around Ripton and that that continues to be the sentiment from Lincoln the state board chair had reached out to me and asked that that we come with representation to the next state board meeting so we will have legal representation and board members present and to plead our case around why we feel like we're a right-sized fit at this moment in time you know and one of the things that that I spoke to in the letter that I believe you both seen or received a copy of a while ago now a few weeks ago is I just think we're finally starting to get our business in order in some places and I don't want to lose momentum on that and I've said that directly to Lincoln's board chair in a meeting with them and also you know reiterated to them that you know that we're down a person right now the business office I mean the business office is a two-man show right now as far as accounting and payroll and budgeting so so I've said all that but yet their sentiment remains so my senses is that the state board is going to listen to us and Rutland northeast which is Brandon area supervisory union and then the Lincoln school district plead their cases and I haven't seen the agenda yet it hasn't come out I'm looking forward to see if there's possible action actually one for that meeting my sense is that it will actually they'll probably listen and then have a special meeting to take action soon because whatever supervisory union that they join would then be responsible to start working with Lincoln school district around budgeting for next year because this has to take effect by July 1 and so it's it's a pretty significant decision at the state board you know and geographically even from like where we sit right now to Lincoln there's no easy way to get there I worked in that supervisory union was my first teaching job at Bristol and Lincoln's even farther so I I'm really concerned about the geographical nature of the request does the state take into account the geographical nature my sense is that they're going to one of the things that Lincoln's arguing is that they believe that they should be in an adjacent SU in Granville has a sliver that actually up in the Hills touches Lincoln and so I I do know that and it's in their minutes in presentation of the past that that their argument is that that we are close compared to other like traveling wise you would think that the Brandon area would be easier to travel on that side of the mountain right and so in all the other adjacent educational organizations are unified districts and so the state board does doesn't appear to have an appetite to want to break up a unified district into a supervisory union exact 46 have worked hard to have these merge unified districts and so that that is an argument that doesn't necessarily support our case because when you look at like hardwood unified union school district touches them too but they're a unified union school district Mount Abe is a unified union school district that's why they broke off and when you look at see CVU is a unified school district in Heinsberg which geographically and also as in central Middlebury is a unified school district they have not just approached RSU they approached I know multiple other supervisory unions or unified union school districts but it seems that they settle they had decided this was the best fit for them ripped in as an update seems that they they are moving toward a vote I don't think it's happening yet maybe it did to actually rejoin Addison Central Unified Union School District they decided that it made more sense to rejoin that Middlebury area Unified Union School District so that's no longer a topic of conversation but Lincoln kind of it came wicked quick too I had no awareness that this was there something they were pursuing until like June when the state board reached out to me so and that's really picked up and they were originally in the CVU they were originally with Mount Abraham so Mount Abraham has had a union high school for years and so it was much like U32 there was a singleton districts at the elementary level but then they fed into a unified union high school board when they merged all those elementary boards went away and they became one operating pre-k-12 district and I you know the sense that I have is that Lincoln's concern and why they broke off was that they were worried about having that larger organization close their small school so yeah stay tuned all right thanks you may have any questions for Jamie okay principles the you received the report Mrs. Bowen is supervising or enjoying the open house tonight in the Bethel Elementary so she doesn't join us but new addition to our whole report is photos yeah that's all the new guy giving us pressure that's good picture tells a thousand words turns out that the middle school didn't have any photos available at the time of press but just I think we can hit that first goal all three of us we all focused on universal going back to behavior and saying let's reset let's restart and review and I think Jeff gets that restart because he's brand new but we also did it right down to the base 101 and it went really well that was the faculty meeting ago or the half day that we just have yeah and you'll see some nice stuff in there Jeff you want to add anything yeah so one of the things we talked about was you know kids seemed to harass or bully when there's no teachers around so one of the things we're doing and I have some pictures of our staff is in the hallways now between classes I know a lot of stuff happens in between classes and there almost every teacher is outside their classroom so that they're looking at students that have in conversations with students they're preventing them from being on their phones because they're having those conversations I think that's such an important piece and we talked about this we're like I don't know what your house when somebody comes over you probably don't sit on the couch right you're at the door you greet them when they leave you say goodbye so that's one of the things there's that welcoming you know that they do but it's being in the hallway it's being that proactive stuff so that's kind of an important piece I think and again I think if you if we if we stop thinking about harassment bullying and start thinking about community a lot of that goes away and so we're really focusing on community we're doing a lot of community stuff and like for example like a girl scores her first goal and soccer I blast her locker I put a sign up I put a balloon up first goal congratulations it just builds that community people see that we had a girl the other night Tanner scored a goal and I didn't get a chance to put a sign up that morning because we had an assembly of an Adam and this and that I saw her when she walked in I said don't go to your locker yet go to the assembly because I'll have time in between to do that and she's like as soon as she scored she's like oh I can't wait to get my locker blasted so we're building community and I think you know it's like you know one one student at a time but to see that and to have that feeling the other day our faculty went out after faculty meeting to support the soccer team and it was amazing all the emails that I received about wow it was great to have you coaches sent you know you know they were there five minutes our faculty meeting into that 425 and then at 430 they were there and all we did was a couple of years you know some left some stayed so I think that's making a difference in our community something sample yeah Tammy said that principles report was locked so after change the settings on I can do that might be anyone outside the SU can see types another thing is as pride in their school though so we did you know we've done a lot of outside stuff the parking lots have just been painted repainting freshly painted so that people know where to park and and there's no lines that are like so barely can't see them again that's that pride in the school we're having students choose their parking spots in high school and they can decorate their own spots and it's theirs for the year and can I sorry I wanted to jump in the parking lot maybe think of this I should have mentioned it during my report I have met as you know we had this wastewater permitting issue I've met with the architect I've we've received preliminary approval that we're going to be able to deal with the wastewater all completely in that back parking lot of the school so there was that there was a wastewater permit that hadn't been completed when the new addition happened at the South Wales in school the good news is the state's given us approval to move in this direction it's going to be cost effective and we should have to take care of it this coming summer so that's good news and it doesn't result in us needing to pursue any adjacent land or access right and I can park is gonna make that public yep it's a PDF so it's locked in its own way but gold to is yeah so we were happy to announce mr. West is running our middle school pathway program he has a little barb in there that's hyperlinked really good and what a great asset for us to have and your folks over at the high school yeah you know what I'm finding is I'm finding a lot of students that dropped out of school are coming back and wanting their diploma and so we're finding ways to reach their I mean they're close to graduating so you know our work-based learning program kids are going out working and getting there you know I able to get their degree I think that's pretty exciting and so Jeff Clayton is new taking Mary Waterman's place and he's starting to make some connections and moving kids around so it's you know it's funny because I talk about this and I took that first day of school about like you know I drew a picture of a school with a box and then the roof and that box like some people don't fit in the box and that's okay and so we have to have offers that are outside the box for our student body and so we're finding ways to for people to fit outside that box feel comfortable and enjoy what they're doing so our yeah our flexible pathways coordinator is doing a great job yeah the community outreach Andrew has had her open house tonight but they also had an ice cream social at both campuses and at the middle school what we write about we wrote about the that we're happy to get families back here and we're going to do more and more of that that point that mr. Kanani made that we're talking about with our act seventy sixty-seven coordinator Michelle having a monthly community meal and focus with families and have either open agenda or topic and we talked about cybersecurity because we know so many kids get on the internet and they're unsupervised and there's a lot of danger out there we've talked to the state police about that and trying to think about how we might bring them in without scaring people but showing the real danger in that it's going on at the high school with community connection yeah so every everything so this this weekend is our homecoming yeah the homecoming dance on Friday Saturday is that the games it's 430 is the boys and new girls play a bit of lights at 730 they're playing Lila Rivendell yes so it's not a rival bonfire yeah in the bonfire at the end we have a dunk tank we have a soon wrestlers thing the bass fishing team coming down and you know casting with kids and we have the golf team shipping for prizes and stuff it's gonna be like like a regular high school homecoming this year so I'm really excited about that we're gonna bring a lot of people from the community in they're making you know the boosters are doing a great job of cooking making food we're gonna have hot food and hot cider and it's gonna be great evening everyone's welcome Friday night Saturday and then I'll just add Jeff and I met with the music boosters and performing arts boosters and had a nice meeting a week ago and they're going they're creating a video to highlight the work that we do in the performing arts that we can also use for outreach as we start to really ramp up and we'll talk about that the task force our recruitment opportunities for the district and they're looking to as a future and agenda item get on in November that we talked about so that they could share that video and talk to the board about the work that they're doing as far as fundraising and trying to pursue this concept of expansion where they're performing arts opportunity off the front of that old juke and so we'll start those conversations before level two. Any questions for the principles? Thank you guys. Here. So you have my report the auditors are in our office this week doing the fiscal year 22 audit for all seven of our entities. We will be fiscally and programmatically monitored by the agency of education on our federal emergency fund grants. Our first round of documentation is due to them on September 30th and then on October 7th they'll report back to us as to the expenditures that they want to look at in more detail to make sure we're following federal procurement and cost allowability in conjunction with what's allowed in the grant and then they'll be in our office November 1st and 2nd to report on their findings on the school food authority side the first round of the fresh fruit and vegetable grant our schools didn't qualify for because we didn't meet the 50% free and reduced percentage requirements so when there's additional funds available the state will go down to the next level so Bethel qualified in the second round so we are in the process of submitting our application for the Bethel school and then hopefully there's more funds then they will drop down a little bit further and maybe some of our other schools will be eligible with the fresh fruit or sorry the free and reduced applications the agency of education put out late last week some marketing materials and some information materials and they're also doing advertising in the papers and on local TV channels to fill out the application and send that notification out to families because most schools in the state of Vermont this is our last year to collect free and reduced applications because of the program that we have to switch to in order to be fully funded by the state so I reached out to Kate McClain and our food service managers and our ministry of assistance for that information and asked them to get a push out to all families for that to see if we can get some more applications and before October 1st reporting deadline so hopefully we'll see some more participation there and then lastly I provided to you in my report my fiscal year 22 general fund projections and I set the expenditure side of the report up to be basically the way you see it in your audit as well so that to start getting that consistency and the way that everything is rolled up in the financial reports so overall a lot of the areas that we have savings on in FY 22 were offset by what we were able to cover under our S or 2 funding a lot of our technology we were able to get covered under S or 2 rather than our local budget same thing with our interventionist their salary and benefits we were able to offset with the federal funding and then a lot of the new math materials that are out in the classroom we were able to actually pay for that with our S or 2 funding so that didn't come out of the general fund and then a lot of the professional development that our staff has participated in that we've been reporting on for the last year was able to be covered under S or 2 so that's helped substantially in our general fund savings so on the expenditure side right now the projection is a surplus of $892,865 and then Parker if you can move to the revenue page we had some students enroll later in the year so we got some additional tuition revenue and both secondary and preschool so that helped on the revenue side so we have projected just over 33,000 of additional revenue versus what was budgeted for so overall right now we have a surplus projection of $926,478 so as you recall with the fiscal year audit and the additional adjustments that need to be made those will be done but also the assessments for the supervisory union and the child nutrition program have not been impacted into this yet and with the child nutrition program that was a look back for FY 22 based on what the cost was versus what we would be assessing out so that will have an impact on what your total overall general fund balance will be at the end of the fiscal year so that all comes together as we complete the FY 22 audits. So if there's any questions. I think I'm new to the school board but I've done quite a bit of budgeting for decades and I think the thing that continues to be alarming for myself is is how drastically our budget changes from estimated versus actual from year to year and instead of having nice bell curve we have these really jagged peaks and values of deficits versus surpluses and and when you're when you're operating a budget in that nature you miss out on a lot of opportunities so for instance you know if you're operating in a surplus then you're missing out on opportunities of things that you could have done inside that budget you're not taking account for that or the opposite if you're doing deficits then you're you're missing out on other opportunities so you know I I know that the school budget is a little more difficult because there are pieces of it that we don't have a lot of control or don't have you know 100% numbers on before so you know like you were just saying that there's pieces of this that we thought maybe we had to cover that now the state covered or another identity covered but I think the other part of it is that you know we don't want to take out something from our budget that we're just covering for this one year with one grand and then have to put it back and I think we kind of purposely we like budget it as a regular year so strategically if I can add as a board when we were building the last two budgets we knew we had S for funds that we could use because I saw one and two allowed us to supplant but we didn't want to take that out of a local budget when we knew we would still need those resources and supports and services for kids but we also knew we had these significant capital improvements that we were going to need to do and so the grant allowed us to cover those interventions and supports knowing full well that we were projecting we'd have surpluses one to pay off the debt that we incurred and now I have to go to the voters to pay off the debt and then to knowing that we had significant deferred maintenance that we would need to tackle one of the real positive things which that which we wouldn't know for certain is that we were able to secure an additional 1.5 million in ARPA funds our best or funds to do some of the work across the SU that didn't allow isn't forcing us to totally tap into S or three to do those projects which means what it'll allow us to do is possibly do some more expanded work like E I presented the other the last month once we have a hot hard number here we may be able to tackle someone work in Royalton that we weren't planning on now that we had we know that we have our best or funds to cover some cost and other districts as well so I just I I hear what you're saying I think what it is is it's on us as administration board to make certain we're communicating with our with our citizens and constituents like it's not surprising to me that we're rolling out a surplus here like that was intentional so that we could use that surplus to do this deferred maintenance that we haven't been able to tackle in years and we talked about that through the budget process now so we didn't want to you know like have the tax rates because we took all this money out of the budget that we were gonna have for the grant but then the grant goes away and taxes go up 30 cents yeah so it's kind of a combination of those two things I think we have to keep explaining it right well I would say as a general citizen that a majority of people don't understand that so when they see you know you're giving us back eight cents but now the next year asking us for four cents you know and it's going up and down up and down rather than you know you're staying with a two-cent curve or something like that so the other question I had just from not having looked at this before so the the audited 19 2021 are those cumulative balances or these per year balances so kind of snapshots that they're cumulative so as of 21 as of 21 we had that surplus yes so each year with no other deficits each year at the end of the close of your fiscal year and the surplus or deficit is rolled into a prior year surplus or deficit so when you have a surplus like we did in 21 we were able to offset the deficit in the general fund and 20 so we didn't have to go out to taxpayers and ask the taxpayers to cover that deficit yeah but 19 Tara that's the audited deficit for that year yeah so it is a snapshot so I guess what I'm saying is if we have a deficit sheet here of 19 and 20 at you know $850,000 we then 21 we had 1.3 does that mean we have half a million dollars as a balance right now no the board that so the board paid off those two yeah and then what was left over that 1.3 when the budget was approved this spring we set aside money in the capital reserve funds a tariff and that's what orders approved how much was it so at the end of FY 21 we had an unassigned fund balance which is what we can use to offset as offsetting revenue or to put in reserve funds with 712,781 dollars so of that and I can give you this Chris because I have this yeah that's fine I'm just trying to wrap me in so of this we used 200,000 in the fiscal year 23 budget as offsetting revenue and then we put 250,000 so this was on your actual warning and the communities voted on it and each of the Royalton and Bethel billion reserve funds yeah and so when we build the budget this coming year that's what the board's gonna have to wrestle with like out of this once that we have an audited surplus how much are we using as revenue versus how much are we putting in reserve funds and the big moving piece in in school district taxation is the yield which we don't control and so afterwards and so that's what but they'll give us projections and when the tax rates go up and down all the time a big piece of that is the yield that's coming out of my pillar that really drives that as well so you try to balance that too and we had a really good yield this year right so we put a lot more in reserve thanks yeah the one thing to keep in mind this doesn't include food services correct as well so that's a separate fund yeah so their enterprise fund rather than a general fund every budget because they actually make they can make a profit and if they have a deficit the general fund food service doesn't they can run a deficit yes of course alright does anybody have any further questions for all right I think Jamie already yeah sorry update on my game all right then we'll move on to reading number two of the policy committee social media and verification of student residency for tuition payment policies so policy to won't really impact you as a district but our policy on policies is that the SU adopts at all member districts so we would still put it in front of you for adoption just like G had adopts our other operating policies I mean to some extent it affects us because everyone I've received tuition we got to work with the other receiving the yes sending districts this is an annual this is a one-time form though and really we I talked to Sharon we will leverage it for those students who for example if it was a student that attended Sharon and was in ninth grade and moved in then we would work Rudd High School would work with Sharon elementary to get the affidavit completed because we have an ever laid eyes on the student and what we were funding in those situations there was a higher likelihood that it could be a second home and some of our our tuition being districts there was some concern about second home second homeowner's not primary residencies claiming it as a primary residence and then using it to get school choice and so that's where this that's what necessitated us to pursue this policy was mostly that scenario have people had a chance to look at these same way you have any comments or discussion on this so I'll be looking to adopt these next time yeah they're already Christie's already got them one for the paper for the so that it'll go in the heroin for adoption next month and flag policy the proposed flag policy is going to be in front of the SU board for our first reading this coming well next week and then we'll go in front of the local districts for readings next month as well good alright task force updates start with the finance committee we met on Thursday and was just over things very briefly but didn't go into anything in particular so pretty quick meeting and we cancelled ours without enough attendance recruitment yeah I'm sorry yeah recruitment okay what's it Shannon do you want to talk about since Andrew's not here sure so I was gonna ask a question sorry I just got home I've been in the court for most of the meeting but so for recruitment I'm hoping that our so Jamie maybe our principals can get together by October and give us some numbers how many students came in from out of district how many students from our district have gone out what districts are they coming in from where can we target better where maybe are we targeting well I don't know so that would be really important information yeah I can we can have that for October great and then for the child care task force we have not met again since since the last school board meeting we're working on putting in place some some of the marching orders that we got at the last meeting so extending sorry so extending things like one planet to 530 those kind of things yeah the facility one where we're due to meet again we'll schedule something here in the couple weeks I mean we the majority of what was on our plate is in front of the board but we will start looking at some of the the next layer that would be a first of the next budget not I still owe a trip to Royalton to meet with the staff down there to get that level of building we have gone through the athletic program as well as this building so far I haven't been twirled and so I'll get that done here in the next week great great crew yeah we do okay so I mentioned on it briefly so right now Tara's working with Eric Lafayette and me sometimes because I squeak and swing into we're just getting all the approvals done that we need to do with the AOE around concept approval for the use of ESSER funds and we were walking in on some of the other like ARP ESSER funds and things that we were able to receive for other districts and you may say well Jamie what's that net mean about Rudd well my approach I had shared this at the SU level was to do as many upgrades as we could across every building in the SU around leveraging every grant we could and so and then also so that means ESSER on top of ARP ESSER which is not just school ESSER right like ARP ESSER opened up a whole nother pot for us and also there's things like woodchip heating through efficiency Vermont that we've been able to leverage and so what we're doing is is securing all those funds so that we really know we have it as revenue for these projects and once we secure that then then the plan would be that Eric will come in October or November once we have all the okays and really say here's all the numbers what else do you need from us to get approval to hit go and remembering to the board every one of these projects we're doing is the goal is to not have to go and ask for any money right that we lease also behind the scenes he's working on getting us the best rate around leasing you did yeah that's what I thought I talked to Eric today so those are the updates nothing work progress is good we're continuing to move forward and I haven't heard anything unless Terry you have a usually tell me nothing's been alarming like I feel like we're still on the right track to get this yeah we're writing all of our sole source request to the agency of education the concept of applications has to be broken down by each individual funding source to the agency they have to approve them by funding source there's just a lot of organizing and getting the information together all of our eyes are dotted in our teacher and did you say that there was the opportunity maybe to do a little more on well yeah once we will once we secure what we have for surplus then the board should talk about all right as we're going through the budget process I'm thinking for phase two frankly Chris like that as we're budgeting how much can we actually put in reserve funds knowing then we can tap those reserve funds to do phase two projects by phase two projects do you mean like the ventilation yeah I just don't want to do until we know the voters approved us to put the money away do I mean I don't want us to take action on it this fall for next and then voters say well I don't want to put all that money in reserve do you know I mean like I think we're going to educate the voters of why we want to put money in reserves talk to them about here's the projects we want to support but as a board it's either we either give it back in revenue or they vote to approve that we get to move it in excellent time to put our money towards the buildings that I agree I just think we got to educate them on that and say oh by the way look at all this work we're doing this coming summer and we're not going to bond for it okay yeah I'm thinking it might be the summer of 24 it's a 23 okay for a phase two you could use them I just think he needs to know what to order in November and so it just seems like a gamble right like and we could say if you go ahead once we know we have the money to put in reserves in March I just would hate to sit I just don't want to lock us up into doing a project knowing that we don't know if we have the funds to cover okay am I making sense Peggy and Shannon what I'm saying or you're hearing me okay yes thank you I feel I'm looking this way because I'm talking to Andrew and Chris I feel like I'm not looking at you so it doesn't look like you're looking at us either way so we're just listening to you yeah we'd definitely be good to be able to go in front of March and say these projects yeah and we'll know that's the exciting thing when we were still scoping up the projects when we went in front of folks in March last year I feel like we could really say here's what we want to do with these reserve funds so okay any other questions about that any action items at the moment I mean I told you the positions we're looking for still alright any public comment hi I'm not sure if I should just take this up with them the middle school and high school principal this is Tammy Benoit I had a question while I recognize there was a legal concern around athletics and the use of team snap and I'll appreciate that it's no longer being used because of some legal component and the I can't quote the law but it was provided to parents and identifying that team snap wasn't going to be used there while I do recognize that there's a Wildcat weekly that goes out it sent out via email and via text and so I'll acknowledge those components recognizing the things that we did like about team snap and recognizing the things we did not like about team snap is there a new platform being considered or used for those updates or is it nothing's being considered I'll recognize that local Rex Beckel and Royalton had began to begun to use an application that is not team snap but is similar to that and so I'm curious as to the dialogue around that team snap was used for middle school and high school so this is not a question for the elementary levels yeah well so yeah so one of the things that I'm trying to get our activities director to do is to have coaches be able to contact families on a weekly basis so on Sundays just reaching out to families and letting them know what the schedule is for the week but also have that information so on a cancellation that coaches connecting directly to their team I think right now it's the activities director trying to do it all and I think coaches are going to step up and take on that responsibility because you're kind of responsible for your teams and it doesn't make sense for one game is canceled for that blackboard message to go out to all the families I mean there's not everyone is involved with that so it's something that we're going to do better I did ask Ray balloon who also has a communication aspect to his job title he has been meeting with our new activities director as well to figure out what product Tammy could meet some of the things we're not meeting right now and how to do it in a way that it's manageable but making certain that we're getting the information out there so I would say to you this is even reached my level as the superintendent in that I do know Tim and Ray have been meeting to try to figure this out I saw Parker shake his head as well because he's Parkers here Parker is part of the tech team that the tech team has a component that they're working on with us to with activities thank you yeah I really felt like you know if we were we were really experiencing technology with that well I'll recognize it might contribute to that student looking at his or her phone in the classroom so there's positives and negatives there's a balance and I'll recognize that and so I've in my outreach or my speaking here today I've recognized positives and negatives but is there a way that we can make this positive so yeah I think I don't know I feel like the coaches have enough balancing the personalities of our children so I look forward to seeing something coordinator from the activities director and recognize the legalities that they're trying to build into that thought process Shannon had a right hand raised so I've passed the ball to her yeah Tammy I'm gonna piggy back and and Tammy and I have have children on the same team so she knows my frustrations here that one coach in particular asked all of this all of his athletes for their parents email addresses do you have any idea that my child does not know my email address like he may know he may know how to get a hold of me on Facebook I don't know but he doesn't know my email address any more than anyone else so I think that's a challenge I think that putting on the students was a bit of a challenge and yeah my student is trying to communicate with me on a day that everything's rained out should he ride the bus home or not so I'm one of those parents who's like yeah maybe he needs to use his phone you know between 7th and 8th period let me know how he's getting home because he doesn't have car yet he's just in freshman freshman I would also say and I hope Parker can help with this it's not just the parents who need to be made aware of this and I like the Blackboard blast but also my kiddo has grandparents he's got two sets of parents now he's got aunts and uncles and cousins and I'm not you know if I'm not getting the message until right before then I'm not communicating it with them either we're trying to build a community around the school so I think when something gets canceled we need to let the community know as well so I think Facebook blasts that kind of thing it may sense to let everyone know that and I just want to piggyback on this in regards to bits that app or another one you know the nice things about that was like Shannon was saying is you could as a user of that you could tag other members so you could have family you could have whatever you know 15 family members that would all receive that information instantly it was also yeah about buses when they come back especially if it's late there would be a blast that would go out and say the bus will be there in 15 20 minutes or something so there was a lot of really good features about it and if there is some kind of technological component or app that we can use that would that would be nice again I apologize I didn't read the blurb that come out on it but for whatever reason why we're not using it but if we could get something similar and I think there's other opportunities to use it not just athletics but you could use it for events and other things that you know all right so future agenda items we talked about having an update is Tuesday October 18th at 6 30 p.m. at the Royalton campus yeah Peggy okay I know I'm kind of late with this because I was having technical issues but I was presented with a very I should say informal petition from some junior high students apparently the scheduling or something has been changed and they're very upset that it has been changed so that I guess some of their I guess I call up extra extra topics like phys ed and so on they're having instead of having it maybe once a week they won't they'll have it maybe five days a week but only for a couple of weeks and then they switch to another thing so some children aren't getting phys ed until I don't know for several weeks and so they're kind of upset about the new scheduling I can respond to that Peggy I'm really glad they did a petition though that's awesome student voice it's a scheduling issue and it's also you know having enough people they will have six to seven weeks of what we call essentials they've been called specials explorations lots of things so they'll have something for six to seven weeks five days a week and they won't have it again until then later in the year so this makes sure every kid gets everything one of the things we were finding was kids were having trouble switching five times a week so they'd have art they'd have PE they would have outdoor ed so keeping track of that was hard in some ways this is not a perfect but we're gonna try it and we're open to tweaking it I think I know maybe some of the people that feel that your petition and I know one of them is lovely and has stayed in chorus but we I'll follow up with them if you want but there's not an easy answer it's a very complicated thing to move all that around as you might imagine oh yeah no I understand that and yes I your bribe worked for chorus but I am concerned especially when it comes to phys ed okay I mean I really feel kids I mean I feel they should be having phys ed every day so they have yes I agree we need more physical activity for middle school students yes they get 30 minutes of exercise a day every day at their break it's longer than any recess that we offer in any parts of the school and we know they need that one that two times a week they're out with their pods so we had worked I had talked with some folks about this and we looked at what the state requires and we feel like we're easily meeting that need but I hear what you're saying it's not a formal class every day in physical education we're also building it into other places through the flexible pathways model and we're also having kids we know a bunch of kids do a bunch of stuff on their own and we want them to document that too with with physical activity I hope this is helpful well she's been listening so I hope it's helpful to your homework okay thank you thank you all right entertain a motion to adjourn so moved all second okay thank you