 Let's go ahead and start since it's 6.36 we have a quorum so it's like I'm on it he's gonna be here soon and can at least here so board of school directors meeting call to order at 8.36 on August 18th let's first order is public comment and part of the screen is blocked off but there is no one in the audience here but I do see there are a couple on the on the zoom so please raise your hand on zoom if you want to talk I think Shabnam wants to at least she emailed earlier great floor is yours and please remember to introduce yourself for the I guess no longer for the orchestra zoom audience great hi everyone Shabnam Beth Nolan pronouns are she her it's been a while since I've seen that most of you so thanks for having me give public comment I am going to try as much as I can to be as brief as I can recognizing how short the public comment period is but just want to qualify that by saying that there's a lot I will be leaving out for the sake of brevity so happy to either talk one on one or come back if there's or answer questions or anything if there's additional questions or information that you want so the reason that I came tonight is that I wanted to share a little bit about my experience at the end of this last school year which is actually I am learning more and more as I talk to more families reflective of many families experience and that has to do with special education and the way in which we are denying parents who are seeking evaluations and deterring them from seeking evaluations for their children academic evaluation special education evaluations so last year I knew that my oldest child was behind grade level and reading I find myself to be a educated well-resourced parent who generally knows my rights and who was able to find information easily and I spent all year meeting with my son's teachers asking for progress asking how he was doing I was told all along the way he was doing better he was making gains and improvements I was never provided with any data and two weeks prior to the end of the school year and this is where there does seem to be a trend that is not just me two weeks prior to the school year is when the teachers decided to share information with me that they think he's he's so far behind that he now needs to be on the educational support team or EST plan so we met special educator for the school district as well as a number of other educators and administrative officials for you to elementary and I asked for the data they went back and they looked at the data the data has shown that over the course of the last year not only did he not improve he actually went down in percentage for both both of the reading evaluations the stars assessment as well as FNP or something evaluation that he went from 21% to something like 17 to 4% that was the first time I received any of that information and like I said I'd been asking questions all along meeting with the teacher all along I talked with Ryan here at the time after having seen that data and being very upset about it who said you he had actually flagged aid in mid-year with the teachers and asked what's going on given his data nobody ever gave me that information and the teacher said we've got it and that was the end of that so two weeks before school gets out I'm presented with all of this information and I have a meeting with the school and other folks who who I then make a formal request to have full academic special education evaluation and I was denied it even though and I have emails that show such that the data showed literally the words used urgent intervention needed that was also true for speech his speech was identified as being unable to say the R sound I was told the previous year that they thought he had some potential speech play with R sound but that that was normal for it to develop last they did a quick assessment which they have no record of that said we'll reevaluate next year so they also had the speech therapist for the school evaluate his his speech the speech therapist for the school found that he was delayed in our control sound but that it's the last to develop and so we'll check again in fourth grade I want to be clear that I have talked a number of interventionists as well as speech therapists who all told me it is not normal for a nine-year-old to be unable to say the R sound I then was to satisfied with the school speech therapists our evaluation I went and got a private evaluation at CBMC which again I have the data for in the report for that said he cannot correct it without intervention and he was at the urgent intervention level again for speech so I'm sharing all of this information with you because the the level I am an engaged parent I'm a parent who knew that my child was struggling with reading who was reading with him at home who gave him every book he possibly could ask for who regularly engaged with the teacher to be told two weeks before school that your child has a severe problem he's a year behind in reading level urgent intervention on all assessments the trends have been going down for the last year and we're denying you an evaluation and the reason when I talked to an unnamed administration official because I was so upset about it was you know it's been a hard year for the teachers and it's two weeks before school ends and they're tired that was the reason I was given by a top administration official at UES for why my child who had been identified as needing severe urgent intervention wasn't going to get services and that they would reevaluate again in the fall I then spent a hundred and twenty dollars a week because not necessarily because that's money I am able to spend because I felt I needed to because the school failed at serving me and my child a hundred and twenty dollars a week to do literacy intervention tutoring for my child just so he wouldn't get further behind during the school year or during the summer I could not afford to in addition to that do that what was going to be three hundred to four hundred dollars of out-of-pocket expense for my family per session for speech therapy the speech therapists like I said I'm at CVMC he said he will not correct the sound without intervention he needs intervention I could not afford to do so fast forward I am the one who is now having to quite aggressively initiate ensuring that Aiden gets an EST plan that the services are set up and that he is going to have intervention I think we all know especially if you're an educator and in education that you learn to read up to third grade and then you read to learn after that and my child quite frankly was failed by the school district and I racked my brain as to what else I could have done to ensure that he wasn't behind and I'm falling short of any sort of explanation because I was engaged I asked questions I was told progress was made and it was only two weeks before school at out that I was told I'll actually know it's a year behind and we're not going to give you any services for the rest of the school year or for the summer I recognize that it is a very it's been a very difficult year for teachers like but does not fall short I understand that but my child didn't learn core information and literacy that phonics like basic phonics skills that would have been taught and those early periods of the pandemic when they went immediately to remote learning and he wasn't taught that information no teacher stepped backwards and realized or assessed that he needed to learn that basic information instead what they did last year was make accommodations for him so they didn't have to teach him the core basic skills and just let him slide through so now we're trying to catch up and I'm sharing all of this with you because like I said as I have shared what's happening with me I have heard other parents who've gone oh my god that's exactly what happened to me and I even know a parent who a similar thing happened she requested an evaluation of the teacher because you know what parents don't know this information they don't know their rights around this stuff she asked the teacher I really think my child needs an evaluation the teacher told around and she has emails to show it now I don't think he would qualify that is simply unacceptable which is what that teacher should have done is say you as a parent have a right to request an evaluation and here is the name of the person you should request it up instead what that teacher did at Union was tell her no which to me questions of borderline legal actually quite frankly so I have heard that there are several families who have been told about two weeks prior to the school year ending you know what your kid is really behind the majority of those have been in literacy and then they're told sorry maybe next year we can work on it so I certainly as all you all know could run around spitting my wheels trying to get every single story every single family to show up and to talk to you all about the same thing happening to them but I am like drowning in just trying to get my kid the intervention that he is awarded as a public school member that I barely have time and to pull together other stories I've heard from educators in our school district that I have had conversations with who have said you're not the only family this is happening to and we wonder if they was it's going to take legal action before the school district does anything to course correct their denial evaluations for kids who should be getting evaluated for special education I've talked to other educators who have said there is a severe inequity happening between Montpelier Union and Roxbury elementary schools because of the way we have set up special education with a special educators and I realize there's a special educator being hired at Roxbury but where special educators are traveling and there's a difference between the virtual and in person and there's inherent inequities happening in our special education program for elementary age children because the way we have them set up so what all of this points to and the reason I'm talking with you is that I believe that there might be a systemic problem with special education in our school district I will do the work I need to do to prove that to you if I need to prove it to you but quite frankly I believe that it is the board's responsibility to connect to the community that they represent to hear me share this information with you and then to do some work to reach out to the community and see if this is in fact a systemic problem so my ask of you as school board members is to talk to your community ask solicit and find out more information about what you just heard from me and whether or not it's happening to other families and whether or not policies that you as the board are responsible for are in fact being circumvented and that we are not serving children who should be served both morally and legally by this school district for special education so there's a lot of people getting denied and and deterred from even getting an evaluation which is actually within their legal right to do so I'll just end by saying this has been very difficult for me emotionally financially time-wise like to have to be fighting so hard to get my child what he is supposed to already receive as part of this education in the school district and I really hope that you all will take it upon yourselves to further look into whether or not this is happening to more families than mine thank you thank you really appreciate sharing your experience any other public comment anyone else on orca thank you and one thing I just want to mention just I think it's implicit well talk briefly we're talking more next time about the deep dive into community outreach but I just want to maybe take a couple minutes on the agenda and we can do it after the consent agenda just to talk about I think the need to do some research kind of in preparation for the budget to you know start thinking about groups and networks we can all reach out to you know that we can you know especially now that we can do a little more in person and you know discussing what their needs are and really doing some I think people so we can talk about it more at the next meeting where I'm on it but I just wanted to get people thinking about groups and you know kind of lays on some of the groups that they have on my discussion yes yes yep let's put those two items after the consent agenda sure we're we'll get there okay yeah that better yeah just to remind her to people that you know project I wonder if people on zoom to like Jerry how is the volume for you thanks and I was just earlier today we had a policy committee meeting and we're gonna be proposing to refer to policies over to the finance committee so just so we're clear and do that we can do these quickly because I don't want to keep Andrew and Grant here any longer so after the consent agenda just community outreach just touch on it quickly yeah it says on people's radar and then we do have space on the agenda for the next meeting to do a deeper dive on that Libby's request for which he probably has but just to make clear authority to take necessary COVID safety measures and then the reference of is it the two budget policies yeah yeah reference of two budget policies from the policy committee to the budget and finance committee so we'll have this after the consent agenda which brings me to the consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda is there anything you want to take off the consent agenda and discuss me I wanted to pull the superintendent's report just briefly okay do you want to amend me as well just pulling the superintendent's report for discussion all those in favor any opposed great Kristen yeah I just want to thank you for your report which I can see that there's some difficult vacancies and that was a week ago and I wondered if in the past seven days if there was any yeah improvements and feeling of some really important spaces I know that like our food service our bus drivers and these are all critical positions that makes school days tick and so I'm curious if there's been any feeling of the position the bus company does have all the bus drivers however we've had to move start times in a few schools in one school so that the bus driver can make a run and then make another run directly after at front of their school building so we have had to adjust some start times so there's a domino there I couldn't tell it tumbled but right now we have bus drivers and our food service grants and I with Jim Birmingham who's our food service manager had some frank discussions about salary and the board has just decided a while ago to get to each year increase the food salary food service salaries and to get to a $15 minimum we moved that up three years so this year starting salary was supposed to be 1330 so yesterday two days ago I authorized moving our starting salary to $15 so it gave most of our food service workers about a 13% pay rate increase so we did it across the board of course and Jim was able to interview two people today that he's hopeful about for food service assistance we still have two manager positions open and I think two other assistant positions open one of our food manager positions is unfortunately one of our food managers had a horrible sickness this summer and he's had to take a full year off to recover from that so it was unexpected another one resigned mid-year last year and Jim was covering it so we're looking for we're still looking for food managed food service manager if we can get the two new hires in if you can get them to come work with us then he was much more hopeful today if not if we still have this this whole then the three individuals you see in this room will be brown bagging it again like we did with closure and we will be offering brown bag lunches that get delivered to the school buildings it's not going to be anything special just because we don't have a capacity to do it so we do have a plan B if we don't get the the people we need but right now there's just nobody applying for it so we're hoping with a new salary increase and the unemployment coming to an end soon that we might get some more people to apply for these gigs as far as IA's we've not we don't have haven't had any luck hiring anymore IA's we're still down six and what we've had to do is a lot of involuntary transfers so people who are used to being general IA's are we have to cover all our IAP needs so they're now going to be attached to a kid so all kid IAP needs are taken care of at the moment however this decreases by grenades cafeteria you know all of those kind of needs that we have so we got creative and we talked with our folks at part two who's our after-school program and yet UES and hit on some of them said hey you want to work some longer hours during the day we'll pay for it so we got two takers there so hopefully that will that will help things a bit at UES because they have the most needs with playground responsibilities and that kind of thing so it's in a slightly better position than it was a week ago but we are still in need of food service and instructional assistance pretty big time we're not alone in that either where it's big across the state for those particular positions and there are many soups who are telling me that they haven't filled their teaching positions yet either so we're not in that boat but these are necessary positions for us so we're hoping that we find more people who are interested so that may be as well right if it's across the board across the state I mean it's across restaurants everything right yeah so it just it just snowballs from the area yeah yeah the instructional assistance that's an entry-level position no training necessary right and the food service managers does that require a special license or anything no so if you know anybody who's interested I'd love to have them join our team I'll try to spread the word excellent jobs for people who want to have like hours of school age kids right yeah exactly do we have postings online that we might be able to yeah we Anna's got shared if you look on our social media we've shared it there we've shared it across the bridge the world but you know we've we've shared in a multiple places I think I said in my superintendent's report we've tried to call the Department of Labor we were getting zero responses from the Department of Labor we've reached out to refugee organizations but the challenges is that they're on that's why I was asking you that one day about refugee organizations the challenges there most of people who are looking for work as refugees work are in Burlington and there's a transportation challenge there so we're we've reached out to many different places so hopefully we can get some luck yeah no thanks for the update so we need to have a motion to approve the superintendent's report I'll make a motion to approve the superintendent second I'll listen to her Hi Any opposed? Great So let's quickly do those three items on community outreach I think with some of the listening sessions we've had around the ESSER funds have brought up some of the issues and we obviously I think heard a slice of some of of the concerns with what Shabnam just laid out you know I've heard similar kind of remorse of the community as well and also this is just something we've done generally around budget time is reach out to the community see what community needs are I think with the you know the ESSER funds we've got some kind of spending resources and flexibility we didn't have before I talked to a man about this was it yesterday these are boring and one of the things we thought is that a good way to shape this we can listen thought it would be just to really reach out and see what the concerns of the community are and not get too caught up in which buckets can be spent on what because we are heading to the budget season where we can think kind of holistically about about the budget so those are just kind of initial thoughts we can do a little deeper dive including maybe you know some some assignments about people taking on groups and lays out to reach out to but I just wanted to put it out there so people can think about before next meeting and then if anyone has you know quick comments now we can you never quick discussion yeah I mean I would love to propose that may for next meeting some of us can bring a plan of like this is what it will look like for your connections that you have and like so that we can kind of do a map of here the groups that we can talk to in here like who can commit to some of those meetings and you know we could be maybe outdoor mask somewhere or like we assume and really do outreach with like some of the groups that are in on failure that are not necessary like the education was but that can help us kind of reach out so I'll be having to come up with some proposals of like ideas that have been actually brought up here like coffee on the green or like in the coffee shop and you know like coffee with the four members and come in you know like talking and I also think we should think outside of just I just think about how do we make ourselves accessible to individuals who might not be associated with a specific group or with special interests and association and you know yeah no definitely and you also probably want to think about the broader community too because there are you know members of the community who are not as directly tied to the schools too and do those types of sort of community outreach meetings if there's not a form of us they don't have to be warned or how does that work there's not a form then you're fine to meet with community members yep yeah and we have had some in the past where we've had more than a quorum and the answer there was just nobody says anything it's just a pure listening session I mean there are some some things led by like farms where they organized it and more than a quorum of board members showed up and the board members just had to stay but you can go there and listen Jim one thing you got to pull the finance committee report or the fourth quarter report because the finance committee wasn't able to meet on that okay oh it was on the consent agenda yeah sorry thank you okay so let's just have a motion to on a on approve the fourth quarter report I moved to unapproved report until after the finance committee has reviewed it I'll second that all is in favor yeah any opposed great so let's move on to Louie's request you want to make it so I don't prefer is it I think it's pretty I just want to be clear what what what is the expectation of us for the next board meeting around community outreach I think just some ideas just come up with some ideas yeah okay thank you now I know my homework is would you do you guys want to send it to me and then I'll come up with something that has it all together and then we can email you our ideas between now and the next board meeting yeah that's fine with me so it has been advised we did okay yeah thank you so we we have been strongly there's a strong recommendation from our Secretary of Education that also came last year so the board did this role last year as well for the board to make a decision about on safety protocols with COVID and the two choices are the board decides safety precautions around COVID or you authorize me to make those decisions because the superintendent so if there's discussion around that I'm happy to answer any questions around it or somebody could make either motion for that sorry I was I read through the memorandum yep and the way that the board would have to make those decisions is by writing a policy yes it would be very clunky and slow and inefficient and we're not I would not vote in favor of that I'm ready for someone to make the motion to be able to make those decisions why do you make some move because I didn't write the motion authorize authorized to make decisions about coffee calling precautions second discussion all is in favor hi any opposed great and then the final is other Amanda Andrew is reference of two related policies to the budget and finance committee basically for the purpose of ensuring that they are compliance yeah it there's there's some updated language from AOE I mean Grant could explain this better than anybody else why this is needed is it alright if we ask him for this grant can you just really briefly explain why these changes are necessary to the budget execution fiscal management policies to separate policies sure a lot of the changes that the AOE is telling us we need to make sure that are in place are with procedure but before I go down that road to work on the procedures I just wanted to make sure that our policies are updated there's only a few things like updated references like federal CFR regulations that need to be updated in there a lot of it is just archaic language that refers back to whenever we used to have policy governance so there's references to this policy governance and that policy governance which they don't exist anymore so a lot of it is just real small clean up items and then attaching new references so it's not much on those two policies but that will then guide the way for us to many gritty changes to the procedures and the key there is to get those procedures in line before anybody would come down and look at how we spent federal money because they could come down and look and say you weren't in compliance with this procedure or this procedure wasn't up to par and then those expenses could be ruled disallowed and if that's the case we would have to turn that money back in and absorb it out of our local funds so that's the reason but you won't see a lot of big stuff in the policies it's just a few things to clean those up before we get into the details which you don't have to get mired into because those are procedural since the finance committee is meeting we would like to fast track this to ensure that our policies and procedures are in compliance well that we're in compliance with our policies and that are our component we're in compliance with federal law we want to fast track this doesn't mean that we can't go back in the future and amend it to add other things but you know we want to deal with this as soon as possible so since the finance committee is meeting with Grant before next meeting anyways we were talking at the policy committee meeting about referring these two policies to the finance committee extending that meeting a little bit so that the finance committee can review these policies in advance talk with Grant about it and then make a recommendation to the board because we're gonna have to do three readings of these policies so even if we get this to the board at the second meeting in September it won't be until the end of October that we have passed this so I'm gonna propose now that we refer the budget execution policy and fiscal management policy to the finance committee to update and bring it to the board any discussion I just want to see if I can understand what's happening let's see if I can translate what Grant just said which is that in order for Grant to do what he needs to do throughout our budget process by following certain procedures we need to update our policy so that Grant can then update procedures there's also when if you're audited for federal dollars they audit your compliance with your own policies right now our policies are a little bit antiquated yeah they're not strong right so they could look at those and say you're not following 1a3 but 1a3 isn't applicable anymore so why would we follow it but it's so we should just get rid of 1a3 I'm just making up that yeah okay that's one that's one example yeah or if he's gonna update our financial procedures based on the guidance from AOE and that those procedures would be discordant with our current policy we want to make sure that we update that policy absolutely right now as he's updating those procedures so that everything is cohesive yeah and we have references to my understanding of references to you know regulations that no longer exist yeah okay thanks all those in favor any opposed well thank you Andrew and Grant for being patient so now we can move on to facilities and I'm not sure exactly how it's gonna be structured but I was assuming you guys can take the floor yeah I'm gonna open this up and then Kristen's gonna add some things to what I say so because we met with the Facilities Committee last night so Andrew and Kristen are well versed in this PowerPoint presentation so originally this board meeting was dedicated to talking more about how we are going to spend as their $3 okay that was the original intent of the board of this board meeting however since lots of new information has come to light we've gotten some initial feedback from very cute community members that whole conversation about how specifically to use SR $3 we're on hold with that right now however you're gonna see the term SR 3 today because it is a funding source okay but how the purpose of today is not to go dig deep into how we spend specifically SR 3 money so that's on hold we got a lot of these feedback around waiting until we get our students back to see where they are academically and social emotionally we want to we want to look at that we want to learn more about where our students are we also want to wait about the decisions coming out of Washington in terms of infrastructure and budget reconciliation that's happening right now so the board is aware of that but I just want to make sure it's clear that that's not the purpose of this conversation today so that we don't go down rabbit holes around that we're actually working in and I are just starting to work with a group called thought exchange which also I was thinking about this for community engagement per budget process it's pretty cool tool to use that goes beyond general surveys so we have in and our setting up meetings with the people at thought exchange to get a membership with them to design a better process for community engagement it's a very helpful tool that collects data in a much different way than a typical Google survey might so we're pretty excited about that I know other districts around the state are using it and we kind of got a demo the other day and a conversation we had about school opening with the people at thought exchange and so we're going to dig into that and change the whole process about how we get community engagement so I just want to put that out there that this is not about how we spent us are $3 today one of the major goals goals of the board as you all know is to collaborate with the administration to determine how we continue to develop our facilities so our spaces allow for really powerful learning opportunities for years to come and so tonight we'd like the board to consider this presentation this is totally Kristen's word here and I loved it as a brainstorming session towards this goal of how we continue to use our facilities and how we continue to grow our facilities so they match the learning needs of our kids so we asked the board to stay at that 20,000 foot level of brainstorming tonight with us and we hope this discussion will help us the administrators prioritize some of these needs and wants and desires and opportunities and have the board in your conversations with the community as you go out go out and do so Kristen do you want to add anything to that sure well thanks for meeting with us just all that it is really possible I mean like Libby said this is like a big flyover and you know our role is really going to be able to provide feedback and I think I think in part why I'm being taught to maybe provide some you know some insider perspective is because I am an educator and I spend a lot of my days inside of school buildings and you know just really getting to experience what that looks and feels like you know my favorite parts of the day are like getting you know delegated to lunch duty or just like being out in the halls and you really get to feel you know the pulse of what it means to be a student in a school and see how they really interact with the space you know as a teacher you maybe get the chance to you know soften your space with color and you know some fabric and some light and things like that but you know we're really talking about tonight is this you know one time you know a couple different buckets of money but potentially you know a one-time infusion of infrastructure or facilities you know specific funding through the infrastructure bill but I know Andrew and Grant are going to talk about to really rethink some expired spaces I think that's probably fair to say and this opportunity to really rethink how they're used and to really think about our buildings from the perspective as something that really pushes curriculum and can sort of be the origin of curriculum and that you know our facilities really are like have the opportunity to be a representation of the pedagogy of our staff and the vision of this board and this community I know that you know there's kind of a lot of things happening concurrently you know the visioning process and this and there's this you know a lot of different funding streams coming through but they're all very much connected and so I think I guess I just want to urge us to really be thinking about you know how our buildings are really have the potential to really push our curriculum and what education looks like and community opportunities look like via our facilities so thank you so much all right we learned last night that Kristen has beautiful phrases that we all want to steal yeah exactly all right go ahead Andrew you're on do you are you gonna run the clicker who's got the oh you are thanks this is just a reminder that the board had a report from Andrew around facilities as a whole on March 1st and that's a link to that report so it's at your fingertips if you need it and I'll be that'll be once all the summer work is completed we'll be updating that and having that available earlier in the year this year so hopefully for budget season so yeah I was really pleased that Kristen was able to join us last night and add those words because what we one of the things that I think that the enthusiasm of these projects a lot of his lot because we're still at 20,000 feet we kind of think of we I think we can kind of think of them like oh we're just gonna fix that space up that's not what we're thinking we're looking at transforming these spaces we had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really transform these spaces and teach differently in them so we're still up here so we haven't we don't have any specifics on that but I think that's a great backdrop some of these items are just operational and just good things to do so but these are these are some of those big picture things that if we had the money what could we take care you know we sit in some rooms in these schools and they're in great shape and they're in service well these are some of the ones that we should keep people have been out there so Roxbury we're starting with Roxbury Village the Roxbury Village school ever since that building came under our control the community the town hall portion of it very important and the idea of being able to make that space for the community handicapped accessible as well as separated off from the rest of the school building just as good practice so that the public isn't just wandering through the building during evening events has been just a project that's been on our radar and I apologize my mask is going all over the place and to be clear the building itself is ADA accessible yes in order to get to the community space which is the town hall what you see right here that front doorway is not accessible so in order for somebody to access the town hall they have to walk through the school building part in order to get there right and create bathrooms and really be able to isolate just really good practice and it would be a good thing for the community and the school building as well so that's a project that has always been outstanding down there at Roxbury and I'll what I'll do is I'll roll through the schools and then you can ask questions on the individual schools but I think that's another need that or desire that's been expressed down at Roxbury for a while has been some covered outdoor space for the students and community a gazebo was proposed a couple years ago there has been a little change in that in that there is a potential community part going in across this across the street which may or may not contain a gazebo or some sort of outdoor space for gathering but again just an outdoor classroom a different way opportunity to teach differently as well as get the kids out of the standard classroom again an opportunity down there one of the things that you know you might expect there's a lots more projects these are the projects that we otherwise couldn't really you know and you'll see in the facilities report you know needs to be upgraded casework down at Roxbury that's kind of stuff we could fit into our usual budget and usually take care of these were the kind of the big pieces that really don't wouldn't typically go into a normal school budget union elementary the windows we are in the throws of finishing up our beta test of some different options that I'll come back to you with more detail on there is a whole slew of option slew of concerns there we've got comfort of the kids in the building we've got control or mechanical systems we've got aesthetics there's a whole lots of reasons to do that in safety energy that it's kind of a no-brainer we've got to do something we are approaching having a solution for that that's a big chunk so that's at UES we have that what's we refer to as the multi-purpose room and anybody who's had kids in the district would notice the four wins room it's larger than a regular classroom with a couple rooms on the end it's probably equivalent to classrooms it it just sort of is there and with thinking about how we want to teach what we want to teach what we want to do in these extra curricular spaces this is a great opportunity and it's and it's needed special education office suite I designed many of these in my day and I can absolutely sit in my mind and have the conversation that designed this space when they did it 25 30 years ago and it's not how we want to deliver services in the moving forward that needs to be that needs to be updated and there's a lot of conversations of what that looks like how that serves the students how that serves the the staff as well we also there's a there's a domino effect of this in that you know these aren't isolated there's other spaces near it and if we did that what if we did this and move that and so there's sort of opportunities that roll throughout that building but that's a space that definitely needs to be to be upgraded the little gym again any of you who have had kids that go through UES are familiar with this it's used as a little gym rainy days overflow again we need to make that a proper space simple and and think about how we like right now it's just a big classroom so we have them go in there and do their things well if it's going to be an athletic space or a movement space or whatever do we have the right flooring do we have the right materials do we have the right infrastructure for swings or whatever other things that we can get in there to support the students so that's a that's a big need over there here's one that's the staff workroom it's just not I don't think it's the atmosphere that we want to present to our staff it's just really old it's run down it wasn't well executed when it was first put in there and I think is a as just the basic needs of meeting the needs of being able to make a cup of coffee without a doorknob falling off and use a restroom without being skieved out it should be it should be upgraded but and there's other opportunities that we can put into this you know a small laundry that would help the help the building if they needed it things of that nature but again you start talking bathrooms and kitchens it goes beyond just let's put it in the budget this year the auditorium that's a space that is really a wildcard in that it's a it's going to be fabulous when it's going to be done when it's done the good thing about it is it's historic we're not going to change it a lot so we have a lot of latitude as to what we do with it you know you can see the seats have been sitting there for nearly a hundred years or nearly a hundred years and they could use a coat of varnish do we put a coat of varnish on them or do we do like we did here at the high school where we put padding on them and send them out to Minnesota to have that work redone so there's just a great variety again to give that space back over and make it a really inviting space that the teachers can use again anybody that's been through UES can think of the puppet shows can think of the graduations can think of all the cool things that they the students do in that space would be getting that so it's more accessible same thing with the back of the stage back of house it runs the gamut from let's just make it simple and user friendly we've got lots of equipment that we took out of the high school knobs and switches or we bring it into state-of-the-art and there used to be it was a little bit before my time that I recall anyway this theater was extensively used by community theater groups and we got a basement full of their old props to prove it so that's just that's a space that it's on our radar as you've seen it in the capital fund to get chipping away at that but that's going to be a fabulous space when it's done and the kids are going to be able to benefit from it and the teachers are going to be able to benefit from it once it's done door hardware all of our buildings we've done a pretty good job in the district the high school is probably the best actually we take the facts Roxbury and Tina are the best with regards to security and 80 accessible hardware and key control Roxbury's the best Tina cakes amazing control of you pick up the phone and Tina tell you exactly who's got what key and when it was returned and when it's going back out the high school is pretty good main streets okay union not so much if you go down and you see Chris and Chris and Randy and those down there they got a ring of key chains you know a ring of keys we need to have one or two or three or four keys that someone can easily get to open a door lock a door make sure they're all handicapped accessible that's a big project there's a lot of doors in a school and good quality hardware that isn't going to feel like junk is expensive but to know you can lock it to anybody can lock the door and unlock a door that they should in a quick make quick quickly is valuable any questions about Union or other RBS sure the gazebo is that proposed or is that gazebo exist the picture it does not oh that was yeah that's just okay and so for maybe these are just more like ideas than questions but the multi-purpose room are there considerations around how to do how to use that space for social emotional and behavioral that's that's the next that's 21st century yeah that's we're still we're still at 20 and there's absolutely we let me stop me when it's wrong when I'm wrong we will absolutely bring in professionals and our staff and our administrators to think about okay you know you've been making do with this space what do we do that makes this space 20 years from now have people look back on it go yeah this was the right thing to do and what what are the needs that we can't address in the ice cube tray classrooms we have now you know that the we talked a little bit during the community engagement you workstations that you can stand up at activities that are not just sitting at your desk doing this that are moving around and up and down and over and soft flooring and whatever whatever it needs to be that's the exciting stuff that we're not nearly we're not at yet but most certainly we want to we want to leave this place better than we found it and and these are the kind of things that we can do these are the kind of spaces that the special ed office to students going there now yeah it is for kids with intensive special needs it's extreme sensory overload that's terrible yeah it's not what we need no I'm yeah I get it and then I had the same question about the little jam about just the SPL considerations or sensory adaptations and it sounds like yeah absolutely and again I don't want to get too I get too excited about this stuff but you know we need a gym athletic space but one that's quiet you know there's gonna be kids that there's maybe kids that we want to have a space that's nice and quiet they can still do the physical activities but it isn't echoing throughout the space and how do we treat the walls to do that and still make them durable that you can throw a basketball against them and then my last one is it's not necessarily the facility itself but another thing to think about it maybe it doesn't fall into this category is those wiggle seats again to the same furnishings the same thing the only reason okay quite honestly the only reason I haven't put furnishing on there is in my experience as an architect and dealing with bond votes and stuff like that furnishings is never you know furnishings is never really does not do we get funding from the federal government or the state that says yeah you can buy furnishings with it but I can guarantee you we if the librarian had their choice we'd all be wiggling right now yeah we wouldn't be just sitting in standard chairs so that's hopefully when they say infrastructure and all that there'll be some flexibility in that it doesn't have to be bolted to the wall because I've seen it in the classrooms in us that there are some but it seems like kids have to take turns on them and so if there's a way to get more obviously not every child maybe wants to sit in one it's it it looked to me like more than the kid then they were available and that's one of the great things about we've seen here these opportunities is it's you know by having these potential funds that that grants going to talk about it allows us to maybe just take a little money over here so we can increase that that furnishing budget so we can kid out an entire classroom that we otherwise couldn't afford in a standard budget thank you those are my questions not specifically yet but I know that it's something that came up around the original sure you know years-long project to get that playground and that we ended up having to put so much money into soil litigation and landscaping yeah that we lost a lot of the original vision for what that could be yep absolutely I already told me that a lot of the equipment was cut and that it was the thinking would be that it would be added back there was a couple pieces the absolute absolutely mostly that was the center the little yeah the the court yeah yeah yeah yes there's a handicap accessible swing up there and and bucket and bucket swing at UES yeah and there yeah yeah and there's and I guess the question around just like the dreaming of all the considerations around kids you know they're near diverse would we is it like if you guys consider looking into the environmental studies that are out like for I know that one of the parents that came to our last meeting was mentioning some of the agencies that she has worked with we're going to schools to do a report on here all like the lights to do more like a 360 study on all of our structures around specifically around new new diversity and yeah yeah the state I know if I'm thinking of if we're talking about the same thing you're talking like environment like PCV and and radon testing or other material look at the lights you know and think all like the different kids sensitivity to light so if you have a classroom that have these types of lights they say these here are the things that you can do to make this classroom better for all the kids that might have lights sure sure that might not be able to sit down in this here some like or like these tables are too hard like things like our too many pictures on the on the wall yeah yeah yeah with regards to the existing or new or anything proposed well just like thinking like when if we're up here that part of that here thinking that we could get that for some of those experts to come and say here all the things that you have sure yeah absolutely absolutely yeah no we we're in and be at rest assured we're not going to do this we're not going to do this on our own we're going to bring in the right people to help us in bringing the right people that we have here and bring in outside experts who do this sort of thing you know schools were designed around most schools were designed around you know when you look at the lights it was when you passed a bond when they passed the bond to build this Kathy Hilgendorf said you needed 50 foot candles on the table that changed to 35 because people realized that 50 foot candles at the desk was way too much and since since the state has no longer funding school bond projects people get to do what they want a little bit so a lot of the school buildings things you see in school buildings are because it was mandated that way so absolutely Main Street middle talk about the social emotional and I'm not good at talking about these things openly but you know the the this is you talk about a space that is the most one of the most diverse that we have in this in the district is the youngest fifth grader to the oldest eighth grader sharing the same playground and I'm not even sure that playground is the right word that we're going to end up wanting to use for this space but it's definitely a space that needs to be thought about and this is going to be a challenge because we can scrape the surface and do a few things on top but once we get that used to be a neighborhood back there that Scribner Road used to connect out to I forget the name of it but there was houses and roads back there so there's a lot lurking below those wood chips so that potentially is a large project but again I think really needs to be done we've got some resiliency spaces Main Street Middle School is just full so we need to take advantage of as many little spaces as we possibly can and there really honestly isn't many left over there this one particular space was put up there just because it it is a unique opportunity but there's a lot of infrastructure right there so it's we can put paint to it and we can change some ceiling tiles but to really make it into what it needs to be or what it wants to be is going to probably need to move a little bit infrastructure which gets good which gets very pricey very quickly but it's one of the few sort of opportunities we still have over there for additional spaces the family old family consumer science classroom that space was my guess is it was renovated when they did the addition back in 89 or whenever the addition was put on the locker room it's out of date even if it was just a family consumer science classroom let alone we don't really teach family consumer science anymore and there's a real push to head towards a sustainability model of education and looking at the global picture of where food comes from how do you prepare it how do you take care of it how do the rest of the world all that sort of and again Libby can speak to this better but it sort of wants to be more of a lab a lab that a learning lab that we can do all those things it's it just isn't it isn't that now again it's in the lower level that's there's a lot of infrastructure to deal with down there so that's going to be a it's important piece it's also helps the kids prepare for when they get up to the high school and what the model is with the science department and the sustainability movement here at the high school really going to prepare them to be you know more seamless and integrate back and forth so that's a that's a big project student sustainability presentation that the board had late spring yeah windows of the exact same conversation we had it at Union safety energy aesthetics operations you know just having a teacher these days we said we saw this a couple of days ago it was cold in the morning and it was like this by the afternoon and Main Street middle especially the the Main Street side those classrooms just are wild and they're very difficult to learn comfortable kids aren't comfortable they're not going to learn well and we need to take care of that big project cafeteria one of the biggest challenges we have at Union Main Street Main Street Main Street it's we fit oh we've tried to fit a hundred kids into that space there's an upper upper level that you can't really see there it's going to be a challenge we are we are pretty well pinned in over at Main Street middle the space behind that there's no oh let's just add on here without some real significant other implications so but the good thing about it is it's an opportunity it's going to be it's right now it's a medium sized space that we put a bunch of cafeteria tables in and we get everybody in there if we take full advantage of that space it could be a really interesting space small areas big areas quiet areas loud areas in this it's it's funny how this evolves 20 years ago we would never and I'm not going to Libby's gonna hate me for this we would never say hey you know let's build some outdoor cafeteria space we would never ever do that the one good thing we have at Main Street middle is that if you look out those windows we're surrounded on three sides by building so we actually maybe have an option it doesn't help us in January but might help us in September and in some of those elbow and we all know anybody's got a middle school or temperature doesn't matter they haven't worn a jacket since they were in fifth grade anyway that's the right to go into middle school is you don't have to wear a jacket anymore so that's one of the cool opportunities we do have is maybe there's something out there so to give you a sense though Don Taylor's classroom was in that space last year and he had 20 kids 22 kids in his classroom space six feet apart and we barely could fit his class and that we could fit one more desk in that room it's a small space for the needs of students it I would know that's again that that's one thing we're moving around there Main Street more than any other building just got flipped last year and they have they're flipping it back so we're getting we are in talking about kids and their needs and cafeteria is being such an important thing that we were looking at the cafeteria here we got five different table types at the cafeteria here at the high school we've got new cafeteria tables heading down to Roxbury and we've got new ones over here that will give more flexibility and how kids gather so just as an aside I think I think actually the act of eating is oftentimes very secondary in the cafeteria but it really is just the space where socially like there's so much need it's the time for kids to let down it's the kids the time for kids to be social you know and the food component is very very critical and the idea that we could do some you know revamping of some of the you know the kitchen equipment that might actually translate to better menus that kids might you know eat more from you know and enjoy more there just seems to be so much potential and it's just so much more beyond the word cafeteria in terms of really I mean it's just it's really a wellness space I think cafeterias are in terms of the food access you know I mean I think we all know that like a lot of kids once they leave school they don't eat again you know so that this meal is actually critical and how they experience this meal is critical so you know it seems like it really it's a very practical project there's a lot of pragmatics involved but there's also just in terms of our ability to support students in this space sounds very necessary and it's just it's a great opportunity and also there's just there sounds like there's just some really cool creative solutions to and even on the physiological as Jim Birmingham pointed out when I first met him was the cafeterias the cafeterias are the one of the most important biggest classrooms these kids are gonna ever do they learn how to eat right when they're young I mean think of the benefits that's gonna have I mean I'm a generation who you know I suffering from it now but more now than ever before yeah I would say more now than ever before in that kitchen they can and it's and it's limited still it's still make the same meals that they make at the high school here and this kitchen but you can go to the next slide we can talk about the kitchen Jim has made a real effort to to increase as much food production in that kitchen for the kids there is some limitations we have actually started to meet with kitchen consultants I kind of behind Libby's back worked with Jim and said let's get the ball rolling in that not actually behind because there was so much talk actually probably more behind your back than anybody because we talked about what do we need for a kitchen and I said I said if we keep thinking about what we need for a kitchen we're never gonna do anything so let's see what we can do with the kitchen we have and you know because the reality of it is is we maybe you know we may be in this space in this box for the next 20 years and we can't really ignore it one one just one thing so I just want to provide context for this crew it was it was over two years ago at our retreat where we were coming off of the big bond projects or wrapping up the big bond projects at UES and the high school where we did a lot of great work including the playground which I know we didn't get a hundred percent of everything that we wanted because it went there's there were risks associated with that project and unfortunately it cost way more than anticipated because of the hazardous waste mitigation but still we have a great new playground there and MSMS the board really felt like and we were hearing it from the community this is a fairly neglected space especially in terms of like some key elements and these are some of the key elements and so we put together this MSMS building committee that didn't complete its work because of COVID-19 but we did a lot of the work and quite frankly these spaces that Andrew's pointing to were the spaces that that group which included city council members could range of community members identified as like acute needs for our district so when we're talking about yeah it comes out of that work so I just wanted to lay that context out there so this space I'm meeting with our kitchen consultant I wouldn't say it's our kitchen consultant quite yet but the kitchen so we brought in you know the actual physical biggest challenge we have that kitchen is storage you know this we've got you see one freezer there we've got three two or three more just that size that's kind of out in the cafeteria right now last year it was up in a conference room if we can solve the storage the actual cooking gallery is not all that bad it's not a pleasant place to work and we need for our staff to improve that we need luckily those blocked up windows gosh the energy crisis really did some number on a lot of our buildings you know we can pop windows in there we can get ventilation we can get natural sunlight in there for our workers which is going to make them you know imagine just going down in there getting your your meal into this dark dank kitchen you know versus something that's light and bright and clean and you know it's a different different mindset so anyway so there's there's a real need down there and a real challenge but the real linchpin of it all is really our food storage the more they can store the more they can prepare it's tough to see in this picture but that's a galley kitchen yeah you're basically you're not seeing anymore there's no space that goes this way which can't see yeah right so it's really tight it's hot that space also it's my understanding that when tropical storm Irene came through that was a completely flooded space and it was not that was an opportunity to truly do something with it and it wasn't it was put back pretty much the way it was prior to the prior to the damage so there's there's that's a definite need yeah yeah is there I mean I can stay at the 20,000 foot level but I'm just so curious like is there talk about expanding the footprint somehow of the space or would it be the challenge the confines of that the challenge with that is behind those back walls is about a 10 12th I'm gonna guess that the back lot somebody may here may know better than I that the offset property fire there's a fine line back there but your property offsets like 10 feet on the back and the sides we're about that we go into Amanda Amanda buckley we only do a property right so Angela yeah it's Angela's house is right there her backyard is right there so there's not much room to go out that way to go out into the Franklin Street side suddenly you're eating a parking which is you know traditionally never a great thing but you know we live in a city you can park on the street that's why we have them but we also have a 10,000 gallon oil tank out there so it's it's tight there's no there's no easy solutions but some cool opportunities a little figure it out any other questions or pieces on the main street middle has there been any discussion of I can't really believe I'm gonna say this but this isn't quite 20,000 that's probably more 40,000 foot like just back it down and start over I don't know the biggest the only thing I shouldn't be flip I should yeah we have talked about that we talked about in the mainstream middle school committee yeah and bottom we did we did discuss that it was it was certainly one of the options that frankly we were just as the pandemic yet we were and we might want to just we had that presentation pretty much teed up it might be worthwhile to bring that up yeah and it was month or two yeah and it was it was 20 years ago when they I don't know if it was Gossin's or Black River did a study that building 25 years ago somebody put the seeds that it's no good we don't need it and so for 15 years it got collected and then 10 15 years ago he said it's here isn't going anywhere anytime quick so let's reinvest and that's what we've been doing it's it's not that school it's it's my not a lot of land yeah it's we put money into it some of that has been more visible than others but kind of like your old car sometimes you put a lot of money into your old car and it's a lot of money and and all it does is keep it running so some of the I think original thoughts we had obviously COVID through this all track was you know do we level it and build a new do we do like a major renovation we're just going and maybe keep the facade in the location but you know gutted to the point we had to move kids out for a couple years right and like really retool it and kind of make those space a new or do we you know find other ways to make sure it meets the kids needs so we're more on the last one I think that's where we are by default although I mean there have been investments that have made a big difference absolutely yeah and anybody that's been in that building don't you I don't know in the last time a lot of us we haven't been in those buildings in a long time and I keep listening to looking at on a cut because I know his daughter and I know the time a little gym or the gym over there doesn't look like the gym anymore the peeling insulation and the brown ceiling it'll look like that anymore people are going to be pretty psyched I wish the scoreboards will be up before school started just because it really it doesn't look like a neglected elementary school multipurpose space anymore it looks like a gym and so we're luckily a lot of those mechanical stuff that stuff that was behind the scenes that you couldn't see it's done so we can like this year we put new carpets and ceilings and lighting in the library some of the old windows that had plastic on them that drove living crazy somebody was over there fixing those yeah so we are starting to make those improvements so it was a look like really nice big new one so here at the high school you know the heist though my let's think about the projects and things that are at the high school a lot of it is well the biggest one we'll get right out there is the track in the track there's been a lot of conversation and a lot of support and a lot of enthusiasm to do some do things out there we have an immediate need to do some safety things to it we need to we need to make it fundamentally safe we've been working on that I'm gonna be putting some money into the budget this year and and we're gonna do that where we go from there I've got people that say you know what if we had our official turf out there we could hold every state championship and we could charge X amount of dollars and we could be the hub for sporting events just like Burlington and South Burlington is you know in Chittenden County where you go for the state lacrosse championship you go to Burlington you know we could potentially be that kind of space whether we want to be that kind of space or not no that's that's for somebody else to answer but the track really the track cascades it can go from alright well you know we did we had a great track program here last year racing on cinder I don't think the surface necessarily is holding us back from achieving things but we have a great so if we have a better track can we do even better can we have the community come in here can we offer different opportunities can we attract parents I mean parents when they hit middle school start thinking about where do I want my kids based somewhat on athletic facilities and their athletic programs for sure so but the biggest unknown with this is where does it stop okay if we if we put a paved track with an athletic surface surface well certainly we're gonna want to do our pole vaulting pits and our long jump pits and our shot put and if we get all the equipment on there well we sure as heck got to get rid of the topsoil that is our baseball field we got to get clay in there I may put that in this to try to get that in this year about it because we're gonna spend as much time with John out there weeding our baseball field than just spending five grand on some clay and being done with it lights grandstands concession stands restrooms new storage facilities you're gonna you're gonna build this track in the track program you're gonna need to play you're not gonna spend $10,000 on a pole vaulting mat and just leave it laying out in the snow out in the snow all winter you're gonna need a storage facility for that so it just sort of cascades and it was a fabulous athletics year last year I think we were all very very proud and excited about all the I mean five state championships is pretty good so that's a big conversation but it's out there so one of the other needs that we have here is is a transition space for high intensity needs students and I'm living correct me but you know we have this we have a program we have a space where we teach life skills we'd like to really make it almost a teaching apartment where we can teach folks who are transitioning from the school system it's a system out into the add into the the world you know to have an actual residential bathroom tub and shower and kitchen facility and laundry facility that someone can actually really we can really teach those skills we've made great progress this was one of the first things I did here when I was handed a half completed kitchen and said you got two weeks to finish it like oh okay but that's that's a project here at the high school that is in need throughout the district tonight the city is getting their net zero presentation from efficiency Vermont I know it's ECIC whatever it's called by their efficiency Vermont to me they have some ideas that they're gonna share with the public real regard that we have made I have a preview of I saw preview of the report we are the biggest users of energy we use 40% of the energy and don't quote me on these numbers we use like 40% of the energy in the public buildings we got 60% of the space we do pretty good and we've done really well thanks to the good work of my predecessor and Tom Allen I think our electrical me electrical use has gone down something like 40% in the last 10 years I mean we've done good work there's more opportunities it's again we're hemmed in we're city with we're a city city schools you know some of the things that are gonna be presented and you guys will probably be hearing about of hey why don't we do this and hey don't that because you know if you guys will come out here and you'll watch a field hockey game you'll be standing on a road that's the outline for the field hockey you know field is right there we don't have a lot of space but we are gonna definitely make those improvements we would be foolish of us not to when we started the process down at Roxbury with a heat pump project that you guys approved there was just no way it was gonna get built this year so where we've kind of kicked it and we're gonna do it in the spring there was just no contractors available to do it or equipment really quite honestly so that's that's out there we still don't know what those are and I wouldn't be surprised if in the infrastructure bills and things like that there's a lot of very much like this can be used for that you know like I can't believe that it won't be that way a lot of what let me just go to finish up last thing a lot of the things that at the high school are gonna be the smaller things the furniture the way we you know the way the library is set up a lot of those things but those are you know smaller projects that will certainly come up in the conversations in the coming year any questions about the high school you had the track listed yeah you really were talking about like all of our fields I just don't know how it's I just no because yes and no yes in that it would be silly not to take it when we did the track and a track program pole vaulting and shot put and all that to to regrade the baseball field it's gonna be nothing you know that's gonna be a drop in you know into but and yes in that if we build that track we've got a shed out there that we keep all of our mowers and equipment well if we build a track we're not gonna drive over it anymore we've already decided that we're not gonna drive over it anyway but we're we're we're gonna have to get we're gonna have to move that and put that somewhere else so it's it's more about opportunity we have been pulling rocks and boulders out of our practice fields and we've gotten them better and better but ten years ago the practice field was used as a overflow parking lot for Circus Marcus and they put in drainage pipe and it was never properly redressed you know so some of our practice fields it would be the time to do that and again if you're gonna focus all this and maybe we do it maybe wouldn't but I think I think it would snowball very quickly or snowball probably the wrong word but blossom blossom blocked out by the presentation it's fun to give you some space to ask any questions or comments if you haven't if not no problem but we could not see see what what you were doing presentation and there are a lot of big ideas we'll see how it all shakes out of it great ideas thanks I'm out of so for Roxbury I noticed that there was just like the Casvivo and the community hall is there like anything that should be that needs to happen that or like again I would say that in Roxbury one of the good things about Roxbury is that it's there are certainly projects that if we you know as we go through it needs new casework you know it needs a casework that's $60,000 that we can we can do that so there's no real and and that heat pump project that's that's on on par we you know we it's a small building so we're able there's four four classrooms pre-k and so it's in good shape it's in good shape and it still needs maintenance and all that but no there's nothing get on there that if I if we're during budget season we said you know we really need this that I don't think it would fall too far out of the normal sort of yeah that's what we should be doing down there this year we've done some major work there in the last two years just to follow up on that would you say then that it's at that 21st century education level that you were talking about envisioning for something like the little gym or the room now again certainly certainly Beth has talked to me about some sensory room that she wants to write down there but again it's one room it's relatively small it's within the realm of what we normally would do but okay just thinking if we had that like when when the experts come in that you know you're thinking you're imagining what we would team up with at Union I think having them also visit yeah Roxbury and say these are the same things that we would suggest or whatever just to have that same attention pay sure and it may and again as a standalone project we might you know we might say yeah just let's just do it all down at Roxbury now let's do the do all the case work all at once do the sensory room let's do the town hall and just do that all at once is as one big project because the bigger your projects are the cheaper they are when you start to do things in small chunks they're more expensive right you know you're throughout that last slide few questions I guess I'll start with you had a lot of really important things highlighted here in terms of funding in and what could be done is there a what's the top process so we could get all of this done or no we were gonna get only this much done or how do you how do you figure that out yeah so Andrew got 24 slides I get this one and actually this is just a quick slide to show the scope of money that we're talking about it also indicates as you can see whether the funding source is federal or local whether it's an annual amount of money that we see or whether it's a one-time amount or one time influx of funds even without a solid infrastructure number you can see this is a considerable amount of money that could be available to improve one of these bases so really I didn't want to get into the specifics of every number on here but I did want to at least give you the idea of it we're not just we're not talking about a few hundred thousand dollars we're talking about a considerable amount of money and as you can see a lot of it is money that we have it's our fund balance and that fund balance amount is as it says unreserved our real fund balance is like three million dollars we're gonna use that as a source of revenue for budgets coming up in the following years and we do assume that we're gonna want to keep like a 2% amount that's available for emergencies that amount is what I'm saying you could truly spend right now and would be okay the capital fund this year's budget is 250 thousand dollars for the capital in FY 22 we figured it would probably go up about ten thousand dollars every year so there's about a quarter of a million dollars every year that will be in the budget that typically gets good support by the voters we have that plan already mapped out through like 27 but we always every year during budget we refresh that priorities might change Andrew mentioned one of the big things on there or two of the things on there are the UES and MSMS windows which we were going to put money aside every year but by doing it that way we weren't going to fully fund those projects until I think FY 28 so if we did it that way if we leave it in the capital plan that's how those would be funded but it's a considerable amount of money it's available to us so it's really a time where we should be looking at priorities and thinking about what we want to start focusing on and talk to community about the other thing I would just say is some of these do have a clock ticking like S or 3 that money has to be spent by September 30th 2024 I'm not sure what the infrastructure funding timeline will the local piece in a capital fund that can carry over year to year the fund balance is available to you whenever you decide to use it so anyhow that's just a quick look at the money the sources the kind of big amounts that could be used and that S or 3 money is that the full amount there is that the amount that could be used that's that's our full allocation obviously part of that is going to be used toward learning loss but chunk that could be used for this and a certain percentage needs to be used 20 percent right yeah so not all that money is yeah if you say if you did 80 percent of that it's probably 1.75 something like that that would be available to the languages at least 20 percent and then I do appreciate that this is not the conversation about S or 3 but it seems like the the what we've been the feedback we've been getting from the community is that we we don't want to just use that 20 percent as if it's our the only amount that we're going to address used to address learning loss and therefore we have 80 percent of what's up there on infrastructure so just at that big picture level to be thinking about that is not exactly 2.23 million but maybe maybe half that or and of course the amount that you know that big question mark is a really big question mark the infrastructure funding could be and it could be zero because of what's going on with Afghanistan yeah but I don't know and you're right but the language is at least 20 percent has to be used right so it's definitely at least 20 percent less than this if not more the one thing since we're talking a little bit about federal funds the one thing you have to really be careful of is these things are only temporary so the one thing that AOE has been kind of hammering on us is try to be real careful about building something that's a recurring requirement because once you do that and this money goes away then your local taxpayers are you gonna have to bear the expense of keeping that moving or you're gonna have to stop it so to the extent that you can invest in you know more like one-time requirements or or requirements that are short-term you know that that maybe you can focus on something for two or three years and then we yourself off so there's a lot to talk about there that goes way beyond this but this once again is just to give you an idea of the scope of what we're talking about I didn't want you to think wow we've got 24 slides of things and what do we have a hundred thousand no we've got a lot more right so we could really make a dent at this if we could come up with consensus on which things we want to focus on so I think for me it will be really helpful this environmental study because I think it is like he ties in really good with some of the concerns that families are bringing up around the social and emotional learning and just like it's faces so just like when when I when I'm like in this 30 you know like I'm like here's all the needs and here's what we have I feel like I'm right here like kind of like in that 40,000 foot of dreaming you know like looking down and saying like oh this is all the things that we could do but I don't feel like I have all the needs overall like overall here all the need here's all this money and he is all good like seems in my that's how I feel I feel like I'm in a similar direction thinking about the question of like what information will we need and want to support like an informed prioritization process you know and how much of that is like data driven how much of that is you know community input and student voice and so I guess that's just a you know question for maybe even just on the line to be thinking about but just what will a prioritization process look like and and then of course also the financial piece and just how that will all be weighed out and I guess this is somewhat connected to is that these are all really really exciting projects and they're really really fun to think about and I also when I think back to your report I was actually thinking about the casing at RVS like some of the like the less glamorous projects but that are kind of punch listy projects like kind of where where with those fall that sort of support like day-to-day functionality yeah that falls on our local budget yeah so those are those are in a different pot of money altogether because with those kind of checklist things Andrew and his team think about and budget for so you'll hear more about that during budget budget time I want to just put you back off of Kristen's first and first question about what the prioritization and the decision-making process and then just my question is about the board our role is significantly different than yours which of these decisions are operational decisions which land in the administration's purview in which of these decisions are or not decisions necessarily but where does the board what what what do you need from us are we the community engagement gathering are we a are we like we bounce ideas off of each other I really appreciate that we're that we're having this conversation so early on at this like brainstorming level and I wonder about like when the time comes to make decisions I think it's going to be you two making these decisions right what more would you want from the board in order to make those decisions what I'm hearing is that there and correct me if I'm wrong what I'm hearing based on our conversations yesterday and today is that they want and as a board we can discuss how we want to do this that they're looking for input on how to prioritize these big projects this isn't like the annual maintenance work that we budget for year-over-year for sure big projects that community members have been coming to us about for a long time like the Main Street middle school projects people have been talking about those projects for I don't know is no better than I would yeah I mean I think I think some of those concerns have existed for as long as I've existed so what what my interpretation of this is and correct me if I'm wrong Libby and Andrew is we've received a lot of community input over the years and it's we we should definitely engage the community in this conversation still I'm not saying we shouldn't but that's where a lot of these big projects came from and it's like okay we we have quite a bit of money right now I mean let's be real three and a half four million bucks that's not going to go very far with some of these projects so what you know I think they're looking for priorities from us what do what do we want to prioritize and we can go about engaging the community to determine those priorities but a lot of these are projects that we've we've had community members in the past year bring up a number of these with us you know what I mean for one it's generally not on anyone's dream list because you know if you have money you know fixing that rotted sill in your house is is not one of those things that you get too excited about doing but it's it's very necessary I think another thing about the community is I mean ever since I've been on the board before I've been on board a lot of big infrastructure projects gets wrapped up in but we should merge with you 32 or some other big thing like why would we build a new middle school or why would you invest in the middle school when you know we should instead be you know thinking about merging with you 32 and you know turn the high school in the middle school like I don't want to spend money on that so getting past some of that too was I think a challenge for us and really thinking about you know because the community has big dreams but sometimes big dreams can get in the way of practical things that need to happen and dreaming big on the scale that we need to be doing big on which is you know kind of reimagining a middle school rather than saying well that bull is going to go obsolete when we merge with you 32 which is another thing we've been talking about since before Emma's been here. I've heard less about it recently actually. I think because you have some challenges right now. Settled down it was like not as much of a priority topic. Well I heard it just three weeks ago in my office. So it's on people's minds I think. Still but so what I hear you saying is you would be looking for us throughout this process just on some input just like this is what you're hearing. Yeah I think that again a lot of this is very you know our thinking had to change relatively recently because some of the projects we were thinking about that we said well that doesn't really fall under S or 3 or whatever whatever suddenly they could and it was like oh and then we started thinking about the all these other numbers and Grant finished up with quarterly reports and all that like okay let's let's come up with the list of all those needs and then we'll so I think the process has just started so I'm not 100% sure and there needs to be more conversation. There's definitely some decisions like if the community really wants to track like we'll just use that as an example because that's an enormous ticket item right and if the board says yes but we don't want to bond it we want to use the money we have available in order to do that then that will change our list considerably right that project list that you saw that was like 20 projects now becomes five so so then it's okay yeah we can do that we can make that decision and then we need to rethink some other things right we want the track and the cafeteria kitchen combo at MSMS that could very well be it right which and maybe the small gym in the auditorium so there's like there's some things that if like you there's a big ticket item there then then that will influence other decisions and we cannot forget about the windows you know if you think of mass loss theory where basic safety and health enables everything else to happen a kid who's freezing in a classroom or a teacher who's freezing in a classroom cannot do their best work and those we we have safety issues at US they've been kids who've tried to jump out of the windows like there's there's a lot of things with those windows that we really need to consider and that's not the exciting project so that's the mold in your cell or Jim was talking about and it's also a big ticket item so there's there's some more necessity than wants as well one one thing I heard brought up several times was about lighting and something that I learned throughout the course of my time on the board and going through the buildings and also just what some of the projects we've had lately is we've done a lot of upgrades to lighting so would you mind just touching upon that for the second I did hear that but basically most classrooms now have dimmable LED lights in them so most and I would say most spaces are dimmable at this point but most of our common areas in our classrooms every year we every year we do two or three classrooms in each building to put in new LED lighting and we're pretty darn close on most of all of our buildings at this point I mean there's some bigger spaces that we haven't quite done but we've also done some work at the Main Street Middle School main hallway yeah office library floor that was really dark two years ago and now it's very bright yeah or it's you know it's an enjoyable space rather than a dark one also the UES entryway was really dark we put in new we put in new lighting over at Franklin Street entrance tower just really kind of cool if anybody's heading over to Main Street Middle School look in that stair tower tonight it looks really nice yeah all the ceiling all the corridor ceilings over at Main Street Middle School all the bent tobacco stained ceiling valves those are all that that's all been redone and with new lighting in there yeah so it's been an ongoing thing thanks it's just me but that'll help me is I know it's too early but maybe just really really rough numbers to understand what hey this is really a big ticket item that's gonna replace you know that's gonna take like six items here because they are you know 20,000 30,000 other and this is a you know 600,000 and and maybe again as I said it's too early but having that number early on may at least help me to kind of put that into perspective okay well you know this is this is really big together and these five are not not small but they they are kind of equivalent to that and that can you know if I'm having conversations with other people and trying to get their feedback that will help me put into perspective at least during the conversation that look you know we have this and that and I think if we as we get there and we will have to get there we will we will be better to serve to refer to them not as cost estimates but relative cost estimates such that we can say the little gym at Main Street or at Union is $200,000 the cafeteria at middle school you know they're they're not going to be right but they'll be where they're wrong they'll be wrong together so at least we know that this one's more expensive than this one and we really and quite honestly with construction as it is we won't know until until we get the bids on our day on our desk in terms of time frame if we're not talking about federal dollars Andrew really likes to go out to bid for things in January because then that gets the process going and we're ready for summer because if you think about the building months of a school district it's summer and summer alone you don't want construction people coming through a school building where there's children here right so so really we have a limited building window a limited construction window so Andrew goes out in January to you know feel that that process so definitely as we hit the ball in the winter with lots of budget conversations and probably within there it will want to make some decisions about you know what's 2022 summer project and the timing of design and consideration you know there's some spaces and you know talk about lighting the good thing about is technology lighting and you know we can think of the yellow fluorescent horrible lighting that we all grew up with we now can go into LED and it's not that big of a change to do some LED where you can change the tone of the lighting so that if you're having in the little gym you're having a basketball game you can have a nice and bright but if you're having a smaller quieter group that's doing something quite you can do a softer light you know that technology is very accessible now so but it's the you know some of these things if we say yeah it's just got to be done the little gym is terrible we got to get it done let's do it that's relatively easy we can put that bid package together relatively quickly you know get some input from folks get some you know talk amongst ourselves that you know the administrators and the PE teachers and anybody special educators how are we going to use the space what are we going to do we can get that out something like the track that could potentially take you a year to get all the feedback of what we want to do what we need and then the permitting and soil samples and all that kind of stuff so some of these projects can happen very quickly some of them you know are going to take a long time some of them are risky or two as we were talking about absolutely absolutely like the price like we saw with the US playground compared to like a little gym work in this building in Rocksbury you can pretty much know what you're going to have when you start opening up a wall Main Street and Union yeah I have that I don't know how to answer this question but I think another factor as you are making decisions is what are the equity considerations and I know you know at one level there's the the how to the 21st century education space and and the neurodiversity you know not accommodations but design design for neurodiversity but I also wonder about when it comes to prioritization of projects that's where I think about like how does equity factor in I don't know how to answer that question and and so maybe one thing I will do is just keep thinking on that a little bit more and just ask all of us too because what one one way to think about it and I think you have a little bit in that what you are working to address are the needs that need to happen and not just like okay well every school is going to get a fresh coat of paint because that would be you know not like oh now everybody's getting the same thing but you're looking at what are the needs at each individual school so you're already starting down that path but I wonder what's the next way that we bring it in and I think community engagement is is one way but again I don't know I don't know exactly how we can try and factor equity in to the prioritization process yes what is really an office suite right now yeah and the multi-professor no the transition space here oh yeah at the high school thank you yeah that for me is a high priority yeah to help service our students in a much better way so okay from my perspective we that is a priority most definitely it may need selling however I I just for me so the these these conversations around the infrastructure which I don't actually feel so much to like the community engagement and that you want this but these are like building structures that are very tight of equity and which are very a student sector and and so for me is having in order to prioritize it's just like having those two windows to to the system itself so one is like the concerns that we heard and rock the concerns that we heard in the last 90 meetings the concern that we heard this morning and how that is like how we're looking at a big picture and if there are other parts of money so like having that being able to see that plan like here some of the concerns that we're hearing from the community here's how we're addressing them here's how we're putting money into that and then like here's that so I think for me it's hard in my brain to kind of see the pocket by itself without seeing the system in place when it comes to prioritization do I prioritize this that you know that is like students are suffering or the windows that also you know like so just being able to see this whole system really helpful I just I just wanted to follow up with because with what Mia was saying before about gathering community input some of our best organized community members aren't necessarily advocating for the most equitable outcomes like I've heard I've received a lot with regard to facilities I've received exponentially more emails phone calls comments from community members friends neighbors related to like one specific sport that I have that I forget what you're calling it Libby the the space to help our high school students transition transitional space I'm not certain I've ever received community input that we really need that but that doesn't mean that we don't you know what I mean that doesn't just because those aren't the those aren't the dominant voices that are like showing up in my inbox year after year on this board doesn't mean that like we shouldn't put a certain weight on those needs so that I don't know exactly how to thread that needle but I just wanted to bring that up for the board's consideration as well if we were to add another funding source in the form of a bond for something like the track we talked a little bit about I think it would be it would be realistic and I'll throw my I know school this is my thought this is not and I'm not on a school board and I've worked with plenty of them there's some school boards that say let's put something out in November so if it fails we can make adjustments and put it back out in March a town meeting that and and again I don't think a lot of school boards don't like to have things that might fail they kind of like to know that they've got to support the things best but to some degree I'm something like the track maybe that is it no certainly you would I don't think you'd be in a position before next November to be able to put something out in front of the public that was well thought out well researched and well cost estimated a year a year I would think I would think I would think so I just I just engineers are straight out I mean there's there's that too I mean you're just you're that's a big project and it would take some time to meet with the different groups and find out what we want you know and when you meet once every two weeks you know what kind of track surface do we want well that could take you two months to figure out what where are we gonna what kind of mats are we gonna use where are we gonna put them how are we gonna storm you know all that kind of stuff what do we want for concession stands well who's gonna run them well the parent booster group okay well we ought to improve them and all that stuff just takes so much time but I think just it'll take you a couple months just to see what would fit out there let alone what it's gonna look like and how you're gonna make it and that would be a similar timeline if we were to use some of these other funding sources I think the track is definitely the piece that's gonna take you the most time and again some of these projects we know what needs to be we know what needs to be done at the little gym there's absolutely a layer of input that would make it so much even better but that that we can that's more from Max and Emmanuel then exactly so I do want to be somewhat kind of time or 830 which is technically the end of the meeting so one more item one thing I think would be great and I know we've talked about this before is to make sure that we get the board out walking around the facilities and looking at some of these projects because that I think can really be informative in terms of I mean it's one thing to see a picture of the MSMS cafeteria and kitchen it's another thing to spend some time on the people's priorities yeah especially during the school day oh though yeah we not using the cafeteria this year yeah so I suggest we we get a tour of totally this fall and they would work with and unless any final questions or comments I guess I'm a little more clarity on whether or not we're ready to like take this out to community members and I guess it feels a little bit time with the essence because Jerry and I are having to circle up with Roxbury Community on Sunday and just like how we want to frame this you know to them just so it feels accurate I know there's some things that are still like a little bit amorphous in terms of funding and timelines and things like that so how would we like best frame this if we were to ask for some community input up this point in time that's a tricky question because it goes to what Andrew was saying is that people's perspectives are relatively narrow to their own experience which is not a fault you know of anybody's just how we view the world right so I think I think simply asking people around hopes and dreams for buildings you know for what our buildings and our learning spaces look like there are and in that and hopes and dreams for systems of learning hopes and dreams versus emotional learning you know like I think if you can frame it in those high end ways that might help you as you come and say this is what I heard you know I would also note just to be careful like what Andrew brought up about the budget the item the line item in grants one slide on extra funding like I I feel like that should be clearly explained but that's not all going to go for you know the plant we can't legally use it all for interest of our stuff and so to show it as that full one item is a little bit moving yeah and I would add that you know like the AOE also has like those buckets of what they envisioned that you know we could ask those questions here's some of these buckets like social machine learning truancy like how do you envision that like what does that look like what are the needs what are your experiences because one thing is dreams but also like the the community of the people on the ground that are experiencing the things that we might not be able to see because like how does that you know tie in with dreams because I think needs is really important to and they only has a really great little guidance about the little buckets that they're thinking about so I also add just one thing I should scare you I thought it was too bad not helpful if we had some kind of input from the staff just one data point to see what how they would rank it in terms of prioritization and pain points I think that would help when discussing with the larger community to be able to say this is these are the things the staff ranked highest in terms of what they're seeing and focus that of course on learning I mean I would always be learning is the highest priority but but then like like you said Libby having gotten to a very cold school myself I didn't I wasn't able to focus when I was freezing to death so so the windows are important we did that from SMS we pulled all the yeah and recognize when when you pull staff members you're they also have a narrow perspective of their own building right MHS will not tell you that a track and transition space are their priorities for this building I can I can guarantee that you know they'll they'll tell you we need more individual office space and individual learning spaces for kids you know that we need more flexible pathways offices I mean like those are the things that they'll tell you here storage what are they thinking because they are in the classroom they are like feeling the cold so you know like I think that it is important to see their perspective even if it doesn't agree with what it's like in the 20,000-foot level but it's just like it gives us it makes us think of informed decisions which is what I aim to make informed decisions. Excellent thank you this will definitely be a discussion that we will continue to have. Thank you very much. Yes and again let's that's make sure we get some some tours on because I think those will change many of our also somewhat narrow perspectives on what these things are. Thanks guys. Drive safe Grant. So we have two policy monitoring reports total one part a parental involvement and then that's of 12 and then a 01 board member conflict of interest let's do the first one do have a motion to approve the F-12 policy. Thank you. Do I have a second? Any discussion? I have one question. On the policy under school level so not district level but school level parental involvement it includes there's a process for continually involving parents in the development and implementation of the compact itself so I'm curious what that might look like. That's actually out of date language it's not a requirement anymore. Okay. So the compact itself is out of we don't need it in terms of ESSER when ESSER which is the new educational law newer newest I should say so the law but not the funding right oh yeah that's very confusing okay but I'm with you now that no longer is part of that so that's old language I think I say something in the bottom do I say something in the policy monitoring about that I believe I do yeah yeah that is not oh yes okay so that's an old you know compact that was that was built and I can tell you a process that we used in other districts and stuff but that's just what we had so is there some level of parental involvement in designing anything at the school level anymore for a compact I specifically no because she's the same one every year okay got it we haven't done any parental element in that part for a long time okay thanks all's in favor I any opposed great and then motion on a01 board member conflict of interest that emotion to prove the board of conflict of interest also second from Emma any discussion all is in favor hi any opposed great but pass motion to adjourn second second all is in favor hi any opposed have a good night thanks all