 Thank you folks. So let's open the board meeting at, do we have to do like a attendance roll or anything since we're remote? Yeah. All right. So opening the board meeting at 6.33 p.m. on April 1st. Welcome everyone, this is Jim Murphy, board chair and let's just go around and the only people that have to announce their presences are the board members. You want to call them out, Jim, so they don't all talk over each other? Yeah, Jerry Huck, president, not president, I'm you. I saw you. Can't hear you Jerry. Okay, let's go back to Jerry, Ryan's good job. Ryan was having a problem with his audio earlier, so he's calling in right now. Okay, Andrew Stein, there, Mariah Wilson. Here. I see Ryan now. Do you have audio or no? All right, why don't you give a thumbs up, Bridget A.C.? Yep, here. All right, Aniket, here, Jill. Here. Did I miss anyone? Ryan's there, but on mute. But he's trying to call in. So first item of business, public comments and do we have members of the public on? Anna's going to help us with that. So Anna, can you kind of guide this part? Sure, I don't see many members of the public in the participant's list, but are there any members I'd suggest they on mute themselves? Yeah, if you want to speak up, just do you have a joint chat function? I'm going to be waiting for people to queue up, but it seems like not an issue. We do have a chat function and there's no activity in it. Okay, so let's move on to consent agenda. Consent agenda, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I think you have definitely announced yourself when you unname when you make the motion. So who does who's talking? This is Jerry Huck. I move to accept the consent agenda. And do I have a second? This is Jill Remek, I second. Okay, all those in favor, do we have to do a roll call or? Roll call, yeah. Oh, yeah. Ryan? In favor. Aye. Bridget? Jill? Aye. Jerry? Aye. Did I miss anyone? I don't think so. And since that was everybody no days, on to board discussion COVID-19. Libby, you wanna take it away? Yeah, so you have in your packet the testimony that I gave last Friday at the legislature. I'm gonna run through some highlights on what's changed since March 27th because you know, changes a lot right now. I would encourage the board to jump in when you have any questions. So it can be a true discussion. I will just say as leadership team, meaning we've been using the chat feature and kind of stopping and using the chat and then answering questions there. And I have that up so people wanna do that. Or if you just wanna kind of raise your hand. But I can't see everybody right now. So I think the chat, if you wanna chat in then let us know. So just the absolute highlights. I think the network of superintendents and the Vermont superintendents association led by Jeff Francis and assisted by Chelsea Myers and Chrissy Tate have been absolutely marvelous together. And that should just be publicly stated that the Vermont superintendents association has worked tirelessly for the kids and educators across Vermont. I'm gonna just like to celebrate that. I also like to celebrate our faculty. I've said it before in board meetings to our board and I will say it again that our faculty has been absolutely amazing. And I think we have a great platform to launch off of when we get back to whatever normalcy is going to be in the future. And I'm just so proud of the work that all of our faculty has put forth. And we also just so you don't have every administrator on the line here. So if people have specific questions around different parts of this plan then by all means our administrators will speak up to it as well. In regards to learning, we're moving into the continuity of learning plan. I will say this over and over again that school going forward through the end of the year will in no way replace or be like school in a right as typically happens. In-person instruction can not be replaced by remote learning. And so we need to have that expectation going forward. Our leadership team along with teacher leaders from our teachers union and teachers from the field and our coaches have been working on a plan for continuity of learning. We haven't gotten to the final piece yet but we're working on it. We have task force out working on pieces of it. We have a lot of it put together already. We are not expecting students nor are we wanting students to be in front of a computer for six and a half hours a day to make up a full school day. It's not the expectation going forward and we're working really hard to think what is the best reality for not only our families but also our teachers to maintain and do well. We're having a lot of really good hard conversations about that right now. We're also talking to districts across the state to see what other people are doing. So we're not reinventing the wheel by ourselves that we are all in this together. It will look different across the different grade levels. So our K to four will look much different than our seven to, or I'm sorry, our five to eight and that will look different than our nine to 12 and it almost has to be there. They're very different species, those grade levels. So we need to be thinking about that. Some of the things that are our priority is our children's relationships with us and with their families as well as their mental health has to be the first priority. We want to ensure that kids or ensure the best we can be encouraged kids to be outside and playing with socially isolating behaviors, of course, but it's so important to not lose these pieces of just physical and mental health. And so we want our teachers to be encouraging kids to do that. I'm worried a lot about our younger kids because so much of their learning is social and play-based and we can't replicate that in the environment that we're in right now. So I'm concerned about that piece. But knowing, but saying I'm concerned about it and also knowing that we have to keep this situation in perspective and that this is a blip in our lives in the long-term timeline of our lives and that we will get through this and it's not gonna be horrendous for the rest of our lives for the most part. So we need to really put it in perspective as well. So I have a question from, so I'll end it there with learning. Oh, the other thing I wanted to talk about learning, we're talking a lot right now about two very big pieces that influence equity because we want to try to create a process that is as equitable as possible. And there's a long progression about what equity means. And we're taking all of that into consideration. The two pieces that we have been asked to really attune to are like a grading piece and an attendance piece. And those are two pieces that our leadership team are grappling with right now about what that looks like. And the A, we actually making a broad understanding of what attendance is. And we have to define how that looks and we also have to define how kids are showing their learning. They're calling it grading, I'm calling it feedback. So we have to have an understanding of what that means. After the initial maintenance of learning period is over April 13th, we will be moving into constantly learning and there is an expectation that kids will be taking part in this. And we have heard rumor that some of our older kids are thinking that they don't have to take part in this, that it's an option. And after April 13th, that is no longer the case. So we'll be looking at how do we truly re-engage kids between now and then. So that's a big concern of us. So Bridget has a question here. Thank you for the call out for the VSA. What kind of guidance and support is the agency of education providing? Are there needs the AOE could be meeting that boards and VSBA should be asking for? The AOE like the rest of us is doing the best they can with what their resources are. I think that we are all working under a very pressurized system and tensions are a little high. And we're working hard. We just had with the continuity of learning plan, there was some back and forth between the superintendents and the secretary and deputy secretary and another AOE official. And that back and forth proved to be really good in the end and came out with a really good expectation and plan for what the continuity of learning plan could be and should be. And so that was a really, it was a nice effort at collaboration and I hope to see more of that collaborative effort going forward from here on out. The AOE has a lot of things that they're balancing right now and trying to keep up with the field and the constantly shifting environment is proven difficult for all of us. So that's where I would land that. And all of us in different, our different roles, whether we're a director curriculum or we're special editors or superintendents are meeting with the various aspects of the AOE and hoping that they are talking to each other like our district employees are talking to each other. So Jill is asking, can you talk a bit more about attendance? I'm wondering about the at-risk students, are they being accounted each for each day? This is like, we're really, we're talking a lot about how we define this and we've gotten some leeway. So one of the things that we know about attendance is that the attendance cannot be waived easily by the AOE because it's written in education law at the state level. And so it would have to be in order to change the attendance requirement, which personally I feel is the biggest equity issue in this for us anyway. We don't have some of the other struggles that other districts do, but attendance is a huge equity issue and the legislature would have to waive that attendance law in order for it to be different. And thus far they haven't done that. It's my understanding that the BSA was going to talk to them about that. I'm not sure if that's happened or not. We're trying to define it very broadly. So we're still working that out right now, but we're trying to define that for us and what works best for kids and families and teachers and what's doable. It's going to look different than it does in the normal school day. It's not going to be the same and the expectations are going to be the same, but there is the expectation that kids will be attending to the learning opportunities that are given to them by school employees. Should we be starting a conversation about continuing learning over the summer, particularly with students with greater needs? We as superintendents have thrown that ball around a little bit and that is an unknown at the moment, but it is certainly a conversation that is on our plates. It could be something that we might want to think about. It would involve more financial resources because it's not currently written into, we don't do summer school right now at MRPS in this way. So we'd have to really think and plan about what that would look like. Jim asked, is thought being given to resources or materials to allow parents to give students educational experiences outside? So Jim, do you mean from the technology world or more of like packets and worksheets? I was thinking like packet and worksheets. I mean, you're kind of like take your kid to North Branch and rocks they could identify or kind of like looking for frogs or whatever. I mean, just like interactive opportunities and giving some parents guidance about how to do that in a way that's gonna be learning as well as interacting. Yeah, that's where our educators heads are. We have to set some really clear guidelines. What we've been talking about is really limiting in those priority standards for the end of the year. So it's like one, maybe two for a really core content and then really speaking to transferable skills more than content skills. So there's like this happy balance between the two and when you're thinking about transferable skills, you're really thinking about what are the passion projects kids are doing or could be doing and opening that up more where the team who's working on this right now has that idea in their head is just how do we word it and how do we make those guidelines? That's kind of where we are. But we very much know that this is not gonna be school as usual and we're gonna do some kind of prioritize standards, proficiencies towards very little. And then we're gonna open it up to say what's the rest of the kids day? What could that look like? That is very much oriented to student independent work in terms of passion projects, building, designing, going out and starting a new hobby and talking about how that's going for you. You know that those kind of things that are more of just life skill pieces. So we're talking about how do we balance those two and maybe put more weight on one than the other but how do we make that clear to everybody? So we're in that place of just defining it right now. Andrew, if spring co-curriculars are already budgeted for those resources, both the money and those positions potentially be used for summer programming to provide additional educational opportunities over the summer, I realize there's too much uncertainty right now to answer that question. There's a lot of uncertainty right now around that piece. And there's also pieces like you have to, if you do summer, if you offer summer opportunities then you have to staff it, right? And so that's not contractual by any means. So that's just not a conversation I've had with the union yet, nor have I had with any teachers nor have I had with our cleaning schedules or principles. So there's just a lot of unknowns there. It's definitely on the burner far away but we're just not there yet in terms of making decisions about that. Yes, it would mean additional teacher salaries. If we were doing that, we'd be paying teachers per diem for the work. So we'll have to pay attention to the fiscal year. By summer and using this year's money we're talking has to be by June 30th, just to clarify. Yeah, so you'd be moving into next year's budget. Yes, it just feels like there's an urgency there for students that, if students were already not at grade level and they're losing this time and losing the summer as well. It just feels like a long time to go without. More traditional instruction. Yeah, I'm not ruling it out. I'm just saying we haven't gotten to the point of, we're not, we're still, while the quicksand is thickening for us so we're finding a little bit more solid ground it's still there and we're still trying to answer the immediate questions around what's the continuity of learning plan looking like. Just to clarify too, I just wanted to float the idea the other would be additional, potentially be additional teacher salaries way too much uncertainty to decide anything on this now. But if some things get canceled, well, we know a lot of things have been canceled for this spring already. And if we were able to potentially use some of those resources, if things clear up from a public health standpoint heading into the summer, if we would be able to use those resources to potentially provide some additional opportunities. That was just the general question to think about. Yep. So the learning to sum up the learning piece of where we are right now, we're working at it. We have teachers involved, we have the principals involved and right now we're coming up with the language and the wording for how we're gonna guide our families and teachers going forward around what the expectations are. I can also say just from feedback we have some parents who are telling us enough, stop, we don't have the capacity right now and then we have other teachers saying give us more or we have other parents saying give us more work, give us more work, it's not enough. So we're clearly in a space right now that we're gonna do the best we can. It's not gonna be perfect for everybody. But we're in that place where there's a whole line again and people are falling anywhere on that line around expectations for their kids and work. So that's where we are there with learning. Food service. So, and Jim, jump in here, please. If you, I saw you're on the line. So jump in if you can. So we believe we have the capacity right now with our relatively fragile system to feed 100 or to make 150 meals. When I gave this presentation to the legislature on Friday we were around 100, we were just lower than 100. I believe the principals told me today that we were about 120 in terms of meals. So that is picking up significantly. We also had some supply issues this time around but our supply not coming through as ordered. Jim's not worried about that yet but Jim is a very big optimist too. So I'll worry for him around that. Our drop off locations are seeming to go well. Our principals are incredibly busy right now and they're the ones who are in doing the food service during the day. So we started talking today about how can we relieve that pressure a little bit but also keep our buildings and our staff who are working safe by not inviting tons of people in. So we're playing around with some different ideas there. Jim, do you wanna chime in on how food service is going from your perspective? Yes, it's definitely been a bit of a challenge. It's been a lot of work but it's going well. The numbers have gone up. Like you said, I think we got to about 125 meals, meal bags, which we serve today which each one has a breakfast and a lunch. So in reality, they're 250 meals. Let's see. So we heard from the nutrition folks at the AOE that we have received a waiver so that we're able to claim all of the meals that we're serving through the summer school food program. So that's helpful. So that's good to know that we're able to get reimbursed for all of these meals. The thing about supply is definitely a concern. The food directors association is working on procuring some more sort of ready to eat foods that we can have sort of scrolled away in case the shortages continue. We also have been able to get a waiver from the AOE on the summer school food meal pattern so that if there are problems with supply, we can get a waiver on the meal pattern so that we can do what we need to do. Let's see. Reaching out to other sites in town really seemed to make a difference in terms of the number of people that we were reaching. That was I think the thing that really boosted our meals was getting out to the center of town, getting closer to the people has been a real success I think for our program. And yeah, I guess just little by little we're doing it and we'll see how it grows over time. Right now we're like right up against what I feel like is our sort of top capacity of around 150. We're gonna make 144 meals tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. But I think that the way we're setting it up and that we're getting better at it shouldn't be unreasonable. So that's where I'm at I think. So two things is Jim's finishing up there. So that's Jim Birmingham who's our food service manager. So I didn't introduce him first, I just called him Jim. Jim has been, I'm gonna embarrass him a little bit, amazingly fabulous in this process. He is the reason why we are able to make this work. Our principals and center of staff are helping, but we are his sous chefs and he's the master in the kitchen. So we most definitely would not be able to do this without Jim. So I applaud you Jim Birmingham. I hope that's been clear to you, but you've been amazing through this whole thing has not complained once and just does his job. He's awesome. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Yeah. And Jim Murphy says that I just heard from some that some members of the public are getting a message that the host has another meeting in progress and they're not able to get in. So I'm sorry about that, Anna. I'm wondering if you could help with that from the wings. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but that's. Yeah. She says she's looking into it. So if anybody can fix it, Anna can. Okay, so that's food service. Libby, can I chime in here? This is Anna. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that you had mentioned on one of the concerns that you had posted was the staff or one of the team members getting sick. Is there any thought given to the mitigation process for that concern? And again, thanks Jim and his team for doing a fantastic job. I appreciate it. Yeah. When you say mitigation, Anna, do you mean the cleaning of the facility or do you mean the delivery and making it a food? I guess one of the concerns that I had read was, we had no contingency for if, I'm sorry to say this, but if Jim or one of his team members gets sick or the delivery people, what do we do in that case? I can speak to that, that we have considered that. And I think that that's part of the rationale for me taking the load as much as I have on my own is to be able to leave some of my other staff members in reserve to be able to come and fill the need if we need to. And we even have a couple of other people lined up from outside of the organization who could step in if we really needed to. So we have a system set up that would be easy to transfer and we definitely have some idea of how we would transfer those responsibilities if I was unable to continue for ever reason. Thanks. Yeah, I do. We did talk briefly today at our leadership team meeting about how do we spell our admin who are incredibly busy right now as well with just keeping their teachers afloat. And so that's something that we're starting to think about in terms of helping Jim out on the kitchen and how do we do that safely? So that's on our minds right now as well. Okay, any other food service type questions? All right, childcare for essential workers. The directive five from the governor, the most recent one that addresses this piece. So if you're looking it up, it's the Governor Scott's directive five continuation of learning, it's the actual title of it. He further clarified who qualifies for essential workers. So now it's parents who are both essential workers or the child is unsafe in their home qualify. And when he says essential workers, he's talking about frontline workers, people who are working on the front lines of the COVID epidemic, which still has some subjectivity to it, which puts me in a hard place as a superintendent having to judge who's on the frontline and who's not. Currently we are pretty much at capacity with what we've set up. So we have paid some people to go into the homes to serve as a babysitter for about five or six families. That's working out well right now. Should we have more need that qualifies under directive five? We definitely are at capacity and I'm not sure how we would handle that. We do have some volunteers from the community. We have one family who's already kind of adopted a kid. And thankfully, I heard from the parents last week and said it was working out well. So I hope it still is. I haven't checked in lately. I should probably do that tomorrow. And I believe we have a couple more volunteers waiting in the wings. Should we need it? Bottom line is parents understandably do not want their kids leaving their house. And so the babysitting aspect does work for them. We just don't have a lot of people who are in the space to volunteer to do that. And they're not volunteers, they're being paid to do that, but even with the payment it's hard to find people who are willing. And that's understandable as well. I don't say that with any judgment behind it. So the childcare ask was by far the biggest ask of schools and has been the most difficult for districts and superintendents to manage only a handful of districts across the state opened up a school site. Berlin did and our neighboring district in Berry did. Both superintendents are considering closing those sites right now because the attendance is so low and the need for staff is so high. The CDC put out guidelines as to how if you were running a center, how that needed to be run that are nearly impossible if you've ever met a child. So schools didn't even think to really open. If they thought about it they quickly closed that with Burlington that set up a program very much like ours. And but some people are not willing to take the risk to do a program like ours. So Andrew asks what is the demand in terms of total number of students for childcare at MRPS? It's hard to answer that because probably about 15 to 20 families filled out the Let's Grow Kids Survey which is the statewide survey that I get results from every day. When I call those families some of them had already figured out childcare. Some of them realized that our capacity issues were pretty tight and said I'll figure this out in a different way. Currently we're servicing six families who are in need and it's working out pretty well. Do you know if childcare providers without healthcare are covered by any of the recent federal actions if they get sick providing care? I'm not positive on that. I did bring that personally to the House Education Committee last Friday. So I'm not positive there's actions that have been taken around that. However, I believe talking to our partners at Turtle Island Mickey Sunny who I've been in close contact with and working closely on this. She believes that they were going she felt that they were going to get that. Turtle Island was gonna open up a center. I'm not sure if they are anymore. I think because they were hearing from families also that they would rather have people in the homes in their own homes and so I'm not sure where they are at that moment, at that moment they're gonna open up or not. Orchard Valley is another provider and Montpelier who was opening up just four kids of families from Orchard Valley and I'm actually not sure where they have been. I haven't spoken to them in a while. So childcare for right now has been taken care of. The system is incredibly precarious and fragile and could break down overnight. But I will if parents need it, if they're on the front line and there's no safe place for their kid to go then we'll I'll figure it out for them. But that's kind of where we are right now. It's just the determination of me figuring it out. We'll find something to work on. I'll call Jill Renek because she's one of our volunteers who's willing to talk to a child. So that's what you have to tell Jill. Still true. Okay, good. So that's where we are with childcare for the moment. Do we have any questions on childcare? And so the other just stretchers, stressors. I know Andrew's got this stresses as well and Grant's been speaking to it. Also we have the scenes, the future, budget projections and economic fallout are just starting to be predicted. There's a whole lot of unknown happening with economic fallout from this pandemic. There will be some. So we're kind of guessing right now what that's going to be. Grant has a pretty good sense for the next two years. Grant, would you like to speak to that please? Sure. We're kind of in a weird place because we know the economy is really gonna get wrecked but we already have a budget this year. And if anything, our expenses probably will be coming in level. So the only problem we would have is on the revenue side. For example, we won't have as much revenue for food service probably. But I think if I'm looking at it right now, FY20 I'm not really concerned with unless something really strange happens in the coming weeks. Like we're told that certain special ed costs are not eligible and we reduce, we get a reduced special ed revenue line. Or if the state determines that we should all be seeing lower expenses so they reduce our last ed funding or ed spending grant amount which comes in at the end of April. Or I think cash flow wise a concern could be if the municipalities have a problem with collecting revenues because their last tax revenue collection is in May for both Montpelier and Roxbury. So if they have a problem collecting tax revenues and sending it to us, I think eventually we'll get that but it's more of a cash flow kind of concern. And if it doesn't happen by June 30th it could be just a little bit of a nightmare. But for FY20 right now I'm not pushing a panic button. FY21 kind of similarly, we have an approved budget and it's been a voter approved budget. And so we know what our expenses can be based on the budget and our revenues should match what our expenses are. The challenge is that because the economy is facing such a struggle the state might end up dropping the dollar yield which would mean tax rates go up significantly. So we could have an issue where the voters approved a budget with an estimated tax rate which was our best guess at the time. And based on this whole situation that's happening that tax rate estimate could be dramatically wrong. I mean, it could be higher. Now that being said, that's not great for taxpayers and we could end up with some people that are not very happy. But our FY21 revenue and expense budget is set. So I'm not really concerned about just financially managing FY21. To me, the biggest concern is FY22 and building a budget in the fall. Because if we have high tax rates we could have the public that's not very happy with tax rates. We may not have a community that's as open and giving as they have historically been. And we may have to make some tough decisions when we build the FY22 budget. But there's a lot that could change but that's just my perspective for now. Hey, Grant, this is Jim. I've just read in kind of my glance of the cascading kind of catastrophe of news over the last few weeks that as a result of this healthcare costs could potentially spike pretty significantly in the next couple of years. Is that a consideration or a factor that we're giving thought to at all? Once again, it is but not an immediate one because our health rates have been set our premium rates have been set through FY21. I think what could happen is because of high health expenses we can see health rates go up dramatically for FY22. So it all to me is kind of pushing this bow wave of concerns to 22. The problem with taxpayers being able to afford and healthcare costs potentially going up dramatically. So there's a lot of concerns they're just not immediate concerns yet as far as anything I've heard. And Jill mentioned something in the chat about funding in the stimulus bill. That's a great question. Right now I'm not sure what that's gonna be. We're being told that we can track specific expenses that are related to COVID-19 and perhaps get reimbursed for those. To be honest, we're not seeing a lot of that. Some of the childcare expenses like Libby mentioned but a lot of our expenses are just routine expenses keeping people paid that we would have had regardless of COVID-19. The thing that we're gonna have is potentially childcare expenses and loss of revenue for food service which could mean a higher deficit to cover. So I'm not sure whether that stimulus money is gonna help us dramatically locally but my hope is that it might help the state so that they are in a better position from a statewide ed fund perspective. I think that's exactly right, Grant. All right, any other, any other money comments or questions to go to Grant? So I just wanna say I have a fear as a school board member that the legislature is going to be in a really, really difficult situation with all of this and that they can make some decisions without communicating with us in the school board association and the superintendent's association because they have to make a lot of really difficult decisions really quickly that could have a major impact on our schools finances and communities finances as they pertain to schools. And that's like the big X factor when I'm looking at all of this. It's like, yeah, you know, things could get pushed off until FY 22 unless the state is in a really difficult position and the ed funds in a really difficult position which we know that's gonna be the case for all of these things. And what might they try to do? And I don't know, Libby, maybe you could speak to this, Grant, maybe you could speak to this. I don't know the extent to which these different associations are engaging the legislature on these issues right now. I can tell you that the VSA and the VSVA are very closely engaging the legislature on a number of things. However, there are so many unknowns right now because everybody's just reacting to the crisis in the moment that these are all predictions in a vast unknown territory. Because right now the legislature is talking about passing like a three month budget for next fiscal year and then being in session in the fall. So this, you know, they're clearly, what I'm hearing from over there is they're prepared to do anything and everything to adjust for this. And so we might end up being just fine, especially if we get federal dollars. But that's the big, I feel like that's the big X factor if they adjust the laws while we're in the middle of a fiscal year or something of that nature. Tomorrow at two, from two to four, the two committees, House Ways and Means and House Education are having a joint hearing. And it looks like I just checked their testimony list and it does look like the VSVA is on there plus a few school districts. So I think, I think, yeah, I think they are starting to have that conversation and inviting the right people to the table. Cause I do think Grant hit the nail on the head. I think what they're gonna try to do based on the conversations I had today because I'm the property tax director. So that means that I had to talk a lot about people who are in municipalities who are struggling to figure out how they're gonna pay their portion of the Ed fund if people aren't paying their property tax bill. So I've been following it a little bit closer than normal. But my sense from that brief amount of time I was listening in today is that if there is, depending on how they can use that revenue and I haven't opened up the link you just sent, Andrew, is that they would try to use it to try to cushion the blow to the statewide Ed fund and try to keep the tax rates and the yield reasonable. I'm not sure if it also includes a piece that would go to each individual school or district or not, but yeah, I think that's definitely one of the main goals of the legislature is to try to fill the whole Ed fund so that it keeps tax rates stabilized. It is invited to those testimonies too. I think probably Brad James, I traded some emails with Brad James today to give him kind of my perspective on the concerns that I'm seeing for this year, next year and the following year. So I passed my concerns on and said, the big thing is if the AOE decides to play hard ball and say that some of our special ed costs are not allowable and they reduce our revenues, that's gonna cause a huge problem. If, as Andrew said, the state decides to do something funky like have a claw back like they did a few years ago with health plan changes, like, oh, you're gonna have lower expenses so you can deal with less money and they pulled some money back, that could be a problem. But I'll be very anxious to see what they have to say but as of right now, I'm just, I'm refusing to panic right now. Definitely don't panic. Yeah, here you go. And you know, I think the legislators and the governor, I mean, everyone understands that if you give schools less revenue, the only way to deal with that is to lay off people which is not what anyone wants to have happened and that just shifts costs to the unemployment fund. I mean, I think everyone understands that that's not the answer to an economic or a public health crisis. So I'm gonna try not to panic too. Yeah, and I also hope there's an understanding that as we come out of the recovery, Vermont's gonna want to be in a strong position and strong schools are part of the strong fabric of society and being in a position for a strong recovery. So, well, I think we should expect that there might be some sub-tightening, hopefully it won't be dramatic or a little thought out. Yeah, okay. Other stressors just, I continually work on and worry about and have my mind toward our teacher and staff morale. They've had a lot of demands placed on them and I'm working very closely with our teachers union in order to provide clarity to our staff. I'm meeting with them tomorrow morning. And so that's something that's constantly on my mind are our teachers and staff, as well as our administrators who are here with us tonight are all truly amazing human beings and I'm so proud and privileged to be a part of their group. So they've done fantastically so far. I just wanna keep them going because as I've been saying, the initial adrenaline rush of this is fading. And so now we really need to move into very purposeful planning to create a plan that is doable for everybody or at least most of us. So that's kind of where we are right now. I have no idea because I'm not a public health expert as to what the scope of this is going to be in terms of how many people in our communities are gonna get sick and what's our plan be then. So if a teacher gets sick or has a family member get sick then you can't exactly just get a substitute to do this work. It's too different. So how do we pick each other up? Like how do colleagues pick each other up and that's a big and different ask. So there's some things, sorry, my family's in the background. There's some things that we don't have an answer for just yet. And I also wonder what the plan be is from our state government. We are not the only people who are saying that our food service and our childcare service is precarious. And so I wonder from our state government, what is the plan be when schools can no longer do this? And we haven't heard an answer about that just yet. And what's their plan C, quite honestly after that. And then as always, I'm always concerned with providing services to kids with special needs or English language learners, making sure that mental health challenges are taken care of, I've said that to the board before. So we're working on working out systems with parents collaboratively for those types of learners. So that's where that was my presentation of legislature. Some things have changed, some things haven't changed, but right now our priority as a district is really naming what that continuation of learning is gonna look like. It's not gonna be perfect the first go around and we know that and it's gonna be an iterative process and we will continue to look at feedback from our families and our students and our teachers to see how we need to revise as we go moving forward. So I'm happy or my principals and administrators here are happy to take any questions. We also have Andrew Garosa here. I saw if you have any buildings and grounds questions, I'm sure he'd be happy to answer some too. Libby Staff morale, do you have any other suggestions on how board members, community members can help? I'm sending positive feedback to my kiddo's teacher in principal and I know Montpelier teachers are doing a parade on Friday, they are. We want the Montpelier teachers, they are doing a parade on Friday and we want to state that we do not want any congregation of mass people to stay in your homes or stay in your yards. Please do not congregate and because there is a stay safe, stay home order and we want everybody to stay safe for that but if we can make a kid smile by driving past their house we'll also do that. And as far as help, board member and community members help Adrian Gill with the MRPS PI organization and I have been in close communication throughout this whole thing and I know Adrian and others are very eager to help and she's been an absolute asset to us in the district, me, just absolutely Adrian I appreciate that and we're keeping them in our back pocket so when our systems and board members quite honestly you're in our back pockets for when our systems can't handle it then people who really know the schools well could potentially step in but right now we think we're okay that could change very quickly and I know that there's members in our community and members on this board who would step in and heart beat to help us out and that is very heartening to know as well. So I'm happy to field any other questions and I'm sure the team is happy to field any other questions. If there is any, if not, we can move on there. Jen Murphy, I'll go ahead. Oh, I just wanted to say and I think everybody on the board feels this way. Thank you so much for everything you've done through this process. I feel like we can't reiterate that enough you and the administration and all the faculty and the custodial staff, the food workers, everybody has really risen to the occasion and I think this community already valued our schools and those who work in them and they value them more now than ever. So. Yeah, this was a team effort. This is, our team is phenomenal. Yeah, I know I want to reiterate all that as well too. It's really been a heartening thing to watch and your leadership is thrown through Libby, shown through Libby, your team leadership is thrown through. I think the dedication of our teachers has shown through. I know this is really tough and well, well out of the job description. So. Yeah, it's other duties as a sign. Yeah, we are very appreciative and I think the community is very appreciative as well. Thank you. Is there anything else for Libby before we move on or we're going to have a Roxbury-Bazebo update from Andrew? Yeah, I think so. Andrew, you ready for that? Andrew? Yeah, let me find him. Anymore. And he's connecting to audio now since. Oh, is he? Okay. You're still connecting. Keep it us hanging. Slow connections. Grant, while we're waiting for Andrew's thing to connect, do you want to start? Did you say you had stuff? I have it too, I just have to find it. Oh, wait, there's Andrew. Nope, maybe not. Like he's chatting. Andrew, I have it right here too. It's actually my task list from pre-COVID. If need be, we can probably push this to the 15th. Yeah. Andrew did get a quote. Yeah, we might have to because it's in my task list but it's not coming up. Yeah. I think this is something that they're good at for two weeks. I was going to call in. Next thing, Jim, and then when Andrew comes back, he can. Okay. So next is board work. Roxbury vision process. I know he did just want to make a quick mention of this but I'll turn it over to Libby. And Jim and I were talking that this probably isn't just based on the current events, not the best time but it's something that the board would want. We want to start thinking about just what's our vision for or what's the board's vision and the community's vision and a process for how to make that work going forward that's thoughtful and engages the community of Roxbury particularly but as of our district as well as to just what's the next steps to make that school something phenomenal. Yeah. And we're going to have a new principal there next year too. So we're thinking it would be a good time to start that discussion and have that kind of be part of the new leaders thought process. Schedule retreat and topics. I think a lot of the ideas we had a couple of weeks ago might not make sense. We might want to kind of do a deep dive into how to deal with some of the problems that we're facing and we'll probably have a much better idea in a few months. Kind of the, what this thing that we're now starting on is going to look like in terms of economic impacts impacts our community exactly. I guess the only thing I'd really like to get out of here is maybe what sort of timeframe date wise we want. I think I just got a message from Andrew that maybe August or so is that for the retreat or is that, I think you're muted. Sorry, my mouse was stuck on my other screen. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking that this is probably going to stretch into the summer and then there will be kind of like a little cooling period and we'll be at the beginning of a new fiscal year and there will probably be some realities we'll have to address then before schools come back. There will probably be some big issues that we have to consider. And I was just thinking like maybe early August might be a good time. I don't know. I know a lot of people go on vacations in August. I just wonder if June is too soon considering that schools are canceled through the end of June for now. Seems like we probably shouldn't schedule, plan on scheduling a retreat when that is still the case. That's just my thought though. June might be too soon to schedule something in person but it might be a good time for an extended board discussion because if you wait until August, you're very close to the start of the school year. Yeah. I think we'll know more in August, but I don't know how much more. I think in June we might have a good sense of whether, yeah, this is the type of thing that's going to extend further through the summer and a little more sense of where the backend of this is. I also feel if people are kind of locked down through July, that those few weeks are going to be pretty valuable for personal time, that people might not want to scam. They might want to go travel and see some of the people they haven't been able to see and do some of the things they haven't been able to do. So I'm a little hesitant to try to lock anyone down during that day, but I'm pretty sure in June, no, it's going to be going too far. Do you want to aim for late June maybe? And Libby and I can pick a couple of dates and send them around. And I think right now I should probably keep the topics pretty open-ended. That sounds good to me. Yeah. Okay, we will do that. We also have future board trainings. I mean, we originally thinking of, communications and equity. It doesn't make sense to do that at all. And those topics seem important, but something that's getting kind of overwhelmed by current events. I'm also just wondering if we're going to be able to get people's time to do that both from a presentation perspective. And yeah, I think all of us are also in some ways a lot busier with trying to work in home school. And but I don't want to, yeah, I know those trainings are important. So I just thought to get some thought or maybe that's something we can do in September or maybe even over the summer. Anything online? Like a lot of people are switching conferences to webinars or virtual sessions now. Is that a possibility? I know that I personally at my job since I do PD in equity, I am moving my things online for places that are ready to do that. Mostly what I've heard though is that folks are obviously scrambling to do a lot of other things that have taken higher priority. So I do think that a lot of people are available because we're all just really working from home. But my question personally as a person doing that work was would it be valuable to the minds into which I'm trying to put new information if those people are not going to be able to practice it for like several months or if they are frazzled and the information isn't going anywhere. So that's just stuff that I've been thinking about from the delivery end. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I'm wondering if kind of from an equity perspective, I think we might have some equity challenges coming into next year that we haven't seen in a while. In terms of, we might have people coming into grades who effectively haven't had any sort of productive learning for a third of the year or a quarter of the year. Yeah, and kind of sensitivity and dealing with issues around that. Should we maybe just table it for a couple more meetings and see how we're out. I think we're still kind of in crisis management mode. Sure. I think that makes sense. And I also think if we wanted to just do, I'm making this offer myself if we wanted to do kind of an extended self-contained session, I'm happy to lead us through something like that since that's what I do professionally. Yeah, I was just, I actually had that in mind too. And we appreciate the offer, but that might be a great way to do it and just kind of set aside a board meeting when we're ready. So we'll give it a couple of weeks and then think about how to do that. This is the next item is something Libby and I have had on for a while and at the time, it did not involve Zoom meetings. But we were thinking of finding a way to meld one of the two monthly meetings and some policy work, maybe either shortening the meeting and having policy committees meet from say 6.30 to 7 and then do like a 7 to 8.30 board meeting or keeping the board meeting length the same, but dedicating like 6 to 6.30 for policy meetings just so it's over more self-contained. And we're not, you know, people who are on committees are not looking for alternate scheduling times or scheduling locations. I just wanted to throw it out there and see if folks had any sort of reaction to it. I know that's kind of what the finance committee, yes, and I do mean all committees and not just policy, I'm just responding to a copy from Libby. I know the finance committee does kind of a version of that right now where they'll meet from, you know, 5.30 to 6.30 to 7.30 before a meeting, but thought we might want to do it kind of as a regular practice. So, Jim, I have a question. So which, I'm just thinking about which committees would lend themselves well to that. I think policy and finance probably would, negotiations probably would not lend itself very well. I mean, it doesn't hurt to touch base. It could be helpful, but negotiations, whenever that's happening, you'd still need, you know, to set aside an hour or two to meet with the other parties. And then if you have a committee like the Foreign Language Committee or the Main Street Middle School Building Committee, those meet at other times too. So what committees, would it be finance, policy, what are the other ones that might meet under that at that time? We could do like the superintendent evaluation or did you just say that? I think most of them, except for, you know, you're like the middle school committee might not, just given the nature of it, that might not have been a great fit. I mean, that and negotiations seem to be the two that are probably most difficult, but I certainly think, you know, finance, policy, superintendent evaluation would all lend themselves well to that structure. And let me just say even negotiations could use a standing meeting. So I don't think we need to decide right now, but well, we're just said members on two committees. And one way we're able to do that is just make sure that we stagger meeting so it's not an issue. Because I know that, you know, not all committees need to meet that frequently. But do people like that idea? And if they do, do they like the idea of just adding kind of a half hour set slot that people can schedule committee meetings into or do they do want to try to to shorten the second meeting of the month? Which I think everybody would love to do, but I also know that, you know, sometimes those two hours go by pretty quickly and if it was an hour and a half, that might seem stunted and, you know, we might end up going till nine frequently. Yeah, and I'm just getting some comments. So far, positive. Ryan also pointed out it would make warnings like easier and more predictable. I think it also might be a little more predictable for the public in case they did have interest in attending any of those meetings because, you know, scattered schedule is a scattered schedule. It is though, Jim, it is hard when meetings go really late at night. So I do think there's a balance there. Those meetings that go to nine are tough. Yeah, no, I agree. And some, you know, sometimes we may have things like negotiations or evaluation and executive session and the discussions go on long. We've been quite late. Well, why don't that us just been introduced? Why don't we give it some thought and we can maybe revisit it at the next meeting and see what people think? I mean, my inclination that we do it is to do six to 830, so we don't end up going till nine. And, yeah, maybe kind of be cognizant of if we are going to have an active policy meeting to try not to put, you know, something in an executive session, you know, at the end of a regular meeting so we can construct a little bit of a balance. Jim, welcome back to Andrew because he's able to talk now. Yes, please go. So we're back to the Roxbury-Bazebo update. Ooh, is he able to talk? I see a, okay, there it is. We have visuals, but no audio. Meet yourself, Andrew. Does that work? Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. All right, so I'm going to put my phone somehow through the computer. Anyway, that's all right. Okay, so I would love you to kind of dig into the costs of the gazebo down to Roxbury a little deeper. So I went and spoke with the folks at Fifth Room and this is the 20-foot seater. It just doesn't roll off the tongue, the 12-sided gazebo. They quote the price. So when we originally looked at it, some of the features and considerations of the site didn't really weren't reflected in the original quote. So what we talked about, what I talked about with them was the fact that the Roxbury-Baze site being the lowest spot in town and the desire to have this be raised up a little bit so that people could use it for not necessarily performances, but they could have put kids out there, stand out there, whatever, and sort of be elevated a little bit as well. Like I said, that's the lowest spot in town. It's very wet, so we have to pull it up. So some of the features that were included in this quote that weren't in the original was a floor, a seater deck. The original quote was just sort of dropping it on a pad, but that's not going to work down in Roxbury. We do have to elevate it because like I said, it's very wet down there, especially in the location that we're presented. So that was a bump to the original quote. We also, I also included having the factory stained as just easier to have them do it in the factory and some accommodations for if we wanted to put power out there. So that is reflected, all that work here is reflected in the quote. So I put together a little summary sheet. So the original, the actual structure itself, manufactured down in Pennsylvania, shipped up here, we'd actually have an insulation crew. Their insulation crew do it, it's their products. We should have them do it, about $37,000. So what wasn't included in the original price that was presented was a foundation and what was looked at was doing what's worth, what I looked at doing was burn screws, much more popular now than they used to do. So the old traditional summit tube where you dig a hole and pour concrete, they do now is to take galvanized steel screws and they drill them into the ground. We're gonna need, so we're gonna, the structure that's being proposed, but to do that, we're gonna need, we're gonna want an engineer to look at that because, again, the Gizevo folks are gonna say, here's our Gizevo, put it on your slab, put it on your foundation and they're not gonna have it, we do the entire. So we'll want, we're gonna need hire an engineer to kind of just look at the structure, make sure that we have the proper underpinnings for it. We can have somebody do that for around $3,500. I don't think that's gonna be a big cost. As you can imagine, it used to be very easy to get engineers and folks to come over and give you the top of their head on a project that's becoming less and less. So they probably will actually wanna run some calculations and they're gonna scan some drawings for us. The foundation, again, with those earth screws, talk to the manufacturer there, there's some local installers, about $2,500 each or $250 each. One of the features that is not included in the Gizevo right itself is if we're gonna make, this is gonna be a public facility, we need to make it accessible, which means we're gonna have to build a ramp to it. And that's gonna be a site-filled ramp. Again, I'm figuring about $2,500. It seems like a lot of money, but if it's going to be a ramp, it's going to be accessible and it's going to stand the type of time, it's going to take every bit of that. Site work and site restoration. We, as folks who've been to Roxbury know, it's a very wet site. When you start bringing some of that pose and earth screw machines in, you're gonna have to go back there and repair the site. We're going to also have to do some site prep work. That's one of the numbers for the engineers. I do think we ought to have a civil engineer come down and look at the site with us and make sure we're citing it properly. And when we reconstruct the site that we push the water in the right direction. But I think you're going to be every bit of four grand of down there putting the site back together. Again, this is a combination for electrical. That's not required, but as I look out the window in this night's evening and it's 7.30 in the dark or I can imagine that someone would want to have a little bit of power after whether it's light or just a receptacle. But to tap into the existing electrical system and bring wires underground, probably about five grand. There will be a building permit. Public schools are not exempt from building permits. So when it all sugars out, I'm thinking it's probably close to the $56,000 for that structure all in to do it properly. I would imagine that we probably would want to reach the end of every five years for probably up to three grand is my thought. Great. Thanks, Andrew. I need to be a refresher on this. Just having to remember that when we left it last time, we were thinking that we'd obviously get this quote and then decide whether it made sense and how much the district potentially wanted to to contribute to Bridget is also asking whether was there any fundraising at the town meeting? Because I believe there was the possibility of that. Do we know anything about that, Libby or Andrew? Kind of something. One might know whether there was a topic being asking the community for some money at the town meeting. I don't know whether that ever happened. Yeah. Or there's not. I mean, I'm also, Ryan says I know that, but he doesn't know what it was donated. I don't know what her folks thoughts. I also kind of with the money discussion we had a bit ago, yeah, it would be a nice structure, but I also think we might be in a position where we might want to feel a little more cautious about expenditures that aren't necessary. I agree with you, Jim. It's really helpful to have the estimate. I mean, if there really is a community support and support for fundraising, we have a better sense of what it would require so we can share that. But I also think there's so many needs right now and fundraising needs caused by the epidemic that there may not be as much available for this project. Yeah, that's kind of my sentiment as well. Others? I share that sentiment. Yeah, Jerry just said to agree. That's my inclination is to table this unless another source comes up with a fair amount of money and the pitch in is pretty small, but 50,000 are close to it at this time for something that is more of a nice two that I have to seems doesn't seem right for the moment. No, it did not. Jill's asking about kind of the history of the project. This was brought to us by a community member and also a pre-K teacher in Roxbury who was trying to raise community support for the project and wanted the district to pitch in substantial amount to kind of finish it. So we wanted to get a sense of what the cost was total. And I think at most there's a few thousand dollars in the community. So I think unless something has changed to move this forward, the district would have to pick up most of town. All right, thanks, Andrew. Thanks for the work on this. We'll table it and see what we learned from the community. But yeah, it seems to be something to put on the back burner until we're kind of through this and know what our situation is. Were there any plans to share these estimates with the community? Or was there any demand or request to share these things? Well, technically it's being shared with the community right now, right? And we're the community's representatives. So do you have a suggestion for sharing it further? No, I was just curious. Since the request came through the community, I was wondering if what the thing thought process was, since I'm new to this, I was just trying to get the sense of what the thought process was and how much money if the community knew the ballpark estimate and there is $2,000 and they expected $54,000 to come from the district. I was just trying to get a sense of that. And I think that the estimate that Dottie, the community member brought to us was significantly lower than that, which is why we had Andrew look into it because he would have gotten all of the costs. And I don't think that was represented in the first estimate. It was kind of a best guess of dropping the gazebo on a pad. And we recognized early on that the spot they're thinking of was a very wet spot. And so we thought that probably wouldn't be the case. So there's a big gap there. So I can, Dottie's the teacher and I can certainly get in touch with Dottie and talk to her about this or Andrew and I can. Yeah, I think we should reach up to Dottie and let her know. And if she can give us new information about fundraising efforts that might make this a very small price tag, I think that's a different story. But from the numbers I was, I think she was thinking that $5,000 to $10,000 in the district would do it if I recall. And yeah, it would be a pretty simple project, but this is I think higher even than some of the estimates you gave Andrew. Yeah, no, it's typical. I mean, they don't, they seem like very nice people. It's just the product is that they pick it up and drop it on your basketball court. And if they picked it up and we have basketball court to drop it on the number that they gave her several months ago it would be absolutely accurate. But we're not doing that. Yes, absolutely. All right, any other questions for Andrew? Great, the only one process thing I want to mention is as you saw, we did get one letter of interest for Steve's position. I know there's at least one other community member that wants to give it some thought. So we may have another letter of interest but we will take that up at the next meeting and make a choice. I'd also want to make room for Emma and if there are one or more other letters of interest for those folks to have a couple of minutes of fair time at the beginning of the meeting to talk about their letter, but let's plan on. We're doing that the 15th and we can get that seat filled. And I did get clarity from John Odom that the appointment would be till town meeting day and not the November election. All right, if not anything else I think we can entertain a motion to adjourn. So, Bridget made a motion to adjourn. Do I have a second? I second it. Second by Anakit, Jerry, Yair, and A. Yair. Andrew. Yes, I, Yair. Bridget. Yes. Anakit, Yair, and A. Yes. Jill. Yes. Mara. Aye. Ryan. We've got enough votes so the grind's muted. Ryan just give a thumbs up if you're... He did, he did. Okay. And it's in the chat. Okay, great. All right, yes. All right, thanks everyone. We will virtually see you in a couple of weeks and stay safe and stay healthy. Thank you. All right. Thank you.