 Yes, 36, welcome everybody. Adjustments to the agenda. Just a short thing on configurations for next year. I just want to make the board aware of which we have. Sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you, Bonnie. Configure, grade configurations at Rochester for next year. Okay. Just an update. Oh, that's an add-on to the agenda. That's a discussion item? Yeah. We'll call that 9.6. In an executive session after the meeting or not. Okay. You want to be timekeeper? I'm ready. Okay. I have some rough ideas on times if people are interested. Here, of course. I'm proposing times. Okay. It's enough for too much, sure. I just want to have a comment. I had about 10 minutes. I think that's what we did last time. Or was it longer? You can say 10, sure. Okay. Consent agenda. Agenda, five minutes. That sounds right. Board comment, 15 minutes. Sure. Okay. And then each of the reports. Well, excuse me. The superintendent's report, five minutes. Tara, I didn't know if you had more, so I gave you 10 minutes. I don't even need that. Okay. Do that section. And then principal's report, five minutes as well. And then policy review, 20 minutes. Okay. Budget discussion, 20 minutes, which would transition into budget timetable of 10 minutes. Okay. Building committee update, 25 to 30 minutes. I don't know how long. I don't know any more than 10. I would say 10 would be fine. 10 would be fine. Okay, I'm sure what the... How much budget discussion will... It's very long. 10 minutes at most. Okay. Okay. Annual report, committee check in 10 minutes. Okay. Marquis, 10 minutes. For mine, that was probably five minutes. That's probably five minutes, okay. And then 10, 15 minutes for grade configuration. That's probably 10 minutes. 10 minutes, okay. Okay. And that's as far as I went. We need to add the trustee's letter on... Oh, yes, that's a good point. That's an action item. Let's make that 10.1. Trustee's letter, that can be five minutes. Trustee's letter, five minutes. Yep. Okay. Hello. I'm going to share right here. The big thing is, is that it doesn't matter. It's a budget. You don't have to have to check in your hand. We're in the same time for your issues. I got it. What is that? That's six. We have an action item, so it's one point one is trustee's letter. Yep. Okay. With those times assigned, I was just going to have a second. 13 minutes and an hour, 45, an hour, 45. We're out of here in under two hours. We'll be sticking to this timetable. Very best. All right. Public comment. I'll wait for the second public comment. Okay. Consent agenda, I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes from November 5th as presented. I honestly shouldn't get a chance to read them. Sorry. Queen, do you have an agenda? Do I have an agenda? No, I did not get offered one. That would be nice. Do you have an agenda? I'll come to you. While she reads the minutes, we can entertain a motion to accept them in an open discussion. So moved. Do we hear a second? Okay. Emotion has been made in second and to approve the minutes of November 5th's regular meeting. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye or do we still need more time to read? That's good. Okay. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. The minutes of November 5th have been approved. More comment. The board is surprisingly quiet. Perhaps we should have JD be half an hour late all the time. Which means I'm correct. Yes, that's why I immediately retracted my comment or clarified it to be humorous. She would say it's humorous. So hearing no other board comment, let's move right into the reports. Bruce. We received special ed money from Tara and Deb. So I can just think of them having trouble hearing you. I said we received the special ed money, which was from the last quarter of last year in the spring. And we've been waiting for this. Usually it comes out on the 15th, around the 15th of September. This time it was two months late. Why that's important is because it impacts any surplus you might have if there's money spread from the SU to the districts by proportion. So let's say that you're 10% of the SU. You would have a 10% share if there was special ed money that came out. We got a little over $600,000, I think. But Tara and Deb quickly noted that it was not all that we deserved. And we refiled with them for an additional amount of money, I wouldn't even say, because we don't know whether they pooped it not yet or not. But I guess it's suffice it to say, we weren't satisfied. They also told us that it would be at least three weeks, four weeks, actually, at that point, to hear from them as to what it was going to be. So if you wonder why things have been held up in the audits and things, it's because we just don't have a full picture. And so things like this come out. You don't know whether your surplus is solid. A lot of things that are kind of in balance. So I was complaining about this at the whole board meeting the other night. And the board asked me what help I needed to be able to. There have been a lot of things like this that have come to life. One was open on this summer with the information on students, student counts, and taxes. So after the meeting, I said, well, I will go up the chain and see what I can do about at least letting people know the things that are bothering us about our relationship with the AOE. And so I basically called Jeff Francis, who's the head of the organization that I belong to, the superintendents association. And I said, Jeff, how do I get these things in front of what we call the trustees of the superintendents? These are delegates, basically, throughout the state that represent us in front of the AOE and different things like that. He said, what I want you to do is encapsulate five things that are bugging about our relationship and put them down at the list. And I'm going to pass this around. This is the list we came up with. I have said that to Jeff Francis today. And I guess I'm the only one that's done this. So I guess I'm going to be in front of the trustees with the secretary talking about what these things are. I'm concerned about our dialogue with him. I'm concerned about the fact that we don't seem to get much feedback or be taken seriously. So there are five on there that are broken down. And we sat and we basically tried to get the CERA reports on there, which is a special ed expenditure report. What's on there is also the concern related to Brad not getting back to us. And we were also concerned about the lack of clarity around issues, because it depends on who you go to, what kind of, what opinion you get about what, you know, what the information is. So I've got something on there that speaks to the concern about not having the capacity of the AOE to be able to address a lot of our needs. You might want to scroll down a little bit, since it starts. I think that's all extremely important. We would need to really push that on this, because we've got incorrect numbers and with our equalized pupils, and lack of communication about it. And then now with our special ed being incorrect, potentially incorrect numbers. And it's very concerning that it's the same individual as well that's in charge of all of this. And it seems to be, you know, that he's quite overwhelmed. He's not addressing our needs. So on December 13th, I'm apparently going to sit in front of the trustees with the Secretary of Education and go down through this list. Good, good. We'll see where that goes. I don't know whether anybody else has done this, but I got to a point where I was tired of complaining and felt that we needed to go a little farther than that. And so if you see anything on there, I mean, I've already sent it, but I wanted to make sure all of you knew about it. I think it pretty much talks about the things that we've been talking about here and at the full board and the other boards. So the special money, like I said, was two months late, which holds up your budgets. Did they give any reason why we're sitting in there? No. That's part of the problem is. Didn't Deb say that. I think it's larger or maybe, I don't know. Well, they lost a bunch of staff that was handling it before. And so by default, it fell on to Brad James' claim as well. So he had to learn the whole ins and outs of the special education program before you could take action. They keep spreading him. Thinner, thinner. Thinner, thinner. You know, he's a good man, but he's not that good. He's only used somebody to their capacity. Were there any sort of following up on this? Were there any consequences for that? Remember that magic number that was so late? It was May, it was Saturday, it was right out there. There's a lot of statutory deadlines that the agency of education has missed in the past year. Anybody doing anything about that? I think they're saying, sorry, I am. Is that so good what this is about? Because that was sort of a big deal. And then it just seems like nobody really, it's like they broke the law. And they never really seem to do anything. They hold us to a standard. Yeah, we've got to do everything by them and they cut off our financing and they seem to not have any consequences. Debbie Mattis said that with the special ed report, it has to be reported to them by a certain date or every day afterwards, you get fine. $100 a day? $100 a day for our recording, but yet they are working a month or two months behind with being able to get back, so. It's about we can't find them. I know, we get them, yeah. That's for all? Well, thank you, I think that. This is great, thank you. Thank you for stepping up. I need to do a little bit more. I'm on it. Digger. I gave you a call. Oh, yeah, Digger. Hey, yeah, that's not politically correct. I'm not going to be a person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, come on, come on. But, do you want us to leak it? I saw it, no, sorry, we can't say this publicly. Can't leak something, you know? Say we can. Yeah, say you're leaking. I'm glad you're here. That's great, thank you. Go ahead, I think. Obviously, right? Did I turn? Yes. So, further on the AOE, one thing I have on my thing to talk to you about is December 1st, they are supposed to release the allowable tuition rate for the prior year. Sean Cusano, who handles that at the AOE, has advised they will not meet that deadline. So, I have to send, again this year, I have to send notification out to all of our receiving, or I should say sending districts that once the allowable tuition rate is released, that I will be billing them the difference if it meets their statutory requirements between the 3% and 10%. Haven't quite figured that formula out yet, staging, but yes, so I just want you to know that I do have to send that notice out. So, when it does happen, we will be, so within the SU and any sending districts outside of the SU, the difference between the announced versus the allowable tuition rate that's set by the AOE. Announced versus? No. Announced versus allowable? Allowable. Could you just help me with those definitions, please? Announced is the tuition rate that you as a board set in January that you're gonna charge for your tuition and then once everybody gets their stat books completed and all the statewide tuition is reported up to the Agency of Education, they calculate some formula that tells us what the actual allowed tuition rate is and then you can either bill or pay back the difference if it's if you charge too much or you charge too little, there's a magic number between three and 10% that I haven't quite got my head around 100% yet. If it's under 3%, they call it a wash. If it's over that, you get to either bill back or have to return after a turn. And you can't go over 10%? Correct, you're not, you know, if they're more than 10% off, they say something must be not hard at all. But I know in the past, when we had a high school register had some serious political issues when they billed back and it ended up happening. So I would like us to caution our way from any type of bill back. Yeah, that means that, oh, we didn't charge you quite enough for us to use that here, kid, so we need to charge you more. I know that's months later. Yes, a year later. The announced tuition rate when they set, the allowed tuition rate when they set it is for FY19. So it's already done in the past. And like last year, the FY18 wasn't released until July and then they revised it again in August. So as a supervised reunion or any district, like we received notification yesterday from Addison Central that they will be doing the, once the allowed tuition is released, that they will be invoicing or refunding. So they've already set out their notice. I expect Harwood any day, because they're the same way. Can I ask a quick question? Why do they still list Rochester High School on that page? Because the state hasn't updated any of that stuff yet. Even in the 1920, they still haven't. They just leave it. Yeah, I've had this conversation multiple times in the last two weeks. I still have to report everything individually through our old buildings because the state systems still aren't updated for the merged districts. Thank you, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No, thank you for your time. That's a sure. Just a comment I'd like to make because I didn't hear Bruce make it and I'm fairly sure Tara's not gonna make it either. The other thing I think that I would like to report to just be aware of is the additional volume of work, each of these missteps on the part of the AOE causes the business office. There are times when Tara is actually doing a job twice and she's quite capable of doing once if she had the right number. So I just want to make transparent the fact that it's our folks that we work with every day that are trying to make up for these errors that are coming out of our community. Yeah, well it's interesting because maybe I'll say it now. I was gonna save it for the budget discussion but I was somewhat disturbed by the email that Bruce sent out yesterday where he said, hey, by the way, there's this AOE deadline that's coming up. No one can email Tara from Wednesday till Monday. And I understand what you're saying about the AOE but I also think that it's very important that, especially if we're not getting support from Montpelier, that we understand that these things need to be done right and we pay way too much money in second audits, in additional efforts to try to clean things up and move things around and find your phantom deficit and my phantom surplus and all that that really I think that as we look at the budget discussion, we really need to be really frank about what we need in the central office to support her because if it's, you can't talk to her about a business manager role because she's cafeteria lady for four days. I mean, I know that's making it simple but we really need to, I think, make sure that we are producing a central office budget that funds the functions that we need to have completed successfully so that we're not losing money or wondering if we ever should have set that money to Montpelier in the first half of this. You guys have approved us looking for extra accounting help so we are moving in that direction. It's hard to find and so we're waiting to find the right person, not just dancing with anybody but... Yeah, I understand it's reactionary. Well, the thing about Tara's quarantine as she's been calling it is because I got a phone call from food service people at the AOA and said, if you guys don't meet these deadlines we're gonna start taking money away. And I said, oh, we don't want that happening so we were given a deadline by the 20th of December and it's hard and fast. I mean, there's... Sure, no, and that's fine but you're reacting again to that problem. And so you're saying, okay, well Tara can't do business office stuff because she has to do that. I think, and again, right now the accounting help that we're getting is we're paying Ron's firm a top dollar for consultant accounts that are cutting... What's the actual, how much that's gonna cost us right now? They're still working through the initial audit but my expectation is there'll be at least an additional $15,000 to $20,000 bill from them for the extra time that they put in. That's just me. They haven't given me a complete number on that and they're still working on it. Are they working on time on materials or are they working on a bid? They're working on time on materials at this point. Yeah, they sent us a amount and he was put, and I don't quote me on top of my head, I think it was around $48,000 was what they had projected for our audit to cost for the FY19 audit. So what they're doing is as they bill us for time for their staff, that's coming off of that and then once that one is gone then we'll get a supplemental... But you're basically telling me that we're gonna pay about 50% more in expenses and if you think about that, we could have hired someone for a year and have them sorting out all sorts of problems for that same $50,000 that we're paying in catch-up money. And that's where I think, and we always say, oh, we don't wanna hire anymore people, we think we can get it, we think we can get by. And we don't, and we do things like saying, well, the business manager can't talk for four days. And I understand that. And I appreciate that forthright decision and you not trying to burn them in night oil or do it all or try to cover everything. And I'm really glad Bruce took the horns to say, let's lock this quarantine, you guys at work. But we need to really consider the level of staffing and the complexity of what we're being asking three people to do. What's been going on in terrorist life is she's been taking all this home and crowding out family time and I don't want her to do that. No. I don't think it's healthy. I don't think it's gonna help us in the long run. And I made a decision. She gets bombarded all day long with emails, phone calls, people walking in, walking off the street. She doesn't know they're coming and they want answers. And all of you guys need information. We know that. I think that Carl's point and I've worked for a number of students. Seldo, does anybody ever advocate for the central office staff? They advocate for schools because you see the senior PE teachers, you see music concerts, you see the reading teachers. If there's ever cuts to be made in personnel, they frequently come from two places, maintenance or central office. There's nobody really advocating for central office. And I was glad to hear Carl say we need to look at what does the central office need for staffing in order to do this job. The other quick comment I'll make is to Amy's point. It is appalling to me that if Tara doesn't finish certain stuff like December 20th, we're gonna start losing money. But the AOE can be two months late. And there's no, what I wanna say, penalty or consequence or whatever. So I'm glad that's on your whispers. And I would encourage you to make that a very strong point. I mean, they may solve the limit, I'm sorry. I was just gonna back down. I mean, it just, everything that you were taking on and it was so difficult to begin with. And really I kinda cheered, but leave her alone and let her do what she needs to do. I understand that. I'm sure if there was an emergency, we could have gotten to you, but you're really doing a phenomenal job. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Bruce, can I ask you? I've seen the advertisement for the account positions in the Herald. Where else are we? Are we at school spring, I would assume? And it's been picked up on Indeed. Yeah, Indeed. Can we do seven days? I mean, you don't put it anywhere, you put it anywhere except maybe the Boston Globe. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I guess, yeah. What is there to say? The Herald, Indeed, and then school spring. And I have feelings out through Vazbo, that there's also four other districts that are looking for the same positions that we are too. I think just a bigger town, brother's Herald. We do have a couple bikes that are here. Yeah, I got one resume the other day that she had a lot of, she has a very strong accounting background, not necessarily in fund accounting, which is what we do, but she has a really strong accounting background. So that was my first really excited one that I saw. Excellent. Okay. Okay, anything else? That's it for that part. Okay. Principles report. You sent us one, which was nice. I did, I apologize. We talked about sending it and it seemed to be a little slow on that part. No. So here's just kind of an update of what is going on. Do you think a lot's happening? Okay, here we go. Oh, good things. Wow. We've tried to divide it into peripheral destruction facilities and then other. Okay. There should be enough to go out into the public because it wasn't in the packet either. If you need more quality lab details. Right, I printed it out again. Oh. So that's a pretty good one. So if you take that hard copy, it has good details. Cool. She's a person made in Bonnie then. Now that would not be a good thing to do. Yeah, there has been a lot of trainings which will continue to support teachers to do it. Including the beginning of our pilot. The last group's end of the table. Yeah. First of all. Pilot program of direct instruction. Oh, hey, you're in there. That's you. Well, this is you. Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. Very well received. Yeah. Everybody's intended. Great reports from you. I said it was very well received by everyone. Oh, good. And we need pictures for my odds and ends for this week. Oh, of course. Wait, I don't go to the beauty powertoe. Are you sitting on that? You're standing on that platform. Oh, sure. I stand on a chair. Well, Bonnie will tell you. I stand, I can't see them. I can't monitor what they're doing because I'm so short. So I stand on a chair. So it wasn't advisable. The insurance person, me, is ignoring you guys. I was gonna say, you don't make those changes. We found her something much better than a chair. Wonderful. If any pair or board member on the 10th and 11th of December would like to fill in for the superintendent or either principal or taking nominations because Bruce, Lindy and I will all be out of the district on the same day. This is during the fire conferences? During the fire conferences? No, it's during the fire conferences, yes. It's a safety conference in Barrie that Lindy and I are going to. We'll be at the conference. So the safety conference, I will say, we have to bring our safety and crisis plans and they basically go through and audit it and tell you what you should update, what you shouldn't. I mean, that's our anticipation. So do we have the results from the leg testing? I see it's not different today. Well, so here's another great example. We both buildings bust and tail to get leg testing done, which basically you fill the water, there's a bunch of it. It's not like we're testing it. We won't get the testing back, but they haven't even collected the samples that were supposed to be collected. Well, then they're probably no good, I think, Mark. No, they say they're good for a week. For a week, in effect. So, and we're within that range, but. What was it supposed to come again? The, is that the department? Yeah, so it's good, I don't know what you're doing. I deal with water testing and another aspect of my life and it's end dying, you can have the wills done and you've got to rush it up to them or there's a courier down in the west. We're given a specific date and told we had to meet that date. There was no way on the date. Yeah. And it hasn't been picked up yet. You can't test after a weekend or a vacation. Yeah, okay. So, to sign the week of all things. Our three days were Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving and the Friday after. Fun thing, and I think Megan was there, is that kindergarten and first graders from both communities did a farm to table meal together at the meeting house in Stockbridge. And it was, they had both groups had been learning about where their food comes from and so then they made some of the food and they all had it together and they had made plates in art class that they all, that were served on. They sang a song ahead of time. And pretty much the whole meal was farmed to table which was pretty little that was done. Came from out of the valley even. Yeah, upheld, done good, potato, all over the, yeah, it was really, it was really sweet. It was fun. The Stockbridge meeting house, I had never been there. It's wonderful. It's very, very. It's wonderful. Thank you. That brings us into policy review. I know Jenny had a bunch of questions and I'll try to answer them as we go through this. Starting with the first code B22, public complaints about personnel. This is, you would focus on the last sentence in the first paragraph. This went before, go to the next page, which is that policy that passed in front of the policy committee on the third October. Then it went in front of the full board the other night and that last sentence in the first paragraph, they didn't like. The first, first, or the second part? No, the district. The one that says that's very insightful. Yeah, yeah, that whole thing. They didn't like the second part of that sentence. So the corrected copy that I have made and you're the first board to see this is that same location. I put the how level and the rest of it and took the other part out because that's what they seem to object to. And I guess I wonder if you guys have any questions about what I did because it seemed like the full board didn't want to pass it. If that sentence seemed like it was so slanted to the employee. And you're asking, sorry, you're asking for approval of the High Lighting Group. Yeah, we're gonna do this one at a time and you wanted to see the old one and the new one. Yeah, the High Lighting Group. The Bruce, it needs to be a semicolon after an action before, however, not a comma. Because you're linking two desperate clauses and you need to get rid of that double space after however comma. But other than that, the fact that I was raised by an English teacher who was a grammarian. That's fine. I was an English teacher, but a grammarian. Oh, man, man. So that's that one. Hey, is that? Okay, so we have a policy B22, Public Complaints About Personnel. I'll make a question. That is a big, I would entertain a motion to. You seconded. The question has been made and seconded to approve the 112719 WRV SU board of policy B22 with a grammatical correction submitted. All those in favor of signify by saying aye. Aye. There's one. Okay, move along to headlight management. Make a motion. That's our favor. This was approved by the policy committee and approved by the full board. No, I pushed this one. Or if you could just batch. And made it headlight. I pushed it harder. Hard on this one. So it seems to be, everybody likes it so far. Yeah, I guess so. As much as I hate the state mandated rules on it, but there's really not much else we can do about it. And the 2015 CDC policy is noted in there. Right. Yeah. For you. I make a motion to be seconded. Seconded. Motion has been made and seconded to accept policy C35 headlight managers as presented by the, this was approved by the SU as well, approved by the WRV SU board on 1127. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Okay. Okay, going on to policy E22. And I want you to go to the second one, which is the notes on it. Enter on the second page. It says WRV SU all districts accept share. And that was the, then you approved this last year. And the improvement was changing superintendent to superintendent and designee. Right. We had certain place. So the other one on top of that, which is I also don't quite a typo in there. It shouldn't say share in school district. You know, we heard it. QRVSU school district. But other than that, this is the change and then as you'll notice that the language is very similar, but they never, Christy never got the share and reference out of there on, there's one of the second paragraph as well. It's very, very close. But what happened was that the policy committee decided to accept the sharing language changing the words of Sharon into White River Valley district instead of Sharon. And then accepting the sharing version. That is a little different from the one before them. That you've already passed. So they want to accept the sharing version instead of the version you accepted last year. Which is just that it says superintendent in place of board or designee in all these areas. That's all right? Right. Well, we need to change it to, because the second sentence is just wrong. You should say something like procedures for facility use approval and for rentals will be developed by the board of each district rather than will be developed by the Sharon board. Right. And the one thing? Because that sentence they're developing are. Right. So we would say the board of each district. So we develop our facility with policies. They develop theirs and we'd all be happy. Is that the intention is that it's by each board not the superintendent in that spot as previously stated? Yeah. Okay. I don't want to have anything to do with managing your facilities even though I may get signed to do that, but. Right. I know staff would use to have, I don't know if Rochester used to have a board that people would fill out. Right. That would be a procedure. Right. Not a problem. So we. So the board or the designee, or the designee, what does that logistically actually mean? Like when it says the board or designee may be placed reasonable time, place or manner restriction when used in the facility. Who is that designee? The principal? The principal. We would be able to designate. We'd have to decide that. We'd say. Right. We would say we want to. Should we? Okay. And how often do we do that every year? But should it be clear that the board is the person designating the designee? Sure. We can say we're its designee. It's designee. Exactly. That makes it much clearer. So my question though is every year the board is going to need to designate who's going to be the designee. Probably. I mean in things like that I've generally found he's designated once and then you don't worry about it. So it's a problem if something changes. Like you change, you know, the principal changes so you may say it's going to be the maintenance person's the one that's going to get people in and out of the facility because they live in town and the principal lives over the mountain. But if the principal lives down the street maybe the principal wants to do it. Like our old Michelle Richie lived right down the road. She always opens up. So during any changeover in personnel or in board makeup how would somebody go back to know that they need to redesignate a company? We would know. But what about when we were all replaced by somebody else? How do they know down the road? Well they'll have to read all the policies. They'll have to read all the policies. Good answer. Margo, you need to read all the policies. No, it's not allowed. Typically the principal's review of these policies is great. We might not be able to put our back on it. Okay. And then in the ideal world once all this policy work that Bruce is leading in our district gets done. It's endless. We should. That he's going to be happy to say this. Once they all get done we actually should have a review date. Policies should be reviewed every either three, four or five years. And that's when we pick up and we want to designate someone differently. Yeah. Our own rule is we did it every three years because that way there was always someone that had been there for, you know as a newbie for the first one and then for another one as a later. So we're approving this policy. Well, are we approving it as stated? Well, I thought we just made a couple of corrections. So can we, does that mean it has to go back to everybody else? I'm just curious. No, we approve it for us and then other people may have to review it. I'm going to try to take this what you've done to them. So what's the wording of the procedure for facility use approval and the rentals will be developed by the board of each district? By the board of each district. And every time it says school board or designee we're changing to school board or it's designee or there's no apostrophe just ITS. And the top one where it says municipal district I thought White River Valley SU and the member district. Yes. That would be fine. So hold on, I have another question. Okay. Events at which fees are charged for profit do most organizations that use the school facility consider non-profit and therefore if they charge and admit fee at the door. Good question. It's, I'm just not sure how those structures are set up. It's not a profit because they're never going to make a profit. Well, like it's on the table. They're spending more. The players always lose money on most shows and they're a non-profit. Right. Because I'm a non-profit but we charge admission. Right. But it's not a profit. And like if you have like a fee to fund raiser spaghetti dinner that has a silent option. Yes, it's raising money but it's raising money for a cause or a designated target. So it's a non-profit organization. So basically we would not ever be able to rent into a for profit organization. Well, we could. Because it says in the school board or designated. Made. And somebody came in here and wanted to do something that seemed perfectly legitimate and they're charging a fee. Right. I remember the old donkey ball. The board would say we don't have any problem with this group. It's actually going to benefit. Yeah. The high-level old traders want to come in. Right. Whatever. Donkey ball. Donkey ball. Okay. So we can amend those. Yes. At any time. Right. It doesn't say they must or will deny it says they may. Okay. Good. So we've got two changes as we're amending them, correct? Yeah. Do we have three? Three. Actually, you've got to put in it. Or it's. Yeah. All the, there's four examples of it. So I see there's the first sentence that Tara was going through the corrections of and the second sentence with her. So I would entertain a motion to approve policy E20. That's a problem. I think G has to be changed to will be denied. Or take it right out. It says uses where alcoholic beverages, unlawful drugs are sold. Sure. It's unpromoted or we can't have any of that on school property. So that's a good point. That's right. So it's not made to deny that. Maybe they need to say it will be denied just to come over your basis. I think you just cut it, right? Or you can just cut it. I don't know. And this uses for criminal as law since you're not allowed to have alcohol in schools. Cut off G. Yeah. Cut off G. Sorry. And have any number H to G. That's a good catch. Yep. Good catch. Good catch. Okay. So we now have, we amend the first sentence. We amend the second paragraph. We correct the four instances of designee to add hits. We delete G. We remember H to G. Guys. Okay. With those amendments, the board is in hits. The board is in hits. Okay. Okay. So, you can certainly vote no if you think it's a no. Oh, I'm going to. I'm going to vote no. To set goes to our right. Yeah. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of approving policy, C-20 community use of school facilities as amended, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay. On to emergency closing. That's policy F. The change in this one had to do with the first line on the policy. The current one that you adopted last year is the second page. The school board through its superintendent may order closing of any and all schools whose operations are short term basis. And you change that sharing board change that to the school board and principal through its superintendent may order the closing of any and all schools whose operation on a short term basis would pose a serious threat to students or staff. So that first sentence is the only change in this one. Compared to the school board. The next one. The next one which is the second page. May order the closing of any and all schools. They wanted the principal on that line because, you know, they're on site. I think it's more that it's added than just that. Under implementation, there's a whole sentence down there that was added as well. Careful consideration will be given to the particular provision of circumstances in each district. That was also added on. Sorry, I missed. And the environmental threats was also added. So again, my question is, what's the logistics of saying that it's the school board and the principal that closed the school? They their idea was that they wanted their principal to have the authority because they were on site and the superintendent might not be. I mean, that's what I want. I don't want the board to have to get the phone call to find the morning shift. We're going to add you to the group. You can go on our text list. Right, so I just want to understand the logistics of having a school board in there. How does that play out? I think that's why it's through because the school board is the administrative body. I think they're trying to understand the school board. Right. You are the authority. So through your principal and you being the ultimate, the principal being the building administrator through the superintendent showing that chain of command. OK, so I think that was the reason behind it. But I think the other reason was that the school board wanted to be able to meet an emergency and be able to close the school because of some bold ground. I don't think, yeah. But I think we're time in here. Sure. Yes, I think it's possible. I'm wondering if it should be the school board for principal because let's take for an example. We have some contractors in here working and they blast through a wall of asbestos and we've got asbestos floating around. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I'm not going to bother calling the board again. I'm going to evacuate the school. Well, that's what I'm saying. I don't feel that the school board needs to all be notified on the school board performing. I think it can be more. The school board or principal. I think so too. No, I would call the office immediately and say I'm evacuating the school. We just broke through a wall of asbestos. Right. But I wouldn't necessarily take the time to call on you folks. I certainly would have someone to get on that period quickly. I mean, yeah, we'd want to, yes. Because you'd want to know and it wouldn't want you caught off guard. But also for the school board to make any decisions about closing school, you need to warn a special meeting. Exactly. Do you have the all gets? Yeah. Right. Well, you can have, you can call an emergency meeting like in an hour or whatever. Because you've got to say. I'm just saying for a practical reason. Yeah, for a practical reason, I don't want to be part of the training command when you need to be nimble and flexible. Right. Okay. I don't know. Do we also need to say under implementation where the second sentence says the superintendent will also have the authority? Do we superintendent or designee? I think we're designee, yeah. Limitation. Bonnie, I mean, you're calling Bruce to say we're going to close Rochester Stockbridge today. But Bruce is the one that notifies the papers. Over the hall. Wait, to the other way, or we're at... Oh, no. I'm going to put papers. Call people. You're talking about if we leave early or like yesterday? Let's know that. Not an emergency, such a wreck. Oh, not snow. Well, snow day, the conversations are all made as a group, right? Yes. Yes. Starting now. And then we start at 5. That's fine. Let's hope for our own local. Whatever it is. Okay. But the tip... Yeah, typically what would happen is the practicalities of the real emergency is that Linda and I would be handling getting the kids off and saying we'd make one call to the superintendent's office and they would handle all the notification pieces. We wouldn't be bothered trying to call you guys or do that. We wouldn't be focusing on getting youngsters out in the way. Yes. Getting the 3 to 11-year-old or 12-year-old out of the building. So did you make a change to the... Change to the end or in that very first sentence? Right, and we also changed the second sentence of the first sentence of implementation. We added organizing the after the superintendent. Yeah, I've got that. On a site, just a note on this. When I saw on the bottom screen the other day about the school closing or the delay or the whatever, the early dismissal yesterday, it said the White River Valley School District. So I was confused whether it meant Bethel. I think it should say like the White River Valley Supervisory Union. Well, it's White River Valley School District. That is Bethel, the correct name. OK, so I don't think that's all. You're asking whether or not you were deceived because you thought you were just talking about the rules. I don't think that's all individually Rochester listed. Then it goes alphabetical or by county. So like we still report individually. So then how it's listed depending on your source. WCAX is alphabetical. Some places listed by county. Sure. The building. So it breaks it out that way. OK, I wasn't sure. I've learned a lot. I saw like Rochester. I just saw calling out the whole. Most of the time we do this all together. And we have the same thing for everybody. But it's not always that way because you have a different weather over here. Oh, absolutely. Then you do over. Yeah, but you said last year that the state said you had to do it all together. The bus company said the bus company. They wanted us to do it together. Yes, because nobody else in the state does it that way. They don't live in the mountain because we have transportation running in schools that have no kids in them. And, you know, to pick up special ed kids and things like that. So it was really confusing. We got bus drivers who were driving and play towns where the schools are closed to pick up kids that are going out in district. And so it's really, really confusing. And I mean, I didn't know that nobody else did it this way until they said, look, you guys got to do this differently because it's really. Hazard for all of you. So we get on this text line at five o'clock in the morning and we talk to each other back and forth. They're talking to the road agents and the road performance. I'm talking to these other superintendents around us. And we all put the information together and then make a decision. And I've been known to give people go to school and others. We got a delay or whatever. It's not a lot. All right, we have an amended policy with changing school board and principal, school board or principal and adding more designee after superintendent in the second sentence of the first paragraph, the implementation clause. I would entertain a vote to approve the policy at thirty one emergency closing as amended motion for second motion is made and seconded further discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Okay. So the next policy since we made the headlights C 36 or C 35 were a great advance pretension and promotion will be C 36. C 36. The caution that is in here is weirdly marked up and has a mistake on it. Yeah, I didn't bring the one you sent. Okay. Oh, great. Those that pop into the one you sent today, I believe. Cool. Awesome. Yep. We have enough. We have enough. We're going to run out. I think we're going to run out. Yeah, we've got plenty. We've got plenty. We've got all the way around. Hey, it's got a whole stack on it. It's got a whole stack on it. All right. You need more? I got more. You need to. So the kids. The key about this is who's making the decision. Yes. What we're looking at is we're looking at, if you look under implementation, it talks about classroom educators working with building principles and that it talks about testing and having a procedure for consideration and looking at having rubrics and standardized criteria reference materials. So the idea is we're saying that there's going to be an academically sound policy and reason for doing these so that we have some consistency and we're not being concerned that we're making decisions for any reason other than academics and where the child is. Do we have to have attention? Are we forced to have attention? Because it's not a good thing. No. It's not based on the research, it's what we should be going about. It's not included in the research in the back. I see. The white paper really summarizes it very, very well and, I mean, this is the National Association of Psychologists, but any research you see on attention is not good. Both socially and academically. This has not, this is coming here first. Yes. It needs to, you know, the fact that we don't have a policy and the only reason there weren't attorneys here at the last meeting was because the attorney was unavailable, kind of indicates that we need to have a policy. Well, you're just saying that guys, we differentiate. That's what we're supposed to be doing. So when this student's needs are being met in 5th grade, but making sure that they get what they need, well, they should be able to do that in any way. And retaining is an awful thing. It's an awful thing. I know. But you're an exception. But who should be more ways than one? I think this might be for some of our students in our schools in the secondary education. Can you speak up? This applies not just to our students in our elementary school, but also for the greater like the 7th through 12th. Well, it doesn't really cover that very well in my opinion. We're talking about if we're talking about a situation that was responded to, that's a different type of policy in terms of tuition dollars in connection to specific situations versus whether we're supporting or not. I don't think retention is a good thing. I worked in high school for 10 years and I can tell you more stories of where it backfired than it was successful. Kids live with it for their whole lives. Live with it for their whole lives. If that's going to be our position, we need to have a policy that says this district will not retain children. I don't think it has to be that black and white. We don't support retention. There's nothing else that says it's going to help a child. With the rare exception, unless you can guarantee that something significantly different is going to happen the following year, which most times we can't. So I don't know that we need a policy same either. I do think we need to understand that we have to look at youngsters in multiple ways and differentiate their educational programs the minute we are even contemplating the fact that they are following the significance of people. Sure. I did not write this policy myself. I copied it. I want to say this was from our attorney sent references and this is basically from Southern Vermont SU. It talks about retention, requiring documentation of specific areas of weakness as well as documentation as to why alternatives to retention such as remediation in class. Tutoring in class or after school mentoring cooperative efforts with family or summer school would not achieve the same level of effectiveness, especially when a student has been previously retained. The thing that we need to have a policy, this is in my mind very similar to the policy issue I asked you guys to look into earlier, which is how do we have a policy for moving kids from Stockbridge to Rochester or Rochester to Stockbridge so that those kids have an appropriate cohort of ability of equal ability peers to be in a classroom. And we can't have that conversation about how we might move a kid from Rochester to Stockbridge or Stockbridge to Rochester when that kid is sitting in front of us with a parent having an opinion and the SU having an opinion and the principal or a teacher having an opinion that's not the time right policy. The time right of the policy is when you don't have a family that's going to feel like they're being discriminated against or looked at or looked at work. So, I think in the policy, I think it does specify that there needs to be documentation showing why an alternative to retention doesn't work, but if we're not going to have retention, we need to have a policy that says we're not going to have retention. There seems to be two issues. One is what we decide as the school board of our campuses and then are we saying that there's no retention by any other higher level? If we're saying there's no retention, any student that doesn't want to pay for any retention at the middle school or high school level? We won't approve it. We don't have to pay for it. It's not a matter of us paying for it. It's us a matter of saying we deny, as I understand what Dita told us, it is the parent's ultimate decision as to whether a child is retained or not. So, if we say there's no retention, there's no retention, period. If we say it's retention up to the teacher or it's up to the parent and we don't care what the school administration says, then a parent can say, retain my kid and we'll say that's the policy, your kid's retained. So, those are the two really opposite sides of the spectrum. The parent always gets their way. The kid never gets retained. I think having something that it is retained, then we know that that's not good. Right. But we have to, I mean, there has to be we have to have a reason that we would be making our retention state or policy as to what we would frame a retention you know, a retention scenario to be in. But it's going to be the same thing Carl, by that I mean it's going to be some sort of struggling student academically and socially. That's who's going to try to be retained. Well, that's the same student who needs the differentiation and needs more structure in a different program. You're not going to be able that student who is retained should be able to go along with his or her peers but learn differently. That's why we didn't that's why Bruce along the whole DI thing do happen. No, I understand that. I'm not saying that. I would just say that I think before you do anything you need to study the issue and be clear. That's why I added the references here. And you know, if you can find some that are advocating for retention, bring them. I mean, I'm not saying what I put in here was the be-all in the end-all. I'm just saying it's hard to find people that are standing up or retaining kids. If you go to the research to rely on the sources, it is not happening. Is that the same with advancement? Is it the same issue with advancement? Yes, it is the same with advancement. They're saying there's no advantage to putting kids ahead? No. My daughter was a freshman in college when she was 16 years old and it was a decision I made because she was so turned off by high school it was not a decision I would make again. No, the same way that we give to the child who struggles we should have advanced things and enrichment things for those kids who are, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be given extra leave, I'm just saying they don't need to skip to grades in order to do that. And this is to keep them with their age group, right? Yeah, Lindsay still I won't turn it off. I will. So are we so are we saying we're going to table this? I think we have to perform information because I think what we need before we do anything is really a substantive conversation because there may be a rare time so I'm trying to work my way through these points, there may be a rare time when as principals Lindy and I are coming forward and putting together this argument for why one out of 85 times we are thinking retention may be the right decision so I don't want to close it off by saying we're never going to be able to retain a child. If we're going to do that can I get SUI statistics on all the retention for the last five years because I don't believe that there's only one kid that's been retained. I believe that there's been a lot of retention. You didn't in the hearing well I can't say that. Well and I think something to also think about is something as simple this is really detailed and kind of locks us into a scenario that doesn't necessarily make up our district anymore something as simple as it will be reviewed on a case by case basis and here's our procedures you know here's our procedure of what we're going to call something that includes some of this data and some of these things because if we block ourselves into something I don't want to lock it in the air way some kind of hearing well-written procedure administrative procedure accomplishes the same thing it has more flexibility. Absolutely I just think that I'm not suggesting that's what we need I'm saying we ought to think about statistics. I think that I just think that our lack of having retention policy put us in a really, really tenuous and dangerous position that we got out of I think we got probably the best possible outcome we could and I think that there were a lot of negative outcomes that not having a policy really set us up for so I think that you know whether we have the policy that we think is the best and I certainly if we're against retention I'm not a fan of it I'm not a retention advocate I'm a fan of us having a clear and equitable a policy that people can understand and parents can read and yell I'm curious do we have a question of retention policy? This is the Southern Vermont SU retention policy with some language change yes I haven't done a poll to see check the email from the Energy CC do you want to report four different retention policies and a no in our state in Vermont this is like the Beddington Brattle Burrow Southern Vermont policy Carl back to your statement about lack of I don't feel that this covers that scenario this does not help us at all based on what you're saying we need a clear procedure and I keep using procedure because that's what I feel like was lacking I mean I had where there was a procedure there was a procedure and that is a huge reason why I'm struggling with this because it just really doesn't make up what we are as a school district anymore and it locks us into something that I'm not sure would have helped in that really difficult I completely understand what you're saying sure and again the beast that becomes problematic is the 7 to 12 year old or the 7 to 12 graders it's a receiving school that is saying we're the people that are on the ground with this child this child is in our classrooms this child has been following our programs and they're the curriculum that their parents picked from them because they said they wanted their kid to go to Woodland or Woodstock or Rutland or wherever they went so understanding that we have to have a way to treat these fellow educators and their thoughts and integrate them with our responsibilities both educationally and fiscally to our students is a tricky thing I agree though we have to have a procedure that they need to follow for it to come through us because it's your tax dollars that can be put together but we need to what I worry about is saying let's kick it down the road let's see what else we can find and maybe we'll talk about it at our retreat gets us closer to where we are halfway through the school year so for any kid that's out there every school is evaluating and they're saying maybe this kid's not going to cross the finish line because we're getting near the first semester so if we kick this down we wait till budget we make a policy that can be in any way targeted at someone in April and when we get back to this somehow then we're in a whole different no one's saying that we're going to kick this down all we're saying is that I'd read the research on it but people haven't so all they're saying is table it so that they can read the research and then come back to the more in our decision don't just create the research that's in there look for other research absolutely like I said I just want us to have a policy because I think to Carl's point we have to be aware of is with more personalized learning plans coming in there will be more kids that will take five years to finish and it's not because we're retained it's because of their personalized learning plan so somewhere we have to figure out how that fits into whatever it is that we ultimately end up putting that into paper and that's going to require some looking into in terms of I would be a person where you say it's going to impact high school students so just so I understand where we're at with this policy it being asked to be tabled because the board needs to review whether we want to take a no retention policy all together or something I feel that there's just so many individual cases that to really say black and white yes we are we could really like some kids fall to the cracks because it's really benefit from development maybe they are older but they are at a younger but there may should be service at their needs no matter where they are there may should be service and if they're repeating what they did they're repeating a grade but they would be with kids they would be in their same maybe physical and mental capacity I thought that's the reason they didn't want to I'm worried about one of the most common ones but it is also one of the most common things I've ever heard about was the idea of this standard thing that boys five year old boys going into kindergarten or going into first grade and that they're preschool even now it's better to hold them back till they're six before they go in developmentally and socially and that's I'm not saying it's even that old this is my son two years ago that was the standard there well no it's what was told to us by the school that's why it happened that's why it happened I can't speak to that because I wasn't here no I'm just saying so I mean this would argue to Carl's argument of having a policy because it was until very recently that was the policy because it was a very common people saying yeah we do this all the time with five year old boys and six year old boys as far as going ahead so I think it argues very well for having a policy that we have some guidelines because otherwise another principle comes in the whole thing changes and it can go back or it could be the wording could be as simple case by case basis under this timetable you know what I mean and like Carl said conversations are happening now potentially for some kiddos if they're on a semester schedule and things like that so we should be notified as they send me to the school district now that that conversation is happening what does that mean and you would then basically procedure a procedure that would basically encompass a lot of what this is saying the need to these evaluations to be documented well documented just make for us to lock ourselves in and then some case that we've never even heard of comes along I'm getting an observation you guys have really had a very nice educational conversation about the stuff which is great to see no really not to say that we haven't had it before I mean but this was great I was enjoying well Carl do you not want to leave tonight without something because you're feeling like I can leave tonight without something if we get something and if we come back and we circle back on this at our next meeting it's yes yes let's go ahead and let's move this policy let's all read the research that Bruce has attached and maybe poke around and find more think about what you're thinking Google retention policies in Vermont where I can send you the links that Dina sent me and let's put this on our next on our next month's agenda but we really do I think next month we should have this in and Lindy if you want to I just it's really now well I know you just said a procedure I mean if you could give us a ballpark procedure that would be really wonderful so then we would have the example I think that's what we need in front of us is the example of how it works yeah that's what we're looking for because we're feeling like this is not I need some other sets of eyes to I don't know I need to say that right before you even read it now that we've beaten the policy force to death let's move on to the budget oh my god so 20 minutes she will run in 20 minutes for the budget discussion what we just wanted to do as we're starting into the budget process is to sort of really just touch face with the board to find out are there any initiatives directives suggestions you'd like to give us as we start the budget process one of the things that Lindy and I are going to do is we are going to look at the engineering report and try and sort out which of the priority one items in there is feasible to do within a single budget now some of them have a higher cost than we can put into a single budget for either of the three buildings we are going to look and see if we can do things like exterior lighting check out the pieces to the fire panels those kinds of things so we will include those in the budget but is there any other direction the board would like to give us? a lot of that would depend on the report that hopefully Tara is going to share with us about our mystery surplus and our various funds that have been discovered there was like a six-figure number that we were in the positive is that no longer there? I don't have any change other than as of yesterday as of yesterday so go ahead and report this to us because recall you were not at our last meeting because it was the educational one as of yesterday they were wrapping up the SU which impacts all the member districts so this is the auditors? yes so your tentative tentative please do not hold me to this number the tentative surplus and what year is this for? for FY19 it's 329,000 it's just awesome right? yes and is that or is that not including our building our various reserve funds? including the various so this 329 is not really a surplus it's the fact that you just had done reserve funds that's your unassigned unassigned fund balance is 329,000 so that's funny that are our building reserve funds counted in our assigned fund balance? yes they are and some of them had a deficit in them of like 5,000 so it wasn't very much can you just go back I'm just a little lost here just to find I just always need new definitions again fund balance just can you tell me what that it's money left over that's money left over from last year from last year and specific to our supervisor reunion our district district this is your very broad draft financial thank you and I air that question because I still have outstanding questions to the auditors about some of your reserve funds and so what are reserve funds? you have building reserve for which campus? both which I believe you combine no when because all any outstanding reserves would have from the individual buildings would roll to the unified district we created these two new funds when we emerged and then they come in any outstanding funds that require reserve funds go to those reserve funds right there's a Rochester fund in the structure so that would have been for FY19 your first year as district those funds that would previously would become the Rochester the guy business manager David no he was the he talked about how you had two separate reserve funds that rolled into the new district fund and he was making two accounts so that they stayed separate so that we knew which was the stocker's fund and which was the Rochester fund because they were separate like you would have say an athletic fund and a bus fund or a roof fund or a furtis fund we did vote on that in our public annual meeting it was warned as real funds specific to campus but that aside we've got 329 and unassigned the building reserve you think is about this is separate so the special this is why I have a lot of questions the special revenue fund is how they have this coded boarded has a fund balance of 219,000 the capital projects fund has $44 the roof fund the capital projects fund has $44 okay and the permanent funds has $429,000 permanent funds so these are my questions to them because I need the itemization of those which are not provided in the initial draft what was the $429,000 permanent funds what is the definition of permanent funds definition of permanent funds that's what I'm waiting for so I've already gone back to them and said I need specifics because the $44 I can tell you from my prior research that was the stock bridge building reserve fund balance was $44 that was what your fund balance was the stock bridge I believe there's more there I've asked them to review I can send you the because I have your trial balance I have your trial balances from the old software system has my questions so to be continued on that I have a question I just want to try it off this budget I don't want to put terror on the spot she was not explaining all of our funds that's fine to ask but I don't want to put her on the spot I understand what you're saying I'm not trying to grill to per se but what's very important is understanding in my mind I thought we had $180 something like that in the stock bridge reserve fund that had been put aside and something like that the processor had put aside as well but what I don't quite like to worry is is that that $329 is really part of all of our funds bundled together because there seemed to be at least from the auditor what he presented at the SUM in October he seemed very kind of like we don't know there's just pots of money and there's no real he wasn't very clear about how money was moved between accounts changing the accounts changing the chart of accounts all various things that there's just a rapid storm of of confusion I just don't want us to think that we've got you know is this $429 is that actually the funds that are sitting behind the trustee of public funds in stock he's just got them listed on a thing and that's what I know about that I'm afraid right now we think we've got lots of money and we're going to turn around and find out we don't so well we put the projects projects together for maintenance in terms of the budget the things we're recommending we address we would put them together in a list by the time we actually have to meld them into the budget hopefully the terrorist questions will be answered and we'll know is this $429 new money or is it inclusive of everything else of what really isn't then that way the board can direct us to say okay we can put about this much towards those projects as opposed to waiting to that point to figure out what we're going to do I'll make sense divide and conquer you asked about other items and I was just wondering do we want to make what JD is doing I mean when will we know that this is no longer a pilot project but something that we want to fund and how much will it cost but I would think that would be something we definitely want to have in our budget it's a consideration of that we would need funds in there for materials to make that happen and we would so not to pay her I won't give anything but I mean but special ed will be doing well we do we think we have some funds to maybe carry on the work that doesn't necessarily have to come out of your particular budget okay good just wanted to make sure that so I guess we also wanted to talk about like what part what we would like to see for like our tax rate do we want to are we trying to do a certain percentage of an increase or try not to hold to same as last year or do we just let them see what they come up with and does it make it well we have some goals right from our retreat we had some very clear goals of what we hoped we'd really love to see we've talked about second language for a long time and we'd love to see how that can fit into the budget and if that takes a magic wand I don't know but that certainly I remember that as one of our top things as being an attractive and fully functioning elementary school to get that I would sacrifice you know I mean that's the kind of thing as a tax payer I would oh you're going to offer me this for this little raise well that's a good one for me you know that's one that's easy self but I'm just trying to remember because we had a list of things that we wanted to see in our school from the retreat and the thing about second language programs or any program like that it's easy to put into a budget sure well then let's definitely put that on the list of a thing to be able to do some sort of I'm also making the assumption I'm making the assumption that you want us to continue the joint programming between the two schools and we may actually bump that up a little bit that would be good the one thing I was going to mention last year is any sort of efficiencies between the two schools that can be made Wendy I had a question to the second language and I think this was just an idea the thing is that the PE teacher at Stockbridge she's bilingual we've been running this Enrichment Block it's like 30 minutes every Tuesday afternoon and the kids brainstorm what they would like to see happen and that's part of our response as a staff to the school climate survey from kids they want school to be more fun and that doesn't mean I can cut a math class or a reading class but we can offer as a staff other opportunities and we have that on a month rotation language isn't really in a lot of kids mind that's another opportunity but we've done a lot of outdoor activity even just going into the preschool classroom and they do an activity with the little kids it's been one thing we're doing a nutritional snacks one a maker's space that's this month last month we did movie making so you're saying that the foreign language was sort of an elective as part of this Enrichment it's just an opportunity for kids to be exposed to different things and the kids brainstorm the list of what the different things were and she is willing to do that it's a unique voice to dictate what those things are but can't we name one of them I know they want to have fun sure fun they're taking away the other thing that Linda and I would bring up very quickly that we talked about is there's nothing we can do about it through this budget process but I would suggest that we have a more substantive conversation at another time about the length of our school day X number of minutes for mathematics and X number of minutes for arts X number of minutes for literacy and I understand the value of a second language of a world language but that time has to come from somewhere so it's something we know that people want kids to be outside for the recess we have a contract up to 8 out what's the current day it can go on to what's the current day so we do have some room we have a little bit of contract we're going to have to give up a lot to get more time because it's with the union I think but I don't know that because we have up to 8 hours the only school that goes 8 hours is Newton right now they have a hot damn they have a hot damn for people we had to we had to buy we had to buy time for the Windsor Northwest districts because they were 15 minutes short and that Carl what do you say but again to make the workday contracts even when we moved to the 2SUs we had to buy 20 minutes or 15 minutes and it took us 3 months but there was some professional development days that you had more than right so we gained some professional development days up they're giving I want to say another half point and I know that's not going to be solved tonight but we were just looking for broad stroke broad brush directions from the board so we've got a couple thoughts if you think of others that I should drive them home why didn't I say that don't hesitate to do it with us I would like us, I would brought up at the retreat and I'm really it means a lot is to look at the younger population our preschool and even on younger population of what can we do to help educate those kids or can we partner with you know some type of daycare system like they are doing in other districts I don't know how it would look but there's a real big need for aftercare aftercare or expanding even further to have a child care come in rent space for us or something and have younger kids because it is a big need in our town there is no child care and also I feel like every dollar we put towards them at that age we're going to save 10 fold by addressing to be able to mold that younger if we really want to strengthen our youngsters every dollar we put in preschool is going to be the highest payback we're going to see in the system I think Stockbridge has already addressed a couple of these for the Rochester program it's the fact that it isn't full day that there's no transportation and there's no aftercare and Stockbridge's address no aftercare full day for 4 year old transportation but we lost out on several 3 year old families this year because we're just a half day family and people don't have jobs in the community to be able to come on their lunch break pick up and transport to daycare where they'll lose their daycare spot or something like that so we're talked about like a child fight early to see what the real interest is because we could plan all this and we could offer you know what I mean we could try and expand but maybe I think we're yes Sharon does have aftercare Royalton's been thinking about summer care also Sharon does about 80,000 a year they basically charge a fee in the afternoon about 5 o'clock because the state will pay 10 and so in most places the family has to pay the additional like for my children when to Orange County parent child center I get 10 hours covered by the school district because it's the mandated state preschool but then the rest of it I have to pay for and so I basically get one day a week and then I pay the rest they go year round the morning as teachers preschool teachers and a teacher's professional wage the afternoon they get a support staff wage because they're now aftercare folks so it's a little different in the funding part of it and the staffing part but it's really important to have people that aren't that are there and that know the kids and know them in the morning know them in the afternoon are stable and it's very stable they really haven't lost much the other model that works really well is if we can find someone who wants to operate the day care on our campus they're actually operating the day care we're providing the space there's legal documents insurance documents is all that but it's doable because a number of districts are doing it I think we lose a lot of kids there's a program that requires transportation this year Rochester campus has gained one child for that same reason he, she, lives in another district parent works over here the other district has a half day program there's nobody to pick him or her up at noon so the child comes here to our program mom works in the area she picks the child up and takes them to a day care and then goes back to work but there's a lot of there's a lot of transition there for that little guy or little gal so I mean I think long term by long term I mean in the next year or two we should really look at a model that makes our preschool program more accessible for all children I'd like us to go down that road we should have a conversation with Rambo and Hancock I mean I just had an arrow and I read in their select board that they are having the same issue of wanting child care to shape the young kids in the area so this is a regional right and there's a critical shortage of I don't know if that's what you just said Megan I'm sorry if I repeat there's a critical shortage of child care in this valley yes there is you can talk to any of the parents standing out there tell me about child care um so that puts us on reviewing the timetable real quick which is I think it does not take us 10 minutes because it's going to be looking at this piece of paper and say thank you Sarah don't take me you think Marilyn she's created it for me I gave her the instructions of what I needed and she said I'll take care of that for you it does I love how she does that for me this is really nice this is really I like this a lot oh no no no you're like this this is like when should you be expecting your book in the mail when you expect to see things in the paper when's the last week for morning meetings so is the one from Tara what's the difference between the two I don't know what I'm talking about this is Bonnie hold on to the annual report that gets embedded within Tara let Tara go first okay thank you so this is like this is based on statute when your time meeting is going backwards so you know when you're when you have to do things perfect so that's what this is for this is great I'm going to give you if we have extra time no there's two here I don't know I thought I made enough and you get some exercise this is wonderful that's so amazing look at this let's get to it that's like special did you get the solution that's going to be number two Mason that's going to be weeks away you guys are such a great reviewer why's it take a picture are you wasting our minutes oh sorry not you sound like you're wasting my minutes it's cool thank you otherwise this is for your information straight forward you're welcome I hope that Marilyn know how much you love it so the second one that I gave to Ethan is just dates for the annual report notice it says draft because I wanted Tara and Marilyn to review it and make sure it lines up with their budget piece but this would be the timeline for the report I am hoping hoping you're hoping I will come hoping in January I will come with something if I've had time to meet because of the thing Christmas holidays I don't know if we'll have time when I say we have me and Bonnie and Lindy to sit down and go through everything I may put out a request to you as a board for a special meeting to just talk about it if I can't get it done the question was when do you think you'll see the first draft of your budget and I said my hope is your January meeting but with the Christmas holiday and time frames I don't have time to meet with Bonnie and Lindy before your January meeting I may ask that you schedule a special meeting in January to do your first draft and it gives us that one month to make adjustments I would prefer I'd like us to be very open to meeting more than just the one time a month during budget season everybody please keep that in mind because I think it's it's gonna be the big thing I think we were willing to meet a lot of times because we're getting the support we needed for the central office and I don't know what's the state so where should we send the Christmas presents Carol and Carol could I make a suggestion and she was able to see Christmas presents because she's on the warrant I can chocolate I think at the end of this meeting we should identify the dates of those meetings we might need to have better to take them out of our calendar we don't need them then not be able to find one if you need them when you do your future meeting dates we could find the second meeting sure okay you didn't say on a survey monkey about the possibility I know I did not that's okay I'm about to get we're about to get our okay so I will send that I will put the survey monkey thing back on my thing I was just moving at that when we're going to have our retreat this one yeah no no it's a website you can make a poll Carl a building committee yes so the building committee has met three times at this point or twice three times we've gone through the report we expected to we hoped that we were going to be reporting back out to this body tonight but not mainly because we've identified a few key flaws with the report that we've done basically they all revolve or the flaws revolve around the fact that we asked for an agnostic report in the beginning and what that means is that what that report tells us is how to either go down or make this building the best building to be for the next 25 or 50 years and it doesn't really the report makes it hard for us to get our hands around what our immediate needs are what our short term needs are and what of our long term pieces are because it doesn't frame it in terms of understanding or looking at where our student population is going to be a few years from now we don't really analyze so all that report talked about were the three buildings it didn't talk about for example if we wanted to just get rid of all three buildings and have a new school if we wanted to completely close both schools of tuition if we wanted to look at some of the alternatives for example one of the things they did when they when they talked about revamping this building they said well this building doesn't have an art room I didn't put an art room on the other side of the gym they didn't think about maybe reusing some of the spaces and trying to necessarily think through some of the more some of the more obvious options to a lot of us on the committee there was so what we've done is we're going through now we're having a meeting next Tuesday where we're going to be going through and completing things to kind of a basic grid that not only talks about what it would take to what they say we should do to Stockbridge to expand that building or to make that building an appropriate school what we should do if we wanted to be in this building what we should do if we wanted to be in that building but also again what is our student body going to look like going forward do we need to have schools to look like if we went back to being separate towns because one of the issues becomes when you look at the money I mean generally it's a 60-40 split between Rochester and Stockbridge you guys have 60% of the population 60% of the kids 60% of the school expenses 60% of the grand list within a couple points we're about 40% however when you look at the costs in general the overall report it's like a million some dollars to really fix up Stockbridge and it becomes in the neighborhood of five to six to fix up one of these two buildings which gets out of that 60-40 proportion what we don't understand is number one again that five million dollars is a lot of dollars because again in our minds it didn't contemplate really looking at some of the compromises that could be made on the Rochester buildings and then also that you know we don't really understand the thinking is is that you have to bond out to the district whatever the total costs of the district's projects are but it could if all the work and then the buildings revert to the towns for a dollar if the buildings aren't used anymore so one of the scenarios that got tossed around was the idea that if you know we have to close a school and we put all these money into a school we've got a district that's tuitioning everyone and we're still paying bonds because we've closed schools and we've bonded we've bonded these buildings so trying to understand more about some of the the political options so we can put the building repair and renovation options in a more practical context is our job and then understanding more about just how bonding works because if we decide we're going to do these kinds of projects to make these kinds of educational campuses it becomes a different story if Rochester pays for what happens in the Rochester building or in the Rochester buildings and Stockwood pays for what happens in the Stockwood because that seemed to be some of the discussions part of the equity so we're there we've been working through it there's been some contentious conversations and we need to think about and this is something I'd like us to think about over the break and figure out how we're going to go forward in January with contemplating this is the committee looking at the report and trying to frame what it says and understand it so we can present it back out and realize that we have to understand some of the context of what we're presenting about renovating the building in but we need to get the conversations going with our communities now as well so we need to start I think coming back in January let's start thinking about what that time frame might look like and maybe we should be thinking about how that presentation would go as being a keynote topic for our February because we've got to figure out how we're either how we're going to bring these communities together or what we're going to do about it so to add these we kind of got off task with our charge but the committee agreed that in reading the report these were all natural questions that came up in discussion because you start to put big ticket items on the table and it's like but wait a second what's the vision for the next five years which is what we started to talk about in August as well what's the vision for the next 10 years is this feasible all those questions Carl or Queens Carl brought up came from people reading the report and looking at all the work that needs to be done and what's best for our kids safety wise and educational I think there's some models to look at a lot of school districts around the state are having similar conversations because populations declining is up in Bristol they've done a year worth of community engagement with a mediated conversation what are the visions of our communities what do our communities want and then hey this is what this is going to cost this is the backing of the report just building life we're not even talking personnel life we're just building and programming so I think like Carl said in this report it's really time for us to start to move not because we need to make a decision tomorrow but we need to hear what community members want and are willing to pay for it or not it feels like to me and maybe I'm wrong forgetting everything but one of the things we haven't had yet is it seems like whenever we have discussion there's either a bunch of Rochester people and then I don't feel like we've had an open mediated discussion where we've managed to get and done our job to get a full Stockbridge contingent and a full Rochester contingent and it seems to me that that's essential to have a community discussion I mean mediated because you know there's strong feelings obviously but I just you know we're not hearing it all we're not hearing it from representatives of both community I don't know how I can do that I mean it's been interesting too because the Rochester side of this building committee is Rob Garner, Amy and Cricket and then it's Joanne myself and Willis Whitaker who's a pretty high-end really savvy contractor that does not suffer fools gladly so it's already been it's been an interesting conversation and even I agree with you about getting a broader because it's one of the things that Roger and Cricket see things differently Joanne and I see things differently and we all I think everyone wants the kids to have the best thing but we also don't the fear that I think the committee gets into is what you were saying about the vision is that when you're saying you're about to write a 7 million dollar check I don't want to be writing that to have a really fancy building that becomes a senior center that none of the seniors in my town can pay for anymore because paying their property taxes plus their bond payment on this wonderful building that they can go to is made themselves and two things to your point I think are very important I think that we should spend a little money finding someone who can mediate these discussions because I think the job for the boards and Lindy and I during these community discussions is to just be very, very good I don't think Jenny should have to take notes I think we should find somebody to do that and to your point about how do we get a good size group from each community we talked about that a little bit when we first came to charge to the building committee and we decided that we would make a presentation in each community instead of making one in excuse me, Stockbridge inviting everybody down there or one in Rochester inviting everybody here to do one here and one there and I think that would heighten the probability that we would get more people from each community but you'll only get the Stockbridge people and Stockbridge and the Rochester community you won't get the group that you're talking about and maybe it's maybe that's the only way to do it that's interesting and that kind of says a lot I think it does say a lot and if there are natural differences and really organic differences between the communities you know look at the history of Europe in Africa is countries that were forced together that were meant to be together and tribes that were forced together in the countries and so I acknowledge if that's the public will so I think that's got to be but I mean we can't certainly have to make every effort to have the conversation there is a way to get that kind of group if we wanted to do it and I think we might be able to make a couple of contacts it's called a focus forum so what somebody would do is take the voter checklist in each community they go down through and they identify every seventh person every ninth person how many people they've met you actually make a phone call and then you would have set them in groups mixed groups three from Rochester, three from Stockbridge around the multi-partner school in Stockbridge and there's somebody there with a chart to chart their ideas in their papers and there's somebody who's solicitation that's the key I don't think we're going to get that group just by finding and putting things on boards I still think we need to make those presentations but I don't think we'll get the kind of what about it's a neutral I don't know I'm just thinking is there any order that's half way between these two places that we could meet I mean the Stockbridge Commons is kind of Stockbridge Commons is kind of I think the Stockbridge Commons is a wonderful venue it's closer to Rochester and I think we have I think that's we should start using it because we have to leave or we have to leave I think we go make every effort and to feel our integrity in this issue to make every effort to hear as much comment as we can I think that's the starting point I can share a model that's been done like that and some resources for more than one so you can see actually she was my elementary school principal but she's now a professional facilitator and mediator and she's going around to some of these districts and running these communities could you add some information on her just an idea of like a quick CV and a basic cost and she's got availability because I think you know I don't want to bring Steve Dale back he's not a community he's an educational guy and he's but I think I think he's done community I think but it's similar to what Vine talked about you would be in mixed groups people would be invited we did a similar kind of exercise at the law school when we combined the essays where we had community tables set up with different people but also there were questions there were board members that were at every table to kind of not to engage in the conversations but to answer a clarifying question what does this mean what does that mean it'll take a little time and it'll take a little money but when you stop and think about it it's the educational future of the kids of both of these communities that we're trying to plan for so it's well worth investing some time and some money to get it right at the start but I do think that we've only been together for a year and a half so we've just started creating these bonds and I think it's important for us to show as well what we have done together as with our kids what has our kids been able to to gain from this union not just what building should we use how much is it going to cost so I'm saying this process would back us up a step even further what is the that first question that one of the building committee members asked what is the vision what do communities want because I think we have different pockets like Ethan said we have different pockets of information but we really need to hear as many voices as possible and that'll give a better direction we kind of have dollar numbers to go with things for facilities that's what that report gave us but it doesn't and this would be a good way to have a healthy discussion about what we want like those I think so I think the fear for Stockbridge and I've talked with a lot of people about it and it was reiterated in an email from someone from Rochester today to me that doesn't really matter because Rochester has the votes as a solid block which they will if that's what they want you know if it's something that they want that we are a unified town in terms of what we want and I don't think that's true but I'm telling you that's what Stockbridge thinks and when people that make those comments that it doesn't really matter because it's all about votes that's where the contentious feelings come from I understand you think it's a whole lot of people and the point is to help us get by that so my question is if I can speak the people that are right here if it looks like the community in Rochester wants a 5.4 million dollar building if that's what they want will it matter what Stockbridge wants okay and I appreciate that the example of it is you've been to plenty of our board meetings and you see how this board works this board works with consensus and we listen to each other we talk to each other and I may be ignorant of facts and this is why the building committee and I'm glad there's people like Cricket and this contractor on there to help with that well I'm just saying because the engineering doesn't make sense to me no I know but I'm just saying this is what the feeling and when someone sits there and says why would we let you out of this why would we let you do that because obviously it's a financial well I'm saying if it's the will of the community if it's a clear strong vote that the will of the community of Stockbridge doesn't want this anymore and it's allowed within the merger agreements at that point then I'm not the kind of person who's going to say no I don't think the board is the kind of thing that would say no you can't do that I would appreciate that that's the way we've worked but wait a minute Joanne what happened when the high school was supposed to be closed here would it be closed or would it not Rochester didn't come together as a town some people wanted to close some people wanted to open it doesn't matter there was a different opinion that's not saying all people vote for one person you can't do that it's a big deal and I understand that and I think that's why it's good that you're participating and I think that's why we're going to have the discussions that we're talking about and more meetings of the building committee okay we're going to move on to the marquee we don't do anything with the marquee until we decide there was a there's a motion on the table second second okay motion has been made in second the marquee we put away until we decide we're doing it discussion I think this is missing the point it's not about the marquee it's about communication it's about how does Rochester get the word out on the street literally about what's happening at the school and we have not in six, eight, a month a year come up with a solution for that and I think that's pretty ridiculous I do think that the newsletter that we're getting monthly the beginning of the month the calendar on the front that says the activities that are going on that is very helpful is that going to everybody in the town? no it's left at the post office and it goes to all parents that's not the same as something that gets drive by I mean this is what Mason's point has been that it's the most accessible thing I just sort of feel like we've pushed it aside he's been being good conscience brought the issue up and brought the issue up and I do think I want to go back to we were supposed to go back to school until I drove by Stockbridge because I saw it on the marquee here's what I'll say even I know it does feel like that the level we had is we're having difficulty getting contractors to respond to was one fine weekend it's going to be in the vicinity of twelve to fifteen hundred dollars to put the sign in wherever we put it in could be reduced by five or six hundred dollars if they can find the whole footing so do we get approval from the people because that was the last thing I meant no it's got to go out here there's no place up so we talked that there was something that's going to go I'm sorry I can't see anything he'll allow a small sandwich board he said we can put that out there anytime we don't have to ask but that's all we can put out there so our big sign is going to have to be down here somewhere so the people that we're hoping would get the information people that don't have the opportunity to it's unlikely they're going to be driving through here though they might after the sign gets up and they realize that's where information is but it's been a dilemma it's taken this long because it's not a big job and we couldn't get anybody to respond to us about putting it in we finally got one person who gave us the quotes and that's where we are at this point I think Amy's suggestion is a good one I'm a little bit I'm a little bit hesitant to spend twelve to fifteen hundred dollars to put a sign up near a building that we may not be in in another year or we may be selling in another year something within another year can we buy a sandwich board oh yeah we can do a sandwich board can we put stuff up on the sandwich board I'm just saying it's about as I say the real issue is about information out there it's not about I don't think personally it's about whether the footings of the marquee are on you know this property or that property it's about there being a public face and that's certainly this is what Mason's been going on about and we've heard several times well it actually was the marquee well I know the marquee is the term but I think I mean I think the issue from my point of view is about information no nice thing about a sandwich board you take it inside you change all the letters in there in the storm and you take it out I use it from my point of view and the property room was very gracious that we could put that out there that's great and you can get a decent size you can get a custom one of you for a lot less than twelve hundred dollars good Mason oh that's great he's coming on camera good boy I'm asking myself right now going back to when the marquee was taking down I'm a taxpayer I'm watching this whole thing go down it got taken down it didn't get put back up it should have been a process that should have been done if this little issue and I think it's great go ahead and put a sign out there parents conference December 10 but these little things like this if you can't solve them and you're talking about buildings and you're talking about it all this other stuff you've got lost me as a taxpayer that's yeah I have to question the whole thing when little things can't be taken care of with all this administration way up there all the way through and all this money and we're supposed to be educating kids but you can't even put a sign it just blows me away well that might not be the will of this board to put that sign up I'm just saying I watch the whole process I'm just saying my opinion as a taxpayer I'm questioning this whole thing as all these other people are leaving the state I'm just requesting the whole thing question what's actually going on in the classrooms getting things done did you come to the last meeting did you hear the educational talk last at the last board meeting in Stockbridge yes mainly you were there so that was there was a huge presentation about the initiatives of education talk talk talk talk talk was about teaching I actually loved it but it's still we actually see a conversation we're getting education we might not be able to get a key up but we're getting education out and you don't believe in our education either though because we're not doing the environmental piece I'm looking all over the state watching the whole thing collapse too but that's here our time has just run out thank you very much you're welcome we have a motion on the table that's been made in seconded to put the marquee in storage until such time as we have a clear idea of what building we go in front of can I make an amendment to that with understanding that a sandwich board be used to substitute all pertinent information is that a friendly amendment it's up to her she made the motion otherwise you'd have to have a second and you'd have to vote on it so you've been accepted thank you very much okay we have an amended motion that the marquee stay in storage until such time as we have a clear idea of what building we go in front of and that in the meantime a sandwich board put all pertinent information and be placed on the deadline equals not deadline equals a butters property and that the board expresses its gratitude for being allowed to use his law all those you didn't have to second it because it was a friendly amendment that was a parliamentary test I know I was going to say that okay 9.6 great configurations okay I just wanted to bring to the board's attention configurations meaning how are we going to design classroom levels grade levels for next year we have a little it's actually a good problem to solve at the Rochester campus right now we have 14 3 year olds if they all move forward next year you'll become 14 4 year olds in our preschool program we are licensed for 15 we probably could get licensed to 18 so that would only leave room for 4 3 year olds to come in to our preschool program that would be a dilemma for us because I'm anticipating we would have more than 4 3 year olds as Lindsay said earlier we're going to start our child find earlier we're going to start right after Christmas vacation to try and surface how many 3 year olds are there that would be to our preschool child find so we would we have identified 3 possible solutions to this problem I call it a good problem because we have too many kids that is a good problem the other piece to this let me add before I go forward is that currently at the Rochester campus we have 4 4 year olds so that means we would have a kindergarten for our older and next year if we didn't change our configurations this year we have a single grade kindergarten next year if we maintain that single grade kindergarten there would only be 4 youngsters so that's obviously not something that we can do so there really are sort of 3 solutions and in no particular order one of them would be to get another room licensed in the high school to run a second preschool program I personally don't support that because I think for a number of reasons but the most important one in my thinking is that it would isolate a group of children over there and I'm not particularly keen on doing that we could have a these are specifically K-Gardens no we'd get licensed to another preschool we could have a configuration that has a pre-KK so some of our preschoolers would be with our kindergarteners some of the 14 some of the 14 and the rest would be with the 3 year old so we would have a pre-4 year old program and we would have a pre-KK program we will have some licensing issues there if we do that because we would need a second licensed preschool teacher we could get an emergency license we could get a temporary license for one of our current staff members and then they would have a provisional license and then they would have X number of years to finish the requirements to get their preschools how much more would that cost sadly a license wouldn't cost us anything more it would cost the teacher no I don't mean the education I mean having another licensed teacher it wouldn't be another licensed teacher it would be one of our current staff so we're not adding a teacher under any of these so you don't pay them more and they'll become a licensed they're getting licensed oh thank you the third option would be to have depending on how many kids surface in our child camp would be to have all of our 3 year olds for both communities attend school at the Stockbridge campus that has some issues because I think some of our kiddos barely get transportation here it's hard for families to get in here and I think it may just be too much to get in the Stockbridge but those are the 3 options that we have again one of them I think is a non-option getting another room license in the high school that's not something I support so for a myriad of reasons so doing a pre-KK do we have to have the K room license then? as a preschool yes I don't think that would be a problem the biggest hurdle in getting a room license is all those bathrooms and the 2 bathrooms right there so I don't think that would be an issue with all those talks the 2nd license would be current kindergarten a teacher would need to get a provisional correct all of our teachers now are certified K through 6 the person that would get the provisional license would have 2 years and she then would become certified pre-K through 6 would we need the population such that there would be a required 2nd aid in the room that would depend on numbers the big unknown here is how many 3 year olds we will have coming into our program I'm making the assumption I think it's probably an accurate one the board has always taken the stand of you want us to make the program accessible to anybody who wants to come to her we want all the kids here that's the assumption that we are working on now it may split itself up there may be a couple people who want to go to Stockbridge and they would be willing to take a couple over 2 or 3 kids who might be going to Stockbridge and the rest might stay here that sort of thinking this is what the child find will tell you it starts with going where they are because if they're down that way the way we sum up that way that they wouldn't mind it all going to Stockbridge we just issued a child find advertisement for special education he goes out please let us know if your children goes out to all of our parents are they required or is it just by voluntary a special ed required to do are they required to respond or adults, parents are required to respond they're not required but most do they're not required to respond but there's currency laws but only K through 12 6 years old kindergarten is not required what's your recommendation I don't have one right yet because we need to see how many 3 year olds we're going to have both in Stockbridge and Rochester to see what makes sense what would you like from us I just wanted to let the board have the information let's move on I was asking a question about grade configuration so I understand that for Pre-K and K-R-R what about the older grades oh yes not yet but there will have to be some changes for example our 2nd, 3rd grade we have a 2, 3 combined this year next year if we were to have a 2, 3 combined it would be 27 those so we can't maintain so basically our configuration pretty much could be changing from preschool out to 6th this is where having a policy on grade configuration in classroom use I would respectfully disagree on that a little bit Carl I think it's better to keep that as an administrative procedure because you have far more flexibility and actually look at the kids and say okay this year these 14 go together and change marbles you look at a different 14 and it's like there's no way we're putting these two groups together what was your question the policy isn't about having single grades or whatever the policy is about just understanding as you say we're going to have these fluid configurations having their fluidity about which campus kids are at and whose decision that is I see what you're saying so that's what we were talking about sorry that was confusing that's what I was looking for before we have a problem where we have to say really it's going to be two kids and three fourth graders to come down to the stock grade where we've got too many fifth grade whatever is going there having something that already lets people know that we can make that educational decision I didn't understand your point I think the other thing to say is that both and Linda and I have been talking about this and we'll be talking more about this that both of our campuses the numbers are getting to where we may be looking at some kind of wonky conversations wonky configurations sort of configurations that would be okay but not great for kids and I think we have to just put that realization on the paper because your example about three or four kids is a good example that has its own challenges when you have a group of kids at a grade that you you know when we look at the possibility of having more three grade levels that has issues too well and again I just think it's important that we have at least I'm speaking for me I don't know what everyone else here thinks but in my opinion you know the kid getting the proper education and being in the proper cohort and the proper classroom is more important whether that kid lives in Stockbridge or goes to Stockbridge classroom or lives in Rochester and goes to a Rochester classroom I think one of the things we've talked about in our meeting all along was the general flexibility of having two campuses we've always understood in the past we've had kids that have classed from teacher or families that have classed from teacher we've made I can think about half dozen times that I've had a kid come from Rochester to Stockbridge or go from Stockbridge to Rochester because of discipline and of course of reasons but they've been kind of one-offs that have been situational I think that having a policy or a way that we can make sure that families understand that you know we are kind of committed to giving their child the best education at the best place for that child and that does not require that that doesn't go to the child's sound presence and I don't want to say the policy I'd like to make a comment on that just because my kid I know one of those kids in a really small class that we probably would be talking about moving to a different campus I think my kid would I mean she probably would be okay eventually but like Rochester like where she's been her whole time so it would be very hard for her to adjust to being taken out and then maybe the next year being put back in that's where I understand what you're saying I'm trying to say that I'm not trying to say that it should be like a classroom account you know that it should be that we need to have classroom sizes I'm just saying that it's a possibility that we're doing that and we're you know again talking about the child's educational needs I agree with Megan on that as well yeah I think that education is around social emotional I can't imagine snapping our fingers right now is it ideal no but we're really creative with it with our small Christian Stockbridge right now and I inherited that creativity I'm not going to take any credit for it I really did it's been a wraparound support by my teaching staff by having someone that teaches some other grade levels so we can split some things out to meet some educational needs of that smaller group I'm trying to imagine looking those kids in the face for those parents in the face because we snap our fingers and say we have this policy now we're going to move I understand what you're saying I don't think those smaller numbers are ideal by any means but I can't look at kids who have traveled together and been together that long in the face and say next year we're going to send you over there because we created this I see both sides of it acknowledge that we're lucky in Stockbridge because we have this person who is a classroom teacher and another and partially a librarian because she's pulling out so we can split some things mathematically or literacy wise to meet that need of a three grade level classroom I don't know if we can do that if we didn't have that extra person I'm sorry I don't mean to say that I think we need to have some kind of top down mandate as we have these conversations we talk about well maybe we'll have to send some of the kids down to Stockbridge you always bring it up you're the chair of all of these things and you always bring it up that it would be good to have bigger groups or it would be good to combine them and I think people look to you Carl maybe I am maybe I am and I apologize if I am but I think you've got to be careful about it because people look at you as the chair and you're running the meetings and it always ends up the same way and I'm just that's how it comes across to me I understand and I really appreciate what you said because you say much about it and now you know some of the Stockbridge people but if we really are one in the school with two campuses then I as I think all options have to be on the table for our administrators to consider if they see it as a useful these people are not going to be willy-nilly in their decision making about oh we're just going to send everybody down there I don't think they would well I trust them and I think that they would know that the kids would be okay with it sure oh absolutely the preschoolers that have been have a new class their class is the Stockbridge students and the Rockford students they go down so often that is their classroom down there they have their favorite spots that they go to they know the toys down there the educational stuff this is the ideal and that is who we're dealing with by the time we get maybe it will be different for the younger kids and those kids are I'm going to apologize because I hijacked the conversation as we talked about so if I could summarize this way I do think Carl that you made a good point I think you made a good point too Carl that's not what I meant what I think we are slowly moving toward and I would feel remiss if I didn't share this very blunt moving toward I think we're slowly moving toward I don't think it's this year I don't think it's next year we're slowly moving toward that place for what we want maybe in conflict with the reality of what we have and that is declining student numbers in smaller and smaller groups of kids and how we resolve that is how why we start in this community building vision what do we really want for our kids what's really important so I think we're on a good timeline I didn't mean to bring up anything contentious tonight but I wanted the board to know that we have this situation in Rochester and we'll come up with the best solution we can once we have all the facts and then you will just make it work wonderfully for kids because that's what the teachers that you hired but we are in that place where we are going to be able to just continue status quo and I think we talked in the past about reaching out kind of PR to other towns we want to focus on if our numbers are going down can we get things from these other schools we briefly talked about that in the building committee meeting what is the pool of students in Grandville and Hancock and Pittsfield how many kids are in our area the people that were trying to make Barnard independent are losing that fight terribly they're going to have a vote next week or a couple weeks to make Barnard just give up being independent district and join the elementary district so we're not the idea that maybe Barnard would become independent school or a choice town isn't going to happen I think we have an example off the road and if I get this wrong where we perhaps don't want to be there was a vote by a couple of schools up north of Middlebury and they voted to keep both of their elementary schools open that's what the community is really wanting Addison and Harrisburg and then the following week Monday of the following week in the newspaper came the reality that they initially said you have to cut a million dollars out of your budget to stay out independent then it would be a purpose to ask $470,000 they're not sure they can do that and have much left in their schools so that's all I meant when I said the reality of what we we don't want to go into the punty really powerful to both communities and I understand why financially because look what I did this summer we want to be ahead of it we're just trying it out we're trying it out I just had too much to say thank you we're trying to find stuff to do the letter we need you to approve very quickly I don't believe this really I believe the trustees of public funds would be more inclined to donate to our school budget we could show them how those funds could be used academically not just operating expenses I think that's a big turn on that's fine that's the type of letter that we'd send to the stock exchange board here's our request for the $9,000 so I took that and said the stock exchange gets $9,000 and I think your explanation that's nice to see why we're asking but I think if we could jazz it up a little bit more more academically how we can use the money I don't know if we also want to $13,500 would be would be $6,800 what do you use it for I don't know if you want me to maybe take this opportunity to just kind of discuss how the trustees of public funds are different in both of our towns the trustees of public funds in Stockbridge that gives the school district $9,000 is giving the school district $9,000 of money that was endowed to the schools the trustees of public funds that we're going to ask for money do not hold any of the Rochester endowment funds the money is money that was endowed to the town and we were just asking the town if they'll be willing to give us some money does the school have public funds yes, the school has their own public funds and who owns them then who owns them Boston in the Triforce and I need you to sign another here because I didn't get to it's been very hard trying to be able to talk to these people about our accounts because I'm not on the account they won't be state works right but there is so the school does have endowments that someone has certain restrictions on them but we can work with them now that once we are able to access and understand and talk to the banks about how much money is in there and such we will be able to have access to some of those funds so I just want to explain that there's a lot of trustees of public funds in the town of Rochester for some money we're asking Grandma if she's willing to give us a gift of some money okay, that's interesting because the way I had to explain in Stockbridge is that the trustees of public funds are the trustees of the public funds they hold all the public funds they manage the they manage the gifts they manage the sinking funds they're the trustees of all the public funds and so we're asking for the same sort of thing right so okay so there's certainly if you want to turn into much more of a PR that would be great I can just type it over or I can send you the document with that in mind thank you absolutely thank you for taking this on it's been many months working on this and one of the things that I had to send out during the audit process was a letter to financial institutions in our area asking them to identify if they held any accounts on behalf of our school districts I haven't gotten any response yet so that's one of the things I'll follow up with the auditors on when we come back I do know one of the things I did find is that Stockbridge still has four open bank accounts at Mass Golan that I need to have a conversation with the Stockbridge town clerk because she is the only person that has access to those and I believe those funds should have been closed and transferred to the Rochester Stockbridge so that is I am also working on some of this in conjunction with what you were doing but I do know that several of those specific funds can't do it the next four days right, I'm quarantined it is part of also the audit process so hopefully something will also coincide with what you're doing too I'm not doing all of those individual bank accounts it was specific endowments specific endowments that I'm able to track but I'm with you I have a business manager I want you to talk to me so we're supposed to be looking at our calendars to find a special meeting date when do you expect a special meeting to be business manager that's going to give us the budget now the special meeting to look at so I would say potentially give me two additional dates in January if I can't get it for the January 7th okay is there a certain day of the week that is I mean we don't need to stick to the Tuesday do we? how about the 14th? the 14th is the Sharon and Stratford meeting at 5.30 okay so you tell us so Monday's repair sticks 13th, January 13th I can do the 13th 13th, 6.30 January Monday where? if necessary let's see the next board meeting will be at Stratford so it's a special one meeting for the Rochester Rochester again 6.30 on the 13th at Rochester so that's what we're seeing and then did you want another one in January? just in case okay Monday's are Thursdays and the ones that you don't have board meetings nights already Monday will be the the 13th I can do the 23rd on the full board at 27th how about it's a Thursday the 23rd so I'd like to get you Thursday the 23rd or Thursday the 16th but if she doesn't have something it's the 13th I think it's going to be the 23rd Thursday the 16th so these are intensive if needed special meeting for budget if needed is what I wrote down 6.30 one look at us thank you I appreciate you being understanding on that so I believe public comment I just have a quick thing with the handouts that you gave it looks like if somebody wanted to submit a petition the date for that is 3.19 but the reports are going to be mailed to the printer on 3.13 so if a petition is submitted it's going to not meet the deadline and I think this may be a very important issue this year the communication between the two pages how can they petition it well that would be what they want special articles considered during your annual meeting the community would have the petition so that's what that's for so the thing on last day to submit a petition so if you had a petition ignore this page this is the draft where it says the 13th is the mailing date that can't be right because you're absolutely right and if you look at the thing from Marilyn she is saying that the warning itself doesn't have to be done until the 5th of April March for the 40 day timeframe or no later than the 5th so this March 13th right this March 13th March 13th should be April this should be April 13th April 13th April 13th April 13th and the only other thing that I would say is on the second language I understand there's a time restriction but it is something that was kind of presented to us before the merge is something that people wanted we could have it possibly if we merged so if it's a time thing maybe the competitive schools that have the second language maybe we could see what their schedules are like I know that Killington has a second language and it's very popular and the parents love it and the kids love it so we could see how they do it maybe for certain grades doesn't have to be the whole school but maybe some grades that's just a suggestion no it's a really good one actually a language is usually like oh do you have a language so we've made the case for it there I would love to hear love to hear academically what the research is is it useful it's extremely useful and as a matter of fact bilingual children you're often executive functioning now and organizing things like that bilingual children do better because they learn to converse they have to change their brain they learn to converse in many different languages for example the people at my little house they speak English when they're at home they speak Spanish and those kids have to translate and go back and forth that changes your whole brain so bilingual children in their executive functioning they can pause a period to model as well the world now not the history of the academics this is a global economy and this is what our children are going to have my granddaughter gets Mandarin now in fourth grade because there's so much Chinese so yes I think it's essential and when they go to the next level seventh grade wherever they go most of the children have already gotten some type of second language and not only that but also the research showed that they should get it young they should get it young they were when Pre-K was doing it when the high school teacher was doing bilingual they laughed it up you're standing up yes because we've had our last public comment she said that's all she has to say we've talked about our future meetings I'm going to stand up look verbally into the camera and thank everyone for coming our next meeting will be January 7th at 6.30pm in the Stockbridge campus in between them have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays everybody